Текст книги "Magic's Promise"

Автор книги: Mercedes Lackey

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He set his mind in the spell-cycle; he murmured a few words, gathered his will, and cupped his hands, unconsciously mirroring the shape he wanted to create.

Then he snapped his hands open, crying out a single word of command.

A flash of light made his closed eyelids burn red for a moment. Tashir cried out fearfully.

Absolute and complete silence descended on them like sudden deafness.

He opened his eyes; a steady, yellow glow on the outer walls was just barely visible to his Othersight.

He had erected a mage – barrier about the palace that would keep out anything he didn't want in, including such intangibles as thought – or other magic. He could pass through: so could anything he brought with him. No one and nothing else.

With effort his thoughts passed it.

:Yfandes? How are you and the stranger?:

:They are ignoring us,: she said. :You have frightened the Young One, and angered Lores. The mob has not made up its mind.:

:Even if they do, it won't get them anywhere. Give me a moment to make up my mind.:

Vanyel severed the connection between himself and the node. He could control it, yes, but at a price. He'd just earned himself another scattering of silver hairs. Among other things.

He opened his eyes and saw Tashir huddled up against the wall, shaking so hard his teeth rattled. He walked stiffly to the bench, and touched the young man's shoulder. He got no response. He turned Tashir's face into the light, and saw his eyes glazed over in withdrawal.

“Damn.” Vanyel sat down heavily beside him. “Now what?”

He thought hard for a moment; made up his mind quickly, and reached for the node again.

The shock as he touched it the second time was a little less. When he could catch his breath again, he used the node-energy to boost his own Mindspeech far beyond what he could have reached alone, sending his mind out questing for a Mindpresence so dear and familiar it could almost have drawn him on its own.

Touch.

Startlement. :Who?:

:Savil?:

Recognition and relief. :Gods! Ke'chara, what has been bloody going on? Where are you ?:

He told her everything that had happened, from the time he'd been awakened by the nightmare. He compressed as much of it as he could, warned her in advance before he Mindsent her an image of Tashir, and even so, the close resemblance to Tylendel came as a shock to her that mirrored his own. He had been Tylendel's lover – but Savil had been mentor, friend, confidant, and near-mother to Tylendel, the role she filled now for Vanyel.

:So,: she sent, after she regained her mental balance. :Plans?:

:I'm taking him into protective custody, and getting him out of here.:

:How, with a mob – oh, gods.: Realization and fear. Flatly-:You're going to Gate.:

:Do you see any other choice?: he asked. :Even if the mob weren't there-I tried to remember what little I've heard about investigative procedures. Preserve the evidence. If I break the shield-spell to get out, anybody can get in, and I don't have the power to set a second spell, not this solid, not from the outside. From the inside I can tap the node, but the interference I'd create with the shield would keep me effectively out of the node. You know that. Shields are permeable to the creator, but they still resist penetration. We have to find out what happened here, and we won't if anyone can get in and muddle things up.:

Her mind-voice was gritty and gray with grim concern. :Far too logical to make me happy, love. But you rank me these days, and there's reasons enough for that for me to follow your lead. Where are you coming in?:

He'd thought about that very carefully. :The door to the old chapel. It's on sanctified ground, it's one of the few doors inside Forst Reach big enough to use as a Gate-terminus, but it's not under constant use, and I know it as well as I will ever know any place. So be ready for me, because I'm not going to be worth much when I come through. :

:As if I didn't know. Be careful – please.:

:I'll try.:

He cut the connection to the node, which dropped him out of the link with Savil, and turned his mind to one nearer at hand.

:Brightlove-:

:Chosen-:

:I'm Gating myself and Tashir out of here. You and the Young One make a run for it. If that damned fool calling himself a Herald can't take the hint, it's not my fault; I've got too many balls in the air as it is.:

She trembled with concern. :I will warn Jenna; if she can get him to mount, she can carry him off whether he likes it or not. I won't tell you not to use that means of escape, only – take care!:

He touched her with a mental caress. :I shall.:

He opened his eyes, and considered the possibilities, finally deciding on the open archway onto the stairs as his best bet. Putting a Gate-terminus on the outer door where the shield was would be risking more magically than he cared to. At full powers, maybe. Not now.

But first – He shoved outward a little, chuckling nastily as the expanding shield shoved Lores down the stairs and into the courtyard. There. That should keep them quiet for a bit.

He walked to the center of the hallway, raised his hands, and began.

