Magic's price Read online

  “Because - this is a guess, mind - the Pelagirs are protected by the Tayledras, and Iftel was too tough a nut to crack.” He smiled, crookedly. “Iftel is very quiet unless you rouse them, and that deity of theirs - whatever it is - takes a very proprietary and active interest in the well-being of its people. Not even a circle of Adept-class mages wants to tackle a god.”

  I could wish we could get it to act beyond its Borders. . . .

  “So, he decided he wanted Valdemar.” Stef sat in the far corner and mended Van's tunic with careful, tiny stitches. Some of the gear had been retrieved with Yfandes' saddlebags, but most was lost, and Vanyel hadn't wanted to go back for it. “What's he been doing about it?”

  “He's been killing Heralds,” Van said bluntly. “But doing it so carefully that no one ever suspected. Rendan knew a fair amount, more than he ever told his men - Rendan's father was in a real position to know a great deal, since he had enough Mage-Gift to be useful to Master Dark.”

  Vanyel knew a great deal more than that; since he hadn't been exactly concerned with ethics at the time, he'd raped Rendan's mind away from him in a heartbeat. He couldn't subvert us, he couldn't take us on openly, so he destroyed us singly. The Herald-Mages were the easiest for him to identify at a distance - and the ones he considered most threatening. And I was right; he's been killing children and trainees, making it look like accidents, for a very long time now. Getting the children the moment their Mage-Gift manifested, if he could. Like Tylendel. . . .

  Like me.

  “He's been doing this for years without detection,” Vanyel continued, “And the only reason he tipped his hand with me is because I was a different and more powerful mage than he expected. And because I'm the last; he didn't have to worry about detection by the others, and he really wanted me out of the way. And -”

  “And?” Stef prompted.

  Vanyel closed his eyes a moment. “And because he's ready. He's bringing his forces down here to invade. Rendan didn't know when, but probably this spring.”

  He was lying, and he knew it. So did Yfandes, but she didn't call him on it. All those dreams - the ones of dying in the pass. They weren't allegories for something else, they were accurate. But I still don't know when he's coming through - if I go get help now, it could be too late to stop him. One mage can hold him and however many troops and minor mages he has with him if it's done in the pass. But an army couldn't stop him if he makes it to the other side, and the Forest.

  “So what are we going to do, get help?” Stef asked, looking relieved.

  Vanyel shook his head. “No, not until I've got accurate information. We're going up through Crookback Pass, so I can see what he's got.” That's why I've been fighting myself, love. I knew just as well as you did that any weakness would give him an opening to destroy me. And that includes wanting vengeance.

  Van felt strangely calm - whatever came, he hoped he was ready. He had tried to deal with all his fears alone, and what he had left was resignation and purpose. He hoped it would be enough to carry him through what was to come.

  Master Dark had to be stopped. If it would take a sacrifice of one to stop him, Vanyel would willingly be that sacrifice.

  Yfandes understood; she, too, had fought for Valdemar and the people of Valdemar all her life. But Van didn't think Stef would. So Stef wouldn't learn the truth until it was too late.

  This was something quite different from the need for revenge that had driven him up here. He didn't hate Master Dark with the all-consuming passion that had eaten him as well - he hated coldly; what the mage had done, and what he wanted to do. Valdemar was in peril -but more than that, if this mage was permitted to take Valdemar, he would move on to other realms. Yfandes and Hyrryl agreed -

  I'II cherish the time I have left - and I'll stop him however it takes. And if my death is what it takes - I'll call Final Strike on him. Not even an Adept can survive that.

  “All right,” Stef agreed reluctantly. “If that's what you want, that's what we'll do.”

  Van smiled, a little sadly. “Thank you, ashke. I was hoping you'd say that.”

  Stef trudged alongside of Yfandes, with Vanyel walking on the other side, both of them holding to her saddle-girth so that she could help them over the worst obstacles. The path was knee-deep in snow, and wound through stony foothills covered in virgin forest. Fallen limbs and loose rocks provided plenty of things to stumble over.

