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

by Mercedes Lackey

  He shook his head. “No. That’s not what it is. I know how the gods parcel out their favors. It’s . . . I can’t speak of it. Please, by the gods, don’t make me try!”

  She was relentless. She was a blessed spirit, he reminded himself, but she was not omniscient. She was not a god, or even a mage with a deathbed gift of prescience. She had not seen what he had seen. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me why you grieve.”

  But he would not. After a moment or an age, she went away. Her sadness stung him with guilt, but he could not tell her the horror that he had seen. They were all the blessed dead here. They were all ended, done with, rewarded. Anything that they had left behind, was left forever.

  Some would go back to the mortal world, yes, but never soon enough. Not within the lifetime of anyone they had known.

  That was his grief, and the core of his terror. By the laws of the cycle of death and rebirth, he had withdrawn from earthly cares. He would return to them, of that he had no doubt, but the life he had given up was gone. He could never get it back again.

  Yet what he had seen in the moment of dying, the vision that he had had, tormented him even in these blessed Havens. He spoke it aloud, though only for his own ears to hear, soft beneath the sighing of waves. “If I don’t do something—if I don’t take some action—she will never come back. There will be nothing left of her. Her self, her soul—gone. Never again. Never—”

  He sank down in the sand, sobbing like a child. He did not even care that the blessed souls stared, or that the more compassionate or the more curious gathered to wonder and whisper.

  One of them came to stand over him. It was not Lytha. This one he did not know: it wore Companion’s shape, with some quality about it that made him want to bow low before it. The blue eyes were mild, the brush of its mind as soft, as gentle as sleep. :Little one,: it said, :what troubles you?:

  “I can’t tell you,” he said, though the core of his resolve was crumbling fast.

  The Companion bent its beautiful head. :Come to us,: it said, :in the Hidden Country.:

  “The Hidden—but where—”

  But the great one was gone. Only then did Mathias realize how very strange it had been: it had been neither male nor female, nor known any distress for its lack of gender.

  He straightened slowly. The semicircle of the curious drew back. He looked from face to shining face. “Where is the Hidden Country?” he asked them. “What did the great one mean?”

  No one knew, or would admit to knowing. Only one of them came forward to say, “Go inland. Follow the light.” She would not explain herself; perhaps she could not.

  It was as good advice as he was likely to get. He would not have said that he had hope, but his despair was a little lighter. He was doing something. He had a place to go, a riddle to ponder. Maybe it was mere distraction. Or maybe it would show him the way to save Vera’s soul—and with it the soul of Valdemar.

  If he had still been in mortal flesh, he would have found this journey tedious, if not particularly exhausting. Inland away from the sea was a sea of grass, greener than any earthly meadow, rolling monotonously into the luminous distance. He began to think that he had been deceived, that this was a punishment for bringing grief into the blessed land: to be condemned to wander forever in the featureless green. Not a soul stirred there, not single sentient thing, living or blessed dead.

  Then he realized that without knowing it, he had been following the light. Little by little as he went onward, the sun was brighter, the grass more vivid. He was never blinded, but he was inundated in light.

  He came at last to a wall of living fire, pure white, without heat, rising up into infinity. Standing there, contemplating it, he realized that it was not a barrier. He walked toward it.

  It took it to itself. It was somewhat like passing a veil of fire, and somewhat like ascending a mountain of living coals. The dead knew no earthly weariness, but certainly they knew pain. It scoured away all that was impure in him, and all that was of earth—save only those memories which he clung to with implacable persistence. That was the price of passage. He paid it as freely as he had paid with his life to save Vera—but in so doing, he had doomed her soul.

  With this, the Powers willing, he would save her. He pressed on. It was more like a mountain and less like a veil, the farther he traveled; and little by little the pain faded. In time, it dwindled to nothing. He trod stones underfoot, following a path up a steep slope, rising into a bank of luminous cloud.

