Crucible (25 page)

—and was suddenly on Graya's back, riding down a rutted road near the Rethwellan border. The sky was dark and pouring rain, droplets whipped into his eyes by the wind. He was somewhere else, somewhen else, and again he knew exactly where.

Up ahead, around a turn, the road narrowed and bushes had grown right up to the verge on both sides. Bandits crouched in wait, looking to ambush the next traveler to come along. They'd set upon him in the dark, not realizing at first that he was a Herald, and one of them had shot—was going to shoot—Graya.

No. This was another place Arvil didn't want to be, another time he didn't want to relive. He kneed Graya around, ignoring her querying whinny, and they rode back up the road—

—except he wasn't outside, he was walking across a brightly lit tavern, a trencher full of ribs and gravy in one hand and a brimming tankard in the other, on his way to a table away from the chill near the door.

Then he caught sight of the most beautiful man he'd ever seen, and his bad leg collapsed out from under him. With a startled cry, he measured his length on the tavern floor.

The day came back to him as he flailed and sputtered to his feet, babbling apologies to the folk whose clothes he'd soiled with beer and gravy. He was so embarrassed—by his twenty-eighth year, his leg hardly ever gave him much trouble. He limped, yes, but it wasn't weak, nor was it overly clumsy, most of the time. So of course it'd chosen right
then
to rebel.

Amid the curses and complaints, the gorgeous man
was laughing, but not in a way that made Arvil feel bad. Because it was Embry, whose heart was as fair as his face, and this was the day they'd met.

It could have gone better, and Arvil's face burned with shame over his flop-footed clumsiness for most of an hour. But the outcome had been grand, and in that place, at that time, Arvil was willing to go along.

They introduced themselves, and Embry called for a serving girl to bring cloths so everyone could wipe themselves down. Arvil ordered a second supper, and the girl brought it to him with a smirk, saying it'd be less work for her than letting him fetch it himself.

Arvil relaxed onto the hard bench, smiled across at Embry, and let the scene play out. If he let his body go, it did exactly what he'd done, said exactly what he'd said, these six years ago. The scene flowed on, talking and smiles, a brief touch of fingers across the smooth plank table, and just as he felt the shame passing, a heavy, dark fog filled the room.

Arvil yelped in surprise and groped for Embry's arm. He had no idea what was happening or whether it was dangerous, but before he could look around, the fog faded and vanished. He was walking across the room, trencher and tankard in his hands, and as he thought,
again?
he saw Embry and stumbled, falling with a
splat
to the floor.

He was tempted to let the scene play out again. Maybe a few more times. He could relax, enjoy the food and the company, get his bearings.

But it wasn't real. He'd already done this once—twice now, actually—and Graya was out there somewhere. He hoped she hadn't had to live through the bandit ambush again. Or if so, that she'd figured out that she didn't
have
to live through the whole thing, that she could retreat before the arrow found her.

The tavern was warm, the food was good, and
Embry's company was a comfort and a delight. The shame that flowed through him after his fall was easy to push aside. But he needed to leave.

The problem was, he didn't know how.

He could walk out the door, of course, but that'd just take him to some other scene from his past. He needed to get
out
of his memories, not travel farther in.

Letting his body carry him to the table with Embry, eating his second supper, he pondered the scenes he'd come through.

They seemed to be getting better. Less painful, less embarrassing, less hurtful all around. Maybe if he just kept going, followed the memories back as they grew happier, he'd eventually get what he wanted and be back at the tower with Graya.

It was only an idea, but it was all he had, so he decided to try.

He stood up from the table and headed out the door—

—back to the dark, rain-washed road, heading for the bandit ambush.

Good, at least he was going in the right direction. Maybe whatever was taking him through his own past had just been waiting for him to figure out what was going on. He turned Graya and trotted back up the road—

—which took him back to the tavern.

