Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  How dare he!

  And suddenly, as soon as he had the target, his anger was no longer impotent.

  The darkness filled him, burned his fingers, longing to be unleashed. He felt power rising in him, rushing to his summons eagerly, flowing into him, all too familiar from the anger-fueled mage-attacks of Mornelithe Falconsbane—power that was poised to tear the guts right out of Darkwind's treacherous body and fling them back in the bastard's face—

  —tear the guts from—

  —tear—

  Realization froze him in place, just before he let the power loose to turn the interloper inside out.

  What am I doing?

  He stopped himself, appalled, before the power got away from him; hauled it back and quashed it; dispersed it, let it drain out of him in a rush that left him trembling, this time not with anger, but with horror.

  I nearly killed him—

  —nearly—

  —oh, gods—

  Rage turned inward and ate itself, and with a strangled sob of terror, he whirled and fled the garden.

  He dashed up the stairs to the second story, blinded with panic, with fear, and with tears of shame. There was only one thought in his mind.

  I could have killed him. I could have. I almost did.

  Panic gave his stumbling feet the strength his body lacked. He had to get away, away from everyone else, before something worse happened. What was he? What had he become?

  Worse yet—what was he still?

  A monster. I'm a monster. I'm the Beast....

  Falconsbane was alive and well, and living inside him. Waiting for a chance to get out, or better still, looking for a way to make An'desha into the kind of sadistic, perverted, twisted horror he had been.

  He heard the running footsteps of someone following him, and turned at the top of the stairs, intending to send whoever it was away, far away from him—away from one irrevocably contaminated with the lurking shadow of Mornelithe Falconsbane. He wasn't thinking any more clearly than that; he only knew that no one should be near him.

  But he didn't get a chance to say anything, for it was Elspeth who had followed him, hard on his heels. He had been misled by the soft sound of her bare feet into thinking she was farther behind him. She didn't stop when he did; she ran up the last three stairs and caught him up in her arms and in an impulsive embrace as soon as he turned and faced her, ignoring the fact that she was dripping wet and so was the brief tunic she wore. That simple embrace undid him completely.

  Oh, gods....

  He collapsed against her without a thought and began to weep, hopelessly; she held him against her damp shoulder, and stroked his hair as if he had been a very small child caught up in a nightmare. In a moment, it didn't matter that her tunic was wet; tears of pain and panic burned their way down his face and into the sodden cloth, and his throat ached with the effort of holding his hysterical sobs back. He simply clung to her, a shelter, a sure refuge, and she supported him.

  "An'desha, it's all right," she said quietly, over his strangled sobbing. "Dearheart, it wasn't what you thought it was! Darkwind and I are bonded and Firesong knows it, and Darkwind knows how Firesong feels about you! They were only teasing each other, dear, truly, and they would never, ever have done that if they had any idea how hurt you were just now. We just all thought you were tired and wanted to be left alone, and Firesong's had mischief in him all day."

  "But you—" he got out, through the tears. "You—"

  How she knew he was trying to ask why she had followed him, he had no idea—but she knew, or guessed right, and gave him the answer.

  "I was the only one close enough to see your face, ke'chara. It was only play, and now they're teasing Kero. You were so quiet that we all assumed you'd join in after you revived a little. No one else knows you ran off. You mustn't let things like this bother you so much!" She held him very tightly for a moment, and he felt the warmth of her concern flowing over him. He wanted it to help; he wanted to feel comforted.

  It did nothing to thaw the frozen center of his fear.

  Worse, she only thought he'd fled, like some stupid jilted lover, like an idiot in a ballad. She hadn't a clue why he was falling apart like this.

  He had to tell her. She had to know. It might be her life he threatened next. Would be, if Falconsbane got loose.

