Magic's Price (4 page)

:That's most of the time, now,:
Yfandes observed sadly.

Van got the answer he wanted out of the child, despite his distraction. She smoothed her tunic nervously, plainly anxious to be gone, and Vanyel obliged her. He was still analyzing the overtones of his conversation with Jisa.
:We've got a new problem. Did you pick up what I did from Jisa?:
he asked, hurrying his steps toward his room. His feet were beginning to ache with the cold, and the wet leather had begun to chafe his ankles.

Vanyel sensed someone in his room as he neared it, but it was a familiar presence, though one without the “feel” of a Herald, so he didn't bother to identify his visitor.
:Shavri,:
he said grimly.
:It's what she's picking up from her mother. Jisa knows Randi's doomed; she's coming to grips with that. What she can't handle is that Shavri's getting more desperate by the moment, more afraid of being left alone. Jisa's afraid that when Randi leaves us—her mother will follow.:

He felt Yfandes jerk her head up in surprise.
:She's a Healer!:
the Companion exclaimed.
:She can‘t—she wouldn't—:

:Don't count on it, dearheart,: Vanyel answered, one
hand
on the door latch. :Even I can't tell you what she'll do. I don't think she'd actively suicide on us—but she is a Healer. She knows enough about the way that the body works to kill herself through lacking the will to live. And that's what Jisa's afraid she'll do; just pine away on us. And the worst of it is, I think she's right.:

He pushed the door to his spare quarters open; it was full of light and air, but not much else. Just a bed, a low, square table, a few floor-pillows, a wardrobe, and a couch.

On the couch was his visitor—and despite his worries, Vanyel felt his mouth stretching in a real smile.

“Medren!”
he exclaimed, as the lanky, brown-haired young Bard-trainee rose and reached across the table to embrace him. “Lord and Lady, nephew, I think you get taller every week! I'm sorry about not being able to get to your recital, but—”

Medren shook long hair out of his warm brown eyes, and smiled. “Tripes, it isn't my first, and it isn't going to be my last. That's not what I came after you for, anyway.”

“No?” Vanyel settled himself down in his favorite chair, and raised an inquiring eyebrow. “What brings you, then?”

Medren resumed his seat, leaning forward over the table, his eyes locking with Van's. “Something a hell of a lot more important than a stupid recital. Van, I think I have something that can help the King.”

V
anyel closed the door behind him, balanced with one hand still on the door handle, and reached down to pull one of his boots off. “What exactly do you mean?” he asked, examining it, and deciding that it was going to survive the soaking after all. “Forgive me if I sound skeptical, Medren, but I've heard that particular phrase dozens of times in the past few years, and in the end nothing anyone tried made any difference. I'm sure you mean well—”

Medren perched in a chair beside the window, with not only his expression but his entire body betraying how tense he was. The curtains fluttered in a sudden gust of breeze, wrapping themselves over his arm. He pushed them away with an impatient grimace. “That's why I waited so long, I really thought about this for a while before I decided to talk to you,” Medren told him earnestly. “You've had every Healer, herbalist, and so-called ‘physician' in the Kingdom in and out of here—I wasn't going to come to you unless it wasn't just me who was sure we had something.”

Vanyel pulled off his other boot, and regarded his nephew dubiously. He'd never known Medren to go overboard—but there had been so many times when a new treatment had sounded promising and had achieved nothing.... Medren's judgment was unlikely to be better than anyone else's.

Still—there was always the chance. There was little doubt that in Medren Van was dealing with a rational adult now, not an overly impressionable boy. Medren had grown taller in the years since Vanyel had sent him off to Bardic Collegium, and even though he hadn't put on any bulk at all he was obviously at full growth. He actually looked like a pared-down, thin version of his father, Vanyel's brother Mekeal. Except for one small detail—he had his mother Melenna's sweet, doelike eyes.

