Changes

by Mercedes Lackey

  Bear stopped making his hair stand on end. “Ah,” he said, calming down. “Oh. Well . . .”

  “The point is,” Gennie interrupted, “The King himself authorized a Kirball Festival! He’s going to have us demonstrate our style and then have Guard teams demonstrate the new styles! He’s checked with the Healers and the Guard, and everyone agrees that we can start training again even though there’s a lot of summer heat—with precautions, Bear, so don’t start making your hair look like a hedge—and have the Festival in time for the start of Fall Quarter! Isn’t it fantastic?”

  Mags didn’t quite know what to say. “Aye,” he managed. “Fantastic.”

  Fantastic t’ think there’s three enemies up ’ere, we dunno who they be, there’s at least two more down i’ Haven we cain’t find, an’ we’re gonna do . . . games.

  ::That was my reaction,:: Dallen said, ::until Rolan pointed out that the Agents will certainly think we are unaware of their presence, will certainly try to take advantage of this opportunity . . . and . . . ::

  Mags waited. Dallen’s Mindvoice was . . . smug. Really smug.

  ::And?:: he prodded sharply, when Dallen had let the silence go on for too long.

  ::And he as much as admitted that yes, you were correct, there are three operatives up on the Hill somewhere, no, they still don’t know who they are, and they are hoping to use this Festival as the means of smoking them out.::

  On the one hand . . . that was absolutely insane. No one in his right mind would do something like this . . .

  On the other hand, the three—spies, operatives, whatever they were—did not know that the Heralds knew they were there. The Hill was going to be thrown into a games-mad frenzy for the next moon or so. Schedules would fly right out the window, people would become unpredictable in actions and habits, and that would put the Agents under a tremendous amount of pressure. They might snap under it. They might make mistakes.

  They might reveal themselves.

  “It’s fantastic!” Mags said with more enthusiasm. “Which teams’ll be a-playin’?”

  “All of them. East against South, us and North,” Gennie said with great satisfaction, rubbing her hands together with glee. “This is going to be amazing!”

  It’ll be amazin’ iffen I kin get through this next moon wi’out droppin’ over wi’ exhaustion. An’ ne’er mind them Agents tryin’ t’kill me iffen they ever figger out I’m lookin’ fer ’em.

  Helping Bear was completely out of the question now; there was no way he would be able to do that and keep up with the training schedule that Gennie had imposed on them.

  Training was in the morning, before the full heat of the day was on them, and with all four teams needing field space, they were beginning at dawn. The Dean had thrown up his hands in defeat as soon as this Festival had been announced. Those Trainees who were on the teams had been put into their own classes, which were more like big tutoring sessions, lasted all afternoon, and dealt with all subjects together. Instead of attending formal classes with lectures, each of the players was given daily assignments by his or her regular instructors and was expected to turn them in completed by dinner. Teachers came and went during the afternoon, and the Trainees were expected to help each other. Strangely enough, it worked well, at least as far as Mags could see—though he could also see the potential for slacking off, so he doubted this novel approach was going to last past the Festival.

  But this approach pretty much decreed an end to his “snooping” up on the Hill. He simply did not have time. By the time dinner was over, the Collegia kitchen staff and the few servants were gone—because their working days began before dawn and ended as soon after dinner as possible. He had no reason to be poking his nose over into the Palace staff and absolutely no reason to be found among the courtiers. The Guard had been tolerating his presence by day, but by night, those who were not on duty were not in the least interested in socializing with a “boy”—and at any rate, most of that socializing was going on down in two or three specific taverns in Haven, where, again, he would stand out rather than blending in. If he’d had time, he might have been able to slip in posing as a potboy, but by the end of the day, he was far too weary to spend his evening delivering drinks and clearing tables.

  The closer the time came for the Festival, the more agitated he felt. He was getting nowhere alone. He had no idea if Nikolas and the others had had any more success than he had—but he rather doubted it.

