Under The Vale And Other Tales Of Valdemar v(-105

by Mercedes Lackey

  This time, she sat comfortably beneath a tree before she twisted her Mage Sight to the broad and shallow focus that allowed her to See the nebulous fog of power. The haze seemed stronger here near the water than it had been in the other clearing. Would it be easier to work with? Opening her shields, she once again cascaded a subtle ripple of magic over her surface, imagining the enticing fragments drawing the diffuse energy toward her.

  Back in his ekele, Windwhisperer sat up and hissed an alert to Silverheart. “Tria says she’s sitting down near the head of the waterfall.” He linked to the kestrel’s eyes, then shifted to his own Far Sight once he had Stardance’s position fixed in his mind. With a soft touch, he felt Silverheart connect to him, and suddenly her Healing Mage Sight layered over his, so that he saw the faint life force limning the area the girl sat in, the haze of fragmented power that was slowly floating toward her.

  “That’s what you See and work with?” he murmured in amazement, and Silverheart chuckled.

  “Very small, as you see. It takes patience. A lot of patience.”

  “But how is she working with it?”

  Silverheart didn’t answer for a long time as she studied the young girl, watching the fog gradually coalesce into tendrils that reached out toward the girl’s glowing form. “She’s making herself into something like a living lodestone, using some of her own energy to draw the bits of power to herself. Once it connects to her . . .” Her voice trailed off as Stardance raised her hands, her fingers gathering the first of those tentative strands and doing . . . something . . . to blend them.

  Windwhisperer put voice to Silverheart’s question. “What in the Star-Eyed’s Name is she doing?”

  Silverheart had no reply, for she had never seen anyone work with magic this way. Instead of guiding the tiny bits of power with her mind, nudging them together as Silverheart had been taught to do, Stardance used her hands, fingers twisting nimbly but carefully, to blend the fragments together, folding them over each other and weaving—Silverheart was so shocked when the word came to her that she broke her link with Windwhisperer.

  “The hertasi,” she said at last, “Stardance’s caretaker. She worked with cloth?”

  “Ye-es,” Windwhisperer replied, his brow furrowed with confusion.

  Silverheart slowly connected back with him, this time not using her Mage Sight, looking only at the deft movements of the girl’s fingers.

  “She’s spinning the power like thread, weaving it together,” she murmured at last, a hint of awe tinging her voice. “That’s how she could attempt it, without any training in guiding the subtle magics. She’s using her own power to connect with it and then treating the tiny bits of energy like the bits of fiber to be spun into thread.” With a twist of her mind, she shifted into her Healing Mage Sight, again sharing what she saw with Windwhisperer, and they watched as Stardance blended the last of the tendrils that she had drawn to her with the ones that already wound together around her coruscating fingertips. Then the girl slowly shifted, drawing her hands and the fragile strand of magic to the rock that had once anchored the waterfall’s node.

  “How is she going to connect—oh, she’s using her own power again.” Silverheart answered her own question as Stardance held her hands over the stone, then rippled some of her personal energy down to it, to guide the tiny runnel down from her hands.

  “This one is larger than the one she created yesterday,” Silverheart murmured. “I hope she doesn’t . . .” Even as the words left her, they both saw the little line “snap” into the earth, and the girl pitched forward, unconscious. Her bondbird was instantly beside her, her beak wide with distress cries, and Windwhisperer’s Tria soon joined the falcon, her presence calming the larger but younger bird. In another moment, they saw Nightblade drop from one of the nearby trees, carefully turning the girl over and checking for injuries before scooping her up and heading back toward the Vale.

  Windwhisperer released his Far Sight, and Silverheart broke her link with him, the two of them staring at each other in disbelief.

  “Should we question her when she is restored? Will she be more open to talking? Does she even realize how very important it is, what she has done with no instruction, nothing beyond that of the other trainees?”

  Windwhisperer shook his head. “I think she is still too fragile, too hurt for questions. She has lost much, this one, and the Storms especially have taken much from her. It would be good for her if something could be gained from them, as well. If she is not a danger, if she is not creating anything that she cannot handle, can she be left to make that discovery on her own?”