He spun bits of himself, his stored powers, into the structure. He could not tap the node for this; the only possible way to use external mage-energy for a Gate would be – at least as far as he had learned – if two mages were lifebonded, for at some deep level, two lifebonded were one. And, as always, as soon as he had formed the Portal around the edge of the archway, his uniquely sensitized channels began to burn painfully as he resonated to Gate-energy. When the Gate was complete, he'd be in torment.

But that was something he had learned to accept and work around. The Weaving – He spun himself, his own substance, out into threads that quested for the unique place he sought, the place where he would build the other end of the Gate. At some point he was no longer having to send those searching filaments; they were pulling on him, and it was all he could do to keep them from spinning away from him and taking everything that was him with them. Then, finally, one of them found the chapel door – another – a third – There was a flare of light, not so bright as the one when he'd built the shield, and his knees gave.

Oh, hell– he thought dazedly. I wasn't as ready as I thought I was.

He crouched on the filthy, shard-covered floor, panting in pain, for a long, long moment before he had the strength to look up. But when he did, he saw, not the wreckage of the Highjorune Great Hall, but the welcoming, familiar corridor that led to the old Forst Reach chapel. And thrice-blessed Savil, tunic on backward, waiting. The pain -

I ... think I'm in trouble. I've never . . . been this drained... before, he thought, somewhere under the red wash of burning. Oh, gods – if I'd known it was going to be like this, I'd never have had the courage. . . .

He got to his feet, somehow; he staggered like a mortally – wounded drunk trying to get to Tashir. He was so dizzy he could hardly see, and only concentrating on each step, one at a time, enabled him to cross the hallway to the young man.

“Ta-shir,” he croaked, and prayed for a little intelligence in those eyes. His prayers were answered this time; the young man stared at him with a kind of foggy awareness, though he still trembled in every limb. “Go ... get up ...” His feeble tugs on Tashir's arm were answered, the young man stumbled to his feet. “Go ... there ...”He pushed Tashir toward the Gate, every step bought with black – red waves of pain.

Maddeningly, Tashir stopped, right on the edge.

Vanyel screamed in frustration and torment, and shoved, sending the young man stumbling through, and unable to keep his balance, fell right through after him.

Fell from torment into agony; strength gone, control gone, sight, sound, all senses. There was only the pain -

And then there was nothing.

Eight

“You look like hell,” said a rough voice just above I his head.

What an amazing coincidence, Savil, Vanyel thought without opening his eyes. I feel like hell.

“I seem,” his aunt continued dryly, “to spend an inordinate amount of time at your bedside. And don't try to pretend you're not awake.”

“I wouldn't think of it,” he whispered, cracking his right eye open. Savil was lounging in the chair she'd pulled up next to his bed, feet on his bed. “Mother will have a cat,” he observed, prying his left eye open as well. “You know how she feels about boots on the bedcovers.”

“Your mother isn't here at the moment. How are you feeling?”

He took a quick inventory. ”Other than some assorted joint-aches, about the same as when I got back to Haven. Which is to say, as you pointed out, like hell. What's been going on? How long was I out this time?''

“Your outside matches your inside, we're not in a war with Lineas quite yet, and three days.” She quirked one corner of her mouth as he groaned, and continued. “I took the liberty of deep-scanning you while you were wit-wandering, and I got in touch with a couple of merchant-contacts in Highjorune. Useful birds, pigeons. Particularly when one can tell their little heads exactly where you want them to go. You want your briefing in sequence, or by specifics?”

He had been inching into a sitting position while she was talking. She poured a goblet of cider from a pitcher next to her, and handed it to him when he was secure.

“In sequence,” he said, after a sip to help moisten his throat. “And you'd better start with how Father is taking the new houseguest.”

“Your father doesn't know about him, thank the gods.” The other corner of her mouth twitched up to make a real smile. “Your old aunt is no fool, ke'chara; he was due to make his Harvest-tide inspection round of the freeholders the same morning you Gated back and fell on your nose. I simply installed Tashir in the guest room next to yours and didn't bother to tell anyone until after Withen was gone.” She hesitated a moment before continuing. “I have to tell you, having that boy around is unnerving. He acts like a ghost, whisking out of sight when he sees me coming; he's given me chills more than once. He's too like our lost one... Well. He is not well-wrapped, even I can tell that, and I'm no Mind-Healer.”

Vanyel nodded thoughtfully. “I've got too many questions, and nowhere near enough answers. So Tashir is here, and Father doesn't know about it. A not insignificant blessing. Keep going.”

