Magic's Price (5 page)

One of the brown-tunicked Bardic apprentices passed them, laboring under a burden of four or five instruments. They stepped off the path long enough to let her pass; her eyes widened at the sight of Vanyel, and she swallowed and sketched a kind of salute as they passed by her. Van didn't notice, but Medren did; he winked at her and returned it.

Medren had gotten Stef as a roommate before this, back when he was an apprentice.
That was surely an experience! I'm not sure which was stranger for me; Stef as he arrived, or Stef once he figured out what he was.
Medren mentally shook his head.
What a country-bred innocent I was!

Stef had arrived at the Collegium in the care of Bard Lynnell; barely ten, and frightened half to death. He had no idea what was going on, or why this strange woman had plucked him off his street corner and carried him off. Lynnell wasn't terribly good with children, and she hadn't bothered to explain much to young Stefen. That had been left to Medren, the only apprentice at the time who had no roommate.

Lynnell had heard the boy singing on the street corner, attracting good crowds despite being accompanied only by an unskilled hag with a bodhran. While the Bard had no talent for taking care of children, she
was
both skilled and graced with the Bardic Gift herself. She had recognized Stefen's Gift with the first notes she heard. And she knew what would happen if that child was left unprotected much longer—some accident would befall him, he could be sold to a whoremaster, some illness left untreated could ruin his voice for life—there were a thousand endings to this child's story, and few of them happy.

Until Lynnell had entered it, anyway.
One thing about Lynn; she goes straight for what she wants so fast that most people are left gaping after her as she rides out of sight.

She'd made enough inquiries to ascertain that the crude old woman playing the drum and collecting the coins was
not
Stef's mother, nor any kind of relative. That was all it took for her to be on the sunny side of legality; once that was established, she had invoked Bardic Immunity and kidnapped him.

There were some who opined that Stefen's preference for his own sex stemmed from some experience with that nasty old harridan that was so appalling he'd totally repressed the memory. Privately Medren thought that was unlikely. So far as he was able to determine, she'd never laid a finger on Stefen except for an occasional hard shaking, or a slap now and then.

He held the door to the Bardic Collegium open for his uncle, and followed closely on his heels.

All that Stef had suffered from was neglect, physical and emotional. The emotional neglect was quickly remedied by every adult female in the Collegium, who found the half-starved, big-eyed child irresistible.

Stef's spirits certainly revived quickly enough once he discovered the attention was genuine—and also learned he was to share the (relative) luxuries of the Bardic Collegium.

Like a roof over his head every night, a real bed, all he could eat whenever he wanted it,
Medren thought, following Vanyel up the narrow staircase to the second floor. Poor little
lad. Whatever his keeper had been spending the money on, it certainly wasn't high living. Drugs, maybe. The gods know Stefs death on anybody he catches playing with them.

Bard Breda's rooms were right by the staircase; Collegium lore had it that she'd picked that suite just so she could humiliate apprentices she caught sneaking in late at night.

The
fact
was that she had chosen those rooms because she was something of an Empath and something of a chiru geon; she'd gotten early herbalist training before her Gift was discovered. Bardic apprentices tended to get themselves in trouble with alarming regularity. Sometimes that trouble ended in black eyes—and occasionally in worse. Breda's minor Talents had come to the rescue of more than one wayward apprentice since the day she'd settled in to teach.

Like every other female in the place, she'd taken a liking to Stef, which was just as well. Once Stef had reached the age of thirteen his preferences were well established—and his frail build combined with those preferences got him into more fights than the rest of the apprentices combined. Breda had patched Stefen up so many times she declared that she was considering having the Healers assign him to one of
their
apprentices as a permanent case study.

Vanyel paused outside the worn wooden door, and knocked lightly.

“Come,” Breda replied, her deep voice still as smooth as cream despite her age, and steadier than the Palace foundations. Vanyel pushed the door ajar, and let them both into the dim cool of Breda's quarters.

Medren often suspected that Breda was at least half owl. She was never awake before noon, she stayed alert until the unholiest hours of the dawn, and she kept the curtains drawn in her rooms no matter what time of day or night it was. Of course, that could have been at least in part because she was subject to those terrible headaches, during which the least amount of light was painful ... still, walking into her quarters was like walking into a cave.

Medren peered around, trying to see her in the gloom, blinking as his eyes became accustomed to it. He heard a chuckle, rich and throaty. “By the window. I do read occasionally.”

Medren realized then that what he'd taken for an empty chair did in fact have the Bard in it; he'd been fooled by the shadows cast by the high back. “Hullo, Van,” the elderly Bard continued serenely. “Come to verify your scapegrace nephew's tale, hmm?”

“Something like that,” Vanyel admitted, finding another chair and easing himself down into it. “You must admit that most of the rumors of cures we've chased lately have been mist-maidens.”

Medren groped for a chair for himself; winced as the legs scraped discordantly against the floor, and dropped down onto its hard wooden seat.

“Sad, but true,” Breda admitted. “I must tell you, though, I was completely skeptical, myself. I'm difficult to deceive at the best of times; when I have one of my spells I really don't have much thought for anything but the pain. And that youngling
dealt
with the pain. I've no idea how, but he did it.”

“So I take it you're in favor of this little experiement?” Medren thought Van sounded relieved, but he couldn't be sure.

A faint movement from the shadows in the chair signaled what might have been a shrug. “What have we got to lose? The boy can't hurt anyone with that Wild Talent, so the very worst that could happen is that the King will have one of our better young Journeymen providing appropriately soothing background music for the audiences. He'll have to have
someone
there entertaining in any case—someone with the Gift, to keep those ambassadors in a good mood. No reason why it can't be Stefen. The boy's amazingly good; very deft, so deft that even most Gifted Bards don't notice he's soothing them.”

