Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar

Men lay abed. Women. There were children as well, although they were mercifully few.

They gazed up at the ceiling of the room, or at the walls, their eyes unblinking. They did not move; their lips were still. She shook her head to clear it of the sounds of despair, and as she did, the priest gently pushed his way past her.

'They have been this way,' he said softly, 'for weeks. They will eat what we feed them, and drink when we offer them water; we can clean them, wash them, bathe them. But they will not rise or move on their own; they do not speak. Some of them have families in this town, but-but most of their families can only bear to visit for the first few days.' He walked over to one of the beds and set upon its edge, heavily.

'More and more of my people are brought here every day. And throughout the town there are others whose families can afford the cost of their care.'

'They-they have no fever?'

'None. No rash, no bleeding, no outward sign of illness. But they are gone from us.' He looked up; met her eyes.

'The man that you-you found, today, would have joined them by evening at the latest.'

'How do you know?'

'I've seen it. I know the signs. All of us do.'

'But-'

'We have no doctors who can aid us; no healers who can reach them.' He closed his eyes. Opened them again. 'What did you do, Herald?'

She shook her head. 'N-nothing. And-and I'm not-not a Herald.' She walked into the room, to shed the weight of the bleak hope in his eyes.

And as she did, she passed a small cot and stopped before it, frozen.

It held a young child, eyes wide, hair damp against his forehead. Were it not for the slack emptiness of his features, he would have been beautiful. She forgot Darius; forgot his words.

She listened with her heart.

And her heart shuddered, and nearly broke, from the weight of what it heard. She had once been near the mines when a shaft had collapsed. The roar of falling rock had deafened her; the shouts of fear, of terror, the commands for action, had done the same. And through it all, one guilty thought had kept her still: she should not have come here. Children were not allowed by the mines. But she had wanted to see her father.

Standing in this room, at the foot of this anonymous cot, she felt the same deafness and the same guilt. Some part of her urged her to turn, to run, but she ignored it because she had heard it for most of her adult life.

What loss could she suffer that she had not suffered?

She took a step, and then another, pushing her way forward as if through a gale, until she stood by the child's side. And then she reached for him.

He was not large; she did not know if he had once been chubby, as children his age often were; he was not that now; he weighed almost nothing. She lifted him, as she had lifted one other sick child, almost two years ago.

He was screaming now, in the silence behind her silence, and she joined him because it was the only way she knew to answer the memories that even now threatened to break her.

Her son.

Mommmmmmmeeeeeee

Her child.

MOMMMMMEEEEEE

Her own son had not wept or cried or struggled. The fever had spared him terror, and he understood, in the height of its grip, that she held him in the safety of her arms.

Almost unconsciously, she shifted her grip on this stranger until it was the same embrace; her shoulders were curved forward, her spine rounded at the top, as if, hunched over him, she might hide from the death that was waiting, waiting, in the winter's depths. She placed her lips against his forehead, and tasted salt.

She was crying.

He was screaming, but she knew how to comfort terror by now. Her arms tightened and she began to rock him, gently, back and forth, whispering his name, her son's name, as if they were the same.

It happened suddenly: His arms jerked and trembled as he tried to lift them. She did not know how long he had lain in that cot, inactive, but his hands were so weak they were like butterfly wings against her neck.

'The dragon,' he whispered, his voice a rasp, a creak. 'The dragon will eat us.'

'No,' she told him firmly. 'The dragon can't land. He can only fly, making night wherever he goes. He can roar. He can scream. But he can't land.'

'He hates us.'

'Aye,' she replied. She had never lied to her children; she felt no need to lie to this one.

'He hates all living things. All happy things.' And as she said those words, she felt the truth of them, although she had never thought to speak them before. The boy's hands touched her cheeks. 'You were scared,' he whispered.

'No.'

'But you were. You have tears on your face.'

She could not dry them; both of her hands were occupied with his scant weight. But she turned to the priest who was watching in utter silence.

'You can breathe now,' she said.

The priest's eyes were wide. 'Herald,' he said again, and this time she did not correct him, 'can you reach the others?'

'I-'

:No.:

She frowned. It was Darius' voice. :Darius-why?:

:You are exhausted, Kayla. You are light-headed. You you will put yourself at grave risk if you attempt to proceed. These people have lain immobile for some weeks, and the townspeople are decent; they will care for them.

:But if we do not reach the capital before he finds you, they will have no way back:

:Before who finds me?:

Darius was silent.

She drew the boy up in her arms, into a hug; her arms were as gentle as she could make them in a grip so tight. She felt his bony chin in the hollow between her neck and her shoulder, and the weight of it, resting there, was everything she desired for that moment.

But this is how she had quieted her sorrow; she had filled it with life, small life, the immediacy of children.

'Where are his parents?' she asked the Priest.

'He has no parents. I am sorry. They passed away a year and a half ago in the summer crippling plague.'

'His family?'

'He was their only child. They were newly married. His grandmother is in the town to the east. She is his only living relation; it is why he was here-when it happened.'

She pulled the boy away from her chest and her neck; held him out so that she could meet his serious, brown eyes. He was so damn thin. 'Daniel,' she said softly, 'my name is Kayla.'

'I know.'

'I am going to the capital. I am going to learn how to become a-a Herald.'

He was too tired to look awed, and she loved him for it. Was afraid of that emotion, because she knew it should not have come so quickly, so easily, for a stranger.

'But I don't want to leave you here, alone. I dream of the dragon. I have always dreamed of the dragon; he hunts me in my sleep. But he has never caught me, never once. If you want-if you would like-you can come with