miss them. It's been far too long since I last saw them. Brightstar must be-what-nearly ten? I wish we had time to go back there.'
They don't shake me to my shoes the way Shavri and Randi do. Is it only because I don't see them too often, or -
Yfandes' interrupted his thought.
:'You 'd have to Gate, or else spend months on the road.: she replied sadly. :We daren't take the time, and I won't let you Gate yet, not unless it's an emergency. You’re still drained :
Her tone cheered him a little. 'Yes, little mother,' Vanyel chuckled, climbing into his crude bed, good humor fully restored. And to prove that he wasn't quite so drained as Yfandes seemed to think, he snuffed the lamp with a thought.
:Show-off,: she teased, settling down carefully next to him so that he could curl up beside her, for all the world like a strange sort of gangly foal. He wriggled himself and blankets in against her warm, silken side, and slipped one hand out to rest on her foreleg.
He yawned. With his anger gone, his energy seemed to be gone too. ' 'Night, dearheart,' he mumbled, suddenly unable to keep his eyes open.
She nuzzled his cheek. :Goodnight, beloved.:
They howled around him, trying to crawl inside his mind. Horrible, vile, they made him retch to look at them, but he couldn't look away from their distorted faces and maimed bodies. They drove fear before them and raised terror about them, making a whirlwind with himself in the center; they had knives for teeth and scythes for claws, red eyes full of madness and an insatiable hunger he could feel beating at his frail shell of protection in waves of heat. They were shadows, deadly, kitting shadows, and they couldn't get at him, but they could and would find other prey. They howled off and away on the wind, and he screamed (or tried to) and hid his head and made himself as small as he could while the killing and dying began. And he wept with terror and shrieked-
Vanyel shook off the grip of the nightmare and came up out of it with a rush, choking against the black bile of fear in his throat. He clawed his way out of his blankets, and lay panting and unthinking against Yfandes' side in the aftermath of all-consuming horror, while his heart pounded in his ears.
The night about him was quiet, peaceful, undisturbed.
On the surface. But -
Beneath the surface?
Automatically he reached out with his Othersenses, to touch the energy currents that lay beneath the material night.
No, it hadn't been a nightmare; his Othersenses showed him the new, churning eddies in the currents of power all about him. Something had happened tonight. Somewhere out there something had used Power, used it freely, and to a terrible end. His nightmare had only been the far-off echo of something much, much worse. There was evil on the Otherwinds-and the world beneath shivered to feel it.
If I'd been in my room, I'd never have felt this, he realized, coming fully awake. My room is shielded and so is Savil's. But I never shield when I'm with Yfandes. That means Savil hasn't felt this. I'm the only one who knows there's something wrong.
' 'Fandes?' He reached out for her shoulder; the muscles were bunched with tension, and her head was up, sniffing the crisp breeze.
:Hush. Listen.:
Faint, and far off - a mind-cry for help? Or just a mind crying in despair? It wavered maddeningly in and out of his sensing-range.
:That's because he's bonded. It's a Companion, a young one. He's Chosen, and his Chosen is emperiled. I can hardly hear him.: She stretched her neck out, as if simply trying harder could make what she sensed clearer :That's - he 's caught in his Chosen 's fear, and he's nearly hysterical :
'Which, Companion or Chosen?' Vanyel scrambled completely out of his bedroll, and flared the lamp to life with a blink of thought. We'd better deal with this. We may be the only ones close enough to hear them.
:Both - the Companion, at least.: She lurched to her feet, her eyes black with distress. Moonlight poured in through the open upper half of the door to the paddock, silvering her :Vanyel, please - we must go to them!:
