Magic's Promise (50 page)

“
But -
”
she protested.

“
Dammit, Savil, just
do
it;
I
can't. Gating that far would probably kill me!
”

“
Vanyel,
”
she interrupted urgently,
“
what happens when he triggers the trap on
you?'''

He felt himself pale, felt his spellcasting falter.
“
Oh, gods - let me think -
you
should be all right if I can just hold him off long enough for you to alert somebody to protect you. Medren is Bard-Gifted with no Mage-potential, he should be safe enough. My sibs - no potential. Father!
”

“
Is safe,
”
she told him.
“
How do you think I got half these white hairs? I spent a week in the nodes weaving protections for him when I first met Starwind. When I realized how powerful an Adept I was, I also realized that very few enemies were going to be able to come at me directly, so they
might
choose to come at me through my brother. I made
sure
there was no chance of that while I had the energy and leisure. Is there
anybody
else?
”

“
No,
”
he said. But his mind was screaming the real
truth at her even as his lips formed the lie.
:Savil! Jisa
-
oh, gods, the children
-:

:What?:

He grabbed her shoulders so tightly it surely must have hurt enough to leave bruises as his fingertips dug into the flesh.
:I have three children. Brightstar and his twin are in k'Treva, under their own shields, Starwind's
and
Moondance's, so they're safe enough, but Jisa -

:Jisa? How? Why?:

His thoughts were not particularly ordered or coherent, but he did his best to get the sense across to her.
:Savil, don't ask; she's mine by blood, Randale and Shavri wanted it, that's all you need to know. She's
not
under shield.:
He wanted to
pound
the fear he felt for them into Savil.
:And Shavri's at risk through Jisa. I don't know if Shavri's got the potential or not. You
have
to get back there -
gods
-
I
never meant anyone else to know, but there's no choice
-
Jays. Trust Jays. Tell him the truth; I think he'll understand.
No one else.
Gods, if Randale was only a mage
-
go, Savil!:
The battering at his shields grew fiercer.
:Just go! I can't hold him much longer!:

He released her shoulders, and Savil turned without another word and faced one of the open doorways. She held up her hands, and Vanyel felt the slight disorientation that always accompanied the moment when someone invoked Gate-energy around him. He left the little group of three and sprinted across the wreckage-strewn hall and up the staircase to face the door and try to keep Vedric in check long enough for them to escape.

He fought silently, fighting as he had never fought before, fighting not only for himself, but for his friends - and for his land, for without Shavri, Randale would fall to pieces. The last of his shield reinforcements cracked and fell away just as he felt the wave of dizziness that signaled the opening of the Gate itself. And the outer door exploded open, breaking two of its hinges and shattering every window in that wall, just as he felt a wash of pain -

Pain that signaled the Gate being traversed, and then going down again. That pain nearly did him in; he was barely able to get his own personal shield up in time to deflect the lightnings Vedric called down on him.

“
Hold him, boy!
”
came an urgent voice behind him.
“
He
knows
we know - he doesn't dare let us live!
”

“Jervis!”
Vanyel tapped recklessly into the node, and flung fire into Vedric's face. He didn't dare look around, but he spat a stream of heartfelt curses in four languages at the armsmaster.
“Damn
you,
”
he screamed, deflecting a paralysis-dagger and countering with an ice-storm.
“
Get under cover! What in the
hell
do you think you're doing?
”

“
What Savil told me,
”
came the unperturbed voice from behind and to his right, as Vanyel tried to shatter Vedric's shields with hammering blows of pure force. Vedric turned them, though not easily; Vanyel could spare no more attention to the armsmaster. To deal with Vedric would take every scrap of concentration.

They were equals, or so close as made no difference. Vanyel had the node to draw on, but Vedric was being fed from somewhere outside himself, too. The entryway shook; the glass of the windows that had been shattered in the first exchange rose up and flew at him. He pulverized the flying shards of death with a single blow. Now flakes of stone and plaster rained down on them, and the paving beneath their feet cracked. Then Vedric smiled-and triggered the trap-spell. Hastily Vanyel extended his shield to cover Jervis. A whirlwind Swarm of creatures - as Tashir had described, seeming mostly teeth and eyes -circled them, screaming their outrage at not being able to reach them. They weren't the
gretshke
beings he'd encountered - they were at once less
hungry
and more evil. The Swarm he knew attacked to feed, these things attacked only to rend and tear, to maim and destroy, for the pleasure of destruction and the pain it caused.

Shrieking in frustration, the Swarm spiraled up and away, passing through the ceiling unhindered - and were gone.

Vedric smiled again.
“
Well, Herald Vanyel - I presume that is who you are - aren't you going to try to rush off to the rescue of your family, your kindred?''

Vanyel just laughed at him.

That was
not
the response Vedric had expected, and it shook him. But what shook him even more was the backlash a moment later as his Swarm attempted to find victims, and were thwarted again - and again - and again -

Failed spells recoiled on their caster; that was one of the first lessons Starwind had taught him. And a spell this powerful, if backlashed,
should have
knocked Vedric to his knees. But it didn't.

It seemed as if the Mavelan mage-lord took the backlash, and siphoned it off somewhere.

