The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy

by Mercedes Lackey

  He closed his eyes and evoked a light trance-state, centered, then reached for a deeper level of Savil than he touched in Mindspeech.

  Like hand taking hand, he linked with her, followed her blindly through a twisting, torturous maze of fire and shadow and confusing shapes in which the slightest misstep would mean things he preferred not to think about. Savil knew what she was doing; if she couldn’t weave her way through this thing, no one outside of k’Treva could.

  :Brace yourself, love. I’m going to toss you in.:

  He “made” himself as compact and small a “bundle” as he could—and felt himself hurled—

  • • •

  He crawled on hands and knees into consciousness. He opened burning eyes, his stomach in knots, his head pounding, and wanting a bath more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He felt filthy inside as well as out.

  Savil was still kneeling beside him, holding both of his cold hands in hers, staring intently into his eyes. “You’re back,” she said.

  “I’m back,” he replied, swallowing bile. “You won’t like it.”

  “I don’t like it now.” She released his hands, and he rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.

  “Remember what you said, about ‘blood’ being involved very subtly in this? It is; and given what I found out about the guardianship of the heart-stone, it’s sickeningly logical. When this spell is triggered on someone, it not only goes for them—but for everyone sharing blood-relationship with that person that is also a mage or carries the potential. Everyone, right down to babes in the womb.”

  Savil’s face grayed a little. “So whoever did this—”

  “I’ve got that, too. Last person to trigger it was dear Uncle Vedric Mavelan. Last person targeted was Tashir. So much for all his protests about wanting to help the lad.”

  “Tashir?” Her voice rose at least half an octave. “But then—that means that Vedric knew the boy wasn’t his!”

  Vanyel grimaced, and tried to sit up straighter. “Exactly. He knew it all along, and made no attempt to clear either his sister, or the youngster. Now, I have a few guesses as to why there seem to be inconsistencies. The biggest is why the maid Reta I spoke to survived. My guess is that Vedric shielded the palace to avoid blood in the streets and the question of why Tashir would murder people he didn’t even know existed. If he hadn’t, it’s pretty likely that people would have looked elsewhere for a perpetrator, rather than to Tashir. And that shield would explain why the Mavelans weren’t attacked, since they were related to Tashir through Ylyna.”

  “And why Ylyna was killed with everyone else; she must have been carrying Mage-potential,” Savil mused aloud.

  “The thing is—this is a trap that resets itself. Until we destroy the maker, anyone that knows how can set it against anyone else.”

  He sat bolt upright, as the shields on the palace buckled and weakened under a furious attack.

  “Did you—” Savil exclaimed, blanching. “—gods, of course you felt that; they’re your shields. There’s somebody out there trying to get in!”

  “Will get in,” Vanyel corrected grimly, launching himself out of the chair. “It’s Vedric. He knows we’re in here. He’s probably figured out that we know what happened—or soon will. He can’t afford to let us escape.”

  The shields shrieked in his mind as another attack battered at them. Vanyel started down the hall at a run, followed by his Aunt.

  :Yfandes!: he called, snaking the Mindtouch around Vedric, hoping the mage would be too preoccupied with his attack to sense it.

  :Here—:

  Grateful that thought took less time to send than words, he told her all they’d learned. :Time to run for it, love. Have Kellan stay with the stud, you and Ghost head over the Border at top speed. Vedric’s on to us. If we lose this—:

  :I will see that the Kingdom knows,: she replied grimly. :I will see you avenged. Then I will come to you.:

  She cut him off before he could protest, and there was no more time to spare for protests.

  “We have,” he cast over his shoulder at Savil, “maybe a candlemark or two to figure out what we’re going to do.”

  CHAPTER 14

  THEY SKIDDED INTO the Great Hall, feet slipping on the debris, startling Jervis and Tashir considerably as they came to a halt beside them. Savil held her side and panted a little.

  “What—” Jervis began.

