Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "Guardian," Elspeth muttered to herself, and her eyes dropped to the Firecat's hindquarters—or rather, where those hindquarters were set. "Bright Havens!" she exclaimed. "Iftel!"

  The Firecat bowed his head to her. :Precisely. Check Master Levy's calculations. You will find that the middle key-point stands at the exact joining of the three countries. Because of the mages who are available at this moment, this key-point requires a certain diplomacy where that guardian is concerned. You will be working Great Magics that will become one with the border of Iftel, after all; the guardian must be reassured that this will cause no harm. Originally, this would have required two Adepts, or Ulrich and the gryphons. Now it requires a balance of four workers. Two will stand in and for Valdemar—:

  "That will be Florian, obviously," Elspeth stated. "The other would be An'desha?"

  :Yes—and two will stand in and for Iftel. That must be Karal and myself. The Vkandis Priest-mages still in your land would not be recognized by the guardian as legitimate; although they are good men and women, they are mages first and Priests only as an afterthought. Talia—: the cat paused. :If Karal were not here, Talia might possibly be an acceptable substitute, but I am not willing to risk the chance of failure. It must be Karal; he is the only one besides myself available that the guardian will allow to pass the border. And since he is not a mage, but is a channel, he can support An'desha with help from myself and Florian.:

  "This is beginning to sound like a religious ritual," Prince Daren said, finally, with a chuckle. The chuckle died when Altra turned those fiery blue eyes on him.

  :You are not entirely wrong,: Altra replied. :The circumstances are extraordinary. If Karal had died along with Ulrich—: he paused again :—it is possible that Solaris herself would have been with you at this moment, at whatever cost. The situation is that grave.:

  "Oh, no." Elspeth said hastily. "No, no, no! Talia has told me quite enough about Solaris, and I don't even want to think about that possibility!"

  Altra actually shrugged, although a cat's body was not particularly suited to that gesture. :Think on this, then. It is also true that if you had been able to learn the magics for the breakwater-shieldwall before this last wave, the key-point would have involved only the borders of Valdemar and Hardorn. If you wait until this wave is passed, however, the next will involve only the borders of Valdemar and Iftel. You will still need Karal, which means you would still need me and Florian.: He shrugged again. :This is simply the way that things fell out. There is no Great Destiny involved, if that comforts you any.:

  "Great Destinies generally involve great funerals," Elspeth muttered, as if she was quoting someone. Both gryphons laughed. "All right; I can accept all this, then. Thank you for taking the time to explain."

  :Well,: Altra replied, standing up again and walking carefully to the edge of the table. :Your dislike of manipulation is well-established. Infamous, even. Had I not explained, you might well have found some way to subvert my orders entirely. In this case, that would have been a disaster for all concerned.:

  "I guess he does know you," Prince Daren whispered roguishly to his stepchild. Elspeth blushed.

  "Cats," Elspeth muttered. "They always know. Why don't we get back to the business at hand, then?" she added hastily.

  "I don't care what that cat is, or what it says it is!" Firesong said waspishly. "I do not like the idea of you holding the middle key-point all by yourself!"

  An'desha suppressed the response that had been second nature to him; to give in to Firesong and defer to his judgment.

  We can't afford that now, he thought, chillingly aware of how little time they did have. As blithely as Altra had spoken of "waiting until the next wave," he and Master Levy both knew that would be a very bad idea. The wave that was approaching would have intersection-points in several populated areas.

  He knew, as no one else did, what that would do to the humans in those areas—and not all of those populations were in places that could be warned in time.

  "I don't like it either, ke'chara," he said instead, very quietly. "To tell you the truth, I'm terrified. I'd much rather it was you beside me; Karal has never served as a channel before, and no matter how well Altra prepares him for it, this will still be an entirely new experience for him. What's more, I don't like the idea of you being at the most volatile of the key-points! Elspeth may be an Adept, but she is very young in her power, and I had much rather that you had someone experienced beside you."

