Magic's price Read online

  Dear gods- Everywhere he looked there was Healing magic; low-level, but comprehensive. There was a fine net of Healing holding each critical hurt stable, sealing off the worst of the bleeding, keeping the swelling down. Brodie had to insinuate himself delicately into that net, replacing its energies with his own. But once he did that, he found that he now had an awesome amount of power available to him - such a tremendous amount that it was frightening.

  He isn't a Healer - and I can't See that he's a mage, much less an Adept-class - but where in the gods' names did he get this reservoir of power from? What is he? And why is it Dark wants him?

  But there was something subtly interfering with Brodie's own powers, and keeping the man from doing anything effective about his hurts. Then Brodie identified what it was - when he finally had a breath to spare and could take a more leisurely look at the major repair work he had ahead of him.

  For when he probed into the man's abilities, beneath a shell of external blockage was something that Brodie suspected had to be Mage-Gift, though the blockage had it so sealed off that until then the Healer had not seriously considered that the man might be a mage. But Mage-Gift tied in and integrated with all the others in quite a remarkable way, so that interference with it rendered the rest of the man's abilities ineffective or impaired.

  Brodie smiled, withdrew a little, and contemplated the external matrix of the spellblock. From within it was perfectly smooth, perfectly created to leave no crack and no opening that a mage so entrapped could use to break it open.

  But from the outside - that was a different story entirely. The outside of the thing was rutted, creviced and full of weak spots. Brodie had no doubt that even a simple Healer like himself could find some way to break it open. After all, if a Healer could get through another person's shields to treat him, he ought to be able to break into a blocking-spell providing he could find something his power could work on. Half the battle was being able to See what was wrong; or so his teachers had always told him. “If you can See it, you can act on it -” was the rule.

  Brodie had never heard of a Healer breaking a spell, but after all the things he'd done so far, things he'd have sworn that he, at least couldn't do, he was willing to try this one.

  The spell probably accounted for the man's catatonia - and no one had ordered Brodie not to interfere with it. Rendan had, in fact, told him to do “whatever it takes.” He actually had permission, if oblique, to do exactly what he wanted to do.

  He smiled again, seeing the perfect revenge for everything Rendan and Master Dark had done to him within reach, for when this man came back to himself again and found he was no longer blocked. . . .

  “I just can't Heal him without cracking this thing,” he said aloud to the boy, just on the chance that the child might be a spy for his master. He savored the words as he spoke them. “My goodness, I can't imagine what it could be for, but it's certainly keeping me from doing my job.”

  The boy scratched his head, then caught and killed a flea crawling across his forehead. He looked at the wall beyond the Healer incuriously. Brodie smiled again. The child's no more than he seems. No one is going to interfere.

  And with that, he set himself to examining the spell-net, energy-pulse by energy-pulse. And found, much sooner than he expected, the point of vulnerability.

  The spell was also tied into the man's physical condition, rendering his sense of balance useless and confusing his other senses, so that sight and sound were commingled and impossible to sort out. The man would be seeing speech as well as hearing it, for instance, and hearing color as well as seeing it.

  But where the spell touched on the physical, the Healer had a point where his power could affect it. And since the spell was an integrated unit, once a weakness was exploited, the rest could be disintegrated and destroyed from within.

  Brodie laughed out loud, formed his power into a bright green stiletto-point, and set to work, chiseling his way into the spell.

  Stef froze. Yfandes' eyes were glowing, a deep, angry red that cast a faint red light on the white skin around them. He'd never seen or heard of anything like it; it was a reflection of rage he guessed, and he wasn't sure she even recognized him. He'd seen what those hooves could do-

  :Where is he?: growled a female voice, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere.

  He couldn't help himself; he gasped and looked wildly around, wondering how anyone had come up on him without him noticing.

