Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  So this was a moment when she asked forgiveness of her friends for anything she might have done in the past - and they asked for and received the same from her.

  When she raised her heavy, weary head, the two pairs of eyes, green and gray, that met hers were bright with tears that would not be shed - at least not now. She squeezed their hands, and let go; they stepped away from her as she straightened in her saddle, took a deep breath, and faced the Gate and the gray landscape beyond it. It looked no more welcoming now than it had before, and dallying wasn't going to make the leaving easier.

  :All right, Kellan,: she Mindspoke. -.Let's go.:

  And they rode into the stomach-churning vertigo she had come to hate.

  Savil huddled beside the fire with her legs curled under her, forcing herself to stay awake. There was, thank the gods, no wind; the cave was warming fairly quickly. It smelled of damp, though, and of the musty taint of the half-rotten leaves that had blown in here with the autumn winds. That damp meant that if she let the fire die, it would chill down very quickly, a chill that would penetrate even their thick wool cloaks.

  Once she'd taken the Gate down, she'd had just enough strength to lay the fire, and start it with the coal she'd brought in a fire-safe. After that she'd sunk to the sand next to it, pulling Vanyel close in beside her. He was curled up against her now, bundled with her inside her cloak, his head in her lap; he shook like a reed in the wind. From time to time he moaned and his hand groped for something that seemed to elude him; she soothed him back into sleep, stroking his hair until he finally recognized that she was still with him and calmed a little.

  The Gate-crossing had been hard on him, as hard as she'd feared. When she'd gone to take him from Yfandes' back, he'd been half-roused out of his drugged daze; his eyes had been wide open, his jaws clenched. He had been held paralyzed, not by the drugs, but by unfocused and overwhelming terror and pain. It had taken a candlemark to get him soothed down again.

  Somewhere just outside were Kellan and Yfandes, standing a watchful guard in the falling snow. Still in their tack, poor things - she'd barely been able to get Vanyel unstrapped from the saddle before collapsing beside him. She had nearly forgotten to activate the Wing-sister Talisman. It had taken Kellan's sharp reminder to shake her out of her fog of exhaustion long enough to stab her finger and let the prescribed three drops of her blood fall on it.

  Memory came, then, as sharply defined as if she had bid farewell to the Hawkbrothers scant days ago instead of years.

  * * *

  "Blood calls to blood, and heart to heart," Starwind told her gravely, his ice-blue eyes focused inward. He held his slashed palm above the Wingsister Talisman of silver wire and crystals, and his blood dripped onto the heart-stone of the piece, dyeing the clear crystal a vivid ruby.

  Savil watched, silently, feeling the power flowing and weaving itself into the intricate design of rainbow crystal and silver wire.

  This was nothing like the kind of magic she was used to using; it really wasn't much like that the Hawkbrothers had taught her, either. This was older magic, much older, dating, perhaps, from the times of the Mage Wars, the wars that had wrecked the world and left the Pelagirs a twisted, magic-riddled ruin. She shivered a little, and Starwind looked up, one of his brief and infrequent smiles lighting his face for a moment.

  He closed his hand; Moondance touched the back of it, and he opened it again. The slash in his palm had been Healed with the speed of a thought. At eighteen the young outlander now calling himself "Moondance" was well on his way to becoming that rarest of mages, a Healer-Adept.

  Starwind fixed the Talisman in its place on the mask of feathers and crystal beads; it resembled a palm-sized diadem perched on the brow of the mask above the eye-slits. He handed the whole mask to her, and nodded at the Talisman. "When you need us again, come to us, and let three drops of your own blood fall upon the heart-stone. I shall know, and come to you."

  In all those years since, the heart-stone's bright scarlet had not faded. She only hoped that the set-spell had not faded either. It did seem to her that the heart-stone began pulsing with a dim, inner light from the moment that her blood touched it. But that could have been the flickering of the fire, or the wavering of her own vision; she was too spent to tell, and too drained to begin to sense power even if it was moving under her own nose.

  Vanyel stirred at her side, curling his knees tighter against his chest. She shifted a bit, glad that the floor of the cave was covered in several inches of dry, soft sand.

