Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar

by Mercedes Lackey

  Winternight chose to ignore the implication. “What did she do?”

  “As we left the Vale, Stardance made it clear that she did not wish for me to be immediately near her, so I went farther into the forest and watched her from the trees, or through Miel’s eyes. She was diligent, tracking back and forth so that she covered every bit of her assigned area of the forest. She finished in a clearing, and it was there that she seemed to be working magic, although I don’t have enough Mage Sight to know for sure. At times she moved her fingers, very slowly, like she was working with something fragile that was held between them. A couple of times she tilted her head, as though she were listening to something or someone. Then she walked to the stone at the edge of the clearing and held her hands over it, not quite touching it, for a long time. After that, she nearly collapsed and barely managed to stagger back to her ekele. I made sure a hertasi would take care of her and found my father, to tell him.”

  Windwhisperer nodded confirmation, while Silverheart leaned forward. “Did she say anything? Anything at all?”

  “She talked aloud to her bondbird a couple of times, and I think she said something about ‘seeing if it works.’ Other than that, nothing that I heard.”

  When there were no other questions, Windwhisperer nodded a dismissal, and his son slipped out. The Mages turned to Silverheart, waiting for her thoughts. The only Healing Mage in k’Veyas, this was her field, her expertise.

  Silverheart leaned against the wall of the ekele, her eyes half-closed in thought. “Stardance. She was the one more or less adopted by the hertasi who was caught in the Change Circle, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “So. Hurt, angry, lonely, and, from what Windwhisperer said of her last night, stubborn. Not the ideal time for any of us to ask her what she did, and why. And how.”

  “She would not refuse the direct command of the Elders,” Windwhisperer said thoughtfully, “but I agree that she would not respond well.”

  “I need to watch her do this, to see how she is working. But we can’t send anyone extra out with her, or she might not do anything. I wish I could use Mage Sight through Cede’s eyes!”

  “But you can through mine,” Windwhisperer replied. “I realized today that I’m getting a little old and weary to keep up with the scouts,” he continued with a wry smile. “You can link to me, and I can watch her with Far Sight.” He paused, considering. “Is it likely that she could harm herself, or anyone else, if she experiments on her own?”

  Silverheart thought for a moment. “It is possible that she could become too absorbed, too focused, and forget to come back to herself. But if we are watching her, even from a distance I should be able to recognize the signs, and we can use a bondbird to shock her out before she gets lost.” She shrugged. “The magic is so diffuse, so faint, that there is little risk for injury. There just isn’t enough power for her to do anything significant.”

  The Mages all nodded in agreement. Even in these few days after the Storms, magical accidents had been fewer. And smaller.

  Stardance woke, blinking and rubbing her eyes to shake the last traces of exhaustion-headache from her mind. It took a moment for her to remember how she had gotten so drained, and then the images flooded back over her. The magic-haze, the tendrils, memories of Triska . . . She almost murmured the hertasi’s name, waiting for the ache of loss to build, to overwhelm her with emptiness as it had every time she’d thought of Triska in the days since the last Mage Storm—and was stunned when it seemed a little muted, as though she was a tiny bit less raw inside. She would have considered it further, but a hungry Kir was already protesting how late she had slept.

  As morning drew on, once again she gathered with the other Mage students for Windwhisperer’s instructions. Each day they were to expand their search farther away from the Vale, as the scouts and full Mages widened the range of the safe areas.

  Stardance was surprised to be glad when Windwhisperer told them to take areas just beyond those where they had searched the day before. She would have the chance to see what had happened overnight to her little runnel. A tiny bubble of unexpected anticipation welled up within her, not dimmed even when the young scout (Darkmoon? Nightdark? No, Nightblade) again paced his steps to hers as they left the Vale. Today, he seemed less angry, less resentful of his assignment, but she was still relieved when he drifted away from her, farther into the forest.

  When she was sure he was out of her hearing, she slipped between the trees into the clearing where she had threaded the little line together. It was easier today to make the shift in her mind to See the more diffuse energies around her.

