Magic's Price

:Yes -: Yfandes hissed eagerly in his mind - by no means enough to distract him; he was used to her commentaries and encouragements in the back of his thoughts after all these years. :Yes! Bring it here and we'll show them we're not to be slaughtered at anyone's whim-:

The thing grabbed on to where it was and resisted his pull; he simply tapped deeper into the node, ignored the pain, the rivers of fire that ran along his channels, and pulled harder. He ripped it loose as it shrieked in desperation; Yfandes supported him as he hauled it in. She cushioned him from the effects of a reaction-headache, something she'd never done before, enabling him to fling the creature down right on the spot where it had killed Savil, and pin it to the floor with raw node-power.

Stefen gave a strangled croak when it appeared, but wisely remained where he was. Wise - or perhaps frozen with fear; Van Felt the panic coming from him in waves, but had no time to worry about the Bard just now. While the beast squirmed and screamed both mentally and vocally, he stripped the protections from its crude thoughts and ripped away every detail he could concerning its master.

North, the direction it had fled in the first place; the direction no one expected for an enemy. North, and an impression of the vast wilderness that could only be the Forest of Wendwinter and the Ice Wall mountains beyond. But of the master himself, nothing; only darkness. After ruthless probing that left the bird's mind a broken, bleeding rag, Vanyel decided that this was all the construct had ever seen of its master.

He contemplated the writhing creature at his feet with his mouth set in a grim line. He had left it a ruin, with nothing remaining to tell it how to get home, or even how to defend itself. It could no longer work the borrowed magics it had been given, and it might not even remember how to fly. If he let it go, it would slowly starve itself to death, and its master would never know what had become of it, or even whether or not it had been successful in its task.

Even Yfandes' lust for revenge seemed satisfied now; at any rate, she was silent, and her anger no longer seethed at the back of his mind. But his need for vengeance was not filled. He gathered all the node-power he could handle, poured in channels that burned as hotly as his own need for revenge. He made certain that there was still a line open between the bird and its creator. It was too bad that the line was such a thin one - one that he could not follow to its source. He was going to have to find the perpetrator the hard way. But the line was enough to punish the master through. . . .

And he smashed the thing with one hammer-blow of pure, wild power.

The construct screamed its agony, and as it died in the cold flames of magic, the energy backlashed up the line Van had left open to its creator.

The scream ended; the thing glowed with the power Van poured into it - then incandesced until it was too bright to look at. And still he fed the fire, until the last of it was eaten away, and there was nothing left but a few wisps of white, feathery ash.

He turned toward Stefen, knowing that at any moment he would feel the effects of what he had just done. Yfandes couldn't protect him from the reaction-headache of overexertion of Mind-magic much longer; it was incredible enough that she'd done it in the first place. And his channels were pure agony that would take several hours of self-Healing to repair.

The Bard stared at him, his eyes wide and frightened, his face pale as skimmed milk. “W-what did y-you do th-that for?” he whispered, looking at Vanyel as if he expected the Herald to lash out at him next.

“I sent a message,” Vanyel said quietly. “One that can't be mistaken for anything but what it is. A challenge, and a warning. Whoever did this, whoever murdered Savil, is going to pay for it with his own life. Because this wasn't a personal vendetta; this bastard is the same one that's responsible for Kilchas' death, and Lissandra's and probably made the attempt on me as well. So it's a threat to Valdemar, and as such, I am going to eliminate the source of the threat.”

The reaction-headache hit then; he brought one hand slowly to his head and swayed a little. Stef was instantly at his side, supporting him.

He recalled the hurt in Stefen's eyes when he'd cut him off earlier, and grimaced. “Stef,” he said, awkwardly, “I'm sorry. I loved Savil, she was - she was - ” He couldn't continue; tears interrupted him.

“She was the most remarkable and sweetest old bitch the gods ever created,” Stef replied angrily, with tears in his own eyes. “There's never going to be anyone to match her. Whoever did this to her - I want his hide, too. Not as much as you do, but I want it too, and I'll do anything I can to help you get it.” He held Vanyel, half supporting him, half embracing him. “It's all right, I understand.”

Vanyel shook his aching head. “I just hope you can keep understanding, Stef,” he said through the pain, “because this isn't finished yet. It isn't even close.”

Sixteen

Vanyel had convened the entire Council as soon as he was able to speak coherently. The