Magic's Price v(lhm-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  Vanyel closed his eyes, suddenly too tired to try to find something wrong with what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary situation.

  “You're probably right,” he said, :'Fandes, do you agree?:

  :Quite reasonable,: she said, wearily. :That's very typical of heart-failure; the shock goes straight to us, too. And Kilchas' Rohan was as old as he was. That's a much more logical explanation than foul play - it's just that so few of you live long enough these days for your hearts to fail that I forgot that. I think we may be overreacting because we're tired and we're so used to treachery and ambush that we ignore other answers, love.:

  “ 'Fandes agrees with you -” he began; the Stef started something that had nothing to do with a therapeutic massage, and he murmured a little exclamation of surprise.

  “Have we disposed of the topic, ashke?” Stef asked, breathing the words into his ear, his chest pressed against Vanyel's back.

  :I think,: Yfandes said tactfully, :that it's time for me to get some sleep. Good night, dearheart,:

  :Good night, love,: he replied - then his attention was taken elsewhere.

  And it was quite a while before either he or Stefen actually slept.

  Fifteen

  Vanyel forgot all about his misgivings in the weeks that followed. His time was devoured by Council meetings, Audience sessions where he and Treven stood as proxies for Randale, and long-distance spellcasting. Desperation at being unable to be two places at once had led him to discover that he could work magic through a Herald without the Mage-Gift, provided that the Herald in question was both a Thoughtsenser and carried Mage-Gift in potential. He immersed himself in the nodes so often he began to feel very much akin to the Tayledras.

  He often returned to his room at night long past the hour when sane folk retired. When he did so, he found Stef invariably curled up sleepily next to the fire, light from the flames making a red glow in his hair, for he refused to take his own rest until Van returned. The Bard's patient care was the one constant in his life besides Yfandes, and as fall deepened into winter, he came to rely more and more on both of them, just to keep a hold on sanity and optimism in a world increasingly devoid of both.

  Karse had declared holy war on the “evil mages of Valdemar,” though as yet they had done nothing about it. The agents both the Lord Marshal and the Seneschal had in place reported that the Prophet-King (as he styled himself) had his hands full with rooting out “heresy” in his own land. But no one was under any delusions; the consensus was that as soon as the followers of the Sun Lord needed an outside enemy to unify what was left of the populace, there would be an army of fanatics hammering the Southern Border.

  That would only add to the bandits who had taken over the buffer zone between the two countries, motley bands of brigands who had escaped or been turned loose during the revolution, those who had been accused of magery and fled their homes but had declined to cross the Border, and opportunists who preyed on both sides.

  “At least there won't be any mages in the Prophet's pay,” the Seneschal said, as they all leaned over the maps and tried to find weak points in their defenses.

  “Maybe,” the Archpriest replied dubiously. His tour of the south had garnered mixed results. On the whole he was happy with the outcome, for his presence had kept any overt activities to a minimum. The net result, however, was that there were no enclaves of the Sun Lord in Valdemar any more. Roughly half of the devotees had been so revolted by the Father-House's actions that they had converted to some other way. The rest had decamped across the Border to Karse, to join their fellows. The holdings themselves had gone to those who had remained behind, thus staying in the hands of those who had remained loyal to Valdemar.

  Supposedly loyal, at any rate. Both the Seneschal and the Archpriest were keeping a wary eye on them in case some of these “conversions” were intended as a ruse, to cover later subversion. That there were spies planted in the midst of these enclaves was a given.

  “What do you mean, 'maybe'?” asked the Seneschal, hand poised above a marker representing a Guard detachment.

  “What's the difference between a miracle and a magic spell?” the Archpriest asked, looking from Arved to Van and back again.

  “A miracle comes from the gods; magic comes from a mage,” the Seneschal replied impatiently.

  “That's purely subjective,” the Archpriest pointed out. “To the layman, there is no discernible difference. The Prophet can easily have mages within his own ranks, claim their powers are from the Sun Lord, and be completely within strict doctrinal boundaries.”

  “Damn. You're right,” the Lord Marshal said softly. “I wonder how many he does have?”

  “There's no way of knowing,” Vanyel replied, as they all turned to look at him. “I don't think he has anyone a Herald couldn't counter, though. My operatives aren't reporting any 'miracles' other than Healing and the odd illusion, not even when the Prophet's Children are trying to capture mages. The powerful mages in the pay and employ of the Karsite Crown were all known as such, and have either been killed or fled the country. That's not to say that the Mage-Gifted won't end up in the Sun Lord's priesthood in the future; I'd virtually guarantee that, but they won't get effective training, because there won't be anyone experienced enough to train them thoroughly, and they probably won't be permitted to use their Gift combatively.”

  “Why not?” the Archpriest asked.

  Van smiled thinly, and fingered a marker representing an agent. “Because if they learn what they can do, what's to stop them from declaring themselves the chosen of the God and doing exactly what the Prophet did?”

