Magic's Promise

Familial Visit to discharge. I haven't been home in- gods, four years. And even then I didn't stay for more than a day or two. They're going to want me to make the long stay I've been promising. There's a letter from my father waiting for me that's probably reminding me of just that fact.'

'Parents surely know how to load on the guilt, don't they? Well, if you're out of reach, Randale won't find something for you to do-but is that going to be rest?” Tantras looked half-amused and half-worried. 'I mean, Van, that family of yours-'

'They won't come after me when I'm sleeping-which I fully intend to do a lot of.'' He pulled on his old, clean clothing, reveling in the feel of clean, soft cloth against his skin, and started to gather up his things. 'And the way I feel right now, I'd just as soon play hermit in my rooms when I get there-'

'Leave that stuff,' Tantras interrupted. 'I'll deal with it. You go wrap yourself around a decent meal. You don't look like you've had one in months.'

'I haven't. They don't believe in worldly pleasures down there. Great proponents of mortification of the flesh for the good of the spirit.' Vanyel looked up in time to catch Tantras' raised eyebrow. He made a tragic face. 'I know what you're thinking. That, too. Especially that. Gods. Do you have any idea what it was like, being surrounded by all those devastatingly handsome young men and not daring to so much as flirt with one?'

'Were the young ladies just as devastatingly attractive?' Tantras asked, grinning.

'I would say so-given that the subject's fairly abstract for me.'

'Then I think I can imagine it. Remind me to avoid the Karsite Border at all costs.'

Vanyel found himself grinning back-another real smile, and from the heart. 'Tran, gods-I'm glad to see you. Do you know how long it's been since I've been able to talk freely to someone? To joke, for Lady's sake? Since I was around people who don't wince away when I'm minus a few clothes?'

'Are you on about that again?' Tantras asked, incredulously. 'Do you really think that people are nervous around you because you're shaych?'

'I'm what?” Van asked, startled by the unfamiliar term.

'Shaych. Short for that Hawkbrother word you and Savil use. Don't know where it came from, just seems like one day everybody was using it.' Tantras leaned back against the white-tiled wall of the bathing room, folding his arms across his chest in a deceptively lazy pose. 'Maybe because you're as prominent as you are. Can't go around calling the most powerful Herald-Mage in the Circle a 'pervert,' after all.' He grinned. 'He might turn you into a frog.'

Vanyel shook his head again. 'Gods, I have been out of touch to miss that little bit of slang. Yes, of course because I'm shay'a'chern, why else would people look at me sideways?'

'Because you scare the hell out of them,' Tantras replied, his smile fading. 'Because you are as powerful as you are; because you're so quiet and so solitary, and they never know what you're thinking. Havens, these days half the Heralds don't even know you're shaych; it's the Mage-Gift that makes them look at you sideways. Not that anybody around here cares about your bedmates a quarter as much as you seem to think. They're a lot more worried that-oh-a bird will crap on you and you'll level the Palace.'

'Me?' Vanyel stared at him in disbelief.

'You. You've spent most of the last four or five years in combat zones. We know your reflexes are hypersensitive. Hellfire, that's why I came in here to wake you up instead of sending a page. We know what you can do. Van, nobody I've ever heard of was able to take the place of five Herald-Mages by himself! And the very idea of one person having that much power at his beck and call scares most people witless!'

Vanyel was caught without a reply; he stared at Tantras with the towel hanging limply from his hands.

'I'm telling you the plain truth, Van. I wish you'd stop wincing away from people with no cause. It's not your sexual preferences that scare them, it's you. Level the Palace, hell-they know you could level Haven if you wanted to-'

Vanyel came out of his trance of astonishment. 'What do they think I am?' he scoffed, picking up his filthy shirt.

'They don't know; they haven't the Mage-Gift and most of them weren't trained around Herald-Mages. They hear stories, and they think of the Mage Wars-and they remember that once, before there was a Valdemar, there was a thriving land to the far south of us. Now the Dhorisha Plains are there-a very large, circular crater. No cities, no sign there ever was anything, not even two stones left standing. Nothing but grass and nomads. Van, leave that stuff; I'll pick up after you.'