Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  It had occurred to him that under those circumstances, Firesong was very likely to come to the erroneous conclusion that his friendship with Karal was based on physical attraction, not mental attraction, and that it might go beyond mere "friendship" before too long.

  No, it would be a good thing to keep his meetings with Karal between the two of them—unless Karal brought his master, Lord Priest Ulrich, along. Then it should be safe enough to reveal.

  The oddest thing is, he'd never make the same assumption if my friend was female, and it would be far more likely that I'd—ah—get involved with a female than with another man.

  "Any more of those premonitions of doom?" Firesong asked, a little teasingly. "They might be useful, actually; it seems that the mages in the Empire—"

  Premonitions of doom—

  An'desha gasped, as the ground seemed to drop out from underneath him, and Firesong's voice faded into a roar that filled his ears. He clutched at the rock he was sitting on, but his fingers didn't work. Darkness assaulted him—then blinding light. Then darkness again, filled with the twisting snakes of red An'desha always saw after a bright light. He tried to scream and couldn't. He couldn't even feel his jaws opening.

  Then light, striking him in concentric circles. It was almost as if something had picked him up and was shaking him, waving him as a maiden might wave a scarf in the Rain-bird Dance. And everywhere, everywhere, was terrible fear, filling him with icy paralysis. Then the darkness again, and then less light than before, then darkness.

  Then it was over, as swiftly and without warning as it had begun. He found himself falling backward, still on his stone, Firesong clutching his shoulders and staring into his eyes, while his hands held to the rock underneath him, spasmed into rigidity.

  "What—?" he choked out.

  "You were in a trance," Firesong said, testing An'desha's forehead with the back of his hand for fever. "You cried out once, and grabbed for the stone—I saw how your eyes looked, and sensed power about you, and knew you were in a trance. You looked terrified."

  "I was. Am." An'desha gulped. "It was terrible, horrible, yet there was nothing that I can describe. Light and dark in waves, disorientation."

  Firesong looked into his eyes, and frowned. "It happened when I asked if you were still troubled by premonitions. This seems too well-timed a response to be simple coincidence."

  Numbly, An'desha nodded. If anything, his sense of dread, his tension, had increased now.

  "Listen, and I will tell you what was related at the Council," Firesong said at last. "Mornelithe Falconsbane was not given to prescience—but you are not he, and there is no reason why you should not have that Gift. For that matter, She might well have granted it to you—as we were reminded at the Council, there are more hands than the merely human working in this stewpot now."

  I wouldn't be too sure that I am not Falconsbane, An'desha thought bleakly, but he listened quietly while Firesong recited what had transpired at the meeting.

  "Did anything I spoke of wake a resonance with you?" he asked, when he was done. An'desha had to shake his head.

  "Nothing," he said sadly. "You might as well have been telling me facts concerning cattle or sheep. It meant nothing."

  Firesong tugged at a lock of silver hair, frowning. "I am at a loss," he said finally. "It would seem to me that our great enemy is at hand—that the Empire and all the Empire's mages should be the source of your fears, and yet—"

  "It is not the Empire, peacock!" An'desha retorted, losing his temper. "I have been trying to tell you that! It is something else, something we have not even dreamed of! And I think—" he gulped and felt his skin turn cold and clammy as he voiced what he feared he must do, "—I think there is some key to it among the memories that the Great Beast left with me."

  Firesong winced, but a moment later placed one hand comfortingly over An'desha's clenched fist. "Then we must examine those memories," he replied, with more gentleness than An'desha would ever have credited him with. "You and I. I have been remiss in forcing you to walk those paths alone, An'desha. I had been so certain that I knew what the answer to your fears was." An'desha stared at him, startled at this new and unwonted humility. "I do not know. Captain Kerowyn made it very clear to me in ways I could not ignore after the Council meeting that these Imperial mages were so very different from anything I have ever experienced that it was wildly unlikely I would be able to counter anything they brought to bear on us effectively." Then a ghost of his old self came back for a moment. "Or at least, it would be unlikely the first time they unleashed something upon us. I daresay once I had seen it, I could deal with it."