  :It's me, Bard.: Yfandes stalked stiffly up to him, and shoved his shoulder with her nose, knocking him over sideways. :What happened to Van? Where is he? All I remember is being darted.:

  He stared at Yfandes, stunned. She must be Mindspeaking me, but how? I don't have the Gift- “I don't know,” he said aloud. “I - I ran away -”

  :I know that, boy,: she snorted, mentally and physically. :Which was exactly what Van told you to do, if you'll exercise your damned memory and stop having a crisis of conscience. And I can speak anyone I choose to, it's one of the abilities Companions try not to use if there's any way around it. Now how much time have you been wasting? Were the bastards still around, or were they gone when you came back here?:

  “I – uh - they were gone,” he stammered, clambering to his feet. “But they didn't exactly try to hide their trail -”

  He pointed at the trampled snow just beyond her. She swung her head around then turned back to him. :How long?: she demanded again.

  “It isn't much past sunset now -” he gulped, and continued bravely, “It was late afternoon when I found you. I thought you were dead. I just sort of -”

  :Tyreena's blessed ass, you went into shock, Bard, you've never seen combat, you've never lost a beloved, and you went into thrice-damned shock. You pulled yourself together, which is more than I would have given you credit for being able to do. Now, are you ready to come with me and save him?:

  He nodded, unable to speak.

  :Then tie off my tail-slump so I don't leave a track for the wolves to follow, and let's get on with it, shall we?: She raised her head, and her eyes continued to glow with that strange crimson light. :I can't Sense him, which probably means they had more than just the dart and he's spellblocked from me. But he's not dead. They couldn't kill him without my knowing.:

  Stefen searched what little had been left behind, and found a thong tied to the handle of a broken axe. He approached her flank with trepidation, the thong held out stiffly in front of him.

  She swung her head in his direction and snorted again. :Pelias' tits, Bard, I'm not a horse, I'm not going to kick you.' Get on with it!:

  He stumbled over the lumps of frozen snow in his haste, but managed not to fall too heavily against her. He could feel her muscles stiffening, bracing herself to keep him erect until he regained his balance. He tied the bleeding stump of her tail off as hard as he could; felt her wincing a little, but didn't quit binding it until the bleeding stopped.

  She craned her neck and rump around to survey his handiwork, and nodded with approval. :Good. Gods, that hurts, though. Now, have you ever ridden bareback?:

  “No -” he replied.

  :Well, you're about to learn.:

  Vanyel prowled the dark, sheltered corner of his mind that was the only place free of pain, the only place that was still his and his rage seethed with all the red-hot, pent fury of a volcano about to erupt. Periodically he tested his bonds, but they never yielded, and he was forced to retreat again. He wanted revenge; he wanted to feel those others die beneath the lash of his anger as the construct had died. He wanted to hear them shriek in pain and fear; he wanted to destroy them so utterly that there would not even be a puff of ash to blow away on the breeze when he was finished.

  And there was nothing he could do. The spell confusing his senses was too strong to break out of; even when they'd freed his hands and feet, he'd been unable to act on that freedom. Whoever had sent that spell powder had known what Van was capable of, and had integrated magic-blocking with Mind-magic-blocking, until there wa
s nothing he could use to lever himself out of his encapsulation.

  Whoever? No - this could only be the work of his enemy. No one else knew him so well, knew his weaknesses as well as his strengths. And Vanyel had tipped his hand by using Fetching to retrieve the construct, telling his enemy, in effect, exactly what he was dealing with.

  He cursed himself for having the stupidity to play right into his enemy's hands.

  And his anger built until that was all there was - white rage and the hunger to kill.

  Then, suddenly, one of the walls he had been flinging himself against vanished, giving him the opening he needed.

  He burst his mage-born bonds and roared up out of himself, wild as a rabid beast, every deadly weapon in his arsenal sharp and ready, and looking only for a target.

  Any target.

