Heralds of Valdemar (A Valdemar Omnibus)

by Lackey, Mercedes

  * * *

  “Ground and center. Dammit, that’s not right.” “Do it again. Ground and center.” “Again, and faster.” “Dammit, it should be reflex by now! Again.”

  Talia held to her temper by the most tenuous of holds. If it hadn’t been for the concern he was feeling, so overwhelming that she could sense it with no effort at all, she’d have lost her temper hours ago. Ground and center, over and over, faster and faster—with Tantris and Rolan shoving at her when she least expected it.

  The first time they’d pushed her before she was properly settled, she’d literally been knocked out for a moment; she came to with Kris propping her up, expression impassive.

  “Tantris hit me,” she said indignantly.

  “He was supposed to,” Kris replied, letting her go.

  “But I wasn’t ready! It wasn’t fair!” She stared at him, losing the tenuous hold she’d had on her emotions. It felt like betrayal; it felt horribly like betrayal—

  * * *

  “Damn right, it wasn’t fair.” He answered the anger and hurt in her voice with cool contempt. “Life isn’t fair. You learned that a long time ago.” He felt the anger then—hers; it couldn’t be coming from anywhere else, since beneath his veneer of contempt, he was worried and no little frightened. He was taking his life in his hands by provoking her, and was all too conscious of the fact. “Dammit, you’re leaking again. Lock it down!” The anger died; she flushed with shame. He didn’t give her a chance to get back into the cycle of doubt and self-pity. “Now; ground and center—and get centered before they can knock you over.”

  He didn’t even let her stop when they ate; snapping at her to center at unexpected moments, letting Tantris or Rolan judge when she was most off-guard and choosing then to push at her. It wasn’t until he was exhausted, so exhausted he couldn’t properly See anymore, that he called it quits for the night.

  She undressed for bed in total silence; so barricaded that there was nothing to read in her face or eyes. He waited for her to say something; waited in vain.

  “I’m not sorry,” he said finally. “I know it’s not your fault you got out of Grays half-trained, but I’m not sorry I’m doing this to you. If you don’t learn this the hard way, you won’t learn it right.”

  “I know that,” she replied, looking up at him sharply. “And I’m not angry at you—not now, anyway. I’m mostly tired, and Gods, my head hurts so I can hardly think.”

  He relaxed, and reached for the container of willowbark on the mantelpiece, handing it to her with a rueful smile. “In that case, I can assume it’s safe to come to bed?”

  “I wouldn’t murder you there, anyway,” she replied with a hint of her old sense of humor. “It would get the blankets all sticky.”

  He laughed, and settled himself, watching her make herself a cup of herbal tea for her headache. Before today he hadn’t been sure—but now he dared to believe she would tame that wild Gift of hers. It wouldn’t be too much longer before centering would be reflex. Then it was only a matter of time, to build back what she’d lost.

  “Kris? Are you still awake?”

  “Sort of,” he answered drowsily, lulled by the warmth and his own weariness.

  “I just want to say that I appreciate this. At least, I do when you’re not pounding on me.”

  He chuckled, but made no other reply.

  “I need you, Kris,” she finished softly. “That’s something I don’t forget even when I’m angriest. I really need you.”

  It took a while for the sense of that to penetrate—and when it did, it almost shocked him awake again. If he hadn’t been so tired—

  As it was, guilt followed him down into sleep. She needed him. Good Gods; what if it was something more than need?

  * * *

  Talia waited until Kris’ deep and even breathing told her he really had fallen asleep, and carefully extricated herself from the bed without waking him. She always thought better with some task in her hands, a holdover from her childhood, so she took her cup of willowbark tea and set about polishing some of the bright bits of metalwork on Rolan’s tack. The cloak she’d wrapped around herself kept the chill off her back, and the fire in front of her gave off just enough heat to be pleasant. Thusly settled in, she put her mind to the myriad of problems at hand.