  Crookback Pass was so near the kyree caverns that Hyrryl and Aroon were visibly agitated to learn of Master Dark's plans. The Pass was the southernmost terminus of the only certain way through the mountains that anyone knew - at least in Valdemar.

  Stef looked over 'Fandes' back at the Herald, toiling along with his head down and the sun making a halo of the silver strands in his hair. Van caught him at it, and gave him one of those peculiar, sad smiles he'd been displaying whenever he looked at Stef lately. Van had been very strange since he'd recovered. Loving - dear gods, yes. But preoccupied, inward-focused, and a little melancholy - but quite adamantly determined on this expedition.

  So far it had been fairly easy, except for the heavy snow and the odd boulder. The kyree kept this area of the forest free of snow-cats and wolves - and it was really quite beautiful, if you had leisure to look at it. Which they didn't; both Van and Yfandes seemed determined to get up to the Pass as quickly as possible. With only one riding beast (Melody had vanished completely, and Stef only hoped she'd found her way to some farm and not down a wolfs throat) the only way to make any time was to do what they were doing, both of them walking, but using 'Fandes' strength to get them over the worst parts.

  The hills they'd been traversing got progressively steeper and rockier, and by midafternoon they were in the mountains just below the Pass itself.

  That was when Vanyel called a halt. Stef was afraid that Van was going to insist on a cold camp - but he didn't. They searched until they found a little half-cave, then spent the rest of the time until dark searching out dead wood. With the provisions the kyree had given them - more dead rabbits than Stef had ever seen at one time in his life - and the fire Van started, they had a camp that was almost as comfortable as the kyree caves.

  Stef would have preferred a real bed over the pine boughs and their own cloaks, but that was all they'd have.

  Van smiled at him from across the fire, the damage to his clothing and person a bit less noticeable in the dim firelight. “Sorry about the primitive conditions, ashke, but I'd rather not let him know we were coming. Any display of magic will do that. If he's still trying to guess where we are, I'll be a lot happier.”

  Stef tore another mouthful of meat off his rabbit-leg, wiped the grease from the corners of his mouth, and nodded. “That's all right, I don't mind, I'm just glad you're not after him the way you were. And I'd rather he didn't know where we were, either! I'm just glad we're finally going to get this over with. Then we can go home and just be ourselves for a while.”

  Vanyel blinked, rapidly, then pulled off his glove and rubbed his eyes. “Smoke's bad on this side -” He coughed, then said softly, “Stef, you've been more to me than I can tell you. You've made me so happy - happier than I ever thought I'd be. I - never did as much for you as I'd have liked to. And if it hadn't been for you, back there, I -”

  Stef scooted around to Van's side of their tiny fire. “Tell you what -” he said cheerfully. “I'll let you make it up to me. How's that for a bargain?”

  Vanyel smiled, and blinked. “I might just do that...”

  By midafternoon of the third day, they were into real mountains; though sunlight still illuminated the tops of the white-covered peaks around them, down on the trail they were in chill gloom. Stef shivered, and hoped they'd be stopping soon - then they rounded a curve in the trail and Crookback Pass stretched out before them.

  A long, narrow valley, it was as clean a cut between two ranks of mountains as if a giant had cut it with a knife.

  Too clean. . . .

  Stef took a closer look at the
sides of the pass. The rock faces looked natural enough until about ten man-heights above the floor of the pass. From there down they were as sheer as if they had been sliced, and as regular.

  “Magic,” Van whispered. “He must have carved every difficult pass from here back north this way. Dear gods - think of the power - think of what it took to mask the power!”

  He looked up, above the area that had been carved. “If we walk along the floor of the pass, we'll be walking right into the path of - of anything coming along -”

  Stef looked where he was looking and saw what looked like a thin thread of path. “Is that the original pass up there, do you think?”

  Van nodded. “Look - see where it joins the route we're on? This is the original trail right up until this point. Then the old trail climbs, and the new one stays level.”

  Stef studied the old trail, what he could see of it. “You couldn't bring an army along that - at least not quickly.”