  “Vedric’s out there,” Vanyel interrupted him. “He’s trying to break through the shields. I expect he knows we’re in here; I expect he figures we’ve learned the truth of what happened. He’s the one that triggered the trap-spell; he used Tashir for the target, and the damned thing’s set to take anyone of the bloodline of the target with Mage-potential.”

  Tashir had been sitting on a cleared space on the floor. He stood, slowly, his expression frozen, his face drained. “I remember,” he said, his voice tight and strained, “I remember now.” He turned away from them, and pointed a shaking hand at the door that led to the second-floor stairs. “I was running down those stairs. I was going to run away. I told Father that—I told him that I’d rather dig ditches than go to Baires. He laughed at me, he said he doubted I had the spine—and I hit him. I didn’t mean to, but it just happened. I was afraid he’d do something horrible and I ran. I ran through here and out the door, and—and—I couldn’t get out! It was like hitting a wall! I didn’t even think, I just turned around and started running for the stable door, and when I got here—” He pointed at his feet. “I—it—happened. Like, I don’t know, like a whirlwind, only there were all these teeth and eyes, and pretty soon it was filling the whole room and tearing everybody and everything around into shreds—”

  His voice spiraled up into hysteria, and Jervis shook his shoulders.

  “Tashir, come on, lad, we’ve got troubles now, don’t you fall apart on me.”

  The young man shivered like a trapped rabbit, but he nodded, and there was still some sense in his eyes.

  “I repeat; Vedric’s out there.” Vanyel shuddered as he felt his shields buckle a little more. “He’ll be in here soon. I sent the Companions out of here; Kellan’s minding the stud, she and Ghost and Yfandes are going for home. One way or another, the truth is going to get out, but there’s only one way out now for us. Savil, I’ll hold him, while you build a Gate and get Jervis and Tashir out of here.”

  She nodded, face gray and grim. “Where?”

  “Haven, by choice; no one is going to extract him from Randale’s hands once he hears the whole story.” He was only giving half his attention to the conversation; the other half was busy weaving reinforcements to his disintegrating shields.

  “But—” she protested.

  “Dammit, Savil, just do it; I can’t. Gating that far would probably kill me!”

  “Vanyel,” she interrupted urgently, “what happens when he triggers the trap on you?”

  He felt himself pale, felt his spellcasting falter. “Oh, gods—let me think—you should be all right if I can just hold him off long enough for you to alert somebody to protect you. Medren is Bard-Gifted with no Mage-potential, he should be safe enough. My sibs—no potential. Father!”

  “Is safe,” she told him. “How do you think I got half these white hairs? I spent a week in the nodes weaving protections for him when I first met Starwind. When I realized how powerful an Adept I was, I also realized that very few enemies were going to be able to come at me directly, so they might choose to come at me through my brother. I made sure there was no chance of that while I had the energy and leisure. Is there anybody else?”

  “No,” he said. But his mind was screaming the real truth at her even as his lips formed the lie. :Savil! Jisa—oh, gods, the children—:

  :What?:

  He grabbed her shoulders so tightly it surely must have hurt enough to leave bruises as his fingertips dug into the flesh. :I have
three children. Brightstar and his twin are in k’Treva, under their own shields, Starwind’s and Moondance’s, so they’re safe enough, but Jisa—

  :Jisa? How? Why?:

  His thoughts were not particularly ordered or coherent, but he did his best to get the sense across to her. :Savil, don’t ask; she’s mine by blood, Randale and Shavri wanted it, that’s all you need to know. She’s not under shield.: He wanted to pound the fear he felt for them into Savil. :And Shavri’s at risk through Jisa. I don’t know if Shavri’s got the potential or not. You have to get back there—gods—I never meant anyone else to know, but there’s no choice—Jays. Trust Jays. Tell him the truth; I think he’ll understand. No one else. Gods, if Randale was only a mage—go, Savil!: The battering at his shields grew fiercer. :Just go! I can’t hold him much longer!:

  He released her shoulders, and Savil turned without another word and faced one of the open doorways. She held up her hands, and Vanyel felt the slight disorientation that always accompanied the moment when someone invoked Gate-energy around him. He left the little group of three and sprinted across the wreckage-strewn hall and up the staircase to face the door and try to keep Vedric in check long enough for them to escape.

