Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Firesong growled again. "You only say that because you can do things even the Kal'enedral are interested in. I'm a mage, that's all I know, and they don't want a thing I can do for them!"

  Silverfox put down his needle to look up at him with sympathy. "You aren't just a mage. You are a lover, but you are so exotic to them that they could more easily entertain fantasies of bedding clouds. If there is really something you detest, would you please tell me and let me do it, or barter a massage or something to one of the Sworn and have him do it? You are a mage, ashaka, and I feel in my bones that soon enough you will have more important things to worry about than hems and ripped seams."

  Firesong started to reply, then shook his head and laughed at himself. "Why is it when you say things like that, you manage to deflate my self-importance rather than inflating it, and simply fill me with dread?"

  Silverfox merely tilted his head to one side, and replied, "Do I?"

  Let's change the subject, he thought. I can do without too much introspection. "Magic is working more reliably now that the counterforce is evening out the Storm-waves. It is still a horrid mess, but I think I can get a Gate up to the rim of the Plains soon; if I can do that, we can at least ask for a few more things to make life tolerable around here. How much would k'Leshya be willing to part with in the way of amenities, do you think? I haven't had a real bath in weeks and neither has anyone else. A big tub would be very welcome, even if its real intention was to water horses. A copper boiler to heat water would be even more welcome."

  Silverfox looked thoughtful. "There might be a fair amount they could send us, both of leftover Tayledras gear and some of our own. And you know—if we could get a Gate open, we could get some hertasi volunteers to come through. They can't cross the Plains in winter without a great deal of hardship, and I wouldn't ask it of them. But they could come through a Gate, provided they were sure we could keep them warm enough over here."

  Firesong closed his eyes for a moment in longing. Oh, how he missed his little army of hertasi helpers! If he had just one or two, he wouldn't have to do another tedious chore for himself again. They loved to do exactly the sorts of things he wanted to avoid here, and could probably show even the natives some lessons in organization.

  "Before we try that, we ought to see if we can find out what Sejanes and the rest back in Haven have found out about Gating," he replied, after another moment of cautious thought. "Not that I wouldn't be willing to give up a lot for a couple of hertasi, but I wouldn't want to put them at any risk. It's one thing to toss a tub or a sack of meal through; it's quite another to—risk a living being."

  Silverfox nodded, and bit off his thread. "Should we send Karal back if we can get a Gate up that's safe for a living creature? He'd be better off with k'Leshya."

  Once again, Firesong hesitated. Now there's a question. He would be better off in a place where he could be properly cared for, but—how many more of the devices here need a Channel? What are we going to have to do in order to counter that final Storm, the one that's the reverse analog of the original Cataclysm? "You can ask An'desha and Lo'isha if you like, but I have the sinking feeling we still need him. If he decides he's willing to stay here, we should let him." He took a few more stitches and knotted off his own thread. "I think he's going to insist on it. Sometimes that child makes me feel ashamed of myself. I sit here wailing and moaning because I have to pick up after myself, and he's fretting because he's too weak to help." He shook his head.

  "Maybe that's why he's a priest and you're not," Silverfox said gently. "He seeks to give of himself even when there's nothing left to give. It hurts him, but it also makes him feel effective. We can't all turn out that self-sacrificing. Lady knows I'm not—"

  He was interrupted by the sound of someone running. "Heyla, you two!" An'desha poked his head into their chamber. "Come to Karal's room. Altra made a Jump to Haven and he's back with word from Sejanes!"

  Both of them dropped their mending and got to their feet, hurrying toward Karal's chamber—which once held the "weapon" that had discharged all of its formidable power through him. Firesong hadn't mentioned that to Karal yet; when they had elected not to move him, he had deduced that since all the chambers looked alike, Karal probably wouldn't notice which one he was in. I'm not sure how he'd react. He might not care—or it might make him very nervous and unhappy, being in the same room where he nearly died.

  When they arrived at the chamber, they found Lo'isha, a few of the Kal'enedral, Florian, and An'desha already waiting there, with Altra on Karal's lap and an unopened message tube beside them.

