Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Doubt shatters certainty, fosters despair;

  Guilt harbors weakness and fear makes me blind—

  Fear of the secrets that I dare not share—

  Lost in the spiral maze of my own mind.

  Knowing the cost to us all if I foil—

  Feeling that failure breathe cold at my back—

  All I thought strong now revealed as so frail

  That I could not weather one spiteful attack.

  An arrow in flight must be sent with control—

  But all my control was illusion at best.

  Instinct alone cannot captain a soul—

  Direction must be learned and not merely guessed.

  Seeking with purpose, not flailing about—

  Trusting in others as they trust in me—

  Starting again from the shadows of doubt

  Gods, how I fear what I yet know must be!

  Chorus 2:

  Finding my center, and with it, control;

  Disciplined knowledge must now be my goal.

  Knowing my limits, out judging what’s right—

  Till nothing can hinder the arrow in flight.

  Fundamentals

  Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

  Music: Kristoph Klover

  (Kris: Arrow’s Flight)

  Ground and center; we begin

  Feel the shape inside your skin

  Feel the earth and feel the air—

  Ground and center; “how” and “where.”

  Ground and center—don’t just frown,

  Find the leaks and lock them down.

  Baby-games you never learned

  Bring you pain you never earned.

  Ground and center; do it, child

  If you’d tame that Talent wild—

  Girl, you learned it in your youth—

  Life’s not fair, and that’s the truth.

  Ground and center, once again;

  You’re not finished—I’ll say when.

  Ground and center in your sleep

  Ground and center ‘till you weep.

  Ground and center; that’s the way—

  You might get somewhere, someday.

  Yes, I know I’m being cruel

  And you’re as stubborn as a mule!

  Ground and center, feel the flow

  Can you tell which way to go?

  Instinct’s not enough, my friend—

  Make it reflex in the end.

  Ground and center; hold it tight—

  Dammit, greenie, that’s not right!

  (Every tear you shed hurts me,

  But that’s the way it has to be.)

  Ground and center; good, at last!

  Once again; grab hard, hold fast.

  Half asleep or half awake—

  Both of us know what’s at stake.

  Ground and center; now it’s sure;

  What you have now will endure,

  Forgive me what I had to do—

  Healing hurts—you know that’s true.

  Ground and center; lover, friend—

  You won’t break, but now you bend.

  Costly lesson, high the price—

  But you won’t have to learn it twice!

  Otherlove

  Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

  Music: Leslie Fish

  (Talia: Arrow’s Flight)

  I need you as a friend, dear one,

  I love you as a brother;

  And my body lies beside you

  While my heart yearns for another.

  I wonder if you understand—

  Beneath your careless guise

  I seem to sense uneasiness

  When looking in your eyes.

  I need your help, my friend, and I

  Had sworn to stand alone;

  How foolish were the vows I made

  My present plight has shown.

  But don’t mistake my need for love

  However strong it seems—

  For while I lie beside you

  Someone else is in my dreams.

  I wish that I could know your thoughts;

  I only sense your pain—

  Unease behind the smile you wear—

  A haunted, sad refrain.

  I would not be the cause of grief—

  I’ve often told you so—

  Yet there’s a place within my heart

  Where you, love, cannot go.

  After Midnight

  Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

  Music: Leslie Fish

  (Kris: Arrow’s Flight)

  In the dead, dark hours after midnight

  When the world seems to stop in its place,

  You can see a little more clearly,

  You can look your life in the face;

  You can see the things that you have to—

  Speak the words too true for the day.

  In the dead, dark hours after midnight,

  Little friend, will you listen—and stay?

  In the time when I never knew you

  I could view the world as my own—

  I was God’s own gift to his creatures,

  And I wore an armor of stone.

  I was wise and faithful and noble—

  I was pompous, pious and cold.

  I was cruel when I never meant it—

  Far too cool to touch or to hold.

  It was you who broke through my armor;

  It was you who broke through the wall,

  With your pain and your desperation—

  How could I not answer your call?

  How could I have guessed you would touch me,

  And in ways I could not control?

  How could I have known I would need you—

  Or have guessed you’d see to my soul?

  For as I taught you, so you taught me,

  Taught me how to love and to care—

  For your own love melted my armor,

  Taught me how to feel and to dare.

  When I looked tonight, I discovered

  I could not again stand apart—

  In the dead, dark hours after midnight,

  I discovered I owe you my heart.

