The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy Read online

  For one moment—for one precious moment—Tylendel thought he had him; he was sure that the boy was going to open up to him. His eyes begged for pity; his expression, so hungry and haunted, nearly cracked Tylendel’s own calm. The trainee made a tentative step toward him—

  It was the wrong move; he knew that immediately. Vanyel’s face shuttered and assumed his habitual expression of flippant arrogance. “Wrong?” he said, with false gaiety. “Bright Lady, no, of course there’s nothing wrong! Some of the Bards just came over from their Collegium and started an impromptu contest; it got so damned hot in the Great Hall with all those people crowded in that I gave up—”

  Just then the shutters in both the lifebonded’s room and Savil’s crashed against the walls with such force that it was a wonder that the windows didn’t shatter.

  “Havens!” Vanyel yelped. “She’ll kill us!” and dove for Savil’s room. Tylendel dashed into the other, mentally cursing his own clumsiness, and cursing himself for letting his reaction to the boy cloud his reading of him.

  By the time he got everything secured and returned to the common room, Vanyel had retreated into his own room and the door was firmly and irrevocably shut.

  • • •

  “Vanyel,” the trainee said, softly, his eyes dark with compassion and understanding, “Is something wrong?”

  “I—” Vanyel began, then closed his eyes as a fit of trembling hit him. “I—the music—I—”

  Suddenly Tylendel was beside him, holding him, quieting his shivering. “It’s all right,” he murmured into Vanyel’s ear, his breath warm and like a caress in his hair. “It’s all right, I understand.”

  Vanyel stood as unmoving as a dead stick, hardly daring to breathe, afraid to open his eyes. Tylendel stroked his hair, the back of his neck, his hands warm and light—and Vanyel thought his heart was going to pound itself to pieces. “I understand,” he repeated. “I know what it’s like to want something, and know you’ll never have it.”

  “You—do?” Vanyel faltered.

  Tylendel chuckled. It was a warm, rich sound.

  And his fingers traced the line of Vanyel’s spine, slowly, sensuously. Vanyel started to relax in Tylendel’s arms—and his eyes popped open in startlement when his own hands at Tylendel’s chest encountered, not cloth, but skin.

  The trainee was starkly, gloriously nude.

  “Then again,” Tylendel whispered, looking deeply into Vanyel’s eyes. “Maybe I will get it.”

  Vanyel made a strangling noise, wrenched himself away, and fled into darkness, into cold—

  Into the middle of his old dream.

  First there had been the snow-plain, then as he walked across it, the teeth of ice had begun poking their way up through the granular snow. They’d grown higher as he walked, but what he hadn’t known was that they were growing behind him as well. Now he was trapped inside a ring of them. Trapped inside walls of ice, smoother than the smoothest glass, colder than the coldest winter. He couldn’t break out; he pounded on them until his arms were leaden, to no effect. Everywhere he looked—ice, snow, nothing alive, nothing but white and pale blue and silver. Even the sky was white. And he was so alone—so terribly alone.

  Nothing soft, nothing comforting. Nothing welcoming. Only the ice, only the unyielding, unmoving ice and the white, grainy snow.

  He was cold. So appallingly cold—so frozen that he ached all over.

  He had to get out.

  Hoping to climb over the barrier, he reached for the top of one of the ice-walls, and pulled back his hands as pain stabbed through them. He stared at them stupidly. His palms were slashed nearly to the bone, and blood oozed sluggishly from the cuts to pool at his feet.

  There was blood on the snow; red blood—but as he stared at it in numb fascination, it turned blue.

  Then his hands began to burn with the cold, yet fiery pain of the wounds. He gasped, and tears blurred his vision; he wanted to scream, but could only moan. Gods, it hurt, he’d give anything to make it stop hurting!

