Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

He backed away, one step for her two.

She held out her hand.

He stood for a long moment, his head cocked, listening as Rhiannon’s voice swelled all around them.

Dionne took another step toward him, surrounded by Rhiannon’s song, which held him in place. She took his hand. Power filled him, dark, but roiling and misty, as if his very own purpose fought against the man he had become. She touched his energy lightly, trying to understand him.

He flinched.

She looked at him, daring him to pull away.

He didn’t.

She glanced at Rhiannon, who winked. That was enough to let go, to trust the situation. They would live or they would not. At least they were together. She took a great, deep breath and closed her eyes, swaying. She grounded, pulling on the strength of the earth and the forest. She let the energy build up around her and in her, and then she sent him some.

He seemed starved. Energy drained from her faster than she expected, driving her dizzy. His pain overwhelmed her, filling her. Perhaps she had done the wrong thing, trusted too much. Maybe she would die here after all.

Rhiannon began a new song, one she had written for Dionne when they were both nine, the year before they started their training. It spoke of healing and joy and helping, and as Dionne poured her energy freely into him, he suddenly began to shake, finally dissolving into tears. He knelt on the ground in front of Dionne. “Now I know why that song called me so much.”

Deckert and Ciena had come up on either side of the threesome, and her sister’s captor withdrew his hand from Dionne’s and said, “I am sorry. I will go with you.”

Dionne blinked. Could they trust that?

Inside her head bloomed a single word. :Yes.:

So that was what a Companion sounded like. Beautiful.

The Heralds led the man who had surrendered to them away, Deckert speaking softly to him while Ciena bound him securely.

“How did that happen?” Dionne asked.

Again, the voice. :Your sister’s voice has worked on him for almost a week. Rhiannon taught him what he had become, and your Healing showed he needn’t stay that way.:

Dionne glanced at the keep, which now looked no more imposing than some of the Valdemar border keeps, a large, square building with a lookout turret on each corner, few windows, and a stout wooden doorway. There would be buildings and storage rooms inside, and whoever else the mage had kidnapped.

She started toward it, Rhiannon at her side. Along the way, Rhiannon continued the song of joy.

“What will happen to him?” Dionne asked.

Deck smiled. “We’ll let him go far away from you two. Valdemar is uncomfortable for mages now, and he is truly changed. Someone so young should have a second chance.”

Dionne smiled agreement, and Rhiannon said, “Yes, he should.”

Bard Breda and Master Healer Gavin both wore solemn faces as they listened to the twins’ story for the second time. They were in a small classroom they’d commandeered for the purpose, Rhiannon and Dionne sitting in student chairs while the two teachers sat at the front. At the end of their story, the girls sat with their hands folded in their laps. Breda was not particularly fooled; they were not as meek as they were pretending to be. In fact, she was pretty sure they’d get up and walk away from their callings if she told them they would have to finish out their years apart.

The girls twitched and fidgeted lightly, a foot here, a little finger there. Clearly, they thought it at least possible that Breda and Gavin would force them to separate again.

Breda had decided Gavin deserved to pronounce their judgment. He looked very solemn and serious as he said, “We guess you want to stay together?”

The twins nodded vigorously.

“You think your bond is something more than we thought, something worth nurturing and feeding.”

They nodded again.

“All right.”

The two girls screeched jubilantly and held each other, and then seemed to recall they were almost adults and settled back into their seats, still smiling.

Breda leaned over and whispered in Gavin’s ear. “I’m glad you were right. May we always learn from our students.”

He leaned over and whispered back. “If we hadn’t separated them, we would never have known how strong that bond is.”

It was Breda’s turn to speak. “You two sound like magpies. We’re not done, yet.”

Two faces surrounded by red hair looked back at her, pretending innocence.

She leaned down and pulled a box out from under her chair. She took out two new uniforms: one scarlet and one bright green.

The twins held their tongues and reached demurely for the symbols of their new status with reverent hands. Good. Maybe their adventure had helped them understand the new realities of a Valdemar without Herald-Mages. They would have to be part of the solution, as would all of the Bards and Healers and Heralds together.

Three classes of Valdemar, working together. The Power of Three. She could already hear the refrain of a song building in her head.

What Fire Is

by Janni Lee Simner

Janni Lee Simner has published nearly three dozen short stories, including appearances in

Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales

,

Realms of Fantasy

magazine, the first Valdemar anthology,

Sword of Ice

, and the third,

Crossroads

. Her latest novel,

Bones of Fairie

, will be published in early 2009. Visit her Web site at

www.simner.com

.

All my life, fire has danced through my dreams.

Orange and red, yellow and white—I hold flames in my hands. They caress my skin and melt on my tongue, sweet as sugar on festival days.

But only in dreams. I am a farmer’s son. I am no fool.

I know well enough what fire is like.

When I was small, I told my parents about my dreams. I thought they’d be pleased. We worshiped the Sun, after all, saying prayers morning and night to the round stone disk above our hearth. (The merchant’s daughter, Cara, said her family had a gold pendant, but I didn’t believe her; no one had that much gold.)

Yet as I spoke, my father’s face grew hard as the frozen winter fields. “Don’t talk of such things, Tamar. Try to dream happier dreams.”

It was a happy dream, I thought, but before I could say so, my mother looked at me, and the fear in her eyes turned the memory of bright flames to cold ash.

“Yes,” I told them both. “Yes, I will try.”

We cannot hold fire. We cannot taste it. But we can use it.

Fire cooks our food, heats our rooms, lights our homes. After a cold winter night, fire welcomes us to morning.

With fire the day—and the day’s work—begins.

When I was older, I called fire into the waking world.

One gray winter dawn the year I turned nine, I crouched in the loft where I slept, longing for the warmth I’d