Brightly Burning v(-10

by Mercedes Lackey

  "I didn't!" Lavan sobbed. "I didn't! Oh, gods, why didn't I die, too?"

  :He means it,: Kalira said warningly, and turned her attention back to the boy.

  "You didn't die because you don't deserve to die!" Pol said firmly, closing his hand on the boy's shoulder and willing him to believe.

  "Neither did they!" Lavan moaned, shrinking into himself.

  "That may be. Look at me, Lavan!" He turned the boy's tear-streaked face up so that he had to look into Pol's eyes. His swollen eyes begged for the reassurance that Pol was about to give him. "Now, listen to me! If those boys, out of ignorance, had teased a herd of horses and stampeded them, were the horses to blame?"

  "N-no." Perhaps it was the drugs, perhaps the exhaustion, but Lavan had not dropped into unreasoning hysteria. He was listening.

  "And if those boys had been trampled beneath their hooves, what then?" he persisted. "Do we kill the horses because their panic overwhelmed their reason?"

  "So this—thing—inside of me—is like a herd of wild horses?" Lavan said tentatively, his eyes beseeching Pol for the comfort of confirmation.

  Pol nodded, firmly. "Very like. Quite as unreasoning. If you had been Chosen and come to us before this ability of yours got so inextricably entangled with your fear and anger, perhaps it would have been like a herd of horses harnessed into a team. But—!" he continued, holding up a finger to forestall any interruptions. "That is only a 'perhaps'—and a herd turned into a team can still break free and stampede. I don't know enough about your Gift to tell you anything for certain." He sighed and rubbed the back of his own neck. "I don't think anyone ever has."

  Lavan scrubbed tears from his face, leaving behind a smear of ash, and sniffed, then gulped. "Now what?" he said, in a very small voice.

  "Now we train you as best we can," Pol said, feeling a terrible weight of responsibility descending on his shoulders. "Kalira says that she can control this Gift of yours, and I have never known a Companion to be wrong about something when she is so very certain of her ability."

  "What about—" Lavan waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the city. "What about what I did at the school?" His eyes pled for forgiveness, for some sort of redemption.

  Pol looked to Satiran for help. What would they do? What was the moral and ethical course to steer through this morass? It seemed to him that whatever they chose to do, it would be wrong!

  :For now...: Satiran pondered. :For now, nothing. I believe that Captain Telamaine will decide to permit the parents of the dead boys to come to their own conclusions, without revealing that Lavan has any unusual Gifts.:

  Pol wondered if Satiran or Kalira had put that plan into the Captain's head. Then again—probably not. Telamaine would not have been put in charge of the Guard here in Haven if he was not able to arrive at compromise.

  "People are going to find out eventually," Pol protested.

  :Perhaps. But memories fade. It is entirely possible that no one will connect Trainee Lavan with Lavan Chitward by then—or put a Firestarting Gift together with the disaster at the school.:

  :Even if they do,: Kalira interjected, :there is nothing they can do about it. I suspect if they dared to bring it up before the Crown, the King would have a few choice words to say about the kind of person who gains his amusement from torturing and abusing the weak and undefended.:

  Pol couldn't help it; however grave the situation, he couldn't stop his lips from quirking into a little smile at the way Kalira leaped to Lan's defense.

  Then he sighed. It wasn't entirely a moral or ethical course, but it was the closest he could see to steering one. "Go to bed, Lavan," he said at last, feeling quite as weary as Lavan. "This is more than we can deal with in a single night. Just remember this, every time that you start to feel afraid, or guilty, or angry. Companions don't Choose wrongly. That is something we all know, at the core of our souls."

  :And if you forget,: Kalira said, half amused, and half fiercely, :I will certainly remind you.:

  Pol walked Lavan to the door, where the Healers had been waiting impatiently; this time they took him to a different room, one on the ground floor, where a large window could be opened to the garden. These rooms were used for Heralds, so that their Companions could be near them. Kalira settled herself in for the night at the window, and Pol and Satiran walked slowly back to the Collegium, side by side.

  "What are we going to do with this one?" Pol asked, unable to see how this situation could ever be made into a success.

  :We'll do what we have to,: Satiran replied. :We'll do what we have to. But there's something else I think you should know—:

  Pol braced himself. A hundred dire possibilities ran through his mind, but once again, the story of Lavan Chitward was going to surprise him with the unexpected.

  :This—is not just Kalira's Choice,: Satiran said hesitantly. :I think—I think it's a lifebond.:

  TEN

  POL was not finished for the night, after all.

  No sooner had he crossed the threshold into Herald's Collegium, he was surrounded by people; Captain Telamaine, the Lord Marshal and his Herald, Marak—the Seneschal and his Herald, Trevor—and the King's Own, Herald Jedin. Pinning him into the poorly-lit entryway, none of them were willing to let him pass until each of them had gotten a say in matters.