  Her little line still glowed to her Mage Sight, tracing down the slope to pool in the large rock. Was the line a little broader, a little stronger than she had left it? Stardance couldn’t be sure, but she thought that maybe it was. The stone itself had retained the magic that trickled through the runnel. She paused, considering. Would it accumulate enough power that it would need an outlet? Reaching out with a gentle touch beyond her shields, she tested the energy in the stone, then released it. Unless a great deal more magic suddenly flooded down the tiny line, the quartz in the stone could hold the gathering power for days, at least. She turned and moved deeper into the forest, heading for the outer limit of the new area she would be searching.

  Silverheart unlinked herself from Windwhisperer’s mind, rubbing her eyes to clear the afterimages of Mage Sight layered on Far Sight.

  “So, what do you think?” the Elder asked her, his eyes closed as he continued to “watch” Stardance move through the forest.

  “She is very young,” the Healing Mage answered slowly, “but her instinct seems good.”

  “Is she truly working with the earth magics on that level?”

  “It seems so. As Dayspring suggested, that is a tiny runnel and rudimentary node—well, more of a locus than a node. Since she knew exactly where they were and only touched them to verify their presence, it appears that she did create them.” Silverheart paused for a moment, considering. “There had been a fairly strong ley-line and node in that clearing. If the girl remembered that, and tried her experiment there because of it, I don’t think we need to monitor her closely until she gets to where there used to be stronger nodes. From the old maps, I think there are two in her area today. One just beside the little waterfall and one closer in, near a stand of pines.”

  There was a brief silence, and Windwhisperer stood, shaking his shoulders to loosen himself as he released his Far Sight half-trance. “I’ve set Tria to watch her and alert me when she nears either of those areas or if she does anything unusual. No sense in using Far Sight for that long if I don’t need to.”

  Silverheart nodded. “It may not take much energy, but there is little from which to replenish yourself. Now, we wait.”

  Stardance looked up, checking her position. Yes, she had completed the first arc of her wedge and was almost at the waterfall that dropped the stream down below the cliffs that had marked the edge of her area the previous day. Hadn’t there been a node, here, too? The ley-lines often followed the patterns of the streams, for there was so much life in the water to supply them.

  This time, she sat comfortably beneath a tree before she twisted her Mage Sight to the broad and shallow focus that allowed her to See the nebulous fog of power. The haze seemed stronger here near the water than it had been in the other clearing. Would it be easier to work with? Opening her shields, she once again cascaded a subtle ripple of magic over her surface, imagining the enticing fragments drawing the diffuse energy toward her.

  Back in his ekele, Windwhisperer sat up and hissed an alert to Silverheart. “Tria says she’s sitting down near the head of the waterfall.” He linked to the kestrel’s eyes, then shifted to his own Far Sight once he had Stardance’s position fixed in his mind. With a soft touch, he felt Silverheart connect to him, and suddenly her Healing Mage Sight layered over his, so that he saw the faint life force limning the area the girl sat in, the haze of frag
mented power that was slowly floating toward her.

  “That’s what you See and work with?” he murmured in amazement, and Silverheart chuckled.

  “Very small, as you see. It takes patience. A lot of patience.”

  “But how is she working with it?”

  Silverheart didn’t answer for a long time as she studied the young girl, watching the fog gradually coalesce into tendrils that reached out toward the girl’s glowing form. “She’s making herself into something like a living lodestone, using some of her own energy to draw the bits of power to herself. Once it connects to her . . .” Her voice trailed off as Stardance raised her hands, her fingers gathering the first of those tentative strands and doing . . . something . . . to blend them.

  Windwhisperer put voice to Silverheart’s question. “What in the Star-Eyed’s Name is she doing?”

  Silverheart had no reply, for she had never seen anyone work with magic this way. Instead of guiding the tiny bits of power with her mind, nudging them together as Silverheart had been taught to do, Stardance used her hands, fingers twisting nimbly but carefully, to blend the fragments together, folding them over each other and weaving—Silverheart was so shocked when the word came to her that she broke her link with Windwhisperer.

