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

  “So we walked forward. We didn’t talk about it. We dropped each other’s hands, but we kept going, looking around. The stench—all the things that had burned but were never meant to burn—stuck to us, covering us, and I wanted the sky to rain and clean us off. It didn’t. The sky just glowered above us instead. We saw more burned bodies, crisped, dark. Some houses still smoldered, others stood untouched.

  “A fat brown dog ran between two houses. It looked lost, but healthy. It stopped and stared at us, then it barked plaintively. And then . . . then it burned. Fire flashed alive on it and in it, a blanket of blue fire. It went from standing to burning.”

  She swallowed. “Dawn screamed.” She paused, swallowed again. The words clawed their way out of her throat, dry and hot as flame. “And burned.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “And burned.” She gestured toward the fire. “Not like if that campfire caught my clothes, but completely. In seconds, I could see her bones. She didn’t . . .” Jocelyn choked. “She didn’t even scream for long. I ran. I didn’t scream. I . . . I just ran.”

  Dawn’s arms—no, Silver’s arms—Bard Silver’s long slender strong arms, circled Jocelyn’s shoulders and Jocelyn turned her face into the other woman’s chest and burrowed, holding on. She should never have let Dawn go in there. She should never have let Dawn travel with her in the first place. She should have gone alone. She should have died instead, or at least died, too. Magic. She lifted her head, looked away, talking in broken words. “It was . . . she was killed by . . . a spell triggered by sound. That killed them all—the whole town—” Jocelyn wiped at her eyes and nose and reached for a waterskin. Her hands shook so hard Silver had to help her pull the stopper out. She drank deeply. “I learned that when I got back to Haven—learned sound started the spell, and learned that it faded quickly. If we’d come into town the next day, all the gruesome sights would still be there. But we could have talked or laughed or screamed. The Palace sent one of the White Winds mages to read the spell as soon as I got back to Haven and told my story. He said . . . he said it he thought it was Ancar’s mages testing a potential trap. They killed that whole town just to test a spell.”

  “You know it wasn’t your fault she died,” Silver whispered awkwardly, earnestly.

  Jocelyn pushed a little away from Silver, reached down to touch the dirt, to ground herself. She drew in the smell of the fire, of the night. “I know. My head knows. But I could have been more careful.”

  Silver sounded confused as she said, “But wasn’t magic new to Valdemar? Weren’t you still inside the borders, where magic hadn’t even worked just months before? How were you supposed to know?”

  Jocelyn didn’t answer. Her head said the same thing, all the time. But . . . but Silver was so young. And she was saying the same thing. Silver was a year older than Jocelyn. So . . . so Jocelyn really had been young that year. She hadn’t felt young. She’d forgive Silver if she made a mistake—she was on her first trip and couldn’t even walk a good day’s pace yet, even though by the end of their trip, today’s walk might seem short. If she could forgive Silver almost any mistake, why couldn’t she forgive her own younger self?

  “Look,” Silver said, “I’m sure it doesn’t help to tell you Dawn died doing something she wanted to do. You must have heard that before. But you did the very best you could. And then you wrote her a song, and your song made a difference.”

  “How? Dawn’s dead.”

  “Right.” Silver’s voice was soft, musical. A Bard’s voice. Surer than Dawn’s had ever been. “But now, when kids are Chosen, now a lot of towns do something extra for the parents, or for the other family left behind.”

  Jocelyn looked up. Was it true? Why hadn’t she noticed? “Really?”

  Silver returned the smile. “Really.” Silver picked up her gittern, unwrapped it, and started the refrain for “Dawn of Sorrows:”

  “Dawn of sorrows, sacrifice

  Yield up all you love in life”

  Jocelyn’s took a breath and opened her throat. She took up the first stanza, focusing on the notes, on her voice, on singing as strong as she could. By the end of the song, her voice sounded clear and steady.

