Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  The canvas was heavy and unwieldy; he and Firesong—who had shed the hat and most of the robes to help with the work—took one side, while Darkwind and Elspeth wrestled with the other, and Nyara crawled inside to set up the tent poles. He sneaked a look at her receding—anatomy.

  The first few times they'd done this, it had taken so long that the other wagon-folk had given them a hand so that the carnival could open before dark. Now they were only a little slower than the rest, which was fine, since they were at the end of the line anyway. They would be set up by the time people actually got here.

  He sniffed; there was hot oil and spice from the food-vendors, who sold grease-fried bits of salty dough and other things, cups of sweetened water with vegetable dyes in them, and very cheap beer. He knew better than to eat anything from the vendors; one of the reasons that "Pandemonium Cure-All" made money was that it had stomach-soothers in it, and the Great Mage Pandemonium could usually effect a cure or two right on the spot. The vendors shrugged and said philosophically that Faire-food was always pretty awful; if you wanted a good meal, you ate at home. But given the hungry stares some of the people of Hardorn had, Skif had to wonder if this was good food now, to them. Gods, that was a frightening thought.

  The center of the tent rose to a peak; Nyara had gotten the middle pole up. She always had a knack for that. A moment later, the two corner poles went in. Skif and Darkwind pulled the corner ropes as tight as they could, then tied them to the stakes they'd pounded into the ground. The canvas by the wagon bobbed as Nyara tied it to the top of the wagon from inside. He dusted off his muddy hands on his breeches and went around to the front to join the others.

  Darkwind and Elspeth were already at the edge of the outer stage, and a moment later, Firesong emerged from the back of the wagon, his dubious finery back in place and a grin on his face. His firebird stretched its wings by flying to the front of the carnival and back, causing cries of excitement from the gathering townsfolk as it flew overhead, streaming ribbons. Vree did the same, indulging in some aerobatics to make up in showmanship what he lacked in appearance.

  "We've got everything well in hand," Darkwind said, as he looked around for something to do. "Why don't you go into the wagon and spend a little time with Nyara before the first show? You two have little enough time with each other."

  It was a suggestion Darkwind didn't have to make twice. Skif ran up the set of stairs at the tail of the wagon and joined Nyara.

  She was putting on little bits of makeup and rabbit fur to make her look as if she was wearing a costume. They included a preposterous pair of artificial ears that she could have used as sails, if they'd had a boat.

  She was holding them with an expression of distaste. "I do not like these," she sighed. "They do not fit well, and they are very itchy!"

  He chuckled and took one for her, carefully fitting it over her own, delicately pointed ear. "If you wouldn't be so impatient, and wait for me to come and help you, they wouldn't itch as badly," he told her, carefully gluing it in place along her cheek.

  She smiled wryly, and handed him the other one to put on for her, then began to add cat-stripes to her forehead and cheekbones. "I wish we did not have to do this," she said pensively. But behind the pensive expression, he sensed real strain and fear. Was there more strain there tonight than last night?

  "I do, too," he told her, his voice husky with the effort of holding back emotions. She turned, then, and quickly laid the palm of her hand against his cheek, staring up into his eyes.

  "If you dislike it so greatly that it hurts you—I will stop—" she faltered, searching his face for his true feelings. "We could—I could be displayed in a cage, perhaps—"

  But that notion clearly made her more afraid than the dancing did. He shook his head, his stomach in turmoil, and captured her hand in his own. "No," he told her. "No, this is the best and fastest way to get Him to hear about you. We need that. But—I worry about you," he continued, his throat feeling choked and thick. "I know that this could be hurting you, all these men, staring at you, and thinking the way your father did. I worry if you think I'm thinking that, too, if you wonder if that's the only way I see you, as something to use—to own—"

  She licked her lips and swallowed. "Yes," she admitted after a long moment. "Yes, sometimes I do wonder that. And sometimes I wonder if that is the only real worth I have—"

  He started to blurt something, but she laid her finger against his lips, and smiled, a thin, sad smile but a real one. "But then," she continued, "you say something like you just did—or Need tells me to stop being a stupid little kitten and get on with my job, and I know it is not true."