  Poor child, she thought, her mind dark with despair. I'm at a loss for what to do with you. You keep reaching out to me for support, and I want to give it to you, and I can't, I mustn't. If I do, you'II just fall right back into the pattern you danced with poor 'Lendel. She stroked the fine, silky hair beneath her hand, and her heart ached for him. You don't know what to think anymore, do you? You're afraid to touch again, afraid to open yourself, you're full of such fear and such pain - gods, when you told Withen that nothing would ever make you happy again -

  She swallowed the lump in her throat that threatened to choke her, and blinked at the dancing flames, then closed her stinging eyes and felt tears bead up on her lashes. Starwind, old friend, she thought desperately, where are you? I'm out of my depth; I don't know what to do. I need your help -

  :And you have it, sister-of-my-heart.:

  She started. There was a swirl of snow at the cave entrance, white-gold and shadow in the dancing firelight. There had been no alert from either Companion-But when the snow settled and cleared, he was there.

  He hadn't changed, not at all.

  The sword of ice, she had called him when she'd first seen him. Flowing silver hair still reached past his waist when he put back,the hood of his white cloak and let the silky mass of it tumble free. There still were no wrinkles in his face, not even around the obliquely-slanting, ice-blue eyes; he was still tall and unbent, still slender as a boy. Only the cool deeps of his eyes showed his age, and the aura of power that pulsed about him. No mage would ever have any doubts that this was an Adept, and a powerful one.

  He smiled at her, and held out his hands. "Welcome, heart-sister, Wingsister Savil," he said in the liquid Tay-ledras tongue, gliding to her to take the hands she held up to him in his own. "Always welcome, and well come thou art."

  "Starwind, shaydra," her sight darkened for a momerit, and when it cleared, the Tayledras Adept was kneeling at her side, holding her upright.

  "Savil, you stubborn, headstrong woman," he chided, as she felt an inrushing of energy from his center to hers. She swayed a little, and he held her upright. "What need could possibly have been so great that you drain yourself to a wraith to Gate yourself here?''

  "This need - " She pulled back her cloak to show him the boy curled against her side, his face taut with pain.

  "God of my fathers - " He reached out with his free hand and barely touched Vanyel's brow. He pulled back his hand as if it had been burned. "Goddess of my mothers! What have you brought me, sister?"

  "I don't know," she said, slumping wearily against him. "He's been blasted open, and he can't heal - more than that - I'm too tired to tell you right now. So much has happened, and to both of us - I just can't think what to do anymore. All I know is that he's hurting, and I can't help him, and if I'd left him where he was he'd have destroyed himself at the best, and half the capital at the worst."

  "There is nothing wrong with your judgment, I pledge you that," Starwind replied, sitting back on his heels and regarding the boy dubiously. "There is such potential there - he frightens me. And such darkness of the soul-no, Wingsister, not evil; there is nothing evil in him. Just - darkness. Despair is a part of it, but - denial of what he is and must become is another. Self-willed darkness; he wills himself not to see, I think."

  "You see more than I do," she told him, rubbing her aching forehead. "I haven't the right to ask it of you, but - will you help me with him? Can you help me?"

  The firelight turned the
ice of his eyes to blue-gold flame. "You have the right, sister to brother, to ask what you will of me. Did you not gift me with the greatest of all gifts, in the person of my shay'kreth'ashke? "

  She had to smile a little at that. Bringing Starwind another boy long ago had been one of the few unalloyed good things she'd ever done. "Where is Moondance, anyway?''

  :Moondance stands in the snow, defending his head and his lifeblood. Telling the ,stranger-lasha'Kaladra not to eat me,: came the laughter-flavored reply. I frightened her. She does not trust me, I think. :

  :Kellan - : Savil Mindspoke tiredly.

  :He popped up right under Yfandes' nose and scared the liver out of her, Chosen,: Kellan replied apologetically. :She went for him before we knew who it was. It's all right now, he's just making amends.:

  :Bright Havens, Kelt, you know him, at least!: she snapped, her tiredness making her impatient.

  :Not anymore - :

  "I fear I have greatly changed, Wingsister," Moon-dance said contritely from the entrance. "And I also fear I had forgotten the fact."

