Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Elspeth sighed. It figured. He was probably so busy thinking about Nyara that none of this mattered to him. The only thing that being made a Tayledras Wingbrother meant to him was that he'd be able to stay in Hawkbrother territory for as long as it took to find her.

  Assuming the sword Need let him find Nyara. The blade not only used magic well, it—she—was a person, a woman who'd long ago traded her aging fleshly body for the steel form of an ensorceled sword. It wasn't a trade Elspeth would have made. Need could only hear, see, and feel through the senses of her bearer—and in times when her bearer wasn't particularly MindGifted or when she had no bearer at all, she had drifted off into "sleep."

  She'd been asleep for a long time before Elspeth's teacher, Herald Captain Kerowyn, had passed her on to her pupil. But something—very probably something Elspeth herself had done—had finally roused her from that centuries-long sleep. Once she was awake, Need was a hundred times more formidable than she had been asleep.

  She had quite a mind of her own, too. She had decided, once Elspeth was safely in the hands of the Hawkbrothers and the immediate troubles were over, that the Changechild Nyara required her far more than Elspeth did. So when Nyara chose to vanish into the wild lands surrounding the Tayledras Vale, Need evidently persuaded the catlike woman to take the sword with her.

  That left Elspeth on her own, to follow her original plan; find a teacher for Valdemarans with mage-talent, and get training herself. Among the few hundred-odd things she hadn't planned on was being made a member of a Tayledras Clan. How did I get myself into this? she asked herself.

  :Willingly and with open eyes,: her Companion Gwena replied, the sarcastic acidity of her Mindspeech not at all diluted by the fact that it was a mere whisper. :You could have gone looking for Kero's great-uncle, the way you were supposed to. He's an Adept and a teacher. You could have followed Quenten's very clear directions, and he would have taken you as a pupil. If necessary, I would have made certain he took you as a student. But no, you had to follow your own path, you—:

  Elspeth considered slamming mental barriers closed against her Companion and decided against it. If she did, Gwena would win the argument by default.

  :I told you I wasn't going to be herded to some predestined fate like a complacent ewe,: she snapped back, just as acidly, taking Gwena entirely by surprise. The Companion tossed her mane as her head jerked up with the force of the mental reply, her bright blue eyes going blank with surprise.

  :I also told you,: Elspeth continued with a little less force and just a touch of satisfaction, :that I wasn't going to play Questing Hero just to suit you and the rest of your horsey friends. I will do my best by Valdemar, but I'm doing it my own way. Besides, how do you know Kero's uncle would have been the right teacher for me? How do you know that I haven't done something better than what you planned by coming here and making contact with the Shin'a'in and the Hawkbrothers? Vanyel was certainly a well-trained Adept, and the Chronicles say that the Hawkbrothers trained him.:

  Gwena snorted scornfully, and pawed the ground with a silver hoot. :I don't know whether you've done better or worse,: she replied, :but you were asking how you got yourself into this—this—brotherhood ceremony. And I told you.:

  Elspeth stiffened. Gwena had been eavesdropping again. :That was a purely rhetorical question,: she said coldly. :Meant for myself. I wasn't broadcasting it to all and sundry. And I'd appreciate it if you'd let me keep a few thoughts private once in a while.:

  Gwena narrowed her eyes and shook her head. :My,: was all she said in reply. :We're certainly touchy today, aren't we?:

  Elspeth did not dignify the comment with an answer. If anything, Gwena was twice as touchy as she was, and both of them knew why. The only way for Elspeth—or Skif—to be able to remain in the lands guarded by the Tayledras was to be made Wingbrothers to the Clan of k'Sheyna. But that required swearing to certain oaths—which none of their informants had yet divulged, saying only that they'd learn what those pledges were when they actually stepped into the circle to make them.

  Elspeth had been trained in diplomacy and statecraft from childhood, and undisclosed oaths made her very nervous indeed. It wasn't so bad for Skif—he wasn't the Heir. But for her, well, the things she pledged herself to here could have serious consequences for Valdemar if she wasn't very careful. She carried with her the Crown's authority. The fact that a forgotten oath had made a crucial difference to Valdemar in the recent past only pointed up the necessity of being careful what she swore to here and now.

