Valdemar Anthology - [Tales of Valdemar 02] - Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I know,” Kayla told her softly, bending and gathering her in shaking arms.

  “It’s got no Herald!” Evan added. “It’s got no rider!”

  “I know,” Kayla replied. She straightened.

  “Everyone wants to see it. Do you think it’s come searching?”

  “Aye, little, I think it’s come searching.”

  “For who?” Tess asked, insistent, and unaware of the stillness of Kayla’s expression. “Do you think he’ll take Evan away?”

  Evan was her older brother, by about four years.

  “Not yet.”

  ‘Too bad.”

  She laughed. “I’m sure Evan thinks so, too.”

  “But do you think he’s lost his Herald? Do you think he needs help? Do you think—”

  “I think,” she said, “that he’ll have died of old age before I can see him if I answer all your questions first.”

  “Just one more?”

  “One more.”

  “Do you think he’ll let me ride?”

  “No, little, I think you’ll fall off his back, and Companions aren’t in the business of visiting villages just to injure the dearest of their people.” She kissed the girl’s forehead, just as she would have once kissed the forehead of her youngest.

  Tess wrapped her arms around Kayla’s neck. “But what do you think he wants?”

  “I think,” she said quietly, “that we’ll find out soon. Now hush.”

  Widow Davis was there, in the clearing by river’s side. The river itself, cold and loud, was a thin one, but it was clear and the water, fresh. She looked up when Kayla approached, her eyes narrowed and wrinkled by exposure to wind, to cold, and yes, to the scant sun. “Well, then,” she said, “You’ve heard.”

  “I’ve . . . heard.”

  “Your mother told me,” the widow said, turning back to her bucket.

  “Told you?”

  “To be careful of the Companions.”

  “They’re not evil, Widow Davis.”

  “No, I’m certain of it. All of our stories say so, and they’ve come to the aid of the village at least three times in my living memory.” She was silent a moment. “But this will be the first time they take more than they offer.”

  “Widow Davis—”

  The old woman’s look stopped her flat. “Come on, then. You’re here, and we might as well have it out.” She offered Kayla an arm; Kayla shifted Tess to one side and took it.

  Together they crossed the uneven ground that led from stream to the shadows cast by the tall, white Companion, caparisoned in livery of blue and sliver, belled so his movements might evoke a sense of music, a sense of play. But his eyes were dark, and large as the palms of a child’s hand, and he did not blink when he turned his massive head toward the two women Children dogged their steps, crossed their shadows, whispered eagerly and quickly amongst themselves. Not even the dour expression of the Widow Davis could silence them completely.

  The widow’s hand tightened; Kayla’s arm began to tingle. She did not, however, ask the old woman to let go.

  “He’s here for you, girl,” the woman said, pulling her arm free

  Kayla looked up at the Companion, and then she reached out with her free hand. Her fingers stopped inches from his nose, and she let that hand fall. She said, quietly, “Do I have to go with you?”

  He looked into her eyes and said, in a voice that made all song seem flat and thin, :The choice is yours.

  :I have waited long for this day. I have waited, bright heart, and promised myself that I would let you lead the life the mountain would give you.

  :But I have heard your cries from across the continent; I have been with you when you buried your dead, when you cradled the living that you knew you could not hold on to.:

  She looked up at his eyes; his gaze never wavered.

  “You know that this choice is no choice.”

  He was silent a moment; she thought he would offer no answer. And then, quietly, he said, :Better than you would understand.:

  “Because the choice has always been yours to make.”

  :Because the Companions Choose, yes.:

  “And the Heralds?”

  : They are Chosen. But they feel the bond, and they desire it, and they accept it for all that it is; all that it can be.:

  “And my oath?” she asked him, voice steady, arm now drawing on an young child for support.

  :There are oaths that are made that cannot be kept in the manner that their maker envisioned. If a child promises to love you, and only you, for all of forever, could you hold him to that vow? Would you desire it?:

  “I was no child when I made that vow.”

  :Dear heart,: he said gently, :you are barely an adult now, and you made that vow when your older brother moved away, long before you had husband or children.: He stepped forward, and she shied away.

  Because she wanted what he offered.

  Because she had never wanted anything so badly.

  :I choose you, Kayla.:

  She heard the song of his name, although she had never asked it of him, and he had never offered it—as if they both understood, in the dreams of her youth, that his name was a binding they had avoided by careful dance until this moment.

  “Darius.”

  Widow David coughed. The old woman’s face was set in its harshest lines. In the distance, children that had been silent until that moment surged forward as Kayla did; they came in a press of small bodies, eager and excited.

  But she knew that they would understand it truly later.

  For now, all they said was, “You’re to be Chosen, Kayla? You’re going to be a Herald? Will you wear white? Will you have a sword? Will you have a bow?”

  She answered all questions gravely, until one lone boy spoke. Evan.

  “Will you come back?”

  “Yes,” she said, fiercely. “Often. I will come back with a saddlebag full of Northern toys and treats and books, and I will come at the edge of winter, just before they close the passes, like some foolish, green merchant.”

