Magic's Pawn

It had hurt, that touch; salt on raw flesh. He'd interpreted it as an attack of the wizards, and had struck back, struck to kill, and only as he'd made his strike had realized that -

 - a dream, oh, gods - it's a dream, it isn't real, and that's Mardic -

And had tried to pull the blow; had pulled the blow, but that sent the aborted power coursing back down places that burned in agony when it touched them. And he'd tried to stop the flow, but that had only twisted things up inside him, until he was a thrashing knot of anguish and he didn't know where he was or what he was doing. It all hurt, everything hurt, everything burned, and he was trapped in the pain, in the torment, crying out and knowing no one could hear him, and lost - he couldn't feel his body anymore, couldn't hear or see; he was foundering in a sea of agony -

Then a shock - like being struck -

He found himself gasping for breath, frozen to his teeth, but back in a normal body that hurt in a normal way.

Then he had blacked out for a moment; came to with the Healer shaking him, talking to him.

He was soaking wet, and shivering.

Mardic? What about Mardic?

The Herald Jaysen was holding him upright, more than half supporting him -

Tylendel, dead, crumpled at Jaysen's feet. My fault, oh, gods, my fault -

The grieving came down on him, full force; but somewhere at the back of his mind he knew that they were feeling what he was feeling and he clamped down on it - closed that line off -

In the stunned, mental silence he heard Jaysen's anguished thoughts, as clearly and intimately as if he was speaking them into Vanyel's ear.

:Gods - oh, gods, I didn't know, I didn't guess - I thought he was playing with the boy, I thought he was - oh, gods, what have I done?:

He shuddered away from the unwanted sympathy, from the mind-words that were like acid in his wounds, and blocked that line just as ruthlessly.

Then had come the potions - and the numbness. The blessed unfeeling. He drifted, nothing to hold him, not even his worry for Mardic. It was pitchy dark, they hadn't left a single flame in the room, which under the circumstances was probably wise. Scraps of what he now knew were thoughts drifted over to him; now Savil's mind-voice, now Jaysen's (dark with guilt, and Vanyel wondered why), now Mardic's.

If he had been on his feet, he would have staggered with relief at hearing that last. I didn't kill him - thank the gods, I didn't kill him.

He drifted farther, until he couldn't hear anything anymore. Until he lost even his own thoughts. Until there was nothing left but sleep, and the sorrow that never, ever left him.

Savil stood beside the garden door with one hand on the frame, and prayed. She didn't pray often; most Heralds didn't. Praying usually meant asking for something - and the kind of person that became a Herald tended to be the kind that didn't look outside of himself for help until the last hope had been exhausted.

For Savil, at least, it had gotten to that point.

Just beyond the window, bundled in quilts and blankets and half-lying against Yfandes' side, Vanyel dozed in the sun, still kept in a sleepy half-daze by Andrel's potions. Jaysen had carried him out there, with his own mind so tightly shielded against leaking his thoughts that Savil fair Saw him quivering under the strain. Jaysen would be back for the boy in another two candlemarks, which was all Andrel would allow in this cold. This was the third day of the routine; there had been no real repetition of the crisis that had precipitated it, but Savil more than half expected one every night.

Vanyel sighed in sleep, and one arm stole out of the blankets to circle around Yfandes' neck. The Companion nuzzled his ear, and instead of pulling away, he cuddled closer to her.

But before Savil had a chance to really take in this first, positive sign that the Herald-Companion bond was taking root in the boy, someone pounded on her outer door. She half-turned, and heard Donni pattering across the common room to answer it. There was a murmur too indistinct to make but.

The voice from outside the door strengthened. 'Please, I'm Van's sister - let me at least talk to my aunt - '

Savil started, and strode quickly across Vanyel's room, pulling open the door. There could only be one of Vanyel's sisters likely to show up on her doorstep at this point, the one that had fostered out in hopes of a career in the Guard.

'Let her in, Donni,' Savil said - and blinked in surprise. The girl in the doorway could have been herself at seventeen or eighteen.

God help her - no wonder she went for the Guard, Savil thought irrelevantly. She's got that damned Ashkevron nose.

Evidently the same thought was running through the girl's mind. 'You must be my Aunt Savil,' she said forthrightly, standing at what was almost 'attention' in the doorway. 'You have the nose. I'm Lissa. Can I help?'

Savil decided that she liked this blunt girl. 'Perhaps, I don't know yet,' she replied. 'First, Lissa, come in and tell me what you've heard.'

Lissa turned away from the garden door with a shudder. 'He looks like he's been dragged through the nine hells facedown,' she said.

'And at that he looks better than he did three days ago,' Savil replied. She would have said more, but there was another pounding on the suite door and a voice she knew only too well rumbled angrily when Donni answered it.

'Like bloody hell she's too busy,' Lord Withen Ashkevron snarled. 'I didn't bloody ride my best horse to