Magic's Promise

If Vanyel had dared to Gate so close to Vedric Mavelan he would have. But he didn't; he didn't dare alert him to the fact that a mage powerful enough to Gate had been within the city. If the Mavelans were somehow behind the disaster after all, he would be a fool to alert his quarry. So he and Yfandes pounded into Forst Reach just after dawn-

To find everything as peaceful as when they'd left.

:I told you,: Yfandes said, in a maddeningly reasonable tone of mind-voice as she pulled into a tired walk. :I told you if anything had gone wrong we'd have felt it, the way we felt the first surge. Didn't I tell you?:

Visions of slaughter and mayhem melted, taking with them the fear that had strengthened and supported him. When they got to the stable, Vanyel just slid wearily off her back, vowing not to say a word.

Because if he did, he'd take her head off. He hated it when she said, 'I told you so.'

And he did not want to get into a fight with her, didn't even want to have words with her; she didn't deserve it.

Much.

He hurt; he ached all over, and he was half numb with cold. His legs trembled a little as he walked beside her into the stable, his boots and her hooves echoing hollowly on the wooden floor. He managed to get her stall open, and he spent as much time as he could leaning against something while he groomed her. There was, thank the gods, hay and water already waiting.

'Get some rest,' he told her, fatigue dulling his mind and slurring his words. 'I'm going to do the same.'

He didn't remember how he got to his room; all he really remembered was leaving Medren's lute by the door, stripping his filthy rags off and dropping them on the floor as he staggered to his bed, and falling into the bed. Literally falling; his legs gave out at that point. He held onto consciousness just long enough to pull off the patched breeches and his boots, drag the blankets over himself and wrap them around his chilled, numb body; as soon as he stopped shivering, he was asleep, and oblivious to the world. At that point, Tashir could have replicated the massacre in Highjorune, and he'd have slept right through it.

He woke about mid-afternoon, still tired, but no worse than when he'd first arrived home. The filthy rags he'd worn were gone. Evidently one of the servants had come in and picked up after him, and it was a measure of his exhaustion that he not only hadn't woken, he hadn't even heard the intruder. He was not pleased with himself; carelessness like that could get him killed all too easily under other circumstances.

On the other hand, it means I'm obviously nowhere near as jumpy as I was, which is all to the good.

The first order of business was food and a bath, and stopping by the kitchen on the way to the bathhouse solved both at the same time.

But the next order of business - and one that made him wolf down the first decent meal he'd had in a fortnight practically untasted, and while he bathed - was a long talk with Jervis and Savil.

'The boy's staying so close to Jervis you'd think he'd been grafted there,' Savil said. Vanyel followed her out to the salle as the late afternoon sunlight gilded everything with a mellowing glow. 'It's been entirely quiet, ke'chara. Not so much as a murmur out of the boy, or a single plate gone skyward.' She looked at him quizzically, with a touch of worry. 'To see you practically flying back, and in this state - I wish you'd tell me what's going on.'

Vanyel shook his head, and his hair fell annoyingly into his eyes again. He hadn't had a chance to get it cut; it was a lot longer than he was used to wearing it, and he wasn't sure if he ought to find the time to do something about it or not. He raked it back with his fingers and suppressed his flash of annoyance at it. 'I will, as soon as I have both you and Jervis together. I don't want to have to repeat myself, and I want to hear both of your opinions at the same time. It's - some of what I found out is terrifying, and none of it is pretty. And I don't know what to make of it.'

Savil brooded on that. 'I thought you were going to find answers over there.'

'I did,' he replied, deeply troubled. 'But the answers I found only gave me more questions.'

Jervis was alone in the workroom of the salle. Which might be the first piece of good luck I've had in a while, Vanyel thought with reluctance. Jervis' eyebrows went up when he saw the expression on Vanyel's face, but he didn't move from his chair; he only put down the vam-brace he'd been repairing, and waited for them to settle themselves.

'You're back, hmm?' the armsmaster said quietly. 'From the look of you, I don't know as I'm going to like what you're going to tell me.'

Vanyel shut the door carefully behind Savil; he would have preferred to stand, but