  “Only with more success, because they have 'miracles' to prove their power,” the Archpriest mused, his eyes half-closed. “Interesting speculation. It's fortunate that you are on our side, Vanyel.”

  Van bowed with intended irony. “A Herald tends to be altogether too well acquainted with the ways of treachery for anyone's comfort, including his own, my lord,” he said. “One could say that it is part of the job.”

  “To know, and not use?” The Archpriest's smile was genuine and his eyes warmed with it. “I am aware of that, my son. I think that most of you would have been comfortable within the ranks of the clergy had there been no Companions to Choose you.”

  “Most?” Vanyel chuckled, knowing the Archpriest was blissfully unaware of his relationship with Stefen. “Some, maybe, but I assure you, my lord, not all. By no means all. We are far too worldly for most orders to ever accept us!”

  He would have said more, but suddenly -

  His eyes burned. A giant hand closed itself around his chest, as his lungs caught fire. He tried to breathe, and only increased the pain. His heart spasmed; once, twice-then exploded.

  He found himself sprawled facedown over the table, the rest of the Councillors, his father among them, frantically trying to revive him. He stared at the lines of the map just under his nose, unable to remember what they were.

  “Vanyel!”

  He was very cold, and his chest hurt.

  “Turn him over you fools, he can't breathe!”

  He blinked as the shadows danced around him, trying to recall exactly where-and who-he was.

  :Van?: Yfandes said weakly, making a confusion of voices inside his head and out. :Are you all right?:

  “What's wrong? What happened? Has he ever had a spell like this before?”

  He stirred, dazed, the map-paper under him crackling. The Council meeting. I was in the Council meeting

  :Van?: A little more urgent :'Fandes. Give me a moment. . . .: “What -” he gasped. He tried to push himself away from the table, but his arms were too weak and trembling, and he was too dazed to even think of what to do. Someone - two someones-grabbed his arms, one on either side, and pulled him up. Trev and Joshel; they lowered him into a chair.

  Just as the Death Bell began tolling. Lissandra - He knew it, even as the other two looked at each other over his head and spoke the name simultaneously.

  “You go,”
Treven told Joshel. “Find out what happened.” He shook Vanyel's shoulder gently. “Is that what you Felt? Is that what happened to you just now?”

  Vanyel nodded, and schooled himself to reply. “I - yes. Something very painful, very sudden. Like what happened with Kilchas, only worse.” He shuddered. “I don't understand - why am I Feeling them die? Why is this happening to me, and no one else?”

  “Maybe because you set the spell,” Treven hazarded. “The rest of us know what happens after the fact, but you feel it at the time. Or maybe it's happening just because the two of them were in the original Web with you. Or because they're close by physically. We haven't had any Herald deaths at Haven but Kilchas and Lissandra.”

  “I suppose. . . .” He put his head down on his knees, still dizzy. “A lot of good I'm going to be if I black out every time a Herald dies.” He was still in too much quasi-physical pain and too much in shock to feel the emotional impact of the other Herald-Mage's death :'Fandes? What about her Companion?:

  :We're looking,: Yfandes said shortly. :Shonsea dropped out of our minds just as you Felt Lissandra die. Are you going to be all right?:

  :I think so-I-:

  :We found her,: Yfandes interrupted. :The northern end of the Field. It looks as though she was running, and fell and broke her neck.:

  Vanyel sighed and closed his eyes. :If she felt what I did, I'm not surprised it came as enough of a shock to make her fall. Something horrendous happened, whatever it was.:

  His head throbbed with aftershock, and it was increasingly hard to think. He raised his head with an effort when Joshel came back into the Council Chamber, coughing.

  “It looks like she had an accident with her alchemical apparatus,” Joshe said. “When we got to her chamber, it was full of fumes of some kind. We had to open a window to clear them out. Look -”

  He held up a glass jar; it was frosted on the outside.

  “That's what those fumes did closest to the spill; ate into things. We found a container of some kind over a small firepot had broken. That was where the fumes were coming from. All we can guess is that it cracked and spilled the stuff into the fire, and Lissandra breathed in a fatal dose before she could get the window open.”

  “It Felt like my lungs were on fire,” Vanyel said. “I couldn't breathe, and my eyes were burning.”

  “She might not even have been able to see to get the window open,” Joshe continued. “As corrosive as those fumes were, she must have been nearly blind. We found her halfway between her workbench and the door.”

  Lissandra should have known better than to work with something that dangerous in her chamber, Vanyel thought vaguely. What on earth possessed her to do such a thing? The still-room at Healer's Collegium has adequate ventilation against accidents, and she hasn't got any secrets from the Healers. . . .

  But his head was pounding, and he couldn't seem to get any further than that.

  “I need to get something for my head,” he said thickly, getting to his feet. Treven looked at him in concern.

  “This hit you awfully hard,” he said. “I know you've been overworking. Do you want to take this session up later?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he replied. “We haven't the time to spare. You have Audiences right after this, then Randi has a private Audience session with the Rethwellan ambassador. I'll be all right.”

  Treven smiled weakly. “You always are,” he said with gratitude. “I don't know what we'd do without you.”

