lengthy, witty conversation before he was released from his trance, and he certainly had both the imagination and the intelligence to do just that, but there were drawbacks to that approach, as well. In particular, returning him to a similar trance-which Varnaythus’ research suggested quite a few magi ought to be able to do-would allow any reasonably adroit practitioner to peel away the false memories. And that could all too easily prompt a deeper, more aggressive probe which might well reveal the way in which his judgment and opinions had been tampered with.
Which was why Varnaythus had absolutely no intention of implanting false memories of any sort. There was a certain degree of risk in what he proposed to do instead, of course, but it was a very minor one. The working itself was relatively low-powered, and it was focused in an artifact-the ring in Bronzehelm’s hand-and not upon the seneschal himself at all. A very, very faint residue of the art would cling to him for the next several days, but even Varnaythus would have found it extraordinarily difficult to detect, and that assumed he’d have some reason to look for it in the first place.
He drew another breath and very carefully shaped another single word in that long-forgotten language, and the ring’s emerald flared again. The flash was much brighter this time, and Bronzehelm’s eyes flickered. They never closed, yet they moved rapidly from side to side as a sleeper’s might have in the midst of some detailed dream. The ring’s brilliance endured for only a very few moments, but Varnaythus was more than content. The glamour he’d worked into that stone didn’t touch Bronzehelm’s mind at all; it simply projected an extraordinarily vivid reality through the seneschal’s eyes and ears. The images he saw, the sounds he heard, were manufactured, perhaps, but he truly did see and hear them, and so the memories of them were true memories, with none of the telltale tags of the art to betray them to any suspicious mage who might examine them.
The emerald gave one last flicker of light, then went blank once again, and Dahlnar Bronzehelm’s sharp, alert eyes snapped back into focus on his guest’s face.
“Well, Talthar, it’s been a pleasant visit, as always,” the seneschal said. “And I thank you for sharing your observations with me. I’m afraid I have several more appointments this afternoon, but would you be free to join Milady and me for supper this evening?”
“I’d enjoy that very much, Milord,” Master Talthar said. “I’ll have to make an early evening of it, though, I’m afraid.” He smiled wryly. “Since I’ve missed my opportunity to seduce Baron Borandas out of more of those kormaks of his, I’m going to have to seek other prey-I mean, be on the road early tomorrow.”
“Oh, of course.” The seneschal smiled, then flipped the ring he was still holding across to the merchant. “And I’m sorry you couldn’t convince me to buy this one to defray your expenses. I told you I’d be a hard sell, though, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did,” Master Talthar agreed with another smile, but then he cocked his head and regarded the seneschal shrewdly. “I knew you’d be a hard sell, of course, Milord. That’s one reason I accepted your supper invitation. After all,” his smile grew broader, “ Lady Bronzehelm is a much easier sell, now isn’t she?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
‹ You two-foots are an interesting breed,› Gayrfressa remarked as she moved steadily through the pine trees in the coursers’ ground-eating gait. The breeze blowing through the trees was cool, scented with the resinous, spicy smell of pine needles and just kissed with the damp breath of the Balthar River, and the road to Kalatha and Leeana’s return to duty lay before them. The head of the Gullet Tunnel, on the other hand, lay far enough behind for the voices and noise of the construction gangs to be lost in the distance, and the sound of bird song and the breeze sighing through the needles only made the vast silence of the world seen even greater and more perfect.
“What do you mean, ‘interesting’?” Leeana asked, glad for the distraction from her inner thoughts.
‹ I mean the way each of you thinks you’re your very own isolated island,› the mare explained.
She shifted smoothly to her right to skirt a particularly dense clump of trees, and Leeana could taste her quiet, ongoing delight at having had the vision of her right eye returned to her. Nor was that the only thing Leanna could sense, and the expansion of her own world was an unending thing of marvel and wonder…one she was coming to suspect would always be unending.
Leeana Hanathafressa had spent a goodly part of her life in the saddle. She knew the union, the understanding and ability to anticipate, which grew between a rider and her horse, yet never had she and her mount fused the way she had with Gayrfressa. She shared the feel of the mare’s mighty muscles, the play and stretch of tendons, knew Gayrfressa shared her own sense of balance and supple strength in turn, and the tiniest shift, the most subtle movement, blended into a symphony of balanced grace and motion. She savored the sharper, stronger, and ever so much more informative scent of everything about them-not simply the sharp pungency of pine trees, but of moss, water, rock, and earth, as well-as they spoke constantly, almost unconsciously to the huge mare. Those things didn’t come to her through her own senses, and yet the bond between her and Gayrfressa carried their meaning, their import, and their ever shifting texture to her in a constantly flowing, ever-changing tapestry that moved with Gayrfressa through her world.
“Well,” she said out loud, inhaling deeply and savoring the duality of her own, merely mortal sense of smell as it mingled with Gayrfressa’s while the courser carried her from shadow to dappled sunlight and back again, “we aren’t born with your herd sense, either. We can’t speak mind-to-mind with each other the way you can. I think it’s inevitable we feel isolated from one another in ways you don’t.”
‹ And that’s why you think no one could possibly understand why you’re so sad and worried about leaving him behind, is it?›
Gayrfressa’s tone was suddenly much gentler, and Leeana felt an unexpected stinging in her eyes. The mare, she’d discovered, was fully capable of calling Bahzell by name, yet she seldom did. Leeana wasn’t certain yet why that was, but she suspected Gayrfressa truly did think of him as her herd stallion on some deep, inner level. Courser social dynamics were quite different from those of normal horses. Their herds tended to be larger-considerably larger-than the single-stallion-and-his-harem which was the norm for horses, for one thing. And, for another, coursers lived far longer, and most of them mated for life; the herd stallion was simply the lord of the herd, their baron, not the sire of all their offspring. The members of his herd thought of him that way, without the romantic or sexual overtones which would have colored their thoughts about their own mates, and that seemed to be the way Gayrfressa thought of Bahzell.
At the same time, there was something else, as well, an additional bond between her and Bahzell. Of course, Gayrfressa had never taken a life mate. That was unusual (but not unheard of) among courser mares, although coursers who bonded with wind riders never life-mated, aside from a handful-like Walsharno, for example-who’d lost their life mates before they took a rider. No one-not even the coursers, so far as Leeana could tell-knew whether they never life-mated because on some deep, deep level they were waiting for their rider, or if they never life-mated because they had bonded with a rider. In Gayrfressa’s case, though, there was that “something else.” Was it because of the way Bahzell had healed her so long ago?
And did it matter? Was Leeana worrying about it to keep from thinking about the question Gayrfressa had just asked her?
“I…didn’t want to sound like I was crying on your shoulder,” she said after a moment. “Or maybe I mean I didn’t want to sound petulant and spoiled. It’s not as if I didn’t know he was a champion of Tomanak. And I was raised a Bowmaster-we’re supposed to understand about things like responsibility and duty. And we’re not supposed to whine when responsibility or duty require something from us.”
‹ I didn’t notice anyone doing any whining,› Gayrfressa pointed out a bit tartly.
“No?” Leeana chuckled. To her dismay, the chuckle sounded a little watery, and she blinked her eyes quickly. “Well, maybe that’s because I was afraid that if I started whining I wouldn’t be able to stop!”
Gayrfressa snorted and tossed her head, and Leeana felt the mare’s gently amused understanding almost as if a comforting arm had been laid around her shoulders. But then ‹ It’s not just being separated from him when you’re both still busy learning about each other,› the courser pointed out. ‹ Not that you don’t both seem to enjoy the learning, of course!›
