Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar v(-103

by Mercedes Lackey

  When Nerys was old enough to ride, her father gave her a beautiful white pony with a long silken mane. Naturally Kelyn had to have one, too, but hers had blue eyes. Though they were not the deep clear blue of a Companion’s, they were close enough to keep a child happy—until Nerys mocked them. “Glass eyes! How ugly. She looks as if she’s been dead in the water for days.”

  Kelyn reared back, knotted her fist, and knocked Nerys flat. It was the one and only time in all their enmity that either struck a blow against the other.

  Kelyn stood over Nerys where she lay sprawling and said perfectly calmly, “Leave my horse alone.”

  To everyone’s amazement, Nerys did. Their war went on, but people and animals were exempt. It was entirely and exclusively personal.

  One splendid summer morning, a few days after her thirteenth birthday, Nerys galloped her pony up the steep track to the highest sheep pasture. It was not a track to be galloping on, and her errand was only mildly urgent, but Nerys was out of patience with the world.

  In honor of their unfortunately mutual birthday, Kelyn had received her first silk gown and had been allowed to put her hair up. Nerys’ mother had given her a necklace of amber beads, a fine wool cloak, and a new saddlecloth for her pony.

  Those were excellent gifts, and under any other circumstances Nerys would have been delighted. But Kelyn had outdone her, and Nerys’ parents would not hear a word about it. “There’s time enough for you to play at being a woman,” her mother said.

  It was small consolation that Kelyn spilled barley beer on her dress before she had been in it an hour, and it was not even Nerys’ fault. The dress was still silk, and fit for a woman grown. Nerys was still being treated like a baby.

  In the back of her mind, Nerys knew she was being unreasonable. That was hardly enough to stop her. So she pushed her pony hard up the steep and rocky track, and trusted him not break either of their necks.

  The pony might be small, and growing smaller for Nerys by the year, but he was surefooted and quick. He brought them both safely to the high pasture.

  The sheep were grazing peacefully in the clear morning sunlight. The shepherd’s big white dogs stood guard, looking like sheep themselves unless they moved. The shepherd was not in her hut or anywhere on the mountaintop.

  She could not have gone far. Nerys had brought fresh bread and honey sweets and the first small hard apples of the season as gifts from her mother; she left them in the hut where the shepherd could see them. The message she had to deliver, that some of the ewes had been sold and should come down off the mountain within the tenday, could wait all day if it had to—and so could Nerys.

  A whole day to herself was a rare and wonderful thing, now she was almost a woman. The almost barely stung up here, where the air was thin and clear and the world seemed far away.

  Nerys pulled the saddle and bridle off the pony, rubbed him down and turned him loose among the sheep. He paused to drink long and deeply from the stream that ran through the pasture and then set to grazing on the rough, scrubby grass.

  Nerys thought briefly about swimming in the stream, but it was as cold as snow even in the dead of summer. She walked along it instead, hunting for the sweet scarlet berries that hid in the grass and eating those that she found.

  The stream wound into a grove of wind-stunted trees. They stood in a circle, almost as if planted; the space inside had always seemed to Nerys to be larger than the space without.

  When she was younger, she had played games in and around the grove, pretending that it was the Companions’ Grove and that magic grew there by moonlight or starlight. Once when a ewe give birth to a late lamb in the shelter of the trees, Nerys called the little ram “Grove-Born” until Willa the shepherd boxed her ears to teach her respect.

  Nerys had kept her dreams to herself after that, but to her the grove had always had a certain sacredness about it. When she could, she visited it just to sit and be, to listen to the wind in the leaves and breathe the sweetness of the flowers that bloomed in the grass.

  Today she had grievances to nurse. She was not sure she wanted the calm the grove could give. Still, the day had grown warm, and the shade under the trees would be blessedly cool.

  She wandered in, nibbling a handful of sweet berries. The cool green smell and the soft shade wrapped around her. She yawned, suddenly and powerfully sleepy.