  Then even that bit of arrogance faded. "Still, they need only keep changing their weaponry—and the Captain pointed out that what I cannot anticipate, I cannot personally guard against, either." His own face grew paler as he looked solemnly into An'desha's eyes. "For the first time in my life, I cannot be sure that I can guard myself from harm. That is—very unsettling. Even when wrestling the power of a renegade Heartstone I did not have such a sense of mortality as I do now. It makes me unsure."

  Oh, most lovely. Now what?

  "But if that is true, then it is also true that things I had assumed—things regarding you—might also be incorrect." He sighed. "So, now, at long last, I am listening to you. And I am asking you; what do you think we, together, should do?"

  Run away! his cowardly inner self said. But he swallowed, took a steadying breath, and said, a bit shakily, "You must help me with those memories of lives that Falconsbane had before he took my body. We must go farther than I have dared to."

  If only the Avatars would come again, he thought, stifling fear, as Firesong nodded his agreement. They knew what it is I am floundering about in search of—

  Or did they? In all their warnings, they had seemed to bear a sense of frustration that they could not explain themselves clearly. Perhaps even they did not know. They were very near to the flesh-and-blood bodies they had once worn, after all, and in fact, Tre'valen and Dawnfire were not technically "dead" at all as they had explained it to him. That was why they had been able to help him, so far from the Plains and the Hills, and out of the range of the Star-Eyed's influence.

  They are likely back where they might do some good, doing—whatever it is that Avatars do. Perhaps they are aiding the Kal'enedral, the Swordsworn. I do not think they have the power to aid me now.

  But Firesong did. As frightening and as perilous as it might be to invoke anything connected with the creature that had once possessed his body, An'desha could not in conscience see any other choice.

  "Perhaps we should begin tonight?" he suggested timidly.

  Firesong nodded gravely. "I think it would be best, ke'chara. Before we both lose our nerve."

  Ah, but mine is already lost, An'desha thought, yet he did not protest as Firesong helped him to his feet, and led him to their heavily-shielded circle in the garden where all An'desha's rumblings at magic took place. But perhaps—perhaps now I can find new bravery....

  Eleven

  "So—there was nothing left of the False One?" An'desha had listened, completely enthralled, to Karal's tale of how the Son of the Sun came to power. There was something oddly comforting in the notion that there were other peoples whose deities tended to express themselves as directly as the Star-Eyed did. More directly, in fact, although An'desha could not even begin to envision how a false prophet could ever set himself up as sole authority to the Shin'a'in, much less how an entire succession of them could have. The Star-Eyed would have been much more likely to have arranged for the first fool to be eaten by something large and predatory before he ever became a problem.

  "Nothing. Just a pile of smoldering ashes." Karal nodded. "It was quite—ah—daunting. It made me certain that I never wanted to find myself receiving the Sunlord's direct regard. I will be quite happy to remain in obscurity!"

  "I can well understand that," An'desha replied. "The Star-Eyed is—a little more subtle." That may be the u
nderstatement of the century. Kal'enel is not inclined to strike people dead with lightning even at Her angriest.

  The serene little indoor garden had become their meeting place; they were reasonably certain of being left alone there, and since An'desha and Firesong already practiced all magic there, it was one place where An'desha felt relatively confident. And no matter what the weather—which continued to be uncertain—it was always balmy summer in this miniature Vale.

  He noted that Karal was no longer wincing whenever he mentioned the Shin'a'in Goddess, and his dark eyes no longer clouded with unease. Poor Karal. He was so shocked at first to learn that Vkandis might not be the One True God.

  "But then again," An'desha continued with a shrug. "She and He are both gods so who are we to say what they will and will not do? For all that I was touched by the Star-Eyed's own hand, I am still hardly qualified to judge Her or Her probable actions."

  Karal coughed politely. An'desha took the hint.

  "Speaking of probable actions—I spoke with Ulrich about you." Karal waited for An'desha's reaction.

