Magic's Pawn (45 page)

.-With the other k’Treva?:

:I think perhaps. :

:Where’s Moondance?:

:By himself. Thinking
,: Yfandes said.

: ‘
Fandes
-
did I
- : He swallowed.
:Did I do something wrong last night
?:

She looked at him reproachfully.
:Yes. I think you ought to talk to him. You hurt him more deeply last night than he showed. He’s never told that story to anyone; Savil and Starwind know it, but he never
told
them. And he’s never even told Starwind how badly he
still
feels. It cost him a great deal to tell it to you
.:

His first reaction was guilt. His second was anger.

By his own admission, Moondance’s tragic affair had been nothing more than that - an affair doomed to be brief. How could he even
begin
to compare his hurt with Vanyel’s? Moondance wasn’t alone -

Moondance hadn’t murdered Starwind - just some stupid gleeman, who would have passed out of his life in a few weeks. A common player, and no great love.

Moondance still had Starwind. Would always have Starwind. Vanyel would be alone forever. So how
could
Moondance compare the two of them?

Yfandes seemed to sense something of what was going
on
in his mind; she pulled away from him, a little, and looked - or was it
felt?
-
offended.

That only made him angrier.

Without another word, spoken or thought, he turned on his heel and ran - away from her, away from the
Tayledras
- away from all of them. Ran to a little corner at the end of the vale, a sullen grove of dark, fleshy-leaved trees and ferns, where very little light ever came. He pushed his way in among them, and curled up around his misery and his anger, his stomach churning, his eyes stinging.

They don’t give a damn about me
-
just about what I can do. They don’t care how much I hurt, all they want is for me to do what I’m told. Savil just wants to see me tricked into being a Herald, that’s all. They don’t any of them understand! They don’t any of them know how much
-
I-
-

He began crying silently. ‘
Lendel, ‘Lendel, they don’t know how much of me died with you. All I want is to be left
alone.
Why can’t they leave me
alone?
Why can’t they stop trying to make me do what they want? They’re all alike, dammit, they’re just like Father, the only thing different is what they want out of me! Oh ‘Lendel
-
I
need you so much
-

He stayed there, crying off and on, until full dark-then crept as silently as he could back to the building-part of him hoping to find them waiting for him.

Only to find it as vacant as when he’d left it. In fact, only the night-lamps were burning, and those were only left for the benefit of any of the
Tayledras
who might care to come down to the ground during the night. It didn’t even look as if he’d been missed.

They don’t care
, he thought forlornly, surveying the empty, ill-lit rooms.
They really
don’t
care. Oh, gods
-

His stomach knotted up into a hard, squirming ball.

No one cares. No one ever did except ‘Lendel. And no one ever will again.

His shoulders slumped, and a second hard lump clogged his throat. He made another circuit of the rooms, but they stayed achingly, echoingly empty. No sign of anyone. No sign anyone would ever come back.

After pacing through the place until the echoes of his own footsteps were about to drive him into tears, he finally crawled into bed.

And cried himself to sleep.

Leareth laughed; his icy laughter echoed off the cliffs as he held up one hand and made the simplest of gestures. A mage-storm swirled into being precisely at the edge of Vanyel’s defenses. Vanyel poured power into his shielding; this was the last, the very last of his protections
. He
was drained, the energy-sources were drained, and he himself had taken far more damage in the duel than he would allow Leareth to know
.

He was no match for the scouring blast that peeled his shields away faster than he could replace them. Leareth smiled behind his mage-storm, as if he knew that Vanyel was weakening by the moment. Sweat ran into his eyes and started to freeze there; he went to his knees, still fighting, and knowing he was going to lose. Leareth seemed not even wearied.

A final blast struck down the last of his protections. Vanyel screamed as agony such as he’d never known before arced through his body
-

Vanyel woke up; the bed was soaking with sweat, and he was shaking so hard the ferns over his head quivered. He was afraid that he had screamed out loud.

But when no one came running into the room, he knew that he hadn’t; that everything had been in the dream. At least this time he hadn’t awakened anyone, and hadn’t been trapped in the dream.

Dream. Oh, gods, it isn’t just a dream
. He shivered, despite the warmth of the room, and stared up through the fern fronds at the descending moon. The nightmare had him in a grasp of iron claws and would not let him go.

This is going to be real, it
feels
real. It’s ForeSight. It has to be. Leareth calls me ‘ ‘Herald-Mage Vanyel,’’ and I’m in Whites. I’m dreaming my own death. This is what is going to happen to me, how I’m going to die, if I become a Herald. Alone. In terrible pain, and all alone, fighting a doomed battle
.

He shivered harder, chilled by the cold of the dream, chilled even more with fear. He finally threw the covers back, grabbed his robe, and padded into the room with the hot pools, finding his way by moonlight and habit.

For this was not the first time he’d awakened in the middle of the night, dream-chilled and needing warmth. This was just the first time since he’d arrived here that the dream had been clear enough to remember.

He climbed into the uppermost pool, easing himself down into the hot water with a sigh and a shiver.
Oh, gods. I don’t want to die like
that.
They can’t want me to have to face that, can they? If they knew about this dream, would they still want me to be a Herald? Gods, I know the answer to that
-

He eased a little farther down into the hot water, until it lapped at his chin. He was fighting blind, unreasoning panic, and losing.
What am I going to do? Oh, gods
-
I
can’t think
-

I
have to get away. I can’t stay here. If I do, they ‘II try and talk me around. Where can I go? I don’t even know where “home” is from here. But I can’t stay
-
I
’
II
just go, I’ll just pack up and go, and hope something turns up, it’s all I can do. It means leaving Yfandes
-

For a moment that thought was more than he could bear. But - fear was stronger.
It’s lose her, or lose my life. No. I can’t. I can’t face an end like that. Besides
, he choked on a sob,
she just wants me to be a Herald, too
-

He looked up, judging the hour by the moon.
I’ve got a few hours until dawn. I can be out of the valley and well away before they even start looking for me. And they might not
-
Starwind still isn’t ready to deal with me again; they might just think I’ve gone off somewhere to be alone, especially if I block Yfandes out
now
and keep her out
.