“Yfandes and the new Companion got back about noon. By nightfall I'd gotten a pigeon or two back with news. Lores is going back to Haven to protest your actions to Randale, and he's carrying a demand from what's left of Deveran's Council that Tashir be turned over to them. Vedric finally stuck his nose in; he showed up the next day. He seems to be on the side of the Lineans, but he wants Tashir turned over to the Mavelans for trial and sentencing.” She paused for breath. “That's the bad news. The good news is that since that fathead Lores – yes, dear, I know him, he's a fathead and always has been one – isn't a Herald-Mage, he can't Gate back to Haven. It's going to take him a good long while to get there, especially since the Companions are in on our little conspiracy. ''

“The – how?”

“Jenna is going to be an invalid all the way home. If he makes the same time he'd make on a spavined horse, he'll be lucky.”

He coughed on a swallow of cider. Savil patted his back, a gleam of amusement in her eye. “I got that from 'Fandes through Kellan. Jenna is not happy with her Chosen, and intends to make him pay for it. So, Lores is going to be delayed. So far as I know, nobody knows where you and the lad are; Lores assumed you'd gone to Haven. That's more good news. So you're safe for a bit, maybe long enough to find out what really happened.”

“Even when people do find out where we are,'' Vanyel pointed out, “I can't be countermanded by anyone other than Randale. Randi is going to stall, I know him. He knows that if there weren't something damned odd going on, I'd have Gated to Haven with Tashir. So – what about our guest?''

“Well, I told you, he's been acting like a ghost. He's been hovering over you whenever there wasn't someone in here, but he seems to know when someone is coming, and slips back into his own room just before they get here. Fortunately I scanned you before I tried to read his mind. Someone or something certainly made him sensitive to that. I judged we didn't need any broken vases.”

“Exactly.” Vanyel sat up a little straighter, feeling better by the moment. “I wish I dared Mindtouch him long enough to figure out what his Gifts are. Fetching for certain – probably Mindspeech; that would account for knowing when someone was coming. Has anybody been seeing that he's fed?”

“Oh, he comes to meals, but not with the family. He slips down to the kitchen at First Call for the servants and the armsmen; gets himself something portable, and pelts back up here. I guess he returns whatever dishes he takes after the kitchen shuts down for the night; nobody's complained to me about missing plates. Your mother is alive with curiosity about him, and he won't get any nearer to her than he will to me.''

“Why is he so – I don't know what to call it; battle-shy, maybe?” Vanyel chewed at a fingernail. “I never heard that Deveran was all that bad a man.”

“Rumor and the truth are sometimes fairly different things, ke'chara,” Savil reminded him. “And Deveran was a man well-beset by problems, saddled with a wife he didn't care for, an enemy on one of his Borders which forced him to make his little kingdom into a client-state of Valdemar, his eldest was a problematical bastard, and he was unsteady enough on his throne that his people could pressure him into disinheriting the boy.” She shrugged eloquently. “This doesn't make for happy times in Lineas. Men under pressure have been known to take their unhappiness out on the defenseless.”

“Tashir.” Vanyel sighed. “So we have a new presumptive Herald with major Problems. Not good, Savil. What do we tell Father when he gets back?''

“Good question. No more than that you've retrieved Tashir newly-Chosen and – damaged. The less he knows of this mess, the better. I can't remember if he's ever seen Vedric or Tashir; if he hasn't, it might be best not to – “

:FearfearfearTRAPPED. Away! Get away! DON'T TOUCH ME! FEAR!:

“What in hell!” Savil exclaimed.

“Tashir,” Vanyel croaked, throwing himself out of bed, staggering across the room.

“Van!”

He ignored Savil, and pulled open the door to his room. “He's in the bower. Treesa must have cornered him somehow, and frightened him.”

He stumbled down the hall at an unsteady run, bare feet slapping on the wooden floor, weaving a little from side to side, but not slowing. He was halfway down the hallway before Savil caught up with him and threw a robe over him.

“Treesa would not appreciate a naked man breaking into her solar,” she rasped at him, as he wrestled it on, then outraced his aunt again.

It was a damned good thing that Treesa's bower wasn't far from the guest quarters, because he was winded when he got there, and holding his aching side.

Feminine shrieks met him halfway there. The pain – that was Tashir's and that was all emotional. So whatever was happening, it wasn't a repetition of the slaughter at Highjorune.

