Magic's Price (20 page)

Withen looked a little strained and embarrassed, but Treesa responded to Stefs gentle, courtly flattery as a flower to the sun. “Are you really a full Bard?” she asked, breathless with excitement. “Truly a Master?”

“Unworthy though I am, my lady,” Stef replied, “that is the rank the Bardic Circle has given me. I pray you will permit me to test your hospitality and task your ears by performing for you.”

“Oh,
would
you?” Treesa said, enthralled. Evidently she had completely forgotten what else Stef was supposed to be besides Van's friend and a Bard. Withen still looked a little strained, but Van began to believe that the visit would be less of a disaster than he had feared.

Thunder rumbled near at hand, startling all of them. “Gods, it's about to pour. Meke, Radevel, you see to the horses,” Withen ordered. “The rest of you, give it a rest. You'll all get your chances at Van and his f-friend later. Let's all get inside before the storm breaks for true.”

Treesa had already taken possession of Stefen and was carrying him off, chattering brightly. Van turned protectively toward Yfandes, remembering that his father never
could
bring himself to believe she was anything other than a horse.

But to his immense relief, Meke was leading Stef's filly to the stables, but his cousin Radevel had looped the two Companions' reins up over their necks and was standing beside them.

“Don't worry, Van,” Radevel said with a wink. “Jervis taught me, remember?” And then, to the two Companions, “If you'll follow me, ladies, one of the new additions to the stables are
proper
accommodations for Companions. Saw to ‘em m'self.”

Vanyel relaxed, and allowed his father to steer him toward the door to the main part of the manor, as lightning flashed directly overhead and the first fat drops of rain began to fall.
Good old Rad. Finally, after all these years, I get one of my family convinced that ‘Fandes isn't a horse!

“
SO
, that's the situation,” Withen continued, staring out the bubbly, thick glass of the crudely-glazed window at the storm outside. “I don't think it's going to change any time soon. Tashir is turning out to be a fine young man, and a good ruler. His second eldest is fostered here, did I mention that?”

Thunder vibrated in the rock walls, and Vanyel shook his head. “No, Father, you didn't. What about farther north though, up beyond Baires?”

Withen sighed. “Don't know, son. That's still Pelagir country. Full of uncanny creatures, and odd folks, and without much leadership that I've been able to see. It's a problem, and likely to stay one....”

Vanyel held his peace; the
Tayledras
weren't “leaders” as his father understood the term, anyway, although they ruled and protected their lands as effectively as any warlord or landed baron.

Rain lashed the outside of the keep and hissed down the chimney. He and his father were ensconced in Withen's “study,” a room devoted to masculine comforts and entirely off-limits to the females of the household. Withen turned away from the window and eased himself down into a chair that was old and battered and banished to here where it wouldn't offend Treesa's sensibilities; but like Withen, it was still serviceable despite being past its prime. Van was already sitting, or rather, sprawling, across a scratched and battered padded bench, one with legs that had been used as teething aids for countless generations of Ashkevron hounds.

“So tell me the truth, son,” Withen said after a long pause. “I'm an old man, and I can afford to be blunt. How much longer does Randale have?”

Vanyel sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck uneasily. “I don't know, Father. Not even the Healers seem to have any idea.” He hesitated a moment, then continued. “The truth is, though, I don't think it's going to be more than five years or so. Not unless we find out what it is he's got and find a way to cure it, or at least keep it from getting worse. Right now—right now the Council's best hope is to be able to keep him going until Treven's trained and in Whites. We think he can hang on that long.”

“Is it true the boy's wedded that young Jisa?” Withen looked as if he approved, so Vanyel nodded. “Good. The sooner the boy breeds potential heirs, the better off we'll be. Shows the lad has more sense than his elders.” Withen snorted his disgust at those “elders.” “It was shilly-shallying about Randale's marriages that got us in this pickle in the first place. Should have told the boy to marry Healer Shavri in the first damn place, and we'd have had half a dozen legitimate heirs instead of one girl out of the succession.”