  Firesong blinked, and realized that after all the time of working with the mages and Artificers back in Haven, he'd been unconsciously expecting to see more people. So it's just us now. I don't know if I like that. I hate to admit it, but those Artificers had some good ideas.

  "I hope this message is written in Valdemaran, but it probably isn't," Karal said. "I know enough of Imperial tongue to translate, though, if you want me to."

  "Go ahead," Firesong said, motioning to him to pick up the tube. "I don't even read Valdemaran that well; you're the best reader we have except for Florian."

  "And I can just picture Florian trying to unroll the paper!" Karal chuckled, though Firesong noted that Florian came to look over Karal's shoulder, probably to help with the translation.

  If only Aya could read foreign tongues! he thought with envy. We could each specialize in a language; it would be so convenient!

  Karal broke open the tube and extracted a roll of paper; he unrolled it with an accompanying crackling sound.

  Evidently it was in Valdemaran; Karal's frown faded and he began reading immediately. Probably Florian was prompting him.

  The letter began abruptly. "Greetings, and do not attempt to make or use a Gate. We have already tried and the results were Unfortunate. That's with a capital 'U' by the way."

  Firesong winced. I was afraid of that.

  "Things must be more unsettled than we thought," An'desha said with alarm. "My little magics have been working so well I thought certainly that the larger ones must surely be all right.

  "That might simply be a function of where we are," Firesong reminded him. "For all we know, there are upper shields on the remains of the Tower, strong enough that we could do almost anything in here and not be affected by what's gone on outside."

  Karal cleared his throat to get their attention again. Firesong turned back to him and nodded, and the young man continued. "I fear this means you are exiled for the duration, colleagues. We built a small local Gate as soon as we could after you unloosed the power of your Device, and we attempted to transfer a few small nonliving items through it. I am glad now that we opted for caution and made those items of a nonliving nature, for the result on the other side was rather messy. Parts were recognizable, and that is the best I can say. Many suffered from desiccation, aging, or physical compression. Altra's Jumping seems to cause no such problems for the moment, even when he 'carries' someone with him, but he reports that it is becoming more and more difficult to lump as time passes."

  At this, Altra himself raised his head and spoke up. :I find that the distance I can Jump decreases as time passes. I am afraid that within a few weeks I will not be able to Jump across a given distance any faster than a Companion could run across it.:

  Firesong let out the breath he'd been holding in. I wonder if I ought to go back to k'Leshya after all? I'm not sure I can continue to live like this and not begin to lose my temper, if not my sanity. "Well, that's not welcome news," he said as casually as he could. "Is there anything else?"

  Karal scanned the letter quickly. "Once the bad news is out, he gets a lot more formal and technical; the short version is that Altra can probably bring one or two people from Haven to here before he can't Jump anymore, but that we need to work on a way to communicate with Haven—maybe using scrying Magic that doesn't transfer or move anything physical seems to work better than magic that does. I just hope that if there ar
e shields protecting this place, they wouldn't interfere with scrying, too."

  He handed the letter over to Firesong. "Here, you can get all the details yourself later; most of what he says only partially makes sense to me."

  "I'll study it later," Firesong promised. "The question now is, what are we going to do? If we're going to have Altra bring someone over, we'd better do it soon."

  "If we can get them," An'desha said slowly, "I'd like both Sejanes and Master Levy here."

  Firesong rolled his eyes up at that, but had to grudgingly agree. "If they'll put up with the unpleasantness of Jumping, they would be the best choices." he sighed. "Sejanes has an entire magic discipline that is foreign to us, and Master Levy—" He paused for a moment, reminded himself to be charitable, and chose his words carefully. "Master Levy has a very unique way of looking at our problems. If not him, then we should have at least one of the Master Artificers here. Even I have to admit that we could not have accomplished anything here without their help."

  An'desha and Karal both nodded vigorously in agreement, which made him feel a bit sour, but he had to admit that without the Artificers, they would be working without a resource as valuable as the presence of an Adept. We need that utterly different viewpoint here. And Master Levy might even be as intelligent as he thinks he is.

