Magic's Price (37 page)

“Trev.” Vanyel touched the young man's shoulder at the same time as he spoke; Trev and the Guardsman both jumped. The lantern swung wildly in the Guardsman's hand, making the shadows jerk and dance, and making the body appear to move for an instant.

“Trev, I'll take it from here if you want, but I think you've got things well in hand.” His first impulse had been to take over; this, after all, was not the first time he'd seen death near at hand—it was not even the first time he'd seen the death of someone he knew and cared for. No, that had happened so often he'd given up counting the times.... But taking over from Trev would have meant shoving the young Heir into the position of hanger-on, when what he needed to do was start assuming his authority. The sooner he started doing so, the more readily others would accept that authority when Randi died.

So even if the young Heir didn't have any experience in handling situations like this, Trev should be the one in charge.

Treven took a deep breath, and looked very much as if he wanted to hand that authority right back to Van. But instead, he said only, “This really isn't my area of expertise, Herald Vanyel. Would you mind having a look here?”

Van nodded. Beside him, Stef shivered, and pulled his cloak a little tighter. Vanyel knelt down beside the white-faced Heir, and examined the body without visible sign of emotion, though he wanted to weep for the poor old man. “The neck is broken, and the front of the skull as well,” he said quietly. He looked up, though all he could see of the top of the tower was the dark shape of it against the sky. “Kilchas has an observatory up on the top of this tower,” he told Treven. “Did he say anything about going up there tonight?”

Another pair of heralds had joined them; Tantras and Lissandra; Lissandra huddled in on herself, as though she was too cold for her cloak to warm her. “Oh, gods,” the woman said brokenly. “Yes, he told me that he was going up there if it cleared at all tonight. Phryny was conjuncting Aberdene's Eye, or some such thing. Only happens once in a hundred years, and he wanted to see it. He was so excited when it cleared up at sunset—” She sobbed, and turned away, hiding her face on Tran's shoulder. He folded his cloak around her, and looked down at the three kneeling in the snow.

“Poor old man,” Tantras said hoarsely. “He must have gotten so wrapped up in what he was doing that he forgot to watch his step.”

“There're probably ice patches all over the top of that tower,” Trev replied, “And the parapet is only knee-high. It's only enough to warn you that you're at the edge, not save you from falling.” He stood up, folding dignity around himself like a new cloak that was overlarge, stiff, and a trifle awkward. “Guard, would you please see that Kilchas' body is taken to the Chapel? I'll inform Joshel, and have him see to what's needed from there.” The Guardsman stood up, saluted, and trudged toward the Guard quarters, leaving the lantern behind. Before too long his dark blue uniform had been absorbed into the night.

Treven turned to Vanyel. “Thank you, Herald Vanyel. If Tantras and Lissandra don't mind, I'll have them stay with me to get things taken care of. You've just come in from a long journey, and you should get some rest.” He coughed uncomfortably, as if he wasn't sure what to say or do next.

Vanyel started to object, but realized that he didn't have any grounds for objection. It
looked
like an accident. Everyone else accepted it as an accident.

But Van didn‘t—couldn't—believe that it was.

Nevertheless, all he had to go on were vague and ill-defined feelings. Nothing even concrete enough for a Herald to accept.

So he thanked Treven—to Stefen's quite open relief—and returned across the crusted snow to the warmth and light of the Herald's Wing.

He was at the door, when Yfandes Mindtouched him.
:Van,:
she said, sounding troubled.
:We've found Kilchas' Companion, Rohan. He's dead. He was off in the far Western corner of the Field.:

:And?:
he prompted her.

:And I don't like it. There's no sign of anything wrong, but I don't like it. We just don‘t—fall over like that. Unless we die in battle or by accident
,
we're Called, and we generally have time to say good-bye to our friends before we go.:

:Could the shock of his Chosen dying like that have killed Rohan?:
Van asked.

:Maybe,:
she replied reluctantly.
:Most of the others think that's what did it.:

:But you're not convinced.:
It was kind of comforting that she shared his doubts.

“Van, are you going to stand there all night?” Stef asked, holding the door open and shivering visibly.

“Sorry,
ashke
,” Vanyel said giving himself a little mental kick. “I was talking to ‘Fandes. The others found Kilchas' Companion. Dead. She says it doesn't feel right to her.”

The heat of the corridor hit him and made him want to lie down right then and there. He fought the urge and the attendant weakness. Stefen looked at him with puzzlement. “I thought that Companions never outlived their Chosen,” he said. “And vice versa. So what's wrong?”

“ ‘Fandes just doesn't like the way it seems to have happened—Rohan was off by himself in the farthest corner of the Field, and none of the others knew he was gone until they found him.”

Stefen looked disturbed. “That's not the way things are supposed to happen,” he replied slowly. “At least not the way I understand them. I think you're both right. There's at least something odd about this.”

Van reached the door of his room first, and held it open for the Bard. “It may just be the new Web-spell,” he said as he closed the door behind them, took off his cloak, and flung it into a chair. “It's supposed to bind us all together; some of that may be spilling over in unexpected ways, like onto our Companions.”

Stefen draped his own cloak on top of Vanyel's. “Here,” he offered. “Let me help you out of that tunic and go lie down; we can talk about this while I give you a better massage than the one that was interrupted. I'll play opposition, and try to find logical explanations for everything you find wrong.”

“Stef, I'm absolutely exhausted,” Vanyel warned, unlacing his tunic and allowing Stef to pull it off. “If you really get me relaxed, I'll probably fall asleep in the middle of it. And once I do, you wouldn't be able to wake me with an earthquake.”