  The fire crackled cheerfully; she wished she could feel cheerful. Lord and Lady, what an unholy mess she’d gotten into! The storm alone would have been bad enough; any of the problems would have been bad enough. To have to deal with all of them together…

  At least she’d made a start, some kind of start, on getting herself retrained. Kris seemed happier, after this afternoon’s work. He had been right about one thing; now that she knew what “being centered” felt like, she’d never lose the ability to find that firm base again. She’d wanted to kill him this afternoon, and more than once—but she was learning in a way that would make her stronger, and now that she was calmer, she could appreciate that.

  She needed him, more than she’d ever needed anyone else.

  But—Lord and Lady—what if it was something more complicated than need, or even need and the kind of feeling she had for Skif?

  He was handsome; handsome as an angel. And despite a certain smug vanity, a man she’d be more than proud to have as a friend. Look at the way he was taking his life in his hands—literally—for the sake of getting her back in control of herself and her Gift. He was kind, he was gentle, he was considerate, and with the way her mind had been playing tricks on her lately, it was more than a possibility that she’d unconsciously used her Gift to influence the way he thought about her. Even to the point of getting him into bed with her—

  Lady knew she was no beauty. And if she had influenced him in that, she could have caused an even deeper attraction.

  She clenched her hands on her mug so hard they ached. That was one thing she had not wanted. At least not originally. But now?

  She liked Kris well enough. Well enough—but not that well.

  She was attracted to Dirk, there was no question about that. And strongly; more strongly than she’d ever felt about anyone.

  It was almost, she decided a bit reluctantly, as if Dirk was some hitherto-unrecognized, hitherto-unmissed, other half of herself, and that she’d never again feel whole after having met him unless—

  Unless what?

  Heralds seldom made any kind of long-term commitment; contenting themselves with the close friendship of the Circle, casual, strictly physical liaisons, and the bonds of their Companions. And truly, few Heralds she knew were at all dissatisfied with that kind of life. Realistically speaking, the job was far too dangerous to make a lifebond possible or desirable. Look what had happened to Keren when Ylsa died; if Sherrill hadn’t had exactly what she needed and been right on the spot, she might very well have death-willed herself in bereavement.

  And she’d only seen Dirk a handful of times.

  But for Heralds, sometimes only once was enough.

  Her mind drifted back years.

  * * *

  It was late one night that they’d all been gathered in Keren’s room over hot mulled wine and sometimes ribald conversation. Somehow the subject turned from bawdy jokes to the truth behind some of the legends and tales told by outsiders about Heralds: they were laughing at some of the more absurd exaggerations.

  “Take that love-at-one-glance nonsense,” Talia had giggled. “Someone ought to really take the Bards to task over that one. How could anyone know from the first meeting that someone they’ve just met will be a lifepartner?”

  “Oddly enough, that’s not an exaggeration,” Sherrill had replied soberly. “When it happens with Heralds, that’s generally exactly the way it happens. It’s almost as if there were something, something even deeper than instinct, that recognizes the other soul.” She’d shrugged. “Metaphysical, sentimental, but still true.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that both of you had that happen?” Talia had been incredulous.

  “As a
matter of fact, the very first time I set eyes on Keren,” Sherrill replied. “Notwithstanding the fact that I was just under fourteen at the time.”

  Keren nodded. “Ylsa and I knew when we met midway through our third year—until then we’d never done more than wave at each other across the room since we had had very different schedules. We did wait, though, until we were both sure that it was something solid and not ephemeral, and until we’d completed our internships, before committing to each other.”

  “And I didn’t want to intrude on what was obviously a lifebond.”

  “You would have been welcome. To tell you the truth, we’d wondered a little—”

  “But I didn’t know that at the time, did I?” Sherrill had laughed. “Truly, though, Talia, anyone I’ve ever talked to that has seen a lifebond has said the same thing; that was the way it was for Selenay’s parents, for instance. It either happens the first time you meet, or never.”