  "Nervous?" Skif asked in a low voice, startling her out of her brooding thoughts.

  She grimaced. "Of course I'm nervous. How could I not be? I'm hundred of leagues away from home, sitting in a cave with you, you thief—"

  "Former thief," he grinned.

  "Excuse me. Former thief and a bloodthirsty barbarian shaman from the Dhorisha Plains—"

  Tre'valen cleared his throat delicately. "Pardon," he interrupted, in the Tayledras tongue, "But while I am both shaman and bloodthirsty, I am not, I think, a barbarian. We Shin'a'in have recorded history that predates the Mage Wars. Can you say as much, newcomer?"

  For a moment, Elspeth was afraid she had offended him, then she saw the twinkle in his eye, and the barely perceptible quirk of one corner of his mouth. Tre'valen had proved to have a healthy sense of humor over the past few days, as they waited out the response of the k'Sheyna Council of Elders to their petition to remain. She had heard him refer to himself as bloodthirsty and a barbarian more than once. In point of fact, the shaman seemed to enjoy teasing and challenging her....

  "I stand rebuked, oh Elder of Elders," she replied formally, bowing as deeply as she could. She was rewarded with his broad grin, which grew broader as she continued, "Of course, the fact that you don't do anything with all that recorded history has no bearing at all on whether or not you're barbarians."

  "Of course not," he replied blandly, evidently well-satisfied with her return volley. "Dwelling overmuch upon the past is the mark of the decadent. We aren't that, either."

  "Point taken." She conceded defeat, and turned back to Skif. "So I'm here in a cave waiting for some authority to come along and demand that I swear something unspecified, which may or may not bind me to something I'd really rather not have anything to do with—why should I be nervous?"

  Skif chuckled, and she restrained herself from snarling. "Now think a bit," he told her, fondly, but as if she were thirteen again. "You've read the Chronicles. Both Vanyel and his aunt swore the Wingbrother Oaths. They had to, or they couldn't have gone in and out of the Vales the way they did. If there was nothing in the oaths to bother them, why should you be worried?"

  "Do you want that alphabetically or categorically?" She kept herself from reminding him that she was the Heir. After all, she had tried long and hard to make him forget that very thing. Instead she continued, "Because that was a long time ago, and a different Clan. We don't know if things have changed since then, or whether the oaths differ from Clan to Clan."

  "They do not differ," Tre'valen said serenely, "and they have not changed in all of our recorded history. Many shaman of the Shin'a'in swear to Wingsib; and believe me, the oaths our Goddess requires of us bind us to far more than your own oaths to your Crown and country. And She can move her hand to chastise us at her will. I think you need not be concerned."

  Well, that was some comfort, anyway. Elspeth had seen for herself how the Shin'a'in Goddess—who was, so Darkwind said, also the Goddess of his people—could and did manifest herself in very tangible fashion. And she had a sure and certain taste of how seriously the Shin'a'in took their oaths to protect their land from interlopers. Well, if Tre'valen knew all about the oaths and felt comfortable with them, she probably didn't have to worry.

  Much.

  This would be the first time she and Skif had been permitted inside the Vale of k'Sheyna itself. The Hawkbrother Mage—or was it Scout?—Darkwind had dismissed it with a shrug as "not what it once was" with no indicati
on of what it could be like; and Tre'valen, if he knew what the Vale was like in its prime, was not telling. Descriptions in the Chronicles of Vanyel's time had been sketchy, hinting at wonders without ever revealing what the wonders were.

  :Probably because they didn't know,: Gwena said, most of the sarcasm gone from her mind-voice. :—Vanyel and Sayv—Savil had too much on their minds to give descriptions of where they'd been. Besides, why describe somewhere no one else would be allowed to visit? It might tempt them to try, and that would be fatal. The Tayledras tend to perforate first and apologize after.:

  :Are you snooping in my head again?: Elspeth replied, with a bit less venom than before.

  :No, you're echoing at me,: Gwena told her candidly. :I can't help it if your surface thoughts echo down our link unless you block them. And I can't help it if you forget to block because you're nervy.:

  :All right, all right. I stand rebuked. I apologize.: Elspeth carefully put up her lightest shields, and went back to her brooding.

