Magic's Price

Bard carefully :Fandes, what do you think of this youngster?:

He felt her looking out of his eyes, and felt her approval before she voiced it. :I like him, Van. He'll give you everything he has, without holding back. He has a very powerful Bardic Gift, and he does indeed have a secondary Gift as well that is nearly as powerful. It's something like MindHealing, but very specific. I can't tell you any more than that until I See it in action.:

For the first time that day, Vanyel allowed his hope to rise a little. :Then you think this might work?:

:I don't know any more than you do,: she replied, :But the boy has something unusual, and I think you'd be a fool not to give him all he needs to wield it.:

Van blinked. :Huh. Well, right now, the only other thing I can give him is to stay out of the way. I don't want to frighten him into freezing by having The Great Herald-Mage Vanyel Demonsbane descend on him.:

:The Great Herald-Mage indeed,: she snorted. :Sounds like someone I know may not fit his hats before too long.:

Medren opened the door to their room and waved Stefen inside. He looked back over his shoulder at Van, who just nodded at him. The boy was doing just fine; so long as Stefen got to the Throne Room in time for the audiences, Vanyel didn't see any reason to interfere in the way things were going. He turned and headed back down the hallway to the stairs.

: I won't fit my hats, hmm?: he replied as he descended the stairs. :Isn't that interesting. I was just thinking that it's been too long since the last time you and I went over the advanced endurance course together. Who was it I overheard boasting about the times she used to make over the course?:

If she'd been human, she'd have spluttered. :Van! That was a long time ago! The trainees are going to be out on the course at this time of the day - I'm going to look like an out-of-shape old bag of bones in front of them!:

Vanyel chuckled, and pushed open the door to the outside with one hand. :And who was it who told me she could run those trainees into the ground?:

He hadn't known Yfandes knew that particular curse. He wondered if she'd learned it from Breda.

Stefen sagged bonelessly into the room's single comfortable chair, and stared at a discolored spot on the plastered wall.

This was what I wanted, right? That's why I let Medren talk me into trying that trick on Breda. I used to “cure” old Berte's hangovers by singing them away - I was sure I could do the same for what ailed Medren and Breda. And that would get me what I needed, since I knew damn well he has connections up into the Court. I knew he'd get me in to see if I could help the King. This is the only way I could think of to get Court favor, and get it honestly. Now, I know I can help King Randale. What I can do is better for him than his taking a lot of drugs. It'll be a fair exchange. So why am I so nervous about this?

He couldn't stand sitting there idle; he reached automatically for the gittern he kept, strung and tuned, beside the chair. It was one of his first student instruments - worn and shabby, a comforting old friend. He ran his fingers over the strings, in the finger exercises every Bard practiced every day of his life, rain or shine, well or ill.

He'd known about this trick of his, this knack of “singing pain away” for a long time - he'd had it forced on him, for all practical purposes, by the old woman who had cared for him for as long as he could remember. It was either sing her pain away, or put up with her uncertain temper and trust he could get out of her reach when she was suffering a “morning after.”

Old Berte wasn't his mother - but he couldn't remember anyone who might have been his mother. There had only been Berte. Those memories were vivid, and edged with a constant hunger that was physical and emotional. Berte teaching him to beg before he could even walk. Berte making false sores of flour-paste and cow's blood, so that he looked ill. Berte binding up one of his legs so that he had to hobble with the help of a crutch.

The hours of sitting beside her on a street corner, learning to cry on cue.

Then the day when one of the other beggars brought out a tin whistle, and Stef had begun to sing along, in a thin, clear soprano - and when he'd finished, there was a crowd about the three of them, a crowd that tossed more coppers into Berte's cracked wooden bowl than he'd ever seen in his short life.

I looked up, and I saw the expression on her face, and I knew I'd never have to limp around on a crutch again.

He closed his eyes, and let his fingers walk into the next set of exercises. Berte bought us both a real supper of cooked food from a food stall at the market. Fresh food, not stale, not crumbs and leavings - and we shared a pallet and a blanket that she bought from a ragman that night. That was the best day of my life.

It remained the best day of his life for a long while, for once she had a steady source of income, Berte returned to the pleasures that had made her a beggar in the first place. Liquor, and the drug called