Magic's Pawn

There was no sign of exit or entrance in this barren, rock-walled room where he'd been taken, and no clue as to where in the complex of ground-level rooms it was. There was only Starwind, his pointed face as expressionless as the rock walls.

Vanyel didn't know what to think anymore. These new senses of his - they told him things he wasn't sure he wanted to know. For instance - there was something in this valley. A power - a living power. It throbbed in his mind, in time with his own pulse. He had told Savil, thinking he must be ill and imagining it. She had just nodded and told him not to worry about it.

He hadn't asked her much, or gone to her often. If I don't touch, I can't be hurt again. The half-unconscious litany was the same, but the meaning was different. I’II don't open myself, I won't be open to loss either.

The Tayledras, Starwind and Moondance, alternately frightened and fascinated him. They were like no one he'd ever known before, and he couldn't read them. Starwind in particular was an enigma. Moondance seemed easier to reach.

But there was always that danger. Don't reach; don't touch, whispered the part of him that still hurt. Don't try.

There had been a point back at Haven when he'd tried to reach out, first to Savil, then to Lissa. He'd wanted someone to depend on, to tell him what to do, but the moment he'd tried to get them to make his decisions for him, they'd pushed him gently away.

Now - no more; all he wanted was to be left alone.

It seemed, however, that the Tayledras had other plans.

Savil had come to get him in the morning, after several days of wandering about on his own, reminding him of what Starwind had said about being schooled in controlling these unwanted powers of his. He'd followed her through three or four rooms he hadn't seen before into -

- something -

He wasn't sure what it was; it had felt a little like a Gate, but there was no portal, just a spot marked on the floor. He'd stumbled across it, whatever it was, and found himself on the floor of this room, a room with no doorways.

Savil had appeared behind him, but before he could say anything, she'd just given him a troubled look, said to Starwind, 'Don't hurt him, shayana,' and left. Stepped into thin air and was gone. Left him alone with this - this madman. This unpredictable creature who'd been forcing him all morning to do things he didn't understand, using the powers he hadn't even come to terms with possessing, much less comprehending.

'Why are you doing this to me?' he cried, ready to weep with weariness. Starwind ignored the words as if they had never been spoken.

:Mindspeech, Chosen,: came Yfandes' calm thought. :That is part of his testing. Use Mindspeech.:

He braced himself, sharpened his thoughts into a kind of dagger, and flung them at Starwind's mind.

:Why are you DOING this to me?:

:Gently,: came the unruffled reply. :Gently, or I shall not answer you :

Well, that was more than he'd gotten out of the Adept in hours :Why?: he pleaded.

:You are a heap of dry tinder,: Starwind replied serenely :You are a danger to yourself and those around you. It requires only a spark to send you into an uncontrolled blaze. I teach you control, so that the fires in you come when you will and where you will.:He stared at Vanyel across the shimmering mage-barrier :Would you have this again?:

He flung into Vanyel's face memories that could only have come from Savil - a clutch of Herald-trainees weeping hysterically, infected with his grief; Mardic flying through the air, hitting the wall, and sliding down it to land in an unconscious heap; the very foundations of the Palace shaking -

:No - :he shuddered.

:There could be worse - :Starwind showed him what he meant by 'worse.' A vivid picture of Withen dead - crushed like a beetle beneath a boot - by the powers Vanyel did not yet comprehend and could not direct.

:NO!: He tried to deny the very possibility that he could do anything of the kind, rejecting the image with a violence that -

 - that made the floor beneath him tremble.

:You see?: Starwind said, still unperturbed :You see? Without control, without understanding, you can - and will - kill, without ever meaning to. Now - :

Vanyel hung his head, and wearily tried to match the barrier one more time.

Savil ran for the pass-through, in response to Starwind's urgent summons, Moondance a bare pace behind her. She hit the permanent set-spell, a kind of low-power Gate, at a run; there was the usual eyeblink of vertigo, and she stumbled onto the slate floor of Starwind's Work Room and right into the middle of a royal mess.

Starwind was only now picking himself up off the floor behind her; there was a smell of scorched rock and the acrid taint of ozone in the air. And small wonder; the area around all around Vanyel in the center of the Work Room was burned black.

Lying sprawled at one side of the burned area was the boy himself, scorched and unconscious.

Moondance popped through the pass-through, glanced from one fallen body to the other, and made for the boy as needing him the most. That left Starwind to Savil.

She gave him her hands and helped him to his feet; he shook his head to clear it, then pulled his hair back over his shoulders. 'God of my fathers,' he said, passing his hand over his brow. 'I feel as if I have been kicked