  There was a fourth party sharing the title of Wingbrother with them, but shaman Kethra had sworn her vows a long time ago. She was considerably older than Tre'valen, though not as old as his superior, Kra'heera, and she had been a wingsib for at least a dozen years. She was a Healer as well as a shaman, and she was tending to Darkwind's father, Adept Starblade. Darkwind seemed reluctant to discuss what Mornelithe Falconsbane had done to his father, and Elspeth wasn't about to press him for answers. She did want to know, however, and badly; not because of morbid curiosity, but because one day she might need to know just how one Adept could so completely subvert another. One of Weaponmaster Alberich's precepts was that 'anyone can be broken.'" If it was possible she might find herself on the receiving end of an attempt to break her, she'd like to know what she could expect....

  Elspeth had been a bit surprised that Tre'valen was staying on, though. He had said only that his own master had asked him to remain with k'Sheyna "because it is important." Whatever it was, it couldn't have anything to do with what Falconsbane had done to the Clan—Darkwind and Kethra were tending to that.

  Could it be because of what had happened to Dawnfire?

  The memory was so vividly etched in her mind, she had only to think of the hawk Dawnfire to relive what she'd seen.

  The Shin'a'in stood in a rough circle below Dawnfire's perch. The red-shouldered hawk had taken a position just above the door of the gryphons' lair, her head up and into the wind, her wings slightly mantled. Then one of the Shin'a'in, a woman, put her hand up to the hawk.

  Dawnfire stared measuringly at her for a moment, then stepped down from her perch onto the proffered wrist. The woman turned to face the rest.

  Like all the other Shin'a'in who had come to their rescue, this one was clad entirely in black, from her long black hair to her black armor, to her tall black boots. But there was something wrong with her eyes. Something odd.

  Elspeth had sensed a kind of contained power about her; the stirrings of a kind of deeply-running energy she had never felt before.

  The woman raised Dawnfire high above her head and held her there, a position that should have been a torment after only a few moments, no matter how strong she was. Tayledras hawks were the size and weight of small eagles, and Dawnfire was by no means the smallest of the kind. But as the woman continued to hold Dawnfire aloft, the entire group began to hum—softly at first, then as the volume increased, and as the ruins rang with harmonics, Dawnfire started glowing.

  At first Elspeth had thought it was just a trick of the setting sun, but the light about the bird grew brighter instead of fading. Then Dawnfire spread her wings and grew larger as well as brighter.

  Before long, Elspeth couldn't even look at her directly; she had averted her eyes, for the light from the hawk was bright enough to cast shadows.

  Kra'heera had looked at her and said, "Dawnfire has been chosen by the Warrior." She hadn't known what that meant then. She did now.

  When the light and sound had faded, and she was able to look at the bird again, she saw that it was no longer a red-shouldered hawk. It was a vorcel-hawk, the emblem of Kra'heera's Clan, and the largest such bird she had ever seen. Although the light had dimmed, it had not died, and there was an otherwordly look in the hawk's eyes that had made her start with surprise.

  It was the same look as in the eyes of the female warrior who held her—their eyes held neither whites, iris, or pupils—only a darkness, sprinkled with sparks of light that were visible even where Elspeth stood. As if instead of eyes, they had fields of stars.

  That was when she had remembered the description of the Shin'a'in Goddess—and had realized exactly what she was looking at. Small wonder the memory was as vivid as it was; it wasn't every day an ordinary mortal saw a living Goddess and her Avatar.

  She eyed Tre'valen with speculation. No matter how casually the elder shaman had treated the event afterward, she wondered if he hadn't been just as surprised as everyone else by the appearance of his Goddess. From what little she understood, change came to the Plains seldom and slowly. When Kerowyn had regaled them with tales of her Shin'a'in cousins, had she ever said anything about their Goddess creating Avatars? Elspeth didn't remember anything like that....

  So maybe this was something new for them. Maybe that was why Tre'valen was here; to watch for Dawnfire, and to try and figure out the reasons behind his Goddess' actions.

