Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Years of destruction couldn't erase her knowledge of the mine. She'd been trapped in it for too long.

  "Herald? Can you hear me?"

  Jors turned his face toward the sudden breeze. "Yes..." :Gevris, she's here!:

  :Good.: Although he sounded relieved, Jors realized the Companion didn't sound the least bit surprised.

  :You knew she'd make it.:

  Again the strange tone the Herald didn't recognize. :I believed her when she said she'd get you out.:

  "Cover your head with your hands, Herald."

  Startled, he curved his left arm up and around his head just in time to prevent a small shower of stones from ringing off his skull.

  "I'm on my way down."

  A moment later he felt the space around him fill, and a rough jacket pressed hard against his cheek.

  "Sorry. Just let me get turned."

  Turned? Teeth chattering from the cold, he strained back as far as he could but knew it would make little difference. There wasn't room for a cat to turn let alone a person. To his astonishment, his rescuer seemed to double back on herself.

  "Ow. Not a lot of head room down here."

  From the sound of her voice and the touch of her hands, she had to be sitting tight up against his side, her upper body bent across his back. He tried to force his half-frozen mind to work. "Your legs..."

  "Are well out of the way, Herald. Trust me." Ari danced her fingers over the pile of rubble that pinned him. "Can you still move your toes."

  It took him a moment to remember how. "Yes."

  "Good. You're at the bottom of a roughly wedge-shaped crevasse. Fortunately, you're pointing the right way. As soon as I get enough of you clear, I'm going to tie this rope around you, and your Companion on the other end is going to inch you up the slope as I uncover your legs. That means if anything's broken, it's going to drag, but if we don't do it that way, there won't be room down here for me, you, and the rock. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Good." One piece at a time, she began to free his right side.

  :Gevris, she doesn't have any legs.:

  :I know.:

  :How did she get here?:

  : brought her.:

  :That's impossible!:

  The Companion snorted. :Obviously not. She's blind, too.:

  "What!" His incredulous exclamation echoed through the Demon's Den.

  Ari snorted and jammed a rock into the crack between two others. It wasn't difficult to guess what had caused that reaction, not when she knew the silence had to be filled with dialogue she couldn't hear. She waited for him to say something Herald-like and nauseating about overcoming handicaps as though they were all she was.

  To her surprise, he said only, "What's your name?"

  It took her a moment to find her voice. "Ari."

  "Jors."

  She nodded, even though she knew he couldn't see the gesture. "Herald Jors."

  "Are you one of the miners?"

  Why was he talking to her when he had his Companion to keep him company? "Not exactly." So far tonight, she'd said more than she'd said in the five summers since the accident. Her throat ached.

  "Gevris says he's never seen anyone do what you did to get in here. He says you didn't dig through the rubble, you built a tunnel around you using nothing but your hands."

  "Gevris?"

  "My Companion. He's very impressed. He believes you can get me out."

  Ari swallowed hard. His Companion believed in her. It was almost funny in a way. "You can move your arm now."

  "Actually," he gasped, trying not to writhe, "no, I can't." He felt her reach across him, tuck her hand under his chest, and grab his wrist. He could barely feel her touch against his skin.

  "On three." She pulled immediately before he could tense.

  "That wasn't very nice," he grunted when he could speak again.

  She ignored his feeble attempt to tug his arm out of her hands and continued rubbing life back into the chilled flesh. "There's nothing wrong with it. It's just numb because you've been lying on it in the cold."

  "Oh? Are you a Healer, then?"

  He sounded so indignant that she smiled and actually answered the question. "No, I was a mining engineer. I designed this mine."

  "Oh." He'd wondered what kind of idiot would put a mine in a place like this. Now he knew.

  Ari heard most of the thought and gritted her teeth. "Keep flexing the muscles." Untying the end of the rope from around her own waist, she retied it just under the Herald's arms. It felt strange to touch a young man's body again after so long. Strange and uncomfortable. She twisted and began to free his legs.

  Jors listened to her breathing and thought of being alone in darkness forever.

