Storm Warning

by Mercedes Lackey

  "Don' be 'shamed t'be a-grievin', boy," the man said, patting his hand awkwardly, his speech slow and so thickly accented that Karal barely understood him. "This kind'o thing don' get any nor easier e'en for the likes o' we. Gie yer tears t' a man who deserves 'em, an' take ye no shame i' the weepin', aye? Sure, an' we won' think th' less o'ye."

  He stood up, as soon as Karal nodded numbly, and picked up his burden again. Karal just let the tears flow, then, and ignored all the comings and goings until the sun set, and the now-empty room filled with darkness.

  "Do you want to go to the Healers' Collegium to wait, Karal?" Talia asked gently. "Or would you rather wait here?"

  There was nothing for him here; the rooms held not even the scent of incense from Ulrich's robes—not that he could smell much after all the raw-nosed sniffling. "I'd like to go to Healers', I think," he said thickly. "If I won't be in the way."

  "Of course you won't be," Talia replied warmly. She offered him her hand. "Come on, I'll take you there."

  Somewhere he lost track of the walk, or else it was all swallowed up in misery. The next thing he knew, he was sitting down again, in another room, this one full of well-worn, ancient benches. The whole place had a sad air of waiting about it, interminable waiting. Talia was walking toward him as he looked up, suddenly aware of his surroundings again; she must have left him here without his noticing.

  "There's no change, Karal," she said, and bit her lip. "I won't lie to you; you'd know it if I did. That's not a good sign. He hasn't even regained consciousness."

  He nodded; she rested her hand on his shoulder.

  "I'll stay with you if you want me to," she offered, and he knew that she meant it.

  Just as he knew that she had much more important things to deal with than one boy's pain. Thanks to Florian, he knew what she was now, and how important she was. He knew that eventually he would be touched and grateful that she had given him so much of her time today, but right now, there was room for nothing but grief.

  "You have to go," he told her. "I—I understand. I'll manage."

  She searched his eyes for a moment. "You do understand, don't you?" she asked, wonder coloring her voice. "Thank you for that, Karal. If you can't bear it, send for me."

  He nodded, and she walked off quickly, but with a slight limp. He watched her go, then turned his thoughts inward.

  He prayed, even though he wasn't quite certain what to pray for. It would be no kindness to Ulrich to force him to live, if living meant he was trapped in a helpless body that held nothing but pain. Those blades were long—long enough to have pierced through the chest and damaged the spine. Perhaps that was why Ulrich had not awakened....

  He tried to remember what Ulrich had taught him—that Vkandis was neither some cosmic accountant, who weighed and measured a man before deciding if he lived or died, nor was He a grand torturer, inflicting punishment after punishment upon the living to find their breaking points. We have free will, all of us, and Vkandis interferes very little in our life in this world, Ulrich had said. He does not play with us as a child plays with toy soldiers or dolls, nor does He test us to see what we are made of. He allows us to live our lives and make our own choices, and only after we cross to join Him does He judge us on the basis of what we have and have not done with the life and free will we were granted at birth—and how well we have kept our word in promises made to Him. What we choose to do intersects with what everyone else in our lives chooses to do, sometimes those choices mean joy, sometimes sorrow, often a little of both. That may be why good things sometimes happen to evil people. Most assuredly, with no cause by the Sunlord's hand, bad things sometimes do happen to good people.

  So it was by free will that whoever it was had laid those deadly traps, and Ulrich and he had been the ones to encounter them. It was by sheer circumstance that there had been four of the things, one too many for Altra to deal with. In fact, had Altra not been there—by the Sunlord's own will—he would be dead right now.

  But I wish it had been me and not him! he cried to Vkandis. Oh, Sunlord, I wish it had been me!

  The marks crawled by, tedious and slow as an ancient tortoise, plodding painfully toward midnight, and then toward dawn. People came by at intervals, presumably to see if he was all right, but they did not disturb him, and he did not speak to them.

  Finally, though, someone did stop, and touch his shoulder.

  He looked up, and the sympathy in the Healer's face told him everything he needed to know.

