Magic's Promise

and a shield snapped up so quickly Vanyel barely had time to pull back his Touch.

“Look out!” Lores cried, diving for die floor, as half a vase rose from the wreckage, flung itself across the room and smashed against the door. More fragments followed it, all rising from the wreckage to smash against the door, creating a rain of flying shards that pelted them both like fine hail.

Vanyel didn't move so much as a hair. He clenched his jaw, and reached out with his own power to damp Tashir's Gift with an external shield.

Sudden silence.

'Tashir,' he reached out for the youngster, with his hand this time, not his mind. 'Tashir, I want to help you. I believe you. I will not allow anyone to harm you, or to imprison you for something you didn't do.'

The adolescent's eyes slowly calmed; grew saner. He stared at Vanyel for a long moment, then buried his face in his hands and began sobbing, trembling on the jagged edge of hysteria.

'I-don't-remember -' he choked. 'Oh, please, I don't, I really don't.'

Before he could do anything to comfort or calm the youngster, Vanyel heard a noise in the distance, muffled by the door, that made his hair stand on end.

The sullen, angry roaring of a mob -

Lores' head snapped up, and a look of grim satisfaction spread over his face. 'The armsmen,' he said smugly. 'They must have spread the word. That's the people of Highjorune out there, Milord Herald- Mage. You don't rank them, and they aren't likely to listen to you. What's your plan now? They're going to want the boy. I think you should let them have him.'

Tashir gave a kind of choking gasp, and looked straight into Vanyel's eyes, his whole body pleading for rescue. His eyes were swollen, tears smeared across his face, and hair tumbled into one eye, his expression was tragic and hopeless.

Vanyel could no more have resisted a boy who looked like that than he could have given up Yfandes.

'I still outrank you, Lores,' he said coldly. 'You are still under my orders. Get out there and do what you can to keep them off.'

“Keep them off? You're madder than he is!'

“Move!” Vanyel snapped, rising to his feet, as the flickering of torches lit the gap in the open door Lores made no further protest; he snorted, and stalked across the entryway to the door, his backbone stiff with unspoken resentment.

Vanyel followed him as far as the door, and once he had barely cleared it, slammed it shut practically on his heels. He heard a muffled exclamation, and the muttering of the mob grew louder and nearer. Vanyel threw the bolt into place across the door; it was metal, but it was not going to hold up against a concerted attack.

'That . . . isn't going to hold them for long,' Tashir said fearfully, brushing the hair out of his eyes with the back of one hand.

'It won't have to,' Vanyel answered absently, moving his Othersenses out and down and hoping that it was no coincidence.

There was that node, the most powerful node he'd ever encountered outside Tayledras lands. Given that Highjorune was situated on top of the convergence of those energy - streams, given that the node had to be around here somewhere. . . .

Had the palace been built where he'd have put it?

It was no coincidence. The palace was situated directly over the node; a node so strong it roared in Vanyel's mind.

'Now that pompous peabrain is going to find out why I outrank him,' he growled to himself, and reached -

The current-power had been wild; it was nothing to this. He had compared channels in his mother and Yfandes to a dripping icicle and a waterfall. This was to those streams what a raging Firestorm was to a campfire. But Vanyel knew its secrets and how to control it, and it raged to his will.