  "That's not—" He fought the tears back as they threatened to choke him into incoherence. "Elspeth, it wasn't that—didn't you feel it? I was angry, and power just—took over and I almost struck Darkwind! I almost killed him!" He pulled away from her, afraid that he would somehow contaminate her as well. "It's Falconsbane!" he choked out. "He's still—here, he must be, he's still controlling me and I—I—"

  He began to shake, trembling with absolute terror. How could he have done that? How could it not have been the Beast within?

  Yet she did not draw away from him as he was certain she must, and when she pulled him back against her shoulder he did not resist.

  "Is there somewhere up here we can go to sit for a while?" she asked quietly, as the tears began again. He waved vaguely to the right, and she supported him as she steered him away from the staircase and into the sitting room with its view from among the tree branches. She helped him down onto a cushion and sat beside him, still holding him, until his shaking stopped.

  "Let's start over," she said quietly as the sun set somewhere beyond the trees, and thick, blue dusk gathered about them. "You were obviously tired, out-of-sorts, and we thoughtlessly came trampling in to destroy what little peace and quiet you had. That put you further out-of-sorts, right?"

  He nodded, his stomach churning, only half of his mind on what she was saying. How could any of this matter now?

  "Then, already unhappy and angry with us, you thought that Firesong was trying to seduce Darkwind. What you really saw was just Firesong teasing someone who is a good enough friend to tease back." He heard a definite tone of wry amusement in her voice. "I was told by a—a Shin'a'in friend that Hawkbrother teasing usually involves a lot of innuendo and flirtation. She told me that I might as well get used to it, since it's as stupid to get upset over something they grow up with as it would be to become upset because birds fly. So—I got used to it, and I've been known to give as good as I get."

  "S-s-so I've got no choice but to get used to it, too?" he said, with a touch of anger getting past the tears, momentarily distracted from his deeper and weightier fears.

  He felt her shrug. "If you don't, you're only setting yourself up for more pain," she replied logically. "An'desha, I don't know if you've ever felt strongly about anyone before, but there is one thing you had better get into your head right now. You don't go into a pairing intending to try and change someone to suit you. They were themselves long before you came along. You do go into a pairing ready to compromise."

  He shook his head numbly, his entire soul rebelling at the idea that she thought his troubles were no more serious than simple hurt feelings, and once again she divined what he meant though he could not say it.

  "Huh... it's not that?"

  He nodded, then shook his head helplessly.

  "It's not that, and it's more than that?"

  He sniffed, and nodded.

  She paused for a moment, and thought, her brows creased. "All right. I'll start with what's simplest. Now, listen to me and believe me. Darkwind and I are lovers, partners, and friends—there isn't much that is going to come between us, and Firesong knows that. He also knows that I am not Tayledras, and that I would be very, very hurt if what you saw and heard was anything other than friendly teasing. So does Darkwind. That's one of the compromises we've made." Then she laughed dryly. "More than that, he knows that there is a very real possibility that he would be very, very hurt as well—physically! I have quite a few faults, An'desha, and I have a very bad temper. I do not care to share Darkwind with anyone, and I will not be humiliated, especially in front of others. If I thought that was going to happen, well, someone would need a bandage or spli
nt."

  "Oh," was all he could say.

  "So—for the answer to the situation that made you angry in the first place and triggered all this, if I don't have a reason to feel jealous or humiliated, and I'm the most jealous wench in Valdemar, certainly you don't!"

  Uncertainly, he rubbed at his burning eyes with the back of his hand and coughed. A certain Shin'a'in proverb sprang immediately to mind. Not a flattering one, either. "But they say that the—"

  "The lady is always the last to know." She snorted, a most unladylike sound. "Yes, but 'they' don't reckon on bondbirds and Companions, both of whom would tell tales, I promise you. Vree doesn't much care for Firesong's bird Aya, and he likes me and Gwena both; he'd babble like a scarlet jay either to me or to her if Darkwind got up to something with Firesong that I didn't know about."