  He fought silently, fighting as he had never fought before, fighting not only for himself, but for his friends—and for his land, for without Shavri, Randale would fall to pieces. The last of his shield reinforcements cracked and fell away just as he felt the wave of dizziness that signaled the opening of the Gate itself. And the outer door exploded open, breaking two of its hinges and shattering every window in that wall, just as he felt a wash of pain—

  Pain that signaled the Gate being traversed, and then going down again.

  That pain nearly did him in; he was barely able to get his own personal shield up in time to deflect the lightnings Vedric called down on him.

  “Hold him, boy!” came an urgent voice behind him. “He knows we know—he doesn’t dare let us live!”

  “Jervis!” Vanyel tapped recklessly into the node, and flung fire into Vedric’s face. He didn’t dare look around, but he spat a stream of heartfelt curses in four languages at the armsmaster. “Damn you,” he screamed, deflecting a paralysis-dagger and countering with an ice-storm. “Get under cover! What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “What Savil told me,” came the unperturbed voice from behind and to his right, as Vanyel tried to shatter Vedric’s shields with hammering blows of pure force. Vedric turned them, though not easily; Vanyel could spare no more attention to the armsmaster. To deal with Vedric would take every scrap of concentration.

  They were equals, or so close as made no difference. Vanyel had the node to draw on, but Vedric was being fed from somewhere outside himself, too. The entryway shook; the glass of the windows that had been shattered in the first exchange rose up and flew at him. He pulverized the flying shards of death with a single blow. Now flakes of stone and plaster rained down on them, and the paving beneath their feet cracked.

  Then Vedric smiled—and triggered the trap-spell.

  Hastily Vanyel extended his shield to cover Jervis. A whirlwind Swarm of creatures—as Tashir had described, seeming mostly teeth and eyes—circled them, screaming their outrage at not being able to reach them. They weren’t the gretshke beings he’d encountered—they were at once less hungry and more evil. The Swarm he knew attacked to feed, these things attacked only to rend and tear, to maim and destroy, for the pleasure of destruction and the pain it caused.

  Shrieking in frustration, the Swarm spiraled up and away, passing through the ceiling unhindered—and were gone.

  Vedric smiled again. “Well, Herald Vanyel—I presume that is who you are—aren’t you going to try to rush off to the rescue of your family, your kindred?”

  Vanyel just laughed at him.

  That was not the response Vedric had expected, and it shook him. But what shook him even more was the backlash a moment later as his Swarm attempted to find victims, and were thwarted again—and again—and again—

  Failed spells recoiled on their caster; that was one of the first lessons Starwind had taught him. And a spell this powerful, if backlashed, should have knocked Vedric to his knees.

  But it didn’t.

  It seemed as if the Mavelan mage-lord took the backlash, and siphoned it off somewhere.

  That was when Vanyel realized exactly where Vedric was getting his unprecedented power. The entire Mavelan family had united (for once) and was feeding this, their chosen representative, with all their combined powers.

  Vanyel could hammer at him until dark with no effect.

  He deflected another lightning-strike, and thought frantically. Even if he defeated Vedric, that wouldn’t take care of the rest of the family unless he could somehow get at them through the linkage to the mage-lord.

  Then he knew how to manage that.

  Raw node-power.

  Only Tayledras-trained or an Adept with the dearly bought control he and Savil shared could handle it. He remembered how, when he had defeated the changeling-mage Krebain, he had nearly killed himself by flooding it through his system. Only one thing had saved him; the fact that Moondance, a k’Treva Healer-Adept, had gotten to him within heartbeats after he’d blasted himself. If he poured that through Vedric and into the meld before they realized what he was doing, there would be no saving of any of them. Without being prepared to handle that kind of power, they would be destroyed.

