“Can’t be far from where the people have been disappearing,” Deckert said. “But we’ll have to be very careful since it’s on the wrong side of the border.”
Dionne swallowed hard, ignoring her own doubts. “I can find her. I know I can.”
Either the keep was smaller on the inside than it had looked on the outside, or the mage only allowed Rhiannon and Lleryn access to a small part of it. There was a minstrel, a Healer, and a handful of cooks and farmers and housekeepers. The girls seldom saw them and weren’t sure what kept them here. With the exception of the Healer, who wore very faded and patched Greens, it was impossible to tell if the people they saw were Valdemaran or Rethwellan. It was also impossible to tell if they were captive or free, or held in some sort of magical spell. Rhiannon was certain most of it was a spell, and Lleryn argued it could be some of all the above—slaves and workers, locals and people like them, who had been kidnapped.
They’d learned the mage called himself Lompaux of the Greylorn. He had told Rhiannon that the second day, when he’d brought her a new and very lovely gittern and demanded she play the Lament for Twins for him.
He had her sing it for him every night, and every night she grew sadder, and the song escaped her lips with more power. He seemed a willing listener, the kind of audience she had been taught came too easily to song and sometimes had to be brought from sorrow to happiness at the end of a set. At the end of about a week’s stay (she’d lost track of the actual number of days), she watched him walk out of the room after a session where he’d asked her to sing for him. It dawned on her that they were developing a bond. In fact, he didn’t seem entirely evil. It felt more like he was just trapped in a circle of sadness and a set of decisions he’d made long ago, probably before he was even grown.
Without Dionne, she didn’t know how to sing happy songs with the full power of her Gift. But could she touch him anyway? She knew sadness, now that she spent her days locked in the cold keep without her sister. Maybe she could strengthen her bond to him by creating songs to show him the traps he’d set for himself.
Excited, she stood up to go find Lleryn and see what she thought of the idea. The Bard was sitting in the corner of the next room, practicing air-scales over and over, her fingers tapping silently at the air in their rather large prison. After Rhiannon finished explaining, Lleryn chewed on her lip for a long time before saying, “Sure, try it. Just be careful not to let the bond become two-way.”
Rhiannon grinned. “It won’t. I’ll keep my image of Dionne between him and me.”
The next morning, they crossed the border, taking the widest trading road that Herald Deckert knew of. He stopped at the first fork in the road, putting up a hand to stop the group. “We have to be careful now,” he said. “Having permission from the Rethwellan ambassador won’t keep us from getting shot first and the questions asked later. Rethwellan is anti-mage at the moment, though, so if they don’t shoot us first, they may not mind our mission.” He looked down at his Companion, Kadey. “And the Companions prefer that we just aren’t seen. They’ll try to help us with that.”
Dionne nodded.
The whole group stood still for a bit, and just as she was wondering why they didn’t get started, Deckert’s gentle voice interrupted her thoughts. “You’re the one who’s got to find her.”
Of course. Dionne closed her eyes. “Stay on the main road. I’ll know where to turn.”
And she did, again and again, until she led the group all the way to their first view of the imposing keep. She pulled Sugar to a halt, and the two Companions stopped, and everyone just looked. Rhiannon was there—she could feel her from here. She didn’t think her twin knew she was close. They didn’t have Mindspeech, but they did have something like Empathy, something her mother had always called the oneness of twins. Dionne closed her eyes briefly, closing away the keep, and thought what she wanted Rhiannon to know.
Her eyes snapped open. She was pretty sure Rhiannon had gotten the message, or the sense of the message. But what could either of them actually do?
The Heralds had been staring for some time, and of course they’d undoubtedly been using true mindspeech between themselves and their Companions. She waited, impatient, and less and less hopeful as time went on. She’d done her part, but the next move was up to Deckert and Ciena. And the Companions, of course.
After what seemed like a very long time, Deckert looked over at her. “Most of what you see is an illusion. There is a true Keep there, and twenty or so people. But it’s older than what you see, and a quarter that size.”
“How do you know?”
He reached down to pat his Companion. “Kadey was able to show me.”
“Can he show me?” she asked.
Deckert fell silent for a moment. “It isn’t necessary.” He sighed and glanced at her. “You’re a Healer, and your sister is a Bard. Between the two of you, you know Companions generally only give the least aid possible—the amount we need to do our jobs.”
She nodded.
He seemed to shift his focus to Ciena more than Dionne. “And sometimes not even that. For some reason, they want the twins reunited enough to help me see the glamour. I’ve come to accept that Companions are—in their own way—magical beings. But they keep their own counsel, and Kadey has seldom solved my problems for me.”
Both Ciena and Dionne nodded. Ciena was at most a few years older than Dionne, but she seemed so much more poised and controlled that it surprised Dionne to see her given a lesson. Older Healers almost always looked after the younger ones. Of course it was the same with Heralds.
Dionne looked at the Keep, willing herself to see it smaller. It didn’t help. “What do we do now?”
For answer, Deckert and Kadey moved forward. Dionne followed, and Ciena, on her Companion Tani, brought up the rear. They were almost halfway to the keep when Dionne suddenly felt dizzy and grabbed the pommel of Sugar’s saddle with both hands. Luckily, the tall mare was well enough graced to stop when Ciena, behind them, called out, “Whoa.”
Deckert and Kadey stopped, too. Deckert turned in his saddle to look back. “Are you okay?”
Dionne closed her eyes and hung on, taking big, shuddering gulps of warm air. “I ... I think we should rest. Maybe it’s a message from Rhiannon, or maybe she’s sick. But anyway, I think ... think I need to stop.”
“Could it be the mage?” Ciena asked.
“I don’t know.” Deckert dismounted and helped Dionne climb down from Sugar. She leaned hard on the old Herald as he helped her sit on a warm stone by the path.
She felt grateful for his strong hand and dismayed by her dizziness. Still, now that she had stopped, she knew it was exactly the right thing. Her breathing slowed and evened, and her balance returned enough that sitting felt normal even though she wasn’t quite ready to stand.
The Heralds didn’t question her, but sat quietly. Watchful.
The glowing alto of Rhiannon’s voice came to her, wafting down through the forest. The local birdsong stopped.
She glanced at Deckert. “Hide, please, and watch.”
To her surprise, Deckert and Kadey faded one way and Ciena and Tani went another way, both so quiet it underscored yet again that the Companions weren’t horses.
Just hearing Rhiannon’s voice lifted Dionne’s hopes, although the song itself had her name in it, and Rhiannon’s, a call to her. The song sent waves of sadness through the woods with more power than she’d ever heard from her twin.
Rhiannon rode around the corner, appearing like a vision through the trees, followed by a young man with a confused look on his face and tears falling down his cheeks. He stopped when he saw Dionne, staring fixedly.
She stood.
The song drew to a close, and Rhiannon mouthed, “Heal him,” over the back of his head.
Dionne nodded so her sister knew she’d heard. Heal him of sorrow? She’d certainly failed the whole time she was with Mari, but now Rhiannon was here. Strength crept into her muscles, her heartbeat, her stance.
When she saw someone as a patient, she often noticed small things. He stood a little to the left, leaning. His dark eyes and pale skin gave him a sallow look. “Come here,” she said simply.
“She won’t need to sing the lament if you’re here,” he said.
An odd response. She licked her lips, watching him. Was he happy about that, or sad?
Rhiannon began the song again.
Dionne stepped toward him.