  An'desha wiped his eyes again. It certainly sounded logical. "But—"

  "But that's giving Firesong no credit whatsoever for any kind of feelings, honor, or decency; that's assuming that he is as shallow and light-minded as he would like us to think. That is not fair to him, and you know better. For that matter, so do I." She took his chin in two fingers, and angled his face towards hers so that he had to look into her eyes. "Ke'chara, he is a Healing Adept. Don't you realize what that means? Of all people, you should. For all that he seems light-minded on the outside, he cares, more than anyone I have ever seen. He cares for you, and I think he has surprised himself by how much he cares for you. He has put a great deal of himself into the Healing of you, and he will literally empty himself for you if you let him, right down to the dregs. He is as decent and honorable as any Herald I know, and that is the greatest compliment I could give anyone."

  An'desha swallowed slowly past the great lump in his throat. "I—"

  "He has his faults, plenty of them, but failing to care about you and what happens to you is not one of them. He and I are rather alike when it comes to matters of the heart. Maybe it's the blood we share, I don't know." She looked very stern, and he was forcefully reminded of Need. "Give the man some credit. He has the capacity for great love, and he's not going to risk great love for something trivial. It was nothing more than a game. He would never, ever jeopardize anything having to do with you."

  He had to believe her. She knew; she knew people, and she knew Firesong and Darkwind. He blinked, his eyes feeling gritty and sore, and nodded. Then his fear rose in him again, worse than before, when he realized what he could have done for no cause. Somehow that made it all worse.

  "But Fal—" he began, with a wail of despair.

  She cut him off with a look and a finger placed against his lips. "Falconsbane had nothing to do with the way you reacted. Being far too ready to think yourself hurt did, but not Falconsbane. He is gone, and good riddance."

  "No," he replied, with heat. "This time you don't understand! Even if he's gone, he's still a part of me, he's corrupted me, he's gotten into the way I think and react and—"

  "Hell, no," she said firmly. "Horseturds. For one thing, I doubt that Mornelithe Falconsbane ever cared enough about anything or anyone to ever feel jealousy! In order to become jealous, you have to care for and value something besides yourself, you know."

  That took him aback; it was something that had never even entered his mind. He had to nod cautiously. Falconsbane had certainly never cared for anyone—only valued them as prizes.

  She smiled grimly. "As for your own reaction and how strong and irrational it was—perfectly ordinary people have moments of jealousy as terrible as anything you just experienced. It happens all the time." Her smile turned into a grimace of pain. "Unfortunately, Heralds see the aftermath of that kind of jealousy all the time, too."

  "I'm not ordinary," he began.

  "No," she agreed readily. "You aren't. Ordinary people do not have the ability to rend people limb from limb with little more than a thought. But ordinary people do have the ability to rend other people limb from limb, period, if they are angry enough. It just takes a little more effort on their part, and as I said, Heralds see the aftermath of those episodes of jealousy and rage all the time. The gods know that in this city alone there are plenty of beatings and knifings and other kinds of mayhem inflicted every day to prove that perfectly ordinary people can be driven to kill over jealousy. The only difference between them and you is that they will use perfectly ordinary physical means against the object of their rage." She coughed and rubbed her nose. "It's horrible, it's tragic, but there it is."

  "But my point—" he tried to interject.

  "What makes you different from those stupid, ordinary people," she continued inexorably, "is that you stopped yourself from acting. You controlled yourself. You were horrified by the very idea you could have hurt Darkwind, even though you were already hurt by him."

  "But I might not have!" he cried, panicking again.

  "But you did," she replied with emphasis. "You did, even when you didn't know it was a game and meant nothing. You did control yourself, when you thought you had every reason to strike back. Now you know what the silly teasing-game looks like between two very good friends, and you won't make that mistake again. You know how much we value you, and that we would never knowingly hurt you, and I hope that you will ask one of us before you jump to any conclusions."

  "I—"

  He stopped and never completed the sentence, because he frankly did not know what to say. She had an answer for every one of his fears and his arguments. She could even be right. He had no way of knowing.