  There were trees, impossible if this had been an earthly peak, but all things were possible here. These were slender and tall. Their leaves were deep green; blossoms opened on the branches, pure white enfolding a spark of gold.

  The scent that drifted from those branches was ineffably sweet. It tempted Mathias to delay, to slow, to drift and dream in this hall of trees. But he was armored in memory and armed with terror. He climbed onward and ever onward.

  The heart of the wood was a space of light. The grass there was so dark a green as to be almost black. The flowers in it were stars.

  The Companion was waiting for him. As he approached it, the circle widened immeasurably, expanding into infinite space. He stood in a field of stars, beneath the orb of a sun.

  The great one was not alone here. There were others like him, legions of them, as numerous as the stars. All revolved around the sun, singing a song of pure praise.

  Mathias’ voice was a lone small dissonance. “Can you help me save my world?”

  “Your world is safe,” the great one said.

  He shook his head. “Even you can’t see. Before I died, I saw. Dashant works a spell to win back what he lost. That spell will destroy the Queen and enslave every soul in Valdemar. But her soul—her soul will be gone. Unless I do something. Unless I find some help, some hope for her.”

  “That is no longer your world,” the great one said. “There is nothing you can do to save it.”

  He clenched his fists. “There must be! Where is the quality of divine mercy? Where is the care the light takes for its children?”

  “It is where it has always been,” said the great one. “All that is, is meant. Yes, child: even this.”

  “Then why did you bring me here?” he cried. “Why did you let me hope? What use is there in any of you?”

  His outcry died into the silence of eternity. The stars shone undimmed. The sun’s light burned as bright as ever. It was not mortal, to know pity, nor human, to know sorrow. It knew nothing but the glory of itself.

  The great one said, “There is nothing that you can do.”

  “That is not the truth,” said Mathias, almost spitting the words. “There are stories, memories, tales of powers—Avatars—”

  “There is nothing you can do,” the great one repeated. “This is ordained. You are forbidden.”

  “If I am forbidden, why was I allowed to see? Why, except to torment me?”

  “Sometimes,” said the great one, “in extremity, a mortal can see where no mortal eyes should ever see. That vision was not meant for you.”

  “Yet it came to me,” he said. “I will save her. I must.”

  “Even if it costs you your soul?”

  “If it saves hers,” he said, “yes.”

  The great one bent its glimmering head. The field of stars shrank to a field of grass and flowers under a silver sky. Mathias stood in it with a creature like a Companion, surrounded by blossoming trees.

  “You are forbidden,” the great one said. But in its eyes as another word.

  He held that stare for a long moment, lost in an infinity of blue. “What will they do to you,” he asked, “if—”

  The great one shook its head infinitesimally. “Peace is yonder,” it said, “on the shores of the Havens.”

  But Mathias was listening to what it did not say. He looked around him and recognized this place, this circle of trees, this grass; this spring that bubbled forth from the great one’s feet, just as it must have done in the morning of the world.
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  “Do not drink from this spring,” said the great one. “Mortals who drink of it are doomed. The hounds of heaven will hunt them, and the Powers will condemn their souls.”

  “But you,” he said. “You children of heaven who drink of it, what dos it do? What powers does it give you?”

  “That is forbidden,” the great one said. “Go, seek peace. Forget this place.”

  Even as it spoke, it turned its back. The spring had bubbled into a pool. It seemed perfectly harmless, a pool of clear water, reflecting the sky. Mortal sky—blue as a Companion’s eye, and mortal sun in it, looking down on living earth.

  The great one’s tail switched. Another instant and it would return to its guardianship. Mathias bent quickly and cupped water in his hands. It was cold, as spring water should be; it numbed his fingers. He did not pause to marvel at so earthly a sensation in this unearthly place. He lifted it to his lips and drank.

  It was like liquid ice, like living fire. It was the wine of angels. His mortal spirit was not made to imbibe such potency. It rocked him with agony. It tore him, twisted him, rent him asunder. Darkness took him even here, in this land of perpetual light.

