Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar

Girls, Lady Kendra. As he lingered in an outer room, uncertain of how far to go exploring, she came through a doorway and advanced upon him, heavy skirts swishing.

'So here is our hero,' she said, keeping her voice low.

Elidor ducked his head, feeling awkward. It was one thing to do what was needed, he realized, and quite another to hear about it later. 'I came to see Mistress Vonarre,' he said.

Lady Kendra's expression softened. 'Poor mite! To come such a long way, and at this time of year, and sent like a parcel of old clothes to the ragman, her that wasn't to come until a year spring-you may be sure that yon coachman will have a better care for the next child he must bring such a distance, and a pox upon him!' Lady Kendra's eyes flashed, and she took a deep breath. 'But a hot bath and a bowl of soup mends much, and I will sit with her until she sleeps. She will soon settle in. Tomorrow we will send someone to the wreck to bring back her things, and the letter that will undoubtedly explain all.'

From her tone, it was clear the Mistress of Girls doubted the explanation would satisfy her.

'I can go with them. I know where it is,' Elidor said. 'But I've brought her a present. It's Midwinter. Can I give it to her? I'll stay with her, if you like.'

Lady Kendra looked surprised, but the expression passed so quickly that Elidor wasn't quite sure he'd seen it. 'Well, then. Do. But mind she drinks her milk. There's a sleeping posset in it.'

'I will,' Elidor promised.

He went through the door the Mistress of Girls indicated. There was a table with a small lamp burning on it, and a wooden cup beside it. Beside the bed that took up most of the space in the room was a wooden stool. Vonarre was sitting up in bed. She had been scrubbed, and her hair brushed out, and dressed in a thick flannel nightshirt, just as any traveler whose things had been lost might be. Elidor loosened his cloak and sat down beside her bed. She smiled when she saw him, hopefully, as if-just perhaps-the world was not terrible after all.

The books he'd read spoke of breaking hearts, and of the pain they caused, and its curious joy, but in all their stories, never once had Elidor read of the comforting pain of a heart that mends, though he knew he felt it now. Thank you, Jordwen. Thank you, Darrian. He reached into his cloak.

'I've brought you a Midwinter present,' he said, offering the carved Companion to the child. 'This was mine when I was little. I think you'll like it.'

'His name is Darrian,' Vonarre said firmly, clutching the wooden horse against her chest.

'Shall I tell you a story?' Elidor said. He picked up the wooden mug and held it out. 'Drink your milk and I will. Once, long ago-a long, long, time ago, there was a Companion named Darrian, who was the partner of a Herald named Vonarre...'

SUN IN GLORY

by Mercedes Lackey

Mercedes Lackey is a full-time writer and has published numerous novels, including the best-selling Heralds of Valdemar series. She is also a professional lyricist and a licensed wild bird rehabilitator.

Sunset was long past; the light in his study came from the lanterns high on the wall behind him. The floor- to-ceiling stained-glass window on the other side of the room was a dark panel spiderwebbed with lead channels. It formed a somber backdrop behind the two men seated across from Herald Alberich. The Weaponmaster to the Trainees of all three Collegia at Haven in the Kingdom of Valdemar coughed to punctuate the silence in his quarters. He regarded his second visitor, who was ensconced in one of his austere, but comfortable, wooden chairs, with a skeptical gaze.

His first visitor he knew very well, dressed in his robes of office, saffron and cream; mild-mannered, balding Gerichen, the chief Priest of Vkandis Sunlord here in Haven. Not that anyone knew Gerichen's temple, prudently called only 'the Temple of the Lord of Light'

was of Vkandis Sunlord, at least not unless you were a Karsite exile...

Of which there were a surprising number in Valdemar-surprising, at least, to Alberich even now.

Gerichen had been born here, but most of his fellowship had not been, and Karse did not easily let loose its children, even if all it wanted of them was to reduce them to ashes.