  Suddenly, the pain did stop; his hands went numb. His eyes cleared and he looked down at his injured hands again—and saw to his horror that the slashes had frozen over and his hands were turning to ice; blue, and shiny, and utterly without feeling. Even as he gazed at them, the ice crept farther up; over his wrists, crawling up his forearms—and he cried out—

  Then he wasn’t there anymore, he was somewhere else. It was dark, but he could see; by the lightning, by a strange blue glow about him. Lightning flickered overhead, and seemed to be controlled by what he did or thought; he was standing on a mound of snow in the center of a very narrow valley. To either side of him were walls of ice that towered over his head, reaching to the night sky in sheer, crystalline perfection. Behind him—there was nothing—somehow he knew this. But before him—

  “Vanyel!”

  Before him an army; an army of mindless monsters—creatures with only one goal. To get past him. Already he was wounded; he twisted to direct the lightning to lash into their ranks, and felt pain lancing down his right side, felt the hot blood trickling down his leg into his boot and freezing there. There were too many of them. He was doomed. He gasped and wept at the horrible pain in his side, and knew that he was dying. Dying alone. So appallingly alone—

  “Vanyel!”

  He struggled up out of the canyon of ice, out of the depth of sleep; shaken out of the nightmare by hot, almost scorching hands on his shoulders and a commanding voice in his ears.

  He blinked; feeling things, and not connecting them. His eyes hurt; he’d been crying. His hair, his pillow were soggy with tears, and he was still so cold—too cold even to shiver. That was why Tylendel’s hands on his bare shoulders felt so hot.

  “Vanyel—” Tylendel’s eyes were a soft sable in the light of the tiny bedside candle; like dark windows on the night, windows that somehow reflected concern. His hands felt like branding irons on Vanyel’s skin. “Gods, Vanyel, you’re like ice!”

  As he tried to sit up, Vanyel realized that he was still leaking tears.

  As soon as he started moving he began shivering so hard he couldn’t speak. “I—” he said, and could get nothing more out.

  Tylendel snagged his robe from the foot of the bed without even looking around, and wrapped it about his naked shoulders. It wasn’t enough. Vanyel shook with tremors he could not stop, and the robe wasn’t doing anything to warm him.

  “Vanyel,” Tylendel began, then simply wrapped his arms around Vanyel and held him.

  Vanyel resisted—tried to pull away.

  He blinked.

  The snow-plain stretched all around him, empty—but not asking anything of him. Cold, but not a threat. But lonely, lonely—oh, gods, how empty—

  But not asking, not hurting—

  He blinked again, and Tylendel was still there, still staring into his eyes with an openness and a concern he could not doubt.

  “Go away!” he gasped, waiting for pain, waiting to be laughed at.

  “Why?” Tylendel asked, quietly. “I want to help you.”

  He was turning to ice; soon there would be no feeling and nothing to feel—and he would be trapped.

  Tylendel took advantage of his distraction to get his arms around him. “Van, I wouldn’t hurt you. I couldn’t hurt you.”

  He closed his eyes and gasped for breath, his chest tight and hurting. —oh, gods—I want this—

  “I’m just trying to get you warm again,” Tylendel said with a hint of impatience. “That’s all. Relax, will you?”

  He did relax; he couldn’t maintain his indifference—and to his shame, began crying again—and he couldn’t stop the tears any more than he could the shivering.

  But not only did Tylendel not seem to mind—

  “Come on, Vanyel,” he soothed, pulling him into a comfortable position on his shoulder, supporting him lik
e a little child. “It’s all right, I told you I won’t hurt you. I wouldn’t ever hurt you. Cry yourself out, it’s just you and me, and I’ll never tell anyone. On my honor. Absolutely on my honor.”

  It was already too late to save his battered dignity anyway—

  Vanyel surrendered appearance, self-respect, everything. He sagged against Tylendel’s shoulder, burying his face in Tylendel’s soft, worn, blue robe. He let the last of his pride dissolve, releasing all the tears he’d been keeping behind his walls of indifference and arrogance. Soon he was crying so hard he couldn’t even think, just cling to Tylendel’s shoulders and sob. He didn’t really hear what Tylendel was saying, only the tone of his voice registered in his sleep-mazed grief; comforting, compassionate, caring.

  He cried his eyes sore and dry; he cried until his nose felt swollen to the size of an apple. All the time he shivered with the terrible cold that seemed to have become one with his very bones; shivered until the bed shook.