  "You aren't experienced—" Firesong began, then coughed sardonically. "Of course. You have all that secondhand experience to draw on, correct?"

  He had not been distracted by An'desha's own, very real, concern for him. Ah, well, I tried, An'desha thought.

  "You were the one who rightly insisted that I learn to use those memories," he began.

  Firesong interrupted him. "Oh, well, throw my own words in my face!" he replied angrily. "And what next? I suppose now that you have all this experience at your behest, I am no longer interesting to you! Shall I expect to find myself left by the wayside, with the rest of the unwanted discards?"

  There was more in the same vein, and it was a very good thing that Karal and Talia had seen the signs of this turnabout in Firesong and had warned An'desha. This would have been very hurtful, had An'desha not understood what was behind it all.

  Firesong, possibly for the first time in his life, was jealous and afraid—afraid that An'desha would simply walk off and leave him behind. He could, now. He was no longer frightened and dependent. Firesong had never been in the position of the courter, rather than the courted, and he had no idea how to deal with it.

  Firesong was also afraid for An'desha; the substitution of two mages and a channel for a real Adept was dangerous enough to make An'desha's hair stand on end when he stopped to think about it. Only his faith in Karal allowed him to even consider it.

  Karal will allow himself to be burned out before he breaks, he thought, as he let Firesong continue to rant. He has changed, too.

  He knew what Firesong's conscious intention was—to make him so emotionally wrought up that he would give in, and let Firesong find some other solution to the situation.

  There was only one problem with that idea. An'desha had spent too much time with Karal. I suppose a sense of responsibility must be contagious, he thought, a bit wryly.

  "Aren't you even listening to me?" Firesong cried desperately. "Don't you care what I'm saying, what I'm going through?"

  "Yes," he replied, reaching out to catch Firesong's hands in his own. "But more importantly, I have listened to everything you didn't say, but meant. You are afraid for me, and you think I am in great danger. You are afraid I will leave you, that I no longer care for you. You are right in the first instance, and completely, absolutely, utterly wrong in the second."

  Firesong's hands tightened on his; Firesong's silvery eyes begged for something he could hold in his heart.

  "I am in danger; all of us are in danger. If we do nothing, your people, mine, and all these friends in this adopted land of ours will suffer, and maybe die." His eyes, he hoped, told Firesong that this was wholly the truth, nothing held back. "If we try to change this plan—" He sighed. "I must tell you that I do not know what difference the changes will make. Altra swears that this is the optimal use of our powers, and that anything less will not guarantee success. With all of my so-called 'experience,' I cannot tell you if he is right or wrong, but I am willing to trust him."

  Firesong nodded, reluctantly.

  "I will not leave you." He said that with such force that Firesong winced. "I am not tired of you, nor bored with you, nor do I find you less than my equal." He allowed a hint of a smile to flick across his lips. "I do find you my superior in more than you know." Now he tightened his hands on Firesong's. "I have never said this in so many words, ashke, and I believe it is time that you heard it."

  And take this with you, to hold in your heart.

  "I love you." He said it softly, simply, and with all
the conviction in his body, mind, and soul, and not entirely sure that even this would satisfy him.

  But the truth is often enough in itself. So it was, now.

  They made an odd little group; Altra beside Florian, An'desha in his Tayledras finery beside Karal in his sober black, holding the reins of Trenor. An'desha would have to ride Florian as soon as they got through the Gate; he wouldn't be fit to sit on an ordinary horse afterward. They would need to ride for about two days to get from the place An'desha knew—where he and all the others had crossed into Valdemar from Hardorn, fleeing the destruction of the capital—to the place where all three borders met. All three groups would have to travel about two days to get to their ultimate destinations, once they Gated as far as they could. And for the first day, whichever mage had created the Gate would be altogether useless for much of anything.

  Firesong and Elspeth had gone first, then Darkwind and the gryphons. Now it was An'desha's turn.

  He turned to Karal, as if to say something, then turned back to the stone archway in the weapons-training salle they would all use as their Gate-terminus.