He must be just about ready to finish Journeyman's status at least,
Vanyel realized with a start
. He might even be due for Full Bard rank. Ye holy stars, he must be nearly twenty!

The curtains flapped, and Medren pushed them away again. “You know I wouldn't bring you anything trivial or untried. I know better, and anyway, I've got my ranking to think of. I'm one master-work away from Full Bard,” he finished, confirming Vanyel's startled assessment. He combed his fingers restlessly through his long hair. “I can't start my career by getting a reputation for chasing wild geese. I've had Breda check this for me, and she's confirmed it. It seems my roommate, Stefen, has a Wild Talent. He can sing pain away.”

Van had made his way to the side of the bed by the end of this speech; he sat down on it rather abruptly, and stared at his young cousin. “He can—what?”

“He sings pain away.” Medren shrugged, and the cloth of his red-brown tunic strained over his shoulders. “We don't know how, we only know he can. Found it out when I had that foul case of marsh-fever and a head like an overripe pumpkin.”

Vanyel grimaced in sympathy; he'd had a dose of that fever himself, and knew the miserable head and bone aches it brought with it.

“Stef didn't know I was in the room; came in and started practicing. I started to open my mouth to chase him out, I figured that was the last thing I needed, but after the first two notes
I couldn't feel any headache.
Point of fact, I fell asleep.” Medren leaned forward, and his words tumbled out as he tried to tell Vanyel everything at once. “I woke up when he finished, he was putting his gittern away, and the headache was coming back. Managed to gabble something out before he got away from me, and we tried it again. Damned if I didn't fall asleep again.”

“That could have been those awful herbal teas the Healers seem to set such store by,” Vanyel reminded him. “They put
me
to sleep—”

“Put you to sleep, sure, but they don't do much about the head. Besides, we thought of that. Got at Breda when I cured up, told her, got her to agree to play victim next time she had one of her dazzle-headaches, and it worked for her, too.” He took a deep breath, and looked at Vanyel expectantly.

“It did?” Vanyel was impressed despite his skepticism. Breda, as someone with the Bardic Gift, wasn't easily influenced by the illusions a strong Gift could weave. Besides, so far as he knew, nothing short of a dangerous concoction of wheat-smut could ease the pain of one of her dazzle-headaches.

Medren spread his hands. “Damned if I know how he does it, Van. But Stefs had a way of surprising us over at Bardic about once a week. Only eighteen, and
he's
about to make Full Bard. Just may beat me to it. Anyway, you were telling me how Randale hates to take those pain-drugs because they make him muddled—”

“But can't endure more than an hour without them, yes, I remember.” Vanyel threw the abused boots in the corner and leaned forward on his bed, crossing his arms. “I take it you think we can use this Stefen instead of the drugs? I'm not sure that would work, Medren—the reason Randi hates the drugs is that his concentration goes to pieces under them. How can he do anything and listen to your friend at the same time?”

Medren swatted the curtains away again, jumped to his feet and began pacing restlessly, keeping his eyes on Vanyel. “That's the whole beauty of it—this Wild Talent of his seems to work whether you're consciously listening or not! Honest, Van, I thought this out—I mean, if it would work when Breda and I were
asleep,
it should work under any circumstances.”

Vanyel stood up, slowly. This Wild Talent of Stefen's might not help—but then again, it might. It was worth trying. These days anything was worth trying....

And they had tried anything and everything once the Healers had confessed themselves baffled. Hot springs, mud baths, diets that varied from little more than leaves and raw grains to nothing but raw meat. There had been no signs of a cure, no signs of improvement, just increasing pain and a steadily growing weakness. Nothing had helped Randale in the last year, not even for a candlemark. Nothing but the debilitating, mind-numbing drugs that Randi hated.

“Let's go talk to Breda,” Van said abruptly, kneeling and fishing his outdoor boots out from under the bed. He looked up to catch Medren's elated grin. “Don't get excited,” he warned. “I know you're convinced, but this may be nothing more than pain-sharing, and Randi's past the point where that's at all effective.” He stood up, boots in hand, and pulled them on over his damp stockings. “But as you pointed out, it's worth trying. Astera knows we've tried stranger things.”

