The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Vanyel chewed his lip. “Was that unusual?”

  Lores shrugged. “Well, it had never happened in public before. Deveran asked us all to leave in the kind of voice that makes an order out of a request. We left—don’t look at me like that, what else could we do?”

  “I don’t know,” Vanyel replied soberly. “I wasn’t there. But I don’t think I would have left a situation that volatile.”

  “Well, I left; it’s not Valdemar and it wasn’t my business. I went out to the stable and Jenna, was outside with her for a while.” He shook his head. “They’d moved the fight up to Deveran’s study, toward the back of the palace; I could hear ’em both shouting at each other through the window. Then it got real quiet for a bit—and then all hell broke loose.” He gestured at the wreckage in the Great Hall, and his expression became strained. “You can figure what that sounded like; enough screaming for a war. Nobody wanted to break in on that, and anyway we found out that the doors were all like they were welded shut.”

  His voice was casual, but he was trembling and sweating, and his skin was dead white.

  “It didn’t last long. Then it was quiet again, sudden, like everything had been cut off. Me, the outside servants, and Deveran’s armsmen from the palace, and the town guard and a couple of the town council with some courage in them, we all broke the doors open.”

  “And you found?”

  “That’s what we found. The boy knocked out under that bench, and when we went to look for bodies—gods. Everyone inside these walls . . . was dead. The boy’s sibs, the servants, everybody. Torn to pieces, just like . . . that stuff. Nothing bigger than palm-sized pieces of everybody else.” He was shaking now, his teeth chattering, and his pupils dilated. “Nothing,” he repeated.

  “You’re not saying Tashir did all that?” Vanyel said incredulously. “That’s impossible—it’s insane!” The mage-light flared a little, setting shadows shrinking and growing again, flickering as he whirled to look at the boy, and his attention wavered.

  Lores turned away from the wreckage, clutching his arms against his chest, and gradually stopped trembling. His eyes fell on Tashir again; just the sight of the boy seemed to reawaken his anger. “What’s insane about it?” he demanded. “Fetching can wreck, or even kill. I should know that better than you, it’s my Gift.”

  “It’s one of my Gifts, too, you damned fool!” Vanyel growled. “And at one point I almost got out of control, but my Gift was blasted open and I was in pain enough to drive a strong man mad. Nothing like that happened here! This boy never showed a hint of anything on this scale! And he was untrained? Not bloody likely!”

  “How do we know he was untrained?” Lores demanded, his eyes reflecting blue glints from the mage-light over Vanyel’s head. “He was the only one left alive! He had to have done it!”

  Vanyel had a dozen retorts on the tip of his tongue, but none of them seemed wise.

  So how did you come to be such an expert on Gifts and magic, you idiot? And did you search to find someone who might have hidden himself—or herself—until you’d found and dealt with Tashir? Or did you identify everyone, or at least count all the bodies and come up with the same number as those known to be in the palace?

  He kept his teeth shut on all those questions. It was obvious that this had been bungled from the start, and dressing down this fool wasn’t going to undo the bungling.

  “We couldn’t really believe it, not at first,” Lores admitted reluctantly. “We thought it must have been—oh, something out of the Pelagir wilderlands, or even something cooked up by the Mavelans. We really didn’t know what it could have been, especially not the Lineans, but there wasn’t anyone or anything else, and when we tried to question Tashir, the boy wouldn’t answer. At first he was—dazed-like. Then he just refused to speak except to say he didn’t remember.” Lores shook his head. “Not remember? How could he not remember something that did that? Unless he was lying, or he’d done it in anger and had blanked it out of his mind.” Lores clasped his folded arms still tighter against his chest, as if he was trying to protect himself. “What could we do? The guards were spooked, nobody wanted something like that on their hands. In the end, we just threw him in the guardhouse at the front gate there, since the townsfolk didn’t want him in their jail and nobody wanted to have to go down to the cells under the palace. We sent off a messenger for Vedric, since he was the one making all the fuss about the boy in the first place. He may be a Mavelan, but he’s not going to be able to talk the boy out of this mess. He’ll have to deal with him, and he is a mage. We reckoned it was better for one mage to deal with another. Especially a murderer.”