  The factions were equal and quite clearly demarcated along color lines; the Heralds in their white uniforms on his right, the others in their varicolored court clothing on the other. They all began talking at once, creating a babble that echoed up and down the hallway and rose in sound level as each tried to be heard over the rest. This was an impossible situation, and Pol put his foot down immediately.

  "Shut up, all of you!" he roared, silencing them. Heads popped out of doors up and down the hall, and quickly retreated when the rank of those clustered at the entry had been noted. It was too late to hope that curiosity hadn't been aroused; he could only hope that the incident was quickly forgotten. "Now, I suggest we take this to the Lesser Council Chamber before you frighten all the Trainees and set the Court to making up gossip for lack of concrete information." He glared at all of them; he rarely invoked his ability to cow a group, but that made the skill all the more effective when he displayed it. Without waiting for an answer, he strode off down the corridor, leaving them to follow in his wake. The wood-paneled hall remained silent; no more heads popped from doors. Pol hoped that this altercation was of less interest than books and interrupted studies.

  Once they were out of the Heralds' Wing and into the Palace proper he breathed a bit easier. Processions of officials going to and from various rooms at any and all hours were perfectly normal sights in the Palace. He nodded affably at pages and passing courtiers, and the others had the wit to do likewise. Through the maze of hallways and passages they went, occasionally interrupting a lovers' tryst or sending a group of truant pages to find some other hiding place, until they arrived at the substantial door of the Lesser Council Room, which served for meetings of segments of the Council and three Circles most of the hours of the day. At this hour the fire was out, but thanks to the warmth of the evening, the room had taken on no more than a faint chill. He took a taper from the shelf beside the door, lit it at a lamp in the hallway, then went around relighting the room's lamps himself as the others filed inside. Only when he had seated himself at the head of the rectangular oak table and the heavy ironwood door was firmly closed behind the last of the group did he wait for the others to seat themselves, clear his throat, and look around with an inquiring glance, inviting one of them to start. They all hesitated for a moment except the Captain.

  "I don't know what kind of mind-magic you worked on me out there, Pol," Captain Telamaine began heatedly. "But as soon as I got back to my office, I came to my senses about that—that—menace in the guise of a boy! I've put guards on him, and I went straight to the Lord Marshal—"

  "Which I had every intention of doing myself, although I don't think I would have dared interrupt him if he had alread
y retired for the night," Pol replied, keeping his own voice calm and reasoned. "As for using mind-magic on you—first of all, I am appalled that you even considered that I would consider doing so, and second, the only 'magic' taking place during our interview with Lavan was the exercise of your own good sense, which you seem to have lost between Healer's and here."

  "Well said," Jedin muttered, low enough that only Pol heard him.

  "As for the guards," Pol continued, raising an eyebrow with studied surprise. "What, precisely, did you intend for them to do? The boy is hardly going to evoke his Firestarting Gift on purpose—you saw for yourself that he is terrified of what he can do—and even if he did it by accident, how do you propose to stop him with a guard? Have them shoot him dead? Assuming they can, of course. It is possible that the fires would protect their progenitor." The carefully nuanced eyebrow rose again. "And wouldn't killing a Trainee create a fine and confident climate among the rest of our Trainees? A good half of them are afraid of their own Gifts; how are they to take it if members of the Guard start executing people for using Gifts?"

  Telamaine flushed, then blanched, then flushed again. "I—' he began, and couldn't get any farther.

  The Lord Marshal took pity on him. "You responded as a Captain of the Guard to a situation outside your training, Telamaine," the old man said gruffly, actually reaching out to pat the Captain's shoulder. He rubbed his bushy gray eyebrows with his hand, and then ran the same hand over thick, gray hair. "Putting guards on the boy until you had further orders was in accordance with not knowing what to do about it."

  "And now we will make a reasoned and reasoning response to the situation and correct things before they become a problem," Pol pointed out smoothly. "We need thought, cool heads and tempers, and one thing made perfectly clear. The boy has been Chosen. The mare Kalira is no youngster. Furthermore, she made it known in no uncertain terms to my Companion Satiran—who happens to be her sire—and to me personally, that she can and will control his Gift."

  "Gift?" the Seneschal yelped, both eyebrows leaping up like a pair of startled caterpillars. "You call that a Gift?"

  "Cool and reasoned," murmured Trevor, placing a cautioning hand on the Seneschal's arm. Pol couldn't blame the poor man; he was much younger than any of the others, having come to this position from his previous post as the Seneschal of Theran's country estate. When he wasn't confronted by impossible situations, he was quite a handsome young fellow, and very much the target of the mothers of unwedded maidens.

  Seneschal Greeley ran a nervous hand through a thick thatch of brown hair that was growing grayer by the month. Trevor murmured something Pol couldn't hear, and he rolled his eyes, but didn't add any more little comments.

  "Nevertheless," Captain Telamaine persisted. "That so-called boy caused the deaths of four of his own schoolmates. Just what are we supposed to say to their parents?"

  "A damned good question!" Greeley seconded, nodding vigorously.

