Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  It had taken An'desha this long to divine precisely what the problem really was between them, and it turned out to be something rather disconcerting. Something he knew he wasn't going to be able to remedy, in fact.

  Firesong did not seem to know how to deal with the "new" An'desha, an An'desha who was growing less dependent upon him with every passing day.

  An'desha gazed down into the water-table as if the answer to his problem with Firesong lay there, as well as the answer to the question of what to do when the breakwater failed.

  He doesn't seem to understand that just because he saved my life, and helped me when I was so confused that I didn't know how to cope with the smallest details, that doesn't make us automatically lifebonded. It doesn't even make us automatically best friends. I love him, and I owe him a great deal—but I do not owe him my total devotion for the rest of my life. No one "owes" that to anyone.

  They had become lovers out of mutual attraction and An'desha's helpless dependence on someone, anyone, who might give him the support and security he desperately craved. And to his credit, Firesong had been very well aware that such dependence was unhealthy and infantile; he had done his best to wean An'desha away from that clutching dependence and to help him grow a real spine of his own.

  But was that because he wanted me to be independent, or because I was strangling him? Hmm. Good question. Only Firesong knows the answer. Certainly being strangled is hardly comfortable, but he did wean me away as gently as possible, rather than simply shoving me away. But was that because he liked me dependent, but not too dependent? Another good question.

  Now—well, the old proverb said, "Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it." Firesong had gotten an An'desha who knew who and what he was, and what he wanted to do with his life—and now Firesong was the one who was unhappy.

  He wasn't exactly picking fights, but whenever An'desha said or did something Firesong didn't expect, he was visibly taken aback. Startled, even shocked, as if An'desha had turned into someone he didn't recognize. And when An'desha actually had a difference of opinion from him, Firesong would flash into a quiet and unobtrusive rage.

  It never lasted more than a bare instant, and he never actually said or did anything except try to persuade An'desha that he was wrong—but that instant of rage was there. It was naked in his eyes and in the way he first flushed, then paled, then clenched his jaw hard and would not speak until the moment was over.

  Firesong's solution, which An'desha had decided to emulate, was to avoid such situations by avoiding An'desha except at meals and at night.

  At night, at least, they were still compatible, and it was a good tension reliever for both of them. But for how long would that last?

  He shook himself out of his reverie; Master Levy was staring at him with curiosity, as if wondering what it was An'desha saw in the water-table. "Well, I'm not getting anything done here. Perhaps I ought to go take a walk and get some fresh air. Maybe I will intuit something that will help."

  "I will go back to my angles and instruments, and see if I can't make something out of the result," Master Levy replied, but he sounded discouraged. "One of our problems is that the waves are coming from outside, yet our models rely upon waves generated from the center outward. We can extrapolate the results by formulas based on that, but it is still not an accurate enough representation."

  On the whole, An'desha didn't blame him for being discouraged. What they needed was a new way of looking at this situation, a new approach. That was how they had come up with the breakwater, after all, a new approach—a mathematically-derived analysis of magical energies.

  "Say... how about this," An'desha said quietly. "A hoop that can be dropped into the water model to create a circular wave from the outer edge inward?"

  Master Levy examined his hands and reflexively cleaned under his fingernails for the twentieth time this conversation. "Mmm," he murmured finally. "That could help. I will put a student-artificer on the idea immediately. There are wave problems with the shortness of sampling time from the strike to edge reflection, but perhaps a large enough hoop could be made...."

  Master Levy went on in the same vein for a while. They could come up with ideas, small ones that added up, but they never felt like a master solution. Now they needed another source of inspiration. The trouble was, they had run out of new cultural influences to provide such a source of new thinking.

  We need a god to help us out this time. Unfortunately, since it is not likely that we will all be wiped off the face of the world when the breakwater fails, I doubt that She is going to be inclined to help us.

  He shrugged and picked up his quilted Shin'a'in riding coat, pulled it on, and buttoned it up to his chin. He left the Palace workroom in a state of absorbed introspection, but he was not thinking about the mage-storms as he walked through the dead and deserted Palace gardens.

  Odd. Not that long ago I would have been worried sick if Firesong had begun avoiding me. I would have been certain he was getting tired of me and was looking for someone else to replace me. I would have been in a panic at the thought of being alone. Now—

  Now it simply didn't bother him, in part because such avoidance also avoided confrontations between them.

  And frankly, it wouldn't matter to me if he did find a new lover.

  That surprising realization stopped him, right in the middle of the path. He repeated it to himself, and it felt logical—right.

  It would not matter to me if Firesong found a new lover. In fact, it would be something of a relief. I would stop feeling obligated to please him for fear of hurtful response. A feeling like that has no place in a love affair.

  Yet there was no one else he was even remotely attracted to! So what was prompting this sentiment?

  Do I want to be—alone?

  That felt right too. Oh, he didn't want to be alone forever, but a third realization came to him, on the heels of the other two.

  I'm starting to find things out about myself—not just all the things in the memories of Falconsbane-that-was, but things about me. I need time to think about them. And it has to be time alone.

