The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “There was, however, a stranger on the road, an outlander who had sensed the surge of power and read the signs and knew that it was uncontrolled. She came as quickly as she could—though not quickly enough to save both. She found the young men, one dead, one nearly—she saved the one she could, and brought him to a friend who she thought might understand.”

  Moondance was so silent and for so long, that Vanyel thought he was through speaking. He stared up at the moon, eyes and cheeks shining wetly, like a marble statue in the rain.

  Then he spoke again, and every syllable carried with it a sense of terrible pain. “So here is the paradox. If the boy Tallo had not misused his fledgling powers and struck down his lover, they would have gone off together, and, in time, parted. Tallo would likely have been found by a Mage and taught, or—who knows?—gotten as far as Valdemar and been taken by a Companion. Those with the power are not left long to themselves. It might even have been that the Mage that found him was a dark one, and Tallo might have turned for a time or for all time to evil. But that is not what happened. The boy killed—murdered in ignorance—and was brought to k’Treva. And in k’Treva he found forgiveness, and the learning he needed as the seed needs the spring rain—and one thing more. He found his shay’kreth’ashke. In your tongue, that means ‘lifebonded.’”

  Vanyel started. Moondance nodded without turning to look at him. “You see? Paradox. Had things not fallen as they did, Tallo would never have met with Starwind. The Tayledras are very secretive and Wingsister Savil is one of the first to see one of us, much less to see k’Treva, in years beyond counting. The two meant to be lifebonded would never have found each other. There would be no Healer-Adept in k’Treva, and much Tayledras work would have gone undone because of that. So—much good has come of this, and much love—but it has its roots in murder. Murder unintentional, but murder all the same.”

  Moondance sighed again. “So what is the boy Tallo to think? Starwind’s solution was to declare the boy Tallo dead by his own hand, a fitting expiation for his guilt, and to bring to life a new person altogether, one Moondance k’Treva. So there is no more Tallo, and there is one that magic has changed into a man so like Tayledras that he might have been born to the blood. But sometimes the boy Tallo stirs in the heart of Moondance—and he wonders—and he weeps—and he mourns for the wrongs he has done.”

  He turned his head, then, and held out his hand to Vanyel. “Ke’chara, would you share grief with Tallo? Weeping alone brings no comfort, and your heart is as sore as mine.”

  Vanyel started to reach for that hand, then hesitated.

  If I don’t touch—

  “If you do not touch,” said Moondance, as if he read Vanyel’s thought, “you do not live. If you seal yourself away inside your barriers, you seal out the love with the pain. And though love sometimes brings pain, you have no way of knowing if the pain you feel now might not bring you to love again.”

  “Tylendel’s dead.” There; he’d said it, said it out loud. It was real—and couldn’t be changed. The tight, burned skin on his face hurt as he held back tears. “Nothing is going to bring him back. I’ll never be anything but alone.”

  Moondance nodded, slowly, and left his hand resting on the edge of the bed; Vanyel couldn’t see his face, shadowed as it was by the white wing of his hair.

  “The great love is gone. There are still little loves—friend to friend, brother to sister, student to teacher. Will you deny yourself comfort at the hearthfire of a cottage because you may no longer sit by the fireplace of a palace? Will you deny yourself to those who reach out to you in hopes of warming themselves at your hearthfire? That is cruel, and I had not thought you to be cruel, Vanyel. And what of Yfandes? She loves you with all her being. Would you lock her out of your regard as well? That is something more than cruel.”

  “Why are you telling me, asking me this?” The words were torn out of him, unwilling.

  “Because I nearly followed the road you are walking.” The Tayledras shifted slightly in his chair and Vanyel heard the wood creak a little. “Better, I thought, not to touch at all than to touch and bring hurt upon myself and others. Better to do nothing than to make a move and have it be the wrong one. But even deciding to not touch or to be nothing is a decision, Vanyel, and by deciding not to touch, so as to avoid hurt, I then hurt those who tried to touch me.” He waited, but Vanyel could not bring himself to answer him.