  Savil looked over Starwind's shoulder and felt her mouth gaping. Starwind put one finger beneath her chin, and shut it for her with a chuckle.

  "Great good gods!" she said after a moment of stunned silence. "You have changed!"

  The Moondance she had known - he hadn't had the name "Moondance" for long at that point - had been brown-haired and brown-eyed and as ordinary as a peasant hut. Not surprising for one of peasant stock. But now - now the hair was as long and as silver and the eyes as ice-blue as Starwind's. The lines of his face were still the same; square to Starwind's triangle, but the cheekbones were far more prominent than Savil remembered, and the body had grown out of adolescent gawkiness and into a slender grace so like Starwind's that they could have been brothers by birth instead of by blood.

  :He even smells different,: Kellan complained.

  "How did you do that?" Savil demanded.

  Moondance made a fluid shrug, and tossed the sides of his white cape over his shoulders, showing that he wore only thin gray breeches and a sleeveless gray leather jerkin with matching boots. Savil shivered at this reminder that the Tayledras never seemed to notice the cold. "It's the magic we use," he said. "It makes us into what it wants us to be. I think."

  "As always, an oversimplification," Starwind correcled him fondly. ' 'Ka'sheeleth. Savil has brought us a problem. Come look at this boy - "

  Moondance drifted over to Savil's other side, sat on his heels beside her, and studied Vanyel's face for several breaths.

  "Hai'yasha, "he breathed. "Shay'a'chern, hmm? And Lovelost? No, it goes deeper than that." He reached out as Starwind had, and touched Vanyel's forehead, but unlike Starwind, did not pull away. "Ai'she'va - Holiest Mothers! The pain!" His jaw tightened and the pupils of his eyes contracted to pinpoints. "Reft and bereft of shay 'kreth 'ashke.'' His face took on the tranquillity of a statue. "Pawn he is now - pawn he has been - " he said, his tone flat, his voice dropping half an octave. "Pawn to what he is and what he wills not to be. But will or no, the pawn is in play - and the play is a trial - "

  "And what of the game?" Starwind asked in a whisper.

  Moondance hesitated, then life came back to his face as he shrugged again, and his pupils went back to normal. "No way of knowing," he replied, slowly taking his hand from Vanyel's forehead. "That depends entirely upon whether he is willing to become more than a pawn. But yours to be the Teaching, I think," he said, looking up sharply at the Adept. "It is like your powers that he holds. As for Healing, I think that half of it will be his doing - if he Heals at all - "

  "And the other half yours," the Adept stated with an ironic smile.

  Moondance turned Vanyel's wrist up, showing the scar across it - then turned over his own hand, and the firelight picked out the scar that ran from the gold-skinned hand halfway to the elbow, a scar that followed the course of the blue vein pulsing beneath the skin. "Who better?" he asked. "We have something in common, I think."

  Savil swayed again, caught in a sudden dizziness, and Starwind took hold of her shoulders to steady her. "You need rest," he said in concern. "Will you have it here, or can you ride?''

  Savil thought longingly of just lying down where she was, and then reflected on being able to do so in a bed.

  And also on the Companions, out there in the snow and cold, and still in their harnesses.

  "The Companions can and will carry double," she sighed, feeling just about ready to fade away. "If you're willing to ride them. Or strap us in, I don't much care which. But I'd like them in the warm."

  "Then we ride," Starwind said, as Moondance scooped Vanyel up in his arms as if he weighed next to nothing. The older Adept rose to his feet and offered her his hand, and it took every scrap of will she had left to her to stumble erect. "It is not far, Wingsister."

  "I hope not," she told him earnestly, staggering out into the snow, while Moondance put the fire out with a single backward glance. "Because if it isn't, you're going to be carrying me as well as the boy.''

  First there was darkness, and the peace that came with being so drugged that there was no thought at all. It was the only time he felt anything like peace, these days, and he welcomed the drugs and the red-haired Healer who brought them. There were times without counting when he hoped that this time the Healer had miscalculated - that this time he wouldn't wake.