  Poor Firesong. He must be sensing that I want to be alone, and he's thinking it means that I don't want him around.

  An'desha shook his head and started walking again, with his head down and his hands in his pockets. If only Firesong would find someone else, it would make things a great deal easier on everyone.

  But the chances of that happening are not very good. There aren't a lot of she'chorne around for him to choose from, and most of them are involved with each other. And the others— He grimaced. I'll be charitable and say that the others are understandably warped by unfortunate early experiences. But that doesn't make them pleasant or healthy to be involved with.

  She'chorne. When was the last time he'd heard, or even thought that word? Back with the Clan, before Falconsbane—I hadn't been making any attempts to court any girls in the Clan, so Grandmother started asking if I would at least consider courting one of the she'chorne boys. Such an alliance, though it obviously would not be possible to produce children of the blood, was still considered honorable. More than that, such couples could pursue the adoption of orphans from within the Clan. In fact, many Shin'a'in Clans encouraged such alliances so that there would be couples available to adopt parentless children. By Shin'a'in standards, a she'chorne couple, with no children of their own to support, always had the resources to support someone else, thus removing the burden from those with their own children to feed.

  But that wasn't what I wanted either, and she started in on how I was as shiftless and rootless as my father...

  There wasn't much to examine in his relatively short "real" lifetime, but he'd been going over his memories, trying to find hints of what he was in what he had been. He'd also been examining the less-disgusting memories left to him by Falconsbane and all his previous incarnations, trying to find a common denominator.

  There has to be more than one reason why Falcon
sbane grabbed me to settle into. By now, there must be a lot of Ma'ar's blood-children around, and at least a fair share of them should be mages. For that matter, given the way that Falconsbane and the rest used to ride out on little loot-and-rape expeditions just for amusement, there ought to be plenty of appropriate candidates out there. Somehow I have the feeling that there must be many common threads in my life and all of his... if only I can untangle them

  He'd already found one. Every single one of those previous lives had involved a person who, before Falconsbane moved in and took over, was someone who was despised or even abused by his natural family. Many of them had run away, seeking new lives elsewhere, actually seeking the implied power that came with being a mage so that they could return home and have revenge of one sort or another. That was why most of them had tried the fire-calling spell when they were alone; most of them had not yet found a teacher, yet had felt the stirrings of the power within them, and had decided to try it "just once."

  I wonder if having a teacher would have prevented Falconsbane from moving in? I wonder if the presence of the teacher would have prevented him from even trying?

  Possibly; Ma'ar, the original of all the incarnations, had been one of the craftiest wizards of all time. Surely he would have hedged in his search for a new body with all kinds of conditions.

  But what of that common thread of abuse, neglect, and derision? What if being despised and ignored was also a prerequisite to possession? When I ran away from the Clan, I wasn't sure what I was looking for—except a place to belong and a way to escape being forced into the life of a shaman. But I seem to remember that most, if not all of the others were actively looking for power when they ran. Some wanted real, bloody revenge, some just wanted to "show them all," with "them" being the people who had offered scorn and mockery.

  Now, wasn't that an interesting thought? Had that condition actually caused them to somehow welcome Falconsbane, at least somewhere deep inside?

  Being possessed, giving up your own responsibility for the sake of revenge—that's beginning to make too much sense.

  He stopped for a moment, and probed deeply into some of the earliest memories of possession. Oh... this is interesting. The first time, Ma'ar didn't just rush in and take over, he seduced! He offered instant Adepthood, no tedious apprenticeship My, my. It was only much, much later that he became impatient and careless, and just took over in a rush.

  That initial welcome would have been all he needed to get himself well established; in the time it took them to realize what it was they had welcomed, he'd be entrenched. By then, of course, it was too late; Falconsbane would not tolerate a second soul, a second personality in "his" new body. By the time any of them thought to rebel, Falconsbane eradicated them and reigned supreme.

  But I didn't want him, and I didn't particularly want power. All I wanted was—people. Someone who wouldn't despise me, who would welcome me and give me a chance to prove myself. Was that the difference that made it possible for me to survive?

  It might have been. It was just such a tiny wedge that had made the difference in the past.

  There were other reasons for his survival; he had "run," hiding in his own mind, while Falconsbane settled in, rather than trying to resist the intruder. Once in hiding, he had made no effort to try and force out the Dark Adept.

  A chill wind whipped through his hair, and he shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, hunching his shoulders against the cold. These gardens were good places to be alone, once bad weather had set in. Once the last of the wintering preparations had been made, not even the gardeners ventured out here.

  It's odd, but a great deal of what Falconsbane and all his other "selves" did were the darker applications of things that could have been very admirable. It's as if they couldn't create, they could only warp, twist, and mutilate.

