Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar v(-101 Read online

  He had the power to observe things at a distance, and so discerned a sword among the wedding gifts, its blade smeared with grease as such fine weapons generally come from the maker. He decided to switch the sword for the costly one his family had interred with him. Baltes and Lukinda had received such an abundance of presents that it seemed unlikely anyone would notice the substitution.

  Yshan emerged from the crypts late one night, had the bad luck to encounter Venwell, and killed him to silence them. He then gave his sword a more thorough cleaning than any common housebreaker, eager to flee, would have done. It couldn’t have even a drop of blood on it if it was to pass for a new weapon.

  He made the substitution, stole the tiara simply to bolster the impression that an ordinary thief had invaded the mansion, and returned to his vault. In the days that followed, the enchantments he’d laid on the emerald sword began their work. First, a glamour made Baltes yearn to wear the blade without delay. I’d felt the power myself, if only I’d had the wit to realize it. Next, its influence nudged the Keenspurs back toward the rancor of yore.

  And through it all, Tregan never sensed supernatural forces at work because Yshan had trained him and held some tricks in reserve. Tricks that allowed him to operate without his successor detecting it.

  I doubted he was detecting anything now, either, and that meant I had to get upstairs fast. Because I suspected the warlock’s sword had a final trick to play.

  The Keenspurs were holding the wedding in their great hall, before hundreds of guests. Lukinda was plump, freckled, and pretty in her gown of shining white, the priestess, matronly in vestments of green. Baltes wore the emerald sword. From the looks of it, the ceremony was nearing its conclusion.

  “Stop!” I bellowed, starting up the aisle. “Lord Baltes, throw away your sword! It’s cursed!”

  Everyone turned to gawk at me, and I realized what a peculiar spectacle I must be, clad like a laborer, my legs filthy, a blade in my hand.

  Then Dremloc cried, “It’s Selden!” The dye in my hair wasn’t enough to fool him.

  Several of the Keenspurs rose to bar my way. “Get out of here, lunatic,” said one, hand on the hilt of his dagger.

  “You don’t understand,” I said.

  Nor were they disposed to listen. As they advanced on me, and all the other guests gawked at us, Baltes whipped Yshan’s sword from its scabbard and lifted it to threaten his dumbfounded bride.

  The priestess grabbed his arm, but he shook her off and shoved her reeling. Nobody else saw, because they were all looking at me, and I could do nothing. The entire length of the hall, and the folk intent on ejecting me or worse, separated me from the altar.

  Which meant that despite all my efforts, Baltes would commit the atrocity Yshan had intended. Then the Blues would rise up in fury, the Greens would have no option but to defend themselves, and any nobles who survived this day would prosecute the blood-feud for years to come.

  Or so it seemed. But it turned out that someone had heeded my warning after all. Marissa hurled herself at Baltes and grappled with him. She softened him up with a knee to the groin, then twisted his arm. The emerald sword dropped from his fingers.

  As soon as it did, he stopped struggling. “Blessed Goddess!” he whimpered, his voice full of horror. “Blessed Goddess!”

  By then, people were finally taking note of what was happening before the altar. I cast about and found Tregan. “The evil’s in the blade,” I reiterated. “Surely you can sense it now.”

  He peered at the fallen weapon, then growled, “Yes.” He muttered words of power, swept his right hand through a pass, and a ragged darkness swirled up from the sword. People cried out and cringed, but Tregan had the demon, if that was what it was, under control, and it couldn’t hurt us. It wailed as it withered away.

  Afterward came explanations, and reassurances to the frightened Lukinda and her understandably agitated kin. During the course of it all, Baltes, still white-faced and shaky, told me, “Master Selden, I owe you a hundred apologies. What can I do to make amends?”

  I grinned. “Finish the wedding, invite me to the feast, and give me a purse heavy with gold.”

  Marissa said, “I think I’m due a split.”

