Magic's Price (53 page)

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Authors: Mercedes Lackey

BOOK: Magic's Price
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:Why on earth do you suppose he wants to visit Sorrows?:
he asked Toril.
His Companion shook her head.
:Damned if I know,:
she replied, amusement in her mind-voice. :
The
very old get
pretty peculiar. He should be glad there's been peace long enough that someone could be spared to ferry him up here.:
:It still wouldn't have happened if I wasn't on my way to the Temple in the first place,:
he
said. :Poor old man. Not that anyone is going to miss him—all of his old cronies are gone, and hardly anyone even knows he's at Court anymore.:
Toril tested the breeze for a moment.
Maybe he's making a kind of memorial trip. Did you know he's the Stefen? Vanyel's lifebonded?:
:No!:
He turned in his saddle to stare back at the frail, slight old man, dozing behind him.
:I thought Stefen was dead a long time ago! Well, I guess he deserves a little humoring. He's certainly earned it.:
She shook her head in silent agreement, and slowed until they were even with the Bard. “Bard Stefen?” he said, softly. The Bard's hearing was perfectly good—and he didn't want to startle the old man.
The Bard opened his eyes, slowly. “Dozed off again, did I?” he asked, with a hint of a smile. “Good thing this old man has you to watch out for him, son.”
“Do you have any idea of where you're going?” Andros asked. “We've been inside the border of Sorrows for the last couple of candlemarks.”
The Bard looked around himself with increased interest. “Have we now? Well-could be why I felt comfortable enough to go on sleeping. I wish you'd told me, I could have saved you a little riding.”
He pulled his old mare to a halt, and slowly dismounted, then pointed at a little grove of goldenoak at the foot of a rocky hillside. “That'll do, lad. All I want is to be left alone for a bit, eh? I know that sounds a bit touched, but the old get pretty peculiar sometimes.”
Andros blushed at this echoing of his own thoughts, and obediently turned Toril away.
:Well, my lady,: he said, :Where would you like to go?:
:I'd like a good long drink of spring water,:
she replied firmly,
:And I can smell running water just over that ridge.:
The water not only tasted good—it felt good. Andros became very much aware of how dusty and sweaty the trip had made him, and Toril allowed that she wouldn't object to a bath, either. By the time the two of them were dry, it was late afternoon, and Andros figured the old man would be ready to continue his journey.
When he returned to the grove, the old man was gone.
The gittern was there, though, and the mare—so Andros just sighed, and assumed he'd gone off for a walk. He began a search for the Bard, growing more and more frantic when not even a footprint turned up—
Toril imposed herself in front of him, waiting for him to mount. He blinked at her, wondering what on earth he was doing, wandering around in the woods like this.
:I must have had sun-stroke,:
he told her, shaking his head in confusion.
:What am—what was I doing?:
:I wondered,:
she replied with concern,
:You wanted to see the battle site, and I tried to tell you it wasn't here, but you insisted it was. Don't you remember?:
:No,:
he replied ruefully.
:Next time knock me into a stream or something, would you?:
He caught a twinkle in her eye, but she replied demurely enough,
:If it's necessary. It's just that now we're late, and they really
need
a Herald out here for relay work. Every moment we're not there is trouble for the Healers. It's just a good thing there's a full moon tonight.:
“Oh, horseturds,” Andros groaned aloud. “You don't expect me to ride all night, do you?”
:Why not? I'm the one doing all the work. Now get the packmare and
let's get
going.:
“Why is there a saddle on this mare?” he asked, frowning, as he approached the palfrey. “And why isn't she fastened to your saddle already?”
:The second—because you unfastened her. You'd better have the Healers look at you when you get there.:
Her mind-voice was dense with concern.
:I think you really must have had a serious sunstroke. She's got a saddle because she's a present from Joserlyn Ashkevron to his sister, and saddles don't grow on trees, not even this close to the Pelagirs.:
“You're right,” Andros said, rubbing his head, then mounting. “I'd better talk to them. Well, let's get going.”
They rode off, leaving a gittern behind them, propped up against a tree. When they were quite out of sight—and hearing-distance—the strings quivered for a moment.
A knowledgeable listener might have recognized a ballad popular sixty or seventy years earlier—a love-song called “My Lady's Eyes.”
And a very keen-eared listener might have heard laughter among the trees; young male laughter, tenor and baritone, making a joyful music of their own.
To this day, that gittern is grown into the tree it leaned against then, the goldenoak's roots entwined around its strings in a gentle embrace, and there are bright days, when the winds whispers through the trees, that the Forest of Sorrows seems the most inappropriate name possible.
APPENDIX
Songs of Vanyel's Time
For more information about these songs, contact:
Firebird Arts and Music
P.O. Box 14785
Portland, OR 97214-9998
Phone: 1-800-752-0494
NIGHTBLADES
They come creeping out of darkness, and to darkness they return.
 
