Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  “The night I found you,” he said, “your father told you something, and you refused him, and he hit you. Do you remember what that was?”

  Tashir shook his head, a breath away from hysterical breakdown. The blue aura of the Truth Spell continued to glow.

  “He told you that he was going to send you to your Mavelan relatives to stay; that he was washing his hands of you.”

  It was hard to tell in the blue glows of mage-light and Truth Spell, but Tashir seemed to become paler. Vanyel shook his head regretfully, and deliberately turned his back on the youngster. “I don't know what to do about you,” he said expressionlessly. “You've brought me nothing but trouble, and you're about to cause a major diplomatic incident between Valdemar and Lineas. You could even start a war. I'm sorry, Tashir, but your uncle Vedric is petitioning that you be put into his custody. King Randale is likely to order just that. Given the circumstances, I think it would be the wisest thing if I admitted where you are and my part in this mess and turned you over to Vedric in the morning.”

  He waited for an attack; he waited for the shield to break under the stress of Tashir's Gift at the kind of level of manifestation that was indicated by the slaughter at Highjorune.

  Instead, he heard a peculiar little whimper, and felt the pressure within the shield go null.

  Vanyel pivoted in surprise just in time to catch the youngster as he fell over in a dead faint.

  It took him the better part of a candlemark to revive Tashir. It took longer to convince him that although it might be the wisest thing to do, it was not the course of action Vanyel intended to take. The youngster was totally terrified of being sent into Mavelan hands, yet even under the stress of this absolute terror, his Gift manifested at no higher level than before.

  Eventually Tashir believed him when he told the youngster that he would continue to shelter him, to try to find out what had really happened.

  And then, when the young man had settled a little, he began the questioning again.

  With a cool and calculated assessment of the stress he was putting Tashir under, Vanyel brought him to the breaking point over and over, until he was certain that nothing was going to evoke the kill-storm.

  Finally the boy was too exhausted to be pressed further. And Vanyel wasn't too far behind him - at least emotionally. “Why, Tashir?” he asked, looking for any clue as to the truth of that night. “Why did you make up that fantasy for Jervis?”

  “Because - because I wanted him to like me!” the young man blurted desperately. “How could he like me if my own father hated me? How could he like me if he knew what my mother wanted to -”

  Vanyel interrupted, trying not to show the frustration he was feeling. “Tashir, Karis tried to protect you. Why did you think Jervis would be any different?''

  “But Karis was there, he saw what was happening. If I told anybody else they'd think I was lying, Mother said so.”

  Tashir paled again, but Vanyel assumed it was only the stress of having to face that unnatural relationship squarely.

  “Karis,” he whispered, “was there.'“

  “Tashir, from what I've been told, she was the one who lied; why would you think she'd have told you the truth about -”

  “V-Vanyel,” the young man interrupted. “Karis - they never told me who besides - was Karis - one of - was he -“

  Then Vanyel saw what Tashir had finally realized; saw the plea in Tashir's eyes to be told that Karis was still alive, and couldn't answer it. He looked away - which was answer enough.

  The youngster crumpled, holding the stone balustrade for support, his entire body shaking with harsh, racking sobs. Vanyel remembered, as he banished the shield and uncast the Truth Spell, that one of the most telling pieces of evidence against the youngster - in the eyes of Herald Lores, at any rate - was Tashir's lack of emotion when he'd been told what had happened.

  Lores should see him now, he thought grimly, putting his arm around Tashir's shoulders and letting him weep himself out with Vanyel supporting him. His own anger was quite gone, and he was recalling his desire to make Tashir hurt as much as he did with a sick, shamed feeling in the pit of his stomach. Then Tashir turned to cry on Vanyel's shoulder, and it was all Vanyel could do to keep from losing control again, this time for a very different reason.

  Finally the youngster pulled away, and Vanyel let him go. He walked back to his former seat or. the bench at the farther side of the porch and slumped there, his head in his hands, not really thinking, only aching.

  Because Tashir was so like Tylendel.

  Holding him while he wept had been like reliving the past. The dead past. ...