He yanked open the door on chaos. Heavy furniture was dancing all over the room; lighter things like embroidery frames and stools circled the ceiling like demented bats, now and again pausing to throw themselves at the wall before circling again. Piles of shards showed where a few fragile ornaments had performed the same maneuvers to a more fatal end. Tashir was cowering in the corner nearest the doorframe, head buried in his arms; the women were cowering against the far wall, screaming at the tops of their lungs.

Vanyel and Savil acted in concert. He clamped down on Tashir; the furniture froze in mid-dance, and the flying pieces began gently lowering themselves to the floor. Savil took the women, collectively paralyzing their throats so they couldn't scream.

It was a fragile solution, at best; Vanyel sensed that the moment he or Savil loosed control, the young man would continue to panic.

The clatter of boots on the staircase heralded the unlikely answer to his prayers; Withen and Jervis stormed into the mess with drawn swords, probably expecting looting and rapine from all the screams. They stopped cold on the threshold. Vanyel would remember the looks on their faces for a long time.

Then Tashir looked up at the intruders; Vanyel got ready to tighten down on the youngster if another surge of fear broke him out of control. But instead, he felt the first flickers of hope and something very like trust when Tashir focused on Jervis.

Jervis? Lady have mercy – but I am not looking sideways at a gift horse!

The women clearly saw Withen and Jervis as deliverers; they relaxed immediately, and Savil let them go, one at a time. “Sorry about this, Withen. We've got a presumptive Herald here with a problem,” Savil said, slowly and carefully. “Van rescued him, he's very jumpy – his Gift is Fetching, ladies, and he was just trying to get you to leave him alone. He panicked when you started screaming. It's all right, Withen, nobody's hurt, and it looks like the only damage is a couple of ornaments.”

Treesa, white and shaking, actually managed a tremulous smile. “Th-they were those horrible ch-cherubs Thorinna insisted on g-g-giving me,” she stammered. “I shan't m-m-miss them.”

Vanyel, meanwhile, managed to snag Jervis' elbow and draw him away from Withen. “I've got a very frightened lad here, Jervis,” he whispered. “I'll tell you everything I can later. For now, he seems to see you as somebody he can depend on. Do you think you can handle him, get him calmed down?''

Jervis didn't waste any time with questions or arguments. He took one look at Tashir's strained, white face, sheathed his sword, and nodded.

Vanyel, with Jervis at his elbow, moved toward Tashir as quietly and unthreateningly as he could. The youngster looked up at them with a measure of both hope and fear. “I'm going to take the shields off you, Tashir,” Vanyel said, as if none of this had happened, projecting calm with all his power. Empathy was not one of his strong Gifts, but he did have it, and he used it to the limit. “I want you to go back to your room with Jervis. Jervis, this is Tashir. Lad, Jervis is our armsmaster.''

Again that flash of hope, and trust-stronger this time – in response to the identification of Jervis.

“I want you to get yourself calmed down. I know you can. Once you do, all these strange things will stop happening. What you have is something we call a Gift, and it's no more unnatural than being able to paint well or fight well. And the proof of that is that you're going to feel exhausted in a minute, just like you'd been fighting. You have – only with your mind. We'll help you figure out how to keep it under control so that things like this won't happen again. No one is angry at you – you heard Lady Treesa – and no one is going to punish you for any of this. These things happen to some people, and we understand that here in Valdemar; we look for people like you, Tashir, and we train them to use what they have. This little mess wasn't your fault, and I won't allow anyone to blame you for it.”

“Vanyel's all right,” Jervis said gruffly, clapping Vanyel on the shoulder and making him stagger a little. “If he says you're going to be fine, you will be. He won't lie, and he keeps his promises.”

Without daring to Mindtouch, Vanyel couldn't tell what the youngster was thinking; he was forced to rely on what Tashir was projecting that he was picking up Empathically. There was doubt there – but a trust in Jervis that was increasing by the moment. Clearly, Tashir would trust Jervis where he wouldn't trust anyone else.

There was a glimmering, a hint of something else for a moment, then it was gone, slithering away before Vanyel could read it. That was frustrating in the extreme, but he certainly didn't want to set Tashir off again. So he slowly let his control over the youngster fade, little by little, until it was gone. Tashir slumped against the wall in total exhaustion, closing his eyes.

