The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy Read online

  It was inevitable that Gala should join them when they crossed the river; Vanyel had come to take her presence for granted on the precious few joint excursions they’d judged safe from detection. It was equally inevitable that they should seek “their” pine grove; it drew them as no other place within walking distance could.

  It was blacker than Sunsinger’s despair beneath the branches on this moonless night, but Tylendel had made a tiny mage-light once they’d gotten past the first line of trees and were safely out of sight. They’d just rambled for a long time, from one end of the peaceful grove to the other and back again; not speaking, but not needing to. Not touching, either—but again, not needing to.

  It wasn’t until they’d walked out the last of their end-of-the-day tensions that they’d finally decided to settle next to the oldest tree in the grove and just relax in silence. Gala provided a willing backrest, and the two of them leaned up against her soft warmth, with Vanyel resting his head on Tylendel’s shoulder. Tylendel had put out the mage-light, leaving them in near-total darkness. There were still a few crickets that hadn’t been killed by the first frost, calling from a dozen different directions, and once Vanyel had heard geese crying by high overhead. But other than that, and the sigh of Gala’s breathing, they might have been the only two living creatures in an endlessly empty, pine-fragrant universe.

  Which was exactly the way Vanyel wanted it. This continual charade of theirs was proving to be both harder and easier than he’d thought it would. Easier, because he was no longer trying to block out his feelings, no longer trying to convince himself that he didn’t need anyone. Easier, because the arrogant pose, the flirtation games, were no longer anything more than an elaborate set of games. But harder, because one single slip, one hint getting back to Withen of what was really going on, and he’d lose everything that was making his life something more than a burden to be endured. And harder, because of the double-game he was playing with Leshara. One slip there and Leshara would know what was really going on—and it would be child’s play for him to use that knowledge as a double-weapon against Vanyel and Tylendel.

  And there was no way of knowing how much—or how little—Evan Leshara believed out of all the things Vanyel was telling him. All he could do was trust that ’Lendel knew enough to seed the falsehoods with exactly the right amount of truth—because he certainly didn’t know enough.

  The pretense was a constant drain on his emotional energy, and it wasn’t often that he felt safe enough to forget and enjoy the moment. The insecurity of the situation was the first thing on his mind when waking and the last when going to sleep.

  That wasn’t the only strain. Since the fight, he’d been virtually ostracized by the Bards, Heralds, and all their trainees. Tylendel was (somewhat to his own surprise) highly regarded among the “working” members of Queen Elspeth’s High Court. But that meant that Vanyel was bearing the burden of their scorn for provoking the fight. And while his teachers remained within the bounds of polite civility, they were making no secret of their disdain. Lessons had become ordeals, and only Tylendel’s insistence that he was going to have to continue if the charade was going to work had kept Vanyel persisting in the face of the hostility he was facing. The only one of his teachers that seemed oblivious to the whole mess was Lord Oden—possibly because the Lord-Marshall’s second-in-command was pretty well indifferent to anything not involving the martial arts. Vanyel had ample occasion to reflect on the irony that his situation was now precisely the opposite of what he had endured at Forst Reach. There he’d been the pet of his tutors, except for the armsmaster, and despised by everyone his own age. Here—discounting the trainees—his peers were fawning on him, but his teachers were doing their icily gracious best to get him to give up and drop out of their lessons—except for his armsmaster. It was not his imagination that they were being harder on him than the others being lessoned; Mardic was in his Religions group now, and had confirmed his suspicions.

  “So what did Savil say?” he replied, closing his weary eyes, and shifting a bit so that he wasn’t resting so much of his weight on Tylendel’s arm. Tylendel responded by holding him a little closer.

  “That she can’t understand why we haven’t had at least one fight,” Tylendel said, laughing a little. “She says we’re sickening.”

  “She has a point,” Vanyel conceded, with a ghost of a chuckle. “We are, a bit.”

  “She told me she can’t understand how we stay so dotingly devoted to each other. She says we act like a couple of spaniels—you know, kick ’em, and they just come back begging to be kicked again—only worse, because we aren’t kicking each other.”