  Finally there just weren’t any tears left—and he wasn’t shivering anymore, he was warm—and more than warm; protected. And completely exhausted. Tylendel held him as carefully as if he was made of spun glass and would shatter at a breath; just held him. That was all.

  It was enough. It was more than he ever remembered having. He wished it could last forever.

  —may the gods help me. I’ve always wanted this—

  “Done?” Tylendel asked, very quietly, a good while after the last of the sobs and the tremors had finished shaking his body.

  He nodded, reluctantly, and felt the arms holding him relax. He sat up again, and Tylendel cupped both his hands around his face, turning him into the light. He winced away from it, knowing what he must look like; the trainee chuckled, but it had a kindly, not a mocking, sound.

  “You’re a mess, peacock,” he said, somehow making the words a joke to be shared between them. Vanyel smiled, tentatively, and Tylendel dabbed at his eyes with the corner of the sheet.

  “Do you have so common a thing as a handkerchief around here?” he asked, quite casually. Vanyel nodded, and fumbled at the drawer of the bedside table until Tylendel patted his hand away and got the square of linen out of it himself.

  “Here,” he gave it to Vanyel, then settled back a little. “I couldn’t sleep; got up to get some wine and heard you. Do this often?”

  Vanyel blew his nose, and looked up at the older boy through half-swollen eyes. “Often enough,” he confessed.

  “Nightmare?”

  He nodded, and looked down at his hands.

  “Know why?”

  “No,” he whispered. But he did. He did. It was hearing the Bards—hearing what he’d never, ever have—and then encountering Tylendel and knowing—

  Gods.

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  He dared another glance at the trainee; the quiet face of the older boy was not easy to read, but there were no signs of deception there that Vanyel could see.

  But—

  “You’ll laugh at me,” he said, ready to pull away again.

  “No. On my honor. Van, I don’t lie. I won’t laugh at you, and nothing you tell me will go outside this room unless you want it to.”

  Vanyel shivered again, and without any warning at all, the words came spilling out.

  “It’s—ice,” he said, sniffing, studying his hands and the handkerchief he had twisted up in them. “It’s all around me; I’m trapped, I can’t get out, and I’m so cold—so cold. Then I cut myself, and I start to turn into ice. Then—sometimes, like tonight—I’m somewhere else, and I’m fighting these things, and I know I’m going to die. And the worst of it isn’t the pain, or the dying—it’s that—that—” He faltered. “—I’m—all alone. So totally alone—”

  It sounded so banal, so incredibly foolish, just put into words like that. Especially when he didn’t, couldn’t, tell Tylendel the rest, the part about him. He looked up, expecting to see mockery in the older boy’s face—and froze, seeing nothing of the kind.

  “Van, I think I know what you mean,” Tylendel said slowly. “There are times when—when being alone is a hurt that’s worse than dying. When it’s easier to die than to be alone. Aren’t there?”

  Vanyel blinked, caught without words.

  Tylendel’s voice was so soft he might well have been speaking to himself. “Sometimes, maybe it’s better to have had someone and lost them than to have never had anyone—”

  Then Tylendel’s eyes focused for a moment on Vanyel. And Vanyel’s heart spasmed at the flash of emotion he saw. A longing he’d not ever dreamed to see there. Directed at him.

  —oh—gods. I never—I thought—he can’t—

  He does. He is. Father will—

  I don’t care!

  He snatched at what was proffered before it could be taken away.

  “Vanyel—” the blond began.

  “’Lendel—” Vanyel interrupted, urgently, daring the nickname he’d heard his aunt use. “Stay with me—please. Please.” His words tumbled over one another as he hurried to get them out before Tylendel could interrupt; he caught hold of the older boy’s wrist. “The ice is still there, I know it is, it’s inside me and it’s freezing me from the inside out—it’s killing my—feelings. I think it’s killing me. Please, please, don’t leave me alone with it—”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking,” Tylendel said, almost angrily, pulling his hand out of Vanyel’s, his eyes no longer readable. “You can’t know. You don’t know what I am.”

  “But I do,” Vanyel protested desperately. “I do, the girls tell me things to get my attention—they told me you’re—uh—shay’a’chern, they said. That you don’t sleep with girls; that you—” He felt himself blush, the rush of blood almost painful, his cheeks were so sore from crying.

