Such a choice, and at the moment he could see no way of acting, or not acting, that would not cause harm. Violate his pledged word, or effectively cripple the abilities of those who had succored and adopted him to defend themselves. Betray his home, or those who had saved him.
:Talk to me, Chosen,: Kantor demanded. :You've closed yourself off to me. Trust me as I trust you, let me hear your thoughts.:
:You won't like them,: he replied mordantly.
:Perhaps not,: Kantor countered. :But at least you will be talking to me about it. Perhaps we can find answers if we both look for them.:
He took a moment to frame his thoughts. :If I do what Talamir asks of me, I go against my oaths. And it is of no use at all to claim that the spies will work only against the Tedrels when my people are working hand-in-glove with them. Act against the Tedrels, and Karsites will bleed.:
:Little doubt,: Kantor agreed, as he stared at the shadowy ceiling, listening to the indistinct murmur of voices in the next room. :But how are you being true to your oaths if you withhold help that could shorten this fight? You know that your Sunpriests will not hesitate to add Karsite troops to the Tedrels in order to defeat Valdemar, and the longer the wars go on, the more Karsites will die.:
:I have no control over what the priests do or do not do,: he said stubbornly. :And I do not know, not for certain, that they will order my people into this affray. What they do is in their own hands, and the will of Vkandis. I can only control my own actions, and I am the one who is responsible for what comes of them.:
He felt Kantor ruminating over that one; well, he'd spent enough time agonizing over the problem himself, and it was the only answer he could come to. No matter what other people did, if he was to remain true, he could only do what he felt was right.
:Pah,: Kantor said in disgust. :Why must the right answers be so unsatisfactory? But, Chosen, this might be right by your oaths, but must you remain bound by oaths to those who violated their responsibilities, not only to you, but to the people they lead?:
:If I break those vows,: he replied slowly, painfully, :1 become no better than they. Who will trust me, if I break my vows? How can I trust myself?:
Silence again, as Kantor considered this as well. This time, his reply was only a frustrated sigh.
:I have no argument for you that would not also be sophistry,: Kantor admitted, after the silence had gone on for what seemed to be a candlemark at least.
Strangely enough, that reply brought him a modicum of relief. Kantor was with him. Kantor was at least as uncomfortable with the situation as Alberich was, but the Companion was with him. Kantor, his best and truest friend in the world, was not going to use that friendship to try and persuade him of something against his conscience. Now all he had to do was argue with himself.
He sensed Kantor thinking furiously and waited to see what the Companion would come up with. :I don't suppose,: Kantor offered diffidently, :that you could get some sort of dispensation from the Priests of Vkandis absolving you of those oaths?:
:Geri won't give that. He can't offer it on his own authority, and I wouldn't accept it from him even if he did.: No matter what the Sunpriests down in Karse did, Geri knew that, short of an apparition of the Sunlord Himself, there was no way that he could absolve Alberich of previously made vows.
And as for asking for some sort of message from Vkandis Himself—He flinched away from the very notion.
For whatever reason, the Sunlord had elected to permit the Sunpriests to act as they were. Only He knew what was in His mind. Alberich could speculate, but—
Here was the truth of it all: who was he that Vkandis should appear to him to absolve him of his oaths? Only one man in exile, one man who could only prove his faith by remaining faithful....
:Chosen—: Kantor said suddenly, interrupting his thought. :Let me ask you this. Suppose, just suppose, that you were not bound by those oaths. What would you do in that case, if you were completely free to do what you wished to do?:
What would he do? :I haven't thought about it, haven't even considered it. There was no reason to,: he replied honestly. And, then answered just as honestly, :If I were free, I would aid all those agents without a moment of hesitation. I'd go myself, if the Council could be persuaded to trust me. In fact, I'd demand to go —:
:Why?: Kantor interjected. :Why would you demand to go?:
That was an easy question to answer, for it was the sum of all of his turmoil. :Because no one born and raised in Valdemar could ever be so careful of the lives of the children of Karse as I, No one but I would care enough to take the extra effort to be sure no harm came to them.:
Alberich was no Empath, but the sudden flood of triumph that welled up from Kantor was a thing so tangible that it felt like the beams of the rising sun, reaching upward into the heavens at dawn. It so surprised him that he felt stunned, too shocked for words.
But Kantor had words enough for him.
:Then, Chosen, Alberich, Herald of Valdemar and Captain of Karse—make more of you! Make them out of the Heralds that Talamir brings to you! Give them not only the things that Talamir wants, but the memories, good and ill, that have made you what you are! Do that—and they will be as tender of Karsite lives as you, and you could ask for no better stewards in your absence.:
He lay blinking for a long moment as the sense of that penetrated. Then he closed his eyes and considered the advice from every possible angle.
And he could find no flaw in it. What better thing could he do for his people than this? How could it violate his oath to create more protectors of his people? Kantor was right. Kantor was right!