  Moondance’s expression grew alien, unreadable, and he shrugged again. “It is your decision; it is your life. A Healer cannot live so; it may be that you can.”

  He uncoiled himself from his chair and in a kind of seamless motion was standing on his feet, shaking back his hair. The tears were gone from his eyes, and his expression was as serene as if they had never been there as he looked down on Vanyel. “If you are in pain, Mindcall, and I shall come.”

  Before Vanyel could blink, he was gone.

  • • •

  Morning came—but the expected summons to Starwind’s Work Room did not. The sun rose, and he wandered from room to empty room, in the small area that he knew, without finding anyone. He began to wonder if his rejection of Moondance last night had led them all to abandon him here.

  Finally he found a way out into the valley itself, and stood by the rock-arch of the doorway, blinking a little at the bright sunlight, unfiltered by the tinted skylight. There were ferns the size of a small room, bushes and small trees with leaves he could have used as a rain shelter, and the larger trees, while not matching the one growing up through the middle of the “house” in girth, were still large enough that it would take five people to encircle their trunks with their arms.

  :Yfandes?: he Mindcalled tentatively. He wasn’t at all sure he’d get a reply.

  But he did. :Here,: she said—and a few moments later, she came frisking through the undergrowth, tail and spirits held banner-high. She nuzzled his cheek. :Are your hands better?:

  He had unwrapped them this morning from their bandages, and aside from a little soreness, they seemed fine—certainly nothing near as painful as they had been last night.

  :I think so.: He rested his forehead against her neck. It was incredibly comforting just to be in her presence, and hard to remember to barricade himself around her. :Where is everybody?:

  :Savil is up above, in Starwind’s place.: She gave him a mental picture of a kind of many-windowed room perched in the limbs of what could only be the tree growing up through the center of the “house.” :She doesn’t much care for it, and having her up there makes Kellan nervy, but he was upset over the accident yesterday and he feels happier up in the boughs. They’re talking.:

  :With the other k’Treva?:

  :I think perhaps.:

  :Where’s Moondance?:

  :By himself. Thinking,: Yfandes said.

  :’Fandes—did I—: He swallowed. :Did I do something wrong last night?:

  She looked at him reproachfully. :Yes. I think you ought to talk to him. You hurt him more deeply last night than he showed. He’s never told that story to anyone; Savil and Starwind know it, but he never told them. And he’s never even told Starwind how badly he still feels. It cost him a great deal to tell it to you.:

  His first reaction was guilt. His second was anger.

  By his own admission, Moondance’s tragic affair had been nothing more than that—an affair doomed to be brief. How could he even begin to compare his hurt with Vanyel’s? Moondance wasn’t alone—

  Moondance hadn’t murdered Starwind—just some stupid gleeman, who would have passed out of his life in a few weeks. A common player, and no great love.

  Moondance still had Starwind. Would always have Starwind. Vanyel would be alone forever. So how could Moondance compare the two of them?

  Yfandes seemed to sense something of what was going on in his mind; she pulled away from him, a little, and looked—or was it felt?—offended.

>   That only made him angrier.

  Without another word, spoken or thought, he turned on his heel and ran—away from her, away from the Tayledras—away from all of them. Ran to a little corner at the end of the vale, a sullen grove of dark, fleshy-leaved trees and ferns, where very little light ever came. He pushed his way in among them, and curled up around his misery and his anger, his stomach churning, his eyes stinging.

  They don’t give a damn about me—just about what I can do. They don’t care how much I hurt, all they want is for me to do what I’m told. Savil just wants to see me tricked into being a Herald, that’s all. They don’t any of them understand! They don’t any of them know how much—I—

  He began crying silently. ’Lendel, ’Lendel, they don’t know how much of me died with you. All I want is to be left alone. Why can’t they leave me alone? Why can’t they stop trying to make me do what they want? They’re all alike, dammit, they’re just like Father, the only thing different is what they want out of me! Oh ’Lendel—I need you so much—

  • • •

  He stayed there, crying off and on, until full dark—then crept as silently as he could back to the building—part of him hoping to find them waiting for him.

