The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy Read online

  “I don’t intend to let him die,” she interrupted him, pushing him after the other Heralds. “The masquerade has been canceled, and to hell with what your father finds out; I’ll deal with Withen myself, and I’ll keep you here if I have to get the Queen’s order to do it. You go with them, and don’t you leave him, no matter what happens.” Savil bit her lip, and gave Vanyel another push when he looked at her with a fear that held him nearly paralyzed. “Go—go on. He needs you, lad—like he’s never needed anyone before. You’re my only hope of getting him through this sane.”

  • • •

  The two Heralds that Savil had called Jaysen and Rolf got Tylendel stripped and into bed without the trainee giving any sign of returning consciousness. Vanyel hovered at the edge of the room, his hands clenched, his face throbbing and feeling as if it were nearly as white as Tylendel’s. When they left—after giving him more than one dubious and curious glance—he installed himself in a chair at Tylendel’s side, took his lover’s limp, cold hand in his own, and refused to be moved.

  He stayed there for the rest of the night, unable to sleep, unable to even think very clearly. Tylendel looked ghastly; his skin had gone transparent and waxy, there was no muscle tone in the hand Vanyel held, and the only thing showing he was alive was the shallow movement of his chest as he breathed.

  Savil looked in once or twice during the night, but said nothing. Mardic came in at dawn to try to persuade him to get some rest, but Vanyel only shook his head stubbornly. He would not, he could not, rest, until he knew that Tylendel would be all right.

  Savil left for a Council session—probably dealing with the feud—right after sunrise; with some reluctance, Mardic and Donni departed for their lessons a couple of candlemarks later. When Mardic failed to convince Vanyel to rest, Donni had tried to talk him into some food. He’d refused that as well, suspecting that—with all the best intentions in the world—she might have slipped something into it to make him sleep.

  “’Lendel, they’ve gone,” he said, when he heard the door open and close, just to have some other sound in the room besides Tylendel’s breathing. “It’s just you and me. ’Lendel, you have to come back—please. I need you, ’Lendel.” He laughed, right on the edge of hysteria. “Look, you know yourself that I’m too far behind on my History for Mardic to help me.”

  He thought—maybe—he saw a flicker of response. His heart leapt, and he continued talking, coaxing, reciting bits of Tylendel’s favorite poems—anything to bring him out of that unnatural sleep. He talked until his mouth and throat were dry, talked his voice into a harsh croak, left just long enough to get water, and returned to begin the monologue again. He lost track of what he was saying, somewhere around mid-afternoon; he was vaguely aware of someone checking on them, but ignored the other presences to keep up the flow of words. For by afternoon, there was no doubt; there was some change going on in Tylendel’s condition, and for the better. He didn’t know if it was the talking that was doing it, but he couldn’t take any chances. He just kept holding to Tylendel’s hand, saying anything that came into his head, however foolish-sounding.

  Sunset arrived, turning the river beyond the windows briefly to a sword of flame; the light faded, the room darkened, and still he refused to move. Savil came in long enough to light the candles and whisper something—that he was doing the right thing, he thought; he wasn’t sure. He didn’t care; his whole world had narrowed to the white face resting on the pillow, and the slowly warming hand in his.

  His eyes grew heavy, and his whole body ached, and his voice had thinned down to a whisper not even he could make out. He finally put his head down on his arms, intending to just rest for a moment—

  And woke, feeling a hand tentatively caressing his hair. He started, jerking his head up off the coverlet, making his face pulse with pain.

  Tylendel regarded him out of blue-ringed, weary eyes; eyes so full of anguish and loss that Vanyel nearly started weeping. “I heard you,” he whispered. “I heard you, I just didn’t have the strength to answer. Van—Staven—”

  His face crumpled, and Vanyel slid off the chair and onto the side of the bed, taking him into his arms and holding him as tightly as he could; supporting him against his shoulder, giving him what little comfort his presence would give. Tylendel’s body shook with sobs and he clung to Vanyel as to the only source of consolation left to him in the entire world, and Vanyel wept with him.

