Magic's Price

“If I didn't think I could,” Van told him, closing his eyes again, “I wouldn't have asked you, lover.”

Stef started at another noise; the candle had long since burned down to nothing, but he hadn't dared light another. Several times he'd thought he'd heard something outside the locked shutters on the room's single window, but nothing had ever happened.

The sound came again, but this time he realized it was coming from the bed. He groped his way over and sat down; the shapeless bundle of Van moved, and the cloak parted, letting out a faint mist of golden light. Stef gaped in surprise; his present, the amber mage-focus around Van's neck, was glowing ever so slightly. The light it gave off was just enough to see by.

“Anything happen?” Van asked, shaking long, silver-streaked hair out of his eyes. He looked like the old Vanyel; his face had lost some of that hard remoteness. And he sounded like the old Van, as well, his voice held concern for Stef as well as need to know if anything had gone wrong.

“I thought I heard something a couple of times, but other than that, nothing,” Stef told him, still staring at the pendant. “Does it always do that?”

“Does - oh, yes, at least it has for a while. That's the best gift anyone's ever given me, especially now,” Van said, his eyes and voice both warming. He stretched, throwing his cloak back a little and reaching high over his head, ending with one hand lying lightly on Stef's knee. “Having the focus to feed raw power through has made a lot of this much easier on me. I don't always have time to use it, but when I do, it extends my reach and my strength. I'm glad you cared enough about me to find it for me, ashke.” He smiled, and Stef warmed all through. “The snow should stop in about a candlemark, and it won't start again the way it has been.”

The abrupt change of subject didn't confuse Stef as much a it might have this time. “So it was wizard weather, then. Did you find out where it was coming from?”

“Vaguely. On the other side of this forest; possibly up in the mountains.” Van massaged his right hand with his left. “That's the strange part, Stef, I've never heard of a powerful mage coming out of that area before. A few tribal shamans, certainly, but never an Adept-class mage.”

“Who says he has to have come from there?” Stef replied, taking Van's hand and massaging it for him. He's treating me like a partner now, and not like a liability. “He could have come from somewhere else, the Pelagirs or Iftel, maybe, and moved in there because there's no one there. That's what I would do if I were a mage and wanted to build myself up before I took on the world. I'd go up where there aren't any mages. No rivals, no competition.”

“That's reasonable, I suppose,” Van admitted. “Listen, lover, how upset would you be at not staying the couple of days we planned here - at leaving at first light?”

“I told you I wasn't going to hold you back,” Stefen said, with a purely internal sigh of regret. “I'm not going to start now by breaking that promise. If you want to leave, we'll leave.”

“I was hoping you'd say that,” Van replied, kicking off his boots. Stef took his cloak from him, and started peeling off his own clothing, expecting that, as usual, the use of magery would have left Vanyel too tired to do anything but sleep.

Until he felt Van's hands sliding under his shirt.

“Here,” the Herald breathed in his ear. “Let me help you with that. This may be our last real bed for a while...”

In the morning, that brief glimpse of the old Vanyel was gone. Van was back to his new patterns; remote, silent, face unreadable, eyes wary. Stef sighed, but he hadn't really expected anything different. At least I know that down under the obsession, he's still the same person, he thought, dressing quickly in a room so cold that his breath frosted. So when this is over, I'll have him back again the way he was. It was beginning to look like I'd lost the Van I love. . . .

They saddled up and rode out without more than a cursory farewell. Stef had learned how to take care of Melody entirely on his own while they'd been on the road, now he didn't even think twice about getting her brushed down and saddled, he just did it without waiting for the groom's help.

Most of what they were carrying was food for Yfandes and Melody. There was a certain amount of provender out here, even in the depth of winter, and Vanyel could, if he chose, force-grow more overnight in their shelters. He could even Fetch a limited amount every night from the stores here at the Guard post, which was probably what he was going to do. But the fact was it was harder to feed the horse and the Companion out here in the winter woods than it was to feed the humans, so their needs took priority over Van and Stef's.

Stef was very glad for his new clothing, motley though it was, the moment they got out of the shelter of the palisade around the Guard post. Though the sky was as clear as Van had promised - in fact, for the first time in weeks, Stef saw the Morning Stars, Lythan and Leander, on the eastern horizon-it was colder than it had been while it was snowing.

A lot colder. Already Stefs nose was numb, and he was very glad of the wool scarf wrapped around his ears under the hood of his cloak.

Vanyel looked to the east, where the sky was just beginning to turn pink, and frowned a little. But he said nothing, only urged Yfandes on, into the marginally clearer place between the trees that marked what passed for a