  “That’s not proved.”

  Lores glared at him. Vanyel repeated his words stubbornly. “That’s not proved. Nothing is proved. And furthermore, I’d like to know how the hell a Herald could come to attack a Companion.”

  Lores began pacing, four steps away from Vanyel, four steps back. “We shoved him in there, picked up the bodies—what was left of them. Things quieted down. Then, less than a candlemark ago, that demon showed up.”

  “Companion.”

  Lores wheeled to glare again, but the look in Vanyel’s eyes cowed him. “That Companion showed up; he began breaking down the door. The guard got me, I sent for reinforcements—I thought it was a demon—more men showed up about the time the de—Companion got the door smashed in and started to run off with the boy. That whip was in the guardhouse and I grabbed it—figuring demon or not, it was horse-shaped.” He shrugged. “You know the rest.”

  “Didn’t you even try the boy under Truth Spell?” Vanyel snarled, out of patience with the lack of thought, the complete bullheaded stupidity of the man.

  Lores looked baffled. “‘Truth Spell’? Why? What’s that got to do with me?”

  “Goddess Incarnate! Any Herald can work first-stage Truth Spell! Didn’t your mentor ever—” Vanyel paused at the dumbfounded look on Lores’ face. “Your mentor never told you?”

  Lores shook his head.

  “Gods,” Vanyel strode over to the adolescent, who was still slumped over his own knees. “Tashir?” he said, gently, kneeling beside him. He braced himself when the young man looked up, it still made his heart lurch to see those eyes, that face—and that dazed, lost, and pleading expression. “Tashir, do you remember anything that happened tonight? Anything at all?”

  Tashir’s eyes were still not focusing well; he shook his head dumbly.

  Vanyel shook him gently. “Think. Dinner. Do you remember your father calling you up at dinner?”

  “I . . .” The boy’s voice was quite low, almost a match for Vanyel’s baritone. “I think so. Yes. He . . . wanted me to go somewhere.”

  “Where, Tashir?” Vanyel prompted.

  “I . . . don’t remember.”

  “Do you remember arguing with him?”

  A hesitant nod. There were shadows under Tashir’s eyes that had nothing to do with the way the light was falling on him. “I didn’t want to go. He wanted to send me somewhere. I don’t remember where, I just remember that I didn’t want to go. I told him I wouldn’t. He hit me.”

  “Did he hit you very often?”

  The eyes cleared for a moment, bright with fear. “Often enough,” the boy confessed cautiously. “When I was around too much. I tried not to get in his way. Sometimes he’d get mad about something, and take it out on me. But not in front of people, not before tonight.”

  “So he hit you. Then he sent everyone else away. What then?”

  “He . . . came around the table. He grabbed me before I could get away, twisted my arm up behind my back, and made me go with him to his study. And . . .”

  The eyes clouded again.

  “And?”

  “I don’t remember!” Tashir wailed softly. “Please, I don’t remember!”

  Vanyel set in motion the spell that called the vrondi, the mind
less air elemental that could not abide the emotional emanations associated with falsehood. In his hands, because he could give it energy beyond its own, the vrondi would be able to settle within the youngster’s mind: he would be incapable of lying so long as it was there. Vanyel watched the vrondi settle into place, a glowing blue mist like a visible aura about Tashir’s head and shoulders. He would not see it, but Vanyel and Lores certainly could. He glanced over at Lores, and saw the older man’s lips compress, his face grow speculative.

  “Are you sure, Tashir?” he urged. “Think. Your father took you up to his study; what happened in the study?”

  “I don’t remember!” Tashir whimpered. “I don’t!”

  Vanyel sighed, and dismissed the vrondi with a word. The mist dissolved, faded away, but slowly, not all at once as it would have if it had met with a lie. There was only one other thing he could try. He reached out tentatively with a Mindtouch.