  Silverheart frowned, thought a moment, then determination set in her eyes. “K’Veyas needs her to be trained in her new-found Gift before it becomes too strong. To do something once is accident, twice is coincidence, but a third time . . . if she goes out tomorrow, I want to follow her. If she attempts this again, I will have to interrupt, to confront her in some way. It may not be dangerous now, but if left too long, it could become so.”

  The last traces of exhaustion-headache were stronger this time, more difficult to shake free. Stardance frowned. She had no memory of coming back to her ekele, although she vaguely recalled being on her bedroll already when one of the hertasi had brought her the cool, refreshing drink commonly used by those who overextended their Gifts. Other than that brief exchange, her last clear recollection was of creating the second little ley-line. The thought of it made her smile—they were things of beauty in their own way, the tiny runnels of power that she had spun together. Hadn’t there been another node, too, in the area she had been in, near the stand of pines? Maybe she could go back out to that one today. If she could not weave works of beauty with Triska, perhaps—she paused, then probed the thought of Triska. For the first time, the ache didn’t threaten to swallow her, and she didn’t feel cut open on the sharp and jagged edges of grief.

  Before she could ponder further, Kir chirped from her perch, Sending a feeling of combined hunger and eagerness to stretch her wings. Stardance rose and freed her bondbird from her hood, a faint thread of anticipation to match the falcon’s dawning within her.

  Chapter 7 - Discordance - Jennifer Brozek

  Rax wept in what was left of his ale as the Bard finished the ballad of love lost and betrayal. It wasn’t like him to lose his composure outside the house, but things had been so difficult this season, and he didn’t see it getting any easier with the baby on the way. As the Bard struck up the next tune, a war chant with a heavy drumbeat, Rax called out to the bar wench.

  “Sarry, get me another and another after that.” He felt the chant beat in time with his heart and felt his blood rise to combat the sorrow.

  Come, come, come to the beat of the drum, drum, drum.

  And kill, kill, kill with your sharpened sword!

  To take, take, take every last crumb, crumb, crumb.

  And do as you will!

  Sarry, distracted by a handsome man with coin, ignored him, fussing over her target for a tip and possibly a tumble later if the stars aligned.

  “Sarry!”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him and smiled a tight-lipped smirk that told him all he needed to know before turning back to the man before her. “Is there anything else I can get you, Seder?”

  Before Seder could answer, a clay mug sailed past Sarry’s ear and crashed against the wall in a shower of shards and dregs of ale. Sarry turned to see Rax standing tall and shaking with rage. The mood of the tavern turned ugly with the beat of the drum and song of violence. Rax took a step toward the bar wench, only to be stopped by another growling man—already angry at the sound of Rax’s voice.

  She didn’t see the first punch or who threw it. Years of experience in rough places told her this was going to be trouble and wouldn’t stop until blood was shed. As she fled to the back of the tavern, the room erupted in chaos—men yelling and swearing, the pummeling of fists on flesh, the crash of furniture thrown, and the sharp sound of metal weapons being u
nsheathed.

  Mathias grabbed her and pulled her behind the bar. She let him do it, thinking that he was trying to protect her. Instead, she found herself flattened face down on the dirt floor with him behind her—one hand holding her down, the other fumbling with her skirts. She had a brief moment of confusion. She trusted Mathias. He’d always protected her. Now, this? Sarry let the rage of being attacked flow over her, and the pounding of her furious heart beat in her head like the sound of the Bard’s drum.

  Sarry screamed her rage, bucking her body up as she reached for a weapon. Her hand found one: a large serving fork. As Mathias wrestled with her, trying to hold her down, she twisted her body around and stabbed the man who had been her friend, protector, and boss in the throat. Blood spurted from the wound as he reared up in pain and she yanked the fork back. They both screamed now, two more voices in the din of the total tavern melee. She plunged the fork deep into his stomach.

