Magic's Price v(lhm-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  Master Dark was bringing his army into Valdemar, and there was nothing on the Northern Border that could even delay them once they came across the pass.

  Vanyel wriggled back; Stef followed him.

  “What are we -” Stef whispered in a panic. Van placed his finger gently on Stef s lips, silencing him.

  “You're going to alert the Guard post; Yfandes will take you, and with only you on her back, she'll be able to do anything but fly. I'll hold them right here until the Guard comes up.”

  “But -” Stef protested.

  “It's not as stupid an idea as it sounds,” Van said, looking back over his shoulder. “Back there where the old trail meets the new, one mage can hold off any size army. And if the Guard can come up quickly enough, one detachment can keep that army bottled up on the trail below the Pass for as long as it takes for the rest of the army to get here. But none of that is going to work if I don't stop them now, here.”

  Stef wanted to object - but he couldn't. Vanyel was right; even a Bard could see that - this was a classic opportunity and a classic piece of strategy, and Master Dark couldn't possibly have anticipated it. “You'd better - just -” Stef began, fiercely, and couldn't continue for the tears that suddenly welled up. “Dammit, Van! I -”

  Vanyel took Stefs face in both hands and kissed him, with such fierce passion that it shook the Bard to his marrow. “I love you, too. You're absolutely the best friend, the dearest love I've ever had. I'll love you as long as there's anything left of me. Now go - quickly. I won't have my whole attention on what I'm doing if you're not safe.”

  Stef backed away, then flung himself on Yfandes' back before he could change his mind.

  :Hang on,: she ordered, and he had barely enough time to get a firm grip on the saddle with hands and legs when she was off.

  Vanyel watched them vanish with the speed only a Companion could manage - just short of flying. Stef weighed far less than he did, which should improve Yfandes' progress. . . .

  Then he climbed down the sheer slope to the floor of the new trail. He had to make the best possible time to get to the end and the bottleneck, and the only way he was going to be able to do that would be to take the easiest way. Getting down was the hard part - when he got there, he found that the ground was planed so evenly that he could run.

  First, he began a weather-magic that would bring in the clouds he sensed just out of sight. Then, run, he did. He was out of breath by the time he reached his chosen spot, but he had plenty of leisure time to recover when he got there. In fact, the worst part was the waiting; he had placed himself right where the old trail made that sharp turn into the new, and they wouldn't be able to see him until they were right on top of him. And he couldn't see them, which made things worse.

  He tried not to look around too much; this was the exact setting of his dreams, and he didn't want to be reminded of how they had all ended.

  ForeSight is just seeing the possible future, he reminded himself, probing beneath the skin of the land for nodes, and setting up his tap-lines now, filtering them through his mage-focus so that the power would be attuned to him and he wouldn't have to use it raw. Moondance told me that ages ago, and if anyone would know, the Tayledras would. The first dream was almost twenty years ago! Things have to have altered since then. And if I remember what happened in them, I may be able to alter the outcome. Some of those dreams even had 'Lendel in them with me, instead of -

  Stef. Twenty years. 'Lendel had died at seventeen. Van had met Stef when the Bard was seventeen. There was time enough, between 'Lendel's death and now - Stef was exactly the right age to have been born about that time.

  More things sprang to mind. The Dreamtime encounter with 'Lendel-the things he had said - the way the Tayledras treated Stef and the way Savil had taken the Bard under her wing after that - it was all beginning to make a pattern.

  The way he called me ashke without ever knowing the word. No. Yes. What other answer is there? He came back to me, 'Lendel came back as Stef, somehow - and Savil and the Hawkbrothers knew -

  But there was no opportunity to think about this revelation, for the first of Master Dark's forces had just begun to round the bend in the trail, and it was time to put his plans into motion.

  As little bloodshed as I can manage, particularly with the fighters. They could be spell-bound, ignorant-whatever.

  The clouds he had been calling loomed above the mountains, hiding the peaks, and full of lightning-crackles just waiting to be released. Vanyel was happy to oblige them; he called lightnings down out of them to lash the ground just ahead of the first rank, as he simultaneously illuminated himself with a blinding blue glare of mage-light.

  The lightning exploded the trail in front of him, the ice-covered rocks screaming as the powerful force lashed them, heating them enough to turn the ice into steam in an eyeblink. Vanyel kept his eyes sheltered by his forearm, so that he alone was not blinded. The first ranks of the forces were, however; black-armored men stumbled blindly forward, pushed by the ranks behind them, shouting in fear and anger.

  All right, that's one point of difference from the dreams, already. I fought them magic-against-weaponry, I didn't intimidate them right off.