  Mathias lay winded on bruised grass. But, he thought, grass did not bruise here. The dead did not breathe. He was not—

  He staggered up. His body moved strangely. His head was too heavy, his neck, his hands and feet—

  He had no hands. When he scrabbled at the grass, long white legs responded, and silver hooves. His neck twisted about, impossibly long. White mane flew as he whirled; white body spun. When he cried out, a shrill whinny pierced his ears.

  His forefeet tangled; he fell to his knees. It hurt. Earth was hard. He heaved himself erect. Through the whirl of confusion, still he recognized this place. He was in the Companions’ Grove. He wore that all-too-familiar shape, and it was not that of a newborn foal either. He, though mortal, had drunk from the well of the Powers. It had done to him what it must do to the great ones, the shining spirits: it had given him Companion’s form.

  Such a thing was forbidden to mortal soul—impossible, he would have said. He had defied the will of heaven. He wore flesh again, with full capacity of the body, and full memory of the life that he had lived before. And it was still—gods, it must still be the time in which he had lived.

  As he paused to will his gratitude toward the one who had shown him the way, a shudder ran across his skin. Something was rising in the Grove, some force of wrath.

  The hounds of heaven were coming to hunt him down. He must run with all his magical strength, and find her before they found him. Then it did not matter; the hounds could rip him into nothingness, he did not care. But first he must save her soul.

  His body knew how to run. He had only to let it go. There was glory in speed, and joy—he had thought never to know joy again. Behind him the earth heaved and the spring boiled. He heard, faint but drawing nearer, the baying of hounds.

  He ran for Vera’s life. Companion’s Field was full of white almost-horses and their Heralds in white, and the usual scattering of attendants, gawkers, and hangers-on. They were all gaping at him. He hardly needed to hear the word that ran even faster than he: “Grove-born! There’s not been a Grove-born since—”

  Since before his human life began. Intentionally or otherwise, they were gathering, clotting, blocking his way. He darted around and through them, and sometimes over them.

  ‘But,” said someone, who sounded young, “his eyes are green!”

  That checked his stride and nearly sent him sprawling. He got his legs under control again. The road from the Field was not so crowded. The sight of a Companion at full gallop parted the stream of passersby and left them murmuring in his wake.

  She was not in the palace. He had known it before he came there, in his heart that was like a needle quivering toward the lodestone. Yet he had to go, had to see—had to prove to himself that those halls, though full of people, were empty of her.

  It was a long and desperate while before he found someone who could hear when he Mindspoke. His throat would not produce a human voice, nor would his lips or tongue shape even the few words he needed to say. :Where is she? Where is the queen?:

  The child in the servant’s smock blinked hard. He was frightening her with his intensity. He tried to control it a little, but he did not succeed very well: she was very young and he was desperate. Thank the Powers, she mustered her courage and said steadily enough, “She’s gone out riding, sir. With—with the Consort. The one who’s to be, I mean. After the wedding.”

  :Consort?:

  She blinked even harder. “Yes, sir. Lord Terrell. Don’t you know—you aren’t—are you new here, sir?”

  :Newer than the morning,: he said with a sudden wry twist. :Here, get on my back. Show me where they went.:

  Her eyes went wide. “I? Ride a Companion?”

  For answer he folded his long legs and knelt, pressing lightly against her, so that she had to swing her leg over his back and cling to his mane. He rose as smoothly as he could. She squeaked a little in alarm, but the fear was fading fast before incredulous delight.

  Her weight was negligible, and she balanced well enough once he was upright. She knew how to ride. She guided him as if he had been a horse—odd sensation to be on the receiving end of it.

