Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Then, for the third time, she felt Rolan with her, adding his energy to her own, and she held on for far longer than she would have thought anyone would have been able to bear. Then she heard Kris’ voice say, “Got it,” and felt him loose her hand.

  “Your part’s over, Talia,” Kyril murmured.

  She fled back to herself in a rush, and with a tiny sob of release she buried her head in her arms on the table and let the true tears of mourning flow at last. She wept in silence, only the shaking of her shoulders betraying her. The attention of the others was directed elsewhere now, and she felt free to let her grief loose.

  Something clattered down onto the table with a faint metallic clash. The sound was repeated four more rimes.

  Dirk’s voice, harsh with fatigue, said, “That’s the lot.”

  There was a stirring to her right, a sound of metal grating on metal, and the whisper of paper.

  There was utter silence; then the Queen signed. Her bench grated a little on the floor as she stood. “This is the proof I needed,” she said grimly, “I must summon the Council. There will be necks in the noose after this night’s work; high-born necks.” There was a whisper of cooler air from the door, and she was gone.

  Talia felt Kyril rise beside her. “My place is at the Council board to represent the Circle,” he said, then hesitated.

  “Go, Kyril,” Kris replied in answer to his hesitation. “We’ll see to her.”

  He sighed with relief, obviously having been torn between his responsibilities to Talia and to the Circle. “Bless you, brothers. Talia—” his hand rested briefly on her head. “You are more than worthy to be Queen’s Own. This would not have been remotely possible without your help. Oh, damn, words mean less than nothing now! You’ll learn soon enough what this night’s agony has won for all of us in the way of long-overdue justice. I think—Ylsa would be proud of you.”

  The door sighed; he was gone.

  “Talia?” Someone had taken Kyril’s place on her right; the voice was Dirk’s. She stemmed the flood of tears with an effort, and regained at least a fragile semblance of control over herself. Surreptitiously drying her eyes on her sleeve, she raised her aching head.

  The weariness on both their faces matched her own, and there were tears in Kris’ eyes and the marks of weeping on Dirk’s cheeks as well. Both of them tried to reach out of their own grief to comfort her, but were not really sure what to say.

  “I—think I’d like—to go back to my room,” she said carefully, between surges of pain. Her head throbbed in time with her pulse, and her vision faded every time the pain worsened. She tried to stand, but as she did so, the chamber spun around her like a top, the lamplight dimmed, and there was a roaring in her ears. Kris shoved the table out of the way so that she wouldn’t crack her skull open on it while Dirk knocked over the bench in his haste to reach her before she fell; then everything seemed to fade, even her own body, and her thoughts vanished in the wave of anguish that followed.

  It was Ylsa—and Felara with her. At least, Talia thought it was Felara; the Companion didn’t look the same from moment to moment, a fascinating and luminous, eternally shifting form. And where they were—it was sort of a ghost of her own room, all gray and shadowy; insubstantial. You could see the Moon and the stars through the walls.

  “Ylsa?” she said, doubtfully—for the Herald looked scarcely older than herself.

  “Kitten,” Ylsa replied, her tone a benediction. “Oh, kitten! You won’t remember this clearly—but you will remember it. Tell Keren not to grieve too long; tell her I said so! And if she doesn’t behave herself and take what Sherri’s offering, I’ll come haunt her! The darkness isn’t the end to everything, kitten, the Havens are beyond it, and I’m overdue. But before I go—I have a few things to tell you, and to give you—”

  She woke the next morning with burning eyes and a still-pounding skull, yet with an oddly comforted soul. There had been a dream—or was it a dream? Ylsa, no longer the mutilated, ravaged thing Talia had seen, but miraculously restored and somehow younger-looking, had spoken to her. She’d seemed awfully substantial for a ghost, if indeed that was what she was.

  She’d spoken with Talia for a long, long time; some things she’d said were so clear that Talia could almost hear them now—what to tell Keren, for instance, when Keren’s grief had ebbed somewhat; to make it clear to Sherri that she was not to consider herself an interloper. Then she’d taken Talia’s hand in her own, and done—what?