Relief flooded into him with such force that he felt dizzy with it, and he clutched the sides of the narrow bed as it seemed to move beneath him. And when the feeling of release ebbed a little, he felt his face wet with unexpected tears—
Oh, my people—oh, my beloved people—I can send you protectors to take my place at last, at long last!
He rubbed the tears away with his sleeve, swiftly controlled himself, and realized that the murmur of voices in the other room had not stilled. Dethor and Talamir, Sunlord bless them, were still deep in their plans, searching for answers—
:—trying to find a way to persuade you without pressuring you—: Kantor pointed out.
Yes. They would be. They had been as careful of his honor as he was. More, perhaps, because they did not understand the reasons behind what he did, they only honored his conviction that he needed to do them.
He got out of bed; it wouldn't be the first time he'd rejoined a discussion while in a nightshirt and sleeping trews. He made his way to the doorway of the sitting room, and stood there a moment, silent, seeing again the strain, the care, the burden of duty weighing both of them down.
At least this time he'd be able to lift some of that, not add to it.
He cleared his throat, and they looked up, startled.
"I believe, my brothers," he said, with a nod to both of them that acknowledged their kinship without unnecessary words, "I believe, help you I can. And must. So speak you with your Healers, and tell them, Alberich of Karse wishes this, most devoutly."
He waited just long enough to enjoy the look of stunned shock and amazement on both their faces. Then he turned and made his way back to his bed—there to enjoy the first untroubled night of sleep he'd had since the Tedrel Wars began.
10
THE MindHealers, with one adventurous exception, were not happy about the plan, which was not really a surprise. Alberich did not give a toss whether they were happy about what he was doing. All he cared about was that they had agreed to the project.
The Heralds he had recruited for his agents were a diverse lot; four of them, which was all he would risk on this venture. He didn't know any of them well, which was another good reason for having chosen them. Three of them were too old for him to have trained, and the fourth had been so average that he was entirely unmemorable. One sun-weathered, dark-haired man who was a tinker, and thus had al
l the skills to pass successfully as a Karsite tinker. One, in his late middle-age years, was from a family of herdsman, and thus able to pass as another goatherd who had been displaced from his home in the hills by the war. In fact, he could probably make a fine case for having had his herds confiscated by the Tedrels, leaving him with nothing but the meager possessions he could carry on his own back. The third was a youngster, a lad who had just gotten his Whites—but he had three advantages. First, he was from a forester family just on the Border near Burning Pines. Second, he had been an orphan, forced to take responsibility for himself from an early age. As a consequence, he acted more like a young man in his late twenties than one just barely eighteen. And thirdly—thirdly, he was smart. He had a strongly developed sense for self-preservation; he thought before he said or did anything. He, of all of them, was the likeliest to be recruited by the Tedrels themselves and the most likely of anyone who had volunteered to be able to keep his head and stay plausible when within their ranks. There was something to be said for being the type that has been knocking about in the world before becoming a Herald, in this case.
The fourth was a woman as old as the old man; she would try to get taken on as a laundress or cook. Alberich didn't hold out much hope for that, but if she could, well, an old woman would hear a lot from the Tedrel camp followers. Even if the Tedrels themselves didn't speak to women, the recruits were of the type that wouldn't be able to keep their mouths shut.
None of them would have their Companions with them; all of them were confident that their Companions could stay out of sight, but within call, so if things began to look the least bit dangerous, they could get out of the camp and escape before suspicion mounted to certainty.
Alberich was quite certain of one thing, at least. When they were done with these sessions, they would be Karsite, or he would call a halt to the whole scheme. That was how he had sold his plan to the MindHealers; he had to wonder how much they really understood what he meant, but he had to take a chance somewhere.
No one knew how this was going to work, but the MindHealer who had agreed to mediate the experiment had some ideas of his own that he wasn't inclined to share with anyone, not even Alberich. He had only promised this much: if what he planned worked, the Heralds were not going to get Alberich's memories, per se, and Alberich was not going to be reliving his own memories. "I won't say anything more," he'd repeated stubbornly, no matter who asked him or how many times he was asked. "I don't want anyone going into this with any preconceptions to muddle things up. If this works, it will work very well indeed."
Though how they were supposed to enter into the situation "without any preconceptions" was beyond him.
When the time came, Alberich appeared at Healers' Collegium at the appointed hour, with three of the four Heralds he had recruited trailing in after him, one by one. It probably would have been amusing if they all hadn't looked so serious, even apprehensive; he could have been a tutor or nanny trailed by his three of his four charges. They were sent to a quiet chamber that held two narrow beds and a chair between them, and stood, as Alberich thought to himself, "like a gaggle of useless idlers," none of them particularly wishing to take a seat either on the couches or the chair. The young man still hadn't arrived there when Healer Crathach, long and lean and sardonic, appeared in the room to which they had been sent.
