Magic's Pawn v(lhm-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  Evidently the same thought was running through the girl's mind. "You must be my Aunt Savil," she said forthrightly, standing at what was almost "attention" in the doorway. "You have the nose. I'm Lissa. Can I help?"

  Savil decided that she liked this blunt girl. "Perhaps, I don't know yet," she replied. "First, Lissa, come in and tell me what you've heard."

  Lissa turned away from the garden door with a shudder. "He looks like he's been dragged through the nine hells facedown," she said.

  "And at that he looks better than he did three days ago," Savil replied. She would have said more, but there was another pounding on the suite door and a voice she knew only too well rumbled angrily when Donni answered it.

  "Like bloody hell she's too busy," Lord Withen Ashkevron snarled. "I didn't bloody ride my best horse to foundering to be put off with a'too damned busy!' Now where in hell is she?"

  Savil, with Lissa at her side, strode across to the door, flung it open, and stood facing Withen with her back poker-straight, feet slightly apart, arms crossed over her chest.

  "What do you want, Withen?" she asked flatly, narrowing her eyes in mingled annoyance and apprehension.

  "What the hell do you think I want?" he growled, ignoring Lissa and Donni as if they weren't there, placing his fists on his hips, and taking an aggressive, wide-legged stance. "I want to know what the hell you've been doing with the boy I sent you! I sent him down here for you to make a man out of him, not turn him into a perverted little catamite!" His face darkened and his voice rose with every word. "I - "

  "I think that's more than enough, Withen," she snapped, cutting him off before he could build up to whatever climax he had in mind. "I, I, I - dammit, you blustering peabrain, is that all you ever think of? Yourself? Vanyel almost died four days ago, he almost died again three days ago, and he could die or go mad in the next candlemark, and all you can think of is that he did something your back-country prejudices don't approve of! Gods above and below, you can'i even call him by his bloody name, just 'the boy'!"

  She advanced on him with such anger in her face that he actually fell back a pace, alarm and surprise chasing themselves across his eyes. Lissa moved with her, and stood beside her with every muscle tensed, and her fists clenched into hard knots.

  "You come storming in here when we've maybe - maybe - got him stable, without so much as a 'please' or a 'may I,' you don't even ask if he's in any shape to put two words together in a sensible fashion! Oh, no, all you can do is scream that I 've made him into a catamite when you sent him to be made into a man. A man!" She laughed, a harsh cawing sound that clawed its way up out of her throat. "My gods - what the hell did you think he was? Tell me, Withcn, what kind of a man would send his son into strange hands just because the poor thing didn't happen to fit his image of masculinity?"

  Savil ran out of things to say - but Lissa hadn't.

  "What kind of a man would let a brutal bully break his son's arm for no damned reason?" the girl snarled. "What kind of a man would drive his son into becoming an emotional eunuch because every damned time the boy looked for a little bit of paternal love he got slapped in the face? What kind of a man would take anyone's word over his son's with no cause to ever think the boy was a liar?'' Lissa faced down her father as if he had become her enemy. "You tell me, Father! What right do you have to demand anything of him? What did you ever give him but scorn? When did you ever give him a single thing he really needed or wanted? When did you ever tell him he'd done well? When did you ever say you loved him?"

  Withen backed up another two paces, his back against the wall beside the door, his expression that of someone who has just been poleaxed.

  Savil found her tongue again. "A man - may all the gods give you what you deserve, you fathead! What kind of a man would care more for his own reputation than his son's life?'' She was backing him into the corner now, unleashing on Withen all the pain and frustration and anger she'd been keeping bottled up inside her over the past week. He had gone pale - and started to try to say something, but she cut him off.