  DAWN OF SORROWS

  by Brenda Cooper

  Brenda Cooper has published fiction and poetry in

  Analog, Oceans of the Mind, Strange Horizons,

  and

  The Salal Review,

  and been included in the anthologies

  Sun In Glory

  and

  Maiden, Matron, Crone

  . Brenda’s collaborative fiction with Larry Niven has appeared in

  Analog

  and

  Asimov’s,

  and their novel,

  Building Harlequin’s Moon,

  appeared in 2005. Brenda lives in Bellevue, Washington, with her partner Toni, Toni’s daughter Katie, a border collie, two gerbils, and a hamster. By day, she works as the City of Kirkland’s CIO, applying her interests in science, technology, and the future to day-to-day computer operations and strategic planning. She writes for

  Futurist.com

  and can sometimes be found speaking about the future, and suggesting that science fiction books make great reading. The rest of the time, she’s writing, reading, exercising, or exploring life with her family.

  BARD Jocelyn paused at the crest of the hill and looked down at the peaceful town of Sunny Valley spilling between two sets of lower hills below. The midday sun washed the houses and fields in bright, cheerful warmth, as if the town smiled up at her and Bard Silver. She turned to look back, where Bard Silver trailed behind, one slender white hand against her side, the other wiping sweat from her forehead. Jocelyn wanted to push down to Sunny Valley, buy supplies, and keep right on going. But Silver needed a break, even if she wasn’t complaining.

  Standing sideways, Jocelyn watched Silver struggle up the last few steps to stand beside her on the crest of the hill. Soft midsummer wind blew tendrils of ash-blonde hair across the younger woman’s white face, obscuring the light freckles on her nose. Silver was pretty enough to draw a crowd anywhere; between the silver eyes she drew her nickname from, her alabaster skin, and her slender height, she looked more like a fairy-tale princess than a young Bard fresh to her Scarlets.

  Might as well be nice to the girl—it wasn’t her fault her beauty was so like Dawn’s, not any more that it was her fault the powers-that-be in Bardic had decided Jocelyn needed a partner. She didn’t, of course. She’d been just fine on her own the last five years. She sighed. “We’ll take a break here.” She gestured toward a convenient tumble of white-and-gray rocks, then dug into her pack and pulled out two red apples, handing one to Silver.

  Silver settled on the sheep-cropped grass, took the apple daintily, and bit into it. “Thank you.”

  Ashamed of her curtness, Jocelyn stepped into her pleasant performance voice. “No problem.” She picked out a flat rock, sat down, and took a bite of her own apple. “Do you have any questions? Is there anything you’d like to know?” Maybe Silver wanted to know about their trip—they were going to walk a circuit all the way to the border and back, and would be expected to perform, and listen for news, starting in just a few days. This was, after all, Silver’s first long journey away from Haven.

  Silver nodded and finished her apple in thoughtful silence. Then she turned toward Jocelyn, a small mischievous gleam in her eye. “I want to hear the story behind Dawn of Sorrows.”

  Jocelyn sat back against the sun-warmed granite rock and crossed one long leg over the other. This was why she hadn’t wanted to travel with anyone. “I don’t tell that story.”

  Silver laughed nervously. “You’re famous for ‘Dawn of Sorrows.’ But no one knows the real story, just the song. I thought—” she looked away, as if suddenly shy, “—I thought maybe you’d be willing to tell me. I know the song tells the story, but there must be more details. I want to write a song that matters some day.”<
br />
  Jocelyn bit back a suggestion that no one should want to write a song like “Dawn of Sorrows.” She finished her apple. She didn’t have to answer Silver, not right away. She was the elder by seven years, after all. She threw her apple core into the woods for the ants, then captured the most unruly bits of her own red hair with her left hand and looked down. From this distance and height, the people working the ripening fields looked like brightly colored moving dots. But she remembered looking down on another town. . . .

  Despite the day’s warmth, she shivered.

  She’d managed not to talk about Dawn for at least five years, and not to sing the song herself for almost as long. It was impossible, of course, not to hear it. “Dawn of Sorrows” was one of those songs that took on its own life and became part of the repertoire of nearly every minstrel and bard. Some days, she wished she’d never written it. She hadn’t written anything else since.

  Maybe she should talk about it, maybe that would teach Silver that adventure wasn’t always easy, that sometimes it tore you right up. Jocelyn sighed. Bard Dennis had assigned her to travel with Silver for a full season. She’d have to talk to the girl eventually.