That was when Vanyel realized exactly where Vedric was getting his unprecedented power. The entire Mavelan family had united (for once) and was feeding this, their chosen representative, with all their combined powers. Vanyel could hammer at him until dark with no effect. He deflected another lightning-strike, and thought frantically. Even if he defeated Vedric, that
wouldn't
take care of the rest of the family unless he could somehow get at
them
through the linkage to the mage-lord. Then he knew
how
to manage that.
Raw node-power.

Only
Tayledras-trained
or an Adept with the dearly-bought control he and Savil shared could handle it. He remembered how, when he had defeated the changeling-mage Krebain, he had nearly killed himself by flooding it through his system. Only one thing had saved him; the fact that Moondance, a k'Treva Healer-Adept, had gotten to him within heartbeats after he'd blasted himself. If he poured
that
through Vedric and into the meld before they realized what he was doing, there would be no saving of any of them. Without being prepared to handle that kind of power, they would be destroyed.

But to do that, he would have to drain the node to a level where he might trigger a quake. And he would have to
touch
Vedric.

He had been very carefully avoiding looking at the mage-lord. Now he looked across the space intervening between them and saw -

Tylendel. As Tylendel would have looked
now,
had he survived into full manhood. He froze.

The momentary pause in the parry-riposte of the mage-duel broke Vedric's rhythm and concentration. He looked up and stared at Vanyel as if wondering what the other was up to.

That
broke the grip of heartache holding him, for
nothing
could have been less like the Tylendel Vanyel had loved than the creature that looked at him out of the mask of Tylendel's face. There was craft there, and guile - and a terrible cruelty. The kind of cruelty that would see nothing wrong with setting an innocent boy up to be abused and neglected most of his life. A heartlessness that had finally served the helpless boy up as a sacrifice, as the expendable tool that gave Vedric power, and never once felt a twinge of guilt or regret.

A strengthening surge of anger galvanized him, and he reengaged with every resource he had, fighting his way through lightning, fire, force-walls, everything Vedric could throw into his path. He could see the puzzlement in Vedric's eyes as he won each step across the room, paying for each fingerlength in pain when Vedric's weaponry penetrated his shielding and scored on him, but taking those fingerlength gains despite the pain. He forgot Jervis, forgot Tashir, forgot everything but the fight to win to within arm's-reach of the mage-lord.

Multicolored curtains of power danced in front of him, barring his way. They scorched him as he parted them. Two steps to go. One.

He reached out and seized Vedric's arms, and at that moment the mage seemed to figure out what his goal was. Panic spasmed across his face. But it was a realization that came too late. Vanyel opened himself up to the node
completely,
and let the power use him as a channel, as he had when he melded with the heart-stone. It poured through him, meeting no resistance- And into the meld that was the Mavelan family.

Vedric's spine arced; his mouth opened, but no sound emerged. For one moment he glowed like a young sun -

- Vanyel's mind rocked under a multivoiced scream of agony that seemed to go on and on forever - Then it was gone, and so was Vedric. There was nothing left but a pile of white ash at Vanyel's feet and two handfuls of ash that he dropped onto the pile.

Vanyel stared at the ash, dully - and when the entryway swayed, he thought for a moment that it was his own fatigue that made him stumble and lose his footing.

But as Jervis scrambled toward him to grab his arms and shake him, he understood. The node - he'd drained enough power so that the fault had gone unstable.

The building rocked again, as Jervis continued to shake him.
“
Come
on,
you damned fool!
”
he shouted, right into Vanyel's face.
“
Those damned shields that Vedric set up t' keep us from gettin' away are still there! Gate us outa here before the building comes down on our heads!
”

He wrenched himself out of Jervis' hands and faced the ruined outer door, holding up his hands and beginning the Gate-spell, while around him the room bucked and heaved like a boat in a storm.

The pain was incredible.

Letting the node-force use him had left him raw; it was only knowing that Jervis would perish with him that kept him going. He could see the court beyond the door - or rather, what the quake was leaving of it. The palace was disintegrating around them, and nothing living was going to stay that way for long here.

Finally the Gate was complete; the courtyard winked out with a wrench that felt as if someone had torn Vanyel's guts out, and in its place was the corridor just outside the Ashkevron family chapel.

Vanyel's knees gave out and he collapsed. He had just enough energy to wince a little as half the wall collapsed between him and the Gate.

There was nothing but pain now; and he lacked even the strength to weep.

Jervis was shaking him; he tried to push the man's hands away, but it was like a babe trying to push away the hand of an adult.
“
Go,
”
he panted, too spent even to moan.
“
Can't - hold it - stable.
”

There's nothing left. I overestimated again -

He could feel the Gate pulsing with the beating of his own heart. In a moment it would collapse.

“
Go - now,
”
he tried to urge the armsmaster. He was so tired; he'd give anything to be able to rest, beyond the pain.

Shadow-Lover
-

Death had long since lost any fear for him. He had been courted by the Shadow-Lover for so long that His embrace would be welcome, if only it would bring him peace. There was nothing left - not even his will.

But Jervis had enough will for two.

“
I'm not goin' without you!
”
the old man growled, as the palace walls cried in a hundred agonized voices around them.
“
You remember what you said about giving up? Dammit, Van, don't do it now!
There's nobody to pick up your load if you give up on me!”

The words reached through the haze of pain and weakness as nothing else could have. He struggled to his feet, Jervis supporting him, as the palace bucked around them. Jervis started for the open Gate, more than half dragging him over the rubble, and finally draped his arm across his own shoulders and
carried
him through the Gate itself.