  "Let me tell you this, Withen," she hissed. "Everything that Vanyel's become, you had a hand in making - and mostly because you didn't want a son, you just wanted a little toy copy of yourself to parade around so that people could congratulate you on your bedroom prowess. You helped make him what he is - gave him a set of values so distorted it's a wonder he even recognized love when he saw it, and taught him that he had to keep everything he felt secret because adults couldn't be trusted. And now I have one boy dead, and one a hair from dying, and all you care about is that somebody might think you weren't manly enough to father manly sons! Oh, get out of here, get out of my sight - "

  She turned away from him before he could see the tears in her eyes. Lissa put a steadying hand on her shoulder and glared at her father as if she would be perfectly happy to take a piece out of him if he said one wrong word.

  "S-s-savil - I - I - " he stammered. "They said - but I didn't believe - is Vanyel - "

  "One wrong word, one wrong move, and he will die, Withen," she said flatly, her eyes shut tightly as she reestablished control over herself. "One wrong thought almost killed him. He slit his wrists because he discovered that someone he trusted believed that his love was the reason Tylendel died. Are you pleased with what you made? It was certainly the honorable thing for him to do, wasn't it?"

  "I - I - "

  "I am very gratified to be able to tell you that he isn't yours anymore, Withen, he's mine. He's been Chosen - if he lives that long, he'll be a Herald-trainee, and as such, he is my charge. You've forfeited any claim on him. So you can have what you've always wanted - little Mekeal can be your heir-designate, and you can wash your hands of Vanyel with a clear conscience."

  Withen flinched at her pitilessly accurate words, and seemed to almost shrink in size.

  "Savil - I didn't mean - I didn't want - "

  "You didn't?" She raised an ironic eyebrow.

  He winced. "Savil, can I - see him? I won't hurt him, I - dammit, he's still my son!"

  "Lissa, do you think we should?"

  Lissa looked at her father as one looks at a not-particularly-trustworthy stranger. "I don't know that he can behave himself.''

  Withen's face darkened. "You ungrateful little - "

  Lissa shrugged, and said to Savil, "See what I mean?"

  Savil nodded. "I see - but he has a point. Maybe he ought to see his handiwork." She nodded toward the door to Vanyel's room. "Follow me, Withen. And keep a rein on that mouth of yours, or I'll have you thrown out."

  He stopped dead at the garden door, and pressed his hands and face against the glass in stunned disbelief. "My gods - " he gasped. "They said - but I didn't believe them. Savil, I've seen men dead a week that looked better than that!"

  Lissa snorted. Savil pushed him away from the door impatiently, and opened it, flinching a bit as the cold air hit her. She looked back at him; he'd made no move to follow. "Are you coming, or not?" she asked, keeping her voice low so as not to startle Vanyel.

  He swallowed, his own face set and very white, and followed her with slow, hesitant steps. She walked quickly to the patch of sheltered, sun-gilded brown grass where the boy was lying with Yfandes; he hadn't moved since she'd left. He didn't seem to notice she was there as she knelt in the harsh, dry grass that prickled her knees through the cloth of her breeches and hose.

  "Van - Van, wake up a little, can you?" she said softly, not touching him at all, either with hand or mind. "Van?"

  He moved his head a little, and blinked in a kind of half-dazed parody of sleepiness. "A-aunt?" he murmured.

  "Your father's here - Withen - he wants to see you. Vanyel, he can't take you home, he has no power over you now that you're Chosen. You don't have to see him if you don't want to."

  Vanyel blinked again, showing a little more alertness. "N-no. S'all right. 'Fandes says s'all right; says I should."

  Savil rose quickly and returned to where Withen waited uncertainly on the worn pa
th, halfway between the door and where the boy lay. "Go ahead," she said roughly. "Don't raise your voice, and speak slowly. We've got him pretty heavily drugged, so keep that in mind. You might trigger more than you want to hear if you aren't careful."

  She followed a few steps behind him, with Lissa behind her, and remained within earshot as he knelt heavily in the dry grass and started to reach out to touch Vanyel's shoulder. She very nearly snapped at him, but Vanyel roused a bit more, and waved the blunt fingers away.

