Magic's Pawn

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The music led him in a dance wherein he found a balance he hadn't known he craved until he found it. The music spun him around; he spun with it, and he knew that having found this point of equilibrium he would not lose it again.

:So, so, so, exactly so,: the music chuckled :Now, you would protect yourself - thus the barrier, see? Dense, and it keeps all out, flexible to your will. Always your will, young Vanyel, it is will and nothing less - :

It spun him walls to keep others out of his mind; he saw the way of it and spun them thicker, harder - then raveled them again down to the thinnest of barricades, knowing he could build them up again when he wanted to.

Then the blue-green music faded, leaving the green-gold to carry the melody alone. It sang to him then, sang of rest, sang of peace, and he dreamed. Dreamed of waking, moving to another's will, to drink and care for himself and sleep again. But no more dreams that hurt, only dreams full of the verdant music.

Then he woke - truly woke, not dreams of waking - to the sound of it; breathy, haunting notes that wandered into and out of melodies that he half recognized, but couldn't identify. There was a scent of ferns; a smell of growing things, a whiff of freshly-turned earth, and a hint of something metallic. Behind the music, he heard the sound of gently falling water.

He was no longer drugged. And the mind-channels within him no longer burned and tormented him.

He opened his eyes, slowly.

He thought for one mad moment that he was somehow suspended in a tree. He was surrounded on all sides by greenery, and luxuriantly-leaved branches hung over his head. Then he saw that while the branches were real, and the leaves, they were not the same organism. The branches supported huge ferns whose fronds draped down like a living canopy over his bed, and the greenery about him was a curtaining of multi-layered, multi-shaded green fabric hung from a framework of more branches, each layer as light and transparent as a spiderweb, and cut to resemble a cascade of leaf shapes. He had never in his life imagined that there could be so many colors of green.

Weak beams of sunlight threaded past the fern fronds. The blankets - if that was what they were - were a darker green, like moss, and felt as soft as velvet, but were thick and heavy.

He tried to sit up, and discovered that he couldn't. He was absolutely spent, with no strength left at all.

The music beyond the curtains finished with a breathless, upward-spiraling run, and a few moments later, the curtains parted.

Vanyel blinked in surprise at the young man who stood there, framed by the green of the curtain material; he knew he was staring, and rudely, but he couldn't help himself. He'd never seen anyone who looked like this -

A young man - silver-haired as any oldster, with hair longer than most women had, and with eyes of light blue that measured and weighed him, full of secrets and thoughts that Vanyel couldn't begin to read. He wore a sleeveless green jerkin, and breeches of a darker green, and in the hand that held back the curtains there was a white flute that looked as if it had been carved from luminescent, opaque crystal.

Vanyel suddenly realized that, indeed, he couldn't read the young man's thoughts; there was presence there, but nothing spilling over into his own mind.

He stammered out the first things in his mind - not terribly clever, and certainly not original but - 'W-w- where am I? W-w-who are you?'

The young man tilted his head to one side a little, and Vanyel saw a faint hint of smile as he replied, very slowly and with a strange accent, 'Well. 'Where am I?' you ask me - better than I had feared. I had half dreaded hearing 'who am I?' young Vanyel.' He tilted his head the other way, and this time the smile was definite. 'You are in k'Treva territory in the Pelagir Hills, and before you ask, your aunt, our Wingsister Savil, brought you here. We are her friends; she asked us to help her with your troubles. I am Moondance k'Treva; I am Tayledras, and I have been your Healer. That is my bed you are lying in. Do you like it? Starwind says it is a foolish piece of conceit, but I think that this is only because he did not think of it first.'

Vanyel could only blink at him in bewilderment.

Moondance shook his head, ruefully. 'I go too fast for you. Simple things first. Are you hungry? Thirsty? Would you like to bathe?'

All at once he was hungry - and thirsty - and disgustingly aware that his skin was crawling with the need for a bath.

'All three,' he said, a little hesitantly.

'Then we remedy all three.' Moondance pulled the curtains back to the foot and the head of the bed, and -

 - and reached to pull off the blankets. At which point Vanyel realized that he was quite nude beneath the bed-coverings. He flushed, and clutched at the blanket.

Moondance gave him an amused look. 'Who do you think it was that undressed you and put you where you are?' he asked. 'I pledge you, it was not the Eastern Wind.'

Vanyel flushed again, but did not release the blanket.

'So, so - here, my modest one - ' Moondance reached up to one side among the hangings, and detached something which he tossed onto the blankets. Vanyel reached for it - a wrap-robe of something green and silken that was, thankfully, much more substantial than the hangings. As Moondance pointedly turned his back, he eased out of the bed and wrapped it around himself.

And reached for one of the bed-supports as dizziness made the room spin around him.

'That will never do.' There was a cool touch between his eyes, and the room steadied.

'Come,' Moondance was just in front of him, holding out his hands encouragingly. 'Keep your eyes on me - yes. A step. Another. You have been long abed, young Vanyel, you must almost learn to walk again.'

The Tayledras Healer walked backward, slowly, as Vanyel followed, looking only at his eyes. But he did not