The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  He walked to the center of the hallway, raised his hands, and began.

  He spun bits of himself, his stored powers, into the structure. He could not tap the node for this; the only possible way to use external mage-energy for a Gate would be—at least as far as he had learned—if two mages were lifebonded, for at some deep level, two lifebonded were one. And, as always, as soon as he had formed the Portal around the edge of the archway, his uniquely sensitized channels began to burn painfully as he resonated to Gate-energy. When the Gate was complete, he’d be in torment.

  But that was something he had learned to accept and work around.

  The Weaving—

  He spun himself, his own substance, out into threads that quested for the unique place he sought, the place where he would build the other end of the Gate. At some point he was no longer having to send those searching filaments; they were pulling on him, and it was all he could do to keep them from spinning away from him and taking everything that was him with them. Then, finally, one of them found the chapel door—another—a third—

  There was a flare of light, not so bright as the one when he’d built the shield, and his knees gave.

  Oh, hell— he thought dazedly. I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was.

  He crouched on the filthy, shard-covered floor, panting in pain, for a long, long moment before he had the strength to look up. But when he did, he saw, not the wreckage of the Highjorune Great Hall, but the welcoming, familiar corridor that led to the old Forst Reach chapel. And thrice-blessed Savil, tunic on backward, waiting.

  The pain—

  I . . . think I’m in trouble. I’ve never . . . been this drained . . . before, he thought, somewhere under the red wash of burning. Oh, gods—if I’d known it was going to be like this, I’d never have had the courage. . . .

  He got to his feet, somehow; he staggered like a mortally-wounded drunk trying to get to Tashir. He was so dizzy he could hardly see, and only concentrating on each step, one at a time, enabled him to cross the hallway to the young man.

  “Ta—shir,” he croaked, and prayed for a little intelligence in those eyes. His prayers were answered this time; the young man stared at him with a kind of foggy awareness, though he still trembled in every limb. “Go . . . get up . . .” His feeble tugs on Tashir’s arm were answered; the young man stumbled to his feet. “Go . . . there . . .” He pushed Tashir toward the Gate, every step bought with black-red waves of pain.

  Maddeningly, Tashir stopped, right on the edge.

  Vanyel screamed in frustration and torment, and shoved, sending the young man stumbling through, and unable to keep his balance, fell right through after him.

  Fell from torment into agony; strength gone, control gone, sight, sound, all senses. There was only the pain—

  And then there was nothing.

  CHAPTER 8

  “YOU LOOK LIKE HELL,” said a rough voice just above his head.

  What an amazing coincidence, Savil, Vanyel thought without opening his eyes. I feel like hell.

  “I seem,” his aunt continued dryly, “to spend an inordinate amount of time at your bedside. And don’t try to pretend you’re not awake.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” he whispered, cracking his right eye open. Savil was lounging in the chair she’d pulled up next to his bed, feet on his bed. “Mother will have a cat,” he observed, prying his left eye open as well. “You know how she feels about boots on the bedcovers.”

  “Your mother isn’t here at the moment. How are you feeling?”

  He took a quick inventory. “Other than some assorted joint-aches, about the same as when I got back to Haven. Which is to say, as you pointed out, like hell. What’s been going on? How long was I out this time?”

  “Your outside matches your inside, we’re not in a war with Lineas quite yet, and three days.” She quirked one corner of her mouth as he groaned, and continued. “I took the liberty of deep-scanning you while you were wit-wandering, and I got in touch with a couple of merchant-contacts in Highjorune. Useful birds, pigeons. Particularly when one can tell their little heads exactly where you want them to go. You want your briefing in sequence, or by specifics?”

  He had been inching into a sitting position while she was talking. She poured a goblet of cider from a pitcher next to her, and handed it to him when he was secure.

  “In sequence,” he said, after a sip to help moisten his throat. “And you’d better start with how Father is taking the new houseguest.”

