The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy
TITLES BY MERCEDES LACKEY
available from DAW Books:
THE NOVELS OF VALDEMAR:
THE HERALDS OF VALDEMAR
ARROWS OF THE QUEEN
ARROW’S FLIGHT
ARROW’S FALL
THE LAST HERALD-MAGE
MAGIC’S PAWN
MAGIC’S PROMISE
MAGIC’S PRICE
THE MAGE WINDS
WINDS OF FATE
WINDS OF CHANGE
WINDS OF FURY
THE MAGE STORMS
STORM WARNING
STORM RISING
STORM BREAKING
VOWS AND HONOR
THE OATHBOUND
OATHBREAKERS
OATHBLOOD
THE COLLEGIUM CHRONICLES
FOUNDATION
INTRIGUES
CHANGES
REDOUBT
BASTION
THE HERALD SPY
CLOSER TO HOME
CLOSER TO THE HEART
BY THE SWORD
BRIGHTLY BURNING
TAKE A THIEF
EXILE’S HONOR
EXILE’S VALOR
VALDEMAR ANTHOLOGIES
SWORD OF ICE
SUN IN GLORY
CROSSROADS
MOVING TARGETS
CHANGING THE WORLD
FINDING THE WAY
UNDER THE VALE
NO TRUE WAY
CRUCIBLE
WRITTEN WITH LARRY DIXON:
THE MAGE WARS
THE BLACK GRYPHON
THE WHITE GRYPHON
THE SILVER GRYPHON
DARIAN’S TALE
OWLFLIGHT
OWLSIGHT
OWLKNIGHT
OTHER NOVELS:
GWENHWYFAR
THE BLACK SWAN
THE DRAGON JOUSTERS
JOUST
ALTA
SANCTUARY
AERIE
THE ELEMENTAL MASTERS
THE SERPENT’S SHADOW
THE GATES OF SLEEP
PHOENIX AND ASHES
THE WIZARD OF LONDON
RESERVED FOR THE CAT
UNNATURAL ISSUE
HOME FROM THE SEA
STEADFAST
BLOOD RED
FROM A HIGH TOWER
A STUDY IN SABLE *
Anthologies:
ELEMENTAL MAGIC
ELEMENTARY
*Coming soon from DAW Books
And don’t miss
THE VALDEMAR COMPANION
edited by John Helfers and Denise Little
MAGIC’S PAWN copyright © 1989 by Mercedes R. Lackey.
MAGIC’S PROMISE copyright © 1990 by Mercedes R. Lackey.
MAGIC’S PRICE copyright © 1990 by Mercedes R. Lackey.
Author’s Note copyright © 2016 by Mercedes R. Lackey.
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art courtesy of Shutterstock.
Individual novel cover art by Jody A. Lee.
Cover design by G-Force Design.
Map by Larry Dixon.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1716.
Published by DAW Books, Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
eBook ISBN 978-0-7564-1142-8
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.
Version_1
Contents
Also by Mercedes Lackey
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
Map
MAGIC’S PAWN CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
MAGIC’S PROMISE CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
MAGIC’S PRICE CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
EPILOGUE
Songs of Vanyel’s Time
INTRODUCTION
I’VE BEEN WRITING for thirty years, professionally.
I began writing a lot earlier than that, as so many of us did; I wrote Andre Norton fanfiction, long before I knew there actually was such a thing as fanfiction. I published short stories in my high school “literary magazine,” which were all, of course, fantasy or science fiction. I continued writing through college, and after college, and somewhere in the back of my mind there was always this dream to write for a living.
I made my first professional sale in 1985, to Marion Zimmer Bradley for one of her Darkover anthologies. But my first published story was a Tarma and Kethry story for Fantasy Book magazine that was published in the same year (the anthology wasn’t published until 1986, I believe). By that time, besides working on short fiction, I had started my first book. I scrapped that, after only about ten thousand words, realizing that I didn’t (yet) have the skills to pull what I wanted to do off. Later (much later!) that became another trilogy for another company. I then started what would become the first of the Arrows of the Queen trilogy.
I sold short stories while working as a computer programmer by day and writing in every bit of my free time. With the help of C. J. Cherryh, I got the manuscript of my first books whipped into shape fit to be seen by a publisher at the same time. C. J. was the one who told me to “commit trilogy” when I presented her with my result. I rewrote them many times under her tutelage, and eventually the books were bought. Several further revisions later, the first two books came out in 1987 and the last in 1988. Elizabeth (Betsy) Wollheim was just starting in her new role as editor-in-chief at DAW, and I think I was one of the first authors who she got to work with from the very beginning.