  His reaction would have been enthusiastic enough to satisfy anyone. Excitement sent a chill along his arms. "Will he come? Has he time? Does he think he can help?" An'desha had spent enough time delving back into the memories of Falconsbane's previous lives to feel as if the already uncertain ground beneath him had become a quagmire. He couldn't help thinking that only extreme good fortune had kept him from stepping into a bottomless pit that would swallow him up before he could cry out for help. He'd had a particularly hag-ridden nightmare last night, after yet another stroll through the memory-fragments of the past. He'd spent the rest of the night huddled into a blanket in a fearful ball of misery, and finally Firesong had thrown his hands up and lost patience with him after failing to calm him. Firesong had gone off to the garden to sleep, leaving An'desha to watch out the last of the night by himself.

  I knew that he was right, that it had only been a nightmare, but what could such nightmares lead tot What if I fell into one and never came out again? That was what held me so terrified that he could not comfort me. I don't know how many more nights like that I can go through.

  Karal nodded solemnly. "He said he would try to come this afternoon, unless I came to tell him otherwise. Shall I go see if he is free?"

  "Please!" An'desha replied, with more force than he had intended. He made himself relax, though Karal gave no sign that he was alarmed by the violent response. "Please. Things are—I would truly like to speak with him."

  "He'll come. I'll go find him now." Karal knew An'desha well enough by now to take him seriously. He got up and trotted off without another word, leaving An'desha alone in the garden again. Although An'desha was not normally given to pacing, he did so now. After all this time—someone who understood his pain and his peril, who was willing to help him—

  What would this Ulrich be like? Let him not be like the shaman of my Clan... that would leave matters worse than they are now! He could not bear that—to have someone deliver a lecture to him on his own moral weakness, on how he should be showing some spine instead of cowering like a child afraid of monsters in the tent shadows. He was doing his best, he was! Even if Firesong didn't think so—

  Now that the moment was at hand, he was rapidly tangling into a knot of tension.

  "Here we are. I found him on the very path," said Karal cheerfully, from the door. An'desha spun about to see his friend entering through the doorway, with a much older man beside him, a man who walked carefully and a little stiffly.

  As they neared, An'desha noted the calm expression on the older man's face—a face, thin and intelligent, with a sharp and prominent nose and matching chin. He and Karal were very much of a "type," as Shin'a'in, Kaled'a'in and Tayledras were of a "type." Interesting, since Valdemarans were as mixed in "type" as a litter of mongrel puppies.

  The priest had probably seen some fifty summers or so; his silver hair had a few black threads in it, but not many. But more important to An'desha than his years was his expression; there was none of the querulous impatience An'desha remembered the shaman wearing more often than not.

  "An'desha." The man bowed a little in greeting to An'desha, rather than extending his hand to be clasped as Valdemarans did. "Karal has told me something of you and your plight, but I would like to hear it all from your lips, as well." He smiled a little, and his eyes wrinkled at the corners. "Sometimes things can be garbled in the translation, as any diplomat will tell you."

  The smile was enough to convince An'desha that, whatever Ulrich was, he was nothing like the shaman. The shaman had never smiled.

  Ulrich listened to his history and his current fears with no sign of impatience, and even took him back over a few points to clarify them. As Ulrich questioned him, An'desha was reminded more and more of the spirit-sword Need, the blade that was now carried by Nyara. Need had coached him through his ordeal as he acted against Mornelithe Falconsbane from—literally—within. She had never promised more than a chance at his freedom—she had never given him pity or sympathy, only guidance.

  Ulrich was of a similar mind. He did not want to hear excuses, and would not accept them if An'desha tried to make them—but as long as An'desha had clearly been doing his best, Ulrich would praise him for it, and make allowances for things that could not yet be helped.

  He did spend quite a bit of time asking many questions about An'desha's experiences with the Avatars, after An'desha mentioned them. He had done so with extreme caution, remembering how shocked Karal had been at the intimation that there were more real deities in the world than his own. But to An'desha's relief and mild amusement, Ulrich was not only not shocked, he seemed to accept it as a matter of course.

