Magic's Price v(lhm-3 Read online

  Medren shook long hair out of his warm brown eyes, and smiled. “Tripes, it isn't my first, and it isn't going to be my last. That's not what I came after you for, anyway.”

  “No?” Vanyel settled himself down in his favorite chair, and raised an inquiring eyebrow. “What brings you, then?”

  Medren resumed his seat, leaning forward over the table, his eyes locking with Van's. “Something a hell of a lot more important than a stupid recital. Van, I think have something that can help the King.”

  Two

  Vanyel closed the door behind him, balanced with one hand still on the door handle, and reached down to pull one of his boots off. “What exactly do you mean?” he asked, examining it, and deciding that it was going to survive the soaking after all. “Forgive me if I sound skeptical, Medren, but I've heard that particular phrase dozens of times in the past few years, and in the end nothing anyone tried made any difference. I'm sure you mean well -”

  Medren perched in a chair beside the window, with not only his expression but his entire body betraying how tense he was. The curtains fluttered in a sudden gust of breeze, wrapping themselves over his arm. He pushed them away with an impatient grimace. “That's why I waited so long, I really thought about this for a while before I decided to talk to you,” Medren told him earnestly. “You've had every Healer, herbalist, and so-called 'physician' in the Kingdom in and out of here - I wasn't going to come to you unless it wasn't just me who was sure we had something.”

  Vanyel pulled off his other boot, and regarded his nephew dubiously. He'd never known Medren to go overboard - but there had been so many times when a new treatment had sounded promising and had achieved nothing. . . . Medren's judgment was unlikely to be better than anyone else's.

  Still - there was always the chance. There was little doubt that in Medren Van was dealing with a rational adult now, not an overly impressionable boy. Medren had grown taller in the years since Vanyel had sent him off to Bardic Collegium, and even though he hadn't put on any bulk at all he was obviously at full growth. He actually looked like a pared-down, thin version of his father, Vanyel's brother Mekeal. Except for one small detail - he had his mother Melenna's sweet, doelike eyes.

  He must be just about ready to finish Journeyman's status at least, Vanyel realized with a start. He might even be due for Full Bard rank. Ye holy stars, he must be nearly twenty!

  The curtains flapped, and Medren pushed them away again. “You know I wouldn't bring you anything trivial or untried. I know better, and anyway, I've got my ranking to think of. I'm one master-work away from Full Bard,” he finished, confirming Vanyel's startled assessment. He combed his fingers restlessly through his long hair. “I can't start my career by getting a reputation for chasing wild geese. I've had Breda check this for me, and she's confirmed it. It seems my roommate, Stefen, has a Wild Talent. He can sing pain away.”

  Van had made his way to the side of the bed by the end of this speech; he sat down on it rather abruptly, and stared at his young cousin. “He can - what?”

  “He sings pain away.” Medren shrugged, and the cloth of his red-brown tunic strained over his shoulders. “We don't know how, we only know he can. Found it out when I had that foul case of marsh-fever and a head like an overripe pumpkin.”

  Vanyel grimaced in sympathy; he'd had a dose of that fever himself, and knew the miserable head and bone aches it brought with it.

  “Stef didn't know I was in the room; came in and started practicing. I started to open my mouth to chase him out, I figured that was the last thing I needed, but after the first two notes I couldn't feel any headache. Point of fact, I fell asleep.” Medren leaned forward, and his words tumbled out as he tried to tell Vanyel everything at once. “I woke up when he finished, he was putting his gittern away, and the headache was coming back. Managed to gabble something out before he got away from me, and we tried it again. Damned if I didn't fall asleep again.”

  “That could have been those awful herbal teas the Healers seem to set such store by,” Vanyel reminded him. “They put me to sleep -”

  “Put you to sleep, sure, but they don't do much about the head. Besides, we thought of that. Got at Breda when I cured up, told her, got her to agree to play victim next time she had one of her dazzle-headaches, and it worked for her, too.” He took a deep breath, and looked at Vanyel expectantly.

  “It did?” Vanyel was impressed despite his skepticism. Breda, as someone with the Bardic Gift, wasn't easily influenced by the illusions a strong Gift could weave. Besides, so far as he knew, nothing short of a dangerous concoction of wheat-smut could ease the pain of one of her dazzle-headaches.

  Medren spread his hands. “Damned if I know how he does it, Van. But Stef's had a way of surprising us over at Bardic about once a week. Only eighteen, and he's about to make Full Bard. Just may beat me to it. Anyway, you were telling me how Randale hates to take those pain-drugs because they make him muddled -”

  “But can't endure more than an hour without them, yes, I remember.” Vanyel threw the abused boots in the corner and leaned forward on his bed, crossing his arms. “I take it you think we can use this Stefen instead of the drugs? I'm not sure that would work, Medren - the reason Randi hates the drugs is that his concentration goes to pieces under them. How can he do anything and listen to your friend at the same time?”

  Medren swatted the curtains away again, jumped to his feet and began pacing restlessly, keeping his eyes on Vanyel. “That's the whole beauty of it - this Wild Talent of his seems to work whether you're consciously listening or not. Honest, Van, I thought this out - I mean, if it would work when Breda and I were asleep, it should work under any circumstances.”