In their wake they leave destruction; where they go, no one can learn
For they leave no trace in passing, as if all who watched were blind
Like a dream of evil sending,
Nightblades passing, nightblades rending,
Into darkness once more blending
Leaving only dead behind.
 
First a threat—and then a death comes in the darkness of the night
And a dozen would-be allies have begun to show their fright.
When the nightblades strike unhindered, and can take a life at will,
There's no safety in alliance
And much peril in defiance
It is best to show compliance
And the Karsite ranks to fill.
 
The chief envoy summons Vanyel, for one ally still seems brave
And the treaty may be salvaged if Vanyel this life can save.
Herald Vanyel feigns refusal, senses one would play him fool;
Thinks of treachery in hiding,
Lets his instincts be his guiding.
His own counsel he is biding
He'll be no unwitting tool.
 
Garbed in black slips Herald Vanyel to their last lone ally's keep;
Over wall and into window, past all gates and guards to creep.
Past all gates and guards—no magic has them wrapped in deadly spell—
They are drugged, and they are dreaming.
Some foe strikes in friendly seeming—
See—a metal dart there gleaming!
Vanyel knows the symptoms well.
Now he hears another's footstep soft before him in the dark
And he hastes to lay an ambush while the nightblade seeks his mark.
Now he waits beside the doorway of the ally's very room
And the nightblade, all unknowing,
With a single lamp-beam showing
To a confrontation going
Not to fill another tomb.
 
Out of shadow Vanyel rises and he bars the nightblade's way.
He has only that slim warning—Vanyel has him soon at bay.
When the guards have all awakened, then he bares the nightblade's face—
And all minds but his are reeling
When he tears off the concealing—
And the envoy's face revealing—
Brings the traitor to disgrace.
MY LADY'S EYES
(This is drivel. It's
supposed
to be. It's Vanyel's mother's favorite song. Van puts up with it because he can show off his fingering.)
 
My Lady's eyes are like the skies
A soft and sunlit blue
No other fair could half compare
In sweet midsummer hue
My Lady's eyes cannot disguise
Her tender, gentle heart
She cannot feign, she feels my pain
Whenever we must part. (Instrumental)
Now while I live I needs must give
Her all my love and more
That she may know I worship so
This one that I adore.
And while away, I long and pray
The days may speed, and then,
I heartward hie, I flee, I fly,
To see her eyes again. (Instrumental)
My Lady's eyes, each glance I prize,
As gentle as a dove,
And would that I could tell her why
I dare not speak my love.
Too high, as far as any star
Her station is to mine,
Too wide that space to e‘er embrace,
Beneath her I repine. (Instrumental)
SHADOW STALKER
It was just a week till Sovven, and the nights were turning
chill
And the battle turned to stalemate, double-bluff,
and
feint
and
drill
When a shadow drifted northward, just a shadow, nothing more.
 
 
No one noticed that the shadows all grew darker than before.
No one noticed, while the shadows seemed to creep into the heart,
But from then the fight for freedom seemed a fool's quest from the start.
All the hopes that they had cherished seemed unreasoned and naive
Nothing worth the strength to pray for, or to strive for, or believe.
 
 
And the shadows stole the sunlight from the brightest autumn day,
As they sang a song of bleakness that touched every heart that heard
As they whispered words of hopelessness, all courage fled away,
And they wove a smothering blanket over all that lived and stirred.
 
 
Herald Vanyel came upon them, and he sensed a subtle wrong,
And there was some magic working; deeply hidden, yes, but strong.
And it moved and worked in secret, like a poison in the vein
Like a poison meant to weaken, this was magic meant to drain.
Herald Vanyel saw the Shadows, and they turned their wiles on him
For one moment even he began to feel his spirit dim—
But he saw their secret evil, and he swore e‘er he was done
He would stalk and slay these Shadows, and destroy them, one by one.
Herald Vanyel, Shadow. Stalker, hunted Shadows to their doom
They turned all their powers upon him, turned away from other men
And although they strove to take him, he unwove their web of gloom.
So the Shadows fled his anger, their creator sought again.
 
Herald Vanyel faced the Singer who had sung them into life
And she sang to him of grief and loss that cut him like a knife.
And she sang to him of self-hate, and she wove a net of pain
With her songs of woe and hopelessness bent to be Vanyel's bane.
“So now what is there to strive for?” was the song she sang to him.
And the shadow came upon his heart, the world grew gray and dim.
But the Singer Of The Shadow did not know the foe she fought,
Nor how dear he held his duty, nor by what pain power was bought.
 
Herald Vanyel looked upon her, and he saw through her disguise
And she strove then to seduce him into death or madness sweet.
 
Herald Vanyel looked within him, and he saw her songs were lies,
And he gathered up his magic then, her powers to defeat.

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