  “Then dammit, Vanyel, what do you think I’m made of?” Tylendel cried harshly, his face twisted and his eyes reflecting internal pain. “What do you think I am? Marble? You’re beautiful, you’re bright, you’re everything I’d ever ask for—you think I can stay here and not want you? Good gods, I won’t take advantage of an innocent, but what you’re asking of me would try the control of a saint!”

  “You don’t understand. I know what I’m asking,” Vanyel replied, catching his wrist again before he could get up and stalk off into the dark. “I do know.”

  Tylendel shook his head violently and looked away.

  “’Lendel—look at me,” Vanyel pleaded, pouring his heart out in a confession he’d never have dared to make before this. “Listen—I don’t like girls either. I’m not an innocent, I know what I want, ’Lendel, please, listen—I’ve been—I’ve bedded enough of them to know that they don’t do anything for me. It’s—about as mechanical as dancing, or eating. They just don’t mean anything to me.”

  Tylendel stopped trying to pull away, and turned a face to Vanyel that was so full of dumbfounded surprise that the younger boy had to fight hysterical laughter.

  “And I do? You—” Tylendel began, then his face hardened. “Don’t play with me, Vanyel. Don’t toy with me. I’ve had that game played on me once already—and I don’t want to hear you crying to Savil in the morning that I seduced you.”

  Vanyel bit his lip, and looked directly into Tylendel’s eyes, pleadingly. “I’m not playing, ’Lendel. Please.” He felt his eyes sting, and this time didn’t try to hide the two tears that spilled down his raw cheeks. “I—I’ve been thinking about this for a long while. Almost since I got here, and they—told me about you. And you never laughed at me. You—were—kind to me. You kept being kind to me even when I was pretty rude. It meant a lot to me. And I didn’t know how to thank you. I—started feeling—things around you. I was scared. I didn’t dare let you guess. I didn’t want to admit what I wanted; now I do.”

  The older boy looked at him sideways. “Which is?”

 
Vanyel gulped. “I want to be with you, ’Lendel. And if you go—I won’t have any choice but the ice—”

  Once again Tylendel cupped his face between his strong hands, and gently brushed the tears away with hesitant fingers. He stared deeply into Vanyel’s eyes for so long, and so searchingly, that Vanyel thought he surely must be reading right down to the depths of his soul. Vanyel held his gaze, and tried to make his own eyes say that he meant every word he’d said. Tylendel finally nodded, once, slowly.

  Then he reached out, quite deliberately, and snuffed the candle before taking Vanyel back into his arms.

  It was very dark; no light outside, no sound but the rain falling. After a moment, Tylendel chuckled with what sounded like surprise, and said softly into Vanyel’s ear, “I’m beginning to wonder just who’s taking advantage of who, here.”

  Then, a bit later, another chuckle to tell Vanyel that he was teasing. “Move over, you selfish little peacock, I’m about to freeze to death.”

  Then no words at all.

  Then again, they didn’t need words.

  • • •

  The halls were totally deserted, chill, and lit by lamps that were slowly flickering out as they used up the last of the night’s oil. Savil’s slow, weary footsteps echoed before and behind her without disturbing so much as a spider. At one point on the long walk back to her quarters from the Council Chamber, Savil wasn’t entirely certain she was going to make it. She was so damned tired she was about ready to give up and lie down in the middle of the cold hall.

  I’m getting too old for this, she told herself. No more younglings after this lot. I can’t take the emotional ups and downs. And I truly cannot take these all-night sessions with a lot of stubborn old goats.

  She grinned a little ironically at herself.

  Of which I am one of the most stubborn. But gods—hours like this are for the young. I hurt. And I think I’m going to beg off ’Lendel’s weather working lesson today, else my bones are going to ache more. Gods bless—the door at last.

  She pushed open the door to the suite; Tylendel had left a night-candle burning, but it, too, was guttering. No matter, there was the pearly gray light of an overcast dawn creeping in through the windows of her room, the lifebonded’s, and Tylendel’s—