Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

:Oh, he has,: Cynara said. Egil could not tell what she thought of it, or of the stallion, either. Her tone was unusually bland, as if she had no opinion at all.

That Egil could not believe. Cynara always had an opinion.

He glanced at Bronwen. She stood with her Companion in a crowd of townspeople, basking in their admiration. They seemed to have forgotten that Egil was there, in spite of his Whites and the shining coat of his Companion.

That suited him admirably, but Bronwen was too hemmed in with people to either catch his glance or hear him if he asked the question that was in his mind. He asked Cynara instead. :And Rohanan? Is he as noncommittal as you?:

Cynara did not trouble to answer. Egil had known she would do that. He drew his breath in sharply, as close to a fit of pique as he ever came.

Fortunately for his peace of mind, Bronwen asked the other question, the one that had brought them here. “Pardon my impatience, but your message was urgent. There is a problem with the Companion’s Chosen?”

The man who answered was no older than Egil, but he carried himself with an air of easy authority. “There is,” he said. “It seems he’s been unable to make up his mind. He’s Chosen two of our young women: my daughter and Hanse’s daughter.”

“I gather they’re not friends,” Bronwen said.

Both fathers rolled their eyes. That they were friends was unmistakable, which made it odder that their daughters were not. “They hate each other,” Hanse said.

The other nodded. “There’s no sense or reason to it. It just is.”

“Nothing ever just is,” Bronwen said.

“Then maybe you can find out why they were born like that,” said Hanse. He sounded more tired than skeptical.

Egil was in full sympathy with the man. When Bronwen did not ask the next and essential question, Egil did it for her. “Where are they, then, sirs?”

They started a little at the voice that to them must seem to come from nowhere. Hanse recovered first, enough to answer. “Secure under lock and key,” he said grimly.

“Well,” said the other, “more or less.”

“Pitar,” Hanse said. “By the Powers. You trust her?”

“I trust my daughter,” said Pitar somewhat stiffly, “to do nothing foolish while under the watchful eyes of my apprentices.”

“So you hope,” said Hanse.

People started to rumble around them. Some spoke for one, some for the other: a low growl of division that made Egil’s nape prickle. He had felt something like it before, long ago, while he was still a Trainee. Within the hour there had been a riot.

Egil interjected politely but firmly. “I think we’d best begin our inquiry. Which of them would be closer?”

“That would be Kelyn,” said Hanse. His voice and face were tight.

With a last glance at the Companion who had done this baffling thing, Egil followed both Pitar and Hanse down through the town.

Kelyn was not in her room. The cousin who had been guarding her was almost in tears, which was disconcerting: He was head and shoulders taller than Egil’s middle height and as broad as a barn door. The tiny woman who had reduced him to a quivering wreck whirled on Hanse in such a fire of fury that even Egil fell back a step.

“She went to the privy,” the woman said, biting off each word. “Two hours ago. Rickard only began to worry, he tells me, after an hour. Because every girl takes forever to do what she will do. And then,” she said, “he was afraid to tell anyone.”

“I can hardly blame him for that,” said Egil mildly.

The woman bridled, then transparently remembered what his white uniform meant. “Herald,” she said with prickly respect. “Thank the Powers you’ve come. The girl has bolted. If she’s not with the Companion, someone had better make sure Nerys is still home and safe.”

Pitar muttered something that sounded like a curse, spun in the doorway and ran.

Nerys was nowhere to be found either. The apprentices who should have been shadowing her had fallen for the same ruse as Kelyn’s cousin.

Egil was not quite ready yet to find a pattern there, but from what he was seeing and hearing, he was inching toward a conclusion.

:Cynara: he said in his mind, since she was still out by the fields, taking the opportunity to dine on sweet grass and be adored by a gaggle of children. :Their Companion must know where they are:

Her reply was somewhat delayed and redolent of grass. :He says they’re not choosing to enlighten him. He also says they’re not together.:

:How can he not—: Egil broke off. Companions had a notorious habit of not telling their Chosen everything they knew. It could drive a Herald mad.

Egil did not intend to lose his sanity. Nor was he about to lose these two children—not, at least, until he knew why one Companion had Chosen them both.

“Bronwen,” he said in the middle of the milling and expostulating that had taken over this part of the town. He spoke softly, but his Herald-intern heard him. “They won’t have gone far. Enlist some of the locals and go after Nerys. I’ll find Kelyn.”

Time was when Bronwen would have argued simply for the sake of arguing. In this long, warm summer afternoon, she nodded and set about doing the sensible thing.

Mind you, Egil thought, if she decided my orders weren’t sensible, she’d perfectly well disobey them.

:We are surrounded by obstreperous youth,: Cynara said.

It was all Egil could do not to break out in painful laughter. As it was, one or two townspeople looked at him oddly.

He pressed them into service. “Tell me where Kelyn would most likely go.”

There were many opinions as to that, but Kelyn’s mother glared them all down. “There is one place where she goes when she needs to think. She doesn’t know anyone knows about it.”

“I won’t betray your secret,” Egil assured her.

The woman nodded brusquely, called over one of the boys who had been hanging about, staring at the Herald’s Whites, and said, “Take him to the Wizard’s Wood, to the stone circle.”

“Maybe it would be best if you simply told me where to go,” Egil said, “since she’s likely to run if she sees anyone she knows.”

“She might,” her mother conceded. “Well enough, then. Galtier will take you to the edge of the Wood. Stay on the track and don’t let yourself be tempted to wander off it. It will lead you to the circle.”

“That’s clear enough,” Egil said, “and I thank you.” He added a brief bow, because she was worthy of respect.

That flustered her into a scowl. “Go on,” she said. “Before she gets all her thinking done and runs off the Powers know where.”

Escape was almost too easy. Kelyn kept looking for pursuit, but she had made it as far as the Wizard’s Wood without anyone seeing her. They were all off gawping at the Heralds—for there were two of them; Coryn made sure she knew.

Two Heralds, two Companions. Kelyn hoped he felt the full force of her bitterness over that.

It seemed to trouble him not at all. She shut him out once more, diving into the solitude of her own mind.

That was not the most pleasant place to be. Such plan as she had was to ride her pony through the Wood, then keep on riding as far and fast as she could, until Coryn was no more than a memory.

A large part of her would rather stay and fight for him. But Kelyn had been raised to be practical. It simply did not make sense for a Companion to Choose two Heralds-to-be.

She should be that one. Not Nerys. By the Powers, never Nerys.

And yet as she endured the days of waiting for the Herald to come, Kelyn had seen and felt what this unprecedented Choosing was doing to Emmerdale. All her life she had done her best to outrun and outride and