  She took her finger away, pulled him close, and locked him in another of her impossible, indescribable embraces.

  When she released him again, she said only, "I love you, Herald-man."

  He kissed her gently, but with no less passion. "I love you, too, cat-lady."

  She laughed at the grease-makeup that smeared his face and delicately touched a clawed finger to the tip of his nose.

  And then Darkwind began to beat the drum for Firesong's first turn, and there was no time....

  Treyvan narrowed his eyes, and regarded a scarlet-clad Sun-priestess with what he hoped was a predatory expression. "I agrrree with you that Rassshi isss a young idiot," he said carefully, "and he isss likely mossst difficult to worrrk with. He isss ssscatterrrbrrrained."

  The priestess nodded, her mouth forming a tight, angry line.

  "But," he continued, "you will worrrk with him. He knowsss the ssspellsss that you do not, and you need to know them. Morrre, you need to learrrn how to worrrk with thossse you do not carre forrr."

  The priestess tossed her head; he had been warned about her. She was formerly from a noble Karsite family, and she was very conscious of her birth-rank. She had made trouble before this, during her training as a Priestess. Rashi, besides being scatterbrained, was the son of a pigkeeper. But he was kindhearted as well, and he knew a series of protective spells that no one else here had mastered—and whether she liked it or not, Treyvan was determined that Gisell would learn them, and would learn to work with him.

  Treyvan rose to his full height, and towered over her. "You will worrrk with him," he repeated. "A mage who will not cooperrrate isss a dangerrr to all of usss. And I am not of Valdemarrr, Karrrse, orrr Rrrethwellan. I do not carrre about you orrr yourrrr alliancesss. I will be gone when thisss warrr isss overrr. I do thisss asss a perrsssonal favorrr to Darrrkwind. And I will sssnap the sssspine of anyone who makesss thisss tasssk morrrre difficult!"

  Her face went blank, as she picked his words out of the tangle of trills and hisses, and then she paled. He snapped his beak once, loudly, by way of emphasis, a sound like two dry skulls crunching against each other.

  "I have younglingssss to feed," Hydona added suggestively, looking over Treyvan's shoulder. "Meat-eaterrrsss. They do ssso love meat of good brrreeding."

  The priestess swallowed once, audibly, then tried to smile. "Perhaps Rashi simply needs some patience?" she suggested meekly.

  "Patiencssse isss a good thing," Treyvan agreed, lying back down again. "Patiencssse isss a jewel in the crrrown of any prrriessstesss."

  The priestess bowed with newly-born meekness, then turned to go back to poor young Rashi, her assigned partner, who probably had no idea the young woman had come storming up to Treyvan to demand someone else. The trouble was, there was no one else. The priestess had alienated every Herald and most of the Rethwellan mages except dim but good-natured Rashi.

  Gisell was only half-trained, but would certainly be Master rank when she finally completed her schooling. Rashi was only a bottom-rank Journeyman, a plain and simple earth-wizard, and never would be any more powerful than that—but his training had been the best. His instincts were sharp, and his skills were sound.

  This was the essence of all the pairs, triads, and quartets that Treyvan and Hydona were setting up. Powerful but half-trained mages were partnered with educate
d but less powerful mages, with the former working through the latter, as Elspeth had worked in partnership with Need. To the knowledge of any of the fully-schooled mages, no one had ever tried this before. All the better. What had never been tried, Ancar could not anticipate.

  Some of these teams were already out with the Guard or the Skybolts—and there had been, not one, but two Adept-class potential Heralds among the two dozen or so that had come riding in, responding to the urgent need sent out on the Web. Both of them had been paired immediately, one with the single White Winds teacher young enough to endure the physical hardships of this war, and one with the Son of the Sun's right-hand wizard, a surprisingly young man with a head full of good sense and a dry sense of humor that struck chords with Treyvan's own. They were doing a very fine job of holding Ancar's progress to a crawl, simply by forcing Ancar's mages to layer protections on the coercive spells controlling his fighters. Ancar had, in fact, been forced to send in the Elite Guard, putting them immediately behind the coerced troops to supply a different kind of motivation to advance.

