“Grins,” Aric whispered.
“Right.” Lelia smiled and sat back. “Well, if you can prove any of this ...” She palmed a coin into her good hand, walking it up and down her knuckles. “We’ll talk, eh?”
Olli wandered in when the boys were gone, his mouth tugging to one side. “You seem keen on finding out more about our dear, touched Herda.”
“I admit a bit of a fascination.”
“I’ve heard it all before.” He nodded with a rueful smile toward the door the boys had left through. “Her story was sad once. Now it’s just a curiosity for the children to make up wild tales about and the elders to discuss at night.” He met her gaze directly. “You ask me, there’s a part of her heart that went to the Havens when the fever caught her.”
“Hm.” Lelia pursed her lips. “What if it’s true? The wolves, the colddrake, the ghosts—any of them. But not true to us, just to her.” She raised her brows, contemplating her own dance with delirium on the road to Langenfield. “It doesn’t need to be real. She just needs to believe it is.”
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’d be a powerful delusion.”
“Just a theory.” She stood, arching her back in a brief stretch. “I suppose it’s time for me to set the tables. How many you think we’ll get tonight?”
“Who can say? Last time I saw this much business we had a gleeman claiming to be from Haighlei.”
Lelia scoured her memory but could not place the word. “Never heard of it.”
“Neither had we. Havens know how he wound up here, but he assured us he was from there, and after seeing his trick we half-believed him. A little snake he would coax out of a jar by playing music.” Olli mimed playing a flute. “Strangest thing. The snake would sway back and forth, just like a dancer ... people came from miles to see it.”
“Herda, too?”
Olli laughed. “You never give up, do you? Oh, yes. Herda was fascinated, just like all of us. He had a side business selling versions of the little egg-flute he played.” He grinned. “Took some doing convincing the littles that they weren’t magical, and snakes don’t just answer when you blow a few notes.”
Later, as Lelia set out pots of honey, she thought about the Haighlei gleeman. A Bardic Gift of a different color? Her hands itched for a flute. She might even be able to play it one-handed. First snake I see, I’ll have to try.
Lelia filled her mug herself and reclaimed her seat. Outside, the sun was a candlemark past dawn. She could hear the distant clop clop clop as Olli chopped the wood for the day. The Herald said nothing.
“In retrospect,” Lelia said after a long drink, “it was very foolish of me, sending the children to pry.”
“You didn’t know better.”
“True, but ...” She shook her head. “I like to think I would pick up on something—not right.”
“What makes you so special?”
She tapped her chest. “I’m a Bard, remember?”
“Bard or not, we all make regrets. And mistakes.”
“Yeah. The scamps never got me anything useful anyway.” She sipped ale.
“How are you not even a little tipsy?” he asked, a note of criticism in his query.
“Heyla.” She tapped the rim of her cup, grinning. “Still a Bard.”
“Whoever set this did an excellent job,” the Healer—introduced as Kerithwyn—said as she poked and prodded Lelia’s hand. “There’s little for me to do, really.”
Artel puffed up with pride. “Excellent job,” she echoed.
Lelia felt a smile glide over her lips. The old woman had checked on her hand daily for three weeks, suggesting poultices and brews. Lelia was confidant that she owed her a whole book of songs immortalizing her care.
Kerithwyn sat back and regarded Lelia. “It may be stiff and weak, but it’ll be back to its old callused self with use. No reason you can’t have a long and illustrious career.”
“Provided the snow doesn’t kill me,” Lelia said.
Kerithwyn nodded. “There is that.” She looked up at Artel. “You said something about Sandor’s wife carrying twins?”
The two bustled out of the inn, leaving Lelia to flex her fingers experimentally. Her eyes went to the gray cloak hanging by the front door, sewn from local fibers. It wasn’t red, but it was warm, and that mattered far more to her at the moment.
Evening came on the wings of a howling wind. The patrons who did wander in were notably subdued, shaking off snow and ice as they took their places. Lelia marked when Herda entered, waiting for her to settle and order her thinned ale from Olli.
