Magic's Promise (25 page)

It was like something out of his worst nightmares. A
Herald,
with a heavy carter's whip,
beating
the stallion until his skin came away in strips and blood striped bright on the snowy hide, trying to separate him from the boy.

Yfandes literally rode the Herald down, swerving at the last moment to shoulder him aside instead of trampling him. Vanyel leaped from her saddle as he had so many times before in Border - fights; hit the cobbles and tumbled to kill his momentum, and sprang to his feet with sword drawn.

He didn't give the other Herald a breath to react. Whatever insanity was going on here had to be
stopped.
Without thinking, Van reversed the grip on the sword in his hand.

And lashed up to catch the stranger squarely on the chin with a handful of metal.

The other Herald went flying backward, and landed in an untidy heap.

Damn, he's still moving.

Vanyel put himself in righting stance between the young stallion and his abuser. He touched the young ones' minds just long enough to try and get some sense out of either the boy or the stallion - but from the first picked up only shock, and from the second, fear that drowned everything else out.

Vanyel pulled on the power within him, feeling it leap, wild and undisciplined, as the other Herald staggered to his feet, bleeding from a split lip, and prepared to lash out with the whip again. Flinging out his left hand, Van sent a lash of his own, a lash of lightning from his outstretched finger to the whipstock. The spark arced across the space between them with a crackle and the pungent smell of burning leather, and the dark, sallow-faced Herald dropped the whip with an exclamation of pain. Behind him, Yfandes was holding off the armsmen with squeals, lashing hooves and bared teeth; faced with her anger, they were not inclined to come to the Herald's rescue.

“
What in
hell
do you think you're doing?
”
Vanyel thundered, letting the other feel his outrage, a wave of red anger. The older man backed up an involuntary pace.
“
What in the name of the gods themselves is going on here?
”

Vanyel sheathed his sword then. The other Herald drew himself up, nursing his injured hand against his chest, rubbing the blood off his bruised chin with the other.
“
Who are
you
to interfere -
”
he began, his face a caricature of thwarted authority.

Vanyel tried to Mindspeak, but the other's channel was weak, and he was blocking it besides. And the personality was not one for much hope of compromise. Stolid and methodical - and affronted by the stranger's intervention in
his
jurisdiction. The
young
stranger, too young, surely, to have any authority.

Gods bless
-
I'm going to have to pull rank on this thickheaded idiot. And he's never going to forgive me for that.

And the only reason I didn't put him out is
because
he's so damn thick - headed!

“
Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron,
”
Vanyel cut him off.
“
Called Demonsbane, called Shadowstalker, First Herald-Mage in Valdemar. I outrank you, Herald, and your damn fool actions tonight called me out of my bed and across the Border. You've exceeded your authority, and I'm ordering you to
let this boy be.
Who in hell are
you?”

Vanyel could feel the older man's resentment and smoldering anger, heavy and hot, a ponderous weight of molten emotional metal.
“
Herald Lores,
”
he said sullenly, rubbing his hand.
“
King Randale's envoy to the court of Lineas.
”

Over his shoulder, Vanyel watched Yfandes backing away from the armsmen. She cautiously nudged the downed Companion's shoulder-still keeping one eye on them. After a couple of false tries, the other mare managed to get back to her feet, but stood with her head down and her legs splayed and shaking.

:
'Fandes?:

:She 's Hearing again, and Speaking, a little; when you got her Chosen to stop, it resolved the conflict inside her -

but she is not well. She is still in turmoil, and her heart bleeds. :

:Take care of her.:
He turned his attention back to Lores.
“
Tell me – slowly - just
what
you thought you were doing, taking a
whip
to a Companion, trying to drive him away from his Chosen.
”

Lores snarled.
“
That
boy
is a bloody-handed murderer, and that
thing
you call a Companion is his demon shape - changed! He called it up and was trying to escape on it.
”

“
What?
”
Vanyel backed up a step, inadvertently bumping into the young stallion, who snorted in alarm but stood rock - steady, ready to protect his Chosen against
anything,
be it man, beast, or creature of magic. Vanyel reached out, still keeping his eyes on Lores, and laid his hand along the stallion's neck. If
anyone
in the wide world would know what a demon
“
felt
”
like,
he
did, after having them close enough to score his chest with their claws, and after turning them back against Karse! He extended his mind toward the young stallion's, and touched again, gently. No demonic aura met his mind, only the pure, bright, blue - white pulsing that was the signature of a Companion, an aura that
only
a Companion, of all the creatures he had ever Mindtouched, possessed.

Anger rose in him, as his hand came away bloody, and the young stallion shivered in fear and pain. He clenched his fist and stared at the older Herald.
“
You -
”
he groped for words.
“
If I didn't
know
Randale, and
know
that neither he nor Shavri would send anyone at all unbalanced out here as an envoy, I'd say you were insane.
”
The man gaped at him, taken completely aback.
“
As it is, I'm forced to say I've never encountered anyone so incredibly
stupid
in my life!
”
He relaxed his clenched fist and patted the stallion's neck without looking around, then advanced on Lores with such anger filling him that he was having trouble keeping his voice controlled.
“
What in
hell
makes you think this youngster is a demon?
”

“
You could be fooled, spell-touched-
”

“
Not bloody likely! And a demon could
never
fool my Companion, nor yours. Gods, man, if
they
wouldn't know.
After
she Chose, and after - her Chosen - was pressed past all sanity. It has
no
bearing on what happened here.
You
would not listen to your
own Companion
try to tell you the truth.
”

He took a step toward the other, bloody finger pointed in accusation.
“
You blocked her out with
your
anger and
your
fear. You allowed
your
emotions to interfere with your ability to see the truth. You blocked her so you couldn't hear what you didn't
want
to hear.
”

Lores' resentment smoldered in his eyes, but he could not deny Vanyel's accusations.