  “Some day you'll have to do without me,” Van reminded him grimly. “I'm not immortal. Well, let's get on with this. My operatives say the next move will be for Karse to declare holy war on Rethwellan, too, trusting that the mountains will keep the Queen from coming at them.”

  “The more fools, they,” the Lord Marshal replied. “Here's what she's pledged us if they make a move like that...”

  The fire in Savil's room hissed and popped at them, and the late-afternoon sun shone weakly down on the gardens outside the window. Van sat back in his chair and tried not to look as if he were tired of hearing his aunt's plaints.

  “I don't like it,” Savil said fretfully. “First Kilchas, then Lissandra. Both of them Herald-Mages. It's no accident.”

  “What else could it be?” Vanyel asked reasonably, nibbing one of his shoulders. He was still stiff and sore from his fit this afternoon. “We've been all over that. No one found anything out of the ordinary. No signs of tampering, magical or otherwise. Just the result of miscalculation.”

  A coal fell down to the grate, and a shower of sparks followed it.

  'I still don't like it,” she replied, stubbornly shaking her head. “What if the tampering wasn't with their equipment, but with them - their minds or their bodies? A Healer could easily have stopped Kilchas' heart. A MindHealer could have made Lissandra think she was putting something harmless on the fire. You'd never detect that kind of tampering.”

  She's getting old, he thought sadly. She's getting old, and frightened of everything. In her oversized, overstuffed chair she looked thinner, and terribly frail. There were lines in her face that had never been there until this winter. It seemed that, like the Tayledras, she was failing all at once. She's aged more in the last six months than in the last six years. “Savil, love, why would a Healer do something like that?” he asked. “It just isn't logical.”

  “You don't have to be a Healer to have Healing Gifts,” she countered. “You have them; so do I. Moondance is a Healing Adept. It could be a rogue mage with the Gift. A kind of anti-Healer.”

  Great good gods. Now she's inventing enemies. Whoever heard of anything like that? “All right, then,” he replied patiently. “Who? We've no indication that anyone is using mages against Valdemar right now.”

  She frowned. “What about the one that nearly killed you?”

  “There's no sign of that kind of magical attack in either Kilchas' death or Lissandra's,” he reminded her. “And the attempt on me was not directed at Valdemar. I think that must have been a purely personal vendetta and nothing more. I've made a lot of enemies in the last few years, and it's all too likely to have been one of them.”

  “Van,” she said unhappily, “I'm worried. I think it's stretching coincidence - first the incident with you, then Kilchas is killed, then Lissandra. Please listen to me -”

  Vanyel sighed. “I'll tell you what, Aunt Savil. If it'll make you feel more confident, I'll strengthen your wards. But I don't think they need it. You're an eminently capable mage, as you very well know - you're my superior at ritual magics. Kilchas was very old and inclined to try and do things he shouldn't because he was stubborn. Lissandra worked with very dangerous substances all the time. The odds just caught up with both of them.”

  Savil scowled at him, and the fire hissed as if it felt her anger. “Vanyel Ashkevron, you're being more than usually dense. If I were ten years younger -”

  Abruptly she deflated, and shrank back down into her chair. “But I'm not,” she said sadly. “I'm older than Kilchas, and just as vulnerable. I'm holding you to your promise, Van. Strengthen my wards. I'll take any help I can get, because I believe I will be the next target and I can't get anyone else to agree with me, not even you.”

  Vanyel stood up, feeling guilty. “Savil, I don't blame you for overreacting. You knew both of the others better than I did. I'll be happy to strengthen your wards as soon as I get a moment free, and I'm absolutely certain that in a few more weeks we'll be laughing about this.”

  “I hope so,” Savil said unhappily as he moved toward the door. “I truly hope so.”

  He stifled a surge of annoyance, and bade her good night as affectionately as he could manage. It wouldn't cost him more than a candlemark and a little energy to strengthen her wards, and if it made her less paranoid, it was worth it.

  He closed the door behind himself, and literally ran into Stefen in the hall outside.

  “I hope you're through for the day,” the Bard said in a weary voice as he caught Vanyel's arm. “Because I
certainly am. It's my turn to need a backrub. The Rethwellan ambassador wouldn't talk unless I was out of the room and Randale couldn't sit up unless I was in the room, so they compromised by sticking me in a closet.”

  Vanyel chuckled tiredly, and put his arm around Stefen's shoulders. “Nobody has me scheduled for anything more, and I'm not inclined to let them know I'm free. Let's go; I'll give you that backrub.”

  “More than a backrub, I hope,” Stef said, shyly.

  “I think I might be able to manage that,” Vanyel said into the Bard's ear.

  “Good,” Stef said. “I'll hold you to that. . . .”

  Later, much later, as Vanyel drifted off to sleep, he remembered what he had promised Savil.

  Oh, well, he thought drowsily. I can take care of it tomorrow. It's not that urgent. And I didn't promise exactly when I'd do it, just that I would when I got some free time.