Withen went on in the same vein for some time, and Vanyel did not think it prudent to enlighten him to the realities of the situation:

“About the Pelagir lands, Father,” he said instead, “The last few times I've visited home, I've heard stories—and seen the evidence—of things coming over and into Valdemar. Are they still doing that?”

When Withen hesitated, he began to suspect that something was seriously wrong. “Father, are these—visitations—getting worse? What is it that you aren't telling me?”

“Son,” Withen began.

“No, Father, don't think of me as your son. I'm Herald Vanyel, and I need to know the whole truth.” He sat up from his sprawled position, looked his father straight in the eyes. Withen was the first to look away.

“Well—yes. For a while they were getting worse.” Withen looked at the fire, out the window—anywhere but at Van.

“And?”

“And we asked Haven for some help. For a Herald-Mage.” Withen coughed.

“And?”

“And they said there weren't any to spare, and they sent us just a plain Herald.” Withen's mouth worked as if he were tasting something bitter. “I won't say she was of no use, but—but we decided if Haven wasn't going to help us, we'd best learn how to help ourselves, and we sent her back. Let her think she'd taken care of the problem after a hunt or two. Had a talk with Tashir's people—after all, they've been doing without mages for one damned long time. Found out the ways to take out some of these things without magic. Worked out some more. Finally the things stopped coming across altogether. I guess they got some way of talking to each other, and let it be known that we don't like havin' things try and set up housekeeping over here.”

“There's been no more sign of anything?” Van was amazed—not that there were no signs of further incursions, but that the people here had taken on the problem and dealt with it on their own.

“No, though we've been keepin' the patrols up. Tashir's people, too. But—”

“But what, Father?” Vanyel asked gently. “You can say what you like. I won't be offended by the truth.”

“It's just—all our lives we've been told how we can depend on the Herald-Mages, how they'll help us when we need them—then when we need them, we get told there aren't any to spare, they're all down on the Karsite Border or off somewhere else—and here one of our own is a Herald-Mage—it just goes hard.” Withen was obviously distressed, and Vanyel didn't blame him.

“But Father—you were sent help. You said so yourself. They sent you a Herald,” he pointed out.

“A
Herald?”
Within scoffed. “What good's a plain Herald? We needed a Herald-Mage!”

“Did you give her a chance?” Vanyel asked, quietly. “Or did you just assume she couldn't be of any help and lead her around like a child until she was convinced there wasn't any real need for her?”

“But—she was just a Herald—”

“Father, nobody is ‘just' a Herald,” Vanyel said. “We're taught to make the best of every ability we have—Heralds and Herald-Mages. The only difference in us is the kinds of abilities we have. She would have done
exactly
as you did. She probably would have been able to help you, if you'd given her the chance. She wouldn't have been able to invoke a spell and destroy the creatures for you, but it's quite probable a Herald-Mage wouldn't have been able to either. I have no doubt she could have found the ones in hiding, perhaps, or uncovered their weaknesses. But you didn't give her a chance to find out what she could do.”

“I suppose not,” Withen said, after a moment. “I—don't suppose that was very fair to her, either.”

Vanyel nodded. “It's true, Father. There aren't enough Herald-Mages. I'm afraid to tell you how few of us there are. I wish there were more of us, but there aren‘t, and I hope when you are sent help next time, you won't think of that help as 'just' a Herald.”

“Because that's the best help Haven can give us,” Withen concluded for him.

But he didn't look happy. And in a way, Van understood. But there was that stigma again—“just” a Herald—when there were Heralds who had twice the abilities of some of the Herald-Mages he'd known.

It was a disturbing trend—and unfortunately, one he had no idea how to reverse.