  Sun And Shadow: Meetings

  Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

  Music; Leslie Fish

  (Kris: Arrow’s Flight)

  (When the “long version” of “Sun and Shadow” is sung, this is sung as a kind of prologue)

  She dances in the shadows; like a shadow is her hair.

  Her eyes hold midnight captive, like a phantom, fell and fair.

  While the woodlarks sing the measures that her flying feet retrace

  She dances in the shadows like a dream of darkling grace.

  He sings in summer sunlight to the cloudless summer skies;

  His head is crowned with sunlight and the heavens match his eyes.

  All the wildwood seems to listen to the singer’s gladsome voice

  He sings in summer sunlight and all those who hear rejoice.

  She dances in the shadows, for a doom upon her lies;

  That if once the sunlight touches her the Shadowdancer dies.

  And on his line is this curse laid—that once the day is sped

  In sleep like death he lies until again the night has fled.

  One evening in the twilight that is neither day nor night,

  The time part bred of shadow, and partly born of light,

  A trembling Shadowdancer heard the voice of love and doom

  That sang a song of sunlight through the gathering evening gloom.

  A spell it cast upon her, and she followed in its wake

  To where Sunsinger sang it, all unheeding, by her lake.

  She saw the one that she must love until the day she died—

  Bitter tears for bitter loving then Shadowdancer cried.

  One evening in the twilight e’er his curse could work its will,

  Sunsinger sang of sunlight by a lake serene and still—

  When out among the shadow stepped a woman,
fey and fair—

  A woman sweet as twilight, with the shadows in her hair.

  He saw her, and he loved her, and he knew his love was vain

  For he was born of sunlight and must be the shadow’s bane.

  So e’er the curse could claim him, then, he shed one bitter tear

  For he knew his only love must also be his only fear.

  So now they meet at twilight, though they only meet to part.

  Sad meetings, sadder partings, and the breaking of each heart.

  Why blame them, if they pray for time or death to bring a cure?

  For the sake of bitter loving, nonetheless they will endure.

  Sun And Shadow

  Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

  Music: Paul Espinoza

  (Talia and Kris: Arrow’s Flight)

  “What has touched me, reaching deep

  Piercing my ensorcelled sleep?

  Darkling lady, do you weep?

  Am I the cause of your grieving?

  Why do tears of balm and bane

  Bathe my heart with bitter rain?

  What is this longing? Why this pain?

  What is this spell you are weaving?”

  “Sunlight Singer, Morning’s peer—

  How I long for what I fear!

  Not by my will are you here

  How I wish I could free you!

  Gladly in your arms I’d lie

  But I dare not come you nigh

  For if you touch me I shall die—

  If I were wise I would flee you.”

  “Shadowdancer, dark and fell,

  Lady that I love too well—

  Won’t you free me from this spell

  That you have cast around me?

  Star-eyed maid beyond compare,

  Mist of twilight in your hair—

  Why must you be so sweet and fair?

  How is it that you have bound me?”

  “In your eyes your soul lies bare

  Hope is mingled with despair;

  Sunborn lover do I dare

  Trust my heart to your keeping?

  Sunrise means that I must flee—

  Moonrise steals your soul from me;

  Nothing behind but agony,

  Nothing before us but weeping.”

  “Sun and Shadow, dark and light;

  Child of day and child of night,

  Who can set our tale aright?

  Is there no future but sorrow?

  Will some power hear our plea—

  Take the curse from you and me—

  Great us death, or set us free?

  Dare we to hope for tomorrow?”

  The Healer’s Dilemma

  Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

  Music: Bill Roper

  (Devan: Arrow’s Fall)

  My child, the child of my heart, though never of my name,

  Who shares my Gift; whose eyes, though young, are mine—the very same

  Who shares my every thought, whose skillful hands I taught so well

  Now hear the hardest lesson I shall ever have to tell.

  Young Healer, I have taught you all I know of wounds and pain—

  Of illnesses, and all the herbs of blessing and of bane—

  Of all the usage of your Gift; all that I could impart—

  And how you learned, young Healer, brought rejoicing to my heart.

  But there is yet one lessoning I cannot give to you

  For you must find your own way there—judge what is sound and true

  This lesson is the crudest ever Healer had to teach—

  It is—what you must do when there are those you cannot reach.

  However great your Gift there will be times when you will fail

  There will be those you cannot help, your skill cannot prevail.

  When you fight Death, and lose to Him, or what may yet be worse

  You win—to find the wreck He left regards you with a curse.