  But to do that, he would have to drain the node to a level where he might trigger a quake. And he would have to touch Vedric.

  He had been very carefully avoiding looking at the mage-lord. Now he looked across the space intervening between them and saw—

  Tylendel. As Tylendel would have looked now, had he survived into full manhood.

  He froze.

  The momentary pause in the parry-riposte of the mage-duel broke Vedric’s rhythm and concentration. He looked up and stared at Vanyel as if wondering what the other was up to.

  That broke the grip of heartache holding him, for nothing could have been less like the Tylendel Vanyel had loved than the creature that looked at him out of the mask of Tylendel’s face. There was craft there, and guile—and a terrible cruelty. The kind of cruelty that would see nothing wrong with setting an innocent boy up to be abused and neglected most of his life. A heartlessness that had finally served the helpless boy up as a sacrifice, as the expendable tool that gave Vedric power, and never once felt a twinge of guilt or regret.

  A strengthening surge of anger galvanized him, and he re-engaged with every resource he had, fighting his way through lightning, fire, force-walls, everything Vedric could throw into his path. He could see the puzzlement in Vedric’s eyes as he won each step across the room, paying for each fingerlength in pain when Vedric’s weaponry penetrated his shielding and scored on him, but taking those fingerlength gains despite the pain. He forgot Jervis, forgot Tashir, forgot everything but the fight to win to within arm’s-reach of the mage-lord.

  Multicolored curtains of power danced in front of him, barring his way. They scorched him as he parted them.

  Two steps to go.

  One.

  He reached out and seized Vedric’s arms, and at that moment the mage seemed to figure out what his goal was. Panic spasmed across his face.

  But it was a realization that came too late.

  Vanyel opened himself up to the node completely, and let the power use him as a channel, as he had when he melded with the heart-stone. It poured through him, meeting no resistance—

  And into the meld that was the Mavelan family.

  Vedric’s spine arced; his mouth opened, but no sound emerged. For one moment he glowed like a young sun—

  —Vanyel’s mind rocked under a multivoiced scream of agony that seemed to go on and on forever—

  Then it was gone, and so was Vedric. There was
nothing left but a pile of white ash at Vanyel’s feet and two handfuls of ash that he dropped onto the pile.

  Vanyel stared at the ash, dully—and when the entryway swayed, he thought for a moment that it was his own fatigue that made him stumble and lose his footing.

  But as Jervis scrambled toward him to grab his arms and shake him, he understood. The node—he’d drained enough power so that the fault had gone unstable.

  The building rocked again, as Jervis continued to shake him. “Come on, you damned fool!” he shouted, right into Vanyel’s face. “Those damned shields that Vedric set up t’ keep us from gettin’ away are still there! Gate us outa here before the building comes down on our heads!”

  He wrenched himself out of Jervis’ hands and faced the ruined outer door, holding up his hands and beginning the Gate-spell, while around him the room bucked and heaved like a boat in a storm.

  The pain was incredible.

  Letting the node-force use him had left him raw; it was only knowing that Jervis would perish with him that kept him going. He could see the court beyond the door—or rather, what the quake was leaving of it. The palace was disintegrating around them, and nothing living was going to stay that way for long here.

  Finally the Gate was complete; the courtyard winked out with a wrench that felt as if someone had torn Vanyel’s guts out, and in its place was the corridor just outside the Ashkevron family chapel.

  Vanyel’s knees gave out and he collapsed. He had just enough energy to wince a little as half the wall collapsed between him and the Gate.

  There was nothing but pain now, and he lacked even the strength to weep.

  Jervis was shaking him; he tried to push the man’s hands away, but it was like a babe trying to push away the hand of an adult. “Go,” he panted, too spent even to moan. “Can’t—hold it—stable.”

  There’s nothing left. I overestimated again—

  He could feel the Gate pulsing with the beating of his own heart. In a moment it would collapse.