Yet, year by year, season by season, for decades it seemed, Karse's children had been, slipping over the Border into Valdemar, beating down their fear of the 'Demon-lovers'

because real death bayed hot at their heels and the possibility of demons seemed preferable to the certainty of the Fires of Purification. Some couldn't bear the fear of the things that the Priest-Mages (in the name of the god, of course) sent to howl about their doors of a night. Some came because the Red-robes had taken, or had threatened to take, a child or spouse-either to absorb into the priesthood or to burn as a proto-witch. And amazingly enough to Alberich, some of them came because he had dared to, so many years ago.

Alberich had met Gerichen longer ago than he cared to think about, when he was first a Herald-Trainee and Gerichen a mere Novice. Both of them were older than they liked to admit, except over a drink, in front of a cozy fire, late of an evening. Gerichen was one of a very small company of folk who had supported Alberich's presence in Valdemar from the very beginning.

The other visitor, sitting beneath the left eye of the stained-glass image of Vkandis as a Sun In Glory that formed the outer wall of Alberich's study, was someone that Alberich knew not at all, though he knew far more about this fellow than the man probably suspected.

He was here at Gerichen's request. He was also here, if not illegally, certainly covertly, for he was a Priest- Mage of Vkandis Sunlord in Karse. There had not been one of those on Valdemaran soil in centuries.

There had not been one on Valdemaran soil as anything other than an invader in far longer.

Karse-sworn enemy of Valdemar for so long that very few even knew it had once been a peaceful neighbor, had been Alberich's home. Karse was ruled, in fact if not in name, by a theocracy who called the Heralds 'Demons' and were pledged to eradicate them. And of that theocracy, the ruling priests, the Priest-Mages and the priests who had clawed their way up through the ranks, were the true aristocracy of Karse, answerable only to one authority, the Son of the Sun.

Who-until very recently, at least-had called Alberich himself 'The Great Traitor' for not only deserting his post as captain of a company of Vkandis' Holy Army, but for turning witch and joining the ranks of the Demon-Riders of Valdemar. And worse; rising to a position of such trust that Witch-Queen Selenay counted him among her most valued advisers.

The Priest-Mages were not only the Voices of Vkandis; they had the power to summon and control demons themselves-not that they called such creatures 'demons,' not even among themselves, preferring to refer to them as the 'Dark Servants' or 'Vkandis' Furies.'

All in Vkandis' name, of course, or so they said. All at the behest of Vkandis Himself, or so they claimed.

One of those Voices had condemned Alberich to death by burning, and all because he'd had the temerity to make use of a 'witch-power' and save the inhabitants of a Karsite Border village from certain slaughter by a band of outlaws. Never mind that he'd had no more control over that so-called 'witch-power' than he had over a raging storm, had never asked for that power, and would have given it up without a moment of hesitation.

But the current Son of the Sun-the newly chosen Son of the Sun-was not of the same stamp as all of those who had preceded her. And the Voice that sat beneath Vkandis' left eye was not at all like the arrogant, cold priest who had pronounced sentence on Alberich that day. He was young, surprisingly so. It would hardly be politic for him to be clad in the red robes of his office here in the heart of a land that was his enemy's, but in ordinary clothing that would not disgrace a moderately prosperous merchant, he had an aura of calm authority that set him apart, even from Gerichen. He was short, stocky, clean-shaven; his white-blond hair was as close-cropped as that of all Sun- priests, with keen eyes as blue as those of any Companion set in a face whose planes might have been cut by a chisel. And yet-not cold, that face; alive and curiously accepting. Beside Alberich, on the other side of the fireplace, sat Herald-Chronicler Myste. She regarded the two priests with a gaze as penetrating as that of the visitors, and perhaps more uncanny, at least to the stranger, since her hazel eyes looked at him through a pair of round glass lenses that magnified what was behind them, giving her an owllike stare. Myste was the official historian of Herald's Collegium, the Herald-Chronicler, and had been since she finished her internship. She had a facility with words that would have suited her to the job had she not had other handicaps that kept her out of the Field.

Myste had been as odd a Herald, in her way, as Alberich. She had always, from the moment she arrived, been shockingly short-sighted, and had never been assigned to Field work on account of it-not the best notion to put