  Stef found that riding bareback - at least on Yfandes - was not as hard as he'd thought it would be. Moon or no, in broad daylight Melody had stumbled and missed paces, and he had no idea how Yfandes was finding her way in the near-darkness. She flowed along the rough ground like a scent-hound, nose to the ground, relying on him to keep watch for enemies. What he was supposed to do about those enemies, he had no idea -

  Snow had blown over the tracks they were following once they got up out of the sheltered hollow where they'd been ambushed. That didn't seem to bother Yfandes, much. Only once did she cast about herself for the trail, when they came up on a large meadow, silver and seamless under the moonlight, with a stiff breeze still scudding snow across it in sinuously snaking lines.

  She looked out over the white expanse, and circled around the edge under the trees until she came to a place where she could pick the trail up again.

  Stef felt entirely useless, just a piece of baggage on Yfandes' back.

  :You won't be useless when we find them,: came the dry, unsolicited voice in his head. :You may be more involved than you'd prefer. Now will you kindly think of snow, please?:

  “What?” he replied, startled.

  :You're broadcasting distress to anyone able to pick up thoughts, and that distress is very much centered on Van. I don't think they have a real mage or Mind-Gifted with them, but we daren't take the chance. So will you please think about snow? Or concentrate on how cold you are. Those are ordinary enough thoughts that they shouldn't give us away.:

  He huddled down a little farther into his cloak, and did as he was told, looking up at the thin clouds drifting over the moon, shivering every time the breeze found its way down the back of his neck or in the arm-slit of his cloak. He tried very hard to concentrate on how miserable he was feeling, on how he wished he was sitting beside a roaring fire, with wine mulling on the hearth, and Vanyel -

  Dammit.

  With wine mulling on the hearth and nowhere to go. Or sinking into a warm featherbed -

  He stopped that one before it started.

  Or standing before a feasting-hall crowded with adoring listeners, his stomach full of a fine dinner and better wine, and his ears full of praise -

  He managed to dwell on that image for quite some time, until a particularly sharp gust of wind cut right through his cloak and gave him more thoughts of cold and misery to dwell on.

  He managed to feel quite sorry for himself before too very long, and dwelling on his own unhappiness made it a lot easier to “forget” Van, and what their attackers might be doing to him.

  It seemed as if they'd been traveling for an awfully long time, though.

  :It's nearly dawn,: 'Fandes said. :But that's not too surprising. I hardly expected them to ambush us too near their own stronghold. The trail is getting very fresh, though, and -:

  She stopped, suddenly, and flung her head up to catch the breeze, hitting him in the face with the back of her skull, and nearly knocking his front teeth out.

  :Sorry. They're near. I smell woodsmoke, heated stone, burned venison, and them. Get down, and we'll take this quietly. There's bound to be a sentry, but whether it'll be on the walls or outside them-:

  Let's hope it's outside, Stef thought, flexing his stiff hands, then sliding off her back to land knee-deep in snow. We won't be able to get past him if there's a sentry on the wall, and I don't know the first thing about taking one out.

  He let Yfandes lead the way, picking his feet up carefully to keep from falling over anything. Finally she stopped, right on the edge of a screening of bushes.

  :Careless, lazy, or stupid,: she said, and for a moment he wondered if she meant him -

  :They've let all this undergrowth spring up on the edge of their clearing,: she continued, her mind-voice thick with contempt. :We can come right up to the walls without anyone ever seeing us. Ah, there he is. Stef, look up there, just above the door. See him?:

  Stef picked his way up to the bushes and looked - sure enough, there was something there, pacing back and forth a little. A shadow among shadows, on the top of a wall that even in the dim moonlight showed severe neglect. The square-built keep would not have lasted a candlemark in a siege.

  :That's the sentry and that's the only one they have.: She paused a moment. :Now what that means is that this is probably the only way into the building, which is not very good for us.:

  “I could just walk up there,” he offered. “I'm a Bard, I could just pretend I'm a traveling minstrel -”

  :In the dead of winter, the middle of nowhere? Minstrels don't travel in winter if they can help it. How the blazes did you get out here, and why did you come? They may be stupid, but they're probably suspicious bastards.:

  “Uh - I could say I was turned out of my post -”

  She snorted. :Have you seen any Great Houses since three days before the Border?:

  “My inn, then - the innkeeper's wife and I -”

  :Why here? This isn't a very promising place. It's all but falling to pieces.:

  “I'm cold and hungry, and I wouldn't care if it was the first place I saw with people and food and fire -”

  :Wait.: She raised her head to look over his. :Something's happening.:

  With no more warning than that, the center of the building went up with an ear-numbing roar in a sheet of red and green flames.

