different from his former friends, and he began to walk alone. His parents did not understand this need for solitude, they did not understand the strange paths he had begun to walk, and they tried to force him back to the ways of his fathers. There were - arguments. Anger, a great deal of it, on both sides. And there was another thing. They wished him to wed and begin a family. But the boy Tallo had no yearning toward young women - but young men - that was another tale.'
Moondance sighed, and in the moonlight Vanyel saw something glittering wetly on his eyelashes. 'Then, the summer of the worst of the arguments, there came a troupe of gleemen to the village. And there was a young man among them, a very handsome young man, and the boy Tallo found that he was not the only young man in the world who had yearnings for his own sex. They quickly became lovers - Tallo thought he had never been so happy. He planned to leave with the gleemen, to run away and join them when they left his village, and his lover encouraged this. But it happened that they were found together. The parents, the priest, the entire village was most wroth, for such a thing as shay'a'chern was forbidden even to speak of, much less to be. They - beat Tallo, very badly; they beat the young gleeman, then they cast Tallo and his lover out of the village. Then it was that the young gleeman spurned Tallo, said in anger and in pain what he did not truly mean, that he wanted nothing of him. And Tallo became wild with rage. He, too, was in pain; he had suffered for this lover, been cast out of home and family for his sake, and now he had been rejected - and he called the lightning down with his half-learned magic. He did not mean to do anything more than frighten the young man - but that was not what happened. He killed him; struck him dead with the power that he could not control.'
Moonlight sparkled silver on the tears that slowly crept down Moondance's face.
'Tallo had heard his lover's thoughts, and knew that the young man had not meant in truth the hurtful things he had said. Tallo had wanted only for the boy to say with words what he had heard in the other's mind. So he called the lightning to frighten him, but he learned that the lightning would not obey him when called by anger, and not by skill. And he heard the boy crying out his name as he died. Crying out in fear and terrible pain, and Tallo unable to save him. Tallo could not live with what he had done. With the dagger from his lover's belt, he slashed his own wrist and waited to die, for he felt that only with his own death could he atone for murdering his love.'
Moondance raised his left arm to push some of his heavy hair back from his face, and the moon picked out the white scar that ran from his wrist halfway to his elbow.
'There was, however, a stranger on the road; an out-lander who had sensed the surge of power and read the signs and knew that it was uncontrolled. She came as quickly as she could - though not quickly enough to save both. She found the young men, one dead, one nearly - she saved the one she could, and brought him to a friend who she thought might understand.'
Moondance was so silent and for so long, that Vanyel thought he was through speaking. He stared up at the moon, eyes and cheeks shining wetly, like a marble statue in the rain.
Then he spoke again, and every syllable carried with it a sense of terrible pain. 'So here is the paradox. If the boy Tallo had not misused his fledgling powers and struck down his lover, they would have gone off together, and, in time, parted. Tallo would likely have been found by a Mage and taught, or - who knows? - gotten as far as Valdemar and been taken by a Companion. Those with the power are not left long to themselves. It might even have been that the Mage that found him was a dark one, and Tallo might have turned for a time or for all time to evil. But that is not what happened. The boy killed - murdered in ignorance - and was brought to k'Treva. And in k'Treva he found forgiveness, and the learning he needed as the seed needs the spring rain - and one thing more. He found his shay'kreth'ashke. In your tongue, that means 'lifebonded.' '
Vanyel started. Moondance nodded without turning to look at him. 'You see? Paradox. Had things not fallen as they did, Tallo would never have met with Starwind. The Tayledras are very secretive and Wingsister Savil is one of the first to see one of us, much less to see k'Treva, in years beyond counting. The two meant to be life-bonded would never have found each other. There would be no Healer-Adept in k'Treva, and much Tayledras work would have gone undone because of that. So - much good has come of this, and much love - but it has its roots in murder. Murder unintentional, but murder all the same.'
Moondance sighed again. 'So what is the boy Tallo to think? Starwind's solution was to declare the boy Tallo dead by his own hand, a fitting expiation for his guilt, and to bring to life a new person altogether, one Moondance k'Treva. So there is no more Tallo, and there is one that magic has changed into a man so like Tayledras that he might have been born to the blood. But sometimes the boy Tallo stirs in the heart of Moondance - and he wonders - and he weeps - and he mourns for the wrongs he has done.'
He turned his head, then, and held out his hand to Vanyel. 'Ke'chara, would you share grief with Tallo? Weeping alone brings no comfort, and your heart is as sore as mine.'
Vanyel started to reach for that hand, then hesitated.
If I don't touch -
'If you do not touch,' said Moondance, as if he read Vanyel's thought, 'You do not live. If you seal yourself away inside your barriers, you seal out the love with the pain. And though love sometimes brings pain, you have no way of knowing if the pain you feel now might not bring you to love again.'
'Tylendel's dead.' There; he'd said it, said it out loud. It was real - and couldn't be changed. The tight, burned skin on his face hurt as he held back tears. 'Nothing is going to bring him back. I'll never be anything but alone.'
Moondance nodded, slowly, and left his hand resting on the edge of the bed; Vanyel couldn't see his face, shadowed as it was by the white wing of his hair.
'The great love is gone. There are still little loves-friend to friend, brother to sister, student to teacher. Will you deny yourself comfort at the hearthfire of a cottage because you may no longer sit by the fireplace of a palace? Will you deny yourself to those who reach out to you in hopes of warming themselves at your hearthfire? That is cruel, and I had not thought you to be cruel, Vanyel. And what of Yfandes? She loves you with all her being. Would you lock her out of your regard as well? That is something more than cruel.'
'Why are you telling me, asking me this?' The words were torn out of him, unwilling.
'Because I nearly followed the road you are walking.' The Tayledras shifted slightly in his chair and Vanyel heard the wood creak a little. 'Better, I thought, not to touch at all than to touch and bring hurt upon myself and others. Better to do nothing than to make a move and have it be the wrong one. But even deciding to not touch or to be nothing is a decision, Vanyel, and by deciding not to touch, so as to avoid hurt, I then hurt those who tried to touch me.' He waited, but Vanyel could not bring himself to answer him.
Moondance's expression grew alien, unreadable, and he shrugged again. 'It is your decision; it is your life. A Healer cannot live so; it may be that you can.'
He uncoiled himself from his chair and in a kind of seamless motion was standing on his feet, shaking back his hair. The tears were gone from his eyes, and his expression was as serene as if they had never been there as he
