Sword of Ice and Other Tales of Valdemar

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'Then one day some Herald-Mage-trainees came to Forst Reach with Lord Withen Ashkevron's sister Savil. I found Savil herself to be a remarkably kind and pleasant woman, but some of her trainees . . . bah!—a more self- centered, arrogant bunch of brats I hope I never see!'

Absentmindedly, Olias picked up a nearby stick and began tapping it against the neck of his lute. 'Among those Savil brought with her was a young man named Gwanwyn, who took great delight in amazing the courtiers with his metalworking prowess—and as much as I hate admitting it, his skill was impressive. Lord Ashke-vron was suitably amazed that he called for a contest between Gwanwyn and my father. 'I wish for a new sword,' he said. 'One to rival even my armsmen's finest blades.' Until that night, my father had fashioned most of the swords used by Lord Ashkevron's soldiers, so few doubted that he would prevail. The only rule was that Gwanwyn could not employ any magic during the competition.

'I remember all the people. I was very young, so maybe there weren't as many as it seemed, but to my eyes half of Valdemar turned out for the contest. My father—he'd never been comfortable in large crowds— was nervous as a boy calling on his love for the first time, but Mother . . . Mother eased his anxiety as well she could, telling him that no matter the outcome, she would always love him. Dear, sweet, silly woman ... as if love could be enough.

'I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm certain Gwanwyn cheated—he must have! He bested my father's efforts by more than half a candlemark—no one could have fashioned a blade that quickly without the use of magic, it just wasn't possible. Toward the end, when he began to realize that Gwanwyn was winning, my father became careless, and pulled his blade from the fire before it was ready for the hammer, and the first strike snapped the metal in two. He'd never made that mistake before, and I saw him die inside at the sight of those two halves lying on the ground before him.

'The people watching all laughed. Gods, I remember their laughter. It was such an ugly sound. Until that moment, I'd never realized that people you called 'neighbor,' people you called friend,' could take such delight in your disgrace. Only the Heralds were silent. My father was not a small man—he was perhaps one of the tallest men hi the city—but I could see him shrink under the weight of that ugly laughter.

'When he walked away that day, he was looking at the ground. I don't believe I ever saw him look up again. They broke his heart and crippled his spirit. After that day, none of the gentry ever brought then' business to him again. By the time he died, he'd been reduced to taking groom duties at one of the local stables. He never spoke much, except to thank the stable-master for his position. Of all the pains that he had to endure toward the end, the worst of it—though he would never say it aloud—was the way people looked at 'him. With such ... pity. Distaste and pity.

'Mother died shortly after we buried Father. The grief and loneliness was too much for her. I tried, the gods know how I tried, to fill the void left in her life by Father's death. I would play for her at night—I'd always had a talent for music—but every song reminded her of Father. There is some grief you never recover from, I guess.

'I took to thieving shortly before she died. She'd become very ill and I knew she didn't have long left, and I was damned if her body was going to be tossed into a pauper's grave like my father's, I managed to steal enough to pay for a proper grave and marker, but I hadn't enough for a new grave for my father. To this day his body still lies in that pauper's field, and enough time has gone by that—though I can easily raise the price asked by the grave-diggers—I have . . . forgotten the exact location of the spot where his body was buried. I can't help but think that his spirit must be saddened by that, for I know how much he wanted to rest by Mother's side.'

He picked up the lute and stared at it. 'I will never forgive any of the gentry, any of the wealthy or the highborn for what they did to my parents. Never. They think they are so far above the rest of us, safe in their mansions. They are all the same in my eyes, and I in theirs— who am I, after all? To them? No one. Well, damn them all to hell, I say! I'll take from them what was denied my parents in life, and I'll do with the money as I please. If I wish to spend it on food and drink and the price of a woman in my bed, so be it. If I choose to give it away to beggars hi the street, then that is what I'll do! And may the gods pity anyone who dares to try and stop me!' He angrily strummed the lute. 'And someday, I swear, I'll make Lord Withen Ashkevron suffer for his betrayal of my father, and then I'll find Gwanwyn and I'll kill him. Slowly, so that he'll know the pain my parents suffered because of his pride.' He strummed the lute once again, coldly and calmly, then lay the instrument aside lest he damage it in his anger.