  :I'm here, Chosen.:

  :I know. But I wasn't thinking of me. I was thinking about Ari... Ari...:

  "Were you at the Collegium?"

  "I was."

  "You redesigned the hoists from the kitchen so they'd stop jamming. And you fixed that pump in Bardic that kept flooding the place. And you made the practice dummy that..."

  "That was a long time ago."

  "Not so long," Jors protested trying to ignore the sudden pain as she lifted a weight off his hips. "You left the Blues the summer I was Chosen."

  "Did I?"

  "They were all talking about you. They said there wasn't anything you couldn't build. What happened?"

  Her hands paused. "I came home. Be quiet. I have to listen." It wasn't exactly a lie.

  Working as fast as she could, Ari learned the shape of the stone imprisoning the Herald, its strengths, its weaknesses. It was all so very familiar. The tunnel she'd built behind her ended here. She finished it in her head, and nodded, once, as the final piece slid into place.

  "Herald Jors, when I give you the word, have your Companion pull gently but firmly on the rope until I tell you to stop. I can't move the rest of this off of you so I'm going to have to move you out from under it."

  Jors nodded, realized how stupid that was, and said, "I understand."

  Ari pushed her thumbs under the edge of a rock and took a deep breath. "Now."

  The rock shifted, but so did the Herald.

  "Stop." She changed her grip. "Now." A stone fell. She blocked it with her shoulder. "Stop."

  Inch by inch, teeth clenched against the pain of returning circulation, Jors moved up the slope, clinging desperately to the rope.

  "Stop."

  "I'm out."

  "I know. Now, listen carefully because this is important. On my way in, I tried to lay the rope so it wouldn't snag, but your Companion will have to drag you clear without stopping—one long smooth motion, no matter what."

  "No matter what?" Jors repeated, twisting to peer over his shoulder, the instinctive desire to see her face winning out over the reality. The loose slope he was lying on shifted.

  "Hold still!" Ari snapped. "Do you want to bury yourself again?"

  Jors froze. "What's going to happen, Ari?"

  Behind him, in the darkness, he heard her sigh. "Do you know what a keystone is, Herald?"

  "It's the stone that takes the weight of the other stones and holds up the arch."

  "Essentially. The rock that fell on your legs fell in such a way as to make it the keystone for this cavern we're in."

  "But you didn't move the rock."

  "No, but I did move your legs, and they were part of it."

  "Then what's supporting the keystone?" He knew before she answered.

  "I am."

  "No."

  "No what, Herald?"

  "No. I won't let you sacrifice your life for mine."

  "Yet Heralds are often called upon to give their lives for others."

  "That's different."

  "Why?" Her voice cracked out of the darkness like a whip. "You're allowed to be noble, but the rest of us aren't? You're so good and pure and perfect and Chosen and the rest of us don't even have lives worth throwing away? Don't you see how stupid that is? Your
life is worth infinitely more than mine!" She stopped and caught her breath on the edge of a sob. "There should never have been a mine here. Do you know why I dug it? To prove I was as good as all those others who were Chosen when I wasn't. I was smarter. I wanted it as much. Why not me? And do you know what my pride did, Herald? It killed seventeen people when the mine collapsed. And then my cowardice killed my brother and an uncle and a woman barely out of girlhood because I was afraid to die. My life wasn't worth all those lives. Let my death be worth your life at least."

  He braced himself against her pain. "I can't let you die for me."

  "And yet if our positions were reversed, you'd expect me to let you die for me." She ground the words out through the shards of broken bones, of broken dreams. "Heralds die for what they believe in all the time. Why can't I?"

  "You've got it wrong, Ari," he told her quietly. "Heralds die, I won't deny that. And we all know we may have to sacrifice ourselves someday for the greater good. But we don't die for what we believe in. We live for it."

  Ari couldn't stop shaking, but it wasn't from the cold or even from the throbbing pain in her stumps.

  "Who else do you want that mine to kill?"

  "This, all this, is my responsibility. I won't let it kill anyone else."