  Vanyel stood up, slowly. This Wild Talent of Stefen's might not help - but then again, it might. It was worth trying. These days anything was worth trying. . . .

  And they had tried anything and everything once the Healers had confessed themselves baffled. Hot springs, mud baths, diets that varied from little more than leaves and raw grains to nothing but raw meat. There had been no signs of a cure, no signs of improvement, just increasing pain and a steadily growing weakness. Nothing had helped Randale in the last year, not even for a candlemark. Nothing but the debilitating, mind-numbing drugs that Randi hated.

  “Let's go talk to Breda,” Van said abruptly, kneeling and fishing his outdoor boots out from under the bed. He looked up to catch Medren's elated grin. “Don't get excited,” he warned. “I know you're convinced, but this may be nothing more than pain-sharing, and Randi's past the point where that's at all effective.” He stood up, boots in hand, and pulled them on over his damp stockings. “But as you pointed out, it's worth trying. Astera knows we've tried stranger things.”

  Medren kept pace with his uncle easily, despite Vanyel's longer legs and ground-devouring strides. After all, he had just spent his Journeyman period completely afoot, in the wild northlands, where villages were weeks apart. Fortunately it was also the shortest Journeyman trial in the history of the Collegium, he reflected wryly, recalling his aching feet, sore back, and the nights he spent half-frozen in his little tent-shelter. And it wasn't even winter yet! Three months up there gave me enough material for a hundred songs. Although so far half of them seem to be about poor souls freezing to death -

  Medren watched his uncle out of the corner of his eye, trying to gauge his feelings, but he couldn't tell what Van was thinking. In that, as in any number of things, Vanyel hadn't changed much in the past few years, though he had altered subtly from the uncle Medren had first encountered.

  Gotten quieter, more focused inside himself. Doesn't even talk to anybody about himself anymore, not even Savil. Medren frowned a little. Uncle Van isn't doing himself any favors, isolating himself like that.

  Vanyel had the kind of fine-boned, ascetic face that aged well, with no sign of wrinkling except around the eyes and a permanent worry-line between his brows. His once-black hair was thickly streaked with white, but that wasn't from age, that was from working
magic with what he and his aunt, Herald-Mage Savil, called “nodes.” Medren had gathered from Vanyel's complicated explanations that these node-things were collecting points for magical energy - and that they were infernally hard to deal with.

  For whatever reason, the silver-streaked hair, when combined with the ageless face and a body that would have been the envy of most of Medren's peers, made Vanyel's appearance confusing - even to those who knew him. Young - old, and hard to categorize.

  Add eyes the color of burnished silver, eyes that seemed to look right through a person, and you had the single most striking Herald in Whites. . . .

  Medren frowned again. And the least approachable.

  His nephew guessed that Vanyel had been purposefully learning how to control his expressions completely in the same way a Bard could. Probably for some of the same reasons. Not even a flicker of eyelid gave his thoughts away; over the past couple of years control had become complete. Even Medren, who knew him about as well as anyone, never knew what was running through his mind unless Van wanted him to know.

  Vanyel was as beautiful as a statue carved from the finest alabaster by the hand of a master. But thanks to that absolute control, he was also about as remote and chill as that same statue.

  Which is the way he wants it, Medren sighed. Or at least, that's what he says. “I can't afford hostages,” he says. 'I can't let anyone close enough to be used against me.” He doesn't even like having people know that he and I are as friendly as we are-and we're related. He thinks it makes me a target. . . .

  There actually had been at least one close scrape, toward the end of the Tashir affair. Medren hadn't realized how close that scrape had been until long after, in his third year at Bardic. And in some ways, Van was absolutely right, in that he couldn't afford close emotional relationships. If he'd been the marble statue he resembled, his isolation would likely have been a good thing.

  But he wasn't. He was a living human being, and one who would not admit that he was desperately lonely.

  To the lowest hells with that. If he doesn't find somebody he can at least talk to besides Savil, he's going to go mad in white linen one of these days. He's keeping everyone else sane, but who can he go to?

  Nobody, that's who. Medren gritted his teeth. Well, we'll see about that, uncle. If you can resist Stef, you're a candidate for the Order of Saint Thiera the Immaculate.

  They left the Palace itself, and followed a graveled path toward the separate building housing the Bardic Collegium; a three-storied, gray stone edifice. The first floor held classrooms, the second, the rooms of such Bards as taught here, and the third, the rooms of the apprentices and Journeymen about to be made Masters. There were only two of the latter, himself and Stefen. Some might have objected to being roomed with Stef, for the younger boy was shaych, and made no bones about it - but not Medren.

  Not with Vanyel for an uncle, Medren reflected, with tolerant amusement. Not that Stefs anything like Van. If uncle's a candidate for the Order of Saint Thiera, Stefs a candidate for the Order of the Brothers of Perpetual Indulgence! No wonder he writes good lovesongs; he's certainly had enough experience!

