Brightly Burning

competent person he had ever seen. She never put a foot wrong; when something was needed, she was the first person there, with the required object in her hand. When she didn't know the answer to a question or problem, she invariably knew who did. And although self-effacing, she was so quietly friendly and cheerful that, as Tuck had said, everyone who knew her liked her.

'Well, she grew up right over there.' He pointed to a particularly matronly manor. 'Her blood's near as blue as the King's. And she's not petrified!'

'I have to admit you're right, there,' Lan replied. 'Huh.'

'Daria's going to take me to see the place one of these days, come spring, and let me rummage through the family papers,' Tuck went on, fired with enthusiasm. 'You know, some of these older Great Houses had their own Chroniclers? They've got records going back centuries, some right back to the Founding! And antiques and artifacts stored up that are nearly as old! Just think about it—stuff like that just brings how the people lived right to life when you look at it and handle it, read their letters, see how they lived!'

'You sound like the Herald Chronicler yourself,' Lan teased, only half joking.

'I'd like to do that,' Tuck replied, not joking at all. 'I'd like that a lot. But I've got a long way to go before I'm ready for that, and a lot of circuit riding! My only Gift is strong Mind-speech, so it's not like I have anything special to teach when it's time to retire from field duty.'

Lan blinked, a little surprised by this unexpected depth to his friend. 'To tell the truth, I don't know what I want to do. What I really wanted was to be in the Guard, but when my parents put their feet down on that idea, I kind of gave it up. Then I thought that I'd like to be a Caravan Master, but I guess that's out of the question now—'

'Riding circuit on the Border, that's what you want,' Tuck said firmly. 'You work with the Guard a lot, and you help local villages organize militia if there's a local problem. You make sure that if there's a noble estate near enough to help that the lord or whatever is doing his duty to help protect his people. Plus there's all the usual circuit-riding stuff.'

'And eating my own food—bleah!' Lan teased, as both Companions whickered their own form of laughter.

'Then you'd better learn to cook better!' Tuck retorted. 'If you don't want to ride circuit, there's always working with the Guard directly. Then you'd get army rations.'

'Hmm.' Lan considered that notion as they left the last of the Great Houses behind, crossed through a gate beneath an ancient wall, and entered a section of newer estates with more extensive grounds. 'I hadn't thought of that.'

'If you've got a Gift that makes you really useful to the Guard, that's probably what you'll be doing after you do your internship circuit,' Tuck told him with an emphatic nod. 'And if it's really, really useful to the Guard, you may do your internship with one of the Guard Heralds on the Border itself.'

'Really?' This was the first Lan had ever heard of such a thing, and he smiled, slowly. If he could do that, it would not only be his childhood dream come true, it would be better. 'I'd like that. I'd like that a lot.'

'I wouldn't, but it takes all kinds, eh?' Tuck grinned broadly. 'Me, I'd be happy if they'd let me teach History here, maybe run messenger or courier in an emergency, and apprentice to the Herald Chronicler.'

'All right, apprentice—what can you tell me about all of these places?' Lan waved his arm at the walls surrounding the road, over which much newer buildings looked down at them haughtily.

'Not much history here—and these places are more like to change hands than the Great Houses,' Tuck said, in a dismissive tone. 'Newer nobles, Kingdom Guildmasters, and the very wealthy. I wish they'd pay more attention to their own history, actually, but they seem determined to leave it all behind them once they build or buy in this quarter. It's like they want to become someone entirely different and turn their backs on where they came from.'

'But they aren't the same people anymore—' Lan objected.

Tuck gazed at him with an unusually solemn expression. 'Oh? And would you say that you aren't the same person you were before you were Chosen? You can't just forget all that and discard it—it made you what you are now! Erase it, try to forget it, and what do you get? Nothing but pretense! And that's just phony, and more pretentious than just enjoying what you've made of yourself, I think.'

'I guess I can see that, sort of. I mean, I don't always get along with my folks, but they don't pretend that they sprang out of nowhere, or that they've got some sort of fake blue blood in their background.' Lan considered that. What would that do to a person's head? Could you remake yourself in another image? And if you did, what would you have? Wouldn't it just be a false image?

'And if these people discard what they were, what does that make them?' Tuck persisted. 'If they try to convince themselves that their own past has no relevance anymore?'

This was the most philosophic that Tuck had ever been, and it aroused an equally thoughtful mood in Lan.

'Not... much,' Lan thought aloud. 'Kind of hollow. No substance, no debt to the past.'

'My point exactly,' Tuck said with satisfaction. 'And maybe that's why so many of their children turn out badly. Too much of trying to give their children what they didn't have, and not enough giving their children what they did have that made them so successful and prosperous.'

And maybe that explains Tyron and his bullies, Lan thought, with a twist of his gut. 'You're unaccountably wise today, Tuck,' he said lightly, changing the subject a trifle. 'I hardly know you!'

Tuck laughed. 'That's 'cause most people don't pull my history string and find out what's attached to it. Pure passion, I'm afraid; it's the one subject that I can go on about for days at a time. Blame yourself; you could have started me on bad puns or limericks instead, but nooooo—'

'That,' Lan replied with mock-solemnity, as they passed the last of the mansions and turned down a street lined with shops, 'would have been worse. Or should I say, verse?'

Tuck pulled off his cap and hit him on the shoulder with it, as Lan ducked and laughed. A few of the folk