  Hesitant footsteps behind him, and a shy sniffle.

  Vanyel wished with all his heart that the boy would go - find Jervis, go back to his room, or seek solace at the festivities, anything but stay here with that far-too-familiar face, providing a ready - made knife to the heart, and not even knowing that he was doing so.

  “Vanyel?” came the halting whisper. “Vanyel, who was that man? The one that disappeared when I startled you? I thought it was me, at first, but he was different.”

  “It was just an illusion,” Vanyel replied, rubbing his temples, staring at the dark blot of his own feet against the gray stone. “I was practicing.”

  The youngster hovered just beside him. “But who is it?” he persisted. “It wasn't me, and it wasn't Uncle Vedric. And why were you casting a seeming of him?”

  “Tylendel,” Vanyel replied shortly. “His name was Tylendel. He's dead. He-was-my lover.”

  And half of my soul and all of my heart.

  Tashir started back at that, out of touching distance, projecting clear revulsion and fear so clearly that Vanyel felt it like a blow.

  Vanyel's temper snapped.

  “Dammit,” he snarled, rounding on the youngster, “will you not act like I'm going to pounce on you and rape you? I don't make a habit of hitting attractive young men over the head and dragging them off to my bed, no matter who they look like!”

  Tashir put out a hand as if to keep him away.

  Vanyel could not longer control his temper or his words. “You came to me not all that long ago,” he snarled, “and I'll thank you to remember that I didn't take advantage of the situation! So you've changed your mind about being shaych; fine, I have no quarrel with you or with that, that is your decision and yours alone to make. I have no intention of making you change your mind. But kindly remember that I'm a human being, and I lost somebody -”

  He fought the words past the grief. “- lost somebody I loved more than anyone else on earth. He was my lifebonded, and I will be without him for the rest of my life. You're not the only one in the world who's alone! You're not the only one who's suffered!”

  He turned away abruptly, got up, and stalked stiffly to the stone railing, staring out into the lattice of bare tree branches and trying to keep from breaking down completely. Behind him he could hear Tashir shuffling his feet, the sound betraying uncertainty.

  Go away, boy. Leave me alone. Leave me to mourn my dead, my beloved, and go chase my niece. Just leave me.

  But the footsteps shuffled nearer, hesitated, then came nearer still, until Tashir stood at his right elbow. Vanyel stared out ahead of him, at the branches, and the stars that seemed to be caught there.

  “Was he a Herald?” The voice was timid.

  “No. A trainee.”

  Stop driving knives in me. Go away.

  “How long ago?”

  “Twelve years, tonight.”

  Twelve years forsaken. Twelve long, lonely years, knowing I'll never be whole again.

  “What happened?” the youngster persisted, sounding very young indeed.

  “He killed himself.”

  There. Are you happy? Now will you go away?

  “But -” No condemnation, just bewilderment. “- why7 How could he - when he had a Companion?”

  So you know that already, do you ? How if we die, they die? But you don't know everything, l
addy-boy.

  “She repudiated him. That's why he did it. He - couldn't bear - the -”

  He couldn't finish.

  Silence, a silence marked only by the occasional rustle of leaves. Vanyel hung his head and wrestled with his grief and hoped the youngster would take the hint and finally go away.

  Tashir moved a little closer. “I don't understand,” he said, humbly. “I can't imagine what could have happened. Please -”

  Vanyel took a deep, shuddering breath. Obviously the boy wasn't going to leave until he had his curiosity satisfied.

  So tell him, and get it over with.

  He looked back up at the remote and uncaring stars. “ 'Lendel was Savil's trainee when my father sent me to her because I wasn't the kind of man he thought I should be,” he began, trying to recite the words as if they described someone else. “What I didn't know then was that he was afraid I was fey, and he was trying to keep me from being shaych. He kept me amazingly sheltered, really; I had no idea that - well, I suppose - anyway, I knew I was different, but I didn't know why.” His chest ached when he took a breath. “I was disliked at home. The fosterlings, my brothers, they all figured me for Mother's darling. And I just couldn't seern to fit in with them. Granted, I didn't make much effort to be liked after a while, but - well.”