“Father, which would you rather have in a pinch—a Herald with a very strong Gift, a Gift that's exactly the kind of thing you need, or a Herald-Mage who may be able to do no more than
you
could on your own?” He paused for effect. “There have been no few Herald-Mages
killed
down on the Karsite Border precisely because they were mages, and because of that they tried to handle more than they were capable of. If I were spying on the enemy, I'd rather have a strongly Mindspeaking Herald doing it for me than a Herald-Mage who has to send up a flare of mage-fire when he needs to talk! If I were hunting up magical creatures, I'd rather have a Herald with powerful FarSight than a weak Herald-Mage who'd light up like a tasty beacon to those creatures every time he uses his magic.”

“I never thought about it that way,” Withen mumbled. “But still—”

“Please do think about it, Father,” Van urged. “And please talk to others about it. Valdemar is short of friends and resources these days. We have to use everything we can, however we can. You have a powerful influence on the way people think in this area—”

“I wish your brother thought that,” Withen mumbled, but he looked pleased.

“If you decide that I'm right, you can make an enormous difference in the way things are handled the next time. And that just may save you a great deal, including lives.”

Withen sighed, and finally met his eyes. “Well, I'll think about it, son. That's all I'll promise.”

Which is about as much of a concession as I'm ever likely to get out of him.
“Thank you, Father,” he said, hoping it would be enough. “That's all I can ask.”

 

Dinner proved to be entertaining and amazingly relaxing. Only the immediate family and important household members assembled in the Great Hall anymore—there wasn't room for anyone else.

Vanyel was partnered with the priest who had replaced the late, unlamented Father Leren; a young and aggressive cleric with a thousand ideas whose fervor was fortunately tempered with wit and a wry good sense of humor. The young man was regrettably charismatic—before the meal was over, Van found he'd been lulled into agreeing to broach a half dozen of those ideas to his father.

Treesa had kidnapped Stef and enscounced him at her side, with herself and Withen between the Bard and Vanyel. Since that was pretty much as Van had expected things would go, he ignored Stef's mute pleas for help throughout the meal. Given how much effort he'd been going to in order to avoid the less platonic of Stef's continued attentions, he found it rather amusing to see the Bard in the position of “pursued.”

Immediately following dinner, Withen claimed his son for another conference. This time it included Withen, Radevel, Mekeal, and two cousins Vanyel just barely knew. That conference left him with a profound admiration for how well the folk in this so-called “Border backwater” were keeping up with important news. They knew pretty well how much impact Treven's marriage was going to have on situations outKingdom, had good guesses about what concessions Randale was likely to have to make with Rethwellan in order to gain their Queen's aid, and had a fair notion of the amount of help Tashir was likely to be able to offer Valdemar.

What they wanted to know was the real state of the situation with Karse. “We heard they'd outlawed magery,” Radevel said, putting his feet up on the low table they all shared, “and there was rumors about fightin' inside Karse. All well an' good, if it's true, an' what's bad for Karse is likely to be good for us ‘twould look like, but what's that really gonna do to us? That gonna end up spillin' across the Border, you reckon?”

Vanyel put his drink down on the table, and dipped his finger into a puddle of spilled ale. “Here's the Karsite Border,” he said, drawing it for them. “Here's Rethwellan, and here's us. Now this is what we know so far—”

In a few sentences he was able to sum up his own and Randale's analysis of the situation, and the reasons why the alliance with Rethwellan was all the more necessary.

“So we end up takin' hind teat if there's trouble out here, hmm?” one of the cousins said cynically, around a mouthful of bread and cheese.

“To be brutally frank,” Vanyel felt forced to say, “unless it's a major incursion, yes. I wish I could tell you differently.”

Radevel shrugged philosophically. “Somebody's gotta take second place,” he pointed out. “No way around that. Seems to me we've been doin' pretty well for ourselves; we got some Guard, we got our own patrols, we got Tashir an' his people. So long as nobody brings up an army, we should be all right.” Withen nodded, and refilled all their mugs, letting the foam run over the tops with casual disregard for the state of the furniture.