He cursed and forced himself to stop right there in the middle of the floor, before he could stumble over his feet and fall flat, then turned away from where he knew Embry sat and made for the tavern door. He set his trencher and tankard down on an empty patch of table and left—

—and walked out onto the street in front of his family's workshop in Haven. He was trudging down the street with a mattock over his shoulder.

Arvil stopped and looked at the heavy tool, excitement racing through his heart.

Yes! It was a new mattock with a whiteoak handle. He was bringing it back from the smith where his father, a
stonecutter, had commissioned it. He was thirteen, and this was the most wonderful day of his life.

He dropped the mattock and turned to look back down the street. He heard the distinctive ringing of a Companion's hooves on cobbles. The shouting and babbling of the street crowd died down as folk stopped, looked around, pressed back out of the way. Whispers and murmurs built up as the neighborhood folk watched Graya come trotting down the street, shining and beautiful in her blue and silver finery.

Arvil dashed up and threw his arms around her neck. He felt her startled surprise, then a wave of humor and love.

:Arvil, I Choose you,:
she said in his mind, the first and only time she'd ever spoken to him in that way.

He pressed his face into her satiny neck, breathing in the rich scent of clean equine. She was comfort and security and home, and he wanted to stay right there.

His body, acting out the scene while he talked himself into leaving, made an awkward climb into Graya's saddle.

Chuckles from the crowd made him duck his head, but it was friendly laughter. He waved to the crowd just as his mum came dashing out of the house, following a neighbor's daughter who'd gone to fetch her. The look of shock and then pride in his mum's eyes was the last thing he saw before the fog came.

That time he expected to find himself trudging up the street with the mattock. He wanted to stay and relive Graya Choosing him, but he had to leave. What could come after this? What could possibly be better?

Arvil turned around and retraced his steps up the street, turned the corner onto the smith's lane, and between one step and the other his surroundings shifted and he was in the tavern again.

And right then, he knew what was happening.

He had to go through the whole memory. Whatever it
was, he had to see it through. Once the fog came, the scene was over and he could go back to the previous one.

And somehow he knew that he had to go backward, not forward. Forward, into happier and happier memories, was the easy path, and the easy paths were always traps. What better way to bait a trap than with a person's happiest memories?

The way out had to be the harder one, backward.

Arvil let go and walked through meeting Embry again, shared dinner, enjoyed the touch of his hands, the warmth of his smile. And when the fog came, Arvil walked through the door to the rainy road, and Graya, and the ambush.

The bandits called for him to throw down his pack and give them his “horse” or be killed. Graya trumpeted defiance, and Arvil drew his sword.

She reared up and lashed out with her hooves while Arvil swung at a bandit trying to pull him from his mount. Graya's hooves struck a skull and a shoulder, and Arvil's sword slashed deep into a forearm.

His heart pounded in his throat. He knew what was coming, tried to knee Graya to one side, but his leg—his good leg—refused to obey him. Just as one of the bandits found his brain and cried, “Herald!” an arrow swished out of the bushes and found Graya's chest.

Graya neighed, loud with pain and anger, and snapped at another bandit. Arvil slid off her back and lay about him with his sword, letting his own fury and fear give him strength. The bandits retreated, leaving their injured behind to bleed, those who couldn't stumble away on their own.

Arvil removed the arrow as gently as he could, bandaged Graya up, and walked with her, slowly, to the nearest village, letting the rain wash them of blood. Every step was torture, and even knowing she'd live and heal, he felt the agonized fear for her life that he'd felt the first
time. It was a long walk, through the night and into the next morning, and Arvil had to live through every trudging pace of it.

Finally, as they bedded down in a loose box after a wizened stablemaster had done a more professional job of patching Graya up and declared that she would live, the fog came.

Arvil trotted back up the road and walked into the classroom.

Accusations, protests, staring, scorn, shame. Arvil wanted to leave. Knowing he could made it harder, but he stiffened his spine and let the horrible class play out. Herald Kevran finally cast the Truth Spell, and the tension in the room broke.

Not completely—there were still stares and whispers. Kevran sent them back to their desks and their exam. Arvil hunched down and finished the test, handed in the paper, and scurried out the door, into the fog.