  Treyvan and Hydona were in complete charge of Valdemar's few mages and mage-allies, simply because they were the most foreign. Their ongoing story, at least so far as anyone other than Selenay and her Council were concerned, was just what Treyvan had told that young priestess. They were doing this as a favor to Darkwind; they were completely indifferent to Valdemaran politics, external or internal. Add to that their size and formidable appearance... thus far, no one had cared to challenge any of their edicts. When they needed to coordinate with Valdemar's forces, they went through subcommanders Selenay had assigned.

  Treyvan turned his attention back to the trio he had been working with before Gisell interrupted. "Yourrr parrrdon," he said, thinking as he did so that at any other time and place, these three would have been at such odds that there would probably have been bloodshed. Not that they weren't getting along; they were cooperating surprisingly well. But a south-border Herald, a red-robed Priest of Vkandis, and a mage who had once fought Karse under Kerowyn... it could have been trouble.

  The priest shrugged, the Herald chuckled, and the mere mage shook his head. "Gisell always difficult has been," the priest said, in his stilted Valdemaran. "Young, she is."

  "Just wait until she gets out on the lines, she'll settle down," the Herald advised. The mage, an older man, bent and wizened, nodded.

  'They gen'rally do," he said comfortably. "Either that, or they don' last past their first fight." He glanced at the other two. "You, now—I kin work with the both of ye."

  "Query, one only, had I," the priest said, looking at Treyvan, but with a half-smile for the old man. Treyvan waited, but the priest, oddly, hesitated. Treyvan wished he could read human faces better; this man's expression was an odd one. It looked like his face-skin was imploding.

  "Red-robe, I am not, truly," he said after a moment. "Black-robe am I. Or was I."

  He looked from the Herald to the other mage, who shrugged without comprehension, and sighed.

  "Black-robe, the Son has said, no more to be. Black-robes, demon-runners are." And he watched, warily, for a reaction.

  He got one. The old mage hissed and stepped back a pace; the Herald's eyes widened. It was the Herald who spoke first, not to Treyvan, but to the priest.

  "I'd heard rumors some of you could control demons," he said, his eyes betraying his unease, "but I never believed it—I never saw anything to make me believe it."

  "Control?" The priest shrugged. "Little control. As—control great rockfall. Take demon—send demon—capture demon. The Son likes demons not; the Son has said: 'Demons be of the dark, Vkandis is all of the light.' Therefore, no more demon-runners."

  "So she demoted you?" the mage demanded. "Uh—took your rank."

  But the priest shook his head. "No. Rank stays, robe goes, and no more demon-runners." He turned back to Treyvan. "Question: demons terrible be and all of the dark. Yet them do we use now, here?"

  Treyvan lidded his eyes, thinking quickly. How he wished this man's superior was here! "Jussst what doesss he mean by 'demonsss'?" he asked the Herald, who seemed to have some inkling of what the priest was talking about.

  "There've always been stories that some of the Vkandis priests could control supernatural night-creatures," the Herald replied. The priest followed the words closely, nodding vigorously from time to time when the Herald hit precisely on the facts. "They're supposed to be unstoppable—they keep whole villages indoors at night for fear of them, and they are said to be able to take individuals right out of their beds in locked homes, with no one the wiser. What these things are, I don't know—though from what you and Jonaton there have taught me so far, my guess is they're from the Abyssal Plane, which would mean they aren't real bright. Basically, you haul them out, give them a target or an area to patrol, turn them loose—and try to stay out of their way."

  The priest was nodding so hard now that Treyvan was afraid his head would come off. "Yes, yes," he said. "Yes, and terrible, terrible."

  Treyvan's own magic was of the direct sort; he had little experience in using or summoning creatures of any of the Planes. The closest he had ever come was in calling an elemental or two, like a vrondi. This sort of thing was usually undertaken by a mage with little mind-magic and a fairly weak Mage-Gift, but with a great deal of trained will. A focused and trained will could accomplish a great deal, even when the sorcerer's own powers were slight, provided the sorcerer had a known source of energy. Unfortunately, when a mage's own abilities were poor, the most certain source of energy was that of pain and death. Which was why most of the mages summoning other-Planar creatures were blood-path mages.