  Only to find it as vacant as when he’d left it. In fact, only the night-lamps were burning, and those were only left for the benefit of any of the Tayledras who might care to come down to the ground during the night. It didn’t even look as if he’d been missed.

  They don’t care, he thought forlornly, surveying the empty, ill-lit rooms. They really don’t care. Oh, gods—

  His stomach knotted up into a hard, squirming ball.

  No one cares. No one ever did except ’Lendel. And no one ever will again.

  His shoulders slumped, and a second hard lump clogged his throat. He made another circuit of the rooms, but they stayed achingly, echoingly empty. No sign of anyone. No sign anyone would ever come back.

  After pacing through the place until the echoes of his own footsteps were about to drive him into tears, he finally crawled into bed.

  And cried himself to sleep.

  CHAPTER 13

  LEARETH LAUGHED; his icy laughter echoed off the cliffs as he held up one hand and made the simplest of gestures. A rage-storm swirled into being precisely at the edge of Vanyel’s defenses. Vanyel poured power into his shielding; this was the last, the very last of his protections. He was drained, the energy-sources were drained, and he himself had taken far more damage in the duel than he would allow Leareth to know.

  He was no match for the scouring blast that peeled his shields away faster than he could replace them. Leareth smiled behind his mage-storm, as if he knew that Vanyel was weakening by the moment. Sweat ran into his eyes and started to freeze there; he went to his knees, still fighting, and knowing he was going to lose. Leareth seemed not even wearied.

  A final blast struck down the last of his protections. Vanyel screamed as agony such as he’d never known before arced through his body—

  Vanyel woke up; the bed was soaking with sweat, and he was shaking so hard the ferns over his head quivered. He was afraid that he had screamed out loud.

  But when no one came running into the room, he knew that he hadn’t; that everything had been in the dream. At least this time he hadn’t awakened anyone, and hadn’t been trapped in the dream.

  Dream. Oh, gods, it isn’t just a dream. He shivered, despite the warmth of the room, and stared up through the fern fronds at the descending moon. The nightmare had him in a grasp of iron claws and would not let him go. This is going to be real, it feels real. It’s Foresight. It has to be. Leareth calls me “Herald-Mage Vanyel,” and I’m in Whites. I’m dreaming my own death. This is what is going to happen to me, how I’m going to die, if I become a Herald. Alone. In terrible pain, and all alone, fighting a doomed battle.

  He shivered harder, chilled by the cold of the dream, chilled even more with fear. He finally threw the covers back, grabbed his robe, and padded into the room with the hot pools, finding his way by moonlight and habit.

  For this was not the first time he’d awakened in the middle of the night, dream-chilled and needing warmth. This was just the first time since he’d arrived here that the dream had been clear enough to remember.

  He climbed into the uppermost pool, easing himself down into the hot water with a sigh and a shiver. Oh, gods. I don’t want to die like that. They can’t want me to have to face that, can they? If they knew about this dream, would they still want me to be a Herald? Gods, I know the answer to that—

  He eased a little farther down into the hot water, until it lapped at his chin. He was fighting blind, unreasoning panic, and losing. What am I going to do? Oh, gods—I can’t think—

  I have to get away. I can’t stay here. If I do, they’ll try and talk me around. Where can I go? I don’t even know where “home” is from here. But I can’t stay—I’ll just go, I’ll just pack up and go, and hope something turns up, it’s all I can do. It means leaving Yfandes—

  For a moment that thought was more than he could bear. But—fear was stronger. It’s lose her, or lose my life. No. I can’t. I can’t face an end like that. Besides, he choked on a sob, she just wants me to be a Herald, too—

  He looked up, judging the hour by the moon. I’ve got a few hours until dawn. I can be out of the valley and well away before they even start looking for me. And they might not—Starwind still isn’t ready to deal with me again; they might just think I’ve gone off somewhere to be alone, especially if I block Yfandes out now and keep her out.