“Here, lad,” Jervis stepped forward and took him by the elbow; the boy transferred his weight from the wall to Jervis; a sign Vanyel read with relief. “Come on, let's get you back to your room, hey? If what young Van here says is true, you're probably feeling like you've just gone through a round-robin tourney in weighted armor,”

Tashir nodded, and let Jervis lead him out, stumbling a little with fatigue.

With Tashir gone, the tension left the solar, and everyone in it reacted to the relief differently. Treesa and her ladies were twittering in their corner like a flock of flustered sparrows. Vanyel found a chair and sat in it before his knees gave out on him. Withen suddenly seemed to remember the sword in his hand, and sheathed it.

“Fine, we've got Tashir taken care of, now can any of you tell us what happened?” Vanyel asked wearily.

The women started, and stared at him – with fear. Even his mother. Everyone except Melenna.

Their fear hit him like a blow to the heart, making him feel sick. That fear – Gods. They never saw me work magic before. The stories were just-stories. Now I've conjured myself from Highjorune in a night, brought a wizardling with me – dispelled his magic with a look. Now I'm Vanyel Demonsbane. I'm not anyone they know anymore. I'm not anyone they could know. I'm someone with powers they don't understand, someone to fear.

He could deal with this now – or let the situation worsen. He chose for the Heralds; chose to withdraw himself, Vanyel, inside a kind of mental shell and let Herald-Mage Vanyel come to the fore.

“Ladies, please,” the Herald-Mage said, gently, and with a winning smile, exerting all the charm he had. “This is important to all of you if I'm to understand what set the lad off. The idea is to keep him from doing it again, after all.”

One or two tittered nervously, the rest looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. Then after a moment during which his smile remained steady, they relaxed a little.

His heart sank when Melenna worked her way to the front of the group. He wasn't hoping for much coherency out of her.

But she was surprisingly calm. “Lady Treesa found the young man with Medren,” she said quietly, her eyes downcast. “She's been terribly curious about him – well, we all were, really – so she ordered him to come with her to the solar and present himself properly right then. He didn't want to – well, that's what Medren said – but she ordered him, so he followed her. He was very polite, but even I could see that he was very unhappy, and the more Treesa asked about his family – because he told us who he was right off – the unhappier he got. As soon as Treesa noticed it, that was when she did – like she does with you, milord Van. You know, she gets sort-of flirty, but at the same time she starts getting very mothering. She got up and started to go to him, to put him at ease – and he sort of jumped back, and one of the couches jumped right between him and Treesa. It just – jumped, like a trained dog, or something. Lady Treesa nearly had heart failure, and she screamed, she was so surprised – that was when Tashir went absolutely white and everything in the room began flying around.”

She paused, then looked up, very shyly, with none of her usual coquettishness. “We were terribly frightened, milord Van. I mean, I know you and milady Savil are magicians, and I'm sure it all seems very tame to you, but-we've never seen magic like that. Furniture – just shouldn't do that. I'm going to feel funny sitting on a chair for the next week, wondering if it's going to take it into its head to fly.''

Vanyel almost felt himself liking her, for the first time in years. “I can't say I blame you; I keep forgetting most of you have never even seen me do – oh, this.'“

He made a tiny mage-light in the center of the palm of his outstretched hand. It was about all he had the energy for, and it impressed the ladies out of all proportion to its size. They ooh'd and ah'd, but they did not come any nearer.

“Milord Van,” Melenna said, recapturing his attention, “there's something you really need to know. Nothing hit anyone. Nothing even came close. Even when those horrid cherubs hit the wall and shattered, no one was cut, no one was hurt. And do you know, that almost made the whole thing scarier.''

Vanyel nodded; this incident only confirmed his feeling that the youngster couldn't have been guilty of that wholesale slaughter in Lineas. If he didn't remember what had happened, it could have been sheer terror that made his mind hide the memory.

But he found himself seeing the other possibilities.

That works both ways. He could have done it, just as Lores pointed out. And because he's basically a good lad, the sheer horror of what he did made his mind hide the memory so deeply there was no sign of it.

He shivered, in a preoccupied way, and drifted out of the bower, ignoring the following gazes of Treesa, her ladies, and Melenna.

He dressed and ate, all in a fog comprised of weariness and preoccupation. It was hours later when he finally faced the obvious-that he'd put a very vulnerable young man in the hands of someone who had abused him.

He wouldn't. Would he? Oh, gods.

He went looking for Jervis in a state of increasing alarm, and found him in the salle, working out against the pells. And by the time he found the armsmaster, he was ready to kill the man himself if Jervis had even thought of bullying the boy.