  Stef squeaked, and hid his eyes with his forearm, then peeked under the crook of his elbow. The entire front of the building had burst outward in the time he'd hidden his eyes; the door was splinters, and the right side of the keep had already collapsed outward. There were screams, but no sign of fire, and Stef realized then that what he'd just seen was an explosion of mage-power.

  :Get on!: Yfandes ordered, and he scrambled onto her back. She didn't even wait this time until he'd settled himself; she just leapt through the bushes with the Bard clinging to her mane and trying desperately to get a grip on her with his legs.

  She raced across the small expanse of clear ground between the bushes and the keep, and crashed through what was left of the door, coming to an abrupt halt just inside. He blinked, his eyes burning from the foul smoke blowing into them, and tried to make out what was going on. Here, inside the building, there were fires, small ones. Furniture burning. Piles of rags, smoldering -

  Men.

  With horror and nausea, Stefen realized that fully half of what he had thought were burning piles of flotsam were actually burning bodies, aflame with the same blood-red fires Van had used to destroy the raven-thing. And some of the piles were thrashing and screaming.

  He tumbled from Yfandes' back as she pivoted, lashing out with hooves and teeth at a man running by. He tried to make some sense of the confusion, looking, without consciously realizing he was doing so, for Van.

  And then the fires rose higher, reflecting off a single figure, the red glare concealing until this moment the fact that the man wore shredded Whites. Scarlet mage-fires turned his white-streaked hair into a cascade of ripping shadow threaded with blood. Just beyond, a group of terrified men crouched against the far wall, cowering away from him; some pleading, some simply trying to melt into the stone of the wall in numb fear.

  “
Vanyel!” Stef shouted. The Herald turned around for a moment, but a movement by one of the men he had cornered made him turn back to face them. It was Vanyel, but not a Van that Stefen recognized. Like Yfandes, his eyes and the mage-focus around his neck glowed an identical, angry red, and beneath the glow the eyes were not sane. His clothing was tattered and bloodstained, and his face disfigured with bruises, but it was not that mistreatment that made him impossible to identify. It was those furious, mad eyes, eyes which held nothing in common with humanity at all.

  Vanyel gestured, and one of the men shivering against the wall jerked upright, and stumbled toward him. As he did so, the last of the screaming stopped, though the fires continued to burn in eerie silence. In that silence, the man's whimpering pleas for mercy were sickeningly clear.

  Vanyel laughed. “What mercy did you grant me, scum?” he replied in a soft, conversational voice. “It seems to me that I remember you. It seems to me that you were the first and the last to sate yourself. 'Little white mare,' I believe you called me.” He gestured again, and the bandit stooped, like a clumsily-controlled marionette, and picked something up from the floor.

  It was the splintered end of a spear-shaft, ragged, but as sharp as anything of metal. The bandit's arms jerked again, and the jagged end of it was placed against his stomach.

  The bandit's eyes widened; his mouth opened, but nothing emerged. There was a popping sound, and as the point of the wood penetrated the bandit's clothing, Stefen realized with horror that Vanyel was forcing the brigand to disembowel himself, controlling his body with Mind-magic. “No!” he screamed. “Van, no!”

  He flung himself between the two, and faced that frightening mask of insanity, his hands held out in pleading. “Van, you're a Herald, no matter what they did to you, you can't do that to him!”

  The red glow died from Van's eyes for a moment; then his jaw hardened, and something like an invisible hand pushed Stefen out of the way. The Bard stumbled and fell to the filthy floor, but was up again in a breath, and right back between the Herald and his victim. The brigand fell onto his back, writhing, then stiffened as Vanyel stepped forward.