  The chaos calmed, as Vanyel stood, ready, energies making his mage-focus glow the same blue as the light behind him, his hands tingling with power. The ranks of armed men and strange beasts stirred restively, the fighters watching him through the slits in their helms. In this much, too, the dreams had been right. Under the armor, they were a motley lot, and only half of them looked human; but they were armed and armored with weapons and protection made of some dull black stuff, and carried identical round, unornamented black shields. And the stumbling chaos he had caused had been righted in short order; that argued for a great deal of training together. This was the army he had taken it for.

  The ranks in front parted, as in the dreams, and a wizard stepped through. There was no doubt of what he was, he was unarmed and unarmored, and the Power sat heavily in him, making him glow sullenly to Mage-Sight. But it was the power of blood-magic -

  As was the power of the second, the third, and the fourth.

  Four-to-one, then Master Dark to follow. Vanyel flexed his fingers, and hoped Yfandes had gotten Stef to safety by now. Let's see if these lads know how to work together, or if I can divide them -

  Stefen hung on and closed his eyes, fighting his own panic. He'd never been on - or even near! - anything going this fast before. The ground rushing by his feet and the violent lurching as Yfandes leapt obstacles were making him sick and frightened, with the kind of fear that no rational thought was going to overcome.

  They had already covered the same amount of ground that had taken the three of them a day, and now Stef was quite lost.

  :I'm doing a kind of Fetching, Bard, only I'm doing it with us. That's why we seem to be jumping a great deal, and why you're sick. Besides, you two got rather sidetracked. You had to come at the Pass obliquely. I'm going straight back.:

  Stef gulped. She's doing Fetching, only with us. No wonder my stomach thinks it got left behind - it may have. . . .

  Lights showed up ahead, against the dark of the trees. Torches along the top of a wall-the lights of the Guard post. Stef couldn't believe it. It hadn't been nearly long enough -

  But it was. Yfandes thundered into the lighted area in front of the gate, as sentries came piling down off the walls -

  She stopped with all four hooves set, in a shower of snow-and bucked. Violently.

  Stefen wasn't expecting that. He flew over her head and landed in a snowbank -

  He thought he was going to land all right, but his breath was knocked out of him and his head cracked against a buried log and he saw nothing but stars -

  - and heard hoofbeats vanishing into the distance, followed by a babble of voices.

  Hands hauled him out of the snow; he shook his head to clear his eyes and immediately regretted doing so. His head felt like it was going to explode, and colored lights d
anced in front of him. But his vision cleared enough for him to see as he looked up that one of the people striding out of the gate was the Commander.

  She recognized him immediately. “Great good gods!” she exclaimed. “What in the nine hells are you doing here? Where's the Herald?”

  His head was swimming, and his vision blacking out, but he managed to get all of his message out -

  The Commander turned white, and barked a series of orders. The alarm bell began ringing. So did Stef's ears. The Commander's aide shoved Stef over to one side, and men and women began pouring out of the barracks, hastily arming and armoring themselves as they ran into their ranks. Stef wasn't sure if he was going to be able to stand much longer; his knees were going weak. The post Healer emerged, took one look at him, and started toward him, arms forward.

  And that was all Stef knew, before the ground quietly but violently introduced itself and darkness came over him.

  Vanyel trembled with exhaustion - but the nodes were still pouring their power into him, and two of the wizards lay charred and dead on the icy ground in front of him. Of the other two, one had tried to flee and been cut down by his own men, and the other was a mindless, drooling thing that crawled over to the side of the trail and lay there curled on its side.

  There's another difference. I didn't defeat the wizards, in the dream. I fought them to a standstill. He assessed the damage to himself, and came up relatively satisfied. There was a slight wound to his right leg; blood was running down his leg and into his boot to freeze there. He was a bit scorched, but really, the damage so far was light.

  Although a young boy who'd never been in combat - as I was then-would have been convinced that every hurt was fatal. That may be the reason for that “difference”; it may not be a difference at all. Well. Now it's time for Master Dark to appear.

  The front ranks parted again, and a single, elegantly black-clad figure paced leisurely through, lit by red mage-light as Vanyel was lit by blue. Right on cue.

  The young man was wearing black armor and clothing that had to be a conscious parody of Heraldic Whites. He was absolutely beautiful, with a perfectly sculptured face and body. Somehow that face looked oddly familiar -

  It could just be that the face was so perfect, it looked like the statue of a god.

  Of course, if I didn't care how I wasted power, I could look like anything I wanted, too.

  He was a reverse image of Vanyel in every way, from sable hair to ebony eyes to night-black boots.

  “Why do you bother with this nonsense?” he asked, sweetly, his lips curving in a sensual smile. “You are quite alone, Herald-Mage Vanyel.” His voice was a smooth, silky tenor; he had learned the same kind of perfect control over it that he had over his body.

  The familiarity of his features bothered Vanyel. At first he thought it was because he very closely resembled the Herald himself, but there was more to it than that. A kind of racial similarity to someone-

  “You are,” the young man repeated, with finely-honed emphasis, “quite alone.”

