Changes v(cc-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  And he didn’t want to listen to the convoluted, paranoid fantasy of someone who had turned into an attention addict. Not when it was distracting him from real danger and obscuring how he was supposed to solve it.

  The room seemed way too hot. He wanted to lie down or get a drink, but most of all, he wanted to be alone.

  And suddenly, as Lena added her voice, much more shrill than usual, the gathering turned from supportive and friendly to argumentive and confrontational. And Mags had no idea how it had gotten that way.

  Or why.

  Wait—

  Yes, he did know. He just couldn’t do anything about any of it. Because despite having survived the kidnapping, nothing had changed. Well, nothing, except that right now the bare thought of how narrow their escape had been was making him feel sick; paradoxically, as more time passed, he was getting more obsessive and anxious about that narrow escape. In the short term—he would stand by what he said; there was no way that Ice and Stone would make a second kidnapping attempt, not this soon, not when the whole Hill was on alert.

  But for the long-term, paranoid fantasies aside, Amily probably was still in danger, and she still could not defend herself or even run away with her leg the way it was.

  Now, on the one hand, if the “short-term” could just extend to getting her leg fixed, she would at least not be a literal sitting target. But that bizarre story she was spinning around herself was the equivalent of the tale of the little boy who yelled for help in the woods once too often... the more she talked, the less anyone would even pretend to listen. The less they listened, the wilder her story would become. Eventually no one would take her or the danger she was in seriously. And that would be when she was in the most danger of all.

  He couldn’t think... he just could not think of a way to tell her this without making her angry.

  Everything else was, oh, gods, the same old problems. Nothing had actually been done about them. Bear and Lena still were unable to grow spines and just deal with their parents.

  And he still hadn’t done anything remotely useful about these killers except to uncover that they were (probably) in the pay of the Karsites, and that had been by purest accident.

  Nothing had changed. They were all circling the same stagnant problems, accomplishing nothing. And from the way things looked, they would keep circling the same stagnant problems forever.

  At that moment, Lena’s voice hit a particularly piercing note, at least to his ears, and a lance of pain stabbed through his temple. He clapped one hand to his head and swore.

  At least that shut them up.

  “Mags?” Amily said. “Are you all right?”

  No, I ain’t all right, an’ anybody not completely balled up i’ ’er own liddle center uf ’er own little universe ’d see thet!

  “Headache,” he said, between clenched teeth. And when Bear started to get up and come over to look at him, he confronted Bear with a snarl, making him back up a pace. “Don’ touch me, Bear! I ain’t some whinging li’l soft thing whut’s never had wuss’n a broke nail, all right? It’s jest a headache.”

  Bear fidgeted with his glasses. “Sometimes headaches come from something worse—you might have—”

  “I been looked over,” he snapped. “I been looked over good. Nobuddy found nothin’.” He squinted at all of them. “I jest need somethin’ right now that ain’t squallin’ an’ whingin’ an’ argufyin’. Like mebbe some peace.”

  Bear frowned. “That’s not a—”

  “Don’ say it,” he growled. Bear backed up another pace.

  “I think we should go,” Lena whispered. She looked—scared. Did he look that ferocious?

  Evidently he did. Amily looked as if there was something about him she was suddenly unsure of.

  So unsure that she picked up her crutches from beside the chair by herself and struggled to her feet without any help from him. “I think we should go and let Mags get some rest,” she said, but she did it with a look at Lena that somehow managed to imply that it was Lena who was at fault.

  Or at least, that was the way that Lena reacted.

  But mercifully, before they could get into it again, Bear got them all out the door.

  Mags started to throw himself down on the now vacant bed, when he realized that Amily—

  ::I’ve got it,:: Dallen informed him. ::I’m not letting them past me till Bear boosts Amily up on my—there we go.::

  For one moment, Mags was even feeling a surge of resentment against Dallen for interfering, but he throttled it down and cursed himself for letting pain get to him that badly.

  But this was, without a doubt, the worst headache he had ever had in his life. For a moment he was tempted to call Bear back and beg him to have a look—

  But he’d been looked at. Four—five—six Healers? He’d lost count. They’d all gone over him to make sure he hadn’t been poisoned secretly or cracked over the head or something else. And they’d all said he was fine.

  Gotta be the heat. This was the worst summer he could remember.

  ::Thanks,:: he told Dallen briefly, and even that single word hurt his head to project.

  Quarrelsome voices and hoofbeats moved out of the stable. It seemed as though now they were arguing about which of them had given Mags the headache.