  “She just doesn’t realize,” Vanyel said, sobered by a moment of introspection. “’Lendel, there is no way I’d fight with you, when any moment my father might find out about us and pull me home. I couldn’t bear the idea of our last words being angry ones. I have to make every moment we have together a good memory.”

  “Don’t let it eat at you,” Tylendel interrupted. “You’re sixteen now; I’m seventeen. It’s only two years before you’re of age. We’ll be all right so long as you can keep your end of things going with Lord Evan.”

  Vanyel sighed. “Gods, gods, two years—it seems like forever. It seems like it’s been years already. I just can’t imagine coming to the end of this.”

  Tylendel stroked his hair, his hand as light as a breath of wind. “You’ll manage, ashke. You’re stronger than you think. I sometimes think you’re stronger than I am. I doubt I could be dealing successfully with the plate you’ve been handed. And whether or not you believe this, I think I depend as much on you as you do on me. Gala says so.”

  “She does?” Vanyel’s voice rose with his surprise. “Really?”

  “Frequently.” He sighed, and Vanyel wondered why. There were times when it seemed that there were some serious points of disagreement between Gala and her Chosen, usually involving Tylendel’s tacit and unshakable support of his twin. Vanyel personally couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Even if ’Lendel hadn’t had the close bond he did with Staven, even if Wester Leshara hadn’t connived the painful suicide of ’Lendel’s mother, it would still have been his duty to support Staven. Even though Vanyel himself had a rather bitter and uncomfortable relationship with his own brother Mekeal, if it came to an interHouse confrontation there was no doubt in his mind where he would stand, and he knew Mekeal was likely to feel the same. And given how much Tylendel owed to his brother for supporting him in the face of all opposition—well, Vanyel couldn’t see what else he could do, in all decency and honor.

  But then, there was a great deal about all this “Herald” business he didn’t understand. For instance—

  “’Lendel, if we make it that far—all the way to when you get your Whites—”

  “‘If?’ Don’t think in terms of ‘if,’ love,” Tylendel chided, softly. “It may not be easy, but we’ll make it. Havens, I should talk about not being easy, when it’s you that is having to take the worse share on your shoulders. But I’ll help you, I’ll help you all I can, and we will see this through to the other side.”

  “Well, what’s going to happen with us? When you get your Whites and I’m of age—what then?”

  There was a long pause, and Tylendel’s hand stopped moving, resting on the back of his neck. “That’s the easy part, really. First thing, you make up your mind about exactly what you want to do about Lord Withen. I mean, you could flat tell him about us, or you could just—let him find out. Whichever way you want. At that point the worst he could do is disown you, and you know everything I have is yours for the asking. The Circle won’t stint me; I’ll have more than enough to support two.”

  “He probably will disown me,” Vanyel said bitterly. “Which will mean I’ll have to ask, ’Lendel.”

  “So? We’re partners, aren’t we? It won’t be charity, ashke; it’ll be sharing.”

  Vanyel sq
uelched the automatic retort that it would still feel like charity. “All right, assume I’ve told my father and I’m free to do what I want. Then what?”

  “After that, Savil will turn the lovebirds over to another Herald and take me—us—out on a Field assignment. Us, because obviously I won’t go without you; Savil knows that, so it’s a given. That’s a year, or thereabouts. But then—I don’t know. I’m a Herald-Mage trainee; they usually give us permanent positions rather than having us ride circuit like the straight Heralds do. They’ll probably put me either here at Haven, or out along the Border at the places where magic is needed. Down by White Foal Pass, around the edge of the Pelagirs—”

  “Why? That’s something that has me baffled. Why?” Vanyel asked. “I mean, why are you going to do what somebody else wants? Why do you have to go where they say? Who are ‘they,’ anyway?”

  “‘They’—that’s the Heraldic Circle. Queen’s Own, Seneschal’s Herald, Lord-Marshal’s Herald, the speaker for the Heralds with trainees—that’s Savil—the speaker for the Herald-Mages, and the speaker for the Heralds on circuit. And the Queen, of course, and the Heir. They’re the ones who decide where Heralds and Herald-Mages will serve and what they’ll do. That’s—that’s just the way it is. Van, I don’t understand you now.” There was hurt in Tylendel’s voice. “Don’t you want to go with me?”

  “Oh, gods—” Vanyel groped for Tylendel’s free hand, and held it tightly. “’Lendel, I didn’t mean that. I’d rather lose my arms and legs than lose you. I’ll go wherever you go, and glad to. I’m just trying to get all this to make sense. Why are you doing this, going where they tell you, doing what they tell you to do? Why is this—Herald stuff—so important to you?”

  Vanyel could almost feel Tylendel fumbling after the right words. “It’s, I don’t know, it’s a kind of hunger. I can’t help it. I’ve got these abilities, these Gifts, and I can’t not use them. I couldn’t sit here, knowing that there were people out there who need exactly the kind of help I can give them and not make the effort to find them and take care of them. It’s like backing Staven—it’s just something I could not even see myself not doing. I can’t explain it, Van, I can’t. I have to, or—or I’m not me anymore.”

  Vanyel just shook his head a little. “All right, I’ll accept that. But I still can’t really grasp it,” he confessed. “Giving up everything to play nursemaid to a pack of people you don’t even know. Won’t you have any life of your own? Who are these hypothetical people that need you, that you’re sacrificing your whole life for them?”

  “Huh,” Tylendel said. “You sound just like Stav—”

  Suddenly he went rigid; “Staven?” he whispered. “Stav—”

  Then his entire body convulsed as he screamed Staven’s name. And the night erupted into chaos around them.

  The scream went on and on, filling the entire universe with pain and loss. An unbearable pressure rose around them, and shattered, all in the moment, the eternity of that scream. The still air churned, and began pummeling them with fists of heat and turbulence.

  Gala scrambled to her feet; Vanyel caught and held his lover, trying to support him as he thrashed in uncontrolled spasms. Tylendel’s forehead cracked against the bridge of his nose; he saw stars and tasted blood, but gritted his teeth against the pain and held on.

  A gale-force wind sprang up out of the confusion and chaos. It went howling about them, moving outward in a spiral, nearly tearing the clothes from Vanyel’s body as it passed. Tylendel was—glowing; angry red light pulsed around him. In it, Vanyel could see his face set in a mask of madness. His teeth were clenched in a grimace of pain, and there was no sense in his eyes, no sign of intelligence.

  The trees closest to them literally exploded in a shower of splinters; those farther away spasmed in convulsions much like Tylendel’s before they began tearing themselves apart.

  The wind picked up in strength; trees farther away began thrashing and the wind spiraled outward a little farther than it had a moment before. The light surrounding Tylendel—and now Vanyel—throbbed, ebbing and strengthening with each paroxysm of his body. And something frighteningly like lightning was crackling off the edges of that glow, striking at random all about them. Where it hit, the effect was exactly like natural lightning; trees split, and the ground was scorched and pitted.

  The wind was scouring the earth bare, making projectiles of dead needles and bits of wood. Even the ground was shuddering, heaving like a horse trying to throw a rider.

  Vanyel held Tylendel as tightly as he could, looking wildly about for Gala. Finally he saw her, off on the edge of the circle of chaos. She, too, was glowing, bluely; the edge of her glow seemed to be deflecting the debris and the lightning, but it looked as if she was unable to do anything. Not that she wasn’t trying—she stretched her neck out toward her Chosen, her eyes bright and terrible with distress—but all she seemed able to do was shield herself. She couldn’t even get near them.

  “Gala!” Vanyel shouted, over the screaming of the wind, restraining Tylendel as his lover spasmed in another convulsion. “Get help! Get Savil!” He couldn’t think. If Gala were helpless to do anything, Savil was the only possible source of aid.

  She shook her head, tried to force her way through the gale toward them, but was actually pushed back by whatever force was controlling the raging wind. She tried twice more; twice more was shoved farther back, as the circle of destruction grew. Finally she reared, screamed like a terrified human, pivoted on her hind feet, then sprang off into the darkness.