  Tayledras. He looks Tayledras, only reversed. Did he always look that way, or did he tailor himself? Either way, he's making a statement about himself, the Hawkbrothers, and the Heralds -

  “You tell me nothing I didn't already know. As I know you,” he heard himself saying. “The Tayledras have a name for you. You are Leareth. The name means -”

  “Darkness,” Leareth laughed. “Oh yes, I quite consciously chose that Tayledras name. Hence, 'Master Dark' as well. A quaint conceit, don't you think? As are -” he waved at the men behind him, in their sinister panoply, “- my servants.”

  “Very clever,” Vanyel replied. This has already deviated from the dreams - in the dreams, the mages stand behind him, and this time there were four instead of three. The fighters stayed out of reach, letting the mages handle me. Maybe if I can stall the final confrontation long enough, Stef can get to the Guard and they can get here in time.

  “You need not remain alone, Vanyel,” Leareth continued, licking his lips sensuously. “You need only give over this madness - stretch out your hand to me, join me, take my Darkness to you. You will never be alone again. Think how much we could accomplish together! We are so very similar, we two, in our powers - and in our pleasures.”

  He paced forward; one swaying step that rippled his ebony cloak and his raven hair. “Or if you prefer - I could even bring your long-lost love to you. Think about it, Vanyel - think of Tylendel, once more alive and at your side. He could share our life and our power, Vanyel, and nothing, nothing would be able to stand against us.”

  Vanyel stepped back, and pretended to consider the offer.

  Dear gods, doesn't he understand us at all? Nothing is worth having if it comes at the kind of cost he demands. Can't he understand how much I would be betraying Stef - 'Lendel - if I betrayed Valdemar?

  The cold seemed to gather about him, chilling him and stiffening his wounded leg.

  He can't know that I know he's lying - either about his abilities or about the reward if I turn traitor. Or both-

  I wonder if I can hold against him. Or even - take him?

  Hope rose in him, and he probed a little around Leareth's shields.

  And hid a shock of dismay. He's better than I am. Much better. He's able to tap node-magic through other mages so that it doesn't burn him out. He's got a half dozen of those mages feeding him power from the other side of the mountain, from tapped nodes! He's going to kill me - and then he's going to march right through here and take Valdemar. And I don't have enough left even in the nodes to call the Final Strike that will take him -

  “Well?” Leareth shifted his weight impatiently.

  How can I stall for more time?

  Oh, gods - I'm going to die - alone-

  And for nothing -

  Then-like a gift from the gods, the hoofbeats of a single creature, behind him.

  Yfandes thundered to a halt beside him, and screamed her defiance at the Dark Mage. He stepped back an involuntary pace or two, his eyes wide with surprise. Yfandes raised her stump of a tail high and bared her teeth at him as Vanyel placed one hand on her warm flank.

  :I told you I would never leave you when I Chose you,: she said calmly. :I knew what our bond would come to then, when I first Chose you - and I don't regret my choice. I love you, and I am proud to stand beside you. There is not a single moment together that I would take back.:

  :Not one?: he asked, moved to tears.

  :Not one. I will not let you face him alone, beloved. And I can give my strength to you, for whatever you need.:

  Her strength added to his would be enough - just enough-to overcome Leareth's protections on a Final Strike.

  Vanyel raised his eyes to meet Leareth's, and with one smooth motion, mounted and settled into Yfandes' saddle, and answered the mage's offer with a calm smile and a single word.

  “No.”

  “Vanyel!”

  Terrible pain - then, nothing. A void where warmth should be.

  Stefen leapt from the cot, screaming Van's name - the Healer tried to hold him down, but he fought clear of the man, throwing the blankets aside in a frenzy of fear and grief.

  I felt him die - oh, gods. No, no I can't have, it's just something else, some magic - he's still alive, he has to be -

  He ran, out of the barracks, out into the snow, shoving people out of the way. He stumbled blindly to the stables and grabbed the first horse he saw that didn't shy away, saddling it with tack that seemed oddly familiar -

  The filly snorted in his hair as he reached up to bridle her - and he recognized her. It was Melody -

  But that didn't matter, all that mattered was the ache in his heart, in his soul, the empty place that said Vanyel -

  He flung himself on Melody's back and spurred her cruelly as soon as he was in the saddle; she squealed in surprise and launched herself out of the stable door, as the Healers and sentries shouted after him, too late to stop him.

  Days later, he came upon the battl
efield, riding an exhausted horse, himself too spent to speak. The battle was long over; and still the carnage was incredible.

  At the edge of camp, one of the Guardsmen stopped Melody with one hand on her bridle, and Stef didn't have the strength to urge her past him. He simply stared dully at the man, until someone else came-a Healer, and then someone in high-rank blue. He ignored the Healer, but the other got him to dismount.

  The Commander, her face gray with fatigue, her eyes full of pain.