  They finally fell asleep like that; true sleep, not the state of shock Tylendel had been in—Vanyel still fully clothed and sprawled between his chair and the side of the bed, Tylendel clinging to him like a heartbroken child.

  • • •

  “Eat,” Vanyel ordered, setting the tray down in Tylendel’s blanket-covered lap.

  Tylendel looked nauseated and shook his head. “Can’t,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “You mean ‘won’t,’” Vanyel retorted almost as hoarsely, trying to ignore the fact that talking made the whole of his face ache. “You’ve gone all day without food. Savil says if you don’t get something down, you’ll go into backlash shock again. I didn’t spend all that time talking you out to have you drop back in again. Now eat, dammit!” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at Tylendel. The trainee eased a little higher up on the pillows supporting him in a sitting position and tried to shove the tray away. Unfortunately he was so weak he couldn’t even lift it; he just moved it a palm-length away. Vanyel put it back precisely where he had placed it the first time.

  Tylendel gave the perfectly good soup on the tray a look that would have been better bestowed on a bowl of pig swill, but picked up the spoon anyway. He swallowed the first spoonful with the air of someone who expects what he’s just eaten to make a precipitate reappearance, but when nothing happened, gingerly ventured a second mouthful, and a third.

  Vanyel sat warily on the edge of the bed, careful not to overset the tray between them. There was something very different about Tylendel since he’d reawakened—something secretive, but at the same time, impassioned. He could sense it in every word they’d exchanged. He thought he knew what it was, but he wanted to be sure.

  “They’re afraid I’m going to go mad, you know,” Tylendel whispered in a matter-of-fact tone when he was about halfway through the bowl.

  “I know,” Vanyel replied, just as matter-of-factly, sensing that the secret was about to be revealed. “That’s why they have me here. Are you?”

  Tylendel looked up from his meal, and there was that strange, burning something Vanyel had felt searing sullenly at the back of his eyes. “They might think so. Van, you’ve got to help me.”

  “You didn’t have to ask,” Vanyel replied soberly. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll get it for you.”

  “Vengeance.” The thing at the back of his eyes flared for a moment, before subsiding into half-hidden, secretive smoldering again.

  Vanyel nodded. This was rather what he had expected. If Tylendel wanted revenge— “Tell me. If I can do it, I will.”

  Tylendel slumped back on the pillows piled behind him, his head tilted back a little, his eyes closed, his features gone slack with relief. “Oh, gods—Van—I thought—”

  “Eat,” Vanyel growled. “I’ve told you before this that I understand, even if Savil doesn’t. The only question I’ve got is how you think two half-grown, half-trained younglings are going to get revenge on people who live a good fortnight away by fast horse. I assume you’ve got an answer for that problem.”

  Tylendel opened his eyes and nodded soberly, but the spoon was still lying in the bowl of soup where he’d left it—and Vanyel was concentrating on the more immediate goal of getting him back on his feet. He’d worry about this plan when Tylendel was in shape to execute it, and not before.

  “Dammit, ’Lendel, if you don’t eat, I won’t help you!”

  Tylendel started guiltily, and leaned forward again to finish his meal.r />
  Vanyel stole his mug long enough to get a sip of wine. His face hurt as badly as it looked, and when he’d taken one glance in the mirror, he’d had to look away again. His circle of admirers would have little to sigh over at the moment. He looked like he was wearing a black-and-blue domino mask and a putty nose. And he hurt. Gods, he hurt. The only reason he’d slept at all, once he’d comforted Tylendel last night, was because he’d been utterly, utterly exhausted.

  “Did I do that?” Tylendel asked softly, finally looking at his face, as he scraped the last spoonful of soup from the bottom of the bowl.

  Vanyel nodded, seeing no reason to deny it. “You weren’t exactly yourself,” he said, taking the tray away and stretching across Tylendel to put it on the table beside the bed.

  “Oh, gods—Van, I’m sorry—” The smothered fury faded from Tylendel’s eyes for a moment, and was replaced by concern as he reached in the direction of Vanyel’s nose. The concern was replaced by hurt as Vanyel winced away.