  Under her drooping eyelids, in sight blurred by warmth and sleepiness, she saw that some of the sheep had taken refuge in the grove: a moving cloud of whiteness. It drifted toward her; she braced for the jostle of woolly bodies around her knees.

  Warm breath blew in her face, sweet with the scents of grass and flowers. She looked down at silver hooves—single, not cloven—and up into the deepest, bluest, most breathtakingly beautiful eyes that had ever been.

  :Hello,: the shimmering white creature said.

  The voice Nerys heard in her head was warm and deep, with a faint, musical lilt. It was the most beautiful voice she had ever heard, with her ears or otherwise.

  “Hello,” she answered politely, as her mother had taught her. “My name is Nerys.”

  :Mine is Coryn,: the Companion said. Of course that was what he was. He could not possibly have been anything else.

  Part of Nerys was dancing wildly, and part was telling itself to calm down, stop being an idiot, she was only dreaming. But it felt as real as it could possibly be.

  She stretched out a hand. She was prepared for the vision to vanish, or for her fingers to tangle in sheep’s wool.

  His neck was as smooth as water. His mane was long and waving and as fine and soft as the fringe of her mother’s prized silk shawl. He was warm and solid and very much alive. He had a smell, sweet like his breath, but with a hint underneath of the horse smell she loved.

  He was real. He was talking to her. She was Chosen. She looked at him, asking permission. He dipped his beautiful white head.

  He was much taller than her pony, but he lowered himself to his knees for her. She gripped that silken mane and swung her leg over his broad back.

  When she was settled and comfortable, he rose smoothly erect, tossed his mane and pawed. Her heart fluttered a little. Companion or no, Chosen or no, he was a tall and powerful stallion, and she was used to riding an opinionated but thoroughly safe pony gelding.

  She felt as much as heard his snort of amusement. :At least you can ride,: he said, :more or less.:

  That stung her pride. She forgot her fear and dug her heels into his sides—remembering just a fraction too late that a Companion was not, all appearances to the contrary, a horse.

  He was kind. He bucked her into a bush instead of hard ground or stony creek or the thicket of brambles that was covered with green fruit.

  The second time she mounted, she was moving stiffly, but she was not about to back off. “Please,” she said. “Will you walk?”

  :Simple intention will do,: he replied, :and a little encouragement from your seat.:

  He had not moved while he spoke to her. It dawned on her that she was supposed to follow instructions.

  “Companions, nothing,” she muttered. “They ought to call you Tyrants.”

  His amusement was all the answer she got. She glowered at him. Then she willed him to walk and bumped with her backside.

  :Not exactly,: he said, :but just this once, I’ll accept it.:

  His walk was huge. It was as big and swooping as her pony’s best canter. It made her clutch his mane and try her best not to clutch his sides. It was alarming, and exhilarating, and more than she could ever have imagined.

  She would never have dared to ask him to trot. He gave it to her of his own will, and that was even bigger and almost as smooth. When he flowed into a canter, in spite of all her fear and fret, she was grinning like a fool. It was glassy smooth, yet deeply and subtly powerful.

  He circled the whole of the high pasture, catching her pony on the way and sweeping him in their wake. It was better than any dream she had ever had.

 
; When he stopped, she burst into tears. He waited out the storm and offered no commentary as she wiped her eyes in fierce embarrassment. When she was as composed as she was going to be, he said, :I have to go now, for a while. Be patient; go on about your tasks. Tell no one that I came to you. I promise I will come back.:

  All her high joy collapsed into bafflement and something like grief. “You’re going away? How can you do that? I thought—”

  :Just for a while,: he said. :That is a promise.:

  She tried to argue, but he deposited her neatly on the grass beside her pony, ruffled her hair with his breath, turned and vanished into the dazzle of sunlight and sudden tears.

  Kelyn had won this round of her long battle with Nerys, and she was proud of it. But her hair felt odd and tight in its pins and braids, and her long skirts were heavy and made it difficult to stride out. As for riding her blue-eyed pony, that was hardly a womanly thing to do.