“No reason at all,” Vanyel agreed. “Especially if he's that good. Can he do both at once?”

“Can you Mindspeak with ‘Fandes and spellcast at the same time?” Breda countered.

“If the spell is familiar enough.” Vanyel pondered. “But I don't know, he's not very experienced, is he? Medren told me he's still a Journeyman.”

“He may not be experienced, but he's a damned remarkable boy,” Breda replied, with an edge to her voice. “You ought to pay a bit more attention to what's going on under your nose, Van, the lad's been the talk of the Collegium for the past couple of years. That's why we kept him here for his Journeyman period instead of sending him out. The boy's got all three Bardic requirements, Van, not just two. The Gift, the ability to perform, and the creative Talent to compose. Three of his ballads are in the common repertory already, and he's not out of Journeyman status.”

Vanyel coughed. “I stand rebuked,” he replied, a hint of humor in his voice. “Well, let's give this Stefen a chance. Do you want to tell him, or shall I?”

Breda laughed. “You. I'd just gotten comfortable when you two sailed in. And at my age, one finds stairs more than a little daunting.”

Vanyel rose, and Medren scrambled to join him. “You're just lazy, that's all,” he mocked gently. “You can outdance, outfight, outdrink, and outlast people half your age when you choose.”

“That's as may be,” Breda replied as Vanyel turned toward the door, her own voice just as mocking. “But right now I don't choose. Let me know how things work out, youngling.”

Medren felt a hand between his shoulderblades propelling him out the door and into the corridor. “Just for that,” Vanyel said over his shoulder as he closed the door, “I think I'll see that someone tells you—some time next week.”

A pungent expletive emerged, muffled, through the door. Medren hadn't known Breda knew that particular phrase ... though anatomically impossible, it certainly would have been interesting to watch if she'd decided to put his uncle in that particular position....

 

Stefen—or rather, Stefen's appearance—came as something of a surprise to Van. Vanyel had been expecting something entirely different—a youngster like Medren, but perhaps a little plainer, a little taller. At some point he'd formed a vague notion that people gifted with extraordinary abilities tended to look perfectly ordinary.

Stefen was far from ordinary—

Van hung back when they'd gotten to the room Medren shared with the boy, prompted by the feeling that Stefen might be uneasy in his presence. Stef had just been leaving, in fact. Medren intercepted him right at the door, and Vanyel had lingered in an alcove while Medren explained to the boy what they wanted of him. That gave Van ample opportunity to study the musician while the youngster remained unaware of the Herald's scrutiny.

Vanyel's first impression was of fragility. Stefen was slight; had he been a girl, he'd have been called “delicate.” He was a little shorter than Vanyel, and as slim. That didn't matter, though—Vanyel could tell that Stefs appearance was as deceptive as his own. Stefen was fine-boned, yes, but there was muscle over that bone; tough, wiry muscle.

I wouldn't care to take him on in a street fight,
Van observed, eyes half-closed as he studied the boy.
Something tells me he'd win.

Dark auburn hair crowned a triangular face; one composed, at first impression, of a pair of bottomless hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and the most stubborn chin Van had ever seen.

He looks like a demented angel, like that painting in the High Temple of the Spirit of Truth. The one that convinced me that knowing too much truth will drive you mad....
Vanyel watched carefully as Stef listened to Medren's plans. Once or twice, the boy nodded, and some of that wavy hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it out of the way absently, all his attention given to his roommate.

He was tense; that was understandable. Vanyel was very glad that he had chosen to keep himself out of the way now. The boy was under quite enough pressure without the added stress of Herald Vanyel's presence. Van was quite well aware how much he overawed most of the people he came into contact with—that gardener this morning was the exception. Most folk reacted the way that young Bardic apprentice had on the way over here—the kind of mix of fear and worship that made her try to bow to him despite having both arms full, and despite custom that decreed otherwise. Heralds were not supposed to be “special.” Rank was not supposed to matter except inside Circle and Council.

Rules, apparently, did not apply to Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron.

Well, that's neither here nor there, he thought, watching the young
Journeyman-Bard
carefully. :‘Fandes, what do you think of this youngster?:

He felt her looking out of his eyes, and felt her approval before she voiced it.
:I like him, Van. He'll give you everything he has, without holding back. He has a very powerful Bardic Gift, and he does indeed have a secondary Gift as well that is nearly as powerful. It's something like MindHealing, but very specific. I can't tell you any more than that until I See it in action.:

For the first time that day, Vanyel allowed his hope to rise a little.
:Then you think this might work?:

Van blinked.
:Huh. Well, right now, the only other thing I can give him is to stay out of the way. I don't want to frighten him into freezing by having The Great Herald-Mage Vanyel Demonsbane descend on him.:

:The Great Herald-Mage indeed,:
she snorted.
:Sounds like someone I know may not fit his hats before too long.:

Medren opened the door to their room and waved Stefen inside. He looked back over his shoulder at Van, who just nodded at him. The boy was doing just fine; so long as Stefen got to the Throne Room in time for the audiences, Vanyel didn't see any reason to interfere in the way things were going. He turned and headed back down the hallway to the stairs.

:I won't fit my hats, hmm?:
he replied as he descended the stairs.
:Isn't that interesting. I was just thinking that it's been too long since the last time you and I went over the advanced endurance course together. Who was it I overheard boasting about the times she used to make over the course?: