Magic's Pawn (15 page)

He ached inside; just ached.

I’ve lost music - no; even if Tylendel is to be trusted, I can’t take the chance. Not even on
-
being his friend. If
he
didn’t turn on me, which he probably would.

All that was left was the other dream - the ice-dream. The only dream that couldn’t hurt him.

* * *

The chasm wasn’t too wide to jump, but it was deep. And there was something - terrible - at the bottom of it. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he knew it was true. Behind him was nothing but the empty, wintry ice-plain. On the other side of the chasm it was springtime. He wanted to cross over, to the warmth, to listen to bird-song beneath the trees
-
but he was afraid to jump. It seemed to widen even as he looked at it.

“Vanyel?”

He looked up, startled.

Tylendel stood on the other side, wind ruffling his hair, his smile wide and as warm and open as spring sunshine.

“Do you want to come over?” the trainee asked softly. He held out one hand. “I’ll help you, if you like. “

Vanyel backed up a step, clasping his arms tightly to his chest to keep from inadvertently answering that extended hand.

“Vanyel?” The older boy’s eyes were gentle, coaxing. “Vanyel, I’d like to be your friend. “ He lowered his voice still more, until it was little more than a whisper, and gestured invitingly. “I’d like,” he continued, “to be more than your friend. “

“No!”
Vanyel cried, turning away violently, and running as fast as he could into the empty whiteness.

When he finally stopped, he was alone on the empty plain, alone, and chilled to the marrow. He ached all over at first, but then the cold really set in, and he couldn’t feel much of anything. There was no sign of the chasm, or of Tylendel.

And for one brief moment, loneliness made him ache worse than the cold.

Then the chill seemed to reach the place where the loneliness was, and that began to numb as well.

He began walking, choosing a direction at random. The snow-field wasn’t as featureless as he’d thought, it seemed. The flat, smooth snow-plain that creaked beneath his feet began to grow uneven. Soon he was having to avoid huge teeth of ice that thrust up through the crust of the snow - then he could no longer avoid them; he was having to climb over and around them.

They were sharp-edged; sharp as glass shards. He cut himself once, and stared in surprise at the blood on the snow. And, strangely enough, it didn’t seem to hurt

There was only the cold.

Tylendel was sprawled carelessly across the grass in the garden, reading. Vanyel watched him from behindthe safety of his window curtains, half sick with conflicting emotions. The breeze was playing with the trainee’s tousled hair almost the same way it had in his dream.

He shivered, and closed his eyes.
Gods. Oh, gods. Why me? Why now? And why, oh why,
him?
Savil’s favorite protege
-

He clutched the fabric of the curtain as if it were some kind of lifeline, and opened his eyes again. Tylendel had changed his pose a little, leaning his head on his hand, frowning in concentration. Vanyel shivered and bit his lip, feeling his heart pounding so hard he might as well have been running footraces. No girl had ever been able to make his heart race like this. . . .

The thought made him flush, his stomach twisting.
Gods, what am I? Like him? I must be. Father will
-
oh, gods. Father will kill me, lock me up, tell everyone I’ve gone mad. Maybe I have gone mad.

Tylendel smiled suddenly at something he was reading; Vanyel’s heart nearly stopped, and he wanted to cry.
If only he’d smile at me that way
-
oh, gods, I can’t, I
can’t,
I
daren’t trust him, he’ll only turn on me like all the others.

Like
all
the others.

He turned away from the window, invoking his shield of indifference with a sick and heavy heart.

If only I dared. If only I dared.

Savil locked the brassbound door of her own private version of the Work Room with fingers that trembled a little, and turned to face her favorite protege, Tylendel, with more than a little trepidation.

Gods. This is not going to be easy.
She braced herself for what was bound to be a dangerous confrontation; both for herself and for Tylendel. She didn’t
think
he was going to go for her throat - but - well, this time she was going to push him just a little farther than she had dared before. And there was always the chance that it would be
too
far, this time.

He stood in the approximate center of the room, arms folded over the front of his plain brown tunic, expression unwontedly sober. It was fairly evident that he had already gathered this was not going to be a lesson or an ordinary discussion.

There was nothing else in this room, nothing at all. Unlike the public Work Room, this one was square, not circular; but the walls here were stone, too, and for some of the same reasons. In addition there was an inlaid pattern of lighter-colored wood delineating a perfect circle in the center of the hardwood floor. And there was an oddness about the walls, a sense of presence, as if they were nearly alive. In a way, they were; Savil had put no small amount of her own personal energies into the protections on this room. They were, in some senses, a part of her. And because of that, she should be safer here than anywhere else, if something went wrong.

“You didn’t bring me in here to practice,” Tylendel stated flatly.

Savil swallowed and shook her head. “No, I didn’t. You’re right. I wanted to talk with you; I have two subjects, really, and I don’t want anyone to have a chance at overhearing us.”

“The first subject?” Tylendel asked. “Or - I think I know. My family again.” His expression didn’t change visibly, but Savil could sense his sudden anger in the stubborn setting of his jaw.

“Your family again,” Savil agreed. “Tylendel, you’re a Herald, or nearly. Heralds
do not
take sides in anyone’s fight, not even when their own blood is involved. Your people have been putting pressure on you to do something. Now
I
know you haven’t interfered - but I also know you want to. And I’m afraid that you might give in to that temptation.”