  Tashir should not have been able to detect it. But suddenly he jerked away, his eyes wild and unreasoning, and a shield snapped up so quickly Vanyel barely had time to pull back his Touch.

  “Look out!” Lores cried, diving for the floor, as half a vase rose from the wreckage, flung itself across the room and smashed against the door. More fragments followed it, all rising from the wreckage to smash against the door, creating a rain of flying shards that pelted them both like fine hail.

  Vanyel didn’t move so much as a hair. He clenched his jaw, and reached out with his own power to damp Tashir’s Gift with an external shield.

  Sudden silence.

  “Tashir,” he reached out for the youngster, with his hand this time, not his mind. “Tashir, I want to help you. I believe you. I will not allow anyone to harm you, or to imprison you for something you didn’t do.”

  The adolescent’s eyes slowly calmed, grew saner. He stared at Vanyel for a long moment, then buried his face in his hands and began sobbing, trembling on the jagged edge of hysteria.

  “I—don’t—remember—” he choked. “Oh, please, I don’t, I really don’t.”

  Before he could do anything to comfort or calm the youngster, Vanyel heard a noise in the distance, muffled by the door, that made his hair stand on end.

  The sullen, angry roaring of a mob—

  Lores’ head snapped up, and a look of grim satisfaction spread over his face. “The armsmen,” he said smugly. “They must have spread the word. That’s the people of Highjorune out there, Milord Herald-Mage. You don’t rank them, and they aren’t likely to listen to you. What’s your plan now? They’re going to want the boy. I think you should let them have him.”

  Tashir gave a kind of choking gasp, and looked straight into Vanyel’s eyes, his whole body pleading for rescue. His eyes were swollen, tears smeared across his face, and hair tumbled into one eye; his expression was tragic and hopeless.

  Vanyel could no more have resisted a boy who looked like that than he could have given up Yfandes.

  “I still outrank you, Lores,” he said coldly. “You are still under my orders. Get out there and do what you can to keep them off.”

  “Keep them off? You’re madder than he is!”

  “Move!” Vanyel snapped, rising to his feet, as the flickering of torches lit the gap in the open door.

  Lores made no further protest; he snorted, and stalked across the entryway to the door, his backbone stiff with unspoken resentment.

  Vanyel followed him as far as the door, and once he had barely cleared it, slammed it shut practically on his heels. He heard a muffled exclamation, and the muttering of the mob grew louder and nearer. Vanyel threw the bolt into place across the door; it was metal, but it was not going to hold up against a concerted attack.

  “That . . . isn’t going to hold them for long,” Tashir said fearfully, brushing the hair out of his eyes with the back of one hand.

  “It won’t have to,” Vanyel answered absently, moving his Othersenses out and down and hoping that it was no coincidence.

  There was that node, the most powerful node he’d ever encountered outside Tayledras lands. Given that Highjorune was situated on top of the convergence of those energy-streams, given that the node had to be around here somewhere. . . .

  Had the palace been built where he’d have put it?

  It was no coincidence. The palace was situated directly over the node; a node so strong it roared in Vanyel’s mind.

  “Now that pompous peabrain is going to find out why I outrank him,” he growled to himself, and reached—

  The current-power had been wild; it was nothing to this. He had compared channels in his mother and Yfandes to a dripping icicle and a waterfall. This was to those streams what a raging Firestorm was to a campfire. But Vanyel knew its secrets and how to control it, and it raged to his will.

  He set his mind in the spell-cycle; he murmured a few words, gathered his will, and cupped his hands, unconsciously mirroring the shape he wanted to create.

  Then he snapped his hands open, crying out a single word of command.

  A flash of light made his closed eyelids burn red for a moment. Tashir cried out fearfully.

  Absolute and complete silence descended on them like sudden deafness.

  He opened his eyes; a steady, yellow glow on the outer walls was just barely visible to his Othersight.