“If that's what you need, then that's what you should do,” the Bard replied, pushing him a little so that he sat down—or rather, collapsed—onto the bed. “Meanwhile, let me get the knots out of you while we talk about this. Why don't you pull ‘Fandes into this, too? If she's worried, you probably should, anyway, and she may find holes in my arguments.”

:‘Fandes? :
Van called

:Neatly put, and that could be my problem, too. Go ahead. I'll be listening.:
She sounded relieved.

Vanyel yielded to Stefs wishes, and sprawled facedown on the bed. Stefen straddled him and reached into the top drawer of the little bedside table.

“What—” Vanyel began, turning his head to look; then when Stefen pulled out a little bottle of what was obviously scented oil, asked in surprise, “How did that get in there?”

“I put it there,” Stef said shortly. “Get your head back down and relax.” In a few moments, his warm hands were slowly working their way upward along Van's spine, starting from the small of his back. Vanyel sighed, and gave himself up to it.

“Now, what doesn't fit in the way Kilchas died?” Stef asked. “And don't you start tensing up on me. You can think
and
stay relaxed.”

“Kilchas has a little enclosure up there,” Van said, thinking things through, slowly. “The roof is glass. If he doesn't want to, he doesn't
have
to go out in the cold. I can't see why he would have been outside, and he certainly wasn't dressed for the cold.”

“What if the glass was covered with snow or ice?” Stef countered. “It probably was, you know.”

:I agree,:
Yfandes said reluctantly.
:Everything else was.:

“Good point. But why was he wearing slippers, rather than boots?”

Stefen rolled his knuckles along either side of Vanyel's spine while he thought. “Because he didn't know the glass was going to be iced over until he'd already climbed the stairs to the roof, and it was too far for him to climb down and back up again just for his boots. He was an old man, after all, and his quarters are down here on the ground floor.”

Van gasped as Stef hit a particularly sore spot. “All right, I can accept that, too. But he's had that observatory for years. He always knows—knew—exactly where he is up there. Why should he suddenly misstep now?”

“Because he didn‘t,” Stef answered immediately. “He was doing something he'd never had to do before. He was cleaning the glass on the roof of his little shelter, trying to chip the ice off. He lost his balance, or he slipped.”

Vanyel tried not to tense as Stef hit another bad knot and began working it out. “Why not get a servant to do it?” he asked.

“No time?” Stef hazarded, as the fire in the fireplace cracked and popped. “This thing he was going to be watching—it would have been about to happen, and he figured if he had to find a servant, then wait for him to do the job, he'd miss part of what he wanted to see. Either that, or he was sure a servant wouldn't do it right. Or both.”

The air filled with the gentle scent of sendlewood. Vanyel felt sleep trying to overcome him and fought it off. “If he just felt—” he said, slowly, “Why, when I felt him die, did I only feel pain? Why didn't I feel him fall?”

“I don't know,” Stef said, pausing with his hand just over Van's shoulderblades. “I don't know how these Gifts of yours are supposed to work. But Kilchas was an old man, Van. What if he was already dead when he fell? What if his heart gave out on him? That's pretty painful, I guess. And if his heart suddenly gave out, couldn't that cause his Companion's to do the same? Maybe that's why he was found the way he was.”

Vanyel closed his eyes, suddenly too tired to try to find something wrong with what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary situation.

“You're probably right,” he said,
:‘Fandes,
do you
agree?:

:Quite reasonable, :
she said, wearily.
: That's very typical
of
heart-failure ; the shock
goes
straight to us, too. And Kilchas' Rohan was as old as he was. That's a much more logical explanation than foul play—it's just that so few of you live long enough these days for your hearts to fail that I forgot that. I think we may be overreacting because we're tired and we're so used to treachery and ambush that we ignore other answers, love.:

“ ‘Fandes agrees with you—” he began; the Stef started something that had nothing to do with a therapeutic massage, and he murmured a little exclamation of surprise.

“Have we disposed of the topic,
ashke?
” Stef asked, breathing the words into his ear, his chest pressed against Vanyel's back.

:I think,:
Yfandes said tactfully,
:that it's time for me to get some sleep. Good night, dearheart,:

:Good night, love,:
he replied—then his attention was taken elsewhere.

And it was quite a while before either he or Stefen actually slept.

V
anyel forgot all about his misgivings in the weeks that followed. His time was devoured by Council meetings, Audience sessions where he and Treven stood as proxies for Randale, and long-distance spellcasting. Desperation at being unable to be two places at once had led him to discover that he could work magic
through
a Herald without the Mage-Gift, provided that the Herald in question was both a Thoughtsenser and carried Mage-Gift in potential. He immersed himself in the nodes so often he began to feel very much akin to the
Tayledras.

He often returned to his room at night long past the hour when sane folk retired. When he did so, he found Stef invariably curled up sleepily next to the fire, light from the flames making a red glow in his hair, for he refused to take his own rest until Van returned. The Bard's patient care was the one constant in his life besides Yfandes, and as fall deepened into winter, he came to rely more and more on both of them, just to keep a hold on sanity and optimism in a world increasingly devoid of both.

Karse
had
declared holy war on the “evil mages of Valdemar,” though as yet they had done nothing about it. The agents both the Lord Marshal and the Seneschal had in place reported that the Prophet-King (as he styled himself) had his hands full with rooting out “heresy” in his own land. But no one was under any delusions; the consensus was that as soon as the followers of the Sun Lord needed an outside enemy to unify what was left of the populace, there would be an army of fanatics hammering the Southern Border.

That would only add to the bandits who had taken over the buffer zone between the two countries, motley bands of brigands who had escaped or been turned loose during the revolution, those who had been accused of magery and fled their homes but had declined to cross the Border, and opportunists who preyed on both sides.