  His mind was racing down too many tracks at once. He focused in on two: the child’s guidance, and the news that she had given him. Vera and Terrell? If he could put aside the stab of pure, green, and completely unreasonable jealousy, he could see it, even force himself to approve of it. Terrell was not too young but not too old, his family connections were impeccable, and much more to the point, Mathias had known him to be an honorable man. He was both warrior and mage, and equally accomplished in both. He had been loyal to Vera during Dashant’s war; he had served her well. He would make a more than adequate Consort.

  Mathias’ young rider guided him out of the Palace and into the city. She held on tighter there, tensing when people stared. He soothed her as he could, and thought calm at her. Her gratitude was like a warm hand slipping into his.

  The crowds of the city made their own joyous mortal noise, but he heard that other sound beneath, the baying that would pursue him until he was caught and made to pay for what he had done. He was tiring, a little; even the body of a Grove-born Companion was mortal, and its strength was finite. He slowed his pace a fraction. He was almost through the city. The gate was ahead, and open country beyond it.

  “They can’t be far,” said the child on his back. “They only left a little while ago.”

  He resisted the urge to quicken his stride. The sun shone blandly down upon him. The road was level underfoot, until at his rider’s urging he turned to follow a narrower track.

  This had been Vera’s favorite way when she was younger. It led up a long hillside to a stretch of wood, where there was fine hunting in autumn, and where in spring the ladies liked to go a-Maying. It was a pleasant ride on a warm afternoon, ending in a little lake beyond the wood, where a rider could stop to rest and water her horse, and swim if she were minded.

  He left the child by the road, with such blessing on her as he had to give, and a word of warding that would bring her back safe to Haven. She did not want to be left behind. There was no time to explain; he bucked her off as gently as he could, pausing to see that she was unharmed, before he went on alone.

  As he ran through the wood, his nostrils twitched. That scent beneath the scents of living greenery—he knew it from another life. In this body the senses were keener; the scent was stronger. It was cold, like the breath of graves, and all around it was woven the sick-sweet stench of death.

  Dashant.

  Mathias could not hold himself in. Not now. Vera was ahead, dismounted by the lake. He could see her in his mind’s eye, walking along the shore, hand-in-hand with a tall, dark-haired young man. Her face had grown somber since Mathias had died, but it was as beautiful as ever. Lord Terrell bent his head to hear what she sa
id. His smile was so warm, his glance so tender, that Mathias need have no doubt of it: this man loved this woman with all his heart.

  Behind them, unseen and unnoticed, the waters of the lake had begun to stir. Darkness was rising. The spell was keyed to this place, where her heart was. It would set hooks in her soul and draw her down into itself, and swallow her.

  His lungs were burning. His legs were beyond pain. And still there was the last ascent to face, and the steep twisting track down to the lake. He would never come there in time. The thing in the lake, Dashant’s conjuring, would rise and devour her.

  Deep within, he found a last surge of strength. He sprang to the top of the ridge and skidded down the track to the lake. Its waters were heaving. The dark thing was close to the surface. The two on the shore were still oblivious, lost in one another.

  There should have been an escort. Mathias could detect no sign of them. It was eerily like the battle in which he had died: the same cloud of deception, and the same utter abandonment.

  This time Vera was warded. To his eyes it was like armor of light. But even that would no be proof against what rose to take her. Dashant had awakened something very, very old and very, very black. It loathed the light; living flesh, to it, was abomination.

  The wards warned her—too damnably late. She turned in her lover’s arms. Her eyes went wide.

  It was like a towering wave. It was darkness absolute. It reached for her.

  She did not cower—not Vera. Her only weapon was a dagger, but she drew it and set herself between the darkness and her consort. He was a fraction slower to understand, but his wits were quick enough once he saw what fell upon them. He summoned up a spell, a bolt of light against the dark.

  It guttered and went out like a candle in a whirlwind, nearly taking Terrell with it. The darkness took no notice of him at all.

  Mathias’ whole heart and soul screamed at him to leap between his lady and the thing that would destroy her. But it only had volition through the one who commanded it. Dashant was near—he had to be. Power of this magnitude needed a mage’s fullest strength and focus.