  Because he couldn't reach her with his hands, Jors put his heart in his voice and wrapped it around her. "Neither will I. What will happen if you grab my legs and Gevris pulls us both free?"

  He heard her swallow. "The tunnel will collapse."

  "All at once?"

  "No..."

  "It'll begin here and follow us?"

  "Yes. But not even a Companion could pull us out that quickly."

  :Gevris...: Jors sketched the situation. :Do you think you can beat the collapse?:

  :Yes, but do you think you can survive the trip? You'll be dragged on your stomach through a rock tunnel:

  :Well, I'm not going to survive much longer down here, that's for certain—I'm numb from my neck to my knees. I'm in leathers. I should be okay.:

  :What about your head?:

  :Good point.: "Ari, you're wearing a heavy sheepskin coat, can you work part of it up over your head."

  "Yes, but..."

  "Do it. And watch for falling rock, I'm going to do the same."

  "What about your pack?"

  He'd forgotten all about it. Letting the loop of rope under his armpits hold his weight, he managed to secure it like a kind of crude helmet.

  "Grab hold of my ankles, Ari."

  "Ari, I can't force you to live. I can only ask you not to die."

  He felt a tentative touch, and then a firmer hold. :Go, Gevris!:

  They stayed at the settlement for nearly a week. Although the Healer assured him that the hours spent trapped in the cold and the damp had done no permanent damage, Jors wore a stitched cut along his jaw as a remembrance of the passage out of the Demon's Den.

  Ari was learning to live again. She still carried the weight of the lives lost to her pride, but she'd found the strength to bear the load.

  "Don't expect sweetness and light, though," she cautioned the Herald as he and Gevris prepared to leave. "I was irritating and opinionated before the accident." Her mouth crooked slightly, and she added, with just a hint of the old bitterness, "I expect that's why I was never Chosen."

  Jors grinned as Gevris pushed his head into her shoulder. "He says you were chosen for something else."

  "He said that?" Ari lifted her hand and lightly stroked the Companion's face. She smiled, the expression feeling strange and new. "Then I guess I'd better get on with it."

  As they were riding out of the settlement to take up their interrupted circuit again, Jors turned back to wave and saw Ari sketching something wondrous in the air, prodded by the piping questions of young Robin.

  :I guess she won't be alone in the dark anymore.:

  Gevris tossed his head. :She never had to be.:

  :Sometimes it's hard for people to realize that.: They rode in silence for a moment, then Jors sighed, watching his breath plume in the frosty air. :I'm glad they found the body of that cat—I'd hate to have to go back into the Den to look for it: Their route would take them nowhere near the Demon's Den. :That was as close to the Havens as I want to come for a while.: And then he realized.

  :Gevris, you knew Ari wanted to die down there!:

  :Yes.:

  :Then why did you let her go into that mine?:

  :Because I believed she could free you.:

  :But...:

  :And,: the Companion continued, :I believed you could free her.:

  Ironrose

  by Larry Dixon and Mel. White

  Larry Dixon is the husband of Mercedes Lackey, and a successful artist as well as science fiction writer. Other stories co-authored by him appear in Dinosaur Fantastic, and Deals With the Devil. He and Mercedes live in Oklahoma.

  Mel. White is an accomplished writer whose work also appears in Witch Fantastic and Aladdin: Master of the Lamp.

  The tiny forge's flames comforted Ironrose. Its presence was a constant in his life; not always a focus of his attention, but there. Its fingers were of flame, which didn't caress him as a lover or massage him, but still provided comfort to him. The spring which fed water to its mechanical bellows was another constant, shaped by Adept magic to a simple water funnel that split off for quenching and tempering.

  Tempering was another constant in Ironrose's life. He had always tempered himself, reciting oaths silently when upset, bringing his spirits up with songs when saddened. Sadness, though, had come to perch on his forge like a wingbroken vulture of late. His hard work was valued by the Clan, and his skills were ranked well above the average for Artificers. He was also well-thought-of among his Hawkbrother brethren—when he was thought of at all. And that was why sadness was making his temper brittle.