  “The hertasi,” she said at last, “Stardance’s caretaker. She worked with cloth?”

  “Ye-es,” Windwhisperer replied, his brow furrowed with confusion.

  Silverheart slowly connected back with him, this time not using her Mage Sight, looking only at the deft movements of the girl’s fingers.

  “She’s spinning the power like thread, weaving it together,” she murmured at last, a hint of awe tinging her voice. “That’s how she could attempt it, without any training in guiding the subtle magics. She’s using her own power to connect with it and then treating the tiny bits of energy like the bits of fiber to be spun into thread.” With a twist of her mind, she shifted into her Healing Mage Sight, again sharing what she saw with Windwhisperer, and they watched as Stardance blended the last of the tendrils that she had drawn to her with the ones that already wound together around her coruscating fingertips. Then the girl slowly shifted, drawing her hands and the fragile strand of magic to the rock that had once anchored the waterfall’s node.

  “How is she going to connect—oh, she’s using her own power again.” Silverheart answered her own question as Stardance held her hands over the stone, then rippled some of her personal energy down to it, to guide the tiny runnel down from her hands.

  “This one is larger than the one she created yesterday,” Silverheart murmured. “I hope she doesn’t . . .” Even as the words left her, they both saw the little line “snap” into the earth, and the girl pitched forward, unconscious. Her bondbird was instantly beside her, her beak wide with distress cries, and Windwhisperer’s Tria soon joined the falcon, her presence calming the larger but younger bird. In another moment, they saw Nightblade drop from one of the nearby trees, carefully turning the girl over and checking for injuries before scooping her up and heading back toward the Vale.

  Windwhisperer released his Far Sight, and Silverheart broke her link with him, the two of them staring at each other in disbelief.

  “Should we question her when she is restored? Will she be more open to talking? Does she even realize how very important it is, what she has done with no instruction, nothing beyond that of the other trainees?”

  Windwhisperer shook his head. “I think she is still too fragile, too hurt for questions. She has lost much, this one, and the Storms especially have taken much from her. It would be good for her if something could be gained from them, as well. If she is not a danger, if she is not creating anything that she cannot handle, can she be left to make that discovery on her own?”

  Silverheart frowned, thought a moment, then determination set in her eyes. “K’Veyas needs her to be trained in her new-found Gift before it becomes too strong. To do something once is accident, twice is coincidence, but a third time . . . if she goes out tomorrow, I want to follow her. If she attempts this again, I will have to interrupt, to confront her in some way. It may not be dangerous now, but if left too long, it could become so.”

  The last traces of exhaustion-headache were stronger this time, more difficult to shake free. Stardance frowned. She had no memory of coming back to her ekele, although she vaguely recalled being on her bedroll already when one of the hertasi had brought her the cool, refreshing drink commonly used by those who overextended their Gifts. Other than that brief exchange, her last clear recollection was of creating the second little ley-line. The thought of it made her smile—they were things of beauty in their own way, the tiny runnels of power that she had spun together. Hadn’t there been another node, too, in the area she had been in, near the stand of pines? Maybe she could go back out to that one today. If she could not weave works of beauty with Triska, perhaps—she paused, then probed the thought of Triska. For the first time, the ache didn’t threaten to swallow her, and she didn’t feel cut open on the sharp and jagged edges of grief.

  Before she could ponder further, Kir chirped from her perch, Sending a feeling of combined hunger and eagerness to stretch her wings. Stardance rose and freed her bondbird from her hood, a faint thread of anticipation to match the falcon’s dawning within her.

  Discordance

  Jennifer Brozek

  Rax wept in what was left of his ale as the Bard finished the ballad of love lost and betrayal. It wasn’t like him to lose his composure outside the house, but things had been so difficult this season, and he didn’t see it getting any easier with the baby on the way. As the Bard struck up the next tune, a war chant with a heavy drumbeat, Rax called out to the bar wench.