His mouth tightened and he looked away from her. “So Evan Leshara can pour his poison into the ear of anyone at Court who cares to listen - and I ‘m not allowed to do or say anything about it, is that it? I’m not even allowed to call him a damned liar for some of the things he’s said about Staven?” He pulled his gaze back to her, and glared at her as angrily as if she were the one responsible for his enemy’s behavior. “It’s more than just my blood, Savil, it’s my
twin.
By all he believes, by all he holds true, we’ve got blood-debt to pay here - and
Staven,
for all that he’s young, is the Lord Holder now. It’s his decision; the rest of us Frelennye must and
will
support him. And besides all that, he’s in the
right,
dammit!”

“Lord Holder or not,
young
or not,
right
or not, he’s a damned hotheaded fool,” Savil burst out, flinging up both her hands before her in a gesture of complete frustration. “Blood-debt be hanged, it’s that kind of fool thinking that got your people and the Leshara into this
stupid
feud in the first damned place!
You can’t bring back the dead with more blood!’’

“It’s honor, dammit!” He clenched his hands into fists. “Can’t you even
try
to understand that?”

“It has nothing to do with
real
honor,” she said scornfully. “It has everything to do with plain, obstinate pride. ‘Lendel, you
cannot
be involved.”

She froze with her heart in her mouth as he made one angry step toward her.

He saw her reaction, and halted.

She plowed onward, trusting in the advice she’d gotten.
Please, Jaysen, be right this time, too.

“This whole feud is
insanity!
‘Lendel, listen to me! lt has got to be stopped, and if it goes on much longer it’s the Heralds who’ll have to stop it and you
cannot
take sides!”

All right so far, she hadn’t said anything new. Now for the fresh goad. And hope it wasn’t too much of a goad, too soon.

“ ‘Lendel, I know you’ve never been able to figure out why both you
and
Staven weren’t taken by Companions - well, dammit, it’s
exactly
this insanity that’s the reason your beloved twin
didn’t
get Chosen and
you did.
You at least can
see
the futility of this when you aren’t busy defending him - he’s too full of vainglory and too damned stubborn to
ever
see any solution to this but crushing the Leshara, branch and root! Your twin is an
idiot,
‘Lendel! He’s just as much an idiot as Wester Leshara, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s going to get people killed out of plain stupidity! And I will not permit this to go on for very much longer. If I have to denounce Staven to end your involvement with this, I will.
Never
doubt it. You have more important things to do with your life than waste it defending a fool.”

Tylendel’s fists clenched again; he was nearly rigid with anger, as his eyes went nearly black and his face completely white with the force of his emotions - and for one moment Savil wondered if he’d strike her this time. Or strike
at
her, that is; if he came for her, she didn’t intend to be where his fist landed. Or his levinbolt, if it came to that.

Please, Lord and Lady, don’t let him lose it this time, let him stay in control
-
I’ve never pushed him this far before. And don’t let him try magic. If he hits out, I may not be able to save him from what my protections will do.

She prayed, and looked steadfastly (and, she hoped, compassionately) into those angry eyes.

She could Feel him vibrating inside, caught between his need to strike out at the one who had attacked his very beloved twin and his own conscience and good sense.

Savil continued to hold her ground, refusing to back down. The tension in the room was so acute that the power-charged walls picked it up, reverberating with his rage. And that fed back into Savil, will-she, nill-she. It was all
she
could do to hold fast, and maintain at least the appearance of calm.

Then he whirled and headed blindly into a corner. He rested his forehead against the cool stone of the wall with one arm draped over his head, pounding the fist of his free hand against the gray stones, cursing softly under his breath.

Now Savil let him alone, saying absolutely nothing.

Once you get him worked into a rage, let him deal with his anger and his internal turmoil in his own way,
had been Jaysen’s advice.
Leave him alone until he’s calmed
himself
down.

Finally he turned back to the room and her, bracing himself in the corner, eyes nearly closed; breathing as hard as if he’d been running a mile.

“You’ll never get me to agree to stop supporting Staven, you know,” he said in a perfectly conversational tone. “I won’t interfere with the Heralds, I won’t help with the feud, and I won’t call Evan Leshara a damned liar - but I
will
defend Staven and what he thinks is right, if only to you. I love him, and I will not give that up.”

There was no sign that a moment before he’d been in - literally - a killing rage.

“I know,” Savil replied, just as calmly, giving no indication that
she
was still shaking inside. “I’m not asking you to give up loving Staven. All I want is for you to
think
about this mess, not just react to it. If it was only your two families, it would be bad enough, but you’re involving the whole region in your feuding. We know very well that you’ve both been looking for mages to escalate this thing - and ‘Lendel, I do not want to hear a single word about which side started
that.
The important thing is that you’ve done it. The
important
thing is that if either side involves magic in this, the Heralds must and
will
take a hand. We can’t afford to have wild magic loose and hurting innocent people. You are a Herald, or nearly. You have to remember that you
cannot
take a side. You
have
to be impartial. No matter what Evan Leshara does or says.”

Tylendel shrugged, but it was
not
an indifferent shrug. His pain was very real, and only too plain to his mentor; she hurt
for
him. But this was one of the most important lessons any Herald had to learn - that he
had
to be impartial, no matter what the cost of impartiality was. And no matter whether the cost was to himself, or to those he cared for.

“All right,” he said, tonelessly. “I’ll keep out of it. So. Now that you’ve turned my guts inside out, what else did you want to discuss?’’

“Vanyel,” Savil said, relaxing enough that her voice became a little dulled with weariness. “He’s been here for more than a month. I want you to tell me what you think.”