  A woman had more than enough to occupy her, between keeping the house, overseeing the servants, and making sure that the menfolk were fed, clothed, clean, and content. And, now that she was a woman, Kelyn had to consider her duty to the family and the business: to find a husband who would help them both to prosper.

  “It is a pity Margit’s child was a girl,” her mother sighed—as she did almost every day. She never added the other thing, the thing that mattered so much to so many people in the town: that Margit’s child and Alis’ daughter hated each other with such single-minded intensity.

  Kelyn felt guilty about it as often as not. But she simply could not stand the girl. Just being near her made Kelyn want to hit something—preferably Nerys.

  On that particular day of summer, while her womanhood was still fresh and uncomfortable, like a new pair of shoes, Kelyn finished all her tasks early and won an hour to herself.

  In this new life, she was expected to fill it with needle-work or study, or else with dreaming about her future husband—if she had had any candidates, which she did not. The face that came to her when she closed her eyes was long and white, with glassy pale eyes, and it was buried in the grass of its paddock.

  Her pony was growing fat already with lack of exercise. He needed to get out—and so did she.

  Her old, childish clothes were still in the press, tucked under the stiff new skirts and petticoats. She put them on with a kind of shamed relief. They were so much more familiar than the gowns she wore now, so much softer and more comfortable.

  They were freer, too. She could move in them: raid the kitchen for provisions, groom and saddle a pony, mount and slip out through the gate in the back garden and ride up the hill toward Wizard’s Wood.

  No one in Emmerdale remembered why the forest of pine and fir was called that. It had the magic that all forests have, of sweet scents and dappled shade and green silences. But no wizard had ever come out of it, and while the Mage Storms raged, none had touched either Emmerdale or the Wood.

  Kelyn’s mother, who sometimes startled people with the things she said, had observed once that maybe the Storms passed the town by because of the Wood. No one had paid any mind. Emmerdale was a perfectly ordinary, perfectly unmagical place.

  Sometimes Kelyn regretted that. No one from Emmerdale had ever been Chosen, and no Mage had ever come from there. Her dreams of magic and of Companions were only dreams.

  As she rode under the trees, following a path that led to the heart of the Wood, she rejected that thought—fiercely, almost angrily. Even if she was a woman now, she was not done with dreams. There was magic in the world. She would see it, feel it, even touch it—someday.

  The Wood’s heart was a low hill with a ring of stones on the summit. Whatever or whoever had put them there was long gone, and whatever power the builders had had or meant to raise was gone with them. Grass grew there now, and flowers that the children of Emmerdale plaited into chains and strung from stone to stone.

  Why they did it or what purpose it might serve, none of them could have said. It was just what one did if one was in the circle.

  No one else was there on this warm, bright afternoon, though there must have been at least one visitor earlier: a string of daisies fluttered in the breeze, wound around and around the tallest stone. The flowers were barely wilted, their yellow centers bright against the pitted grey rock.

  Kelyn’s pony snorted, then did the most embarrassing thing she knew how to do: she flipped her tail over her back and squatted. Kelyn slapped her neck hard. “You idiot! There’s no stallion here.”

  Kelyn was wrong. As it happened, there was.

  He had not been there an instant ago, standing between two of the tall gray stones. He was as white as snow, and his eyes were pure and luminous blue. His long mane rippled in the breeze that played around the hilltop.

  His nostrils flared at the sharp scent of the mare’s longing, but he was a great deal more than a stallion. He dipped his head to her, respectfully, yet made no move to claim what she offered. There was a hint of regret and apology that he must disappoint her—all in the glint of an eye and the turn of an ear.

  Kelyn loved him for that, suddenly and completely. “Thank you,” she said.

  :You are welcome,: he answered.

  “Everyone thinks she’s just a pony,” Kelyn said, “but she’s a person. I suppose you get a lot of that, too?”

