Magic's price

by Mercedes Lackey

  This amused them for a while, but after everyone had a turn or two, the novelty of having a victim who couldn't fight back and couldn't really react properly to the pain he was in began to bore them - as Damen had known it would, eventually. The only thing that actually did fight back was the thing the man had around his neck - it had burned whoever tried to take it, and eventually they left it on him.

  Tan was the last to give up; he kneed the man in the groin and let him drop to the ground, limbs twitching. He stared at the Herald for a long time, before another slow smile replaced the scowl he'd been wearing.

  He picked up a piece of the fancy horse-harness, a blue-leather strap embellished with silver brightwork, and turned it around and around in his hands. The prisoner moaned, and tried to crawl away, but succeeded only in turning over onto his back. He opened blind-looking silver eyes and stared right at Damen, though there was no sign that he actually saw the boy. There was a bruise purpling one cheekbone, and his right eye was just beginning to swell - but those injuries were nothing at all. Most of the blows had been to the vulnerable parts of the body, and Damen knew of men who'd died from less than the Herald had taken.

  The Herald closed his eyes again, and made a whimpering sound in the back of his throat. That seemed to make up Tan's mind for him.

  He reached for the man's hair with one hand, still holding the harness-strap in the other.

  “Ah . . . y'sweet little horsey! Hah!” Tan rose from his knees, breathing heavily, refastening his breeches. “Who's next?” he asked, laughing. “Which o' ye stallion's gon' mount our little white mare? Little pup's's good's a woman!”

  Damen couldn't watch. He'd been in that position before, when they'd first lured him out here, and away from another band, with promises of gold and feasting. Exactly the same position, except that he'd been forced over the bench, not a saddle, and he'd been whipped and brutally tied with rope-ends instead of harness. That was what he had tried hard not to remember -

  He curled up in his corner, and buried his head in his arms, trying to block it all out. He could hide his eyes, but there was nowhere to hide from the sounds; the weak cries of pain, the rhythmic grunts, the soft wet sounds and throaty howls of pleasure, the creak of leather and jingle of harness.

  It ain't me this time, he said to himself, over and over. It don't matter. It ain't me. He rubbed his wrists and stared in frightened paralysis at the floor, remembering how the ropes had torn into his skin, and how the men had laughed at his cries of agony.

  And finally, he managed to convince himself, though he waited with shivering apprehension for the ones who hadn't yet had a turn to remember that he was in the hearth-corner, and that the bench was still unoccupied.

  Not everyone had a taste for Tan's sport, though - either they weren't drunk enough, or the man wasn't young enough to tempt them, or any other of a dozen possible reasons, including that they still secretly feared the Herald despite his present helplessness.

  Or they weren't convinced that Master Dark would be pleased with the results of this little diversion.

  They all forgot Damen was even there - those that joined Tan in the helpless man's rape and those that simply watched and laughed, then wandered off to drink themselves stuporous and fall into one of the piles of old clothing, straw, and rags that most of them used for beds. Finally even Tan had enough; the noises stopped, except for a dull sound that could have been the Herald's moaning, or the wind.

  Damen dozed off then, only to feel the toe of a boot prodding the sore spot on his rib cage from the last kick he'd gotten. He leapt to his feet, cowering back against the wall, blinking and shivering.

  It was Lord Rendan again. “Go clean that mess up, boy,” he said, jerking his chin at the huddled, half-clothed shape just at the edge of the firelight. “Clean him up, then lock him in the storeroom.”

  Damen edged past the Lord, then fumbled his way across the drunk and snoring bodies to where the prisoner still lay.

  He'd been trussed and gagged with the harness, knees strapped to either end of the saddle, and as a kind of cruel joke, the silvery-white horse-tail had been fastened onto his rump. He was very thin, even fragile-looking, and his pale skin was so mottled with purple bruises he looked like the victim of some kind of strange plague.

  Damen struggled with the strange straps and buckles and finally got him free of the saddle, but even after the boy had gotten him completely loose, the prisoner wouldn't - or maybe couldn't - do anything but thrash feebly and moan deep in his chest. Damen tugged his clothing more-or-less back into place, but the Herald didn't even notice he was there.