  “And if it’s not a lifebond, there’s nothing you can do to make it one—to make it more than a temporary relationship, no matter how much you want it to be something more,” Keren had continued. “My twin found that out.”

  Talia must have looked intensely curious, although she hadn’t actually asked anything, because Keren continued after a moment.

  “Remember I’ve told you once or twice that I’ve got a niece and nephew almost your age? Well, they’re Teren’s. Not only were we not Chosen at the same time, but it took seven years for his Companion to come for him. By then I was a field Herald—and he was married and working the sponge-boat. Then it happened. He was Chosen. And the wife he had thought he was contented with turned out to mean less to him than he’d ever dreamed. He wanted to love her, he really did. He tried to make himself love her—it didn’t work. He went through an incredible amount of soul-searching and guilt before concluding that the emotion wasn’t there and wasn’t going to be, and that his real life was with the Circle and his Companion. And to tell the truth, his wife—now ex-wife—didn’t really seem to care. His children were adopted into our family and she turned around and married into another with no sign of regret that I could see. So you see,” she had concluded, “if you’re a Herald, you either have a lifebond and recognize it at once, or you live your life without one.”

  * * *

  Talia sighed.

  If she were going to be honest with herself, she had to admit that this seemed to be exactly what had happened to her with regard to Dirk. Seemed to be—that was the key. How did she know that this wasn’t some fantasy she was building in her own mind?

  It didn’t feel much like a fantasy, though. It was more like a toothache; or perhaps the way Jadus had felt about his missing leg. He’d said it had often seemed as if it were still there, and aching.

  Well, there was something in Talia that ached, too.

  Fine. What about Kris?

  What she felt for Kris… just wasn’t that deep. Yes, she needed him—his support, his expertise, his encouragement. But “need” was just not the same as “love.” Or rather, the emotion she felt for him was a different kind of love; a comradeship—actually closer to what she felt for Rolan or Skif or even Keren than anything else.

  But if Kris had become infatuated with her—Gods, it almost didn’t bear thinking about.

  Granted, he certainly wasn’t acting very lover-like. And earlier—he almost seemed to be throwing Dirk at her. Outside of bed he was treating her more like Alberich treated a trainee who had gotten some bad early lessoning and needed to have it beaten out of him. Except in the digging out, when he treated her as an absolute equal; neither cosseting her nor allowing her to take more than her share of the work.

  Provided her mind hadn’t been tricking both of them—which was a very real possibility.

  “Oh, hellfire,” she sighed.

  At least she’d managed to clarify some of her feelings. And there wasn’t anything she could do about it anyway—not until she had her Gift under full control, and could sort out what was “real” and what wasn’t. She drank the last of the stone-cold tea, and put up the harness, then slipped back into bed. Right now the only thing to do was to enforce the sleep she knew she needed badly. It was best to just try and take things a day at a time.

  Because at this point, she had more pressing problems to deal with. If she couldn’t get her Gift back under control, this would all be very moot…

  For she was quite well aware of how close she’d come to driving both Kris and herself over the edge. It could happen again, especially if he did something to badly frighten her—and if it did—

  If it did, it could end, only too easily, in his death, hers, or both.

  10

  Well, there was one way, Talia knew, to keep herself under control—and that was to work herself into a state of total exhaustion. So in the morning she rose early, almost before the sun, and she began pressing herself to her limits—making each day blur into the next in a haze of fatigue. It became impossible to tell what day it was, or even how long they’d been there.

  Talia usually woke first, at dawn, and would prod Kris into wakefulness. One or the other of them would prepare not only breakfast, but unleavened cakes with some form of soup or stew: something that could remain untended most of the day without scorching, simply because they both knew that by the time they came in, they would have barely enough energy to eat and perform a sketchy sort of wash before collapsing into bed.