Back on the stairs.

Arvil stopped, leaned against the wall for a moment, took a few deep breaths. He could do this. He had to do it.

One. Two. Three. Go.

Jaw clenched, he barreled down the steps, ignoring Graya's trumpeting distress behind him, focusing on down, on chasing the fleeing Lord Halrid.

He watched for the trick step, but he couldn't force himself to hop over it. His foot landed, and the step rotated underneath him, sending him tumbling down. He bounced off the wall, then again, falling, hitting, and finally landed in a moaning, panting heap.

His femur was broken, he knew. And two ribs. And he had had more than one knock on the head. All he knew was stomach-clenching pain and fear and a desperate wish to be anywhere else, doing anything else.

Unconscious would be good.

He waited, each gasp a jab in the chest, and lay there trying to find a position that would ease his broken leg, knowing there was none.

Arvil watched the downward curve of the stairs, and soon Halrid approached, first cautious and then gloating.

Arvil kicked at him with his good leg, but Halrid grabbed his foot and turned to head back down the stairs, dragging Arvil behind him. The knee of Arvil's broken leg banged against the curved inner wall, his broken ribs thumped on the steps, and his head bounced off both as he flailed and twisted, trying to escape. Halrid had a good grip on his boot, though, and hauled him along.

By the time they got to the bottom of the stairs, Arvil's throat was hoarse from screaming. His body was a throbbing mass of pain, and he could only moan when Halrid paused to open a stout wooden door, then dragged him into a small room and heaved him up onto a table in its center.

Blurred vision barely made out the outlines of maps on the walls, cases of books and implements he couldn't identify, and a few chairs. Arvil knew he should be taking in as much as he could, searching for a weapon, any opportunity to escape, but he'd been here before and knew there was none.

“What does the Queen know?” Halrid slammed a fist into Arvil's broken leg and Arvil found he could scream again after all. “Is the army coming? What do they know?”

“Bugger yourself!” gasped Arvil around pained sobs.

“Where's the other one? Is she fetching the army? Tell me!” The fist slammed into the broken ribs that time, and Arvil gasped out curses.

Herald Jinnia, Trainee Arvil's partner and mentor, was at that moment chasing nonexistent rebels through the hills at the edge of Halrid's land. It would be hours before she realized she'd been lured on a snipe hunt.

Telling Halrid that his schemes had worked, that nobody was coming, no army, no one but a battered Trainee and a Herald out chasing mist—telling him that would only encourage him to go on with his plans, which had involved murdering everyone in his demesne who might be a threat, under cover of putting down a rebellion. He'd displayed nearly a hundred bodies before he was done—all declared bandits or rebels—before a regiment of soldiers, along with half a dozen Heralds to cast Truth Spells, had been able to clean up the mess and hang Halrid on his own gallows.

No one could mend the anger and grief of the families who'd lost loved ones, though, honest folk who'd stood up to protest. By the end, Halrid had been executing anyone who mentioned the name of someone he'd hanged.

Arvil had to do whatever he could to stop it, or at least slow it down.

He let his younger body take over, glaring up at his tormentor while gasping for breath, then set his jaw and put on a mask of defiance. Exactly how a Herald would behave if he had important information that he absolutely refused to give to an enemy.

More blows came, and Arvil gasped out insults and curses. He watched through swollen eyes as Halrid's face twisted into a mask of rage and worry.

Arvil gathered himself for one more surge, then flung himself at Halrid with the last of his strength. That final, impossible attack convinced Halrid that the young Herald was stronger than he actually was, and Halrid misjudged his retaliation. A beefy fist impacted Arvil's temple, and with a last moan of pain he lost consciousness.

The room faded, blackness swirled into fog, which clung to him for a long moment, then melted away.

Arvil found himself lying on cracked stone strewn with rotted wood and dirt and years of dead leaves. He cried out in pain and jerked into a sitting position,
gasping for breath and feeling every one of his old aches and stiffness.