  "Ironrose? I've brought your game."

  He turned from the forge and laid down his tools. It was Sunrunner, the lithe, strong hunter, only two-thirds his height, half his weight, and utterly unattainable. She set down an overstuffed game bag on a chipped worktable, and a sack of greens and wild herbs a moment later. She looked at him expectantly.

  "Ah. Sunrunner. Ah, thank you," he stammered. How foolish he must look! The largest of his Clan, all callused fingers and strong arms, intimidated by this young hunter. And surely she knew it. How could she not? His sweating certainly wasn't from the forge's heat. He caught himself staring at her as she stood in a shaft of the late afternoon sunlight, with dust motes dancing all around her. A sudden fire burned in the pit of his stomach and he wiped his sweaty palms on his thick apron, trying to calm the sudden thunder of his heart. It was all too embarrassing, and he tried to cover it by searching for the arrowheads and bow fittings he'd made for her. They'd been put somewhere. Sunrunner stood, looking quietly at him.

  Where was Tullin when he was needed?

  Tullin was, in fact, behind the forge polishing an iron ring with a small file. Absorbed in his task, he hadn't noticed the hunter's entry, but he did notice when Ironrose's hammer blows stilled. That meant a visitor; someone to pick up an order or barter for the smith's services. The small hertasi cocked his head and flicked his tongue to taste the air. The scent identified the late afternoon visitor as the hunter, Sunrunner. Lately Ironrose had reacted like a spooked rabbit every time she visited the forge building. Ghosting up behind the smith, he tasted the air again to catch the nuances of Ironrose's scent. No doubt about it—courting pheremones. He bunked his large gold eyes in delight as he studied the scene. The lonely human had finally selected a mate: the hunter that his own mate served.

  "Tullin!" Ironrose turned and found the small hertasi standing beside him, silently holding half a dozen arrowheads and the bow-fittings toward him. The smith accepted them with a growl and turned back to Sunrunner as Tullin collected the game bag and herbs. He identified the contents—rabbit, a tiny marshbuck, and tubers from the southern marsh—more than enough to feed the smith for
two days. The hunter kept her bargain well.

  Tullin watched Sunrunner trace a careful finger over the sharp edges of an arrowhead. She was a good provider: a quiet woman who appreciated well-crafted things. According to his mate, Coulsie, Sunrunner was also very even tempered. Emotionally, she was well suited to live with the shy metalsmith.

  Critically, Tullin eyed her figure. Her legs were strong; her hips deep and wide; adequate for large babies—perhaps a bit too large for hertasi standards, but necessary for a woman of the Hawkbrothers. Tullin picked up the two bags of food and ghosted toward the rear door of the smithy. "You and she will be a very good match," he observed casually as he headed toward the kitchen. "When will you offer her a love token?"

  "TULLIN!!!" Ironrose wheeled, gaping after him in outraged indignation. Sunrunner stood frozen in surprise. But all they saw of the hertasi was the mischievous flick of a silvery-scaled tail as Tullin vanished through the doorway.

  Tullin's mate, Coulsie, was tall and stocky, with an air of quiet competence about her. She bobbed her head affectionately in greeting as he trotted in. He nuzzled her snout, tasting her warm, enticing scent.

  "You take care of the hunter, Sunrunner, don't you?" he asked as he set down the bag with the rabbits. She nodded, handing him a sharp knife for skinning before selecting a knife for herself.

  "My Ironrose is most interested in her. I think he needs to take her as his mate."

  She slid her eyes toward him, her nostrils flared with surprise. "She is one who walks alone. She does not need a mate."

  "Nonsense. Have you tasted their body scents when they are near each other? I have. They have a hunger for each other—and we both know how lonely they are. The only thing that keeps them from courting others is their own belief that no one would want such as they for a mate. This sorrow over their inner selves is only an old path that they tread. Mated, they will overcome these things."

  She gave a quick head jerk in protest, but he nuzzled the point of her jaw and whispered softly, "Besides, what finer service can we offer than to bring the Hawkbrothers that which they most desire?"