 

Medren kept pace with his uncle easily, despite Vanyel's longer legs and ground-devouring strides. After all, he had just spent his Journeyman period completely afoot, in the wild northlands, where villages were weeks apart.
Fortunately it was also the shortest Journeyman trial in the history of the Collegium,
he reflected wryly, recalling his aching feet, sore back, and the nights he spent half-frozen in his little tent-shelter.
And it wasn't even winter yet! Three months up there gave me enough material for a hundred songs. Although so far half of them seem to be about poor souls freezing to death—

Medren watched his uncle out of the corner of his eye, trying to gauge his feelings, but he couldn't tell what Van was thinking. In that, as in any number of things, Vanyel hadn't changed much in the past few years, though he had altered subtly from the uncle Medren had first encountered.

Gotten quieter, more focused inside himself. Doesn't even talk to anybody about himself anymore, not even Savil.
Medren frowned a little.
Uncle Van isn't doing himself any favors, isolating himself like that.

Vanyel had the kind of fine-boned, ascetic face that aged well, with no sign of wrinkling except around the eyes and a permanent worry-line between his brows. His once-black hair was thickly streaked with white, but that wasn't from age, that was from working magic with what he and his aunt, Herald-Mage Savil, called “nodes.” Medren had gathered from Vanyel's complicated explanations that these node-things were collecting points for magical energy—and that they were infernally hard to deal with.

For whatever reason, the silver-streaked hair, when combined with the ageless face and a body that would have been the envy of most of Medren's peers, made Vanyel's appearance confusing—even to those who knew him. Young-old, and hard to categorize.

Add eyes the color of burnished silver, eyes that seemed to look right through a person, and you had the single most striking Herald in Whites....

Medren frowned again.
And the least approachable.

His nephew guessed that Vanyel had been purposefully learning how to control his expressions completely in the same way a Bard could. Probably for some of the same reasons. Not even a flicker of eyelid gave his thoughts away; over the past couple of years control had become complete. Even Medren, who knew him about as well as anyone, never knew what was running through his mind unless Van wanted him to know.

Vanyel was as beautiful as a statue carved from the finest alabaster by the hand of a master. But thanks to that absolute control, he was also about as remote and chill as that same statue.

Which is the way he wants it, Medren sighed. Or at least, that's what he says. “I can't afford hostages
,
” he says. “I can't let anyone close enough to be used against me.” He doesn't even like having people know that he and I are as friendly as we are—and we're related. He thinks it makes me a target....

There actually had been at least one close scrape, toward the end of the Tashir affair. Medren hadn't realized how close that scrape had been until long after, in his third year at Bardic. And in some ways, Van was absolutely right, in that he couldn't afford close emotional relationships. If he'd been the marble statue he resembled, his isolation would likely have been a good thing.

But he wasn't. He was a living human being, and one who would not admit that he was desperately lonely.

Nobody, that's who.
Medren gritted his teeth.
Well, we'll see about that, uncle. If you can resist Stef, you're a candidate for the Order of Saint Thiera the Immaculate.

They left the Palace itself, and followed a graveled path toward the separate building housing the Bardic Collegium; a three-storied, gray stone edifice. The first floor held classrooms, the second, the rooms of such Bards as taught here, and the third, the rooms of the apprentices and Journeymen about to be made Masters. There were only two of the latter, himself and Stefen. Some might have objected to being roomed with Stef, for the younger boy was shaych, and made no bones about it—but not Medren.

Not with Vanyel for an uncle,
Medren reflected, with tol
erant amusement. Not that Stef's anything like Van. If uncle's a candidate for the Order of Saint Thiera, Stefs a candidate for the Order of the Brothers of Perpetual Indulgence! No wonder he writes good lovesongs; he's certainly had enough experience!