  Vanyel closed his eyes and clasped Tylendel against his chest, trying to protect him from the wind, trying to keep him from hurting himself as he continued to convulse. He was well beyond fear, his mind numb, his mouth dry, his heart pounding—praying for an end to this, praying for help. He couldn’t think, couldn’t move—all he could do was stay.

  ’Lendel, I’m here—he thought, as hard as he could, hoping somehow that Tylendel would “hear” him. ’Lendel, come back to me—

  The trainee spasmed once more, his back arcing—and suddenly, it was over. The light vanished, and with it, the wind. The ground settled—and there was nothing but a deadly silence, hollow darkness, and the weight of his lover’s unmoving body in Vanyel’s arms.

  “’Lendel?” He shook Tylendel’s shoulders, and bit back a moan when he got no response. “Oh, gods—” Tylendel was still breathing, but it was strange, shallow breathing—and the trainee’s skin was clammy and almost cold.

  A moment later Savil and two other Heralds came pounding up on their Companions, mage-lights glowing over their heads. By their light, Vanyel could see that Tylendel was limp and completely unconscious, his head lolling back, his eyes rolled up under half-open lids. He swallowed down fear, as Savil slid off Kellan’s back without waiting for her to come to a full stop, landing heavily and stumbling to them. As the light of the pulsing balls strengthened, Vanyel saw with shock that there was not so much as a single pine seedling left standing in what had been a healthy grove of trees.

  “I—I-I d-d-don’t know what h-h-happened,” he stuttered, as Savil went to her knees beside them, pulled open Tylendel’s eyelids and checked his pulse, her face gray and grim in the blue light of her globe. The other two Heralds dismounted slowly, looking about them at the destruction with expressionless faces. “He was a-a-all right one minute, and then—Aunt Savil, please, I d-d-didn’t do this t-t-t-to him—did I?”

  “No, lad,” she said absently. “Jaysen, come over here and confirm, will you?”

  The taller of the two Heralds knelt beside Savil and made the same examination she had. “Backlash shock,” he said succinctly. “Bad. Best thing we can do for him is get him in a bed and put someone he trusts with him.”

  “What I thought,” she replied, getting to her feet and motioning to the older Herald to come help Jaysen take up the unconscious trainee. “No, Vanyel, it had nothing to do with you
.” She finally looked at him. “Did you know your nose is broken?”

  “It is?” he replied, mind still fogged with fear for Tylendel.

  “It is. Hold still; Jaysen’s got just about enough of the Healing Gift to do something—”

  The tall, bleached-looking Herald freed a hand from his task just long enough to touch his face. There was an odd tugging sensation, and a flash of pain that sent him blind for a moment, then numbness.

  Savil looked him over briefly. “Good enough; it’ll hurt like hell for the next few days, but it’ll heal up straight. We’ll wash the blood off your face later. Jaysen, Rolf, get ’Lendel back to my quarters; this isn’t anything a Healer’s going to be able to treat. We’ll take care of him ourselves.”

  “Aunt, please, what happened?” He staggered to his feet, holding Tylendel’s hand tightly as the other two picked him up, still limp as a broken doll and showing no signs of consciousness. He was not willing to let go until he knew what was wrong.

  Savil gently loosed his fingers from their grip. “If what we got from Gala is right—the moment he went mad is the moment someone assassinated his twin,” she said angrily. “You know the bond he had with Staven.”

  Vanyel nodded, and his whole face throbbed.

  “He felt it; felt the death, knew what had happened. Lost all control, lost his mind for a while, like the fits he used to have—only, I think, worse this time. Now he’s depleted himself down to next to nothing, his whole body’s in collapse from the energies he put through it, his mind’s in trauma from Staven’s death. That’s backlash shock.”

  Vanyel wasn’t sure he understood, but nodded anyway.

  Savil’s face darkened to pure rage. “May all the gods damn those fools and their feuding! Death after death, and still they aren’t satisfied! Van, our job is to see we don’t lose Tylendel as well.”

  “Lose him?” Vanyel’s voice broke, and he looked wildly after the Heralds and their unconscious burden. “Oh no—oh gods—Aunt, tell me what to do, I can’t let him—”