Magic's price

by Mercedes Lackey

  Finding it was like plunging into the heart of the sun; too overwhelming to be painful-it was beyond pain-and it threatened to burn him away from himself. It was easy to be lost in a node, and that was why the Companions were in this meld - after the first breathless, mind-numbing contact he Felt them anchoring him, reminding him of where and what he was.

  It took him a moment to lean on their strength and steady himself, to catch his breath. Then he took hold of the heart of the node, braced himself, and Pulled -

  This was something no one outside of the Tayledras clans had ever attempted. Vanyel was going to create a heart-stone. A small one, but nevertheless, a true heart-stone.

  He was fire, he was riven earth, he was molten rock. He was raging water and lightning. He was ancient and newborn. He was, with no memory, and no anchor. No identity. Then something prodded him. A name. Yfandes. He . . . remembered. . . .

  With memory came sensation. He was agony.

  He Pulled, though his nerves screamed and his heart raced, overburdened. He Pulled, though it felt as though he was pulling himself apart.

  Slowly, reluctantly, the power swelled, then settled again at his command.

  He Reached again, this time for the Web, and brought it into contact with the raw power of the node-Contact wasn't enough.

  He entered the Web itself; Reached from inside it with mental hands that were burned and raw, and with the melded will of the four Guardians and their Companions, forced it to match magics with the raw node-power and take it in -

  And with the very last of his strength, keyed it.

  The Web flared; from the heart of it, he Saw and Felt the power surging through it, opening up new connections, casting new lines, until the Web was no longer distinguishable from the fainter, but more extensive network he'd seen before.

  He cast himself free from the new heart-stone, and sent delicate tendrils of thought along the new force-lines of the Web. And wanted to shout with joy at what he found, for the spell had taken full effect.

  From this moment on, all Heralds were now one with Valdemar, and all were bound into the Web in whatever way their Gifts could best serve. When danger threatened, the FarSeers would know “where,” the ForeSeers would know “when,” and every Herald needed to handle the danger would find himself aware of the peril and its location.

  At that moment, Vanyel Felt the Companions withdraw themselves from the meld.

  For a moment, he panicked - until he Saw that the new Web was still in place, still intact.

  Damn. I'd hoped - but they're still laws unto themselves, he thought ruefully. They were apart from the Web before - and it looks like they've decided it's going to stay that way. Too bad; we could have used them to make up for Heralds with weak Gifts. And since every human magic I've seen has always left them unaffected, I was hoping they might have conferred that immunity on us. Companions have never done more than aid their Chosen, but it would have been nice if this time had been an exception.

  At least his original intentions were holding; the new Web was powered by the magic of the node, and only augmented by the Heralds instead of depending entirely on them. When the call came, those without more pressing emergencies would leave everything to meet greater threats to Valdemar.

  Now for the addition to the Web protections. . . .

  He dropped out of the meld, for this was something he had to handle alone. He stilled himself, isolated himself from every outside sensation, then brought Savil in closer. Together, they reached out to the vrondi and Called -

  One came immediately; then a dozen, then a hundred. And still they Called, until the air elementals pressed around them on all sides, thousands of the creatures -

  It was a good thing they didn't really exist on the same plane of reality where his body slumped in the Work Room, or he and everyone in it would have been smothered.

  He Reached again, much more carefully this time, and created a new line to the Web and the power it fed upon. And showed it to the assembled vrondi, as Savil told them wordlessly that this power would be theirs for the taking -

  - they surged forward, hungrily -

  :- if,: said Savil, holding the line a bit out of their reach.

  :If?: The word echoed from vrondi to vrondi, ripples of hungerIdoubtIhunger. :If? If?:

  They withdrew a little, and contemplated both of them. Finally they responded.

  :What?:

  Vanyel showed them, as Savil held the line. To earn the power, all they need do, would be to watch for mages. Always watch for mages. And let them know they were being watched.