  “Touch me anywhere but there; it hurts bloody awful and it wasn’t your fault, all right?” To counteract that flash of hurt in Tylendel’s eyes, he moved closer, close enough to give ’Lendel a quick hug before taking his hand in both his own. “Now—you want to talk? I think maybe it’s my turn to listen.”

  The deeply-buried fire returned, warring with anguish in his expression. “That link between Staven and me—it was different from what they think. Most of the time distance matters in a link like that, distance makes it weaker. It never did, for us. But Savil thought it did, and I let her go on thinking that. She would have been on me to break it, otherwise.” He tensed, and closed his eyes; Vanyel held his hand a little more tightly. “All I ever had to do was think about him for him to be with me; it was the same for him. They—the Leshara—they ambushed him; killed his escort. Killed him. And it wasn’t just an assassination, Van. They used magic.”

  Vanyel felt his mouth drop open. “They what? How? How could a Herald—”

  “It wasn’t a Herald. They’ve hired a mage from outKingdom. They turned some—things—loose on the Holding. Magic monsters, maybe from the Pelagirs. Staven went after them with an escort, but when he got there, they were gone. He must have spent all day trying to track them down, and just exhausting himself, the fighters, and their horses. That’s when the mage brought them back and ambushed Staven with them.” Tylendel’s eyes were horrible, like he was looking into hell. “These things, they hurt him before they killed him, hurt him awfully. On purpose; on their master’s orders. I think on Leshara’s orders. I can’t tell you—”

  He shuddered. “Stav reached for me—he reached for me through the link—Van, I was with him, I felt him die!”

  He gripped Vanyel’s hand so tightly that both their hands went white, and his voice quavered.

  “He knew I was there with him; he knew it the moment I linked. Thank the gods—he knew he wasn’t alone. But the last thing, the very last thing he did was to beg me, plead with me, to pay them back.” His eyes opened, and they no longer smoldered; they flamed with fury and pain. “I promised him, Van. I promised him. Those bastards killed Staven—but they won’t get away with it.”

  Vanyel met that fury, and bowed before it. “I told you, ’Lendel,” he replied quietly. “Just ask.”

  “Oh, love—” The voice broke on a sob, and Vanyel looked up to see tears trickling down Tylendel’s cheek. “I shouldn’t get you into this—gods, I shouldn’t. It isn’t fair, it isn’t right. You’ve got no stake in this.”

  “You told me yourself that we’re partners, that whatever you had I’d share,” Vanyel replied, as forcefully as he could. “That means the bad as well as the good, by my way of thinking.” Now it was his turn to fumble in the drawer of the bedside table for a handkerchief. “Here,” he said, pressing it into Tylendel’s hand. “Now, tell me what you want me to do.”

  Tylendel scrubbed the tears away, his hand shaking. “We can’t let Gala know what we’re doing; she’d try to stop me. I can block her from knowing; I’ve already blocked her from knowing about the link to Staven. I’ll—play sick—”

  “You are sick; look at your hand shake.”

  Tylendel looked at the trembling of his hands with a certain amount of surprise. “Sicker, then. Too sick to do anything but lie here. What I need you to do is to sneak into Savil’s room and get me two books. They’re proscribed; nobody except very high-level Herald-Mages are even supposed to know they exist, and Savil is one of only three here at Haven who have copies.”

  Vanyel felt stirrings of misgiving. “In that case, won’t they be locked up?”

  The corner of Tylendel’s mouth twitched. “Oh, they are. She’s got them under protections. But the protections don’t work against someone with no Mage-Gift.”

  “What?” Vanyel’s jaw dropped again.

  “Margret has to get in there and clean, so Savil only put up a protection against someone with a Mage-Gift touching them. That way Margret can handle them and put them away if she leaves them out by accident. She figured nobody without the Gift would ever know what to look for. So you can get them, even though I can’t.”

  “Now?” Vanyel asked dubiously.

  Tylendel shook his head. “No, I can’t—can’t handle much of anything right now. Later—” He choked, and whispered, “Oh, gods—Staven—”

  His breath caught again, and this time he couldn’t control himself. He dissolved into hopeless sobbing, and Vanyel turned his attention instantly from plans of revenge to comfort.