  Except, of course, that was not what they were fighting about. It was just the excuse to fight. They might not recognize, as he had, the underlying causes, but they certainly felt those causes. They knew, all three of them, that they were getting nowhere. But at least two of the three weren’t willing, or weren’t ready, to do what they had to to solve their situation,

  “Treat th’ cause an’ not th’ symptom,” he muttered. But if you couldn’t make yourself face the cause?

  “Hellfires,” he growled. He levered himself up out of his bed and laid down on the floor. At least it was cooler there.

  A lot cooler.

  He closed his eyes and prepared to wait out the pain.

  That, at least, was something he was good at.

  But the next thing he knew, it was morning.

  Chapter 16

  Morning, sadly, did not bring much relief. His room still felt stifling once he stood up. His head throbbed, and he felt vaguely nauseated. He began to wonder if he had eaten something bad—or if those murdering bastards had somehow managed to poison him after all. Was this how that guide had felt, and just brushed it off as something that would go away?

  He didn’t feel all that bad.

  But he didn’t feel all that good either.

  Dallen whispered something into his mind—too faint to make out. Th’ hell? he thought with irritation. ::What?:: he replied. ::Cain’t hear ye.::

  This time, though still whispered, the sense was clear. ::You’ve over-taxed your Gift. It took both of us to fend off the attacks of Ice and Stone’s shield-constructs. Holding your shields against it took more than either of us would have thought. You were shouting for help so loudly that the Gifted heard you down in Haven. Then you helped interrogate Pawel. Now you’re paying for it.::

  Bah. Well, he wasn’t going to use Mindvoice then until it stopped hurting. Doing so would probably only make things worse. He looked down at himself, realized he was still dressed, and opened the door into the Stable.

  He marched straight over to Dallen’s stall. “Is there anythin’ I kin do fer this?” he asked aloud.

  Dallen regarded him with his head tilted to the side, then managed to make a strange sound. After a moment, Mags recognized it as snoring.

  “Sleep’t off, eh?”

  Dallen nodded.

  Well, he wasn’t going to get any sleep in that room. All the things that made it so nice and warm in the winter were turning it into an oven, and he was the bread.

  “Look, tell—whoever—I’m a-gonna find somewheres cool t’sleep. Don’ care iffen I miss class. Don’ care iffen I miss food. Cain’t eat anyroad.”

  After a moment, Dallen nodded, then rattled the chain on his water bucket.
That was easy enough to understand.

  Drink plenty of water.

  “Aye. I will.”

  He stopped long enough to take a pillow and one of his leather water bottles. He filled the latter at the pump and trudged up through air that was positively leaden with heat and humidity to the Palace. That lower level where the crystal sphere was had been cool enough... maybe there was another room down there he could borrow long enough to get some sleep.

  But all the doors were locked except that one.

  He opened the door and stepped just inside, and the cool felt like a gift from the hand of a god. Even the lamp didn’t seem to be giving off much heat. He considered the room. Considered the crystal with a wary eye. True, he was not intending to use it, but what if it... oh... used itself? He drank from his water bottle while he considered the risk.

  After all, there was probably a reason why the thing was down here all by itself, hidden away in a room hardly anyone seemed to visit . . .

  On the other hand, it hadn’t done anything when he and Amily had been here. The benches were padded, and with his pillow one would be as good as a bed.

  But the breath of cold from the room finally persuaded him. He closed the door behind himself, sat down, then laid himself down on his side, fitted his back along the curve of the bench, shoved his pillow under his head and closed his eyes.

  It just felt so good... even if he didn’t actually get any sleep, the cool made his head throb a lot less.

  He drifted off into a semiconscious state that was not quite sleep and not quite wakefulness.

  It felt as if there were something, or someone, in the room with him. Uneasily, he tried to move but found he could not. Under other circumstances he might have panicked—

  But he was in the Palace. Whatever it was, it would have had to get past so many protections, it couldn’t possibly be a danger. And it wasn’t actually doing anything. It wasn’t even paying any attention to him. It was just there. As if it had been there all along, and he was only just noticing it.

  He slowly became aware that it wasn’t anything alive—at least, not as he understood the state of being alive. Finally, he knew what it was, what it had to be.

  It was the stone.

  The stone became aware of him as soon as he became aware that the stone was what it was. He felt it regarding him in a detached way.

  Perhaps he should have been alarmed, but he wasn’t. And yet, he knew he had sensed something similar recently, from a source that did alarm him. What was it? Where had he seen this before?

  The shields. The shields on Ice and Stone. This was like those shields. Except for the part about trying to kill him. So what were those shields, and why were they like the stone, anyway?

  He felt the stone noticing, becoming aware of that thought. It didn’t respond as such, but... something floated to the surface. The stone had seen this before.