  He could not show his sorrow before all the strange faces, sympathetic though they might be, and he could not burden Talia further by asking someone to disturb her rest and bring her to him. Instead, he refused all offers of consolation and stumbled blindly away from the building, shaking with sobs he could not give voice to, throat so choked with grief he could not even swallow.

  It was not yet dawn; frost-covered grass crunched underfoot as he wandered out into the waning hours of the night. He had to go somewhere... life would go on, and now he was the sole representative of Karse here. Where had Kerowyn said she was moving his things?

  The ekele. An'desha and Firesong—

  That was bearable. Better them, than to try to make a place among strangers, Heralds whose names he didn't even know.

  Now that he had a destination, he set off through the darkness. Once he was out of sight of the Healers and their unwanted, professional sympathy, he allowed the tears to come again. Blinded as much by his weeping as by the dark, he felt his way along the path to the gate in Companion's Field; got it open, and slipped inside—

  And there he stopped; or rather, collapsed against the gate post, shuddering with great, racking sobs that did absolutely nothing to ease the agony of his loss.

  :Karal—: the voice in his mind was hesitant, but the sympathy was real. :Karal, I am not Talia, but I am here for you.:

  Blindly, he turned and buried his face in the white shoulder that lowered to meet his trembling body as the Companion lay down. His tears trickled through the silky white mane that presented itself to him. He clung to Florian's neck and wept and wept until his throat was sore, his eyes were nothing more than slits, and his nose was so swollen and stopped up that he had to stop sobbing because he couldn't breathe.

  The breathing of the Companion at his side was steady and soothing, and after what could have been a candlemark, the pace of his own breathing matched Florian's.

  :Karal, I am with you. This might not be the best time, but there is someone who sorrows as much as you do,: Florian said hesitantly. :He needs you very badly, and right now he has no one to comfort him.:

  Unlike me... The unspoken implication had not escaped Karal. "Wh-who?" Karal asked dully, wiping his nose.

  :Listen,: was Florian's only answer.

  Obediently, Karal stifled his sniffling for a moment. As he strained his ears to listen over the sound of the river nearby, he heard what Florian was talking about—a high-pitched wail so much like a baby's cry that he was startled.

  A baby? But what would a baby be doing out in the middle of the Field?

  The wail came again, so full of heartbreak and pain that Karal had to respond to it; he walked in the general direction of the sound, Florian following behind. A few moments later, he knew what it was—not a baby, but a cat.

  "Is that Altra?" he asked, incredulously.

  :Yes,: Florian replied. :He hasn't told you the whole truth, Karal. The Firecats are almost exactly like us—like Companions, except that they have magic to protect themselves, and they can move themselves the way someone who has the Fetching Gift can move an object. They are mortal, they eat—he's been stealing food from the kitchen—and they have no more idea about what is going to happen in the future than you or I do.:

  "That was why he didn't know that the disruption-waves were coming, he only knew something was going to happen." Karal replied absently, distracted for the moment from his grief by this revelation.

  :Yes. And that was why he didn't know you were g
oing to be attacked until it happened. Nor does he know who your attacker was. He blames himself.: Florian's mental voice was saddened and subdued :I can understand that only too well. I had thought about urging you to take a break this morning and come out here for a ride on Trenor, you haven't seen him for days. I keep wondering what would have happened if I had done that instead of just thinking about it.:

  "What's the point in rasping away at yourself with might-have-beens?" Karal retorted. "All you do is make yourself hurt more—"

  :I know that. You know that. It is Altra who needs to hear that.: They were practically on top of the wailing now, and Karal made out a white form curled into a ball of misery, wailing disconsolately into the night. Karal's heart and his resolve to stay controlled broke at the same time.

  "Altra—" he cried, flinging himself down in the grass beside the Firecat. He took the Cat into his arms exactly as Talia had taken him into her comforting embrace, and his tears started again. "Altra, Altra, it wasn't your fault."