  Jocelyn had pushed Silver by setting a hard pace, and the girl had kept up. She’d asked for silence and Silver had let her have a polite and respectful quiet. She didn’t deserve to have her first question rebuffed.

  Jocelyn took a sip of water and settled back. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little touchy. I’ll start by telling you Dawn’s story . . . her story from before I met her.”

  Silver sighed, a smile edging her pale pink lips, anticipation brightening her eyes. She pillowed her head on her scarlet cloak and closed her eyes, relaxed and still, as if she listened with her whole body.

  Jocelyn nodded in silent approval—the Bardic Gift was akin to empathy, and when Silver focused her energy on listening as hard as Jocelyn focused hers on storytelling, they’d both feel Jocelyn’s emotions. She whispered, almost to herself, “I hope you’re ready to hear the story.”

  Silver opened her eyes and regarded Jocelyn gravely. “Try me.”

  “Dawn lived in Johnson’s Ford, a border town near Hardorn. I call it a town just because it had a name, but it was really just a handful of houses. Maybe thirty people or forty. Not a bad place, not really, but like other border towns: raiders and bandits swooped down from time to time, bellies grumbled and old people died when the winters were hard, and the granaries never overflowed. Other small towns nearby traded with them, but they didn’t get much news or many minstrels or Bards. So the people of Johnson’s Ford didn’t understand the big things shaping up in Valdemar, like Elspeth becoming the first Herald-Mage since Vanyel.”

  Jocelyn paused, watching a lone hawk circle lazily just above her eye level. If only she could fly alone like that today. “No, Johnson’s Ford mostly worried about surviving the storms that plagued Valdemar that year. Oh, the impending war with Hardorn had grazed the town, rattling nerves and stealing young men. But Johnson’s Ford was far from anything strategic except the ford itself. . . .” Jocelyn let her voice trail off. She was taking too long, making the story hard to get into. She closed her eyes and focused her breath deep in her belly, letting her loss and pain creep up so it would fill her, her story, with true emotion. Her breath quickened.

  Silver opened her eyes, as if curious about the long pause, but she closed them again, content to wait.

  Jocelyn swallowed. “The year before Elspeth’s return, a pack of black wolves that had been twisted by Ancar’s mages came through town, and Dawn’s husband, Drake, and two other men died defending their homes. A nasty death, as quick and as unexpected in Dawn’s life as a lightning strike. She kept living in the little two-room house that Drake died for, alone except for their daughter, eight-year-old Lisle. Oh, Dawn was pretty enough that she did get a few offers from other men, but she turned them all down, for she had been truly in love with Drake.

  “Dawn had no other family in Johnson’s Ford. Lisle became her anchor, her ground. They were inseparable. They worked side by side, minding the sheep in the morning and weeding the fields in the afternoon. Neither had the Bardic Gift, but either could have been minstrels, and they sang together when they worked and sometimes they sang for town gatherings.”

  Silver’s eyes were bright with curiosity. “So what did Dawn look like?”

  Jocelyn cocked her head, studying the other woman. “A little like you.” She arched an eyebrow, shook her head. “But not so light, or so thin. Her eyes weren’t silver, they were dark and warm, like walnut. . . .” She shook her head again.

  Silver frowned, puzzled. “So she’d already lost her husband, before you even met her?”

  “Yes.” Jocelyn paused. “So the first stanza of her song happened before I met her. That’s the only part of the song I didn’t see.” She took a deep breath and threaded her fingers through her hair.

  “I took my journeyman trip alone, and for a purpose. Selenay had given word that Valdemar was her people and not her places. She sent Heralds out to tell the people along Hardorn’s border to leave, but there weren’t enough Heralds available, so some Bards were selected as well. Our goal was to take Selenay’s message to every single person near Hardorn.” She glanced at Silver, caught her pale eyes with her own. “We were to use our Gift to convince them, if we had to. You know, that business about it being okay to use your Gift on the business of the crown.”

  Silver nodded, smiling wryly. “I know the rules.” She sat up, picking at the grass beside her in small, nervous motions.