  "Vanyel - " the man said, seeming at a complete loss for words. "Vanyel, I - I heard you were sick - "

  Vanyel gave a pitiful little croak of a laugh. "You h-heard I was playin' ewe t' 'Lenden’s ram, y'mean. Don' lie t' me, Father. You lied t' me all m'life an' I couldn' prove it, but I know when people lie t'me now."

  Withen flushed, but Vanyel wasn't through yet.

  "Y're thinkin' now that - I - I'm perv'rt'd, unclean or somethin', an' that I - I'm just bad an' ungrateful an' I n-never p-p-pleased you an' - dammit, all I ev' wanted was f'r you t' tell me I did somethin' right! Just once, Father, j-j-just one time! An' all you ever d-d-did was let J-J-Jervis knock me flat, an' then kick me y'rself! 'Lendel loved me, an' I loved him an' you can stop thinkin' those - god - damned - rotten - things - ''

  Withen pulled back and started to his feet - opened his mouth like he was about to roar at his son -

  But that was as far as he got. Vanyel's eyes blazed; his face went masklike with rage. And before Withen could utter a single syllable, Vanyel surged up out of his cocoon of blankets and knocked Withen head over heels into the bushes with the untrained, half-drugged power of his mind alone.

  Withen struggled up. Vanyel knocked him flat. Lissa made as if to go to one or the other of them, but Savil caught her arm.

  "Look at Yfandes," she said. "She's calm, she hasn't even moved. Let them have this out. Between us I think Yfandes and I could keep the lad from killing his father, but that isn't what he wants to do."

  Twice more Withen tried to get his feet, and twice more Vanyel flung him back. He was crying now, silent, unnoticed tears streaking his white cheeks. "How's it feel, Father? Am I strong enough now? How's it feel t' get knocked down an' stepped on by somethin' you can't reason with an' can't fight? You happy? I'm as big a bully as J-J-Jervis now - does that make you bloody happy?"

  Withen's mouth worked, but no sound came out of it.

  Vanyel stared at him, then the angry light faded from his eyes and was replaced by a disgusted bitterness. "It doesn't make me happy, Father," he said, quietly, and clearly; the last of the drug-haze gone from his speech. "Knowing I can do this to you just makes me sick. Nothing makes me happy anymore. Nothing ever will again."

  He sank back down to the ground, pulled his blankets around himself, and turned his face into Yfandes' shoulder. "Go away, Father," he said, voice muffled. "Just go away.''

  Withen got slowly and awkwardly to his feet. He stood; shaken and pale, looking down at his son for a long time.

  "Would it make any difference if I said I was sorry?" he asked, finally; from the bewildered expression on his face, acutely troubled - and more than that, vaguely aware that he had just had his entire world knocked head-over-heels, and was entirely uncertain of what to do or say or even be next.

  "Maybe - someday," came the voice, thickened with tears. "Not now. Go away, Father. Please - leave me alone."

  Dear Withen: I think you are right for once in your life. The boy is not a boy anymore. He never was the boy you thought he was. If you can adapt yourself to treating him as an adult and an acquaintance rather than your offspring, I think you can come to some kind of a reconciliation with him eventually.

  "Savil?"

  Savil looked up. Mardic peeked around Savil's half-open door, uncertainty in his very posture.

  Huh. I'm getting better at reading people.

  She gave a quick glance out her window. Vanyel was sitting on the bench just outside it, talking with Lissa, Yfandes hovering over both of them.

  Bless the child; I don't know what I'd do without her.

  For a moment she forgot Mardic; a terrible weariness bowed down her shoulders like a too-heavy cloak.

  Gods. What am I going to do? He's not getting better, just a little stronger. He keeps trying to make me or Liss into a substitute for 'Lendel, into someone else to follow. I can't let him do that. It 'II just make things ultimately worse. But when we try and push him into standing on his own feet, he goes into a sulk. She sighed. It makes me so angry at him that I want to slap him into next week. And he's had too much of that already. He doesn't really deserve it, either. Hellfires, those sulks are the closest he's ever gotten to normal behavior! Oh, gods -

  Mardic cleared his throat, and she jumped. "I'm sorry, lad, I'm woolgathering. Must be getting old. Come on in."