Lelia approached her cautiously, as if confronting an easily frightened beast.
“Hey,” she said.
Herda looked up at her. “Wh-what?”
“Nothing.” She set a plate with a fat joint of meat in front of Herda. The girl’s eyes lit up, her tongue flicking like a snake’s. “I just wanted to talk.” Lelia indicated the plate. “For you. From me.”
Herda’s eyes darted up at Lelia and then back at the meat—and the marrow bone sticking out of it. “T-talk?”
Lelia sat down beside Herda, but with her back to the table so that her elbows rested on it and her hands dangled off the edge. “Sure. About anything.”
Herda carved off a sliver of meat and nibbled. One of the hearthcats wandered by, and she gave it an absent scratch. Lelia waited patiently.
At last, Herda leaned over, eyes downcast. “Can I trust you?” she asked softly. Her stutter had vanished.
Finally, Lelia thought. “Of course.”
“I—” Herda’s voice lowered further “—have a magical flute.”
Lelia closed her eyes briefly. The urge to scream was powerful.
“Really?” she asked, focusing on Herda once more. “What does it do?”
“Magic.” Her gaze flashed briefly upward. “Amazing magic.” She leaned close to Lelia. “But dangerous.”
“How so?” Lelia asked.
“Can’t explain. Only show. Do you want to see?”
Not really. Lelia wondered if she would be arrested for punching the Ashkevron Bard next time she saw him. She supposed that would not be the wisest of career moves.
Herda touched her arm, the first time Lelia thought she’d ever seen her touch anyone. “I’ll show you,” she said, with grave intent. “You of all people should understand.” She glared past Lelia, at the unsuspecting villagers. “You’re not ignorant.”
Completely insane, Lelia thought, but she smiled. “All right.”
“Come to my cabin. Just you!” Herda hissed, squeezing Lelia’s arm so tightly she was sure it would leave a bruise.
“Just me,” Lelia replied solemnly.
Herda let go, snatching up the joint of meat and wrapping it in her cloak. “Good.” She smiled. “Tomorrow morning, Bard. Three miles to the north. I’ll be waiting.”
When Herda was gone, Lelia went and found Olli.
“Performance starting soon?” he asked, looking hopeful.
“Real soon,” she said. “But first—how good are you at following someone without being seen?”
“So you aren’t completely stupid.” The Herald sounded relieved.
“Coming from a guy whose sense of self-preservation is comparable to that of a turnip’s, I choose to find your accusation amusing rather than a grave assault on my character.”
“Come now. What did turnips ever do to you?”
She smiled grimly. “As Herda requested, I got to her house a little after dawn.”
Herda walked them through a forest of naked raival and hickory trees, stopping when they came to a cottage situated in a wide clearing. A modest stable stood across from it, the double doors shut and barred. Herda said nothing as she led Lelia to her home.
The door glided open on well-oiled hinges. Lelia had expected something fetid and disheveled, but instead she found a tidy domicile, every corner swept, every jar labeled and ordered in place. Colorful curtains decorated the windows, and herbs hung from the r
afters.
As nice as the day her family left it, Lelia thought.
Herda plucked an egg-shaped clay flute from the room’s only table and held it out.
“May I?” Lelia asked politely.
Herda solemnly passed the instrument to the Bard. Lelia turned it over, the glazed ceramic cool in her palm. A simple whistle, the sort any child could learn on with time and determination.
She brought it to her lips, but Herda’s hand shot out.
“No!” she shrieked. Lelia pulled the flute away instantly. Herda snatched it from her. “It’s magic. You need to be careful with magic!”
“Oh. Sorry.” Lelia’s heart pounded. Herda’s panic was beginning to infect her.
Herda glared at her as she went to the door. “Stay here. I’ll call you when it’s safe.”
When what’s safe? Lelia thought, but the door shut, leaving her alone.