  This, she suddenly understood, was why Dennis wanted her to travel with someone. Maybe she’d write another song. It was too early to tell what that song might be, of course, but . . . maybe even a song about something that wasn’t quite so painful. There were, after all, happy moments in Valdemar.

  She looked over at Silver. Tears glittered like gems on the younger woman’s smooth, pale cheeks but she sang through a wide smile, and her eyes were warm behind the wetness.

  Warmth bloomed inside Jocelyn. It took her a moment to recognize it as happiness, to notice that she, too, smiled as she sang, even though tear tracks still stained her own cheeks.

  HORSE OF AIR

  by Rosemary Edghill

  Rosemary Edghill’s first professional sales were to the black & white comics of the late 1970s, so she can truthfully state on her resume that she once killed vampires for a living. She is also the author of over thirty novels and several dozen short stories in genres ranging from Regency Romance to Space Opera, making all local stops in between. In addition to her work with Mercedes Lackey, she has collaborated with authors such as the late Marion Zimmer Bradley and the late SF Grand Master Andre Norton, worked as an SF editor for a major New York publisher, as a freelance book designer, and as a professional book reviewer. Her hobbies include sleep, research for forthcoming projects, and her Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Her website can be found at

  http://www.sff.net/people/eluki

  THERE are places in Valdemar where the Heralds can’t go.

  Well, actually, this isn’t true. Heralds and their Companions are welcome everywhere from Keyold to the Crook-back Pass. Heralds are the voice and hands of King Sendar—it’s Queen Selenay now, but it was Sendar who reigned when I put on my white leathers for the first time, and old habits are hard to break. Heralds bring news and gossip, defend the weak, embody the Crown’s justice.

  Do good in the world.

  It is a sacred trust to be a Herald, and it is a public thing. You are always on display whenever you are in public. People tend to think of Heralds as being more than human—as far removed from them and ordinary concerns as our Companions. Above pettiness, injustice, fear, and weakness.

  The first lesson you learn from your Companion—and at the Collegium—is that you must never disappoint them.

  Sometimes it is—was very hard. To be always watched, and always judged by a standard no human could possibly meet.

  And because they believe such things of Heralds, the people behave differently when Heralds are among them. Some try to act as they believe a Herald would, and that can be a good thing. Some hide—both their bodies and their words—out of fear, out of awe, out of guilt.

  Some lie. Some tell too much truth.

  Even in Haven, where they see Heralds and their Companions daily, it is the same. The people turn a different face to the Heralds than they do to one another. They talk of different things.

  And so, when I say that there are places in Valdemar that a Herald cannot go, this is why. If the Crown would know what the people speak of when the Crown’s greatest mystery is not before them in a glory of blue leather and silver bells, it must send other eyes.

  I must go.

  It has been twenty years since Shavanne and I rode over these roads on circuit. The bells that ring out my journey now are copper and brass, twined about my walking staff.

  I walk everywhere now. I could not bear to ride.

  When I returned to the Collegium after Shavanne was killed, everyone said I would be Chosen again—it was only to be expected. It was the last thing I wanted; for months after I was well in body I wandered the halls of the Collegium, soul-sick and, perhaps, half-mad at the death of my Lady Heart. Everyone said that, too, would pass; in time my soul would heal.

  Even my fellow Heralds, those few who knew what it was to survive t
he death of that which should survive both death and age, said I would love and be loved again.

  I had no desire for that. Shavanne had been life and joy to me. I could see no purpose in accepting anything less, and I could imagine nothing more.

  Perhaps it would have been different if I had possessed one of the Great Gifts, or even a powerful one, but I had no more than minor Mindspeech and perhaps—no one was every quite sure—a trace of Empathy, enough to hear Shavanne’s voice, and with her death, even that was gone. I did not miss it.

  I knew that she, of all beings, would not wish me to squander my life in vain regrets and hopeless yearnings, and I tried to honor what I knew were her wishes. The anger at my loss—Valdemar’s loss—faded, and even the bitterness, in time.

  But no one Chose me, and it was a relief.

