Arrow's Flight Read online

  It was the most incredible transformation Kris had ever seen. The half-crazed, wild animal look left her eyes, and sense and intelligence flooded back in. In a few seconds, she made the transition from "thing" to human.

  "J-Jethry?" she faltered.

  The baby cried again, louder this time.

  "Jethry!" she cried in answer, and ran through the door.

  In the cradle was the child Tedric had brought, perhaps something under a year old, crying lustily. She scooped the child up and held it to her breast, holding it as if it were her own soul given back to her, laughing and weeping at the same time.

  No sooner did her hands touch the child, when the last, and perhaps strangest thing of all, happened. It stopped crying immediately, and began cooing back at the woman.

  Talia was not even watching; just sagging against the lintel, rubbing her temples. The other two could only watch the transformation in bemusement.

  At last the woman took her attention from the baby she held and focused on Talia. She moved toward her hesitantly, and halted when she was a few steps away.

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  "Herald," she said with absolute certainty, " you did this— you brought me my baby back. He was dead, but you found him again for me!"

  Talia looked up at that, eyes like darker shadows on her face, and shook her head in denial. "Not I, my lady. If anyone brought him back, it was you. And it was you who showed me where to find him."

  The woman reached out to touch Talia's cheek. Kris made as if to interfere, but Talia motioned him away, signaling him that she was in no danger.

  "You will reclaim what was yours," the Weatherwitch said tonelessly, her eyes focused on something none of them could see, "and no one will ever shake it from you again. You will find your heart's desire, but not until you have seen the Havens. The Havens will call you, but duty and love will bar you from them. Love will challenge death to reclaim you. Your greatest joy will be preceded by your greatest sorrow, and your fulfillment will not be unshadowed by grief."

  "'There is no joy that has not tasted first of grief,'" Talia quoted softly, as if to herself, so softly that Kris could barely hear the words. The woman's eyes refocused.

  "Did I say something? Did I see something?" she asked, confusion evident in her eyes. "Was it the answer you were looking for?"

  "It was answer enough," Talia replied with a smile. "But haven't you more important things to think of?"

  "My Jethry, my little love!" she exclaimed, holding the child closely, her eyes bright with tears. "There's so much I have to do— to make it up to you. Oh, Herald, how can I ever thank you enough?"

  "By loving and caring for Jethry as much as you do now; and not worrying what others may say about it," Talia told her, motioning to the other two to leave, and following them quickly.

  "Bright Havens!" Tedric exclaimed, a little uneasily, when they were out of earshot of the cottage. "That was like old tales of witchcraft and curse-lifting! What kind of strange magic did you work back there?"

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  "To tell you the truth, I'm not very sure myself," Talia said, rubbing tired eyes with the back of her hand. "When I touched her this morning, I seemed to see a kind of— cord? tie?— something like that, anyway. It was binding her to something, and I seemed to see that page in the report about the gypsies. I know outlanders aren't terribly welcome here, so I took a chance that the survivor wouldn't find a new home very easily. You confirmed what I guessed, Tedric. And it just seemed to me that what she needed was a second chance to make everything right. Am I making sense?"

  "More sense than I hoped for. It's hardly possible that he could be— hers?

  Is it?" Kris said hesitantly.

  "Kris, I'm no priest! How on earth can I answer that? All I can tell you is what I saw and felt. The little one is about the same age as hers would have been and they certainly seem to recognize each other, if only as two lost ones needing love. I won't hazard a guess after that."

  "This is a terribly callous thing to ask, I know," Tedric said, looking a good bit less anxious now that the "magic" was explained away as rational common sense. "But— she won't lose her powers now that her mind is back, will she?"

  "Set your fears at rest; I think you and the people of Berrybay can count on their Weatherwitch yet," Talia replied. "Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that such Gifts rarely lie back down to rest once you've roused them. Look at what she said to me!"

  "'Love will challenge death to reclaim you,'" Kris quoted. "Strange— and rather ambiguous, it seems to me."

  "Prophecy has a habit of being ambiguous," Tedric said wryly. "It's fortunate that she's able to be more exact when it comes to giving us weather-warnings. Come now; you and Rolan are tired and hungry, Talia, both of you. You deserve a good meal, and a good night's rest before you take the road again."

  "And prophecy to the contrary, my heart's desire at the moment is one of your venison pies followed by a convivial quiet evening and a good sleep 234

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  in your featherbed, and I hardly think I need to seek out the Havens to find that! " Talia laughed tiredly, linking arms with Tedric and Kris, while Rolan followed behind.

  Well, she had weathered this one. Now all she had to do was continue to survive.

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  Eleven

  "Well, little bird," Kris said lazily. "It's almost Midsummer. You're halfway done. Evaluation, please."

  Talia picked idly at the grass beside her. "Is this serious, or facetious?"

  "Quite serious."

  The sun approached zenith, and a warm spot created when the white-gold rays found a gap in the leaves of the tree overhead was planted just on Talia's right shoulder blade. Insects droned in the long grass; occasionally a bird called, sleepily. They were at the Station at the bottom of their Sector where they had first entered, back last autumn. Today or the next day a courier-Herald would make a rendezvous with them, bringing them the latest laws and news; until then, their time was their own. They had been spending it in unaccustomed leisure.