  Get 'im inta the storeroom, 'e says. 'Ow'm I s'pposed t' do that? Damen spat in disgust, squatted on his heels to study the situation, and finally seized the man by the collar and hauled him across the floor and through the storeroom door.

  The Lord lit a torch at the fire and brought it over, examining the prisoner by its light. The Herald had curled upon his side in a fetal position, and even Damen could tell he was barely breathing.

  They did 'im, fer sure, he thought. 'It 'im too hard one way or 'tother. 'E don' look like 'e's gonna last th' night.

  Evidently Lord Rendan came to the same conclusion. He cursed under his breath, then threw the torch to the ground, where it sputtered and went out. Damen waited for the accustomed kick or slap, but the Lord had more important matters to worry about.

  When Lord Rendan wanted to make the effort, he could have even hardened animals like Tan jumping to his orders. Before Damen could blink, he had a half dozen men on their feet, shaking in their patched and out-at-heel boots. Before the boy had any idea what the Lord had in mind, those men were out the door and into the cold and dark of the night.

  The Lord returned to the storeroom with another torch, and stuck it into the dirt of the floor. And to Damen's utter surprise, Lord Rendan wrapped the prisoner in his own cloak, and forced a drink of precious brandywine down his throat.

  “Stay with him, boy,” the Lord ordered, laying the man back down again. “Keep him breathing. Because if he don't last till the Healer gets here - Master Dark is goin' t' be real unhappy.”

  Damen began shivering, and squatted down beside the man, piling everything that could pass for a covering atop him. He remembered what had happened to Lord Rendan's younger brother, the last time Master Dark had been unhappy with the band.

  Sometimes you could hear him screaming when the wind was right. Master Dark had decided to recreate a legend, about a demigod whose eyes were torn out, and whose flesh was food for the birds by day and regrew every night. . . .

  Not even Tan ate crewlie-pie after that, though the carrion-birds grew sleek and fat and prospered as never before.

  No, Damen did not want Master Dark to be unhappy. Not ever.

  Old Man Brodie bent over and ran his hands along the roan colt's off foreleg. He let his Healing senses extend – carefully - into the area of the break, just below the knee.

  And let the energy flow.

  A few moments later, he checked his progress. Bone callus; good. And under if ... hmm . . . knitting nicely. No more running about creekbeds for you, my lad; I'll bet you learned your lesson this time.

  He withdrew - as carefully as his meager skills would allow him to. The horse shuddered and champed at the unexplainable twinge in its leg, sidled away from the old man, then calmed. Ach ... too rough on leaving. He regretted his lack of polish every day of his life since he'd failed as a Healer, the way he'd barely get a job done, never completely or with anything approaching style.

  And never without causing as much pain to his patient as he was trying to cure-pain which he shared, and pain which he could, after several years of it, bear no longer.

  His teachers had told him that he was his own worst enemy, that his own fear of the pain was what made it worse and made him clumsy. He was willing to grant that, but knowing intellectually what the problem was and doing something about it proved to be two different matters.

  An
d that hurt, too.

  Finally he just gave up; turned in his Greens and walked north until the road ran out. Here, where no one knew of his failure and his shame, he set himself up as an animal Healer, making a great show of the use of poultices and drenches, purges and doses, to cover the fact that he was using his Gift. His greatest fear had been that someday, someone would discover his deception, and uncover what he had been.

  He stood up, cursing his aching back; and the colt, with the ready forgiveness of animals, sidled up to him and nibbled his sleeve. Brodie's breath steamed, illuminated by the wan light from the cracked lantern suspended from the beam over his head. He was glad the farmer had brought the colt into the barn; it would have been hellish working on a break kneeling in the snow. “That'll do him, Geof,” Brodie said, slinging the bag that held his payment-a fat, smoke-cured ham-over his shoulder. The farmer nodded brusquely, doing his best to mask his relief at not having to put down a valuable animal. “He won't be any good for races, and I'd keep him in the barn over winter if I was you, but he'll be pulling the plow like his dam come spring, and a bad foreleg isn't going to give him trouble at stud.”

