Magic's Pawn

'I dunno, the Companions found him; Yfandes did, anyway,' Mardic replied vaguely, swaying with weariness, looking colorless with exhaustion in the yellow candlelight. 'She found him on the garden side of the river and dragged him into a grotto. Tantras thinks he's sick, something like backlash, but he can't tell for sure. He's trying to persuade her to let him bring Van back here so Andrel can take care of him.'

Savil shook her head, trying to make sense of his words. 'Mardic, what are you trying to tell me? What has Yfandes got to do with anything?''

'She won't let anyone lay a finger on him, Savil,' Mardic replied, blinking, and still shivering despite the warmth of the room. 'She's adamant about it; damned near took Tantras' hand off when he tried to get at Van. She told my Fortin that she doesn't trust us to protect him and keep him under shield properly - that we won't understand what we've got - that he's hurt, all torn up inside his mind, and we can't begin to help him - '

'Mardic,' Jaysen said, slowly, 'are you saying that Yfandes Chose Vanyel? The only full-grown Companion in the Field that hasn't Chosen - the Companion that hasn't Chosen for over ten years - and now she's Chosen Vanyel?'

'She didn't come out and say so, but I guess she did,' Mardic said, fatigue slurring his words as he slumped against the doorframe. 'I dunno why in hell she'd be curled up around him like he was her foal otherwise, and not letting us near him. We think he's unconscious; he isn't moving, and he isn't responding when we talk to him, but Yfandes won't let anyone close enough to get a good look at him.'

Savil exchanged startled looks with the Seneschal's Herald, but it was Healer Andrel who put their thoughts into words.

'By the Lady Bright,' he murmured, green eyes gone round with consternation, 'what in the Havens is this going to mean?'

Vanyel swam up out of a feverish, fitful nightmare, prodded by an insistent voice in his head. He moaned, and opened dry, hot eyes that ached and burned. His head still pounded, and moving it even a little made his vision blur. He felt as if his whole body was a hot, tight, painfully constrictive garment; it felt like it didn't belong to him.

Sunlight gleamed weakly in through a rocky opening; he could see the river gurgling by just a few paces beyond it. It looked as if he were in a cave, but there were pink marble benches beside the entrance. Caves didn't have pink marble benches. They didn't have cultivated, moss-covered floors, either.

Then he recognized the place for what it was - one of the garden grottoes set into the riverbank. They were popular with courting couples or people seeking a moment of solitude from the Court. Tylendel had often wistfully expressed the wish that they dared to use one -

Tylendel. Grief closed around his throat and stopped his breath.

:No, Vanyel, Chosen. Not now. Mourn later; now get up.:

Without knowing quite how he had gotten there, Vanyel found himself on his feet, leaning heavily on the silky shoulder of a Companion.

His Companion. Yfandes.

He tried to make sense of that, but his head spun too much and he couldn't get a good grip on any of the thoughts that half-formed and then blew away.

:You are ill,: said the worried voice inside his mind. :I cannot care for you. I did not wish to let you away from my protection, but I cannot help you. You have fever, you need a Healer. Move your foot. One step. Another - :

He discovered that he was shaking, and clung a little tighter to the Companion's back. Obedient to that voice in his head, he put one hesitant foot in front of the other, learning quickly that he had to rest most of his weight on the arm clinging to Yfandes' shoulder. He had to close his eyes after the first couple of steps and trust to her to guide him; he was so dizzy and nauseated he couldn't make any sense out of what he was seeing.

They emerged into sunlight that was far too much for his eyes; he opened them once, and shut them again, quickly. The Companion suddenly stepped away from him, and he literally fell into the arms of a strange Herald; and once out of contact with Yfandes there were dozens of voices in his head, all of them clamorous, all of them confusing. He whimpered, tried to pull away, and hid his head in his arms. They hurt, they hurt, and he couldn't make out which were his own thoughts and which belonged to someone else.

:Tell your fool Chosen to shield him, Delian!:

That voice he recognized, although Yfandes had never spoken that sharply to him. The stranger bit off a curse and touched Vanyel's forehead, and the voices cut off. Vanyel opened his eyes again, and wished he hadn't; the world was spinning around with him as the center of the chaos. He shut them immediately, vowing not to reopen them.

'Let me, Tantras.' The soft voice was that of yet another stranger.

Two cool hands rested lightly on his head, and brought with them the promise of comfort and the peace of sleep.

He took what they offered, falling into oblivion gratefully. With any luck, he'd never wake up.

The bed looked far too big for the boy; never tall, he seemed to have collapsed in on himself. He was as pale as the sheets and - it might have been his dark hair and naturally fair complexion, but it seemed to her that he looked worse than Tylendel had after his fit. That was something Savil had not thought possible until now.

Tylendel. Oh, my 'Lendel, my poor, poor, 'Lendel.

Unshed tears made a hard knot in her throat and misted her eyes. So she missed the moment that Andrel took his hand away from the boy's forehead and sagged back into his chair with a sigh of weariness, his graying red hair damp with sweat, his freckles twice as evident with his skin so washed out and pale.

It was that sigh that brought her back to the urgent present.

'Andrel?' she said softly. 'Can you tell me anything?'

'I did what I could for him - and more, I've got a line established,' the Green-robed Healer to the Heralds replied, without looking up. 'I want you to follow it - or if you feel you can't, find me a Herald-Mage your equal. I