Once the last of the Arrows books were done, Betsy came to me for more material—but the Herald-Mage book
s were not what got done at that point. Instead, I put together some of the Tarma and Kethry stories that I had been doing for magazines and the Sword and Sorceress anthologies, and presented Betsy with Oathbound and Oathbreakers. That was where I tied those stories into the same world as Valdemar. So for my next trick—
Somehow I had to explain how these lands outside of Valdemar did have real magic, and Valdemar did not. In the Arrows books I had established that Valdemar only had what I referred to as “Mind Magic” (psionics), but no “real” magic. I figured establishing a whole world, the Kingdom of Valdemar, and the Heralds was going to be hard enough without having to come up with a logical system of magic on top of that. (Word to the wise: know your limitations!) But during the course of manuscript revisions, Betsy had said, “This is a fantasy; there has to be some real magic in it.” After a lot of thought, I decided to put in the token “real magic” by having my protagonist, Talia, reading about “The Last Herald-Mage,” Vanyel, who obviously did have “real magic.”
And I promptly forgot about that until Betsy wanted another trilogy.
That was when it occurred to me that I had a built-in protagonist (Vanyel), I already knew—thanks to the Tarma and Kethry stories—how I wanted magic to work, and I had a built-in conflict: just how did Vanyel become the last Herald-Mage? So to me at least, the logical conclusion was that I should write about Vanyel.
However, there was one small potential problem. I had established in those few paragraphs at the beginning of Arrows of the Queen that Vanyel was gay . . . and this was back in the late 1980s. While there were any number of established SF/F writers who had portrayed openly gay characters (Marion Zimmer Bradley, Samuel R. Delaney, and Jessica Salmonson, just to name a few), it was still possible that creating a trilogy about a gay protagonist was going to get me, and DAW into a lot of hot water—especially since my target audience was teens and young adults as well as adults. I pointed this out to Betsy.
Betsy said, “Go for it.”
So I did. And none of us looked back.
I was very honored to receive the Lambda Award for the last book of the trilogy, although the presenters of the award made it clear that they were actually giving the award for the entire trilogy and not just the third book.
And I’ve gotten many letters over the years, and many people personally thanking me for writing the trilogy, either because it allowed them to understand a sibling or friend who had just come out, or because it let them know that there were other people out there who were just like them.
It’s the latter group I want to say a final thing to.
I’m thrilled that I was the source of material that helped you get through a dreadful and trying time in your life. I could not be happier for you. But you were the ones doing the heavy lifting. You were the ones who knew that you were not going to let the world put you in a corner. You were the ones who were actively looking for something to validate what you knew, deep inside, was perfectly normal. If you hadn’t found The Last Herald-Mage, you would have found some other writer’s work. Maybe Marion’s Darkover. Maybe one of Samuel Delaney’s books. Maybe one of Charles de Lint’s. You would have found someone and something, because you were looking, and determined not to give up, and that would have given you that boost to keep you going.
You are the real heroes. I am proud and thrilled to have been part of your journey, but you began the journey, and you kept up with it until you came out on top. It was all you. I’m just glad to have been a part of it.
—Mercedes Lackey
Claremore, Oklahoma
MAGIC’S
PAWN
Dedicated to:
Melanie Mar—just because
and
Mark, Carl, and Dominic
for letting me bounce things off them
CHAPTER 1
“YOUR GRANDFATHER,” said Vanyel’s brawny, fifteen-year-old cousin Radevel, “was crazy.”
He has a point, Vanyel thought, hoping they weren’t about to take an uncontrolled dive down the last of the stairs.
Radevel’s remark had probably been prompted by this very back staircase, one that started at one end of the third-floor servants’ hall and emerged at the rear of a linen closet on the ground floor. The stair treads were so narrow and so slick that not even the servants used it.
The manor-keep of Lord Withen Ashkevron of Forst Reach was a strange and patchworked structure. In Vanyel’s great-great-grandfather’s day it had been a more conventional defensive keep, but by the time Vanyel’s grandfather had held the lands, the border had been pushed far past Forst Reach. The old reprobate had decided when he’d reached late middle age that defense was going to be secondary to comfort. His comfort, primarily.
Not that Vanyel entirely disagreed with Grandfather; he would have been one of the first to vote to fill in the moat and for fireplaces in all the rooms. But the old man had gotten some pretty peculiar notions about what he wanted where—along with a tendency to change his mind in mid-alteration.
