Storm Warning (29 page)

He turned to stare fully at her, because he sensed that she was not even telling him a fraction of what she knew about this person—that describing this person as coming from a place that is “different” from Valdemar just might be the understatement of the millennium.

“What exactly ... ?” he asked. “What do you mean?” She made a face of frustration. “I’m really not certain what I can and cannot tell you about him. His situation is—well, nothing short of what you would read about in a legend, and even then you would probably not believe it. The thing that the two of you have in common is that you’re both—bewildered, I suppose is the right word. Bewildered and quite foreign to Valdemar. He
does
need a friend, and he is terribly shy. He is also very reserved, and tends to think of questions as being intrusive, which makes him unhappy when he is around our younger Heralds-in-training.”

Karal nodded, grimacing. He had met one or two besides Arnod who hadn’t been afraid of him—but both of those
children
had been full of questions that in Karse would have been considered dreadfully rude. He had answered them anyway, because they
were
clearly children and hadn’t meant anything offensive by their questions.

“I will meet this person, if you like,” he offered, feeling that he had to offer her
something
after all the help she had given him today. “I cannot promise anything after that. We might immediately hate one another, after all.”

“Oh, I don’t think that is very likely,” she replied, looking quite satisfied. “I usually manage to find people who are going to enjoy each other’s company, rather than the reverse.” Then she bit her lip, as if something had just occurred to her “There is just one thing—”

Karal looked at her sharply. “Which is, what?”

“Do you recall the Tayledras envoy? Firesong, the Hawkbrother Mage?”

Of course he recalled Firesong. Even if he did not have a secretary’s trained memory, he could hardly have forgotten
that
flamboyant young man. He nodded.

Talia sucked at her lower lip, and her brow creased a a little. “An‘desha is with him, but he isn’t exactly Tayledras, even though he looks like he is. Technically, he’s Shin’a’in. And he’s a lot younger than he looks, literally. He’s really about your age, maybe a year or two older.”

“Ah.” Karal nodded again, even though that was more confusing than it was enlightening. That phrase though, “An’desha is with him....” Was she implying what he thought?

In any case, did it matter? Despite the fact that such a liaison was supposed to be against the Will of Vkandis, there were plenty of situations, pairings like that in the Priesthood, something which had been made very clear to him and every other novice once they graduated from the Children’s Cloister.

It was also made very clear to the entire Priesthood once Solaris came to power that
nonconsensual
liaisons, whether they be of opposite or same sex partners, were Anathema, right up there with demon-summoning.
You shall force no one,
seemed to be the whole of the law as far as Solaris was concerned.

And as for Karal—as long as this An’desha wasn’t looking for a—

“He’s devoted to Firesong,” Talia said, as if she could read his mind. “He’s going to be a very powerful mage, and Firesong is teaching him. I thought you ought to know about that, too.”

Karal thought about any number of responses, and finally settled on a shrug. She might be implying what he thought, and she might not. It hardly mattered.

“Good enough,” Talia responded, looking cheerful again. “Come on, then, and I’ll tell you more about him. If you thought
your
life was strange, you haven’t heard anything yet!”

An’desha might not yet be even half the mage that Falconsbane had been, but he knew an Empath when he saw one, at least. He readily recognized that Gift in the Herald who came up the path to the
ekele,
black-clad stranger in tow. He thought he recognized the woman, vaguely, though he could not remember her name. Oh, Falconsbane would have
loved
to get his hands on a female like this one! That was one Gift he had been unable to simulate, and no real Empath would serve Falconsbane of his own free will.

He wondered if these were more of Firesong’s friends, and at first he was put out at the prospect of yet another invasion of his home. He left his seat in the garden and went outside to meet them, torn between a desire to be polite and irritation at Firesong for bringing more strangers in without consulting him.

But the Herald brightened when she saw him, and approached with the young man a step or two behind her. “An’desha?” she said (and she gave his name the correct pronunciation, which was a wonder). “You don’t know me, but I am Elspeth’s friend, Herald Talia. She’s told me a great deal about you—and to be honest, I
am
an Empath, and you haven’t exactly been shielding yourself from me, so I’ve been learning a bit about you from that as well.”

He started; he had not been aware that his emotions had been carrying that far. And when he thought about his predominant feelings since arriving here, he flushed. Mostly tension, unhappiness, even despair—he would not have wished that on
any
Empath.

But she was going on. “Elspeth said something about you spending a great deal of time alone out here, and what I picked up from you—well, it seemed to me you might like to try a little company. I thought that you and this young fellow probably have a great deal in common.”

She turned to the young man. “An‘desha shena Jor’e-than, this is Karal Austreben, secretary to the envoy from Karse. Karal, this is An’desha, who is an associate of the envoy from the Hawkbrothers.” Not only was she an Empath, but she was a skillful one; he felt her exerting her powers to soothe him, and at this point, he was intrigued enough to let her do so.

He knew who she was, once she introduced herself to him. This Talia was the person Elspeth trusted most in the whole world, even above and beyond Darkwind. An’desha was more than ready to be soothed at the moment; he had tried once again to socialize with the Valdemarans yesterday, and once again had met with failure. Here, though, was an Empath, bringing someone she
wanted
him to meet. It stood to reason, given her Gift and her expertise, that she just might have found someone he could get along with.