  :I had to choose,: the Cat cried in his mind. I had to choose, and I was sent for you, so I had to choose you.:

  "And you almost saved both of us anyway," Karal told him, holding his furred body tightly, as the Firecat shivered with more than physical cold. "You aren't the Sunlord, Altra, you can't know everything or be everywhere at once. You did your best. I know that."

  :But I couldn't—save—him!: The heartbreaking wail began again. Altra had no way to shed tears, so Karal did the crying for them both.

  Florian stood vigil over them, a solid, comforting presence in the dark, until they were finally too tired to weep anymore.

  In the end, Karal picked up the exhausted Firecat—who must have weighed nearly half what he himself did—and carried him to the ekele, with Florian walking beside them. Firesong was still awake, but he said nothing when he met them all at the entrance to his home, neither about the lateness of the hour nor Karal's odd burden. He only gestured for Karal to follow and led the way to that peculiar room draped to resemble the interior of a tent.

  And this was where Karal talked to Altra until the sun rose, telling him all the things he had tried to tell himself, and in so doing, seeing the truth in those things. That was where they finally slept, spent and exhausted—but neither one alone.

  When Karal awoke, he knew by the sun that it was well into the afternoon. He'd slept far later than he had thought he would, and Altra was still curled against him. The Firecat woke as soon as he moved, though, and raised his head to look at him with shadowed blue eyes.

  "Altra?" he said, quietly.

  :I will be all right,: the Firecat replied. :The pain—it is bearable, now. We have things we must do; you especially, and he would not thank us for neglecting them.:

  Karal rubbed at his eyes; they were sore and gummy, the lashes all stuck together. His nose and cheeks were tender from scrubbing at them. Odd how such little discomforts distracted a person from grief, but not enough to be more than one more burden.

  He had awakened with a heaviness of soul that cast a gray shadow over everything. He knew that he ought to be hungry, but he had no appetite whatsoever.

  He scratched Altra's ears—the Firecat didn't seem to mind being caressed like an ordinary cat. All of his things were here, piled into baskets at the sides of the fabric-draped room. Was this supposed to look like the inside of a Shin'a'in tent? Probably. So this would be An'desha's room, though he doubted An'desha used it much.

  Now he wondered what it was about An'desha that Talia had wanted to talk about. If she hadn't come to their suite, would things have fallen out any differently?

  No matter. He should follow his own advice, and not torture himself with might-have-beens. The danger from the disruption-waves hadn't gone, just because Ulrich was—

  His eyes stung.

  There was still work to do. He should get changed and do it.

  "Altra, you ought to stay here and rest." The fur under his hand felt harsh and brittle, and Altra looked in poor shape, as if the events of yesterday had completely depleted him. "I'll be back after I find out what everyone else is doing."

  "Everyone else—the mages and the Prince, that is—is—are?—coming here," Firesong said from the doorway. Karal's head snapped up and he started; he hadn't heard anything at all to indicate that Firesong was in the hallway. "With an unknown agent somewhere in the Palace, the others are reluctant to trust that he or she might not be somehow listening. The ekele is safe enough; I supervised every bit of the building myself, and before you arrived I checked for more such little gifts as were distributed yesterday."

  The Hawkbrother entered the room and sank down on his haunches beside the pallet that Karal and Altra shared. He studied Karal for a very long time without saying a word; Karal didn't say anything either. He was too tired, and too grief-laden to play at verbal fencing with the Healing Adept. If Firesong wanted to know something, then he could damned well ask it.

  "I think I understand, now," Firesong said, out of the blue.

  "What?" Still less was Karal ready to trade non sequiturs.

  "What An'desha sees in you." Firesong continued to sit on his heels, watching Karal measuringly.

  Karal traded him back look for look. Firesong was baiting him, and he was not going to rise to it. Maybe the Hawkbrother meant well, trying to distract him from his sorrow, but he'd chosen a bad tactic to use.