  :Master Levy and Sejanes have already volunteered,: Altra put in unexpectedly. :I was just waiting to see if you would welcome them here. I can go back for them now, if you'd like, although it will take a few days to get there and back with them.:

  Now Firesong was startled. A few days? Altra's Jumping distances had been severely curtailed! "If it's going to take you days, I think you had better start back now," he told the Firecat." I don't want to think how much faster the situation could deteriorate if we wait."

  The Firecat nodded, and vanished from Karal's lap. Only Lo'isha looked at all dubious when Altra was gone.

  "What's wrong, shaman?" Firesong asked politely, seeing Lo'isha's troubled gaze.

  The Shin'a'in shrugged. "I am only wondering if we should have asked permission of our hosts before we brought more folk in. Hopefully, they will not be offended by the addition of two more strangers."

  Curiously, that slight objection had the effect of hardening Firesong's decision. "If we'd had them here in the first place, we might have a permanent solution instead of a temporary one," he said stubbornly. "I, for one, want them here. Wind and weather, Lo'isha, if you're worried that they might somehow overpower us and escape with secrets of Urtho's forbidden magic, Master Levy doesn't know the first thing about practical magic, and Sejanes is so old that if you spoke a harsh word to him all his bones might break under the force! They're hardly a threat, singly or together"

  "Oh, I agree, but it is not my opinion you must have," Lo'isha began, then shrugged again. "Or, well, perhaps it is. I suppose I have as much authority here as the Kal'enedral." He grimaced. "Much as I dislike taking on authority, I suppose it is time that I did so."

  Since it was Firesong's opinion that it was more than time that he did so, he simply nodded and held his tongue.

  Karal looked fatigued, and Firesong stood up abruptly. "I am going to search for another hidden room. I have the feeling that this place hasn't even begun to divulge its secrets to us. Anyone care to join me?"

  Urtho may have been one of the most brilliant and compassionate minds in history—but his architects were no small geniuses themselves. Firesong already had found one small, hidden room by carefully probing the floor of the "washing" room when he noticed that water, dripped in a particular place, drained away through cracks invisible to the unaided eye. it hadn't held anything—in fact, it had probably performed the task of simple storage—but now he knew that there might be more such places under the floors here, and he had the feeling that if he just looked hard enough, he might find more than just storage areas.

  "I'll help," An'desha said unexpectedly.

  He smiled. "Come along, then," he replied. "I'm trying the skull chamber next."

  The "skull chamber" was the one in which they had discovered a bizarre contraption that looked like the leavings of half a dozen Artificers and shamans all jumbled together with the remains of a few feasts. The centerpiece was a highly ornamented cow skull, and none of them could even begin to guess what the device was for. They would have been afraid to dismantle it, except that the delicate construction had already fallen apart in several places already, and the shock of their magical working had made it fall completely to pieces without any other ill effect.

  Rather than use magic, since the chamber itself reeked of mage-power, Firesong was using perfectly ordinary senses; taking a cue from the water drainage, he had a skin of water with a bit of ink in it to make it more visible, and he dribbled it over the floor, watching to see if it moved or vanished.

  With An'desha helping, the two of them were a lot more effective than he was by himself. It was very boring work, and he had expected An'desha to start a conversation, but he had not anticipated the subject.

  "You're thinking about going back, aren't you?" An'desha said. "To k'Leshya, if not your home Vale."

  He didn't reply at first; he pretended to be paying close attention to the water on the floor. "I'm not used to this sort of living," he said, refusing to answer directly. "It's harder on me than it is on you."

  "I won't debate that," An'desha agreed. "And I hope you don't think I'd put any blame on you for leaving. The gryphons did."

  "But they have two children who need them," he snapped. "I don't. I haven't any excuse for leaving except wanting to be comfortable again!" He felt irrationally irritated at An'desha for voicing all of his excuses, as if he were so transparent that An'desha had no difficulty in anticipating what he wanted to do and his rationalizations.

  The trouble was that every time he looked at Karal, he felt ashamed of himself.

  "It's not as if you haven't done more than most people would have already," An'desha said gently. "First you faced down Falconsbane—"

  "Mornelithe Falconsbane was a challenge, but no more than that," he replied stiffly. "It's not as if I was alone in facing him."