  “Your father doesn’t know about him, thank the gods.” The other corner of her mouth twitched up to make a real smile. “Your old aunt is no fool, ke’chara; he was due to make his Harvest-tide inspection round of the freeholders the same morning you Gated back and fell on your nose. I simply installed Tashir in the guest room next to yours and didn’t bother to tell anyone until after Withen was gone.” She hesitated a moment before continuing. “I have to tell you, having that boy around is unnerving. He acts like a ghost, whisking out of sight when he sees me coming; he’s given me chills more than once. He’s too like our lost one. . . . Well. He is not well-wrapped, even I can tell that, and I’m no Mindhealer.”

  Vanyel nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve got too many questions, and nowhere near enough answers. So Tashir is here, and Father doesn’t know about it. A not insignificant blessing. Keep going.”

  “Yfandes and the new Companion got back about noon. By nightfall I’d gotten a pigeon or two back with news. Lores is going back to Haven to protest your actions to Randale, and he’s carrying a demand from what’s left of Deveran’s Council that Tashir be turned over to them. Vedric finally stuck his nose in; he showed up the next day. He seems to be on the side of the Lineans, but he wants Tashir turned over to the Mavelans for trial and sentencing.” She paused for breath. “That’s the bad news. The good news is that since that fathead Lores—yes, dear, I know him, he’s a fathead and always has been one—isn’t a Herald-Mage, he can’t Gate back to Haven. It’s going to take him a good long while to get there, especially since the Companions are in on our little conspiracy.”

  “The—how?”

  “Jenna is going to be an invalid all the way home. If he makes the same time he’d make on a spavined horse, he’ll be lucky.”

  He coughed on a swallow of cider. Savil patted his back, a gleam of amusement in her eye. “I got that from ’Fandes through Kellan. Jenna is not happy with her Chosen, and intends to make him pay for it. So, Lores is going to be delayed. So far as I know, nobody knows where you and the lad are; Lores assumed you’d gone to Haven. That’s more good news. So you’re safe for a bit, maybe long enough to find out what really happened.”

  “Even when people do find out where we are,” Vanyel pointed out, “I can’t be countermanded by anyone other than Randale. Randi is going to stall, I know him. He knows that if there weren’t something damned odd going on, I’d have Gated to Haven with Tashir. So—what about our guest?”

  “Well, I told you, he’s been acting like a ghost. He’s been hovering over you whenever there wasn’t someone in here, but he seems to know when someone is coming, and slips back into his own room just before they get here. Fortunately I scanned you before I tried to read his mind. Someone or something certainly made him sensitive to that. I judged we didn’t need any broken vases.”

  “Exactly.” Vanyel sat up a little straighter, feeling better by the moment. “I wish I dared Mindtouch him long enough to figure out what his Gifts are. Fetching for certain—probably Mindspeech; that would account for knowing when someone was coming. Has anybody been seeing that he’s fed?”

  “Oh, he comes to meals, but not with the family. He slips down to the kitchen at First Call for the servants and the armsmen, gets himself something portable, and pelts back up here. I guess he returns whatever dishes he takes after the kitchen shuts down for the night; nobody’s complained to me about missing plates
. Your mother is alive with curiosity about him, and he won’t get any nearer to her than he will to me.”

  “Why is he so—I don’t know what to call it; battleshy, maybe?” Vanyel chewed at a fingernail. “I never heard that Deveran was all that bad a man.”

  “Rumor and the truth are sometimes fairly different things, ke’chara,” Savil reminded him. “And Deveran was a man well-beset by problems, saddled with a wife he didn’t care for, an enemy on one of his Borders which forced him to make his little kingdom into a client-state of Valdemar, his eldest was a problematical bastard, and he was unsteady enough on his throne that his people could pressure him into disinheriting the boy.” She shrugged eloquently. “This doesn’t make for happy times in Lineas. Men under pressure have been known to take their unhappiness out on the defenseless.”

  “Tashir.” Vanyel sighed. “So we have a new presumptive Herald with major problems. Not good, Savil. What do we tell Father when he gets back?”

  “Good question. No more than that you’ve retrieved Tashir newly-Chosen and—damaged. The less he knows of this mess, the better. I can’t remember if he’s ever seen Vedric or Tashir; if he hasn’t, it might be best not to—”

  :FearfearfearTRAPPED. Away! Get away! DON’T TOUCH ME! FEAR!:

  “What in hell!” Savil exclaimed.