  That was especially true in the way that Falconsbane had manipulated people's minds and hearts, including that of his own daughter Nyara. Falconsbane was capable of inspiring true devotion from his servants, as well as devotion inspired only by fear. In fact. if An'desha went all the way back to the source of the memories, the Adept called Ma'ar, he found that Ma'ar seldom, if ever, needed to command by fear. He could, and did, manage to convince his followers that he was everything they wanted him to be, and that he truly cared for their welfare. If Ma'ar's memories were to be trusted, he had underlings who would gladly have flung themselves in front of an assassin's blade for him out of pure worship.

  Compared with that, Falconsbane's sick and twisted love-hate-need relationship with his daughter Nyara was without sophistication, even crude.

  I am glad that she and Skif were sent to be the envoys to the k'Leshya. Skif was growing restless with nothing to contribute, and she was not comfortable here. Neither was Need. I think she was afraid that one day Kerowyn would decide to make good on her threat to drop the sword down a well. He smiled to himself; there could not be two such supremely self-assured—not to say "arrogant"—females in the same physical location as Kerowyn and the sword called Need, without conflicts arising. It was just as well that Skif, Nyara, and Need were gone. The k'Leshya could use Skif's knowledge, and the sword knew magics even older than their own. And Nyara, of course, would be much more comfortable in a place where she was by no means the oddest looking person in the Vale.

  What Falconsbane had done to her and with her just on an emotional basis was sick and demented by any normal standards. But just as intimate knowledge of the way that the body worked could be used to heal, as well as to kill and torture, could not Falconsbane's ability to manipulate minds and emotions be used for some other, benign purpose?

  In some ways. wasn't that precisely what Ulrich and Karal had been doing to help him?

  He chewed his lip thoughtfully. Did that make Falconsbane something like—like an evil priest?

  Certainly on one level. A good priest is supposed to counsel and guide his followers to their betterment, and Falconsbane used similar tools of persuasion.

  Bells at the Collegium rang, signaling the beginning of the dinner hour. That meant that both the Palace and Collegium libraries would be empty, and both libraries had comfortable reading areas with fireplaces—certainly much better places for continuing these introspections than the gardens, at this point! It wouldn't be long until dark, the gray light was fading into thick, gray-blue dusk, and the wind was getting colder with every passing moment. His nose and ears were getting numb, and the wind somehow managed to find every seam in his coat to blow through!

  He turned his steps back toward the Palace, nodding at the guard at the garden door as he passed. One advantage of being who and what he was—he was instantly recognizable. Most guards let him by without a challenge, the way they let the Hawkbrothers and the gryphons pass.

  The Palace library seemed the best choice, the reading area was smaller, and most of the people who used it were court functionaries. This was not a library filled with books of poetry, clever histories, and tales. The books here were dull chronicles for the most part, with a leavening of books on language, law, and custom. Meaty and informative, but as hard to digest as a stone and about as entertaining. It was tucked away between the room used for Valdemaran Council sessions and the office of the Seneschal, sharing a fireplace wall with the latter.

  Only one or two lamps had been lit, but there was a bright fire going in the fireplace—and as An'desha had hoped, there was no one in the reading area. He chose a comfortably padded chair, draped his coat over the back, and sprawled sideways with one leg over an arm of the chair, staring into the fire.

  So if Ma'ar and all his other "selves" were able to control and persuade people—would it be wrong to use that same power to help people? To get them to compromise with each other, for instance—would that be wrong? I wish I had some help with this... I have a feeling I'm getting out of my depth. The trouble was that he was too close to those memories; seeing such abilities and powers in action made it very tempting to assume that such thing
s could be used for good purposes.

  Someone once told me that even the deadliest of poisons could be used to heal—with expertise and great care, in the minutest of doses. How tiny a dose of "persuasion" was moral? He didn't know where the line should be drawn between "trying to help people," and "manipulating people."

  Firesong would be no help at all, even though he was a Healing Adept. His powers were all concerned with the world of the material, not the world of the soul, heart, and spirit. He tended to get very impatient when An'desha strayed into the realms of what he considered to be "mystical." For all of his insistence on the intuitive nature of magic, he was bound up in the practical and had little use for mysticism.

  I'd like to ask Karal, but he's already carrying so many burdens, I'm afraid to add one more to his load. It might be the one that breaks his back—or his spirit. Poor Karal, He was carrying far too much responsibility on those slim shoulders.

  Perhaps that sweet lady, Talia? But—no, really, what he wanted wasn't comfort, it was a place to start figuring out ethical solutions.

  This was the one place where his old nemesis, the shaman of his Clan, might have been useful. The old man was as rigid as dried rawhide, but he was enough in tune with the Star-Eyed that he never gave anyone bad spiritual advice that I ever heard of. And he knew his ethics.... The new Shin'a'in envoy was not a shaman; he was temporary, the brother of his Clan Chief, and An'desha really didn't like him any more than Karal did. If only Querna were still alive! He wouldn't have hesitated a moment in asking her help.

  If only I had someone, anyone, to talk to! No, not "anyone" A shaman, a priest. But I don't know which priests here to trust except Karal; I'd rather talk to someone who comes from the same background as me. How ironic! I got myself into trouble by running away from the shaman, and now I would give anything to be able to talk to one.