  "You do believe me, don't you?" he asked, when Ulrich fell silent. "I mean, you believe me about Dawnfire and Tre'valen, that they are Her Avatars, and not something I hallucinated, or something else."

  Ulrich took a moment to think before replying. "I admit that such an explanation had occurred to me, when you first mentioned them," he said at last, steepling his fingers together. "You hardly qualified as sane under normal definitions. But after all you have told me, I am quite certain that they are exactly what you claim. And that your 'Star-Eyed' is what you claim Her to be."

  Karal made a small sound, something like a strangled cough; An'desha glanced aside and saw him turning a fascinating color.

  Ulrich chuckled and turned to his protege. "What, surprised to hear me say that, young one?" he chided gently. "Did you think me so bound by the letter of the Writ? Here is another lesson for you. Most wise priests are well aware that the Light can take many forms, many names, and all are valid. It is there in the earliest copies of the Writ, for those who care to look."

  He turned back to An'desha. "It is a man's deeds that define him," he said earnestly. "As I believe Karal has told you—Vkandis Himself has passed that stricture to us, that a good deed done in the name of the Dark is still done for the Light, but an evil one done in the name of the Light is still quite evil, and a soul could be condemned to Darkness for it."

  An'desha nodded, as much relieved by those words as by anything else Ulrich could have said or done. The tradition-bound shaman of An'desha's Clan would never have said anything like that.

  "I have always felt," Ulrich continued thoughtfully, "that before I passed judgment on any man because of the god he swore by, I would see how he comported himself with his fellows—what he did, and how he treated them. If he acted with honor and compassion, the Name he called upon was irrelevant."

  All very well, An'desha thought, after a moment of silence, And I am glad he feels this way—but what about me?—What about the dreams, and—

  "However, that has nothing to do with your predicament, An'desha," Ulrich said, startling him. Could Ulrich read his mind? "You have some very real fears that need to be addressed. Let me start with the one closest to your heart—the fear that you are still possessed by that evil creature that called himself Bane-o
f-Falcons."

  An'desha leaned forward eagerly, misgivings forgotten. Point by point, with careful detail, Ulrich proved to him that he knew what he was talking about—and that, as Firesong and everyone else had said, Falconsbane was gone.

  What convinced him was that Ulrich had a reason—a sound, believable reason, for some of the things he'd been experiencing. "There really is a simple explanation. You are only now able to feel the physical effects of your emotions, after so many years existing only as a disembodied spirit, so to speak," Ulrich told him patiently. "For you, such things are as fresh and startling as regained sight for one who was blinded, or hearing restored to the deaf! Think of how such a former deaf man would react to a sudden noise—and then think how you are reacting to a sudden surge of emotion. Not only that, you are feeling the sweat of your palms, flushing of the skin or paleness that come with emotions, for the first time in a very long time. They must feel overwhelming to you, easy to interpret as signs of possession. Yet you now feel them with your own body, and not one taken over by an evil spirit."

  An'desha nodded, very slowly. This made such good sense, he hardly knew what to think.

  "I'm not—I cannot seem to deal with all this," he began hesitantly.

  Ulrich smiled. "If you were handling all this well, then I would suspect another possessing spirit, for no sane human could be taking your situation well at this moment!"

  Weakly, An'desha returned his smile. "I suppose you are right, when you put it that way—"

  "An'desha, not every soul is suited to being a Priest, or a conquering hero, or a serene Healer. You blame yourself for being a coward, when in fact you show more bravery than anyone should expect of you. Judge yourself, not what others would think of you, and be content with what you can do. This does not excuse you from learning how to control your emotions," Ulrich warned. "The shadow of your demon still lurks there. His taint is that it is much, much easier for you to feel anger than joy, hatred than compassion. These are old, worn paths through your body, which will react according to long habit—and old, worn paths through your mind, which experienced what Falconsbane experienced. It is always easier to take the well-worn path than the new one. You must overcome that taint. The scars upon your soul can be smoothed away, but it will take not only time, but your own will, that you will prove to be nothing like him."