"Ah, good. I only need one of you volunteers at a time," he said, looking entirely too gleeful for Alberich's comfort. "Hmm—you, I think, Orven. Take a couch. Alberich, you take the other. Try to relax, and close your eyes."
The former herdsman made a bit of a face, and did as he was told, taking the farther of the two couches. In silence, Alberich did the same, taking the nearest. He closed his eyes, and heard a creak as the Healer sat down in the chair, felt a hand laid atop his forehead and suppressed the urge to knock it away, and—
And suddenly, he was in Karse.
But this was not exactly a memory. He had never lived in this cob-built hut—too small to be called a cottage—though he had seen plenty like it over the years. This was a typical mountain hut of the poorest sort, yet there was a poorer state than that in Karse, and that was to be the lowest of the kitchen or stable staff, who had not even a scrap of floor to call their own. Scullery maids, cook's boys—they slept on the kitchen floor and ate what they could scrape out of pots, never washed except what parts of them got immersed in water when they scrubbed things, never changed their clothing until it dropped from their body.
He and his mother had, thank Vkandis, never been that lowly.
However, in this incarnation, it appeared that the protagonists of this "memory" were.
A little boy, who was him, and was not him, about three years old, was watching a woman who was his mother, and was not his mother, scrubbing the floor of this hut—a floor, made, as was usual in these huts, of the scrap ends of boards gathered and pieced together. She did not own this place; whereas his mother had owned, or had at least rented, their little dwelling. This woman was a servant here, the only one; sleeping on the hearth, doing the heaviest of the work, taken on by the mean old woman who owned the place only because, in her outcaste state, she asked nothing but food and shelter for herself and the boy that was him, and not him. He looked through that boy's eyes, yet he did it from an adult perspective.
Now, he recognized the memory from the framework. If this had been his real memory, he would have been watching his mother scrubbing the floor of the inn where they lived. But this wasn't his village, it was another, in herding country, where he had served in his first year with the Sunsguard. It wasn't an inn, for this particular village had been too small to have one; this was just one of the many little houses, with a bush above the door to show that it sold ale and food. He didn't recognize the woman; she was something like his mother, but mostly not. And although he somehow knew that Orven was actually experiencing this episode as if he were the toddler, Alberich was watching it as a sort of dispassionate passenger in Orven's head.
This was fascinating; living fiction. Except that Orven was living it. Had he come from a background that was that impoverished? It could be; the MindHealer could be taking both sets of experiences and melding them together in a Karsite setting.
The bones of the experience were the same as his own; a group of fellows who considered themselves to be young toughs strolled past, and decided to abuse the woman because of his presence, calling her "whore" and worse. True, she was not married, and now had no prospect of ever wedding. True, she had not named his father to anyone but the Sunpriest. But his mother—and, in this manufactured memory, this woman—were hardly whores. They sold themselves to no man, and had been so tight-lipped about the identity of Alberich's father that nothing had ever made them reveal it except to their priest.
The boy knew none of this, nor did Orven who was actually living through this instead of observing it—nor had Alberich at the time. Orven, from his childish perspective, only knew that the men were large and loud, and were making his mother unhappy. They frightened him, and he began to cry.
Now all of this came with an incredible load of detail that Alberich had not even known was in his memory—the scent of the harsh tallow soap the mother was using and of the wet wood of the floor, the beer smell from the cask just inside the door, the aroma of the pease porridge over the hearth, and woodsmoke, the sharp not-quite-spring scent of the air itself, the sour-sweat smell overlaid with goat and sheep of the men. And that was just scent. There was the quality of the sunlight, thin and clear, giving a great deal of light, but not much warmth. He somehow knew the look of the cobbles and the dirt path outside the door, the shape of the hut, with its rough cob walls, whitewashed some time last spring, the whitewash shabby from all the winter storms—the shape of the other houses of the village, of the village itself, a straggle of houses along the road. He even knew the road, cobbled only where it passed through the village itself. Alberich knew where it had all come from; he'd seen dozens of villages like this one
over the years. The story came from his life, and the setting, but both were tolerably confused together, creating a new "life" entirely.
It wasn't him. Orven, taken back in his mind to the level of a toddler, was the one feeling all of this; it would be Orven's reactions that counted here.
The flood of external detail was giving Orven plenty to take in; internal, of course, was something a good deal more primal, the uncertainty and all the turmoil of a small and terrified child.
Then he came striding up the path, as if the crying had summoned him; tall, bearded, straight-backed, dressed in a long black robe with something bright and shining and immediately attractive to the wailing child on the breast of it. He wasted no time, verbally laying into the men in a voice like thunder, somehow making it clear that it was their good fortune he wasn't going to lay into them physically as well. There was a great deal of what Alberich—from his dispassionate distance—recognized as Holy Writ being quoted, mostly about the poor, the fatherless, and the repentant. There was also a great deal of Writ quoted about the ultimate destination of those who abused the poor, the fatherless, and the repentant.
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