  She couldn’t remember exactly, but somehow the anguish of last night had been replaced by a gentle sorrow that was much easier to bear. The memories, too—those that were her own were still crystal clear, but those which had been Ylsa’s were blurred, set at one remove, and no longer so agonizingly a part of her. She couldn’t remember now what it had felt like to die.

  Someone had removed her outer tunic, tucking her into bed wearing her loose shirt and breeches. As she sat up, nausea joined the ache in her skull and her temples throbbed. The symptoms were very easy to recognize; after all, she’d badly overtaxed herself. Now she was paying the price. Ylsa had said something about that, too, in the dream—

  She dragged herself out of bed and went to the desk, only to discover that someone had anticipated her need, readying a mug of Ylsa’s herbal remedy and putting a kettle of water over the tiny fire on her pocket-sized hearth. She needed only to pour the hot water over the crushed botanicals and wait for them to steep. She counted to one hundred, slowly, then drank the brew off without bothering to sweeten or strain it.

  When the pounding in her head had subsided a bit, and her stomach had settled, she sought the bathing room. A long, hot bath was also part of the prescription, and she soaked for at least an hour. By then, her headache had receded to manageable proportions, and she dressed in clean clothing and descended to the kitchen.

  Mero was working like a fiend possessed; his round face displaying a grief as deep as any Herald’s. He greeted her appearance with an exclamation of surprise; she soon found herself tucked into a corner of the kitchen with another mug of the herb tea in one hand and a slice of honeycake to kill the taste in another.

  “Has anything happened since last night?” she asked, knowing that Mero heard everything as soon as it transpired.

  “Not a great deal,” he replied. “But—they brought her home in the dawn—”

  His face crumpled for a moment, and Talia remembered belatedly that Mero and Ylsa had been longtime friends, that he had “adopted” her much as he had taken Elspeth as a special pet, in Ylsa’s long-ago student days.

  “And Keren?” she asked, hesitating to intrude on his grief.

  “She—is coping. Is better than I would have expected. That was a wise thing—a kind thing, that you did; to bring to her side one who could most truly feel and share in her loss and sorrow,” he replied, giving her a look of sad approval. “The Book of One says ‘That love is most true that thinks first of the pain of others before its own.’ She—the lady—she must be proud of you, I think—” he stumbled to a halt, not knowing what else to say.

  “I hope she is, Mero,” Talia replied with sincerity. “What of the Queen and the Council—and Teren?”

  “Teren helps Sherrill to tend his sister; he seems well enough. I think it is enough for him to know that she is safe again. Oh, and Sherrill has been ordered to bide at the Collegium until this newly-woken Gift of hers be properly trained. Kyril himself is to tend to that. As for the rest—the Council are still closeted together. There was some coming and going of the palace Guard in the hour before dawn, however. Rumor says that there are some highborn ones missing from their beds. But—you do not eat—” he frowned at her, and she hastily began to nibble at the cake. “She told me, long ago, that those who spend much of themselves in magic must soon replace what they spent or suffer as a consequence.” He stood over her until she’d finished, then pressed another slice into her hand.

  “It’s so quiet,” she said, suddenly missing the sound of
feet and voices that usually filled the Collegium. “Where is everybody?”

  “In the Great Hall, waiting on the word from the Council. Perhaps you should be there as well.”

  “No—I don’t think I need to be,” she replied, closing weary eyes. “Now that my head is working again, I know what the decisions will be.”

  Whether she’d sorted out the confused memories alone, or with the aid of someone—or something—else, she knew now what it was that Ylsa had died to obtain. It was nothing less than the proofs, written in their own hands, of treason against Selenay and murder of many of the Heralds by five of the Court’s highly placed nobles. These were the incontrovertible proofs that the Queen had long desired to obtain—and two of the nobles named in those letters were previously unsuspected, and both were Council members. There would be no denying their own letters; before nightfall the heart and soul of the conspiracy begun by the Queen’s husband would be destroyed, root and branch. These documents, hidden in the hollow arrows and transported to the dim chamber of the Palace by Dirk and Kris, would be the instruments of vengeance for Ylsa herself, and Talamir, and many another Herald whose names Talia didn’t even know. How Ylsa had obtained these things, Talia had no idea—nor, with the effect of the drug she’d been drinking finally taking hold, did she much care.