  “Sarry, get me another and another after that.” He felt the chant beat in time with his heart and felt his blood rise to combat the sorrow.

  Come, come, come to the beat of the drum, drum, drum.

  And kill, kill, kill with your sharpened sword!

  To take, take, take every last crumb, crumb, crumb.

  And do as you will!

  Sarry, distracted by a handsome man with coin, ignored him, fussing over her target for a tip and possibly a tumble later if the stars aligned.

  “Sarry!”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him and smiled a tight-lipped smirk that told him all he needed to know before turning back to the man before her. “Is there anything else I can get you, Seder?”

  Before Seder could answer, a clay mug sailed past Sarry’s ear and crashed against the wall in a shower of shards and dregs of ale. Sarry turned to see Rax standing tall and shaking with rage. The mood of the tavern turned ugly with the beat of the drum and song of violence. Rax took a step toward the bar wench, only to be stopped by another growling man—already angry at the sound of Rax’s voice.

  She didn’t see the first punch or who threw it. Years of experience in rough places told her this was going to be trouble and wouldn’t stop until blood was shed. As she fled to the back of the tavern, the room erupted in chaos—men yelling and swearing, the pummeling of fists on flesh, the crash of furniture thrown, and the sharp sound of metal weapons being unsheathed.

  Mathias grabbed her and pulled her behind the bar. She let him do it, thinking that he was trying to protect her. Instead, she found herself flattened face down on the dirt floor with him behind her—one hand holding her down, the other fumbling with her skirts. She had a brief moment of confusion. She trusted Mathias. He’d always protected her. Now, this? Sarry let the rage of being attacked flow over her, and the pounding of her furious heart beat in her head like the sound of the Bard’s drum.

  Sarry screamed her rage, bucking her body up as she reached for a weapon. Her hand found one: a large serving fork. As Mathias wrestled with her, trying to hold her down, she twisted her body around and stabbed the man who had been her friend, protector, and boss in the throat. Blood spurted from the wound as he reared up in pain and she yanked the fork back. They both screamed n
ow, two more voices in the din of the total tavern melee. She plunged the fork deep into his stomach.

  On the other side of the bar, Rax already lay dead with his head caved in by a chair. Seder was dying; a sword pierced his chest, and his enemy was being beaten to death by two other men using clubs and their feet. Those who were not fighting were dead.

  Except for one.

  No one noticed when the music stopped. Nor did they notice when the Bard picked up his pack and drum and walked with careful steps through the violence and out the door.

  The only survivor of the night, Sarry, would not remember what the Bard’s name was or what he looked like.

  Terek frowned at the letter in his hand. Usually, letters from home were a thing of joy. Not today. There had been a brawl at a tavern, and people had died. People he knew. Mathias had been a brother to him. His death was a shock. He closed his eyes and rubbed his brow. There is more to this, he thought. People don’t murder each other over ale. Maybe in the slums of Haven, but not in Woodberry. Not in a tiny settlement like that. Something within his Gift told him he was right.

  “Terek?”

  He opened his eyes and smiled at the always fashionable Mari. She was a Bard who knew those worth knowing in the court, and she looked the part. “Yes?” He frowned at the worry lines around her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure, but I was listening to a couple of Heralds talking and I think something’s happening.”

  He gestured for her to come in and sit down. “Tell me.”

  “I’m not sure what’s happening,” she repeated. “I got a letter from home. A friend of mine died while carousing with his friends.” She bit her lip, marshaling her thoughts. “Then I heard the Heralds talking. They’d just come off Circuit, and there was a bit of bad business in the North. They had to judge a murderer. The thing is, at first, I thought they were talking about the death of my friend because everything was the same—the victim had been killed in a huge tavern brawl. But they weren’t. They were talking about someone else. So, I asked them more about it. Two different villages, next to each other, had the same thing happen about a sennight apart. Bar fight, unusual amount of death.”