  One of the brown-tunicked Bardic apprentices passed them, laboring under a burden of four or five instruments. They stepped off the path long enough to let her pass; her eyes widened at the sight of Vanyel, and she swallowed and sketched a kind of salute as they passed by her. Van didn't notice, but Medren did; he winked at her and returned it.

  Medren had gotten Stef as a roommate before this, back when he was an apprentice. That was surely an experience! I'm not sure which was stranger for me; Stef as he arrived, or Stef once he figured out what he was. Medren mentally shook his head. What a country-bred innocent I was!

  Stef had arrived at the Collegium in the care of Bard Lynnell; barely ten, and frightened half to death. He had no idea what was going on, or why this strange woman had plucked him off his street corner and carried him off. Lynnell wasn't terribly good with children, and she hadn't bothered to explain much to young Stefen. That had been left to Medren, the only apprentice at the time who had no roommate.

  And first I had to explain that this wasn't a bordello. He'd thought Lynn was a procurer.

  Lynnell had heard the boy singing on the street corner, attracting good crowds despite being accompanied only by an unskilled hag with a bodhran. While the Bard had no talent for taking care of children, she was both skilled and graced with the Bardic Gift herself. She had recognized Stefen's Gift with the first notes she heard. And she knew what would happen if that child was left unprotected much longer - some accident would befall him, he could be sold to a whoremaster, some illness left untreated could ruin his voice for life - there were a thousand endings to this child's story, and few of them happy.

  Until Lynnell had entered it, anyway. One thing about Lynn; she goes straight for what she wants so fast that most people are left gaping after her as she rides out of sight.

  She'd made enough inquiries to ascertain that the crude old woman playing the drum and collecting the coins was not Stefs mother, nor any kind of relative. That was all it took for her to be on the sunny side of legality; once that was established, she had invoked Bardic Immunity and kidnapped him.

  Then dumped him on me. Medren smiled. Glad she did. He may have gotten me into trouble, but it was generally fun trouble.

  There were some who opined that Stefen's preference for his own sex stemmed from some experience with that nasty old harridan that was so appalling he'd totally repressed the memory. Privately Medren thought that was unlikely. So far as he was able to determine, she'd never laid a finger on Stefen except for an occasional hard shaking, or a slap now and then.

  From everything Stef said, when she was sober, she knew where her money was coming from. She wasn't cruel, just crude, and not too bright. So long as her little songbird kept singing, she wasn't going to do anything to upset him.

  He held the door to the Bardic Collegium open for his uncle, and followed closely on his heels.

  All that Stef had suffered from was neglect, physical and emotional. The emotional neglect was quickly remedied by every adult female in the Collegium, who found the half-starved, big-eyed child irresistible.

  Stefs spirits certainly revived quickly enough once he discovered the attention was genuine - and also learned he was to share the (relative) luxuries of the Bardic Collegium.

  Like a roof over his head every night, a real bed, all he could eat whenever he wanted it, Medren thought, following Vanyel up the narrow staircase to the second floor. Poor little lad. Whatever his keeper had been spending the money on, it certainly wasn't high living. Drugs, maybe. The gods know Stefs death on anybody he catches playing with them.

  Bard Breda's rooms were right by the staircase; Collegium lore had it that she'd picked that suite just so she could humiliate apprentices she caught sneaking in late at night.

  The fact was that she had chosen those rooms because she was something of an Empath and something of a chiru-geon; she'd gotten early herbalist training before her Gift was discovered. Bardic apprentices tended to get themselves in trouble with alarming regularity. Sometimes that trouble ended in black eyes - and occasionally in worse. Breda's minor Talents had come to the rescue of more than one wayward apprentice since the day she'd settled in to teach.

  Like every other female in the place, she'd taken a liking to Stef, which was just as well. Once Stef had reached the age of thirteen his preferences were well established - and his frail build combined with those preferences got him into more fights than the rest of the apprentices combined. Breda had patched Stefen up so many times she declared that she was considering having the Healers assign him to one of their apprentices as a permanent case study.

  Vanyel paused outside the worn wooden door, and knocked lightly.

  “Come,” Breda replied, her deep voice still as smooth as cream despite her age, and steadier than the Palace foundations. Vanyel pushed the door ajar, and let them both into the di
m cool of Breda's quarters.

  Medren often suspected that Breda was at least half owl. She was never awake before noon, she stayed alert until the unholiest hours of the dawn, and she kept the curtains drawn in her rooms no matter what time of day or night it was. Of course, that could have been at least in part because she was subject to those terrible headaches, during which the least amount of light was painful . . . still, walking into her quarters was like walking into a cave.

  Medren peered around, trying to see her in the gloom, blinking as his eyes became accustomed to it. He heard a chuckle, rich and throaty. “By the window. I do read occasionally.”

  Medren realized then that what he'd taken for an empty chair did in fact have the Bard in it; he'd been fooled by the shadows cast by the high back. “Hullo, Van,” the elderly Bard continued serenely. “Come to verify your scapegrace nephew's tale, hmm?”

  “Something like that,” Vanyel admitted, finding another chair and easing himself down into it. “You must admit that most of the rumors of cures we've chased lately have been mist-maidens.”