  All four Heralds exchanged a glance. King's Own Jedin took over from Pol. He had more authority than any of the others, and Pol was perfectly glad to let him handle the discussion from this moment on.

  "Tell them that there was a terrible accident that occurred while their offspring were bullying this boy," Jedin said flatly. "That we think there was—lamp oil stored there, one of them threw the boy Lavan into the stack of containers, they broke open and spilled into the fireplace. That was how and why the fire happened so quickly."

  For one long moment of absolute silence, the non-Heralds stared at Jedin in disbelief. Finally Captain Telamaine broke the silence with a gasp of protest.

  "But that's not true!" he sputtered. "Nothing like that happened!"

  Herald Jedin gazed at him from beneath his heavy, black eyebrows. He was a great granite cliff of a man, with a craggy face, precisely barbered black hair, and a naturally forbidding expression that he used to great effect. "I am well aware of that."

  "But—" Telamaine protested.

  Jedin held up his hand, cutting off the protests before they began. "But would any good be served by telling them the truth? Telling them the entire truth? Including the fact that their sons were essentially torturing other children on a regular basis, ordering them to commit theft and falsehood? Telling them that their sons died because one of their victims was so abused and terrified that he lost control of a powerful Heraldic Gift? And then telling them that the boy who killed their children is being made into a Herald himself?"

  "Which would, of course," King Theran boomed from the door, "Substantially erode public trust in the Heraldic Circle, upon which we all depend."

  They all shoved their chairs back hastily and began to rise, only to have Theran wave them back down into their seats. Pol alone rose and vacated the head of the table; Theran assumed his proper place smoothly, and Pol took another seat farther down along the side, relieved that the pressure was now entirely off him.

  Theran looked like a King; Pol had often heard children presented at Court exclaim in satisfaction that "he looked just like I thought he would!" Tall, muscular, with even, regular features, a fine head of blond-streaked brown hair that hung down past his shoulders, and a thick, neatly trimmed beard and mustache that matched perfectly, he was one of the most physically commanding men Pol had ever seen.

  "I have heard about everything so far," Theran said, without specifying that it was his own Companion that had told him what had gone on. He didn't need to; Theran had a singularly close bond with his Companion, which meant that he knew everything that any Companion in Haven knew. He met the eyes of each of them in turn. "I can appreciate the concerns that the Guard has with this boy," he said, resting his eyes on Captain Telamaine and the Lord Marshal. "Please believe me, I do. I do not make my decisions lightly here, but if this Kingdom is to survive and prosper, there are some fundamental principles that we must believe in without question, and one of the most crucial is that our Companions do not make mistakes when they Choose new Heralds, and that when they tell us something is true, we can believe it without question."

  The Heralds around the table nodded, relieved that Theran had put this into such plain language. The others looked crestfallen and uncomfortable, but in tentative agreement.

  "Now, this child's Companion has told us that she can control his rogue abilities, although he cannot as yet. We must believe this, and Captain Telamaine, this should alleviate any security issues you have."

  Telamaine got a stubborn set to his chin, but Theran wasn't done. Whatever the Captain wanted to say would have to remain unsaid. The King held the floor, and was not about to relinquish it. Theran was a powerful man, overmatching even his very powerful King's Own Herald. Jedin could defeat anyone in Court and Collegium at wrestling and practice combat, even the Weaponsmaster and professional fighters—except the King. Theran rarely used his physical presence to dominate. He didn't have to. And that alone said much about him.

  "It seems that his—outbreaks—occur when he undergoes great emotional stress. Therefore I suggest to you that you leave the guards on him, but instruct them to quickly remove anyone who seems to be causing this boy such stresses before they trigger another incident." Theran and his Herald exchanged a brief look (barely more than a flicker of amusement) as Captain Telamaine sighed with relief. This was something that the Guard could accomplish, and having a task defined evidently made him feel that he had some control over the situation. And without a doubt, Theran had been well aware of this before he even began issuing his edicts and orders.

  Theran continued gravely, now giving his attention to his Seneschal. "His Companion also tells us, after minute examination of his memories, that the boy had no intention of killing or even seriously injuring his persecutors. We must also believe this, and thus, in a very real sense, what happened after that was an accident in truth." Theran waited, and this time it was the Seneschal who objected with a raised finger.

  "You only said seriously injure—" he protested, his hair standing on end from
his ceaseless toying with it, giving him the look of a frazzled heron. "So the boy was willing to hurt them!"

  Theran snorted; his long friendship with his Seneschal allowed him to handle the man differently than the Guard Captain. "Oh, come now, Greeley! The boy had been beaten to a pulp, slammed into walls, and they'd started flogging him! What do you expect? It would take a saint or a martyr to be forgiving under that sort of circumstance, and although I do require many things of my Heralds, I do not require them to be more than human! Of course he wanted to hurt them! So would you, so would I, and so would any other man. If these juvenile tyrants weren't already out of my jurisdiction, I would be doing significantly more than merely hurting them, and with a certain grim pleasure, might I add! I am sorely tempted to administer a little royal justice to the ones that didn't die!"