  They swirled about him, about Savil, thousands of blue eyes in little mist-clouds. :All?: they asked, in a chorus of mind-voices.

  :That's all,: he replied, feeling the strength of his own power starting to fade. :Watch. Let them know you watch.:

  The vrondi swirled around him, thinking it over. Then, just when he was beginning to worry -

  :YES!: they cried, and seized on the line of power - and vanished.

  And he let go of Savil, of the meld, and let himself fall.

  “Gods,” Kilchas moaned.

  Vanyel raised his head from the table, where he'd slumped forward. “My sentiments exactly.” Kilchas was half-lying on the table with his hands over his head, fingers tangled in his gray mane.

  “I think,” Lissandra said, pronouncing the words with care, “That I am going to sleep for a week. Did your thing with the vrondi work?”

  “They took it,” Vanyel replied, staring at the single globe of iridescent crystal in the center of the table where the grouping of five stones had been. “Every mage inside the borders of Valdemar is going to know he's being watched. That's going to make him uncomfortable if he doesn't belong here, or he's up to no good. The deeper inside Valdemar, the more vrondi he'll attract, and the worse he'll feel.”

  “And he'll have to shield pretty heavily to avoid detection,” Savil added, leaning into the back of her chair and letting it support all her weight. “The vrondi are quite sensitive to mage-energy. And they're curious as all hell; I suspect wild ones will start joining our bound ones in watching out for mages just for the amusement factor.”

  “That's good - as far as it goes.” Lissandra reached out and touched the globe in the center with an expression of bemusement. “But it doesn't let us know we have mages working on our territory, not unless you can get the vrondi to tell us.”

  “I do have some other plans,” Vanyel admitted. “I'd like to get the vrondi to react to strange mages with alarm - and since they're now bound into the Web, that in itself would feed back to the Heralds. But I haven't got that part worked out yet. I don't want them to react that way to Herald-Mages, for one thing, and for another, I'm not sure the vrondi are capable of telling mages apart.”

  “Neither am I,” Savil said dubiously. “Seems to me it's enough to let mages know they're being watched. If you're guilty, that alone is enough to make you jumpy.”

  Kilchas had managed to stand up while they were talking; he reached for the globe and tried to pick it up. His expression of surprise when he couldn't made Vanyel chuckle weakly.

  “That's a heart-stone now,” he said apologetically. “It's fused to the table, and the table is fused to the stone of the Palace and the bedrock beneath it.”

  “Oh,” Kilchas replied, sitting down with a thump. Vanyel banished the shields, then turned to the only person in the room who hadn't yet spoken a single word.

  Van leaned against the back of his chair, and faced Tantras. “Well?” he asked.

  Tran nodded. “It's there, all right. There's something there that wasn't a part of of me before -”

  “What about the trouble-spots?” Vanyel asked.

  The other Herald closed his eyes, and frowned with concentration. “I'm trying to think of a map,” he said, finally. “I'm working my way around the Border. It's like Reading an object; I get a kind of sick feeling when I come up on some place where there're problems. I'll bet it would be even more ac
curate if I had a real map.”

  Vanyel sighed, and slumped his shoulders, allowing his exhaustion to catch up with him. “Then we did it.”

  “I never doubted it,” Savil retorted.

  :Nor I,: said the familiar voice in his head.

  “Then it's time for me to go fall on my nose; I think I've earned it.” Vanyel got to his feet, feeling every joint ache. “I think all of us have earned it.”

  “Aye to that.” Lissandra copied him; Kilchas levered himself up with the aid of the table, and Savil needed Tantras' help to get her onto her feet. Vanyel headed for the door and pulled it open, leaving the others to take care of themselves. Right now all he could think about was his bed-and how badly he needed it.

  He walked wearily down the corridor leading out of the Old Palace and toward his quarters, doing his best not to stagger. He was so tired that it would probably look as if he was drunk, and that wouldn't do the Heraldic reputation any good....