  And worst of all, and harder still, the times when it’s a friend

  Who looks to you to bring him peace and make his torment end—

  What will you do, young Healer, when there’s nothing you can do?

  I can give only counsel, for the rest is up to you.

  This only will I counsel you; that if you build a shell

  Of armor close about you, then you close yourself in Hell.

  And if your heart should harden, then your Gift will fade and die

  And all that you have lived and learned will then become a lie.

  My child, your Healing hands are guided by your Healing heart

  And that is all the wisdom all my learning can impart.

  You take this pain upon you as you challenge life unknown—

  And there can be no answer here but one—and that’s your own.

  Herald’s Lament

  Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

  Music: C. J. Cherryh

  (Dirk: Arrow’s Fall)

  A hand to aid along the road—

  A laugh to lighten any load—

  A place to bring a burdened heart

  And heal the ache of sorrow’s dart—

  Who’d willing share in joy or tears

  And help to ease the darkest fears

  Or my soul like his own defend—

  And all because he was my friend.

  No grave could hold so free a soul.

  I see him in the frisking foal—

  I hear him laughing on the breeze

  That stirs the very tops of trees.

  He soars with falcons on the wing—

  He is the song that nightbirds sing.

  Death never dared him captive keep.

  He lies not there. He does not sleep.

  But—there is silence at my side

  That haunts the place he used to ride.

  And my Companion can’t allay

  The loss I have sustained this day.

  How bleak the future now has grown

  Since I must face it all alone.

  My road is weary, dark and steep—

  And it is for myself I weep.

  For Talia

  Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

  Music: Larry Warner and Kristoph Klover

  (Dirk: Arrow’s Fall)

  The lady that I cherish is enamored of a fool—

  A fool who lacks the wit to speak his mind,

  A fool who often wears a mask indifferent and cool,

  A fool who’s often selfish, dense, and blind.

  The lady that I cherish is enamored of a fool—

  A fool too often wrapped in other cares,

  Forgetting that his singlemindedness is wrong and cruel

  To lock her out who gladly trouble shares.

  The lady that I cherish is enamored of a fool

  Who sometimes does not value what he holds

  Until his loneliness confirms ‘twere time his heart should rule

  And the comfort of her love around him folds.

  But though he must have hurt her without ever meaning to

  Her temper never breaks and never frays,

  And she forgives whatever careless thing that he may do

  And loves him still despite his thoughtless ways.

  She only smiles and says that there is nothing to forgive—

  And I thank God she does so, for you see I fear

  Without her love and care this poor fool could not live—

  The fool she loves and cherishes is me.

  Kerowyn’s Ride

  Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

  Music: Leslie Fish

  (This is a fairly common song in Valdemar, although it originated several lands to the south.)

  Kerowyn, Kerowyn, where are you going,

  Dressed in men’s clothing, a sword by your side,

  Your face pale as death, and your eyes full of fury,

  Kerowyn, Kerowyn, where do you ride?

  Last night in the darkness foul raiders attacked us—

  Our hall lies in ruins bel
ow—

  They’ve stolen our treasure, and the bride of my brother

  And to her side now I must go

  To her aid now I must go.

  Kerowyn, Kerowyn, where is your father?

  Where is your brother? This fight should be theirs.

  It is not seemly that maids should be warriors—

  Your pride is your folly; go tend women’s cares.

  This is far more than a matter of honor

  And more than a matter of pride—

  She’s only a child, all alone, all unaided

  Though foolish and reckless beside,

  Still now to her aid I must ride.

  Grandmother, sorceress, I need a weapon—

  I’m one against many—and I am afraid—

  For the bastards have bought them a fell wizard’s powers—

  I can’t hope to help her without magic aid.

  Kerowyn, granddaughter, into your keeping

  I now give the sword I once wore

  “Need” is her name, yes, and great are her powers—

  She’ll serve you as many before—

  Though her name be not found in men’s lore.

  Grandmother, grandmother, now you confuse me—

  Was this a testing I got at your hand?

  Whence comes this weapon of steel and of magic

  And why do you put her now at my command?

  Kerowyn, not for the weak or the coward

  Is the path of the warrior maid.

  Yes my child, you’ve been tested—now ride with my blessing

  And trust in yourself and your blade.

  Ride now, and go unafraid!

  Threes

  Music: Leslie Fish

  Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

  (Again: a similar song from the same region as “Kerowyn’s Ride” that migrated northward.)

  Deep into the stony hills, miles from town or hold