  After a hearty breakfast of fruit and porridge, she would wrap the Companions’ legs against the sharp edges of the ice-crust while Kris haltered the chirras, and all six occupants of the Station would troop out into the cold to begin the day’s work.

  Rolan and Tantris would move up first, and break the crust of ice and the hard snow beneath by rearing to their full heights and crashing down on it with their forelegs, or backing up to it and kicking as hard as they could. They would move back, and Talia and Kris would then take their places; picking up the chunks that had broken off and heaving them to either side of the trail they were cutting. The chirras would use their powerful foreclaws on what remained until they were halted by snow too packed for them to dig or crust too slippery to get a grip on. Then the Heralds would move the chunks they’d dislodged, scoop up the loose snow, and let the Companions take over again.

  They would work without a break until the sun reached its zenith, then take begrudged time for a hasty lunch. On their return, they would work until darkness. Each day the trips to and from the Station got longer; sometimes it was only that which kept Talia working. There were times, too many times, when their progress was limited to a few feet for a whole day of back-breaking labor; and she knew the Station itself was furlongs from the road. It was when their measured progress amounted to little more than a dozen paces that the temptation to give up was the strongest.

  When darkness fell, Kris would tend the Companions while Talia groomed the chirras, checking them thoroughly for any sign of injury or muscle strain during the process of grooming them. Rolan and Tantris, of course, could be relied upon to tell their Chosen if they’d been hurt, but the chirras were another story. And if one of the chirras had to drop out of the work, their progress would be halved.

  Finally, Kris or Talia—usually Talia—would ensure that everyone was well supplied with food and water and blanketed against the night chill before they wolfed down their own dinners and sought their bed.

  It was the hardest physical labor either of them had ever performed. The constant cold seeped into their very bones, and their muscles never stopped aching. It wore them down, a little more each day. They had strictly rationed their own supplies, and the food they were taking in was not equaling the energy they were expending. They were getting thinner, both of them, and tougher, physically. It was a change Talia hardly noticed, because it was so gradual, but once in a while she would think vaguely that her friends would have been surprised to the point of shock by the way she looked.

  * * *

  Kris
continued to hammer at her through the first week of digging out, until centering and grounding had become reflexive. After that, he left her in peace, only offering an occasional bit of weary advice. Talia’s control over Empathic projection came and went, at unpredictable intervals, although Kris evidently never noticed her projecting involuntarily. If he had, he would have pounced on her, of that she was certain. Her shielding was returning now that she had something to form a firm base for it, but it was the thinnest of veils, hardly even enough to know that it was there. She worked at control with nearly the same single-minded obsession she was giving the physical labor of digging out.

  The only pauses in their routine were the two occasions when they again ran out of clean clothing. Those two days were given over to a repeat of their washday, and to brave attempts to revive one another’s faltering spirits. As tired as Talia was, it was easy to become depressed. Kris wasn’t quite as much the pawn of his emotions, but there were times Talia found herself having to pull him out of despair. The endless cold did not help matters any, nor did the fact that they had, indeed, needed to cut green wood to use in their fire. The green wood, even when mixed with seasoned, gave off much less heat. Talia felt as if she’d never be warm again.

  But one afternoon, nearly a month from the time they’d first reached the Station, she looked up from their task in sudden bewilderment to realize that they’d finally reached the road.

  And the road was as drift-covered as the path out had been.

  “Now what?” Talia asked dully.

  * * *

  “Oh, Gods.” Kris sat down on a chunk of snow with none of his usual grace. This was a scenario he’d never contemplated; he’d always assumed that once they broke out, the main road would be cleared as well. He stared at the icy wilderness in front of them and tried to think.

  “The storm—it must have spread farther than I thought,” he said at last. “The road crews should have been within sensing distance by now, otherwise.”

  He felt utterly bewildered and profoundly shaken—for once at a total loss for a course of action. He just gazed numbly at the unbroken expanse of snow covering the road, unable to even think clearly.