  :Oh, I don't know,: Yfandes chuckled. :You might get more invitations to parties that way.:

  :I might. But would they be parties I'd want to attend?:

  :Probably not,: she acknowledged.

  It didn't occur to him until he was most of the way to the Herald's Wing that his bed might not be unoccupied. . . .

  But it was; he pulled his door open to find his room empty, the bed made, and no sign of his visitor anywhere. Evidently the servants had already cleaned and tidied his quarters; there was nothing out of the ordinary about the room.

  He clung to the doorframe, surprised by his own disappointment that the young Bard hadn't at least stayed long enough to make some arrangements to get together again.

  This time with a little less wine. . . .

  That disappointment made no sense; he'd only met the boy last night. And he couldn't afford close friends; he'd told himself that over and over.

  Anybody you let close is liable to become a target or a hostage, he repeated to himself for the thousandth time. You can't afford friends, fool. You should be grateful that the boy came to his senses. You can talk to him safely in Court. You know very well that after yesterday you're going to be seeing him there every day. That should certainly be enough. He had no idea what he was offering you last night; it was the wine and his hero-worship talking. You're too old, and he's too young.

  But his bed, when he threw himself into it, seemed very cold, and very empty.

  Five

  A door closed, somewhere nearby. Stefen stretched, only half-awake, and when his right hand didn't hit the wall, he woke up entirely with a start of surprise. He found himself staring at a portion of wood paneling, rather than plaster-covered stone. It was an entirely unfamiliar wall.

  Therefore, he wasn't in his own bed.

  Well, that wasn't too terribly unusual. Over the course of the past couple of years, he'd woken up in any number of beds, with a wide variety of partners. What was unusual was that this morning he was quite alone, and every sign indicated he'd gone to sleep that way. He rubbed his eyes, and turned over, and blinked at the room beyond the bed-curtains. There on the floor, like a mute reproach, was a rumpled bedroll.

  Looks like I did go to bed alone. Damn.

  A pile of discarded clothing, unmistakably Heraldic Whites, lay beside the bedroll.

  So it wasn't a dream. Stefen sat up, and ran his right hand through his tangled hair. I really did end up in Herald Vanyel's room last night. And if he slept there and I slept here- Stefen frowned. He's shaych. I certainly made an advance toward him. He was attracted. What went wrong?

  Stef unwound the blankets from around himself, and slid out of Vanyel's bed. On the table beside the chairs on the opposite side of the room were the remains of last night's supper, and two empty bottles of wine. I wasn't that drunk; I know what I did. It should have worked. Why didn't it? He was certainly drunk enough not to be shy. Should I have been more aggressive?

  He reached down to the floor, picked up his tunic and pulled it over his head. His boots seemed to have vanished, but he thought he remembered taking them off early in the evening. He found the footgear after a bit of searching, where they'd been pushed under one of the chairs, and sat down on the floor to pull them on, his bandaged left hand making him a little awkward.

  No, I think being aggressive would have repelled him. I read him right, dammit!

  Another thought occurred to him, then, and he stopped with his left foot halfway in the boot. But what if he wasn't reading me right? What if he thinks I'm just some kind of bedazzled child? Ye gods, little does he know -

  Stef started to smile at that thought, when another thought sobered him.

  But if he knew - or if he finds out, what would he think then?

  That was a disturbing notion indeed. I haven't exactly been discreet. Or terribly discriminating. He felt himself blushing with-shame? It certainly felt like it. I was just enjoying myself. I never hurt anybody. I didn't think it mattered.

  But maybe to somebody like Vanyel, who had never had more than a handful of lovers in his life, it might matter. And before last night, Stef would have shrugged that kind of reaction off, and gone on to someone else.

  Before last night, it wouldn't have mattered. But something had happened last night, something that made what Vanyel thought very important to Stefen.

