Magic's Promise

her teeth, turned toward the open gate to the courtyard. Then, with squeals and nips, the three Companions drove the stallion out of the gates and into the swiftly darkening streets.

Vanyel focused his inner eye on the place where he meant to set a portal in the fabric of the shields, then moved his hands in a complicated, mirror-imaged gesture. Through closed eyelids, he Saw the energy walls of the shields part just enough to let a tall man through.

'It's open.' He looked with outer eyes again, and watched Jervis feel his way along the invisible - but patently tangible - shield-wall, until he came to the spot opposite Vanyel. Vanyel wasn't sure which was funnier, his expression when he couldn't force his way past the shields, or his expression when he found the 'hole.'

'I can't hold this too long,' he warned; the other three snatched up their packs and his, and Medren's poor, battered, secondhand lute, and hurried up the stone stairs as far as the double door. They waited, white against the dark bulk of the door, while Vanyel slipped across the boundary and resealed the shields behind himself.

He took the stairs slowly, and regarded the purely physical barrier. 'Tashir,' he began.

The boy looked at him in startlement.

'Young friend, this is where you see how useful that Gift of yours is. My strong suit is not Fetching, and I've only seen this door once, remember.' Vanyel folded his arms and raised an eyebrow at him. 'I also distinctly recall that I barred the door behind Lores. You surely remember what the door and bar look like, and your Gift is Fetching. Let's see you raise that bar.'

'But -' Tashir began to protest. Savil looked as if she might object as well, but Vanyel silenced her with a look.

'Do it, Tashir. You're better at this than I am.'

The young man took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and took a wide-legged stance in what may have been an unconscious imitation of the one Vanyel had taken, and frowned.

Vanyel had been giving him what rudimentary instruction he could, when he could. It wasn't much. But as Vanyel had half suspected, away from the disapproval of his family and into an environment in which 'magic' was actually encouraged, he'd begun practicing, probably in an attempt to get his rogue Gift under some kind of conscious control. All of them could clearly hear the grate of the bar in its sockets on the other side of the closed metal-sheathed door; Jervis clapped Tashir on the back, startling him, as the door creaked open a thumbs'-breadth.

Vanyel did the same, a bit more gently. Tashir grinned at both of them, teeth flashing whitely in the first of the moonlight. 'Good work, young man,' Vanyel congratulated him. 'Now let's get ourselves under cover before somebody curious comes by.'

Savil was already pushing the door open; the rest of them followed her into the absolute darkness of the entry hall. She waited until Vanyel had closed the door and rebarred it before fashioning a mage-light and sending it upward to dance and flare above her head.

'Gods!' she hissed, shocked at the extent of the wreckage in the next room.

Jervis moved past her to stand at the top of the stairs, shaking his head. 'I've seen wars and looters that weren't this thorough. What'n hell did that?'

Vanyel glanced over at Tashir, who had lost his expression of triumph and had become very pale. His eyes were shadowed; his expression haunted. Vanyel put his hand lightly on the youngster's shoulder in encouragement, and felt him tremble.

Savil joined Jervis, oblivious to Tashir's distress, walking very slowly. “I can tell you what didn't,'' she said, unexpectedly. '' Tashir.'' The youngster jerked in startlement. 'You're sure?' Vanyel asked softly, feeling a tense core inside him go limp with relief. He really hadn't believed it was the boy, but still. , . .

'Positive. You get under the glare of the node-energy, and this place is dusted all over with magic.' She closed her eyes, and reached out her hand as if to touch something. 'There's a very old spell tied to the node that's rooted somewhere just ahead of us. But there's a second spell overlaid on the walls themselves, and that's what caused this mess. Van, let me handle that one; it's a trap-spell, and I'd rather you didn't trigger it.'

'I'll second that. You're much better with set-spells than I am. Tashir, Jervis, did you understand that?'

Jervis nodded.

Tashir looked both frightened and hopeful. 'She said that there was a magic spell on the palace that - did all this? But why does that eliminate me?'

'Because you haven't even Mage-potential. Your Gift isn't magic, as we use the term. Real magic leaves traces of itself behind, like the dust a moth's wings leave on your hands when you catch it. You couldn't have done something