Storm Warning

Herald. Not such a terrible word. Just a word, after all. A name—and Karal had, in his own time, been called plenty of names.

That never made me into anything that they called me.

Yes, well, the word 'Herald' in and of itself was nothing terrible either. What word really was?

Ulrich was right about the rest of it, too. He had never seen a Hellsp—

A Herald.

Right. He had never seen a Herald in all his life. The descriptions in the Chronicles were infantile, really—composed of all the horrors mothers used to frighten little children into obedience, rolled into one and put into a white shroud. Not a neat uniform, a livery like Rubrik's, but a tattered, ichor-dripping shroud of death. And no matter what other things he'd learned that had been wrong about their former enemies, somehow he had still expected Heralds to be monsters.

If you want to make your enemy into something you can hate, you first remove his humanity.... Had Ulrich said that at one point, or had that been something he'd heard during one of Solaris' speeches? It was true, whoever had said it, and the Chronicles had certainly tried to remove all vestige of humanity from these Heralds. Make them only icons. When they are seen as a type, and not as individuals, they are easy for a fanatical mind to grasp—and hate.

Karal didn't think he was fanatically-minded, but then again, what fanatic ever did? It was going to take a while to get used to this.

'I think I'm going to go—ah—meditate for a while,' he said to Ulrich, who was staring into the fire with every evidence of utter contentment. The Priest waved a lazy hand at him.

'Go right ahead,' his master said. 'I believe you ought to. You've just had a shock, and you need to think about it. I'm sure your nose will tell you when dinner arrives, if your stomach doesn't demand it first.'

Karal put down his mug and retired to his room, flushing in confusion, and wondered how things in his life had managed to become more complicated than he had ever dreamed possible.

And how was he ever going to make all the scattered pieces of it fit again?

He still hadn't quite wrapped his mind around the concept of 'Rubrik-as-Hellspawn, Hellspawn-as-Herald' by the time dinner arrived. He ate quickly and quietly, listening, but not participating in the conversation at all. Ulrich and their escort continued their chat as blithely as if nothing whatsoever had changed, although Rubrik did ask, with some concern, if Karal was feeling all right.

'You look pale,' he observed, as Karal bolted the last of his dinner. 'If you're getting sick, please tell me—this is a good-sized town, and there are real Healers here. Healer-Priests, too, and there may even be one of the splinter Sunlord Temples here—'

'Ah, I meant to ask you about that,' Ulrich interjected. 'Later, that is.'

'It's nothing, sir, my master already knows about it,' Karal said hoarsely, taking the proffered excuse for what might be considered rude behavior. 'It's just a headache. I—I think I'll go to my room, and sleep it off.'

Karal fled before Rubrik could ask anything else. His dinner lay in his stomach like a ball of cold, damp clay. It had probably been excellent; he'd bolted it so fast he hadn't really noticed.

He spent part of the night staring sleeplessly at the ceiling, the murmurs of conversation in the next room scarcely audible over the pounding rain. He wasn't able to make out what the other two were saying, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. He just couldn't handle this. How could he act normally around Rubrik ever again?

But the soft, comfortable bed and the rhythmic pounding of the rain overhead seduced him into a dreamless sleep, and in the morning his anxiety seemed pretty stupid. He lay there in his bed, sheepishly wondering why the 'revelation' had seemed so terrible last night. Ulrich was right; Rubrik was still the same man—and Heralds, as Karsite myth painted them, couldn't possibly have been anything like the reality. After all, there were plenty of things that had 'always been True' or had been 'the Will of Vkandis' that Solaris had proven were lies. So why should anything the False Ones taught about the Heralds be true?

He rose and went into the parlor, to find Ulrich already there and in high good humor, which meant his joints no longer pained him. The doors and windows were standing open wide to a wonderful warm breeze, there was a meal waiting on the table for him, and Rubrik was nowhere in sight. This storm had swept through cleanly last night, leaving behind a morning like a new-minted coin, the air washed so clean and pure that it was a pleasure to breathe. Rubrik had not sent servants to wake them up, and had let them sleep until after the sun rose. After a truly excellent breakfast, they joined their escort in the courtyard of the inn beneath an absolutely cloudless blue sky.

'Headache better?' Rubrik asked, as the horse-boy led Trenor up to Karal and held him so that Karal could mount easily.