  Maybe that's it. Maybe it's that he's heard about me, heard about the way I've been living, and -

  But that didn't make any sense either. Vanyel hadn't been repelled, or at least, he hadn't shown any sign of it. He'd just put Stefen to bed - alone, like a child, or like his nephew - and left him to sleep his drunk off. And had himself gone to some duty or other this morning, without a single word of reproach.

  Stef stood up, collected his gittern and music case from where they were propped beside the door, and slipped out into the hallway, still completely at a loss for what to think.

  All I know is, it's a good thing nobody knows I slept alone last night, or my reputation would be ruined.

  There were no less than four messages waiting for him when he reached the room he shared with Medren. Fortunately, his friend wasn't in; he didn't want to face the older Journeyman until he could think of a reasonable excuse for what hadn't happened. There were times when Medren could be worse than the village matchmaker.

  And he didn't even want to look at all those messages until after he was clean and fed.

  The first was easily taken care of in the student's bathing room; the youngsters were all in class at this hour, and the bathing room deserted. The second was even easier; he'd learned when he was a student himself that his slight frame and a wistful expression could coax food out of the cooks no matter how busy they were. Thus fortified, he went back to his room to discover that the messages had spawned two more in his absence.

  He sat down on his bed to read them. Four of the six messages were from Healers; one from the Dean of Healer's Collegium, two from Randale's personal physicians, and one - astonishingly - from Lady Shavri herself.

  They all began much alike; with variations on the same theme. Effusive, but obviously genuine gratitude, assurance that he had done more for the King's comfort than he could guess. The Dean asked obliquely if he would be willing to allow the Healers to study him; the King's attending Healers hinted at requests to attach him directly to the Court. Shavri's note said, bluntly, “I intend to do everything I can to see that you are well rewarded for the services you performed for Randale. As King's Own, I will be consulting with the Dean of your Collegium and the head of the Bardic Circle. If you are willing to continue to serve Randale, Journeyman Stefen, I will do my best for you.”

  Stef held the last message in his bandaged hand, and contemplated it with amazement and elation.

  Last night I thought they'd forgotten I existed. Vanyel was the only one who seemed to care that I'd played my hand raw for them. But this -

  Then his keen sense of reality intruded. Shavri hadn't promised anything specific. The others had only been interes
ted in finding out if he'd work with them, and while their gratitude was nice, it didn't put any silver in his pocket or grant him a permanent position. There were two more messages, and one was from the Dean of the Bardic Collegium. There was no telling what they held.

  You spent too much time with Vanyel, Stef, he told himself. All that altruism is catching.

  The fifth was from Medren; letting him know that his roommate was taking a week to travel up north of the city with a couple of full Bards for a Spring Fair. “I want to try out some new songs, pick up some others,” the note concluded. “Sorry about running off like this, but I didn't get much notice. Hope things work out for you.”

  An oblique and discreet hint if ever I heard one, Stef thought cynically. Obviously he noticed I didn't come back to the room last night, and I'll bet he's wondering if it was his uncle I was with. Unless somebody already told him. Stefen sighed. Horseturds, I hope not. If nobody knows, I'll have a chance to make something up to satisfy his curiosity between then and now.

  That left the message from the Dean of the Collegium; Stefen weighed it in his hand and wished he could tell if it was good or bad news before he opened it. But he couldn't, and there was no point in putting it off further.

  He broke the seal, hesitated a moment further, and unfolded the thick vellum.

  Sealed, and written on brand new vellum, not a scrap of palimpsest. Very official-which means either very good, or very bad.

  He skimmed through the formal greeting, then stopped cold as his eyes took in the next words, but his mind refused to grasp them.

  “. . . at the second noon bell, the Bardic Circle will meet to consider your status and disposition. Please hold yourself ready to receive our judgment.

  What did I do? he thought wildly. I only just made Journeyman - they can't be meaning to jump me to Master! But - why would they demote me? What could I have possibly done that was that bad? Unless they just found something out about my past. . . .