  Then there was pain; unfocused, but somewhere near at hand. Like the touch of sun on skin already reddened and burned. It got past the drugs, somehow; he tried to push it away, but it continued to throb in those half-healed places in his mind, promising him more pain to come.

  Then - nothing but pain; fire in his veins and under his skin, flames dancing along his nerves and scorching his mind. Gate-fire, Gate-energy - it was unmistakable, and unbearable, and yet it continued long past the moment he thought his sanity would shatter or his heart stop. He screamed, or thought he did. He was lost in it, and there was no way out - not even death, for the pain would not let him die.

  Then it was gone. But it left him aching, all the channels burned raw again, and worse, all the memories replaying themselves over and over - Gala dying, Tylendel throwing himself from the Tower, Tylendel lying in state in the Temple -

  Then, without warning, the Dream.

  He stood blocking the way, a one-mage barricade across Crook-Back Pass. Mage-light from his upraised hand reflected from the impassive faces and hollow, empty eyes of the three wizards who opposed him.

  This was not like the old dream - the dream of being alone in the ice. This was - something else. He could sense things, shards of meaning, just under the surface of it, but couldn't seem to bring them out to where he could read them.

  But it felt - real. Fearfully real.

  "Why do you bother with this nonsense?"

  The voice from behind the wizards was sweet, lilting. One more figure paced forward as the ranks of the army backing the wizards parted to let him pass.

  "You are quite alone, Herald-Mage Vanyel. " One of the wizards stepped two paces to the side to allow the newcomer through to the center, to face Vanyel.

  He was beautiful; there was no other word for him. A perfectly sculptured face and body, hair and eyes of twilight shadow, a confidence, poise and power so complete they were works of art.

  Except for the dark eyes, he could have been Vanyel's brother; except that he was too perfect, he could almost have been a younger Vanyel.

  He was clad in dull black armor, like his soldiers, but carried no weapon. He didn't need one; he was a weapon. He was a weapon with no other purpose than the destruction and death he molded into his power. Unlike the knife which could cut to heal or harm, this weapon would never serve any other purpose than pain. Vanyel knew that as well as he knew himself.

  "You are, "the beautiful young man repeated; smiling, choosing his words to hurt, ' 'quite alone.''

  Vanyel nodded. ' 'You tell me nothing I was not already aware of. I know you. You are Leareth."
The word meant -

  ' 'Darkness.'' Leareth laughed. ' 'I am. Darkness. And these are my servants. A quaint conceit, don't you think?"

  Vanyel said nothing. Every moment he kept Leareth here was one more moment speeding Yfandes down the road with Tylendel -

  - but Tylendel was dead -

  "You need not remain alone," Leareth continued, moistening his lips with his tongue, sensuously. "You have only to stretch out your hand to me, Vanyel, and take my Darkness to you - and you would never be alone again. We could accomplish much together, we two. Or if you wish - I could even - '' he stepped forward a pace; two. ' I could even bring back your long-lost love to you. Think of him, Vanyel. Think of Tylendel - alive, and once more at your side. ''

  "NO!"

  He struck at the terrible, beautiful face, struck with all the power at his command - and wept as he struck.

  :Dreams, young Vanyel.: A blue-green voice froze him in mid-strike. :Nothing but dreams. They vanish into mist if you will it.:

  The army, the pass, Leareth, all whirled away from him into another kind of darkness; this was a darkness that soothed, and he embraced it as eagerly as he had repudiated the other.

  Cool, green-gold music threaded into the darkness; not dispelling it, but complementing it. It wound its way into his mind, and wherever it went, it left healing behind it; in all the raw, bleeding places, in all the burning channels. It flowed through him and he sank into it, drifting, drifting, and content to drift. It surrounded him, bathed him in balm, until there was nothing left of hurt in him -

  - except the place Tylendel had left behind - the place that still ached so emptily -

  The green-gold music was joined by another, a blue-green harmony like the voice that had spoken to dispel the dream. And this music was no longer letting him drift aimlessly. It was leading him; it had wound around his soul and he had no choice but to follow where it wanted him to go.

  The blue-green music took the melody, the green-gold faded to a descant, and the voice spoke in his dreams again. :Look; you wish control - here is your center - so to center and so to ground - :