Changes

by Mercedes Lackey

  He dragged himself up out of sleep and levered himself up off the bench with the help of the table. Herald Caelen stopped shaking his shoulder and offered a hand to help him up. He took it, knuckling the eye that had been squashed into the pillow with the other hand.

  “Sorry, sir,” he said contritely. “M’room’s like a damn furnace. An’ I don’ thin’ I got a decent night’s sleep this whole fortnight.”

  “Yes, well, there’s a lot of that going around,” Caelen replied, pushing him forward a little, past the threshold and closing the door firmly behind them both. He motioned to Mags to keep going along the corridor. “Even those who were not in on the plans for Amily were aware that there was something going on. It made for a lot of uneasy sleep, and the heat is not helping.”

  “Mebbe you oughter give people a turn down ’ere, then,” Mags said with a chuckle. “I was sleepin’ a treat.” He gave his hair a hasty comb with his fingers to settle it.

  Caelen gave him an odd, sideways look. “Most people would say the opposite.”

  Really? That seemed uncharacteristic of Heralds or Trainees. “Uh—why? Sir? Them benches’re purty soft. Good as a bed.”

  Instead of answering, Caelen responded with a question. “Did you have any dreams? Sense that you weren’t alone? Anything at all out of the ordinary?”

  Mags made a face. “Jest a good solid night. Since most’a my dreams is nightmares, I s’pose not havin’ bad ones is out’a th’ ordinary.” A very vague memory seemed to come near to the surface of his mind, like an ornamental fish in a pool of green water—but it retreated again before he got the shape of it, and he shrugged it off. “Nay, sir. I jest slept, slept real good.”

  “Interesting. Well, I’m tempted to tell you to continue to sleep down there until the weather breaks,” Caelen said dryly. “You’re the first cheerful person I’ve spoken to today. Everyone is quarrelling with everyone else. It’s the same down in Haven, and there would probably be fighting all over town, except that no one can muster the energy to fight.” He rubbed the back of his own neck. “I never thought I’d miss winter.”

  By this time they had reached the stairs going up. “Reckon iffen ye ain’t gonna lemme sleep down ’ere, I’m a-gonna sleep out i’ Companion’s Field,” he said, following the Dean up the stairs. “Druther get et by bugs than bake.”

  “You may regret saying that,” Caelen replied absently. “There are some nasty surprises out there, and being covered in no-see-um bites is no joke. I left your new class schedule in your room. And while I hesitate to make personal recommendations—if I were you, I would avoid my friends for a while.”

  Mags winced. He might have no memories of what he’d dreamed of—if anything—before he’d slept, but he had very vivid memories of Amily spinning fanciful tales of near-hysteria, and Bear and Lena breaking into a quarrel before they’d left. “They was achin’ fer a fight when they left m’room,” he said carefully.

  “Well . . . let’s just say they all got one.” Caelen shook his head. “Nikolas is down in Haven, and he was said to have left so quickly that even Rolan was taken by surprise. Lena and Bear had what was described to me as an ‘epic’ and very public battle, parted ways, then Bear promptly stalked down to the Guard barracks and for reasons unknown to me had a shouting match with a Guard Healer by the name of Cuburn. Lena spent the entire afternoon mewed up with Master Bard Dean Lita, at the conclusion of which Bard Marchand was sent for, and there was more shouting, and Marchand was forbidden any further contact with one of the other Bardic Trainees.”

  Mags whistled. “An’ I slept through alla thet?”

  “Consider yourself lucky,” Caelen replied. “This way you weren’t asked to take a side. That is why I advise you to avoid them if you can.”

  When they emerged, Mags blinked in surprise. The sun was going down.

  “I slep’ all day?” he exclaimed.

  “Which is why I came to find you.” Caelen slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “When you didn’t appear at class and you were not in your room, people were worried. The only reason no one went into a panic was because Dallen was not in the least bit disturbed. Dallen told my Companion where you were and that you were sleeping off Gift overuse.”