  • • •

  “You’ll have to turn the pages,” Tylendel told him, looking down at the plain, black-bound book lying on the coverlet between them. “I don’t dare touch them.”

  Vanyel shrugged, and obliged, opening the ordinary-looking book to the first page.

  The ruse had worked admirably well; Tylendel had feigned a far greater weakness than he actually felt, and all Savil had shown was simple concern that he rest as much as possible. She hadn’t evidenced any signs that she thought his recovery was taking overlong; she hadn’t even brought in a Healer when Vanyel had tentatively suggested (as a test) that Tylendel didn’t seem to be improving that much.

  “Backlash is a nasty thing, lad,” she’d said with a sigh. “Takes weeks to bounce back from it; months, sometimes. I didn’t expect him to come out of this as well as he did, and I think perhaps I’ve got you to thank for it.”

  Vanyel had blushed, and mumbled something deprecating. Savil had ruffled his hair and told him to get back to his charge, and not be an idiot. In a way, he’d felt a bit guilty at that moment, knowing what he knew, knowing that they were plotting something she wouldn’t have permitted.

  But she couldn’t possibly understand, he told himself for the hundredth time. She couldn’t possibly. She cut her family ties long ago, and they were never that strong to begin with. From time to time the strength of Tylendel’s desire for revenge frightened him a little, but he told himself that it was Tylendel who was within his rights in this.

  And when the thought occurred that his lover had grown to be obsessed with his revenge, he dismissed the thought as unworthy. Unworthy of ’Lendel, of Staven. This wasn’t revenge—it was justice. Certainly the Heralds hadn’t made any move toward dealing with the Leshara.

  This afternoon Savil had scheduled Donni and Mardic for the Work Room, and threatened murder on anyone who interrupted her this time. With the coast thus completely cleared, Vanyel had slipped into her room.

  The books, so Tylendel had told him, would be in a small bookcase built into the wall beside the door that led to her own work room. He’d felt a chill of apprehension when he’d found the two volumes Tylendel wanted on the top shelf. He’d reached for them, expecting any moment to be flung across the room or fried by a lightning bolt.

  But nothing had happened.

  He’d returned to the bedroom where Tylendel wa
ited, tucked up in bed with pen and paper. He slipped in furtively, clutching the books to his chest and shutting the door behind him.

  Tylendel’s fierce look of joy as he placed the books on the coverlet sent a shiver down his spine that he told himself was a thrill of accomplishment.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked curiously, turning the pages slowly, Tylendel nodding to signal when he should.

  “Two spells. We don’t use spells a lot, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work,” Tylendel said absently. “They do, and they work really well for somebody with a Mage-Gift as strong as the one I’ve got. Savil says I can pull energy out of rocks—well, most of us can’t, so that’s why we don’t use spells much. The first one I want is something called a ‘Gate’; it’ll let us cover that distance from here to the Leshara lands in under an hour.”

  “You have got to be joking,” Vanyel replied in disbelief. “I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

  “Herald-Mages would rather that people didn’t know they could do that—really, only the best of them can; Savil can, and she said once that I should be able to, and Mardic and Donni if they ever learn how to work together. Most of the ones that can, won’t, if they’re on their own. That’s because to do it, you need a lot of energy; it takes everything a mage has, and then what’s he going to do when he gets where he wants to go?”

  “Good point; what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to borrow your energy—if—you’ll let me—” Tylendel faltered, and looked up from the book in entreaty.

  Vanyel firmed his chin. “What do you mean, ‘if’? Of course you can borrow it, what other good am I going to do?”

  “Gods—ashke, ashke, I don’t deserve you,” Tylendel said softly, half-smiling, his voice shaking in a way that told Vanyel he was on the verge of tears again.

  “It’s the other way around, love,” Vanyel replied, cutting him off. “Who was it kept me from—killing myself by inches? Who showed me what happiness was about? Who loves me when nobody else does? Hmm?”