  She thought, long and hard, while Kris chewed on a grass stem, lying on his back in the shade, eyes narrowed to slits.

  "It's been horrid," she said finally, lying back and pillowing her head on her arm. "I wish this past nine months had never happened. It's been awful, especially when we first get into a town, and they've heard about me, but..."

  "Hmm?" he prompted when the silence had gone on too long.

  "But... what if this... my Gift going rogue... had happened at Court? It would have been worse."

  "You would have been able to get help there," he pointed out, "better than you've gotten from me."

  "Only after I'd wrecked something. Gods, I hate to think— letting loose that storm in a packed Court..." she shuddered. "At least I've got projection under control consciously now, rather than instinctively. Even if my shields aren't completely back."

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  "Still having shield problems?"

  "You know so, you've seen me in crowds. There are times when I hate you for keeping me out here, but then I realize that I can't go back until I have my shields back. And we can't let anyone know about this mess until it's fixed; not even Heralds."

  "So you figured that out for yourself."

  "It didn't take much; if people knew that the rumors were at least partially true, they'd believe the rest of it. I've watched you playing protector for me every time we meet another Herald. And there's something else. I can't go back until I figure something out."

  "What?"

  "Not just the 'how' of my Gift, but the 'why' and the 'when.' It's obsessing me, because those rumors about manipulation come so close to the truth. I have used my Gift to evaluate Councilors, and I have acted on that information. When does it start becoming manipulation?"

  "I don't know..."

  "Now I'm more th
an half afraid to use the Gift."

  "Oh, hell!" He flopped over onto his side, hair blowing into his eyes.

  "Now that bothers me. Hellfire, none of this would have happened to you if I'd just kept my mouth shut."

  "And it might well have happened at a worse time—"

  "And might not have." Those blue eyes bored into hers. "What's gone wrong is as much my fault as yours."

  She had no answer for him.

  "Well, the situation went wrong, but I think we're turning it around," he said at last.

  "I hope so. I think so."

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  "Well, you're handling everything else fine."

  There was an uneasiness under his words; she was sensitive enough now to tell that it had something to do with her, personally, not her as a Herald.

  Oh, Gods. She did her best to hide her dismay. She had done her level best to keep their relationship on a friend/lover basis, and not let her Gift manipulate him into infatuation, or worse. Most of the time she thought she'd succeeded— but then came the times like these, the times when he looked at her with a shadowed expression. She knew, now, that she didn't want anything more from him, for as her need of him grew less, her feelings had mellowed into something very like what she shared with Skif.

  But what of him?

  "I wonder what Dirk's up to," he said, out of the blue. "He's Sector-riding this term, too."

  "If he has any sense, being glad he's not having to eat your cooking." She threw a handful of grass at him; he grinned back. "Tell me something, why do you keep calling me 'little bird'?"

  "Good question; it's Dirk's name for you. You remind him of a woodlark."

  "What's a woodlark?" she asked curiously. "I've never seen one."

  "You normally don't see them; you only hear them. Woodlarks are very shy, and you have to know exactly what you're looking for when you're trying to spot one. They're very small, brown, and blend almost perfectly with the bushes. For all that they're not very striking, they're remarkably pretty in their own quiet way. But he wasn't thinking about that when he named you; woodlarks have the most beautiful voices in the forest."

  "Oh," she said, surprised by the compliment, and not knowing quite how to respond.

  "I can even tell you when he started using it. It was just after you'd fainted, and he'd picked you up to carry you to your room. 'Bright Havens,' said he, 'she weighs no more than a little bird.' Then the night of the celebration, when we all sang together, I caught him staring at you when 238

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  you were watching the dancers, and muttering under his breath—'A woodlark. She's a shy little woodlark!' Then he saw me watching him, and glared for a minute, and said, 'Well, she is!' Not wanting to get my eyes blackened, I agreed. I would have agreed anyway; I always do when he's right."

  "You two," she said, "are crazy."

  "No milady, we're Heralds. It's close, but not quite to the point of actual craziness."

  "That makes me crazy, too."

  "You said it," he pointed out. "I didn't."

  Before she could think of a suitable reply, they heard a hail from the path that led to their Station and scrambled to their feet. It was their courier—and their courier was Skif.

  "Welladay!" he said, dismounting as they approached him. "You two certainly look hale and healthy! Very much so, for a pair who were supposed to have come near perishing in that Midwinter blizzard. Dirk was damned worried when I talked to him."

  "If you're going to be seeing him sometime soon, or can find a Bard to pass the message, you can tell him that we're both fine, and the worst we suffered was the loss of Talia's harpcase," Kris said with a laugh.

  "If? Bright Havens, I haven't got any choice! I've been flat ordered to find him when I'm done with briefing you, on pain of unspecified torture.

  You'd have thought from the way he was acting that neither of you had the mother-wit to save yourselves from a wetting, much less a blizzard."