There were good points—windows everywhere, and all of them glazed and shuttered. Skylights lighting all the upper rooms and the staircases. Fireplaces in nearly every room. Heated privies, part and parcel of the bathhouse. Every inside wall lathed and plastered against cold and damp. The stables, mews, kennel, and chickenyard banished to new outbuildings.
But there were bad points—if you didn’t know your way, you could really get lost; and there were an awful lot of places you couldn’t get into unless you knew exactly how to get there. Some of those places were important—like the bathhouse and privies. The old goat hadn’t much considered the next generation in his alterations, either; he’d cut up the nursery into servant’s quarters, which meant that until Lord Withen’s boys went into bachelor’s hall and the girls to the bower, they were cramped two and three to a series of very tiny attic-level rooms.
“He was your grandfather, too,” Vanyel felt impelled to point out. The Ashkevron cousins had a tendency to act as if they had no common ancestors with Vanyel and his sibs whenever the subject of Grandfather Joserlin and his alterations came up.
“Huh.” Radevel considered for a moment, then shrugged. “He was still crazy.” He hefted his own load of armor and padding a little higher on his shoulder.
Vanyel held his peace and trotted down the last couple of stone stairs to hold the door open for his cousin. Radevel was doing him a favor, even though Vanyel was certain that cousin Radevel shared everyone else’s low opinion of him. Radevel was far and away the best-natured of the cousins, and the easiest to talk round—and the bribe of Vanyel’s new hawking gauntlet had proved too much for him to resist. Still, it wouldn’t do to get him angry by arguing with him; he might decide he had better things to do than help Vanyel out, gauntlet or no gauntlet.
Oh, gods—let this work, Vanyel thought as they emerged into the gloomy back hall. Did I practice enough with Lissa? Is this going to have a chance against a standard attack? Or am I crazy for even trying?
The hallway was as cold as the staircase had been, and dark to boot. Radevel took the lead, feet slapping on the stone floor as he whistled contentedly—and tunelessly. Vanyel tried not to wince at the mutilation of one of his favorite melodies and drifted silently in his wake, his thoughts as dark as the hallway.
In three days Lissa will be gone—and if I can’t manage to get sent along, I’ll be all alone. Without Lissa . . .
If I can just prove that I need her kind of training, then maybe Father will let me go with her—
That had been the half-formed notion that prompted him to work out the moves of a different style of fighting than what he was supposed to be learning, practicing them in secret with his older sister Lissa: that was what had ultimately led to this little expedition.
That, and the urgent need to show Lord Withen that his eldest son wasn’t the coward the armsmaster claimed he was—and that he could succeed on m
artial ground of his own choosing.
Vanyel wondered why he was the only boy to realize that there were other styles of fighting than armsmaster Jervis taught; he’d read of them, and knew that they had to be just as valid, else why send Lissa off to foster and study with Trevor Corey and his seven would-be sword-ladies? The way Vanyel had it figured, there was no way short of a miracle that he would ever succeed at the brute hack-and-bash system Jervis used—and no way Lord Withen would ever believe that another style was just as good while Jervis had his ear.
Unless Vanyel could show him. Then Father would have to believe his own eyes.
And if I can’t prove it to him—
—oh, gods. I can’t take much more of this.
With Lissa gone to Brenden Keep, his last real ally in the household would be gone, too; his only friend, and the only person who cared for him.
This was the final trial of the plot he’d worked out with Liss; Radevel would try to take him using Jervis’ teachings. Vanyel would try to hold his own, wearing nothing but the padded jerkin and helm, carrying the lightest of target-shields, and trusting to speed and agility to keep him out of trouble.
Radevel kicked open the unlatched door to the practice ground, leaving Vanyel to get it closed before somebody yelled about the draft. The early spring sunlight was painful after the darkness of the hallway; Vanyel squinted as he hurried to catch up with his cousin.
“All right, peacock,” Radevel said good-naturedly, dumping his gear at the edge of the practice ground, and snagging his own gambeson from the pile. “Get yourself ready, and we’ll see if this nonsense of yours has any merit.”
It took Vanyel a lot less time than his cousin to shrug into his “armor”; he offered tentatively to help Radevel with his, but the older boy just snorted.
“Botch mine the way you botch yours? No thanks,” he said, and went on methodically buckling and adjusting.
Vanyel flushed, and stood uncertainly at the side of the sunken practice ground, contemplating the thick, dead grass at his feet.
I never botch anything except when Jervis is watching, he thought bleakly, shivering a little as a bit of cold breeze cut through the gambeson. And then I can’t do anything right.