  She began to doze a little, her head nodding, when the Death Bell suddenly ceased its tolling. She woke at the sudden silence; then other bells began ringing—the bells that only rang to announce vital decisions made by the Council. They were tolling a death-knell.

  Mero nodded, as if to himself. “The Council has decided, the Queen has confirmed it. They have chosen the death-sentence.” he said. “They will probably grant the condemned ones the right to die by their own hands, but if they have not the courage, the executioner will have them in the morning. I wish—” his face registered both grief and fury. “It is not the way of the One, may He forgive me—but I could wish they had a dozen lives each, that they might truly pay for what they did! And I wish that it could be I who metes out that vengeance to them—”

  Talia briefly closed her eyes on his raw grief, then took up the task of easing it.

  The petals falling from the apple trees were of a match for Rolan’s coat—and the pristine state of Skif s traveling leathers.

  “Do I look that different?” he asked Talia anxiously. “I mean, I don’t feel any different.”

  “I’m afraid you do look different,” she told him with a perfectly straight face. “Like someone else altogether.”

  “How?”

  “Well, to tell you the absolute truth,” she muted her voice as if she were giving him the worst of bad news, “you look—”

  “What? What?”

  “Responsible. Serious. Adult.”

  “Talia!”

  “No, really, you don’t look any different,” she giggled. “All it looks like is that you fell into a vat of bleach and your Grays got accidentally upgraded.”

  “Oh, Talia,” he joined her laughter for a while, then grew serious. “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too.”

  They walked together in silence through the falling blossoms. It was Skif who finally broke the silence between them.

  “At least I won’t be as worried about you now—not like I’d have been if I’d gone last fall.”

  “Worried? About me? Why? What is there to be worried about here?”

  “For one thing, you’re safer now; there isn’t anybody left to be out after your blood. For another, well, I don’t know why, but before, you never seemed to belong here. Now you do.”

  “Now I feel like I’ve earned my place here, that’s all.”

  “You never needed to earn it.”

  “1 thought I did.” They drew within sight of the tack shed, where Skif s Companion Cymry waited, and with her, his internship instructor, Dirk. “Promise me something?”

  “What?”

  “You won’t forget how to laugh.”

  He grinned. “If you’ll promise me that you’ll learn.”

  “Clown.”

  “Pedant.”

  “Scoundrel.”

  “Shrew.” Then, unexpectedly, “You’re the best friend I’ll ever have.”

  Her throat suddenly closed with tears. Unable to speak, she buried her face in his shoulder, holding him as tightly as she could. A few moments later, she noticed he was doing the same.

  “Just look at us,” she managed to get out. “A pair of great blubbering babies!”

  “All in a good cause,” he wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Talia, I really do have something I’d like to ask you before I leave. Something I’d like you to do.”

  “Anything,” she managed to grin, “So long as it’s not going to get me in too much trouble!”

  “Well—I never had any family—at least not that I know of. Would—you be my family? My sister? Since it doesn’t seem like we were meant to be anything else?

  “Oh, Skif! I—” she swallowed. “Nothing would make me happier, not even getting my Whites. I don’t have any family anymore either, but you’re worth twelve Holds all by yourself.”

  “Then, just like we used to on the street—” He solemnly nicked his wrist and handed her his knife; she followed suit, and they held their wrists together

  “Blood to blood, till death binding,” he whispered.

  “And after,” she replied.

  “And after.”

  He tore his handkerchief in half, and bound up both their wrists. “It’s time, I guess. If I dally around much more, Dirk’s going to be annoyed. Well—take care.”