Outside, she heard the sound of a thud and the creak of wood coming from the vicinity of the stable. Herda’s voice crooning, and then the soft whistle of the flute. A simple tune, five notes over and over, a hypnotic pattern of high-low-high-high-low.
Lelia went over to one of the windows, but the shutters were in place and doing their duty of keeping the light and cold out. She couldn’t see through the cracks. She eyed the door.
She was reaching for the handle when she heard Olli boom out and Herda scream.
“Monster!” he yelled.
“No!” Herda’s cry ended in a strangled shriek.
Lelia stood with her hand over the handle, listening. Nothing followed the outburst. The silence was as disconcerting as the brief shouts that had preceded it.
Lelia cracked the door and peered out.
The stable doors were flung wide. Sunlight showed a floor strewn with splintered bones and hay. Something stood half in and half out of the stable.
It was not unlike the moment when her hand broke. Despite the evidence before her, Lelia was convinced this couldn’t really be happening. But the snake’s body and stubby legs, the amethyst eyes, the glittering silver scales—it could only be one thing.
The colddrake had its gaze fixed on Olli, who stood halfway between the house and the stable, trapped in the beast’s hypnotic stare. His wood-ax was raised over his head, his arms beginning to tremble from the strain.
“No!” Herda sobbed. “No, stop it.” She flung her arms around the monster’s neck—it was easily the size of a small pony. “You can’t! Be good, Snowglass, be good!”
It craned its neck around and looked at her. She gazed back, her eyes shining with tears. A fragile smile lit her face and, without a sign of hesitation, she reached out to stroke its cheek.
The colddrake bent forward and clamped its jaws around her arm.
No! Lelia thought, jerking forward as Herda screamed. The monster wrenched its head back, ripping her arm from the socket, the clay egg-flute going with it. The colddrake turned its gaze back toward Olli, Herda’s arm slowly disappearing down its gullet as it advanced on the helpless innmaster.
What can I do? What can I do? Panic and fear made Lelia’s stomach churn. The colddrake stood between her and the flute. She looked for weapons, but saw none. There was nothing—
Oh.
Lelia took a deep breath and threw the door wide.
“Hey!” she yelled, bursting into the yard. “Over here, you bastard!”
The colddrake’s head turning toward her, its tongue tasting the air. She kept her eyes fixed above the beast, and yet even so she felt a wave of something pound against her, compelling her to look.
Instead, Lelia sang.
Her Gift reached out as she sang the same five notes, over and over. The colddrake stopped advancing even as Olli staggered forward and Herda made mewling noises on the floor of the stable, crawling through the blood toward her pet.
The colddrake lowered, bowing to Lelia’s song. The amethyst eyes closed as the monster settled its head on the snow as if it were a pillow.
Olli raised the wood-ax. The beast never made a sound, but Herda keened like a wounded beast.
“When we set out from the inn, I remember telling him he was silly for bringing that ax along,” Lelia mused.
“Sometimes silly is good.”
“Don’t I know it.” She finished off her ale. “We staunched Herda’s bleeding and carried her back to Langenfield. Kerithwyn and Artel took her from there.” Lelia frowned down at the page, setting her quill aside. “Herda will always hate me.”
“Good time to leave town.”
“She’s not a bad person.”
“She was raising a colddrake.”
“She thought she could make it good.” Lelia shook her head. “She loved it, even when she realized that she loved something that could never be. She wanted to believe she could make it work.” Her throat knotted up, her vision blurring.
The Herald’s voice softened. “Do you still refer to Herda?”
Lelia sat in silence, and then smiled. “Oh, that’s a pretty sentiment, isn’t it?” She looked square into the face of her pain. “But that’s what I want to hear.” Her throat tightened. “You’ll never say that, Wil.”
She spoke it because it was true.
And because he wasn’t really there.
“The world hates a heartbroken Bard,” she said, the same thing the Ashkevron Bard had told her when he advised her to go south, go north, go anywhere that would take her away from what she couldn’t have.