“I thought you two ought to at least meet,” she said to the handsome, dark-eyed, black-haired young man. She spoke slowly and carefully so that he—and presumably, Karal—could pick out every syllable. “I can’t imagine two people who have less in common with most of Valdemar. Even Firesong knows more about us and feels more comfortable with us than you two do. I’m sorry I waited this long to introduce you—in fact, I’m sorry I waited this long to introduce myself to you—but I wanted to make certain your mutual vocabularies in our tongue had gotten beyond the basics.”

An’desha had to laugh at that. “That was a good idea. You are probably right, that I feel less at home here than even Firesong,” he said, just as carefully. “Although I do not think I would ever
fit in
with any place or person.”

Just a cautious warning—
I hope she isn’t expecting us to be instant friends.

Talia shrugged. “You’re probably right, An’desha, but at least Karal is familiar with magic, and he’s not afraid of it. That makes him better company for you than most of my people; many of the—how shall I put this?—more reticent folk are afraid of both of you and your magics. Those who are not, or who pretend they are not, tend to be too forward. Oh, let me be blunt—they are
obnoxious.
They want to know everything about you, and they want to know it
now.
At least magic is hardly a novelty to the two of you.”

An’desha’s eyebrows raised at that. Karal nodded. “My master Ulrich is a powerful mage as well as a Priest,” the young man said diffidently. “He
was
one of those who summoned demons, until the Son of the Sun, Her Holiness Solaris, forbade the practice.”

“Demon-summoning?” Excitement thrilled along his nerves. Perhaps Talia had more in mind than simply introducing two lonely strangers. If
anyone
was likely to understand his dilemma, it would be one who was familiar with demons and their ilk.

“He never cared to practice that skill,” was all Karal said, but An’desha sensed a great deal behind that statement that Karal did
not
say. “I, personally, have no magic to speak of. My skills lie elsewhere.”

All the better, so far as An’desha was concerned; the last thing he wanted at the moment was another would-be “teacher.” Firesong was quite enough in that department.

“It often causes more problems than it solves,” An’desha offered tentatively. Talia watched both of them with a slight smile on her face.

Then Karal smiled himself. “That sounds like something my master would say,” he replied warmly. “The people here do
not
seem to understand that, they keep wanting to know what magics can be done to cure this or that—” He stopped himself and shrugged. “Well, I suspect you know.”

“I do,” An’desha replied. The corners of his mouth lifted along with his heart; this Talia was right, he and Karal
did
have a great deal in common, even though their backgrounds were probably utterly opposite.

An’desha had not realized how hungry he was for a
friend
until this moment. An Empath as strong as Talia would have to have sensed the need even though he had not voiced it to her—sensed it even past the stronger and darker emotions that his fears for the future had been calling up in him. The fact that she had brought Karal here indicated that she had sensed that same need in him as well.

This was a good thing; one of the first unreservedly good things that had happened since he entered the Gate to this land.

“Well, I wasn’t able to tell Karal a lot about you, because I didn’t want to take liberties that I was not entitled to take, An’desha,” Talia told him. “So why don’t you explain your situation? Who you are, how you came here, that sort of thing.”

An’desha groaned. “I am not so fluent in your tongue!” he exclaimed, in mock protest.

But Talia wouldn’t hear any excuses. “You are better than you think,” she said, as she nodded at the open door to the
ekele
garden, then raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry.

Well, if Firesong could invite people in, so could he! He asked them both into the garden, and described how it had been built—partially to buy himself time, and partially as a way of feeling Karal out. He was more than pleased; Karal’s questions were as discreet and nonintrusive as those of the young Heralds had
not
been.

Talia quietly absented herself a few moments later, and he and Karal sat down next to the waterfall in the garden. He noticed only because he sensed the absence of her soothing “spell.” He doubted that Karal had any idea that she was gone. The gentle gurgling of the waterfall created an atmosphere of peace and privacy; an ideal place to talk.

By then, Karal was describing his own background. An‘desha listened with fascination—sometimes horrified fascination—as Karal explained what the Vkandis Priests had once done to the children, and to the enemies, of their land. While Karal’s descriptions were no match for the things that Falconsbane had done, An’desha guessed that at least
some
of the Vkandis Priests had been well on their way to becoming twins of Ancar of Hardorn, and all under the guise of religion. The only thing they had not done was to poison and drain their own land for further power.

“That is over now,” Karal concluded. “Solaris has decreed the Cleansing Fires and the summoning of demons to be Anathema—that is, completely forbidden, unholy. So, here we are, Ulrich and I, trying to forge an alliance with people we were once at war with. It is—rather unsettling. I was brought up to believe that the people and especially the Heralds of Valdemar were beasts of utter evil and depravity, and now I find that they are—just people.” He shrugged. “I have seen so many changes in my lifetime, though, that I expect I will get used to this change as well. What of you?”

An‘desha struggled to find the words to describe his own situation, and decided on the simplest possible explanation. “I was Shin’a’in,” he said at last. “Longer ago, I think, than you realize, my body is older in years than it looks. I am—was—linked by descent to an ancient mage, an Adept. A very evil man, as evil as any of your demons. Because of that, he was able to—”
What to say?
“—to steal my body.”