Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

planned to take Dawn with me. We came to the first of the last two towns, up over a hill, kind of like where you and I sat today when I started this story. The sky hung low and oppressive over us, a gray at midday that was almost black. Lightning flashed in the far hills. It wasn’t raining, but it had, and would, and the air itself felt full of water, as if drops might materialize all on their own. In the damp darkness, smoke filled the bottom on the valley, persistent and thick and ugly. Bright embers showed where the largest houses had once been. We walked down into it. We had to. Whoever, whatever, had burned the town did not seem to be there, and maybe there was someone we could help.

“Dawn clutched my hand when we saw the first two bodies. Children. Two children. They had been running, and fire had somehow caught them. Dawn’s eyes were huge, her face pale, and at first she stopped and her fingernails dug into my palm and her body shook. I had seen the dead before, but something seemed unnatural. The nearest burned building was quite a distance away. It looked like the children had just burst into flame running, not like they ran, flaming, from a fire. It sounds like a small difference when I say it, but it was a big difference to see. It struck us both silent. Part of me didn’t want to go any farther into the town, no matter what, didn’t want to take another step.” The memory hurt, the moment she should have, could have, changed her mind. Jocelyn stood and stretched and paced once around the fire and sat back down, keenly aware of her own restlessness. “But you know, when you’re out there, and there might be someone you can help, you remember you’re a Bard, that you’re more than just a court singer. You just are.”

Jocelyn looked up into Silver’s eyes. Did Silver understand this, in her bones? Did she know what life she’d chosen? Silver nodded, as if answering Jocelyn’s unspoken question.

“So we walked forward. We didn’t talk about it. We dropped each other’s hands, but we kept going, looking around. The stench—all the things that had burned but were never meant to burn—stuck to us, covering us, and I wanted the sky to rain and clean us off. It didn’t. The sky just glowered above us instead. We saw more burned bodies, crisped, dark. Some houses still smoldered, others stood untouched.

“A fat brown dog ran between two houses. It looked lost, but healthy. It stopped and stared at us, then it barked plaintively. And then . . . then it burned. Fire flashed alive on it and in it, a blanket of blue fire. It went from standing to burning.”

She swallowed. “Dawn screamed.” She paused, swallowed again. The words clawed their way out of her throat, dry and hot as flame. “And burned.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “And burned.” She gestured toward the fire. “Not like if that campfire caught my clothes, but completely. In seconds, I could see her bones. She didn’t . . .” Jocelyn choked. “She didn’t even scream for long. I ran. I didn’t scream. I . . . I just ran.”

Dawn’s arms—no, Silver’s arms—Bard Silver’s long slender strong arms, circled Jocelyn’s shoulders and Jocelyn turned her face into the other woman’s chest and burrowed, holding on. She should never have let Dawn go in there. She should never have let Dawn travel with her in the first place. She should have gone alone. She should have died instead, or at least died, too. Magic. She lifted her head, looked away, talking in broken words. “It was . . . she was killed by . . . a spell triggered by sound. That killed them all—the whole town—” Jocelyn wiped at her eyes and nose and reached for a waterskin. Her hands shook so hard Silver had to help her pull the stopper out. She drank deeply. “I learned that when I got back to Haven—learned sound started the spell, and learned that it faded quickly. If we’d come into town the next day, all the gruesome sights would still be there. But we could have talked or laughed or screamed. The Palace sent one of the White Winds mages to read the spell as soon as I got back to Haven and told my story. He said . . . he said it he thought it was Ancar’s mages testing a potential trap. They killed that whole town just to test a spell.”

“You know it wasn’t your fault she died,” Silver whispered awkwardly, earnestly.

Jocelyn pushed a little away from Silver, reached down to touch the dirt, to ground herself. She drew in the smell of the fire, of the night. “I know. My head knows. But I could have been more careful.”