  "Talia wanted to talk with you and—" Firesong hesitated, then went gamely on. "She had already spoken with me. An'desha is in the midst of a crisis, she thinks; he is afraid of setting his feelings free, and he is afraid of losing control of himself if he keeps examining those 'Ma'ar' memories. Evidently they are the most powerful and the most seductive of all. Falconsbane was mad, purely and simply, but Ma'ar was as close to sane as anyone of his ilk is ever likely to be. He had reasons and rationalizations for everything he did, and I suppose that is what makes his memories so seductive." Firesong shrugged. "An'desha is afraid of much, and I have lost patience with his timidity. Frankly, I do not think he is going to be of much use to us unless he can face what he has inside him without being afraid of it, and I know he will not be of much use—ah—to us, if he keeps shutting off how he feels."

  "That's what you told Talia?" Karal asked.

  "And now you," Firesong confirmed. "Now, more than ever, we cannot afford to have anyone handicapped, and at the moment An'desha is like a hooded falcon."

  "Or a racehorse with hobbles and blinders." Karal nodded. "Let me think about this."

  "Fair enough." Firesong stood; today he had chosen to dress all in white, as if to represent the winter that drew nearer with every passing day. "I—I am not always this insensitive. If I had a choice, I would not have mentioned it until you were feeling better. It is a burden you could do without."

  "But we don't have the time for sensitivity," Karal acknowledged. "I understand."

  "You can bathe in the pools below," the mercurial mage said then, changing the subject completely. "There is food in the kitchen. The others will be here shortly."

  And with that, he turned in a swirl of long sleeves and crystal-bead fringe, vanishing as silently as he had arrived.

  Food. No, he still didn't want to even think about food. Nor about all the times that Ulrich had teased him about how much he ate—

  Wait. This is all wrong. I should think about things like that. He should remember as much as he could; there was good advice buried in nearly everything that Ulrich had told him, and now he was going to have to glean as much of it out of his memories as he could.

  :He used to offer me cat-mint, you know, as a kind of joke, as if it would affect me as it does a real cat.:

  Altra looked up at him from the pallet.

  "And what did you do?" Karal asked obediently.

  :Asked him to make it into tea, and serve it in a civilized fashion.: Altra sighed. :It was funny at the time.:

  "It will be funny again," Karal promised warmly. "I'll bring you something to eat, if you
like."

  :So Florian spilled my secret, did he?: Altra actually snorted, and looked annoyed for a heartbeat. :Ah, well, I couldn't stay mystical and inscrutable forever, I suppose. Please bring me something that isn't breadish or vegetablish.:

  "I'll be glad to, as soon as I have a quick bath." At least Altra still had an appetite. That was something, anyway, a sign that the Firecat was on the way to recovering.

  He found that he felt better after a bath and a change of clothing. It did help that there was nothing at all here to remind him of Ulrich. He didn't think he would be able to maintain his own fragile stability if there had been.

  He still had no appetite, though; rummaging around in the larder didn't do anything to remove the lump of cold grief from his stomach. He confined himself to taking care of Altra; he found some fish that was so fresh it must have been caught that very morning, and decided that someone in the two-person household had seen Altra for what he really was. And while the Firecat didn't precisely fall on the offering as if he was half-starved, he certainly polished every scrap off during the time it took Karal to change into clean clothing.

  I'm the only Karsite representative, now, he thought, as he examined his clothing. Until Solaris sends someone else—it's me or no one. I'd better look the part.

  He chose one of his formal robes, and carefully arranged his sun-disk pendant over the front placket. He wished there was a mirror.

  :You look very impressive,: Altra observed from the bed. :You've grown since you came here. You're a bit young for an envoy, but as old as some ruling nobles I've seen, even as old as some reigning monarchs. I've even heard of Sons of the Sun no older than you.:

  Karal tugged his tunic straight. "I'll have to do," he replied. "There isn't anyone else for the moment."

  "You'll do very well." Once again, Firesong had appeared out of nowhere. He eyed Karal carefully and nodded with satisfaction. "No longer the retiring little secretary. Very good. Let's go down, the others are waiting."

  :You'll be fine,: Altra murmured.

  Well, he would, if appearance was all that counted. He only hoped he could be so confident of his abilities.