sense of calm majesty that Elidor nearly wanted to weep.
It was so close to the moment he'd dreamed of all his life that it seemed unreal, as if he ought to be reading about it, not living it. A Companion had come for him at last!
But somehow it didn't seem right. All the stories agreed that the candidates
Immediately the Companion turned, and took several steps away, and waited, almost fidgeting. He hadn't known something in the shape of a horse could fidget, but there it was.
'You!' Elidor said to the nearest boy. 'Go and tell them at the Library that a Companion has come!' He didn't know what else to say, but surely that would be enough? Then he hurried off after the Companion, trotting to keep up with it. He realized he felt no impulse to even try to mount the stallion, and that, too, wasn't as things went in the stories.
Some of the townsfolk followed them-at a prudent distance-as far as the edge of the town, but it became obvious that the Companion's destination lay further, and Elidor began to wonder if he was going to have to walk all the way to the Collegium. As they left the shelter of the buildings and passed through the town gate that stood open from dawn to sunset, the winter wind struck with renewed chill. He pulled his cloak-dark red, with the arms of the Library of Talastyre sewn in a badge at his left shoulder, as befit a Journeyman such as himself-tighter, and hurried even faster to keep up with the Companion.
'If you'd let me ride, we could get there faster, wherever we're going,' Elidor muttered under his breath.
The Companion stopped dead, turning its head to regard him with an affronted expression.
Apparently it had heard him.
It stood so still not even the silver bells on its harness jingled, swishing its tail dangerously.
Hesitantly Elidor approached. He'd made the suggestion, and it seemed he was to be taken up on it. Hesitantly he set his foot into the stirrup.
The Librarians and Scribes of Talastyre had little need to learn horsemanship, and certainly Elidor had learned no equestrian skills before he came here nine years before. But he could not resist the demand in that arrogant blue gaze any more than he could have turned back in the first place. Hesitantly, Elidor set his foot into the silver stirrup, and heaved himself ungracefully onto the Companion's back.
It was the moment he'd dreamed of, the dream he'd lived in, and for, so completely that the real world around him had seemed dim and unreal by comparison, but now, when he had it in his grasp, it all seemed wrong, as if he were straining to squeeze his feet into a pair of boots that didn't fit.
The Companion hardly waited for him to settle himself before it took off-at a much faster pace than before. It was the Companion, rather than any skill of his own, that kept the saddle-leather beneath Elidor's rump. The trees whipped past him in a blur, and the wind that had been cold before turned to a thousand needles of ice seeking every opening they could find in his good wool tunic and heavy trousers.
He knew better than to reach for the reins, and clutched with one hand at the edge of the saddle, and with the other, at his wildly-flapping cloak. He barely had time to realize how acutely-miserable he was-and only think, this was a Herald's job, to ride out in all seasons and all weathers-before the Companion stopped once more, and again Elidor had that sense of barely-restrained impatience.
He scrambled from the Companion's back without even looking around, and then saw he was in the middle of nowhere.
'What?' he said aloud.
Snow covered the ground, but this was the main road, and usually remained passable unless there was a major blizzard. A few yards down the road he could see one of the shelter-huts, built for emergency shelter in winter. He frowned. Something about what he saw wasn't right.
The Companion shoved him in the back.
'Ow!' Elidor yelped, staggering forward. He'd thought that in person Companions would be the way they were in books-kind and loving and faithful, but this one seemed a lot more like some of his teachers; firm-minded and impatient.
Then he saw it.
'Something went off the road.'
He saw the wheel-ruts in the snow. They stopped short and went to the side of the road-not the inside, where anyone familiar with the countryside would pull off, but the outside of the road, where a screen of trees concealed the sloping hillside that led down to a little stream. With the winter snow, the extent of the drop-off and even the stream were hard to see.
Elidor ran forward to where the tracks stopped. He could see a coach down there, lying on its side-a small one, far too light for the road and the season. There must be something down there, though, some reason a Companion would come all the way into town and lead him back here.
'You stay here,' he told the Companion firmly, speaking to it as if it were a large dog. 'If you go down there, you'll break your neck. There's ice, and a stream. Understand?'
He didn't stop to see whether he'd insulted it, but plunged down the hillside, moving carefully through the snow. He slipped and slid, holding onto the trees for support, and finally reached the bottom.
The snow was deeper here, all the way to his knees, and he moved through it carefully.
There was someone under the coach.
A man in Herald's whites-that was why Elidor hadn't seen him before. His spotless whites made him invisible against the snow. Elidor could see now that the coach had landed on a rock, propping it up.
Though his eyes were closed, and his cowl pulled up, covering most of his face so Elidor couldn't see him clearly, the man might still be alive.
'Herald? Sir?' Elidor said hoarsely.
When he spoke the Herald opened his eyes and pushed the cowl away from his face. His skin was dark, and his hair and eyes were black.
'Ah,' the Herald said. He managed to smile, though Elidor could see it cost him. 'You're from the Library.'
'Yes, sir, Herald, sir. I'm Elidor. Your, uh, Companion brought me. I told him not to come down here.'
'And did he listen? That would be a great marvel. Darrian rarely listens to anyone. But I forget my manners. I'm Jordwen. I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Librarian Elidor.'
'Oh, no, sir, Herald Jordwen, sir. I'm only a Scribe, and a Journeyman anyway. But you must be cold, sir, lying there in the snow.'
He was babbling like an idiot, and Elidor's ears flamed with the embarrassment of it, and the shame of having thought, even for a moment, that the Companion had come for him. Of course the Companion was already bonded to a Herald, and of course if any Companion were to come looking for Elidor, it would only be to seek help for its Herald. But in the strangest way, mixed in with his feelings of humiliation and wild embarrassment, was the oddest sort of relief.
'We have to get you out of there.'
'Ah, there lies the difficulty,' Jordwen said regretfully. 'I'm afraid that when the blessed contraption fell on me, it managed to tangle itself up with me in a way I haven't yet unraveled. I'd resigned myself to lying here until Spring came and the birds built nests in my hair. There's beauty in a meadow, of course-'
He was rattling on a little breathlessly, and it occurred to Elidor that whatever had happened to him, it must hurt very much. Somehow, that made his own fear and awkwardness go away.
'Look here, Herald sir-'
'Do call me Jordwen. I don't think our discourse can survive many more Heralds and sirs, do you?'
'I'm small, and there's space under the carriage,' Elidor said, ignoring the interruption. 'I think I can get under there and see how you're pinned, if you're willing. I might be able to get you lose.'
'I think you must,' Jordwen said, and for all his languor, there was steel beneath his words.
Elidor pulled off his cloak and draped it over the Herald like a blanket. Kneeling down beside him, where the gap beneath the coach was deepest, he began to dig and burrow, tunneling his way beneath the coach alongside Jordwen's body.