  On the other side of the bar, Rax already lay dead with his head caved in by a chair. Seder was dying; a sword pierced his chest, and his enemy was being beaten to death by two other men using clubs and their feet. Those who were not fighting were dead.

  Except for one.

  No one noticed when the music stopped. Nor did they notice when the Bard picked up his pack and drum and walked with careful steps through the violence and out the door.

  The only survivor of the night, Sarry, would not remember what the Bard’s name was or what he looked like.

  Terek frowned at the letter in his hand. Usually, letters from home were a thing of joy. Not today. There had been a brawl at a tavern, and people had died. People he knew. Mathias had been a brother to him. His death was a shock. He closed his eyes and rubbed his brow. There is more to this, he thought. People don’t murder each other over ale. Maybe in the slums of Haven, but not in Woodberry. Not in a tiny settlement like that. Something within his Gift told him he was right.

  “Terek?”

  He opened his eyes and smiled at the always fashionable Mari. She was a Bard who knew those worth knowing in the court, and she looked the part. “Yes?” He frowned at the worry lines around her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure, but I was listening to a couple of Heralds talking and I think something’s happening.”

  He gestured for her to come in and sit down. “Tell me.”

  “I’m not sure what’s happening,” she repeated. “I got a letter from home. A friend of mine died while carousing with his friends.” She bit her lip, marshaling her thoughts. “Then I heard the Heralds talking. They’d just come off Circuit, and there was a bit of bad business in the North. They had to judge a murderer. The thing is, at first, I thought they were talking about the death of my friend because everything was the same—the victim had been killed in a huge tavern brawl. But they weren’t. They were talking about someone else. So, I asked them more about it. Two different villages, next to each other, had the same thing happen about a sennight apart. Bar fight, unusual amount of death.”

  Terek nodded, his heart thumping hard in his chest. It sounded far too much like his letter from home to be coincidence. “It’s been a hard season in northern Valdemar,” he allowed.

  She shook her head, hair flying in its vehemence. “Not that hard. Look.” She pulled a rolled up piece of paper from her bag. When she spread it out on his desk, he saw that it was a map with small marks over four villages in the north.

  As soon as Terek saw the map with the marks, his stomach dropped in horrified recognition and his mouth dried. He sucked air in through clenched teeth.

  “These villages,” Mari said, pointing to the places they both knew well, “have all had horrible events with people dying in taverns or . . .” She stopped and took a breath before continuing. “Or have had a bunch of people kill themselves. Valdemar has had hard seasons before, but this is different. I looked into it. This is one village after another in a line.”

  “In a circuit,” Terek corrected and tapped Woodberry. “Make that five villages. Maybe more.” He drew his finger over the map from village to village in an oval circle. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Mari paused to brush invisible lint from her ruffled crimson sleeve, reluctant to speak. “There’s a Bard involved. Only, no one can remember him after the carnage. They just know he was there the night of the deaths, but no one can find his body, and he isn’t in town the next day.”

  “One of ours is doing this on my old circuit.” He looked up at his former protégé, his eyes bleak. “One of ours. And it has something to do with me.”

  He listened to his lord’s voice as it instructed him where to bury the shard. Eyes closed, he stepped forward or to the side as it commanded. He could feel the power flowing through him as he dropped to his knees and dug a small hole. As he placed the shard, chanting the words that had become his mantra, his prayer, his obsession, he knew his revenge was nigh. Either the object of his hate would come to him, or everyone who used to laud the old Bard would suffer for ages to come.

  Poisoned stone planted on the edge of the village, he stood and brushed the dirt from his hands. He hefted his pack with its evil secret, put on a real smile in anticipation of the carnage that would happen that night, and sauntered down the road into the village where kindly folk smiled at him, pointing him toward the nearest tavern.

  It was a modest thing with only one story and small windows, but it was one of the nicer buildings in the square, with uncracked walls and a freshly painted sign of a mug frothing over with ale. He nodded to himself and entered. Empty at this time of day, the proprietor sat at one of the tables, eating from a bowl of steaming porridge. He didn’t get up, only nodded and gestured the stranger forward with his wooden spoon.