  When a year had passed, I knew it was time to take up my service to the Crown once more in whatever fashion I could. The King’s Own had shown me the way.

  There are places in Valdemar that a Herald cannot go. I had all a Herald’s training, and loyalties, but I was not, precisely, a Herald. I put off my white leathers for a coat of motley, and took up my belled staff.

  Paynim the tinker was welcome everywhere in Valdemar. My father had been a tinsmith; we both thought, when I was Chosen, that my apprenticeship in his shop had been for nothing. How wrong we both had been. A tinker can find work anywhere, and stay as long or as short a time as he pleases. He need carry with him no more than the tools of his trade, and no one is surprised when he wanders on. I wandered where I was sent—even into Hardorn and Karse—and in twenty years I had crossed and recrossed Valdemar a dozen times.

  Where there was need of a Herald, all white leather and silver bells, I sent for one. Where merely sending a report back to Haven was wanted, I did that, too. I quickly learned the circuit of every Herald; it was easy to pass messages and receive orders.

  My friends kept my secrets, as I wished, and as the years accumulated, fewer and fewer that I met knew that I once wore the White. It is more comfortable that way. If they wonder who I am, and why they bring me messages and take my reports away, they do not ask.

  Herald Niniyel and Companion Teroshan had brought me a message; there are many fairs and market days throughout the warm dry months, and Heralds and tinkers both attend many of them. The message was an odd and improbable one, but it is my task to turn the unlikeliest of rumors into hard truth, and until I have seen—or not seen—what I have been sent to see, I do not waste my time wondering about it in advance. A wise man never needs to borrow trouble since fools give it away free, as my father always told me.

  Yet this time I did wonder out of season, for the message Herald Niniyel had brought me said there was a witch in the Armor Hills.

  That alone was reason enough for me to go.

  Since Vanyel’s time, there has been no magic in Valdemar. The Mind-Gifts of Herald and Healer are not sorcery, as they use the term beyond our borders. But lately that has changed. There is even a Mage College in Haven now, though it is new and I have never seen a Brown Robe on my wanderings. But the world is filled with wonders that I have not seen with my own eyes—a Karsite Captain with a Companion, for example.

  But it is a byword of the Bards that the memory of the common folk is longer than any History, and so the country folk have never ceased to speak of witches when they encounter anything uncanny.

  A fortnight and more of steady walking lay between me and my destination, but it was summer, a good time to walk the roads. The Armor Hills are north of the East Trade Road. They are not so distant from Haven as many other places, but Sumpost and Boarsden are the nearest villages, and they are not large. To the north, Iftel is their border; on the east, Hardorn.

  I had been told that the witch of the Armor Hills was said to be a woman grown—that in itself was odd, for notable Gifts generally appear first in childhood. Further, it was said that all the Armor Hills paid her tribute, for she had the power to call a man’s soul out of his body, which is a power that could not be explained by a misunderstanding of any of the Mind-Gifts I knew—so perhaps the tales I chased were true, and what I sought was indeed a witch.

  At first, there was nothing for me to see. It was difficult enough to find the people themselves, for the Armor Hills is a wild and unforgiving place, and the houses of its folk are scattered and hidden. The people there subsist by hunting and trapping, and gathering the bounty of the wild, for though I saw many small gardens—once I had found the people—I had also quickly discovered that everything that is not up is down; it is impossible to find a level tract of land to plow or plant. It is an article of faith with those who dwell there that the land is too poor to take a crop, but I saw no sign of that. The small gardens flourished, and the woods and sharp-cut narrow valleys that I trudged through were lush with growth.

  I mended pots, gossiped idly, and listened more than I talked.

  A moonturn passed as I wandered from house to house. I had visited such remote places before, and knew better than to ask questions, lest I give offense, but soon I was accepted so far that one night’s host would give me good directions to the next place that might have need of my services, and I no longer had to search out each house by myself.