  This priest seemed to be the exception to that rule; he was somewhere on the border between Journeyman and Master, and he certainly didn't need demons to help him. He seemed very sincere, and very anxious that they know both that he could call demons, and that they were pretty dreadful creatures.

  "Terrible, terrible," the priest repeated. "But Ancar terrible is. Yes?"

  Ah, so what he was saying was that the demons were a dreadful weapon, but they were a weapon Ancar might deserve to get in his teeth.

  Now here was a dilemma, if ever there was one. A terrifying weapon, an evil enemy. Did the one deserve the other?

  Treyvan ground his beak, frustrated. He had flown out to the front lines once, and it was a damned mess. It had Falconsbane written all over it; there was that kind of callous disregard for life. The carnage could not have been described. Ancar was driving his troops over ground so thick with the bodies of the dead that there wasn't a handspan of dirt or grass visible anywhere. If a soldier lost a limb, he could bend over and pick up a new one.

  To use the weapon, or not?

  "Could Ancarrr take yourrr demonsss, once you loosssed them?" he asked the priest urgently. "Could he ussse them?"

  The man looked very startled, as if he had not considered that question. Then, after a moment of thought, he nodded slowly.

  Treyvan let out a growling breath he did not realize he had been holding in. So much for the moral question. You do not fling a weapon at your enemy that he may then pick up and use.

  Or, as the Shin'a'in said, "Never throw your best knife at your foe."

  "No demonsss," he said firmly. "We do not give Ancarrr demonsss he can ssssend back." The priest looked relieved. The Herald and old Jonaton definitely looked relieved.

  "Now," he continued, "Let usss once again trrry thisss messshing of sssshieldsss...."

  The gryphlets and the two royal twins were playing a game of tag. Of all of them, Hydona reflected, it was the children who were affected the least. For as long as Lyra and Kris had been alive, there had been war with Ancar and danger in Valdemar. For as long as Lytha and Jerven had been alive, they had nested in a perilous world. For both sets of twins, the danger was only a matter of degree. And the tension their parents were under was offset by the joy of having a new set of playmates.

  For the two human children, hav
ing the fascinating Rris as a new teacher and nurse only made things better. And as for the gryphlets, they now had a brand new playground, and an entire new set of toys and lessons. For the four of them, life was very good.

  The youngsters all lived together during the day in the salle. Lessons at the Collegium had been canceled for the duration, and the trainees set to running errands—or, if they were about to graduate, were thrown into Whites and put under the direct tutelage of an experienced Herald. The salle had only one entrance, and that could be easily guarded—and was, not only by armed Guardsmen but by every unpartnered Companion at the Collegium, in teams of four pairs. Inside, ropes could be strung from the ceiling for young gryphlets to climb, practice dummies set up for them to wrestle, and a marvelous maze of things to climb on, slide down, and crawl about in could be constructed for both species. All of these things were done. They caused twice the noise of a war themselves when they were in full swing.

  When the children tired, there was always Rris or the two human nurses—a pair of retired Heralds—who were ready to tell stories or teach reading and writing—well, reading, anyway. The gryphlets' talons were not made for holding human-sized pens. The nurses also instructed the youngsters in the rudiments of any of the four languages now being spoken on the Palace grounds.

  Already it was a race to see if the human children picked up more Kaled'a'in, or the gryphlets more Valdemaran, just from playing with each other.

  Hydona sighed, thinking wistfully how much she wished she could join the little ones, if only for an hour. But at least she had them when the day was done... and Rris was the best teacher anyone could ever have asked for. It was a truism that those who provided support were greater heroes than the ones who fought the wars, so Rris was as much a hero as his "Famous Cousin Warrl."

  She knew that Selenay felt the same, but Selenay spent far more time away from her little ones than Hydona did, for Selenay's day did not end when she and a set of pupils were exhausted. The Queen and Kerowyn coordinated everything from the War Room in the Palace.