  It was all coming back with the impact of something that had happened only yesterday. “So Withen sent me off to Haven, where I was even more a stranger.” He tried to laugh; it sounded like a croak. “I was put with Savil and her proteges, and Savil was supposed to 'make a man out of me' - turn me into something like Meke, I suppose. What Father didn't know was that her favorite protege 'Lendel was shaych - openly shaych. Exactly what he'd tried to keep me from. I was lonely and desperately unhappy, and 'Lendel was kind to me even when I was rotten to him. Then I found out certain things about him from other sources and suddenly a lot of inexplicable things about myself had answers.”

  I watched you and wanted more from you than friendship - for days, weeks. And at the same time - I was so afraid. Not like this young fool is afraid; I was afraid that once I broke my isolation, you 'd hurt me like everyone else had. But you didn't, 'Lendel. At least not in the way I'd feared. And in the end, it wasn't you who hurt me; it was losing you -

  “Things - happened. 'Lendel and I became lovers, then lifebonded. I know that now, I didn't know that then; all I knew then was that I'd have done anything for him, committed any crime to avoid losing him.”

  “You weren't a Herald?''

  “No, not even a trainee.” His eyes blurred and burned. Vanyel blinked, and tears splashed down onto the balustrade beside his hand. “Tylendel had a twin; his twin was murdered in a feud. Murdered by magic. No one seemed willing to do anything about it. 'Lendel and Staven had been mindlinked; losing Staven drove him more than a little mad. He decided to take matters into his own hands, and I helped him by stealing the proscribed books of magic. I couldn't believe - I was outraged that no one had done anything about Staven's murder. I didn't know what I should have done, and I didn't see anything wrong with going out for revenge - especially not when 'Lendel was hurting so much. We slipped away on Sovvan-night -”

  Dark and cold it was, and wind blowing fit to tear the clothes from your body. But not so dark and cold as the place inside 'Lendel that only revenge would heal - I thought. I only wanted him satisfied so I could have the Tylendel I knew back again. I never thought further than that.

  “- we Gated to where the other family was celebrating. Since we were lifebonded and I had Mage-potential, 'Lendel could use my energy to make the Gate and his own to call up his vengeance. Which he did. He called up a pack of wyrsa and turned them loose.”

  He felt the young man beside him shudder, but he was too caught in his memories to pay much attention. He could still see it; the image was burned into his mind for all time.

  'Lendel, his face twisted with grief and rage, his eyes no longer gentle, and holding a black gleam of madness. The cowering people, seeing no escape - and Evil made flesh in the form of the four wyrsa, unholy meldings of snake and ferret, with their dagger-teeth and their burning sulfur eyes and their insatiable hunger that he could feel beating against his mind even now. And then the thunder of hooves behind him and the equine shriek of defiance and loss -

  “Gala came through the Gate when the wyrsa had made only one kill. She challenged the whole pack - she repudiated 'Lendel.”

  Sweet blue eyes gone dead and empty, mind - voice reverberating coldly down the link that bound him and 'Lendel. I do not know you. You are not my Chosen. Then the internal snap of something breaking, and the utter desolation where love had been -

  “She attacked the pack. They pulled her down and killed her.”

  Tylendel's eyes with all of hell in them. Tylendel's heart a churning storm of loss and agony. Tylendel's soul a shattered thing past all repairing. Tylendel's mind holding no sane thoughts at all -

  “Savil and two other Heralds came through the Gate and destroyed the wyrsa - too late, oh, gods - 'Lendel's heart, his mind, his soul were broken. He got away from them when we reached Haven. They backlashed the Gate energy through me by accident, and my collapse distracted them just long enough for him to break free of them. He couldn't bear it - the pain of losing Gala, then having her die before his eyes-so he threw himself - off the Belltower -”

  I wish they'd let me die with you. I wish they hadn't saved me when I tried to kill myself. Oh, 'Lendel, Tylendel, it wasn't supposed to end that way -

  He couldn't look at Tashir. Couldn't. Tears fell silently and splashed onto his hands. He gripped the railing until his knuckles ached. There was nothing inside him but the same throbbing emptiness that had been left twelve years ago.