  There was a strangely peaceful indifference to the stone. It wasn’t responding to him or to his emotions so much as responding to the mechanical stimulation of his question. As he not-quite drowsed, the stone presented him with an answer.

  Ice and Stone were each wearing a talisman. This did not mean what he thought it meant. To his mind, a talisman was a religious token, something meant to bring one closer to one’s god, and make it easier to reach the god when asking for help. But to the stone, a talisman was an item created by magic to protect, hide, and defend the bearer from attacks that were not physical. Like mental coercion, or magic.

  Magic? he thought involuntarily. Protects them from magic?

  The reply wasn’t a thought, exactly. It certainly wasn’t framed in words. But his own mind put it into words, somehow.

  Of course, magic. Just as the stone protects everything within its influence from magic, from even the thought of magic.

  That—don’t make any sense—

  It doesn’t have to, not to you.

  The reply had come with such... cheerful indifference... that he couldn’t take offense. It would be like taking offense because the leaves were green instead of blue. Well, if the stone knew so much and was answering questions—

  So where are they?

  Near. Their talismans interfere with the stone. The stone interferes with them. The result is a pattern of confusion. This means the stone cannot locate them

  Oh.

  Mags drifted a while. The ache in his head ebbed and was soothed as the stone became disturbed by it and moved to rectify the situation.

  He came a little more awake—or maybe just aware—when he sensed... conflict. It was nearby. He groaned a little when he realized it was Amily and her father, fighting. Or rather, Amily was fighting; Nikolas was just standing there, helplessly letting the tirade pour over him.

  A brief flash told Mags what had triggered it. Nikolas had suggested Amily might be better off leaving Haven for a while. He had been going to suggest that she go with an entire group of her friends—Mags included—and just for the summer until it was cool enough to fix her leg. But she hadn’t let him get that far.

  She had worked herself up to the point of hysteria with her terrifying theories anyway. This had just triggered some old, old resentments. “You just want to be rid of me!” The words were distorted by sobbing. “You think I don’t know, that I’ve never figured it out? You’ve always been angry because I lived and mother died! And you’ve always been guilty because you weren’t there! You’ve always resented me because you have to take care of me, and that’s a burden on you that the King’s Own doesn’t need! And you’ve always been disappointed in me because I wasn’t the son you wanted and I was never Chosen!”

  And Nikolas wanted to say, no—no—but he couldn’t. Because that would be a lie. Amily had poured out the bitter truth. It wasn’t all the truth, how could it be? He loved his daughter. He was proud of her, prouder than ever after she willingly made bait of herself, even though she was terrified. But every word she said was also true... how could it not be? He had adored his wife, and her loss was an ache inside him that would never heal. How could he not but feel guilt that he was not there? And... at the times when the ache was the worst, how could he not look at Amily and think, why was it you and not her?

  As for Amily being a burden—she was. There was nothing she could do about that. There was nothing he could do about the fact that he was not just a Herald, he was the King’s Own, and that brought with it an entire load of additional responsibilities. And he knew, because he winced when he thought about it, that there had been so many times when he had been laden down already and she had needed something, and he had thought, Oh, if only you were not here . . .

  As for not being a son... every man wants a son. Every man is filled with fear and unease, along with delight, at being presented with a daughter instead. Daughters belong to that strange, delightful, but incomprehensible woman-tribe, but a son... ah, a son is a member of the man-tribe. A man can understand a son. A man doesn’t have to be afraid for a son . . .

  And not being Chosen? Oh, that opened up a world of mingled relief and disappointment—what father doesn’t want the best for his child? And there was nothing better than having that perfect friend, that perfect support, that was a Companion. But relief that she would never know the endless self-sacrifice required of a Herald, never have to look at someone she loved, and think If only you were not here . . .

  Mags pulled away from the fight, feeling queasy. That wasn’t anything he wanted to know... and how in hell was Nikolas going to reconcile all of that? How could anyone? Suddenly, Mags felt a lot more sympathy with Jakyr, who fled any hint of connection, much less commitment.

  Maybe that was why Nikolas had practically thrown Amily at Mags when he realized the two were attracted to each other. Mags... could take her, take the burden onto himself and leave Nikolas free to only be the King’s Own, and not Amily’s father. Mags could protect her, when Nikolas could not—as Nikolas had not been able to protect her and her mother. Mags would shoulder the burde
n, and Mags certainly wasn’t disappointed with her . . .

  No, Mags didn’t want to know any of this.

  Not when he had felt that burden, felt Amily desperately clinging to him, trying to infect him with her crazy theories so that he would make protecting her and being with her his priority.

  And he felt the same frantic smothering that Nikolas did. The same desperate bewilderment as he faced two duties with only enough time, energy, and attention for one.