  Darius had saddlebags. She knew, without looking, that they were full; full enough for a long journey.

  “Widow Davis,” she said softly. “Can you do without me?”

  The old woman had some mercy. “Aye,” she said gruffly. “We did before your mother came. We managed.” She started to say something else, and then stopped. “They must need you, Kayla, They must need you even more than we do.”

  Kayla said nothing.

  Because she knew a lie when she heard it. What could they need from her that a hundred other girls couldn’t give them? They had Heralds, full-trained; they had soldiers, they had lords, ladies, Kings. They had so much.

  And Riverend had so little.

  “I’ll be back,” she whispered.

  Widow Davis met her eyes, without blinking, and then to Kayla’s astonishment, the old woman stepped forward and wrapped arms around her shoulders. “Come back, child,” she said, although it had been years since she had called Kayla a child. “Come back whole.”

  Kayla flinched. She felt her eyes sting. “Widow Davis—”

  “You’ve not come back to us with the spring. We missed your song in the winter. It may be that you need what it is he offers; it may be he’ll help you to sing for us again.”

  Kayla buried her face in the old woman’s shoulders.

  Before lunch that day, she was on the road. Her neck was cramped; she’d done nothing but gaze backward, over her shoulder, until not even the hills that were home to Riverend could be seen in the distance. All of her life lay in that village, or beneath it; all of the things she valued.

  Promise me, Kayla, that you’ll stay. Promise me that you’ll take care of Riverend when I’m gone.

  I promise, Mother. But you won’t be gone for a long time, will you?

  Not if I have anything to say about it.

  Of course, she hadn’t.

  Riding was nothing like it had been in her dreams. It was hard work.
And painful.

  She could feel Darius’ rueful smile. She could not see his face, of course.

  “They need me, you know,” she told him, the accusation soft.

  :I am sorry, dear heart, but so do we.:

  “Why?”

  :That I cannot tell you yet. But you will understand, I fear, as we approach the city.:

  “What city?”

  :The King’s city,: he told her quietly. :The capital. Or what’s left of it.:

  “What do you mean, Darius?”

  Darius didn’t answer.

  “Are we at war?”

  :We are always at war, Kayla. But the battlefields shift and change with time.:

  He had to tell her what to do for him when they stopped by the Waystations left for Herald use. She did not know how to brush him, water him, blanket him; was not familiar with the food that he ate. Everything about the life beyond Riverend was strange and unexpected.

  But sleep was bad. Every night she spent away from the hold, she spent beneath the great, unfurled wings of the shadow beast, the devourer. She knew that she would never have the white dreams again.

  Darius would nudge her out of sleep, and she would cry out, reach for him, and then stop, letting her hands fall away.

  “I don’t see you in my dreams anymore.” The words shook as much as her hands did.

  :I know.:

  “Will I ever?”

  :Yes, Kayla. But . . . it was never easy to reach through your dreams to you. It takes gift. Talent:

  “But you—when I dreamed of you, I didn’t dream of the—of the—other.”

  :I would claim that as my action, but there will be too much between us to endure a lie. If you found peace and haven from the—from your dreams, it was not a haven I could create. Not then. Not now.

  :If I not been meant for you, if I had not known of you when you were a child, I would never have been able to breach the barriers set by—

  He fell silent, and after an awkward pause she asked, “How did you know of me?”

  :I heard you.:

  “You traveled through Riverend?”

  :No. But I heard you. I heard your fear and your terror. I heard your sorrow. I heard your song. Your song is powerful.:

  “My mother used to tell me song was my Gift.”

  :Did she? Interesting. Song is the only way that I have seen you use your Gift. You sing, and others listen. You listen, and you hear the harmonies and disharmonies that are hidden in a speaker’s voice. But that is not your gift, Kayla.:

  “What is?”

  His mane flew as he shook his head. :The dreams are worse, yes?:

  She knew that that was as much an answer that he would offer, and it made her uneasy. She said, simply, “My mother told me I was safe as long as I was in Riverend.”

  :You were safe there. But others are not.: He was silent while she gathered her things. Only when she was safe upon the height of his back did he continue. :What you dream of . . . it is true in a fashion. We are closer to it. We will draw closer still. I am . . . sorry.:

  On the fourth day, she woke from dreaming with Darius’ muzzle in the side of her neck. She was sweating, although it was cold, and he caught the edge of her rough woolen blankets in his perfect teeth and pulled the more tightly around her.

  His eyes were dark, his gaze somber.

  “Darius,” she whispered, when she could speak past the rawness in the throat, “I heard bells.”

  He was silent.

  “Not bells like yours, not bells like the ones you’re decorated with. But . . . bells. Loud and low.”

  :I know.:

  “There are no bells here, are there?”

  :No. Not on these roads; the next village is half a day’s hard riding away.:

  “What are they?”

  :You know, Kayla.:

  And she did, although she did not know how. Death bells. “Tell me?”