  “Aye. Tha’s what Dallen tol’ me. Said t’sleep ’er off.” It was so amazing not to have a headache!

  “Try to get something to eat, I order you to get plenty to drink, and it won’t hurt you to sleep more,” Caelen told him. “Now, I need to go break up another contentious argument in the library. Remember my advice about your friends. Even Amily, at this juncture.”

  Caelen stalked wearily off without even saying goodbye, Mags stood in the doorway, feeling the heat pummel him, and felt his refreshed spirits wilt and sink.

  Bear and Lena at each other’s throats in public? Amily driving her father off?

  Here he’d thought they’d at least solved their big problem for the short term—but solving it only seemed to have made everything else worse.

  He groaned. Any appetite he’d had was gone.

  ::Dallen?::

  ::Ah, you sound better.::

  ::Aye. Sleepin’ he’ped. Reckon mebbe I better do some more on it. Cause from what Caelen says, jest by sayin’ “heyla” I c’ld start a war.::

  Dallen snorted. ::Not just you. Come on along to the field. I’ll show you a cool place for a lie-down. One with nothing in it to bite you.::

  ::Don’ haveta ask me twice.:: The mere thought of more sleep was intoxicating. ::Jest gimme time fer a wash-up an’ clean stuff. I could sleep fer ’nother day.::

  17

  The next few days were spent in catching up with classwork and some very careful watching of what he said so that he didn’t launch anyone else into a fight. And tempers were very short. No one seemed to be getting enough sleep, everyone was dozing off in class, and the grotto was full of people all the time. So was the bathing room, as people tried to cool off with baths. The river was full of splashing bodies. Any place there was a marble or stone floor, you could expect to find someone lying on it. Permission had been given to everyone in the three Collegia to wear as little clothing as their modesty and the sensibilities of others would allow.

  But it wasn’t just the heat. Perhaps it was that so many people up here were Gifted, and irritation tended to spread. But after the blowup in his rooms, and after learning about the subsequent fights that Lena and Bear, and Amily and her father, had had, Mags was determined not to contribute to the situation. No matter what happened, no matter what the provocation, he refused to discuss anything other than classwork, the weather, and Kirball. He managed to sidestep every single potential quarrel that started brewing in his vicinity that way; some, though not all, he was able to completely avert.

  As for his friends—well, things were not exactly “friendly,” although he hadn’t quarreled with any of them. He’d just snapped at them, he’d been a bit impolite, but he hadn’t actually said anything that bad. But the other fights . . .

  He had a confused “memory” of actually being there at the time of the other altercations—he hadn’t been, of course, but finally he decided that someone who had been in earshot must have told him about it when he was feeling heat-sick and the memories had leaked over. Certainly a lot of people knew the quarrels had taken place, and certainly none of the parties had been making any attempt to keep their voices down.

  Lena and Bear avoided him, out of embarrassment, maybe. Or maybe they had been advised by their respective Deans not to go to him or Amily until things calmed down.

  Amily—he couldn’t explain her silence. She made no attempt to contact him for several days, not even after he had a batch of mint drink that the Cook was experimenting with sent round to her. One the one hand, he felt deeply hurt, but on the other, if he was going to follow Caelen’s advice—which he was—he shouldn’t be trying to talk with her anyway.

  It was hard, though. They’d always been able to count on each other for sympathy and at least a
ready listener. He wasn’t really having conversations with the rest of his friends so much as he was being a referee, which wasn’t any fun and just drained him.

  He felt—well, not miserable. No matter what, if things didn’t sort themselves out by the time Ice and Stone were finally dealt with, Mags was determined to get it sorted out. But aside from the enervating and irritating effect of the heat, and the constant need to pick his way carefully among potential fights, and missing his friends and really missing Amily, his spirits were decidedly low. Melancholy, that was it. He went to sleep in that relatively cool spot out in the Field at night with a headache; he’d wake up without one and with the hope that things would be better. He’d endure the heat and the quarreling all day, Lena and Bear and Amily wouldn’t even turn up at the same meals as he did, and the drain of the heat and the headache would build all day long. He’d go to a fretful sleep feeling just a little sick from it.