  She waited patiently for him to say something, then shrugged. "Right now I think we ought to do something to salvage this situation. I don't think you want anyone else to know that you came running up here, hurt. If I were you, I wouldn't."

  Well, he had to agree completely with that, anyway. He felt enough like a fool; the last thing he wanted was for everyone else in the gathering to know he was a fool.

  "In that case, we need to think of some logical reason for both of us to have come up here." She nibbled a fingernail for a moment, deep in thought. "Food, maybe? Or something to drink? Do you two keep those things here?"

  "Yes," he replied, nearly speechless with gratitude at her quick thinking. "And surely everyone is thirsty by now."

  "Good. Let's go get some drink and bring it down to them, maybe something in the way of a snack as well." She rose to her feet and gave him her hand. He took it and she helped him to his. She was a lot stronger than she looked.

  Her brief tunic had dried, and so had her hair; it curled around her face in a wispy silver-streaked cloud. He wondered how it was that she could be so earthy and so unearthly, all at the same time.

  "Lead the way, ke'chara. I'm not a lot of good as cook, but I can carry a tray with the best of them." She winked at him, and he found himself smiling back at her as he led the way to the tiny kitchen where he prepared meals from time to time.

  They assembled enough food and drink to have accounted for their absence, and she used a damp, cold cloth to erase any lingering traces of his hysteria. He allowed her to persuade him to rejoin them all by promising that she would make certain he was not left out of things from now on.

  But he did not go back down those stairs without an invisible load of misgivings along with his other burdens. She was very likely right when it came to her assertions about Darkwind and Firesong—but when it came to himself, he was not so sure.

  And despite Elspeth's kind words, Falconsbane had left traces inside him, in the form of knowledge and memories. Even if he was able to control his emotions forevermore, there were things he could never have faith in again. There were too many things he could not blindly believe in now, after hosting a madman in his body. No, when it came to the future, he could not seem to muster Elspeth's level of hope. There was no blind optimism left in him, no confidence that he'd control his rage next time, and he was very much afraid of that uncertainty. There was more than one way for a madman to be born.

  Eight

  Horses were never sui
ted to traveling by night, especially moonless nights. Karal was a good rider, and the gelding's tension communicated itself to him through a hundred physical signals he felt in his hands and his legs; the horse was nervous as well as tired, and all of his nervousness stemmed from the fact that he couldn't see.

  Trenor stumbled on the uneven road, and Karal steadied him with hand and voice. The gelding whickered wearily, and Karal wondered if he ought to tell Herald Rubrik he was going to have to dismount and lead the poor horse before he took a tumble and ruined his knees.

  "We're almost there. Just over the next rise, Karal, you'll see it in a minute," Rubrik's voice floated back through the moonless dark. He could have been a disembodied spirit or hundreds of paces ahead; there was no way of telling. "Or rather, you'll see the lights. Once your horse can see where he's going, he'll have an easier time of it."

  "I'm not foundering Trenor," he replied stubbornly. "I'm not going to ride him to exhaustion, and I'm not going to let him take a fall with me on his back. One more stumble, and I'm walking him in."

  A white shape loomed up in front of him, and he realized that Rubrik and Ulrich had pulled up on the road verge to wait for him. "No one is asking you to hurt Trenor, lad," the Herald said in a tired voice. "I'd spare you both if I could, but there's nowhere to stay but hedges between here and Haven, and once we reach Haven we might as well go to the Palace. I'm sorry I had to push you like this, but I had word there's more wizard-weather coining in, and that last bridge was about to go."

  He's repeating himself; that's the third time he's told me that. He's pretending to be in a lot better shape than he really is. I'll bet he's in a lot more pain than he's letting on, too.

  Since they'd passed that last bridge right at sunset, and Karal had been able to see for himself just how shaky the structure was, he hadn't argued with going on at the time, and didn't now. And since he had also seen the remains of the huge tree that had caused the damage to that bridge mere hours before they had reached it, he also didn't ask why such an important bridge hadn't yet been repaired.