  People began to talk freely in my hearing, giving little thought to me as I sat over my fire in the dooryard, wrestling a cracked pot into working order or repairing an old skillet that must have lost its handle in King Roald’s reign. That was when I first heard folk speak of the Moonwoman. Who else but she could be the creature I sought?

  They said she was the offspring of a Companion and a Herald. I took no offense at hearing that; the common folk say odder things of us. They said her hair was as white as a Companion’s tail—that, at least, was a thing nearly possible.

  They said she could see the inmost thoughts of man, woman, or child, and could send their spirit from their body into light or darkness, calling it back at her whim. To placate her, they gave her anything she asked for when she walked among them.

  These things did not sound at all encouraging, but what mattered most to me was that they said she would be at Midsummer Meeting. There I could see her—if she was, in fact, a flesh-and-blood woman and not simply a tale of the hills—and judge for myself for myself whether she had all—or any—of the powers claimed for her.

  It took more work than I had imagined to gain an invitation to Midsummer Meeting. I had imagined, hearing the hill folk speak of it, that it was simply their version of one of the Season Fairs so common elsewhere, in Valdemar, and so a tinker would surely be welcome.

  In fact, it bore more in common with a religious gathering, or a mustering of clans. Midsummer Meeting was where marriages were celebrated, babies acknowledged, and those who had died in the previous twelvemonth named. Trading went on as well, and music, dancing, and fine eating, but the true purpose of Midsummer Meeting was the exchange of information among the hill households, and a chance for a young hill son or hill daughter to meet someone from several valleys away.

  But outsiders were not forbidden to attend.

  Meramay was a young widow, plump and blonde, who had taken a shine (as the saying there went) to me. I had stayed with her ten days together, walking out each day in search of work, and returning at nightfall, adding my day’s payment, in eggs or honeycomb or fresh-killed rabbit, to Meramay’s larder. In truth, she could use all that I brought, for she lived entirely alone, and to take a living from the hills was a constant round of hard work, best shared by many strong backs.

  I dealt with her honestly, telling her that I was lowland bred and born and would be moving on before the seasons turned. Still, there was comfort to be given and taken. She told me flatly the first night I stayed with her that she hoped to get a child with me, as she was seeking a new husband at Midsummer Meeting, and, as in many places, a woman’s fertility was a far more attractive quality than her chastity.

  It was she who invited me to accompany her to Midsummer Meeting
; she wished to show off her current bedmate to her prospective suitors, much as a farmer would show the bull when selling the calf. I had long since outlived false pride, and so I was happy to say I would go with her.

  “I only hope Moonwoman doesn’t take against me,” Meramay told me matter-of-factly. “She doesn’t like a light-haired girl, and no man’s going to cross her.”

  “You might darken your hair,” I said casually, though my heart was beating fast; this was the first time anyone had spoken of Moonwoman directly to me. “The herbs are easy to find, after all.”

  Meramay shook her head decisively. “That’d be the same as lying, and they say she hates a liar worse than death and poison. She can see right into a body’s heart, too.”

  There was no changing Meramay’s mind, though I did wonder why, if she feared Moonwoman so much, why she was taking the risk of bringing an outsider to Midsummer Meeting. She did take the precaution of tying up her hair in a brightly colored scarf before we set out; apparently simply hiding her hair didn’t count as lying.

  And so we began.

  Meramay carried a pack heavier than my own, and traveled, besides, with a cart drawn by one of the enormous brown-and-black dogs which are the usual beasts of burden in these hills, pulling carts and sometimes carrying packs themselves.

  It took us three days to reach the place where Midsummer Meeting was to be held, but I had long since decided for myself that everything in the Armor Hills was three days’ walk from everything else, most of it spent climbing one side of a hill and falling down the other. As we walked, I did my best to gain more information from Meramay about the mysterious Moonwoman.

  Meramay said she had been here “for always,” but Moonwoman had not been at last year’s Midsummer Meeting, nor had word reached Haven of her before the spring, so I did not think that could be so. I was growing increasingly uneasy with what I heard of her; Meramay had never seen her, but she certainly feared her.