  Twelve years, 'Lendel. Twelve years, and it hurts more, not less. Twelve years, and all I really look forward to is the moment it's all over -

  Tashir was very quiet; Vanyel couldn't even hear him breathing, and only the sense of presence still at his side told him that the young man was still there.

  “I'm sorry,” Tashir said awkwardly. “That's a stupid thing to say, but it's all I can think of. I wish it had never happened. I wish I could bring him back for you, Herald Vanyel. Karis always told me people could feel that way about each other, could really love each other and not just pretend to, but I never - I never knew anybody who did. I'm sorry I made you unhappy. I apologize for reacting like I did. If I'd known what you just told me, I'd have realized how stupid I was.”

  “It's all right,” Vanyel answered him huskily, after a pause to get the lump out of his throat. “You couldn't know. Lifebonds don't happen very often. When they do, well, it's like Companion-bond; when one partner dies, the other dies with him, usually. The only thing that kept me alive was that I bonded to Yfandes that night. It doesn't hit me like this very often, it's just - Sovvan-night, and I'm bloody damned tired, and you - gods, Tashir, you could have been him. It hurts every time I see you, because half the time I don't see you, I see him.”

  The young man was silent again, but it was a silence that implied he was going to speak. And he did.

  “I'm probably saying things I shouldn't, but you said it yourself, Vanyel. It's been twelve years. Don't you think that's an awful long time to be holding onto a memory so tightly that it strangles you?”

  He stepped away a little, as Vanyel finally turned to look at the dark shape of him in shock and astonishment. “People need you, and you can't help them when you're like this. Jervis told me that you said that's important. And you aren't the only one in the world who's suffering, either. You aren't the only one who's ever lost his love.”

  He backed up a little, then broke and ran for the door, leaving Vanyel standing stiffly beside the railing, trying to collect his wits.

  Have I been that selfish? he wondered. Is it selfish to grieve for someone like this ?

  I don't know.

  But he's right. I'm not the only one in the world who's lost someone they loved. He lost Kari
s; and Karis was the only person he ever knew who loved him. I have Savil; I have 'Fandes. I have - Friends.

  Gods.

  He blinked, as answers finally put themselves together in his mind. I said it myself; it wasn't Shavri everything turned into, it was 'Lendel. I do love Shavri, but not like that. It's just that I've been so long without caring for anyone that deeply that I couldn't untangle what it meant. I want to protect her, care for her, but because she's a friend who needs me more than anyone has ever needed me except 'Lendel. And because she cares for me. It was only 'Lendel who gave me love without asking for anything -

  - good gods. That's it, isn't it. That's where the sticking point is. Everybody wants something from me, or seems to. Mother, first of all; Melenna, Randi - they all want me to be something for them. Only 'Lendel wanted me to be myself. Only 'Lendel gave without asking what he was going to get. And now Shavri. And Jisa, who just loves, like only a child can love, without any questions at all.

  But that's not wrong, either; I can't blame the ones who need things from me. But that may be something of the difference between friends and lovers. Interesting. But how is it that I can go to bed with a friend -

  Ah. I can't go to bed with someone who's not a friend. How could I have lost what I knew when I was fifteen? That was what I knew when Krebain tried to seduce me. Sex and love aren't the same thing. But love and friendship are so close that you can't have love without having friendship. I could have continued to love 'Lendel even without sex. That's what had me confused. We became friends and lovers and beloved all at the same instant. There was something about him I would always have liked, even if I'd never loved him.

  The stars weren't any brighter for having just found some of his answers, but they seemed that way. Poor Tashir - he doesn't have anyone. I had a true love. Not too many people can say that.

  He contemplated that for a moment. I've been thinking awfully hard about how I lost him. Maybe it would be better to remember how I had him. Once again he set himself to build the illusion that had shattered with Tashir's gasp; just as carefully, just as lovingly. But this time remembering the good times.