  “Good day, I’m Sorrel. I’m looking for a room and a place to show my skill.” Sorrel tapped his drum for emphasis.

  “Daven, here.” The proprietor gave Sorrel a critical once-over. “Bard, eh?”

  “No, good sir. Merely a wandering minstrel. I wear not the red of an esteemed Bard.” He watched Daven calculate in his head for a moment.

  “Then I can’t pay you Bard wages, but I can make sure you have a warm bed and a full belly and maybe a coin or two to rub together as you leave.”

  Sorrel smiled, “Excellent. For that, I will give you an evening of entertainment you won’t forget for a long time to come.”

  “May I sit with you?”

  The old man looked up at Sorrel’s smiling face, glanced at the mostly full tables around him and nodded with a grunt.

  “I’m Sorrel,” he said as he sat, arranging his pack and drum next to him on the floor.

  “Aaron.” He gave Sorrel another look and then returned his gaze to his ale.

  “You local?”

  “Nah. Traveling through.”

  “Where to?”

  Aaron looked up again, “Why?”

  Sorrel pulled back and raised a hand, “Just curious. I’m a traveler, too. Thought I’d make conversation. Sorry.”

  The old man gave a long, gusty sigh. “Nah, I’m sorry. Heading to Woodberry. Got grandkids to look in on. Their Da died.”

  “Woodberry. Bad bit of business there.”

  “You know?” Aaron paused in his mug in midair.

  Sorrel nodded.

  “What’ve you heard?”

  “Big brawl. Lots of people died. It was a mess.”

  “You were there?”

  “Nah. Just picked up the word on the road. Avoided it.”

  Aaron drank deep from the mug and clonked it on the table. “Yeah. That’s what I’ve heard, too.”

  “It’s why I travel.” Sorrel saw Aaron’s questioning look. “To spread joy and leave a place a bit lighter than when I arrived. He tapped the drum on the ground.

  “A Bard?”

  “Just a minstrel.”

  Aaron nodded. “Playing tonight?”

  “Aye.”

  “Good. I could use some music. It lightens the soul.”

&
nbsp; Sorrel gave him a smile with too many teeth. “This will be a night to remember. Speaking of which, it’s time for me to earn my supper.”

  Word of the minstrel had spread throughout the small village. Music was always welcome, and the tavern was almost full. The sounds of wooden mugs clopping to the table mixed with the smacking of satisfied lips and the laughter of good conversation. However, when Sorrel took his place in the corner where the singers and dancers performed, the place quieted with an anticipatory buzz of people whispering to each other what they knew of the stranger. Two beats of a drum later and the tavern was almost silent.

  “Tonight, a dream of mine is about to come true and all of you here will witness it unfolding.” Sorrel reached down into his pack and pulled out something small and black. “Terek, this is for you.” With that, he tossed the black thing toward Aaron.

  It is the most natural thing in the world to catch something tossed to you in a casual manner. Terek’s hands were already wrapping themselves around the cursed item as Sorrel’s drum sounded out a slow beat and Terek realized that his real name had been used. By then it was much too late.

  He rocked back as the power of the thing, a statue with large blank eyes and a larger mouth filled with sharp teeth, caught him in a spell. Staring into the statue’s eyes, Terek knew that Sorrel had captured the rest of the audience in a spell, and they would be no help. He felt his own power draining from him as he fell into the statue’s trance.

  “Before me stand three promising youngsters, but not every dream can come true.” Terek recognized himself from years before while riding his last circuit. He had been asked to judge the children in the village for potential. And judge he did. “You, young Sorrel, you have some skill but lack both the creativity and the Gift of a true Bard. You will be welcome at campfires, but not in the halls of the Collegium.” With a shake of his head and a turn of his shoulder, he dismissed the boy. Terek saw the boy’s anguish as he fled the square, but that was no longer his concern. These other two children were.