  The colt sniffed at the straw at his feet.

  “Thankee, Brodie,” Geof Larimar said, abandoning his pretense at calm. “When I found 'im, allus I could think of was that 'is dam's over twenty, an' what was I gonna do come spring if she failed on me? I 'predate your comin' out in th' middle of th' night an' all.”

  “I appreciate the ham -” Brodie replied, scratching the colt's ears, “and I'd rather you called me when the injuries are fresh, it's easier to treat 'em that way.”

  “I coulda swore that leg was broke, though,” Geof went on inexorably, and Brodie went cold all over. “He couldn't put a hair worth o' weight on it -”

  “Bad light and being hailed out of bed are enough to fool any man,” Brodie interrupted. “Here - feel the swelling?” he guided the farmer's hand to the area he'd just treated, still swollen and hot to the touch from the increased blood flow he'd forced there. “Dislocation, and a hell of a lot easier to put back in when it's just happened than if he'd had it stiffen overnight.”

  “Ah,” the farmer said, nodding sagely. “That'd be why 'e couldn't put weight on it.”

  “Exactly.” Brodie relaxed; once again he'd managed to keep someone off the track. He yawned hugely. “Well, I'd best be on my way. Could stand a bit more sleep.”

  Geof showed him out and walked with him as far as the gate. From there Brodie took the lonely little path through the creek-bottom to his isolated hut.

  Not isolated enough, he brooded. That Dark bastard managed to find me. . . .

  For he hadn't been able to keep his secret from everyone. Three years ago, a handsome young man had come strolling up to his very door and proceeded to tell him, with an amused expression, everything he didn't want anyone to know. Then informed him that he would make all this public - unless Brodie agreed to “do him a favor now and again.”

  The “favors” turned out to be Healing an endless stream of ruffians and bandits who came to his door by night, each bearing “Master Dark's” token. Their injuries were always the kind gotten in combat - Brodie asked no questions, and they never said anything. But after the first two, when it became evident that these patients were never better, than thieves and often worse, Brodie began taking a twisted sort of satisfaction in his lack of skill where they were concerned. It only seemed right that in order to be Healed these cutthroats suffered twice the pain they would have if they'd recovered naturally.

  Brodie was altogether glad that it was the dead of winter. He seldom saw more than two or three of them during the coldest months. ...

  He squinted up at the sky; first quarter moon, and the sky as clear as crystal. It would be much colder, come dawn.

  He heaved himself up the steep, slippery side of the cut, and onto the path that led to his hut.

  And froze at the sound of a voice.

  “About time, ye ol' bastid,” growled a shadow that separated itself from a tree trunk and strode ruthlessly toward him. “Time t' pay yer rent agin. Th' Master needs ye.”

  Eighteen

  “What in Kernos' name did you do to him?” Brodie spluttered, white and incoherent with rage. Having to patch up one of these bastards was bad enough - but being called on to save one of their half-dead victims, presumably so that they could deliver similar treatment to him again - it was more than Brodie was willing to take silently.

  The man was catatonic and just barely alive. Raped, beaten to unconsciousness, a cursory examination told Brodie he was bleeding internally in a dozen places, and only a wiry toughness that gave the lie to his fragile appearance had saved him from death before Brodie ever got there.

  The so-called “Lord” Rendan shrugged. “It's none of your concern, Healer,” he growled. “Master Dark wants this man, and he wants him alive and able to talk. You Heal him; that's all you need to know. You'd better do a good job, too, or else. . . .”

  Rendan smirked, showing a set of teeth as rotten as his soul, and his less-than-subtle threat chilled Brodie's heart. This was more than simple risk of exposure, then, this was his life that was in danger now.

  But if he showed his fear . . . working with beasts had taught him that displaying fear only makes the aggressor more inclined to attack.