  He edged into the room, crabwise. "Savil, Donni and I want to ask you something," he faltered, hands behind his back, rubbing his left foot against his right ankle. "We - Savil, you're the best there is, but - Vanyel needs you more than we do."

  "Gods," she sighed, rubbing her right temple. "I have been shorting you two - I am sorry - "

  "No, really, we don't mind," Donni interrupted, poking her curly head past the edge of the door just behind Mardic's shoulder.

  "I was wondering when you'd put in your silver-worth," Savil replied.

  "We do come as a set," she pointed out. "No, Savil, you haven't been shorting us. It's more that we're afraid you're going to split yourself in half, trying to do too many things. Vanyel needs you; we've finally got what we needed from you - there wasn't anybody else likely to be able to teach us to work in concert, but look - "

  Mardic moved farther into the room; Donni stayed by the door. They reached out to one another, arms extended, and hands not quite touching, and -

  Where there had been two auras there was now one; a golden-green flow over and around them that was seamless - and considerably more than either aura had been alone. Savil blinked in surprise. "Just when did you two start to do that?" she asked.

  "The night - when we had to get the Temple open," Mardic supplied. "When we had to get the arrow up, and then even more when we meshed in the Healing-meld. That's when what you'd been showing us sort of fell into place. So, well, now any Herald-Mage could teach us, and really, given what we do together, it probably ought to be Jaysen, or Lancir. But Jaysen hasn't got anyone right now.''

  "Piffle. You'd make a three-hour tale of a limerick," Donni sniffed. "Savil, we asked Jaysen; he said he'd take us if you allow it.''

  Savil put down her pen, and closed her gaping mouth. "I think I may kiss you both," she replied, as Donni gave Mardic an "I told you so" grin. "I was trying to think of a way to get you another mentor and coming up blank because I 'm the only one who knows how to teach concert work. Bless you, loves."

  She rose and took both of them in her arms; they returned the embrace; their support as much mental as physical.

  "Savil," Donni said quietly, as she released them with real reluctance. "What are you going to do with Vanyel? He's - he's still so broken - and everything here has just got to keep reminding him of 'Lendel. It's too bad you can't take him somewhere really different."

  "Gods, that's only too true," she replied.

  - really different - gods - oh, gods, thank you for bright little proteges!

  "Donni," she said slowly, "I think you may just have found my answer for me. Now I'm even more grateful to you for finding yourselves a new teacher.''

  "You've got an idea?"

  Savil nodded. "And kill two birds with one stone. Those things the Leshara had brought in - they had to be from the Pelagirs, just like what 'Lendel conjured in retribution. I'd have had to go out there anyway, to find out who's been tampering. So - what I'm going to do is take Vanyel there to some friends of mine, the Hawkbrothers. They're self-appointed guardians of the Pelagirs, so they should be told if there's been a mage tampering with their creatures. And they follow a different di
scipline; maybe they can help Van. And if they can't, I know they can at least contain him."

  "But you really think they can help him?" Donni asked hopefully.

  "Well, I can't; I know for a fact that Starwind is better than I am. Besides, if we keep Van drugged much longer, Andrel is afraid he'll become addicted, but if we take him off - "

  "He could wreck the Palace." Mardic nodded solemnly. "When are you taking him?"

  "When - within the next few days, I think. The sooner the better." She looked over his head, to the Wingsister talisman on her wall. "The only problem is that to find Starwind k'Treva and Moondance k'Treva I'll have to go to them - because they don't ever come out of the Pelagirs. That means two things. I'll have to build a Gate, and I'll have to hope that I still know how to find them."

  Eleven

  “Gods, I hate Gating," Savil muttered to Andrel, squinting against the glare of sun on snow as she scanned the sky for even a hint of cloud.