  :Occasionally,: he said. His voice in her head was dryly amused.

  “Your Herald must get tired of setting people straight,” she said.

  :I can see that you do,: said the Companion.

  Kelyn started to answer, but then she stopped. It had dawned on her, belatedly, that there was no one in Whites standing near him. Then she realized what exactly he had said.

  She went perfectly still, inside and out. The world around her was supernaturally clear. She could hear every rustle of the wind in the grass, and see every glint of sunlight on the stones, and count each flower that sprang around the Companion’s silver hooves.

  She wanted to remember everything, every breath, every fraction of this moment.

  :You are Kelyn,: he said, :and I am Coryn, and I’ve come for you. Will you sit on my back?:

  The pony offered no objection when Kelyn slid out of the familiar saddle and tied up the reins so that she could graze if she chose. For all the stallion’s attractions, the grass to her mind was sweeter.

  Kelyn patted her neck a little sadly, because a woman’s clothes had changed little after all, but this changed everything. The pony tilted an ear, otherwise ignoring her. The grass was delicious, and she was hungry.

  Ponies were as unsentimental as living creatures could be. Kelyn turned away from her toward the being she had dreamed of since she was small.

  He was waiting for her. For her, and no one else.

  She sprang onto his back. It was a long way up, but she was agile and strong. Her only regret was that there was no human there to see it.

  Nerys would die of jealousy. That brightened Kelyn’s mood beyond measure.

  Coryn carried her from one end of the Wood to the other, striding long and smooth, with power that made her heart sing. He was wide through the back and barrel, too, which she would have to get used to. But she would. She had the rest of her life to do it.

  She had expected to gallop into Emmerdale in a blaze of glory, but his circle took him back to the ring of stones and her pony dozing peacefully in the light of the westering sun. There he halted and made it clear that she should dismount. “But,” she said, “I thought—”

  :I know,: Coryn said. :And you will, I promise. Go home now; keep this as our secret. In a little while the world will know that I have Chosen you; and then you’ll have your dream.:

  “That’s not what any of the stories say,” Kelyn said. She should not have been so stubborn, but she could not help herself.

  :Every story is different,: the Companion said. :This is yours, and it is wonderful.:

  “Not if I have to go home without you,” she said.

  :It’s not for v
ery long,: he said, gentle but firm. :Now hurry. Your mother is looking for you.:

  That was a shrewd blow. Kelyn glared, but she gave way. “You’d better come back soon,” she said. “Tomorrow. Promise.”

  :Soon,: the Companion said. Her Companion, who had Chosen her.

  That would keep her warm inside, even if she could not tell anyone. Except maybe—

  :Not even your mother,: said Coryn.

  “You’re worse than she is,” Kelyn muttered. “She doesn’t read my mind.”

  His laughter filled the circle and melted into sunlight. When the dazzle faded from her eyes, he was gone. She was alone with her pony and her temper and the best secret she had ever had or hoped to have.

  The next day was market day in Emmerdale. Kelyn and Nerys had duties there: Kelyn in her father’s shop among the bolts of wool, and Nerys in the livestock market, where she kept the records of the sheep as they were bought and sold. It was pure coincidence that the sheepfolds and the cloth market were at opposite ends of the square, but it had served their families well over the years.

  The white horse came trotting down the middle of the market at the stroke of noon. His coat was dazzling in the sun. His mane and tail streamed in the wind of his passage.

  More than one young and not so young person reached out to catch hold of his bridle or tried to bar his way. He never seemed to veer from his path, nor did he slow or stop. He simply was not there for those who hoped to make him Choose them.

  The center of the market was a fountain that had not run in living memory. The well that fed it was dry.

  As the Companion came to a halt in front of it, water bubbled up in the bowl, filled it and spilled over into the basin below. He lowered his chiseled white head and drank, while the market watched in spreading silence.

  Two voices at once broke that silence, from opposite ends of the square: “Coryn!”