  He climbed out of the pool and dried himself with his robe; he knew exactly where the clothing he’d arrived in was hung—the far end of Moondance’s closet. He pulled it on as quickly as he could, taking the heavy cloak and draping it over one arm. One of the packs was in there, too, the one with the rest of his winter clothes. They were too warm to wear in the valley, so he’d never unpacked them, wearing instead Moondance’s outgrown things. There was always food out in the room beside the one with the staircase; Tayledras sometimes kept odd hours. He filched enough bread and cheese to last several days and stuffed it into the pack with his clothing.

  It took him most of a candlemark to reach the entrance to the valley. If it hadn’t been snowing, he might have turned back at that moment—but it was, lightly, enough to cover his tracks. He swung the heavy cloak over his shoulders, braced himself for the shock of the temperature change, and stepped out into the dark and cold, remembering just in time to put up a shield so that he could not be tracked by his own aura.

  • • •

  “Two steps forward, one step back,” Moondance’s voice drifted up the ladder—Savil refused to call anything that steep a “staircase”—to Starwind’s ekele; it was a good three breaths before Moondance himself appeared. His head poked through the hatchway in the gleaming wooden floor just as a gust of wind made the whole tree sway and creak.

  Savil gulped, and gripped the arms of her low chair, looking resolutely away from the windows and their view of the birds flying by below them. Starwind never would tell her what it was they used in those windows instead of glass—which wouldn’t have lasted ten breaths in a high wind. It was the same thing they used for the skylights, only thinner. Some kind of tough, flexible, transparent membrane—and Savil could not bring herself to believe that it would hold if you fell against it. The ekele creaked again, and she shuddered as she saw the window-stuff ripple a little with the warping of the window frames.

  “Would you mind explaining that cryptic remark?” she asked, as the rest of Moondance emerged from the “entrance.”

  “Oh, thy pupil, Wingsister,” he said, at his most formal, closing the hatchway against another gust of chill air. The ladder was sheltered, but not entirely enclosed—that would have been impractical—and Starwind couldn’t see wasting a mage-barrier on the entrance to his “nest” when the hatch
way served perfectly well most of the time. “Bright the day, Master-ashke.”

  “Wind to thy wings,” Starwind replied automatically, turning away from the window, his gloom brightening a little. “Shay’kreth’ashke, there is no ‘Master’ here for thee.”

  “Nay, till the day thy wings bear thee upwards, thou’rt my Master.” Moondance glided across the unsteady floor to Starwind’s side, as surefooted as a sailor on a moving deck.

  “Enough, I’m drowning,” Savil groaned. “Gods, lifebonded—it’s enough to make me celibate. What about my pupil? And will you please come away from that window? I keep thinking the next gust is going to pitch you out.”

  “The window would hold. Besides, no Tayledras has fallen from his ekele in years beyond counting, Wingsister,” Starwind said, turning his back to the window and leaning on the ledge.

  “So the time is long past for it to happen, and I don’t want it to be you, all right?” Another gust made the whole tree groan, and she clutched at the arms of the chair, her knuckles going white.

  “Very well,” Starwind was actually smiling as he stepped away from the window and folded himself bonelessly into one of the chairs bolted to the floor of his ekele. He got a certain amount of pleasure out of teasing Savil about her acrophobia.

  Each ekele was something like an elaborate treehouse; there was one for each major branch of the King Tree, some twenty in all. Not all were tenanted, and they were mostly used for meditation, sleeping, teaching, and recreation. For everything else, the “place below” served far better. But when a Tayledras needed to think, he frequently retreated to his ekele, sometimes for weeks, touching foot to ground only when he needed to.

  An ekele consisted of a single windowed room, varying in size, made of polished wood so light in color that it was almost white, and furnished at most with a few chairs bolted to the floor, a table likewise bolted, and rolled pads stored in one corner for sleeping. Starwind’s was one of the highest, hence, one of the smallest. The view was majestic. It was wasted on Savil.