  Finally, the week before the Festival, he made up his mind. So far as he knew, he was the only person, Herald or Trainee, who had exactly the right combination of Gifts to find the Agents, if they could be found at all. He’d had one brush with their minds; in theory at least, he should be able to find them at a middling distance . . . if . . .

  He thought about this all through the afternoon tutoring session, and instead of going to supper and sitting down with the rest, he went out to Companion’s Field to consult with Dallen.

  ::Whatcher think?:: he asked, without preamble, when Dallen ambled up to the fence and put his nose over it. While occasionally it was a bit irritating to have Dallen “looking over his shoulder,” so to speak, virtually all the time if he didn’t specifically work to keep the Companion out, this was one time out of many when it was a distinct advantage that Dallen knew what he had been considering.

  ::I think it will work,:: Dallen replied. ::With a few changes. Nothing drastic. But it will make a great deal of difference. Do you remember that room with the crystal sphere in it?::

  He blushed a little. As if he could forget! He and Amily had gotten rather beyond just kissing before prudence and Dallen’s reminder that the room was not a private one had brought them both to their senses.

  ::What ’bout it? I mean, ’tis shielded, so that’ll help, I s’pose—::

  ::It’s more than that,:: Dallen said, raising his head and flagging his tail. ::Much, much more. If you were being Gift-trained like the rest, you wouldn’t even know the thing exists, much less what it can do, for years, maybe not ever. But I am your instructor, and it is my determination that—::

  ::What thing?:: Mags interrupted him. ::Ye mean, thet glass ball?::

  Dallen snorted and shook his head so his ears flapped. ::That ‘glass ball’ is not glass at all and—well, never mind. The point is that one of its functions is to allow anyone to focus a Gift with great precision, providing that the Gift us under conscious control. For instance, it helps Mindspeakers to focus right down on a single person at a great distance.::

  Mags saw where he was going immediately. ::So, since I already know what these bastiches feel like an’ look like, what wi’ thet whatever ’tis thet’s watchin’ over ’em, I kin find ’em wi’out havin’ t’drop shields an’ kinda roam around open.::

  ::Exactly,:: Dallen replied and fixed Mags with an intense gaze, his blue eyes practically boring a hole into Mags’ brain. ::You’ll have to be careful—I honestly don’t know what is shielding these people, and we already know that it reacts poorly to any perceived meddling. For all we know, if it thought there was something about, it might lash out. And the danger isn’t only to you, it’s to anyone about that might somehow be open to it.::

  ::Aight. I’m headin’ fer thet room now.::

  He patted Dallen’s shoulder, turned, and—

  Well he would have trotted toward the Palace, if it hadn’t been so hot that it felt as if he were being weighed down by bags of baked salt. He concentrated on the fact that it was going to be a lot cooler in the shade and grimly forged his way toward the buildings.

  Getting inside the Palace was a relief. The side door was in shade, and the stone walls of the Palace held out a lot of the heat. The cooler he got, the more energetic he felt, and he began to feel less like a baked brick as he made his way down the dim stairs and into the lower level. By the time he reached the door to that mysterious little room, he was feeling as if he could take on almost anything.

  He opened the door to find that the room was empty, and t
here was no sign that anyone had been in it recently. That shaded lamp was still burning over the center of the table. Was it ever allowed to go out? Maybe not. If Dallen was to be believed, and the crystal sphere could make your Gift work better, then you wouldn’t want to have to wait around for someone to come light the lamp for you when you needed it. How many people knew about this place? He’d bet, not many.

  ::It works best with specific Gifts,:: Dallen said. ::Mindspeakers don’t bother with it, much. For sending a message quickly to a Herald at a distance, it’s easier just to ask the Companions to do it.::

  He entered and closed the door behind him, then sat down carefully on one of the padded seats. ::Now what?::

  ::I want you to understand that because you are going to be using your Gift in a very intense way, it is going to take a great deal out of you,:: Dallen cautioned. ::Your Gift is like any other thing you do; it takes energy to use it. This will be exactly like playing the most energetic game of Kirball you ever have in your life, followed by two more. And that’s if you’re lucky.::

  ::Nothin’ comes fer free, I got it,:: he replied, leaning over the table. ::What else?::

  ::You will not need to keep your shields up. The room will shield you in part—to be brief, it will shield you from everyone up on the Hill. For the rest, as you hunt, I will shield you, as I did before you learned to shield yourself. Save your strength for the hunt.::

  ::Aight.:: He relaxed and let the shields down, a little at a time, and—

  Huh.

  Dallen was right. The shields on this room were incredible. He wondered how that had been done, since most shields evaporated when the person who held them in place died.

  ::Now just let your eyes rest on the crystal. Remember what those Agents looked like when you saw them, either with your own eyes or Nikolas’. They were probably not bothering to disguise themselves at the time. Then remember how their minds looked to you, and when you are sure of what you are looking for, start hunting. It will be like sifting gravel to find a gemstone.::

  He braced his elbows on the tabletop, cupped his chin in his hands, and stared at the crystal. After a moment, he realized that he couldn’t look away. Something was holding his gaze.

  The crystal was holding his gaze.

  He made no attempt to fight it. Instead, he did as Dallen had told him to do and concentrated on the two enemy Agents he had seen. Height . . . roughly the same as Nikolas, one shorter than the other. Build . . . powerful, but lean. Their faces though . . . there was something like a distant family resemblance there. Both had lightly tanned skin, dark hair, dark eyes—by candlelight he couldn’t vouch for the exact color. Thin lips, strong cheekbones, deep-set eyes. Expressions that were so neutral they were masklike. Eyes like shiny dark pebbles and just about as cold and lifeless.

  Things started coming up in his memory, things he had not consciously noticed at the time. A scar at the corner of the shorter one’s left eye. That their hands were gloved, but the gloves had no fingers. That the fingertips looked oddly flat, the fingers had a cross-hatching of faint scars on the backs.

  When he had them firmly in his mind’s eyes, he added the memory of how they had “felt” in his head. How dispassionate and cold those stray thoughts had been, as if everything were a factor in some calculation that only they knew the answer to. And how utterly indifferent they were to whether something or someone lived or died. They were nothing like the man who had somehow driven his dreams and feelings into Mags without realizing it. And yet . . . they were clearly cast from the same mold, fired in the same furnace. The one that Mags had called Temper had been flawed, though the flaws had never been on the surface, and those who had sent him had had no idea that what they had sent out would crack so easily under pressure. These two were the perfect specimens of . . . of . . . of whatever it was they were supposed to become.

  Weapons. They were supposed to become weapons.

  Mags felt something fall into place as he recognized what they were. And he had names for them now—“Ice”—that was the older, slightly taller one. He was colder than the other, and experiences and emotions simply slipped off him. “Stone” was the other—not as cold, but harder. Nothing got past his surface. The first froze his own feelings. The second never allowed them to escape.

  And that shield, that shadow that enveloped them. No, not exactly a shadow . . . a fog? No, that wasn’t it, either. It was just as cold and dispassionate as they were, which probably made it easier to obscure their thoughts. Despite being a separate thing from them, and despite the fact that it definitely reacted to an intrusive presence, Mags didn’t think it was exactly alive. Not as he knew things were alive. And despite the appearance of intelligence, he didn’t believe it could actually think. Could it be it was like a clockwork toy that gave the illusion of life by doing several things in a lifelike manner?

  Never mind. He knew what it felt like, too. He could hunt for it as well as for them.

  ::Ready to hunt?:: Dallen asked.

  He answered with a wordless yes.

  He felt his eyes closing, and yet, he could still see the sphere. Odd . . . but he didn’t have time for musing. Because—because at that moment, “he” wasn’t sitting at the table anymore. “He” was floating . . . somewhere. If he concentrated quite hard, he “saw” parts of Haven beneath him, but the buildings were like sketches of buildings, while the people in them varied from dim ghosts to perfectly normal looking people to creatures that burned like stars.

  And without thinking about anything but the need to hunt, he began to move. It was something like flying dreams he’d had, and the dream-landscape below him took on a hint of familiarity.

  Well, the only analogy he could make was that “he” became a hunting falcon, circling up over the Palace, searching, searching . . . Herald Jakyr, the Herald who had rescued him from his life at Cole Pieters’ mine, was an avid falconer and had taken him along on a few hunts on the rare occasions he was in Haven. And this was exactly like being one of those hawks, circling, soaring, keen eyes looking, looking everywhere. Walls were no barrier to those eyes, as he circled farther and farther outward. He “saw” the people beneath him and somehow saw them outwardly and inwardly too. He could have read their thoughts, but that wasn’t right, and besides, it was not why he was out here. He only needed to recognize what they were—see that they were not what he was hunting for—and move on.

  It was anything but effortless. He felt exactly as if he were playing a hard game of Kirball, and he was hunting the ball. Energy drained out of him; Dallen had spoken nothing less than the truth. At least it wasn’t stinking hot . . .

  This was like the search he’d done for Bear, only so much more precise! And there was none of that mental clamor he had to shut out all the time under ordinary circumstances, the clamor that had come so close to driving him insane the single time he’d been forced to rid himself of all shields. If he’d had to hold his own shields against that, this task would have been out of the question; he could never have done it.

  Mags sensed his quarry in the distance before he “saw” them, sensed the chill of the thoughts that wisped away from them. That was what made them stand out in this vague and ever-changing landscape. There was nothing, and no one, as cold and emotionless as they were.

  They were on the move. And the thing that shielded them made it impossible to say exactly where in the real Haven they were.

  ::Damn,:: he heard Dallen say, as he sped toward them. He wasn’t sure if that “damn” was because that sheltering thing obscured their location or because of what they were doing. For as he neared them, the real landscape of Haven solidified around them, as if by their very presence they were dragging it into this world of ghosts and shadows. A moving, irregularly shaped spheroid of reality surrounded them.

  He could “see” it all quite clearly, and he watched in amazement and grudging admiration. He’d thought he was good going over rooftops. Now he was glad he’d never encountered these two up there. T
hey moved like nothing human that he had ever seen: fast, agile, making insane leaps that not even a cat would try. The only way they could have gone faster over these rooftops would have been if they had grown wings.

  Well, at least he knew they were in the city.

  He didn’t need Dallen to tell him to stay with them for as long as he could. Those shield-things weren’t perfect. Thoughts—the most intense thoughts, at a guess—leaked out. He had to stay with them and concentrate on listening so he could catch those thoughts.

  His focus narrowed again. He stopped being aware of anything except the two shields and the whispers that slipped out and evaporated away.

  He was getting hints, but not in words. These two were concentrating on what they were doing to the exclusion even of coherent thoughts. But he was getting something. They had just left their allies on the Hill! But . . . who were these allies? He strained for a hint, since their escaping thoughts bore hints.

  Scents, glimpses, traces of sound—

  He was too far. The thoughts were too tenuous to catch from this far away, and he tried to get closer—

  Suddenly, something bright and dark together exploded in his face.

  He was flung halfway across the “sky.” He felt Dallen enclose him for just a moment, protecting him.

  He was stunned; it felt as if he’d been hit in the head hard enough to crack his skull.

  When he could “look” again, they were gone.

  Dammit! I got too close! The shield-things had sensed him and—well, now he knew what they could, and would, do.

  He hovered in an empty space, an empty “sky,” with the world beneath him, blank for the moment. Thanks to Dallen, he knew what had happened. Even through Dallen’s protection, they had shocked his system, and he had lost his mental image of the world.

  Should he try to find them again?