Bluff him. He doesn't know how worn out I am. If I go on the offensive right away, he won't have time to think.

Planting both feet firmly on the sanded wooden floor, he took an aggressive stance, arms crossed over his chest.

“Jervis,” he called, loudly enough to be heard over the racket of practice blade against pells.

The armsmaster pivoted and pulled off his helm. He must have been at the exercise for some time; sweat beaded his brow, and dripped oif the ends of his hair. “Aye?”

Vanyel did not move. “One word for you. I don't know what this game you've been playing with me means, and at this point I don't dare take any chances. I'm warning you now; harm Medren – harm Tashir – you'll be dealing with me. Not Herald Vanyel – plain Vanyel Ashkevron. And you know now I can take you; any time, any place; with magic, or without. And I won't hesitate to use any weapon I've got.”

Jervis flushed; looked dumbfounded. “Harm 'em? Me? What d'you take me for?”

“The man who broke my arm, Jervis. The man who's been trying to intimidate me on this very floor for the past week. The man that was too damned inflexible to suit the style to the boy – so he tried to break the boy.”

Jervis flung his helm down, going scarlet with anger. The helm dented the floor and rolled off. “Dammit, you fool! Don't you see that was what I was tryin' t'do? I was tryin' t'learn your damned style – and for Medren! Hell-fire! A fool could see that poor little sprout Medren was no more suited t' my way then puttin' armor on a palfrey!”

Vanyel felt as if someone had just dropped him into a vat of cold water. He blinked, relaxed his stance, and blinked again. Feeling poleaxed is getting to become a regular occurrence, he thought, trying to get his jaw hinged again. His knees were trembling so much with reaction that he wasn't certain they'd hold him.

Jervis saved him the trouble. He threw his gear over into his chest at the side of the practice area, stalked over to Vanyel's side, and took his elbow. “Look,” he said, gruffly, “I'm tired, and we've got a lot between us that needs talking about. Let's go get a damned drink and settle it.”

I shouldn't be drinking unwatered wine this tired, Vanyel thought, regarding the plain clay mug Jervis was filling with unease.

It seemed Jervis had already thought of that. “Here,” he said, taking a loaf of coarse bread, a round of cheese, and a knife out of the same cupboard that had held the mugs and wine bottle, and shoving them across the trestle table at Vanyel. “Eat something first, or you'll be sorry. Not a good idea t' be guzzling this stuff if you ain't used t' it, but there's some pain between us, boy, and I need the wine t' get it out, even if you don't.”

They were still in the armory, in a little back room that was part office, part repair – shop, and part infirmary. Vanyel was sitting on a cot with his back braced against the wall; Jervis was on the room's only chair, with the table between and a little to one side of them, a table he'd cleaned of bits of harness and an arm – brace and tools by the simple expedient of sweeping it all into a box and shoving the box under the table with his foot.

The armsmaster followed his own advice by hacking off a chunk of bread and cheese and bolting it, before taking a long swallow of his wine. Vanyel did the same, a little more slowly. Jervis sat hunched over for a long moment, his elbows on his knees, contemplating the contents of the mug held between his callused hands.

“Do you begin,” Van asked awkwardly, “or should I?”

“Me. Your father -” Jervis began, and coughed. “You know I owe him, owe him for takin' me on permanent. Oh, he owed me some, a little matter of watchin' his back once, but not what I figured would put me here as armsmaster. So I figure that put me on the debit side of the ledger, eh? Well, that was all right for a while, though it weren't no easy thing, makin' fighters out of a bunch of plowboys an' second an' third sons what couldn't find the right end of a spear with both hands an' a map. Your granther-he reckoned it best t'hire what he needed. Your father-he figured best t' train his own, an' that was why he kept me. Gods. Plowboys, kids, it was a damn mess. No, it weren't easy. But I did it, I did it – an' then along comes you, first-born, an' Withen calls in the real debt.”

The former mercenary sighed, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He gave Vanyel a measuring look before taking another drink and continuing. “I 'spect by now it ain't gonna come as a surprise t' hear your old man figured you for – what're they sayin' now, shaych? – yeah, figured you for that from the time you came outa the nursery. Times were you looked more girl than boy – gah, that stuck in his craw for sure. Hangin' about with Liss, fightin' shy of th' foster-boys – then you took up with music, an' gods, he was sure of it. Figured he could cure you if he made sure you never knew there was such a thing, and he got somebody t' beat you into shape. That somebody was s'pposed t' be me.”