  “Be very careful out there, promise? If you manage to get yourself hurt—I’ll—I’ll turn Alberich loose on you!”

  “Lord of Lights, you are vicious, aren’t you!” He turned toward her, and caught her in a fierce hug that nearly squeezed all the breath from her lungs, then planted a hard, quick kiss on her lips, and ran off toward his waiting mentor. As he ran, he looked back over this shoulder, waving farewell.

  She waved after him until he was completely out of sight.

  She was unaware that she was being watched.

  “And off goes her last friend,” Selenay sighed, guilt in her eyes.

  “I think not,” Kyril replied from just behind her. They had just turned their own Companions loose and had been walking together slowly back to the Palace; the gentle warmth and the perfumed rain of blossoms had made both of them reluctant to return to duty. Kyril had spotted Talia first; they’d turned aside into a copse to avoid disturbing what was obviously meant to be a private farewell.

  “Why?” Selenay asked. “Lady knows she’s little enough time for making friends.”

  “She doesn’t have to make them; they make themselves her friends. As little as I see the trainees, I’ve noticed that. And it isn’t just the younglings—there’s Keren, Sherrill—even Alberich.”

  “Enough to hold her here without regret? We’ve stolen her childhood, Kyril—we’ve made her a woman in a child’s body, and forced responsibilities on her an adult would blanch at.”

  “We steal all their childhoods, Lady; it comes with being Chosen,” he sighed. “There isn’t a one of us who’s had the opportunity to truly be a child. Responsibility comes on us all early. As to Talia—she never really had a childhood to steal; her own people saw to that.”

  “It isn’t fair—”

  “Life isn’t fair. Even so, given the chance to choose, she’d take being Chosen over any other fate. I know I would. Don’t you think she’s happier with us than she would be anywhere else?”

  “If I could only be sure of that.”

  “Then watch her—you’ll see.”

  Talia stared as long as anything of Skif and his mentor could be seen, then turned back toward the Collegium. As she turned, Selenay could clearly see her face; with no one watching her, she had erected no barriers. As she turned away, her pensive expression lightened until, as she faced the Collegium most of the sor
row of parting had left her eyes. And Selenay’s heart lifted again, as she read all Kyril had promised she would find in those eyes.

  Talia sighed, turning back toward the Collegium. As she did so, she felt Rolan reaching tentatively for her. For one long moment after Skif had vanished off on his own, she had felt bereft and terribly lonely. But now—

  How could she ever be lonely when there was Rolan?

  And Skif wasn’t the only friend she had; Jeri was off somewhere, but Sherrill was still here—and Keren, Devan, little Elspeth, Selenay—even dear, overly-gallant Griffon.

  They were all of them, more than friends; they were kin—the important kind, soul-kindred. Her family. Her real family. This was where she’d belonged all along; as she’d told Skif, it had just taken her this long to see it.

  And with a lighter heart, she turned back down the path that led to the Collegium.

  The Collegium—and home.

  --2 Arrow’s Flight (1987)--

  Prologue

  Long ago—so long ago that the details of the conflict are lost and only the merest legends remain—the world of Velgarth was wracked by sorcerous wars. The population was decimated. The land quickly turned to wilderness and was given over to the forest and the magically-engendered creatures that had been used to fight those wars, while the people who remained fled to the eastern coastline, there to resume their shattered lives. Humans are resilient creatures, however, and it was not overlong before the population once again was on the increase, and folk began to move westward again, building new kingdoms out of the wilderness.

  One such kingdom was Valdemar. Founded by the once-Baron Valdemar and those of his people who had chosen exile with him rather than facing the wrath of a selfish and cruel monarch, it lay on the very western-and-northernmost edge of the civilized world. In part due to the nature of its founders, the monarchs of Valdemar welcomed fugitives and fellow exiles, and the customs and habits of its people had over the years become a polyglot patchwork. In point of fact, the one rule by which the monarchs of Valdemar governed their people was "There is no 'one, true way.'"