  “But you can on this.” Van studied the situation a moment longer. “Let's take the old way as far as we can. We might have to turn back, but I'd rather try the old route first. I'd feel too exposed, otherwise.”

  Stef sighed, seeing his hopes for an early halt vanish. “All right, but if I spend the night camped on a ledge, I won't be responsible for my temper in the morning.”

  Van turned suddenly and embraced him so fiercely that Stef thought he heard ribs crack. “It's not your temper I'm worried about, ashke,” he whispered. “It's you. I don't want anything to happen to you. I need that, to know you're safe. If I know that, I can do anything I have to.”

  Then, just as suddenly as he had turned, he released the Bard. “Let's get going while there's still light,” he said, and began picking his way over the rocks to the old trail. Yfandes nudged Stef with her nose, and he took his place behind Van, with the Companion bringing up the rear.

  From then on, he was too busy watching where he put his feet to worry about anything else. The trail was uneven, icy, and treacherous; strewn with spills of boulders that marked previous rockslides. After they came across one pile that had what was clearly a skeletal hand protruding from beneath it, Stef started looking up nervously at every suspicious noise.

  And to add to the pleasure of the climb, the right side of the trail very frequently dropped straight down to the new cut.

  It was not an experience Stef ever wanted to repeat - although for the first time in days - or the daylight, at least - he wasn't cold; the opposite, in fact. There was something to be said for the exertion of the climb, after all.

  Night fell, but the full moon was already high in the sky, and Vanyel elected to push on by its light. They were about halfway across the Pass, and according to the kyree, there was a wide, flat meadow on the other side, and a good-sized stand of trees. That meant firewood, and a place to camp safe from avalanche.

  Stef was very much looking forward to anything wide and flat. His back and legs ached like they'd never hurt before, and once the sun was down, the temperature dropped. His labor was no longer enough to keep him warm, and his hands were getting numb.

  :Just one more rise, Bard,: Yfandes whispered into his mind. :Then it's downhill -:

  Suddenly, Vanyel dropped flat, and Stef did the same without asking why. He crawled up beside the Herald, who had taken shelter behind a thin screening of scrawny bushes.

  Vanyel turned a little and saw him coming; put his finger to his lips, and pointed down. Stef wriggled up a little farther so he could see, expecting a scouting party or some such thing below them.

  Instead, he saw an army.

  They covered the meadow, the snow was black with them, and they were not camped for the night; there were no bivouacs, no campfires, just rank after rank of men, lined up like a child's toy soldiers. Stef wondered what they were waiting for, then saw that there was movement at the farther edge of the meadow, where the next stretch of the trail began. More men were pouring into the meadow with every candlemark, and they were probably waiting for the last of them to join the rest before making the last push through the mountains. By night, so that no prying eyes would see them.

  Master Dark was bringing his army into Valdemar, and there was nothing on the Northern Border that could even delay them once they came across the pass.

  Vanyel wriggled back; Stef followed him.

  “What are we -” Stef whispered in a panic. Van placed his finger gently on Stef s lips, silencing him.

  “You're going to alert the Guard post; Yfandes will take you, and with only you on her back, she'll be able to do anything but fly. I'll hold them right here until the Guard comes up.”

  “But -” Stef protested.

  “It's not as stupid an idea as it sounds,” Van said, looking back over his shoulder. “Back there where the old trail meets the new, one mage can hold off any size army. And if the Guard can come up quickly enough, one detachment can keep that army bottled up on the trail below the Pass for as long as it takes for the rest of the army to get here. But none of that is going to work if I don't stop them now, here.”

  Stef wanted to object - but he couldn't. Vanyel was right; even a Bard could see that - this was a classic opportunity and a classic piece of strategy, and Master Dark couldn't possibly have anticipated it. “You'd better – just -” Stef began, fiercely, and couldn't continue for the tears that suddenly welled up. “Dammit, Van! I -”

  Vanyel took Stefs face in both hands and kissed him, with such fierce passion that it shook the Bard to his marrow. “I love you, too. You're absolutely the best friend, the dearest love I've ever had. I'll love you as long as there's anything left of me. Now go - quickly. I won't have my whole attention on what I'm doing if you're not safe.”