  Well, if that was the case, he must have told the Hawkbrothers, or at least their leaders. On the surface none of this seemed to have anything to do with her—but Elspeth didn't take anything for granted anymore. After all, why should the Shin'a'in have shown up at all then? Who could have predicted she'd get involved with the Tayledras, and wind up adding their enemies to her own rather formidable list? I ought to ask him later if I'm right about all that. Maybe we can help each other out.

  Gwena walked to the entrance of the cave and looked out—impatiently, Elspeth thought. Her Mindspoken words to her Chosen confirmed that. :I wish I knew what it was they were spending so much time doing in there,: she said. :They've certainly been keeping us cooling our heels long enough. At this rate, that ceremony of theirs won't be over until dark :

  Elspeth wondered why she was so impatient—the Companions weren't the ones being sworn in, even though they wouldn't be permitted in the Vale until the Heralds were. Evidently, by common consensus, the Tayledras regarded the Companions as creatures that simply didn't require oaths to hold them.

  Hmm. That requires thought. Do they think Gwena is some kind of Avatar herself? The idea was kind of funny. If they ever listened to her moaning and griping they'd soon lose that particular illusion! I rather doubt Gwena's hiding that kind of secret.

  Not that she hadn't been hiding other kinds of secrets. This "plan" for Elspeth's future that the Companions had been plotting, for one. And there were others....

  Shortly after Nyara had vanished, taking Need with her, Elspeth noticed that Gwena was missing. Worried about her—since Gwena had been injured in the fight with Falconsbane's mage-beasts—she had tried to find her Companion, and when she failed, tried to Mindtouch her. When that failed, she had been alarmed and had gone looking for her.

  Gwena had been perfectly all right—but she'd been locked in a self-induced trance, shielded even against the prying of Elspeth's thoughts. And when she'd come out of it, she'd been very unhappy to find her Chosen standing there, tapping her foot impatiently, waiting for an answer.

  Under pressure from both Elspeth and Skif, she reluctantly admitted that she had been in contact with another Companion in Valdemar all during this journey. Elspeth had expected that Companion to be her mother's—and had been both surprised and relieved to find that it was actually Rolan, the Companion of the Queen's Own Herald, Talia.

  Then she had been annoyed, though she hadn't made much of an issue about it. She hadn't known that Companions could relay messages that far—and so far as she was aware, no one knew that little fact. Was it just Gwena and Rolan, or could oth
ers do it, too? One way or the other, it was one more thing that the Companions had been hiding. So how much more could they do that they hadn't revealed?

  Gwena had said crossly that Elspeth should have expected that "arrangements would be made." And Elspeth had been forced to agree. After all, she was the Heir, and she'd been allowed to go haring off into the unknown with only one Herald to guard her back. For all that she'd managed to get complete agreement from the Council and Heraldic Circle, it was still rather irresponsible. If Queen Selenay had not had a way to get news about her errrant offspring, she'd likely have had strong hysterics before a month was out. Especially after Elspeth departed from the agreed-upon itinerary, and "vanished" into the Dhorisha Plains.

  Still, she hadn't much liked the idea that little reports on her progress were being sent back home, as if she was some kind of child on her first outing without Mama.

  On the other hand, Gwena had told them, when Elspeth pressed her for exactly what she'd been telling Rolan, that the "reports" she'd been sending Rolan were edited. "Heavily edited," in fact, was what the Companion had said, rather glumly. Which was just as well. If Selenay had the smallest inkling just how much danger Elspeth and Skif had gotten themselves into—

  She'd have found a way to haul me back, that's what she'd have done, and plunked me down in nice safe embroidery classes for the rest of my natural life.

  How could she possibly explain to her mother that ever since she'd started on this trip—even before she'd started—she'd had the feeling that the Crown wasn't something she was ever going to wear? Even if she had tried to tell her, Selenay would have taken it the wrong way; she'd have been sure that Elspeth had some premonition of doom, and there she'd be in embroidery class again, away from all possibility of danger.

  What an awful idea.

  And it wasn't a premonition of "doom," or anything like one. It was just the feeling that she was never going to rule. That one of the twins was going to have the throne, and the other—