  “I’m sorry.” She’d been Silver’s age the year she met Dawn. So why did Silver seem so much younger than she remembered being herself? Jocelyn uncrossed her legs and bunched her red cloak under her knees to serve as cushioning. “That was the year the Companions searched Valdemar high and low for Mage Gift.

  “I was walking the last half mile or so to Johnson’s Ford when a lone Companion trotted past, her head up, her nostrils flared as though she smelled something good. I remember how it felt for her to pass me. Just for a moment, I wished she would Choose me. But of course, I already had my scarlets, and though I wouldn’t refuse a Companion, I didn’t really hope for one anymore.

  “But I was going down the same road, and I’d never seen a Choosing take place. I quickened my steps, turning a corner just in time to see the Companion stop in front of a little girl and her mother. The girl had dark hair, the mother light. They both had pert noses and wide eyes and slender builds. It was, of course, Dawn and Lisle. Both were beautiful, and the Companion in front of them was beautiful, and all together it called up all every Choosing song and story I’d ever heard.” She could see it in her mind all over again, as if the Companion and her Chosen stood in front of her right then. Even now, years later, it awed her. “There are no words for the grace with which the Companion bowed down to that little girl and lowered her gorgeous head so her bright blue eyes met Lisle’s dark ones. I stopped no more than twelve feet away from them, and I swear I felt something flow between the Companion and the girl, some magic like the magic in a room when a Master Bard weaves his or her Gift into a powerful song.

  “The girl held her arm up and she spoke the Companion’s name, ‘Tamay.’ I could hear the love in that one word, even from twelve feet away. Surely Dawn heard it, too.” Jocelyn paused again, for effect.

  “Tears began to flow down Dawn’s face.

  “Lisle didn’t notice.

  “Tamay knelt even farther down, and nuzzled the girl. Lisle climbed up on Tamay’s foam-white back, and clutched Tamay’s bright white mane, her eyes shining with pleasure.

  “Tamay stood completely still, unnaturally still, looking at Dawn. Dawn stood her ground, gazing back, brown eyes into blue. They stood that way so long my legs began to shiver from standing. There was a conversation going on between them that I couldn’t hear. And all that time, Lisle sat on Tamay’s back and twisted her hands in her new Companion’s white mane and watched her mom’s fac
e.

  “Finally, Dawn nodded. She wiped her eyes and took three steps toward Lisle. She reached up, took Lisle’s small hands, and kissed them, smiling up at her daughter through damp eyes. She whispered, ‘I love you, honey. Take good care,’ just barely loud enough for me to hear, and her little girl whispered back, ‘I love you, Mommy, and I’m sorry.’

  “Dawn said, ‘Don’t ever be sorry,’ and let Lisle’s fingers slip from hers.

  “The Companion turned and passed me by. She gave me a look that didn’t need Mindspeech to read. She might as well have spoken out loud and said, ‘Take care of this woman for me.’ ”

  Jocelyn paused. This was the heart of the song, and she wanted to be sure Silver felt it. Silver had turned her head, but when she turned it back to see why Jocelyn had stopped talking, tears glistened in the corners of her eyes.

  Jocelyn noted the tears, smiled, and kept the story moving. “I reached for Dawn, but she had already fallen to her knees in the dirt, head buried in her hands. Sobs shook her whole body. I knelt by her side, my hand on her slender, heaving back. I sang softly, soothing her as best I could.”

  Silver’s voice was soft and warm, concerned. “And that’s when the last stanza starts.”

  Jocelyn nodded. “Her tears were pure sorrow. I’d never heard such a forlorn sound before, and haven’t since, not from animal or human. I wanted to help her more than I’d ever wanted anything, for her sake, and for Tamay’s and Lisle’s, too. For all of our sakes. Seeing Lisle’s Choosing felt like a symbol of all that Valdemar holds dear, all the love, all the sacrifice, all the magic. It showed me what Ancar wanted to take from us.” She glanced back down at the peaceful summer scene below them, and spread her arm out over the town, encouraging Silver to see the peace.

  “When I’d thought about Choosing before, I’d only seen the joy and shock and bewilderment of it, never the price. Companions choose who they choose, of course, and usually it’s not first or only children; usually it’s a blessing to the family left behind. Surely, Lisle must have a special part to play, but that’s not part of this story.”