  Stef backed away, then flung himself on Yfandes' back before he could change his mind.

  :Hang on,: she ordered, and he had barely enough time to get a firm grip on the saddle with hands and legs when she was off.

  Vanyel watched them vanish with the speed only a Companion could manage - just short of flying. Stef weighed far less than he did, which should improve Yfandes' progress. . . .

  Then he climbed down the sheer slope to the floor of the new trail. He had to make the best possible time to get to the end and the bottleneck, and the only way he was going to be able to do that would be to take the easiest way. Getting down was the hard part - when he got there, he found that the ground was planed so evenly that he could run.

  First, he began a weather-magic that would bring in the clouds he sensed just out of sight. Then, run, he did. He was out of breath by the time he reached his chosen spot, but he had plenty of leisure time to recover when he got there. In fact, the worst part was the waiting; he had placed himself right where the old trail made that sharp turn into the new, and they wouldn't be able to see him until they were right on top of him. And he couldn't see them, which made things worse.

  He tried not to look around too much; this was the exact setting of his dreams, and he didn't want to be reminded of how they had all ended.

  ForeSight is just seeing the possible future, he reminded himself, probing beneath the skin of the land for nodes, and setting up his tap-lines now, filtering them through his mage-focus so that the power would be attuned to him and he wouldn't have to use it raw. Moondance told me that ages ago, and if anyone would know, the Tayledras would. The first dream was almost twenty years ago! Things have to have altered since then. And if I remember what happened in them, I may be able to alter the outcome. Some of those dreams even had 'Lendel in them with me, instead of -

  Stef. Twenty years. 'Lendel had died at seventeen. Van had met Stef when the Bard was seventeen. There was time enough, between 'Lendel's death and now - Stef was exactly the right age to have been born about that time.

  More things sprang to mind. The Dreamtime encounter with 'Lendel-the things he had said - the way the Tayledras treated Stef and the way Savil had taken the Bard under her wing after that - it was all beginning to make a pattern.


  The way he called me ashke without ever knowing the word. No. Yes. What other answer is there? He came back to me, 'Lendel came back as Stef, somehow - and Savil and the Hawkbrothers knew -

  But there was no opportunity to think about this revelation, for the first of Master Dark's forces had just begun to round the bend in the trail, and it was time to put his plans into motion.

  As little bloodshed as I can manage, particularly with the fighters. They could be spell-bound, ignorant-whatever.

  The clouds he had been calling loomed above the mountains, hiding the peaks, and full of lightning-crackles just waiting to be released. Vanyel was happy to oblige them; he called lightnings down out of them to lash the ground just ahead of the first rank, as he simultaneously illuminated himself with a blinding blue glare of mage-light.

  The lightning exploded the trail in front of him, the ice-covered rocks screaming as the powerful force lashed them, heating them enough to turn the ice into steam in an eyeblink. Vanyel kept his eyes sheltered by his forearm, so that he alone was not blinded. The first ranks of the forces were, however; black-armored men stumbled blindly forward, pushed by the ranks behind them, shouting in fear and anger.

  All right, that's one point of difference from the dreams, already. I fought them magic-against-weaponry, I didn't intimidate them right off.

  The chaos calmed, as Vanyel stood, ready, energies making his mage-focus glow the same blue as the light behind him, his hands tingling with power. The ranks of armed men and strange beasts stirred restively, the fighters watching him through the slits in their helms. In this much, too, the dreams had been right. Under the armor, they were a motley lot, and only half of them looked human; but they were armed and armored with weapons and protection made of some dull black stuff, and carried identical round, unornamented black shields. And the stumbling chaos he had caused had been righted in short order; that argued for a great deal of training together. This was the army he had taken it for.

  The ranks in front parted, as in the dreams, and a wizard stepped through. There was no doubt of what he was, he was unarmed and unarmored, and the Power sat heavily in him, making him glow sullenly to Mage-Sight. But it was the power of blood-magic -