He climbed out of the pool and dried himself with his robe; he knew exactly where the clothing he’d arrived in was hung - the far end of Moondance’s closet. He pulled it on as quickly as he could, taking the heavy cloak and draping it over one arm. One of the packs was in there, too, the one with the rest of his winter clothes. They were too warm to wear in the valley, so he’d never unpacked them, wearing instead Moondance’s outgrown things. There was always food out in the room beside the one with the staircase;
Tayledras
sometimes kept odd hours. He niched enough bread and cheese to last several days and stuffed it into the pack with his clothing.

It took him most of a candlemark to reach the entrance to the valley. If it hadn’t been snowing, he might have turned back at that moment - but it was, lightly, enough to cover his tracks. He swung the heavy cloak over his shoulders, braced himself for the shock of the temperature change, and stepped out into the dark and cold, remembering just in time to put up a shield so that he could not be tracked by his own aura.

“Two steps forward, one step back,” Moondance’s voice drifted up the ladder - Savil refused to call anything that steep a “staircase” - to Starwind’s
ekele;
it was a good three breaths before Moondance himself appeared. His head poked through the hatchway in the gleaming wooden floor just as a gust of wind made the whole tree sway and creak.

Savil gulped, and gripped the arms of her low chair, looking resolutely away from the windows and their view of the birds flying by
below
them. Starwind never would tell her what it was they used in those windows instead of glass - which wouldn’t have lasted ten breaths in a high wind. It was the same thing they used for the skylights, only thinner. Some kind of tough, flexible, transparent membrane - and Savil could not bring herself to believe that it would hold if you fell against it. The
ekele
creaked again, and she shuddered as she saw the window-stuff ripple a little with the warping of the window frames.

“Would you mind explaining that cryptic remark?” she asked, as the rest of Moondance emerged from the “entrance.”

“Oh, thy pupil, Wingsister,” he said, at his most formal, closing the hatchway against another gust of chill air. The ladder was sheltered, but not entirely enclosed - that would have been impractical - and Starwind couldn’t see wasting a mage-barrier on the entrance to his “nest” when the hatchway served perfectly well most of the time. “Bright the day,
Master-ashke
. “

“Wind to thy wings,” Starwind replied automatically, turning away from the window, his gloom brightening a little.
“Shay’kreth’ashke
, there is no ‘Master’ here for thee.”

“Nay, till the day thy wings bear thee upwards, thou’rt my Master.’’ Moondance glided across the unsteady floor to Starwind’s side, as surefooted as a sailor on a moving deck.

“Enough, I’m drowning,” Savil groaned. “Gods, life-bonded - it’s enough to make me celibate. What about my pupil? And will you
please
come away from that window? I keep thinking the next gust is going to pitch you out.”

“The window would hold. Besides, no
Tayledras
has fallen from his
ekele
in years beyond counting, Wingsister,” Starwind said, turning his back to the window and leaning on the ledge.

“So the time is long past for it to happen, and I don’t want it to be you, all right?” Another gust made the whole tree groan, and she clutched at the arms of the chair, her knuckles going white.

“Very well,” Starwind was actually smiling as he stepped away from the window and folded himself bone-lessly into one of the chairs bolted to the floor of his
ekele
. He got a certain amount of pleasure out of teasing Savil about her acrophobia.

Each
ekele
was something like an elaborate treehouse; there was one for each major branch of the King Tree, some twenty in all. Not all were tenanted, and they were mostly used for meditation, sleeping, teaching, and recreation. For everything else, the “place below” served far better. But when a
Tayledras
needed to think, he frequently retreated to his
ekele
, sometimes for weeks, touching foot to ground only when he needed to.

An
ekele
consisted of a single windowed room, varying in size, made of polished wood so light in color that it was almost white, and furnished at most with a few chairs bolted to the floor, a table likewise bolted, and rolled pads stored in one corner for sleeping. Starwind’s was one of the highest, hence, one of the smallest. The view was majestic. It was wasted on Savil.

Moondance took a third chair, and sat in it sideways, legs draped over the arms. “Well?” Savil demanded. “Are you going to explain yourself?”

“Your pupil. First, we strive to bring him to not depend upon others. So - then he pulls in upon himself, confiding not even in his Companion, hiding his pain within. Then I try to bring him to confess the pain, to share it, to reach out - “

“So?”

Moondance shrugged, and Savil sensed he hadn’t told everything.

“What did you tell him?”

Moondance’s moods could be read from his eyes; they were a murky gray-blue. “I - told him of myself. I thought if he could see that he is not the only soul in the world that feels pain, he might be brought to share it.”

Savil’s eyes narrowed; Moondance was unhappy.
“Shayana
, did he hurt you? If he did - “

“Na, the only one who hurt me was myself.” His eyes cleared, and he gave her a wry smile. “He only pushed me away, is all. So, he hides all day, and this morning he is hiding again. His bed is empty, the
hertasi
say he went to the end of the vale, and his Companion says he has blocked her out entirely. To put it rudely, Wingsister, he is sulking.”