  Karal had heard of Gates, but he had never seen one. And after a few moments of watching An'desha build his, he never wanted to see one again.

  It wasn't that the Gate itself was so terrible to look at; it was actually rather pretty, except for the yawning Void in the archway where the view of Kerowyn's office should have been. No, it was because Karal sensed that the Gate had been spun out of An'desha's own spirit; An'desha was a pale shadow of himself, as this Gate fed upon him, a lovely parasite draining his very essence. It was quite horrible, and Karal wondered how anyone could bear to create something like this.

  Suddenly, the gaping darkness beneath the arch became the view of a forest—a place where the forest had taken over the ruins of a farm.

  "Go!" An'desha said, in a strangled voice. Altra bolted through. Karal set Trenor toward the Gate; Trenor fought the bit. The gelding did not want to go in there!

  Karal started to dismount, then looked back at An'desha and saw the terrible strain holding this Gate was costing him. With a silent apology, he wrenched Trenor's head around and dug his heels into the gelding's sides.

  Although he wasn't wearing spurs, the startled horse acted as if he was; Trenor neighed frantically and bolted through the Gate.

  It felt as if the ground dropped out from underneath them. For no longer than it took to blink, Karal's body swore to him that he was falling; for that long, his senses swore to him that the entire universe had vanished and he was blind, deaf, and frozen. Then they were through, and Karal spun Trenor around on his heels as soon as they had cleared the immediate area. He saw that this side of the Gate was the remains of a ruined stone barn, with only the frame of the door and part of a wall still standing and a view of the salle where only weeds and tumbled stones should have been. A moment later, Florian and An'desha came barreling through, and the scene of the salle vanished behind them.

  An'desha swayed in the saddle; someone had thoughtfully strapped him in so that he wouldn't fall. He clutched the pommel with both hands, leaving the reins slack on Florian's neck; his face was alabaster-white, and his eyes were closed. He opened them slowly as Karal rode Trenor up beside him.

  "I never want to Gate anywhere ever again," Karal said, putting such intensity into every word that An'desha sat up straight in surprise. "I never want to put you through something like that again!"

  "It won't be so bad, next time," An'desha replied weakly. "I promise you. Next time, we will make the journey in several smaller portions, over several days."

  "There won't be a next time, if we don't," Karal replied acidly. He looked down. "Florian, is he fit to ride?"

  :Even if he weren't, I am fit to carry him. That is why he is bound to the saddle,: came the reply. :We have no choice. Time is speeding.:

  "So we had better speed ourselves." He reined Trenor back and gestured. Florian knew the way without a map—he was the best guide they could have had. "If you would lead?"

  He steadied Trenor, and Altra leapt up to the padded platform where a pillion-saddle would have been. Rris had sworn that his "famous cousin Warrl" often used such a contraption to ride behind the Shin'a'in warrior Tarma shena Tale'sedrin, and in the interest of making the best speed possible, Altra had agreed to try it. Trenor didn't seem to mind too much, although he'd tried to buck a little the first time Altra had jumped up there.

  Florian swung off into the deeper woods, and if he was following a trail, it wasn't a trail that Karal could read.

  Then again, I'm not a woodsman, am I?

  There must have been a trail there, though, since Florian pushed through the brush and rank weeds with no real problem. He was making good time, too—not quite a canter, but certainly a fast walk.

  Poor Trenor, Two days of this is going to wear him out.

  But there was no choice; every mark that passed was a mark that brought the next wave nearer—and Natoli had confided to him that there were several small villages lying where interference-points would fall. The ones in Valdemar had been evacuated, of course—but there could be no such guarantees of the villages elsewhere.

  They had to stop this wave. They had to be in place in time.

  When we have done all we can, then it is time to add prayer to the rest. That was one of Master Ulrich's favorite proverbs. Well, they had done all they could; Karal shut his eyes, trusted to Trenor to follow Florian, and sent up fervent prayers.