  He had erected a mage-barrier about the palace that would keep out anything he didn’t want in, including such intangibles as thought—or other magic. He could pass through: so could anything he brought with him. No one and nothing else.

  With effort his thoughts passed it.

  :Yfandes? How are you and the stranger?:

  :They are ignoring us,: she said. :You have frightened the Young One, and angered Lores. The mob has not made up its mind.:

  :Even if they do, it won’t get them anywhere. Give me a moment to make up my mind.:

  Vanyel severed the connection between himself and the node. He could control it, yes, but at a price. He’d just earned himself another scattering of silver hairs. Among other things.

  He opened his eyes and saw Tashir huddled up against the wall, shaking so hard his teeth rattled. He walked stiffly to the bench, and touched the young man’s shoulder. He got no response. He turned Tashir’s face into the light, and saw his eyes glazed over in withdrawal.

  “Damn.” Vanyel sat down heavily beside him. “Now what?”

  He thought hard for a moment; made up his mind quickly, and reached for the node again.

  The shock as he touched it the second time was a little less. When he could catch his breath again, he used the node-energy to boost his own Mindspeech far beyond what he could have reached alone, sending his mind out questing for a Mindpresence so dear and familiar it could almost have drawn him on its own.

  Touch.

  Startlement. :Who?:

  :Savil?:

  Recognition and relief. :Gods! Ke’chara, what has been bloody going on? Where are you?:

  He told her everything that had happened, from the time he’d been awakened by the nightmare. He compressed as much of it as he could, warned her in advance before he Mindsent her an image of Tashir, and even so, the close resemblance to Tylendel came as a shock to her that mirrored his own. He had been Tylendel’s lover—but Savil had been mentor, friend, confidant, and near-mother to Tylendel, the role she filled now for Vanyel.

  :So,: she sent, after she regained her mental balance. :Plans?:

  :I’m taking him into protective custody, and getting him out of here.:

  :How, with a mob—oh, gods.: Realization and fear. Flatly—:You’re going to Gate.:

  :Do you see any other choice?: he asked. :Even if the mob weren’t there—I tried to remember what little I’ve heard about investigative procedures. Preserve the evidence. If I break the shield-spell to get out, anybody can get in, and I don’t have the power to set a second sp
ell, not this solid, not from the outside. From the inside I can tap the node, but the interference I’d create with the shield would keep me effectively out of the node. You know that. Shields are permeable to the creator, but they still resist penetration. We have to find out what happened here, and we won’t if anyone can get in and muddle things up.:

  Her mind-voice was gritty and gray with grim concern. :Far too logical to make me happy, love. But you rank me these days, and there’s reasons enough for that for me to follow your lead. Where are you coming in?:

  He’d thought about that very carefully. :The door to the old chapel. It’s on sanctified ground, it’s one of the few doors inside Forst Reach big enough to use as a Gate-terminus, but it’s not under constant use, and I know it as well as I will ever know any place. So be ready for me, because I’m not going to be worth much when I come through.:

  :As if I didn’t know. Be careful—please.:

  :I’ll try.:

  He cut the connection to the node, which dropped him out of the link with Savil, and turned his mind to one nearer at hand.

  :Brightlove—:

  :Chosen—:

  :I’m Gating myself and Tashir out of here. You and the Young One make a run for it. If that damned fool calling himself a Herald can’t take the hint, it’s not my fault; I’ve got too many balls in the air as it is.:

  She trembled with concern. :I will warn Jenna; if she can get him to mount, she can carry him off whether he likes it or not. I won’t tell you not to use that means of escape, only—take care!:

  He touched her with a mental caress. :I shall.:

  He opened his eyes, and considered the possibilities, finally deciding on the open archway onto the stairs as his best bet. Putting a Gate-terminus on the outer door where the shield was would be risking more magically than he cared to. At full powers, maybe. Not now.

  But first—

  He shoved outward a little, chuckling nastily as the expanding shield shoved Lores down the stairs and into the courtyard. There. That should keep them quiet for a bit.