Silver sounded confused as she said, “But wasn’t magic new to Valdemar? Weren’t you still inside the borders, where magic hadn’t even worked just months before? How were you supposed to know?”

Jocelyn didn’t answer. Her head said the same thing, all the time. But . . . but Silver was so young. And she was saying the same thing. Silver was a year older than Jocelyn. So . . . so Jocelyn really had been young that year. She hadn’t felt young. She’d forgive Silver if she made a mistake—she was on her first trip and couldn’t even walk a good day’s pace yet, even though by the end of their trip, today’s walk might seem short. If she could forgive Silver almost any mistake, why couldn’t she forgive her own younger self?

“Look,” Silver said, “I’m sure it doesn’t help to tell you Dawn died doing something she wanted to do. You must have heard that before. But you did the very best you could. And then you wrote her a song, and your song made a difference.”

“How? Dawn’s dead.”

“Right.” Silver’s voice was soft, musical. A Bard’s voice. Surer than Dawn’s had ever been. “But now, when kids are Chosen, now a lot of towns do something extra for the parents, or for the other family left behind.”

Jocelyn looked up. Was it true? Why hadn’t she noticed? “Really?”

Silver returned the smile. “Really.” Silver picked up her gittern, unwrapped it, and started the refrain for “Dawn of Sorrows:”

“Dawn of sorrows, sacrifice

Yield up all you love in life”

Jocelyn’s took a breath and opened her throat. She took up the first stanza, focusing on the notes, on her voice, on singing as strong as she could. By the end of the song, her voice sounded clear and steady.

This, she suddenly understood, was why Dennis wanted her to travel with someone. Maybe she’d write another song. It was too early to tell what that song might be, of course, but . . . maybe even a song about something that wasn’t quite so painful. There were, after all, happy moments in Valdemar.

She looked over at Silver. Tears glittered like gems on the younger woman’s smooth, pale cheeks but she sang through a wide smile, and her eyes were warm behind the wetness.

Warmth bloomed inside Jocelyn. It took her a moment to recognize it as happiness, to notice that she, too, smiled as she sang, even though tear tracks still stained her own cheeks.

HORSE OF AIR

by Rosemary Edghill

Rosemary Edghill’s first professional sales were to the black & white comics of the late 1970s, so she can truthfully state on her resume that she once killed vampires for a living. She is also the author of over thirty novels and several dozen short stories in genres ranging from Regency Romance to Space Opera, making all local stops in between. In addition to her work with Mercedes Lackey, she has collaborated with authors such as the late Marion Zimmer Bradley and the late SF Grand Master Andre Norton, worked as an SF editor for a major New York publisher, as a freelance book designer, and as a professional book reviewer. Her hobbies include sleep, research for forthcoming projects, and her Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Her website can be found at

http://www.sff.net/people/eluki

THERE are places in Valdemar where the Heralds can’t go.

Well, actually, this isn’t true. Heralds and their Companions are welcome everywhere from Keyold to the Crook-back Pass. Heralds are the voice and hands of King Sendar—it’s Queen Selenay now, but it was Sendar who reigned when I put on my white leathers for the first time, and old habits are hard to break. Heralds bring news and gossip, defend the weak, embody the Crown’s justice.

Do good in the world.

It is a sacred trust to be a Herald, and it is a public thing. You are always on display whenever you are in public. People tend to think of Heralds as being more than human—as far removed from them and ordinary concerns as our Companions. Above pettiness, injustice, fear, and weakness.

The first lesson you learn from your Companion—and at the Collegium—is that you must never disappoint them.

Sometimes it is—was very hard. To be always watched, and always judged by a standard no human could possibly meet.

And because they believe such things of Heralds, the people behave differently when Heralds are among them. Some try to act as they believe a Herald would, and that can be a good thing. Some hide—both their bodies and their words—out of fear, out of awe, out of guilt.

Some lie. Some tell too much truth.

Even in Haven, where they see Heralds and their Companions daily, it is the same. The people turn a different