  Whenever Karal sensed that Trenor was tiring, they stopped for a brief rest, water, and food; other than those stops, they rode right on through the night and on into the next day. This country was all former farmland, now gone to weeds and desolation; Karal didn't really want to ask why it had been left like this. He had an idea that the answer would involve the war with Hardorn, and the little he had learned about Ancar from An'desha did not make him eager to hear more.

  Hurry, hurry, hurry. There isn't much time.

  The countryside was desolate in other ways, too; there didn't seem to be a lot of wildlife. Birds were few, and mostly oddly silent. Although it was late fall and frost soon crusted every dried, dead leaf and twig, there should have been night sounds; owls, the bark of a fox, or the bay of a wolf. The only sounds were the noises they themselves made, and that very silence was more than enough to put up the hair on Karal's neck. An'desha slept in the saddle, as he had since they left the area of the Gate; Altra was not disposed to conversation, and Florian had his mind on finding their way. That left him with nothing to do but half-doze, worry, and try another prayer or two.

  When dawn came, it brought a thin gray light to the gray landscape, and matters did not improve much. Trenor was tiring sooner, now, and it hurt Karal to force him on, but he knew there was no choice. They only had until two marks after dawn tomorrow to get into place.

  But not long after the sun rose, An'desha actually shook himself awake, and looked around.

  "I remember this," he said quietly. "This was land that Ancar held briefly, and he drained it while he held it. It has made a remarkable recovery."

  "This?" Karal replied incredulously. "Recovered?"

  "You did not see it before," the Adept told him grimly, turning in the saddle to face him. "Nothing would grow; nothing. By next year this may be back to the kind of land it once was." His eyes were shadowed by other memories than of this place, and finally he voiced one of them. "Ma'ar made places as desolate as this. The truly terrible thing is that he thought he was doing right in creating them."

  "Because in creating them he served some kind of purpose?" Karal hazarded.

  An'desha nodded. "He served his own people very well; he made them into a great and powerful nation. The only problem is that in doing so, he turned other nations into stretches of desolation that are still scarred by his wars today. For him, nothing mattered except himself and his own people—who were extensions of himself. He did horrible things in the name of patriotism, and thought that he was in
the right. I do not like Ma'ar, but I understand him. Perhaps I understand him too well."

  Karal heard the self-doubt creep into An'desha's voice again, and answered it. "Understanding is the essence of not making the same mistakes, An'desha," he replied. "I rather doubt that Ma'ar ever understood himself, for instance."

  An'desha actually laughed. "Well, now that is true enough," he said cheerfully. "So, once again you unseat my problems before they can dig spurs into me. How far to the key-point?"

  :Most of the day, if we are not delayed,: Florian replied—

  —just as they topped a hill to find themselves staring down at a gorge many hundreds of hands below. The gorge held a river—a river so full of Whitewater rapids that it would be insane to try and cross it.

  :This should not be here!: Florian exclaimed.

  They all stared down at the river below, all but Trenor, who took the occasion to snatch a few mouthfuls of dried weeds.

  :And here, right on schedule, is our delay,: Altra said finally.

  "Not necessarily," Karal pointed out quickly. "There may be a bridge. Do we go upstream or down to try and find it?"

  "Upstream, I think," An'desha said, after a moment of consideration. "It takes us nearer the Iftel side that way."

  In the end, they did find a bridge—a narrow, shaky affair of old logs and rough planks. Karal had to blindfold Trenor to get him across, after Altra tried the footing by carefully padding over first. But that put them several marks behind schedule, and it was nearly dawn before they finally reached their goal.

  Karal had wondered just how they would know what side of the border was the Iftel side, and what was the Valdemar side. As the sun rose, he had the answer to that question.

  "What is that?" he asked in awe, staring at the wall of rippling light that lay along the top of the ridge, just above them. He couldn't see the top of it, whatever it was—it wasn't air, unless there was a way to solidify air and make it into a curtain of refraction. It wasn't water, although it moved and rippled like water with a breeze playing over it, and Karal was just able to make out large masses of green and gray-brown on the other side of it that could be trees and bushes.