  “Get out of here, and let me work in peace,” he growled, hoping the flickering of the single candle Rendan had brought into the storeroom hid the shaking of his hands. “Animals, the lot of you. Worse than animals, not even a rabid pig would do something like this! Go on, get out, and I'll see if anything can be done. And leave the damned candle! You think I'm an owl? And send in the boy - I may need him. He's practically useless, but the rest of you are worse.”

  Rendan lost his smirk, confronted by defiance where he didn't expect it, demands where he expected acquiescence, and reluctantly sidled out, leaving Brodie alone with his desperate work.

  Gods of light - Brodie didn't have to touch the man to know that it was a good thing he was unconscious. Every nerve was afire with pain. Brodie removed the heap of rags covering him carefully, all too aware of how the least little movement would make what was agony into torture for both of them.

  The man was already a strange one; hair streaked with silver as any old gaffer, yet plainly much younger, and under the bruises was a face that would set maidens swooning. When Brodie got down to his clothing he frowned, trying to remember where he'd heard of white garments like this man wore.

  Something out of Valdemar wasn't it? Kingsmen of some kind. Not Harpers-Heralds? What's a Kingsman of Valdemar doing outside his borders?

  Well, it didn't much matter; the man's labored breathing told Brodie that if he didn't do something quickly, this particular Kingsman would be serving from under the sod.

  All right, you poor lad, Brodie thought, nerving himself for the plunge. Let's see how bad you really are. . . .

  Stef's throat was raw, and his eyes swollen when he finally got control of himself again. He scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, and carefully slowed his breathing.

  Oh, gods, control yourself. Look at the facts, Stef; Van's gone. This isn't doing anybody any good. He's not dead, or there'd be a body. Besides, I'd know if he was dead. That means they took him away somewhere. They left a trail even I can follow, which means wherever they took him, I can find him. And if I can find him, maybe I can get him loose.

  He took steady, deep breaths of air so cold it made his lungs ache, and looked up at the dark, star-strewn sky. Night had fallen while he'd cried himself senseless; there was a clear quarter-moon, so he should have no trouble reading the trail the ambushers had left. The moon was amazingly bright for the first quarter; so bright he had no trouble making out little details, like the drops of blood slowly oozing from the stump where poor Yfandes' tail had been chopped off -

  Suddenly his breath caught in his throat. She's bleeding! Dead things don't bleed!

  But if she
isn't dead, why does she look dead?

  Magic - has to be. And magic's the only way they'd have taken Van down . . . like the magic that got Savil and the others. And since I didn't see anything that acted like a mage before I - Well, that means it was probably a magic weapon, something any fool could use. Probably something still here.

  Galvanized by the thought, he began searching Yfandes' body meticulously, thumblength by thumblength, searching for something - anything that might qualify as a weapon. He wasn't certain what it would be, except that he had a vague notion it might be something very like that leech-dagger - the ploy had worked once, and people tended to repeat themselves . . . another dagger, maybe, or an arrow.

  Almost a candlemark later, he found what he thought might be what he was looking for; a tiny dart, hardly longer than the first joint of his index finger, buried in Yfandes' shoulder, hidden by her mane. It tingled when he touched it, in the way he'd come to associate with magic. Maybe it wasn't what he thought it was -

  But he gripped it as carefully as he could, and pulled, praying he wasn't leaving anything behind.

  Yfandes drew a great, shuddering breath. Then another.

  And suddenly Stefen was bowled over backward into a heap of bloodstained snow as she surged to her feet, and pivoted on her hindquarters, teeth bared, eyes rolling, looking for a target.

  Her eyes met his.

  Brodie ignored the aches of his body, the noisy breathing of the child beside him. He found himself doing things he never thought he could, driven by a rage that increased with every new injury he uncovered.

  The young man had some slight Gift of Healing, and a boundless store of energy, which was certainly what had kept him alive all this time.

  The Feel of blue-green Healing power was unmistakable, and Brodie approached the man's injuries cautiously after he first passed the man's low-level shields and encountered it. It was well that he did so. ...