  “Tashir,” Vanyel croaked, throwing himself out of bed, staggering across the room.

  “Van!”

  He ignored Savil, and pulled open the door to his room. “He’s in the bower. Treesa must have cornered him somehow, and frightened him.”

  He stumbled down the hall at an unsteady run, bare feet slapping on the wooden floor, weaving a little from side to side, but not slowing. He was halfway down the hallway before Savil caught up with him and threw a robe over him.

  “Treesa would not appreciate a naked man breaking into her solar,” she rasped at him, as he wrestled it on, then outraced his aunt again.

  It was a damned good thing that Treesa’s bower wasn’t far from the guest quarters, because he was winded when he got there, and holding his aching side.

  Feminine shrieks met him halfway there. The pain—that was Tashir’s and that was all emotional. So whatever was happening, it wasn’t a repetition of the slaughter at Highjorune.

  He yanked open the door on chaos. Heavy furniture was dancing all over the room; lighter things like embroidery frames and stools circled the ceiling like demented bats, now and again pausing to throw themselves at the wall before circling again. Piles of shards showed where a few fragile ornaments had performed the same maneuvers to a more fatal end. Tashir was cowering in the corner nearest the doorframe, head buried in his arms; the women were cowering against the far wall, screaming at the tops of their lungs.

  Vanyel and Savil acted in concert. He clamped down on Tashir; the furniture froze in mid-dance, and the flying pieces began gently lowering themselves to the floor. Savil took the women, collectively paralyzing their throats so they couldn’t scream.

  It was a fragile solution, at best; Vanyel sensed that the moment he or Savil loosed control, the young man would continue to panic.

  The clatter of boots on the staircase heralded the unlikely answer to his prayers; Withen and Jervis stormed into the mess with drawn swords, probably expecting looting and rapine from all the screams. They stopped cold on the threshold. Vanyel would remember the looks on their faces for a long time.

  Then Tashir looked up at the intruders; Vanyel got ready to tighten down on the youngster if another surge of fear broke him out of control. But instead, he felt the first flickers of hope and something very like trust when Tashir focused on Jervis.

  Jervis? Lady have mercy—but I am not looking sideways at a gift horse!

  The women clearly saw Withen and Jervis as deliverers; they relaxed immediately, and Savil let them go, one at a time. “Sorry about this, Withen. We’ve got a presumptive Herald here with a problem,” Savil said, slowly and carefully. “Van rescued him, he’s very jumpy—his Gift is Fetching, ladies, and he was just trying to get you to leave him alone. He panicked when you started screaming. It’s all right, Withen, nobody’s hurt, and it looks like the only damage is a couple of ornaments.”

  Treesa, white and shaking, actually managed a tremulous smile. “Th-they were those horrible ch-cherubs Thorinna insisted on g-g-giving me,” she stammered. “I shan’t m-m-miss them.”

  Vanyel, meanwhile, managed to snag Jervis’ elbow and draw him away from Withen. “I’ve got a very frightened lad here, Jervis,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you everything I can later. For now, he seems to see you as somebody he can depend on. Do you think you can handle him, get him calmed down?”

  Jervis didn’t waste any time with questions or arguments. He took one look at Tashir’s strained, white face, sheathed his sword, and nodded.

  Vanyel, with Jervis at his elbow, moved toward Tashir as quietly and unthreateningly as he could. The youngster looked up at them with a measure of both hope and fear. “I’m going to take the shields off you, Tashir,” Vanyel said, as if none of this had happened, projecting calm with all his power. Empathy was not one of his strong Gifts, but he did have it, and he used it to the limit. “I want you to go back to your room with Jervis. Jervis, this is Tashir. Lad, Jervis is our armsmaster.”

  Again that flash of hope and trust—stronger this time—in response to the identification of Jervis.