  He shook his head. :It is forbidden for me to tell you what they are; you will know. We will reach the capital in the next two days.:

  As he spoke, the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She thought of Riverend. Of Tessa and Evan, of Mitchell, of the Widow Davis. For no reason at all, she wanted to weep.

  The first large town that Kayla entered seemed so vast she assumed it was the capital. Darius laughed, but his laughter was gentle enough that it reminded her of her father’s amusement at her younglings antics a lifetime ago.

  “But it’s so—so—big!”

  :It is big, yes. But . . . it is not a city. The town is large. That building, there? That houses the mayor and his family. And that, that is as close to a cathedral as you will find. But this is a tenth, a twentieth, of the size of the city you will enter when we—Kayla?:

  She sat frozen across his bare back, her legs locked so tightly her body was shuddering.

  :Kayla!:

  She could not even shake her head. Her mouth, when it opened, was too dry to form words. Darius . . .

  :Kayla, what is wrong?:

  The screaming. Can’t you hear it? The screaming.

  :Kayla! KAYLA!:

  She was on her feet. Not his back, not his feet. She could not remember sliding from the complicated bits and pieces of baubles that announced his presence and his station so eloquently.

  The cobbled streets passed beneath her; she noticed them only because they felt so strange to her feet, so unnatural beneath open sky. The screaming was so loud she could hear no other words, although she thought she could glimpse, from the corners of her eyes, the opened mouths and shocked faces of the strangers she hurtled past, pushed through.

  She was through the doors and into the light before she realized that she had entered the cathedral; that she stood in the slanting rays of colors such as she had never seen captured in glass. A man, ghostly and regal, illuminated her and the ground upon which she stood.

  She stopped only a moment because given a choice between beauty and terror, beauty could not hold her. She knew what she heard. She knew it.

  The cathedral was an open, empty place of light and space, with benches and an altar at the end of the apse. She ran down it, boots pounding the ground, footsteps echoing in heights she would never have dreamed possible in Riverend. And she forgot to feel small, to feel humble; she knew she had to read the person whose screams were so terrible, and soon, or it would be too late.

  And she never once stopped to wonder what too late meant.

  She found him.

  It wasn’t easy; there were doors secreted in the vast stone walls, beautifully oiled and tended, that nonetheless seemed like prison doors, they opened into a room so small. Curled against wall and floor, huddling in the corner, was a man. A stranger.

  In Riverend, strangers were always eyed with suspicion, greeted with hearty hospitality and an implacable distance. She had shed both of those the moment she had heard his terrible cry.

  And she heard it still, although she could see—with wide eyes—that his lips were still. But his eyes were wider than eyes should be, and they stared ahead, to her, sightless, as if he had gone blind.

  :Kayla! Be careful!:

  Darius’ voice.

  She realized then what was so wrong, so cutting, about this man’s cry of terror: it reached her the same way that Darius’ words did, in a silence that spoke of knowledge and intimacy. Without thought, she bent to the man huddled against the floor, and without thought, she tried to lift him.

  Realized that lifting him would strain the muscles she had built in the hold, lifting even the largest of the children; he was not a small man.

  And she was a small woman. But determination had always counted for something. Always.

  She caught him in her arms. Caught his face in her hands as his head sought the cradle of arms and breasts.

  His screaming was terrible.

  But hers was louder, longer, as insistent as his own.

  Look at me!

  He whimpered, but the sound was a real sound, a thing of throat and br
eath and lips. His eyes, glassy, brown, deep, shifted and jerked, upward now, seeking her face.

  “The darkness,” he whispered. “The darkness. The emptiness. I’ve lost them. I’ve failed them all.” For a large man, his voice was small, tiny. She should have been terrified, then.

  But as he spoke, she felt what he felt, and she knew, knew, that she had passed through it herself.

  Her own children were gone.

  And she was young enough that the visiting merchants never realized that she had had a husband—gone, too—and a family; that she had had everything she had desired in her youth.

  And what was the point of that desire, but pain? In the end, what was the point? Her children had not disappeared in the mining accidents that killed the men, when the men did die; they had not gone missing in the terrible snows that could strand a person feet away from the doors of the hold, and bury them there, as a taunt, a winter cruelty.

  No. She had held them.

  She had held them, just as she had held this man, in this dark, cramped room, in this empty place that had no words of comfort to offer her.

  The cabin in which she had lived was hallowed by the terrible silence of their absence; she might walk from room to room—for there were only three—and listen furtively to catch their ghostly voices. This was the way she evoked memory, and memory, in this dark place, this gloom of log and burning wood and little light—for light let in cold—was unkind. It led her into darkness.

  And that darkness might have devoured her, if her mother had not held her, held on to her, filled the emptiness with her words and the blessed sound of her voice. Mother’s pain, always.

  She spoke to this stranger.

  She spoke to this man who understood, who was somehow—at this instant—a part of all the losses she had faced.

  And as she did, she opened her eyes to a dream.

  Heard the voice of the devourer, all his voices, the cries of terror and emptiness.

  Promise me, Kayla. Promise me you will stay and protect Riverend. Promise me.

  I promise. I promise, Mother. I promise.