  Nevertheless, he was absolutely determined not to end up moping and hiding with Dallen in Companion’s Field.

  Besides . . . he wouldn’t be that alone out there. Trainees and their Companions were camped out all over the wretched place. He kind of resented whoever it was that had staked out the chapel in the middle; it had stone floors. Though it was said to be haunted by Tylendel’s ghost, at this point he was thinking a ghost just might be better company than some of the living.

  He had already found out the same day what Lena had been doing, closeted with Dean Lita; there had been plenty of people listening avidly when Marchand was called in, and there were enough who disliked Machand that the story spread, in a great deal of detail, rather quickly. As Mags had rather cynically expected, Marchand claimed that he had been doing his protégés a favor, and they had asked him—indeed, he claimed they had begged him—to use their melodies in his songs. From all reports he went on at great length about how he had taken simplistic little “apprentice tunes, not worthy of a moment’s notice,” and improved them out of all recognition.

  Of course . . . all the protégés he had stolen work from were “conveniently” so far away that without using a Herald to relay the testimony, no one was going to learn the truth soon. Ah, but Marchand had a hidden card to play. He had young Farris brought in to prove his case.

  This had not done him the good that he had thought it would—though that might have been because another Bard had taken pains to explain that stealing someone else’s work and claiming it as your own was a serious breach of Bardic ethics. So, perhaps with his hero-worship shaken a bit, Farris must have been less than successful at proving Marchand’s innocence. He did go on at some length that he considered having his tune used by Marchand was an honor he didn’t deserve, however. So they got a contradictory answer. Farris wasn’t certain that he’d given Marchand the melody and the permission—but he was certain that it was an honor, and in his confused way, he indicated that if Marchand had asked, he would have offered the tune with both hands.

  Mags would very much like to have heard Lita’s thoughts about that. As Mags understood it, teachers did use student work all the time, but it was always with permission beforehand and with full credit. Not appropriated without, or with ill-informed, consent, and not without credit. But with Farris partially backing Marchand’s claim, there wasn’t a great deal she could do other than rebuke him sternly for his “carelessness” in not giving full credit. Then, according to the sources, the volume of the discourse had been reduced to muttering.

  More than that, he didn’t know, since no one was there except Lita, Lena, Farris, and Marchand himself, Lena wasn’t talking to him, and no one else was talking at all.

  Mags was quite certain that if outright theft could have been proved, Marchand would have been in very serious trouble indeed. He suspected that Lita was going to ask the Heralds for a quiet little investigation into the matter, but until they came back with answers, Marchand had skated by again. As it was, he was ordered to keep away from Farris and not to take on a protégé again. Ever.

  Whether or not he would actually do that . . . Mags was dubious. Marchand spent a lot of time away from Court and the inquisitive eyes of his fellow Bards. It would be quite easy to aquire another Talented youngster out there and just keep him away from the Bardic Collegium entirely. He could teach this unofficial protégé himself, even find a position for him in some place that knew nothing of how the Bardic Collegium worked, where if Marchand said the protégé was a Bard and he wore Scarlets, well, then, he must be one. Marchand would have someone to steal tunes from, and no one the wiser.

  It just remained to be seen whether getting caught was enough to frighten him into doing his own work again and not resort to what would be fraud.

  So much for Marchand. He was someone Mags would rather not think about.

  Except, of course, it seemed that Lena had finally been goaded into standing up against her father openly, and that could only be a good thing.

  Meanwhile, the search for Ice and Stone went on. Down in Haven, Nikolas was not only hiding from his daughter’s temper, Mags knew he would be extending himself and his resources as far as he could to find the two Karsite agents. But these two were cut from a cloth that no one in Valdemar had any experience with. What had always worked before was not going to work now.

  Some people surrounding the King thought they had probably left already; after all, they had been thwarted in a very public manner, and their identies had been compromised. But Mags wasn’t so sure of that. He’d had a look at some of their thoughts; these weren’t men who would take even that grave a setback as the reason to retreat.

