Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar

in The Sorcerer's Academy, Apprentice Fantastic, Once Upon A Galaxy, Familiars and Vengeance Fantastic.

Kayla was born in the harsh winter of life in the mining town of Riverend. Her father had been born there, and her mother had come from the flats of Valdemar's most fertile lands.

An outsider, she had learned to face the winter with the same respect, and the same dread, that the rest of the villagers showed. She had come to be accepted by the villagers in the same way, slowly and grudgingly at first, but with a healthy respect that in the end outlasted all of their earlier superstitious fear of the different.

Margaret Merton, called Magda for reasons that Kayla never quite understood, was different. She could walk into a room and it would grow warmer; she could smile, and her smile would spread like fire; her joy could dim the sharpest and bitterest of winter joy could dim the sharpest and bitterest of tempers, when cabin fever ran high. How could they not learn to love her?

Even in her absence, that memory remained, and when her daughter showed some of the same strange life, she was loved for it. More, for the fact that she was born to the village.

* * *

The Heralds came through the village of Riverend in the spring, when the snows had receded and the passes, in the steep roads and treacherous flats of the mountains, were opened. Heralds seldom stopped in the village, although they rode through it from time to time.

When they did, Kayla took the little ones from the hold and made her way down to the village center to watch them ride through. She would bundle them one at a time in the sweaters and shawls that kept the bite of spring air at bay, and gently remind them of foreign things-manners, behavior, the language children should use in the presence of their elders.

She would remind them of the purpose of Heralds, and promise them a story or two if they behaved themselves, and then she would pick up the children whose toddling led them to cracks in the dirt, sprigs of new green, sodden puddles-in fact, anything that caught their eye from the moment the hold's great doors were opened-and hurry them along; in that way, she managed to keep them from missing the Heralds altogether.

This spring was the same, but it was also different; every gesture was muted, and if she smiled at all, it was so slight an expression that the children could be forgiven for missing it. It had been a harsh winter.

A terrible winter.

And the winter had taken the joy out of Kayla so completely the villagers mourned its passing and wondered if it was buried with those who had passed away in the cold.

On this spring day, the Heralds stopped as the children gathered in as orderly a group as children could who had been cooped up all winter.

There were two, a man and the woman who rode astride the Companions that set them apart from any other riders in the kingdom of Valdemar.

'Well met,' the woman said, nudging her Companion forward at a slow walk. Kayla heard the whisper that started at one end of the small group and traveled to the other. She almost smiled.

Almost.

Mitchell and Evan began to shove each other out of the way in an attempt to be at the front of the group. Kayla set Tess down and separated them, grabbing an elbow in either hand. She didn't need to speak; her expression said everything.

Bells caught light and made of sound a musical cacophony, which was not in fact dissimilar to the sound it evoked from the children, whose quarrels fell away in the wake of shared wonder.

Well, almost all of the quarrels at any rate; there was still some scuffling for position, with its attendant shoving and hissed accusation. Given everything, this was almost angelic behavior; it wouldn't be good enough for the old aunts, but it was good enough for Kayla.

Two years ago, she would have asked for more-and gotten it, too-but two years ago, behavior had seemed so much more important than it was now.

These children were the children of winter, and the winter was harsh; she knew that if half of them lived to be eight, the village would count itself lucky; if half of those lived to be fifteen, it would count itself more than that.

The Herald, an older woman with broad hips and an easy smile, watched the children from the safe distance of her Companion's back; her Companion, on the other hand, had no difficulty wandering among the many outstretched-and upstretched-hands. The second Companion seemed to have a more obvious sense of personal dignity-or at least a healthy caution when it came to children; it was hard to say which. Her rider was a handful of years older than Kayla, if at all, but his face was smooth and unblemished by either time or war, and he seemed both grave and dignified in a way that reminded her of her dead. Riverend was a harsh, Northern town; the dead were many.

'Youngling,' the older Herald barked, her voice loud but not unfriendly.

Mitchell leaped up about six feet, straining to look much older than his handful of years.

'Yes, ma'am!'

The young man who rode at her side laughed. 'Ma'am, is it?' His glance belied the gravity of his expression; Kayla liked the sound of his voice.

'Obviously I don't look as young as I'd like to think I do. Ah well, time is cruel.' Her smile showed no disappointment at that cruelty as she looked down at Mitchell. 'You know the people of the village by name?'

He nodded.

'Good. I'm wondering where Kayla Grayson lives.' Mitchell lifted a hand and pointed toward the large hold.

'Will she be down at the mines, or up at the hold?' He frowned. 'Neither.'

Kayla said nothing.

But she felt it: a change in the older woman's mood and intent; there were currents in it now that were deeper than they should have been. She snuck a glance at the man, and listened carefully. There, too, she felt a determination that was out of place. It put her on her guard.

'Why are you looking for Kayla?' she asked.

'We've heard a bit about her, and we-well, I at least-thought it would be nice to meet her on our way through Riverend. We don't often get much call to travel this way.'

'What have you heard?'

'Well, for one, that she's Magda Merton's daughter, the last of four, and the one most like her mother.'

Kayla hesitated a moment, and hid that hesitation in the action of lifting a child to the wide, wide nostrils of a very patient Companion. She had the grace to wince and pull back when the child's first act was to attempt to shove his whole hand up the left one.

'That's true,' she said at last. 'At least, that she's the last of her daughters. You'll have to judge for yourself how much alike they actually are.' She straightened her shoulders, shifting her burden again with an ease that spoke of practice. 'Because I'm guessing you knew my mother.'

The Herald's expression shifted; it didn't matter. Kayla already knew what the woman was feeling. Surprise. Concern. Hope. 'So you're Kayla.'

'And you?'

'Anne,' the woman replied. She reached out with a hand, and after only a slight hesitation, Kayla shifted the boy to one hip, freeing one of hers. She shook the Herald's hand and then turned to face the quieter young man. 'If you want to join us, there's food, but I'll warn you, it's spare; we can offer you news, or trade, or water-but we barter for most of our food, and only Widow Davis has stores enough to entertain important guests.'

The Heralds exchanged a look, and then the young man smiled. 'We're well provisioned. We'd be happy to offer food for our discussion or news.'

'He means-and is too polite to say it-gossip.'

But Kayla felt the twinge of guilt that hid beneath the surface of those cheerful words, and her eyes fell to the saddlebags that his Companion bore without complaint. It occurred to her that the Companions and their Heralds seldom carried much food with them, for the villages who fed and housed them were reimbursed for their troubles, and at a rate that made it especially appealing for the poorer towns.