“You can’t vie with a Herald’s first love,” he’d said. “The Kingdom needs him. You can’t compete with that.”
“Kingdom’s got far more acreage than me,” Lelia had replied miserably. It was meant to be a joke. It didn’t feel like it.
The comfort of a stranger’s ear had been too tempting, and she’d spent so many months of her journeyman days doggedly trying to cross paths with Herald Wil. She’d ended up telling the Ashkevron Bard all about her little obsession with her brother’s instructor. On Companion-back he and Lyle always outpaced her, but the Heralds often were mired in the local politics, giving her time to be at the next village when they got there.
The elder Bard had shaken his head. “You need to find a song. Find something.” He had patted her arm gently. “It’ll kill you at first, but you’ll be better for it.”
Lelia thought, I found my song, and it nearly did kill me. Or Herda, at least. I’ve found something else, though. Between a Bard with a broken heart and a girl who tamed a colddrake, I know which one folk want to hear about.
She took a deep breath and seized the quill again. “So, Wil, what would you ask?”
The Herald who was not really there replied without hesitation. “How’d a colddrake get this far south?”
Lelia nodded, filling the last page of the report. “Aa-and—was it just this colddrake, or can Herda’s trick be reproduced? Is anyone mad enough to try?”
The front door of the inn opened, and Olli walked in with an armful of wood. “Talking to someone?” he asked.
Lelia looked up at him and smiled. “Just me.” She plucked a page out of the collection and tossed it in the fire. “Making sure I answer the right questions. It’s a little game I play.”
“You talk to yourself?”
“All the time. Here.” She rolled up the notes and handed them to the innmaster. “Give this to whatever Herald shows up. Tell ’em that it’s an official Bardic record of the events. I signed it and everything.”
“Great.” Olli took the scroll, and then watched as she hoisted her pack. “I—we’ll miss you.”
“I know.” She hugged him tightly. “I am forever in your debt, Drakeslayer.”
He blushed. “Take care, m’lady Bard.”
“Will do, innmaster.” She winked and strolled out, heading north.
Artel found Olli sitting by the fire and poking the coals.
“Your sparrow has flown, I take it?” she asked.
He nodded.
Artel looked about the gloomy common r
oom. “Time to get things ready for the evening, eh?”
He replaced the poker in the stand. “I almost had myself convinced she’d stay.”
She smacked his shoulder. “She’s a Bard, you besotted fool! You keep someone like that here, and everything good about her dies. Her first love will always be the road.”
Olli grimaced. “Where I can’t follow.”
Artel rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air. “Bright Lady, lad, get yourself on top of a woman already, and forget the one that never paid notice to you!”
She stormed out. The innmaster roused not much later, rolling his stiff shoulders. He built up the fire and then went to pulling out tables and benches, placing plates and bowls of honey.
The fire burned merrily all the long night.
Live On
by Tanya Huff
Tanya Huff lives and writes in rural Canada with her partner Fiona Patton and five, no six, no seven ... and a lot of cats as well as an elderly chihuahua who mostly ignores her. The recent adaptation of the five Vicki Nelson books to television (
Blood Ties
) finally allowed her to use her degree in radio and television arts some twenty-five years after the fact. Her twenty-fourth and most recent novel,
Valor’s Trial
, came out from DAW in hardcover in June 2008, and she is currently working on
The Enchantment Emporium
, a stand-alone contemporary fantasy. In her spare time she practices the guitar and tries to avoid some of the trickier versions of a Gm7.
“Are you the young man who wrote that report about Appleby?”
Heralds didn’t tend to grow old. Even in times of peace, they lived lives that lowered the odds of them dying in bed to slightly less than negligible. It seemed that the elderly Herald who’d appeared at Jors’ side was the exception to prove the rule. His shoulders were hunched forward, his eyes were red rimmed and moist, he stood with his weight supported on a polished cane, and above the scarf he wore in spite of the heat of a sunny, late spring day, age had pleated his face into a hundred wrinkles.
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