:Van - the boy -:

Vanyel spun, just in time to see the young man losing his death grip on his Companion's mane, sliding to the ground. He sprinted to the boy's side, startling the young stallion so that he threw up his head and rolled his eyes, and caught the boy in mid - collapse, draping the boy's arm over his own neck and shoulder, supporting him, and looked around for an open door -
any
door-

:Your left,:
Yfandes prompted: one of the double doors into the main entranceway was cracked open. He half-carried, half-dragged the boy there, with Lores following sullenly behind, and kicked the door open enough to squeeze through.

It was pitchy dark in the palace - which was
damned
odd for the throne-seat, even at a few hours till dawn. Even odder, all that commotion in the main courtyard had brought
no one
out to see what the ruckus was about. Van couldn't see a thing past the little light coming in the doorway. The building might just as well have been deserted.

First things first; they needed light. So -
Be damned to local prejudice,
he thought, and set a globe of blue mage-light to spinning above his head. Behind him, he heard a stifled gasp as Lores watched it appear out of nowhere.

They were in a bare entryway; that was all he had time to notice in his brief glance.
Someplace to put this boy -
A seat was what he was looking for, and he spotted one: a highly-polished wooden bench, bare of cushions and bolted to the floor, over against the wall just clear of the door. Presumably it was for the use of low-rank servants waiting for something or someone at the main entrance. Whatever, it was a seat. He supported the boy over to it, and got him seated, shoved his head down between his legs, and worked the little Healing he knew to clear the shock out and get him conscious again.

The boy was aware enough to interpret that as some kind of coercion or confinement; he tried to fight, and raised his head into the light.

And Vanyel saw his face for the first time.

It was Tylendel's face, dazed with shock and vacant-eyed, that looked up at him in confusion beneath the blue mage-light.

Vanyel choked, and the floor seemed to heave beneath him. Only one hand on the wall saved him. For a moment he thought that his heart had stopped, or that his mind had snapped.

His eyes cleared again, and he took a closer look, reached out to tip the boy's face into the light, and
almost
Mindtouched -

But he stopped himself, as he began to see the little differences. The boy couldn't be more than sixteen, and looked it; 'Lendel had always looked
older
than he really was. The boy's nose was snubbed, or more than 'Lendel's had been; the eyes were farther apart and larger, the chin rounded and not squared, the hair wavy, not curly, and darker than the golden-brown of Tylendel's. Subtle differences, but enough to let him shake off his ghosts, enough to tell him that this
was not
Tylendel.

Whatever the boy in turn saw or sensed in
his
eyes, it reassured him enough that he stopped fighting, and obeyed Vanyel's half-audible order to keep his head down.

Not now,
he told himself.
Deal with your ghosts later, not now.

For the first time since entering the gilded door, he looked around to see if there
was finally
anyone coming. He looked past the barren entryway - and froze at the sight of the wreckage in the mage-light.

He'd seen less destruction after the sacking of a keep.

No wonder no one came,
he thought, dumbly.
Nobody human could have survived this.

Vanyel stood at the edge of the staircase and stared. This entry was hardly more than twenty feet long, and made of the same black stone as the exterior, but polished to a reflective shine; it led to a short stone stair that in turn led down into the wood-paneled Great Hall. This Hall had been a reception area - lit by chandeliers and wall sconces, hung with tapestries, lined with dark wood tables and chairs polished to mirror-brightness. It was demolished.

The chandeliers had been torn from the beams, tapestries ripped from the walls. The walls, the floor, the ceiling beams themselves were scored and gouged as though with the marks of terrible claws. The tapestries had been shredded, the furniture reduced to splinters, the wreckage scattered across the floor as though a whirlwind had played here.

Vanyel remembered his dream, and felt his hair rise and a chill creep up his backbone.

“
What -
”
His voice cracked, and he tried again.
“
What
happened?”

Lores' lip lifted a little, but he answered civilly enough.
“
That boy - that's Tashir. You know who he is?
”

Vanyel nodded.
“
Tashir Remoerdis. Deveran of Lineas' oldest child.
”

“
You know Deveran figured him for a bastard, the worst kind, fathered on Ylyna by her own brother, so they say.
”

“
Is that really germane?
”
Van looked back at the wreckage.

“
Damn right it's
germane.”
Lores lifted his lip scornfully.
“
It's why the brat
did
all this.
”

“
Lores, you'd better tell me everything you know.
”
Vanyel requested simply, still trying to take in the implications of the wrecked palace.

Lores snorted and rambled on.
“
Ylyna was no virgin, though in honesty the Mavelans never claimed she was. Still, fourteen's a bit young to have been as - let's say -
experienced
as she was. Tashir was born eight months after the wedding. That's suspicious enough. Boy looks like his uncle Vedric and
nothing
like Ylyna or Deveran did. That's the second reason; another is that he's known to have Gifts; Fetching, for one-things have been flying around when he got upset ever since he was thirteen. No Gifts manifested in Ylyna, and there's
never
been any in Deveran's line. The locals called it wizardry and pressured Deveran to disinherit Tashir.''