  For one thing, even if they went back to Karse rather than going back to wherever they called home, they wouldn’t find much of a welcome when they got there. They knew enough about Karse to threaten a Karsite native with demons . . . which meant that they knew very well such things were real and deadly. The Karsites would not tolerate failure from an unbeliever; they barely tolerated it in their own ranks. Mags was damn certain that he wouldn’t risk it.

  For another, the fact that they had executed their predecessors for failure indicated that they knew that were altogether likely to face a similar fate if they returned without fulfilling their contract. And maybe they were the very best of their kind—they were certainly better than the first batch that had gone out—but even the best can be overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and even the best have been trained by someone. Mags recalled the images he’d caught from Temper’s mind—the harsh environment, the rigid rules of behavior, the unforgiving nature of Temper’s superiors. No, Ice and Stone would find no sympathy there. And it was—at least according to all the history he had been reading—a time-honored tradition for the Master to eliminate the student who failed.

  If Mags had been in their shoes . . . he would lie low, wait until vigilance was relaxed, and try some other way to at least give the appearance of destabilizing the Crown or harming Valdemar in a significant way. What that could possibly be . . . he had not a clue. Amily was probably no longer a target; there really was no good reason to make her one. Even with collaborators on the Hill, everyone was looking out for her now. If she so much as stabbed herself with a needle, there would be people checking to make sure it had been an accident and the needle wasn’t poisoned.

  For all he knew, though, these men had some way of unleashing a plague on Haven, and summer was certainly the time to spread disease. A plague could wipe out thousands very quickly, and the highborn would certainly not be immune unless they left Haven. Even if the King and his family didn’t sicken and die, it would lay low many of those also responsible for ruling the country.

  Or—hot as it was, dry as it was—if they spread across the city one night, setting fires, they could engulf the entire city in flames. Would the Hill be spared? Possibly . . .

  But in his nightmares, he could imagine only too well a scenario in which it would not be. Where Ice and Stone set delayed fires of the type they’d tried to set before, using candles—and meanwhi
le, had brought wild rats up to the Hill and the homes leading up to it. Affix a box full of smoldering tinder to the rat and turn it loose—eventually it will be somewhere that will burn—inside walls, in stables full of hay, in a storage room. Do that fifty, sixty, seventy times—and the manors on the Hill, if not the Palace, will catch and burn. The privileged seldom know how to deal with an emergency themselves. They would be relying on the Guard and the Constabulary Fire Service. But they would already be down in Haven, and stretched thin.

  And then what? Everyone flees to the Palace? And in the confusion, in the crush of panicked people running from their burning homes, it would be easy for Ice and Stone to get inside the walls and start fires there. They might not even need to murder the King or try to manipulate him through the King’s Own at that point. With Haven in ruins, centuries of records destroyed, an entire city homeless, Valdemar would be in chaos for decades, and Karse would have exactly what it wanted.

  He tried not to think about such things. Or rather, he tried not to think about such things after tentatively Mindspeaking Nikolas one night about the time he knew the shop was generally empty, offering with great diffidence that these ideas had occurred to him and then waiting for an aswer as a properly respectful student should.

  ::We’d considered both of those scenarios,:: Nikolas replied. ::But you’re the one who has actually picked up some of their thoughts, which gives you an edge in understanding how they might react to this setback. We’ll put a higher urgency on those possibilities. Thank you, Mags.::

  Mags wasn’t at all sure what “higher urgency” meant, but at least someone would be on guard against those possibilities, which allowed him to sleep a little better at night.

  He did find out what had happened with the Guard Healer Cuburn; that particular spectacle had been very, very public. Bear had stormed down to the barracks and in front of a large group of the Guard (and more who came when they heard the altercation) confronted the man about spying on him for his father. Then he had unleashed a long tirade on the theme of “Old men who want their sons to be nothing more than copies, but vastly inferior copies, of themselves, so they can preen about having a boy who duitifully follows in his father’s footsteps, yet never have to worry about finding rivals in their own houses.”