He looked toward L'lewythi. 'Damn you, as well, lost-ling. What is it about you that causes me to speak in an unknown tongue? What is it that made me want to tell these things to you?'

L'lewythi only stared in silence, looking more and more like some village idiot.

Olias groaned in frustration, then flipped onto his side, facing away from his guest.

Gods! At times like this I wish there were another place, another land, another world in another time where I could be rid of them all, where I wouldn't have to look upon the faces of Valdemar and see the ghost of my parents in everyone, in every place.

I wish. Gods, how I wish. . . .

He awakened sometime later to the sounds of rustling, and immediately drew his dagger from his ankle sheath and whipped around, brandishing the weapon.

L'lewythi was standing by the tree, his eyes closed, his arms outstretched, the fingers of his hands extending outward, then curling toward him as if he were beckoning someone.

Olias watched dumbstruck as threads of thin silver light danced around L'lewythi's fingertips, then reached out to encircle a small bundle attached to the back of L'lewythi's horse. The ropes holding the bundle in place untied themselves, the covering fell away, and the silver threads wound themselves around something that looked like a glass pipe—only this instrument was much larger than a pipe, easily the size of a man's forearm, tapered at one end and open at the other. Inside, the glass had been blown In such a way that several spheres, some larger than others, had formed along its length. The instrument rose from the horse, cradled in silver threads, and moved through the air to land gently in L'lewythi's grip. Smiling, the boy sat down once again and rubbed his hands against a small patch of ice near the base of the tree until the heat from his palms melted the ice sufficiently to wet his fingers. Laying the glass pipe across his knee, L'lewythi placed his fingers on the surface of the instrument. The spheres within began to revolve and whirl, some slower than others, some so fast they could barely be seen.

Olias couldn't tell how this was possible. The spheres were obviously part of the pipe, yet each moved as if independent of it.

L'lewythi began to finger the glass in much the same way harp players plucked at the taut strings of their instruments, but as he moved his fingers up and down the length of the pipe, each of the spheres glowed—not any single color, but all colors, one bleeding into the next until it was impossible to tell the difference between gold and red, red and gray, gray and blue, and with each

burst of color and combinations of colors there came musical notes. The first was a lone, soft, sustained cry that floated above them on the wings of a dove, a mournful call that sang of foundered dreams and sorrowful partings and dusty, forgotten myths from ages long gone by, then progressively rose in pitch to strengthen this extraordinary melancholy with tinges of joy, wonder, and hope as the songs of the other spheres and colors joined it, becoming the sound of a million choral voices raised in worship to the gods, becoming music's fullest dimension, richest intention, whispering rest to Olias' weary heart as the light moved outward in waves and ripples, altering the landscape with every exalted refrain, voices a hundred times fuller than any human being's should ever be, pulsing, swirling, rising, then cascading over his body like pure crystal rain, and suddenly the rain, the music, was inside of him, assuming physical dimensions, forcing him to become more than he was, than he'd been, than he'd ever dreamed of becoming. Olias dropped down to one knee, the sound growing without and within him, and he was aware not only of the music and the colors and whirling spheres of glass but of every living thing that surrounded him—every weed, every insect, every glistening drop of dew on every blade of grass and every animal in deepest forest, and as the song continued rising in his soul, lavish, magnificent, and improbable, Olias Heard thoughts and Sensed dreams and Absorbed myriad impressions as they danced in the air, passing from spirit to mind to memory with compulsive speed and more sensory layers than he was able to comprehend, lifting everything toward a sublime awareness so acute, so alive, so incandescent and all-encompassing that he thought he might burst into flames for the blinding want underneath it all.

It was the closest thing to splendor he'd ever known.