  “I want you to get yourself calmed down. I know you can. Once you do, all these strange things will stop happening. What you have is something we call a Gift, and it’s no more unnatural than being able to paint well or fight well. And the proof of that is that you’re going to feel exhausted in a minute, just like you’d been fighting. You have—only with your mind. We’ll help you figure out how to keep it under control so that things like this won’t happen again. No one is angry at you—you heard Lady Treesa—and no one is going to punish you for any of this. These things happen to some people, and we understand that here in Valdemar; we look for people like you, Tashir, and we train them to use what they have. This little mess wasn’t your fault, and I won’t allow anyone to blame you for it.”

  “Vanyel’s all right,” Jervis said gruffly, clapping Vanyel on the shoulder and making him stagger a little. “If he says you’re going to be fine, you will be. He won’t lie, and he keeps his promises.”

  Without daring to Mindtouch, Vanyel couldn’t tell what the youngster was thinking; he was forced to rely on what Tashir was projecting that he was picking up Empathically. There was doubt there—but a trust in Jervis that was increasing by the moment. Clearly, Tashir would trust Jervis where he wouldn’t trust anyone else.

  There was a glimmering, a hint of something else for a moment, then it was gone, slithering away before Vanyel could read it. That was frustrating in the extreme, but he certainly didn’t want to set Tashir off again. So he slowly let his control over the youngster fade, little by little, until it was gone. Tashir slumped against the wall in total exhaustion, closing his eyes.

  “Here, lad,” Jervis stepped forward and took him by the elbow; the boy transferred his weight from the wall to Jervis, a sign Vanyel read with relief. “Come on, let’s get you back to your room, hey? If what young Van here says is true, you’re probably feeling like you’ve just gone through a round-robin tourney in weighted armor.”

  Tashir nodded, and let Jervis lead him out, stumbling a little with fatigue.

  With Tashir gone, the tension left the solar, and everyone in it reacted to the relief differently. Treesa and her ladies were twittering in their corner like a flock of flustered sparrows. Vanyel found a chair and sat in it before his knees gave out on him. Withen suddenly seemed to remember the sword in his hand, and sheathed it.

  “Fine, we’ve got Tashir taken care of, now can any of you tell us what happened?” Vanyel asked wearily.

  The women started, and stared at
him—with fear. Even his mother. Everyone except Melenna.

  Their fear hit him like a blow to the heart, making him feel sick. That fear—Gods. They never saw me work magic before. The stories were just—stories. Now I’ve conjured myself from Highjorune in a night, brought a wizardling with me—dispelled his magic with a look. Now I’m Vanyel Demonsbane. I’m not anyone they know anymore. I’m not anyone they could know. I’m someone with powers they don’t understand, someone to fear.

  He could deal with this now—or let the situation worsen. He chose for the Heralds; chose to withdraw himself, Vanyel, inside a kind of mental shell and let Herald-Mage Vanyel come to the fore.

  “Ladies, please,” the Herald-Mage said, gently, and with a winning smile, exerting all the charm he had. “This is important to all of you if I’m to understand what set the lad off. The idea is to keep him from doing it again, after all.”

  One or two tittered nervously, the rest looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. Then after a moment during which his smile remained steady, they relaxed a little.

  His heart sank when Melenna worked her way to the front of the group. He wasn’t hoping for much coherency out of her.

  But she was surprisingly calm. “Lady Treesa found the young man with Medren,” she said quietly, her eyes downcast. “She’s been terribly curious about him—well, we all were, really—so she ordered him to come with her to the solar and present himself properly right then. He didn’t want to—well, that’s what Medren said—but she ordered him, so he followed her. He was very polite, but even I could see that he was very unhappy, and the more Treesa asked about his family—because he told us who he was right off—the unhappier he got. As soon as Treesa noticed it, that was when she did—like she does with you, milord Van. You know, she gets sort-of flirty, but at the same time she starts getting very mothering. She got up and started to go to him, to put him at ease—and he sort of jumped back, and one of the couches jumped right between him and Treesa. It just—jumped, like a trained dog, or something. Lady Treesa nearly had heart failure, and she screamed, she was so surprised—that was when Tashir went absolutely white and everything in the room began flying around.”