  "It's not as if you had any real reason to," An'desha pointed out inexorably. "Valdemar wasn't your home. Falconsbane didn't threaten the Vales. You'd done your duty in training Heralds to be mages, and then some. You could have gone home once you'd done that much."

  "Leaving whom to face Falconsbane?" Firesong demanded, his face flushing. "One of those half-trained Heralds? Elspeth? Darkwind, perhaps? None of them could have freed you. I'm not certain even Need could have freed you and dealt with Falconsbane."

  An'desha simply nodded quietly. "But when it was over—you could have gone home then. You could even have taken me with you, and things might have turned out differently. You've long since gone past anything anyone could call your duty, Firesong. No one would fault you if you were too tired of all this to go on."

  "And how am I going to compare to someone like Karal if I do that?" he demanded, flushing still further. "Too tired? How would I look, quitting now, next to someone who literally put his life in jeopardy over this?"

  "You make him sound like a would-be martyr," An'desha chided. "Karal is quite a few things, including stubborn, occasionally bigoted, and now and then incredibly naive, but he's no martyr. And neither are you, nor any of us."

  "So?" Aya must have felt his distress; the firebird sailed in the chamber door, adroitly avoided the snare of wires and junk, and landed on his shoulder. He petted the bondbird reflexively in a blind search for comfort. "If he's not a martyr, then—" He stopped, aware that his voice was getting high and strained.

  He took two or three deep breaths. "An'desha, I don't know why you're baiting me this way."

  Then, in a moment of blinding insight, he did know.

  He's forcing me to think things through, so that I come to a real decision, instead of letting some unfinished business and an entire bundle of emotions sway me back and forth
.

  An'desha nodded, as if he saw all that written on Firesong's face.

  I can't make a decision because I'm trying to demonstrate that I'm somehow better than Karal. And I can't make it out of guilt either.

  So why am I staying?

  "What Karal does is up to Karal, but—well, I'm not too old to take a youngster like him as a good example." He smiled weakly. "You all need me, just as you need Sejanes or Master Levy, or Altra. I'm staying because even though I'm tired and I hate living here, it would be wrong of me to go off and leave you without my skills. I don't want to die in the cold and filth, but if I must, I will. It would be wrong to abandon all those people who are hoping we'll find a solution to the final Storm. It would be wrong to break my word to the people I promised I would help. Are those reasons good enough for you?"

  An'desha laughed at that. "Don't think to bait me, Firesong; I was coached by an expert to steer you through your own thoughts and motives."

  He scowled at that. "Are you happy with the result?" he growled.

  "The question is not whether I'm satisfied, it's whether you are," An'desha countered. "And if you are, it is not for me to object. If your decision will interfere with other concerns, then that must be dealt with then."

  He stood up and moved over to another section of floor. Firesong felt an imp of perversity rise inside him, and he knew he had to have the last word.

  "And I didn't mention the best reason of all yet," he said silkily. Surprised, An'desha turned back to face him.

  "What reason is that?" he asked, as if the words had been pulled from him unwillingly.

  Firesong smiled. "Silverfox wants me to stay," he replied. "Can you think of a better reason?"

  Two

  Elspeth sighed, her breath streaming out in a fog of ice-crystals, and pulled the ends of the scarf wrapped around her neck a little tighter. Once again she sent a little thought of gratitude back over her shoulder toward Valdemar and the tireless k'Leshya hertasi who had fashioned her current costume. The little lizard-folk who had arrived with the bargeload of envoys from Clan k'Leshya had taken one look at her winter wardrobe and taken it upon themselves to refashion it, as if they didn't already have enough to do. The hertasi of k'Sheyna had already made her Herald's Whites in the style of the Tayledras, but those had all been of summer-weight fabrics. These new hertasi had remade her Whites in wool, fur, and leather, layered in silk according to patterns designed for her by Darkwind. These had been her Midwinter gift from him to her, and a welcome surprise they had been indeed, for they were certainly needed. Winter Field Whites had been designed for harsh weather, but not as harsh as the unprecedented weather currently holding Hardorn in its icy grip.