  Kris gave Talia another odd, sidelong glance.

  "You'd best bring your Companion and whatever you've brought for us on up to the Waystation," she said. "It's going to take you a while to pass everything to us, and to make sure we've got it right."

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  "A while, O modest Talia? With you, I've got no fear that it'll take long,"

  Skif grinned. "I know quite well that you can memorize faster than I can, and Kris was my Farseeing teacher, so I know he's just as quick. I'll turn Cymry loose and let her kick her heels up a little; I can lead the pack mule afoot."

  "We'll take her tack for you," Kris offered. "No use in you carrying it when we're unburdened."

  Skif accepted the offer gladly, and they strolled up the path toward the Station together; Kris with the saddle and blanket balanced over one shoulder, Talia with the rest of the tack, Skif with the saddlebags.

  "I've brought you two quite a load," he told them as they approached the station, "Both material and news. Hope you're ready."

  "More than ready," Talia told him. "I'm getting pretty tired of telling the same old tales."

  "Don't I just know! Well, I've got plenty of news, personal and public, and more than you may guess. Do you want your news first, or your packs?"

  "Both," Kris said with the charming smile of a child. "You can tell us the personal news while we gloat over our goodies."

  "Why not?" Skif chuckled. "I'll start with the Collegium and work my way outward."

  The first bit of news was that Gaytha and Mero had surprised nearly everyone by suddenly deciding to wed. They had had themselves handfasted just before Skif had left, and were to be wedded in the fall.

  Kris' jaw sagged over that piece of news, but Talia, recalling things she'd seen over holidays while still a student, nodded without much surprise.

  Keren had broken her hip during the past winter. She'd slipped and taken a bad fall trying to rescue a Companion foal from beneath a downed tree (the foal was frightened silly, but otherwise emerged from the ordeal unscathed. The same— obviously— could not be said for poor Keren).

  Sherrill had taken on Keren's duties as riding instructor as well as her own scheduled classes. When Keren's bones were healed, she decided that it 240

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  was getting to be time to think about training a successor anyway, so they were currently sharing the classes.

  Alberich had at last retired from teaching all but the most advanced students; to no one's surprise, he had appointed Jeri to take his place.

  Companions had Chosen twenty youngsters this spring, the largest number yet. For the first time in years the Collegium was completely full. No one knew whether there should be rejoicing or apprehension over this sudden influx of Chosen; the last time that the Collegium had been full had been in Selenay's father's time; there had been the Tedrel Wars with Karse on the Eastern Border shortly thereafter and every one of the students had been needed to replace those Heralds that had sought the Havens when it was over.

  Elspeth was doing unexpectedly well, and Talia rejoiced to hear it. Elcarth had taken her heavy schedule and lightened it by a considerable amount, and she had responded by working like a fiend incarnate on those classes that were left. She seemed determined to prove that she was not ungrateful for the respite, and that she did not intend to shirk her remaining responsibilities.

  There was little news of the Court, but none of that was good. The rumor-mills had been churning away; mostly working on the grist of Elspeth and the absent Talia. About half of it was elaboration on the rumors they already knew, the rest concerned Elspeth's supposed unfitness for the Crown— that she was too pliant, too much of a hoyden, not bright enough— and too dependent on the Heralds in general and Talia in particular to make all her decisions for her.

  * * *

  Kris noted without comment the brief shadow of pain that veiled her face. "But I've told anybody who's bothered to bring up the subject that whoever
started these tales had holes in his skull. Elspeth's nothing but a normal tomboy— like Jeri, and they were perfectly willing to consider Jer as Heir! And I told 'em nobody who knows you would even consider the idea that you might be misusing your Gift! So that's that. All right, it's your 241

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  turn," Skif ordered. "You two have to tell me the whole tale of your blizzard. I've been strictly charged by half the Circle to bring back every detail. If you leave one thing out, I'm not entirely certain of my safety when I get back!"

  Kris told most of it, from the plague at Waymeet to the arrival of Tedric—leaving out the disintegration of Talia's control.

  "Sounds grim," Skif said when they'd finished. "I'm surprised you didn't tear each other's throats out— from boredom if nothing else. Of course, you were too busy digging out to have time to be bored."

  Kris inhaled his wine, and nearly choked to death trying to keep from laughing.

  Talia covered her blushes by pounding his back— then took over the conversation with a stern glance in his direction that almost sent him into another fit.

  "It was a good thing we had the harp with us," she said, firmly restraining the urge to set both her hands around his throat and strangle him. "Music did a lot to keep us going. And we discovered something really strange, Skif. Did you know that those stories the Northerners kept telling us about how chirras sing are true?"

  "You've been on circuit too long," he replied with a disbelieving grin.

  "She's telling the truth, Skif," Kris asserted. "Chirras do sing— well, hum is more like it. They do it intentionally, though, and I've heard worse harmonics coming from human throats."

  "Can you prove this? Otherwise I'm going to have a hard time convincing anyone else, much less myself."

  "Are you planning on spending the night with us?"