Arrows of the Queen (31 page)

“Well,” she said, folding her arms and leaning back against the edge of the desk. “Where shall I start? Have any of you questions about all this?”

“Herald,” Neave's expression was troubled. “All this—magic—it isn't evil, is it?”

“Is a crossbow evil?” she countered.

“Depends on who's holding it, Herald,” one of the twins grinned and answered, “and who it's pointed at.”

“Exactly. Your Gifts can be used for evil purposes. They're just like any weapon—and make no mistake about it, they can be weapons if you're so minded. But you wouldn't be sitting here now if you were inclined toward evil. Trust the judgment of your Companion in that, Neave, if you don't trust your own. They don't Choose where evil is—and on the very rare occasion where someone has been corrupted past redemption—and the last was two hundred years ago—they will repudiate their Chosen. So since you and Kyldathar still seem on very good terms, I think you can set your mind at rest about being evil.”

“Herald, the Companions seem to be able to make our Gift stronger, somehow,” said the other twin. “Edric and I could ‘talk' a little to each other before, but since we were Chosen it's been
much
clearer and easier.”

“Good!” Ylsa nodded. “I wondered if any of you had made that connection. Yes, the Companions seem to strengthen our Gifts and develop the ones that are latent. You'll probably find that your Gift gains enormously in power when you're in physical contact with your Companion and when you're under the influence of very strong emotions. No one is sure whether there's a connection there, between our bonds with our Companions and very strong emotions. Our Gifts are unfortunately not the kinds of things that yield easily to measurement.”

“Herald Ylsa, we've all seen or heard about the ‘Truth Spell'—are we going to learn
spells?
” Talia asked. “My folk say all spells are demon-work.”

“Yes, you will be learning spells of a sort, though probably not what the Holderfolk had in mind. What
we
call a spell for the most part is an exercise that forces you to concentrate. When you concentrate, you boost your capability; it's as simple as that. The word ‘spell' is just a handy term; in point of fact, most of them are rather like meditation chants or prayers of a sort.”

“Then, does everybody have this kind of—uh—gift?” Neave asked.

“Again, yes. The catch is that most people don't have enough of the ability for it to be really useful to them. It's just like Talia sings very well but will never be a Bard, and I throw a decent pot but could never be a really
good
potter. As far as that goes, there are some of us whose Gifts are hardly stronger than those of nonHeralds—and even among Heralds a
really
powerful Gift is rare, though we all have enough to enable us to bond with our Companions and use the Truth Spell. From what we can tell, it seems to be that the very strongest gifts tend to be associated with those who become Healers rather than Heralds, although the Gifts of communication are very similar to the Healing Gifts. That is why in an emergency you may be called on to assist Healers. Sometimes the very strongest of our variety of Gifts hide themselves; I've known a case or two when persistent
inability
has actually hidden very strong
ability
. Mostly though, it seems that contact with your Companion triggers your Gift and continued development of the bond also develops the Gift to the point where you have direct conscious control of it. Once you can control it, you can be trained in the use of it, and you can learn its limits. Oh, I think I should mention something about the Truth Spell;
that
really is a spell, in the sense of the Bardic tales. It requires a Gift to use, apparently the one that makes the Companion-Herald bond possible. If you have a strong Gift, you'll be able to use it to actually force someone to speak only the truth; if your Gift is weak, you'll only be able to detect whether or not a person is lying. The Truth Spell will be the last thing we'll teach you. Now, if you're all ready, I think we're about at the point where we should stop talking and start doing.

 

For once, learning did not come easily to Talia. To her extreme frustration, mastering the use of her Gift proved to be far more elusive than she had dreamed. The others quickly outstripped her in progress as she strove to get some kind of control on her abilities. Directing her Gift seemed to be a greatly different thing than simply blocking it or letting it direct her actions passively, as she had been doing. It seemed to require a kind of combination of relaxation and concentration that she despaired of ever mastering. Several weeks passed without her attaining much more control than she had had before the class started.

“You know—” Ylsa said one day, with a look as if she were slowly realizing something that should have been obvious. ‟—I think we're going after the wrong Gift. I'm not at all sure now that your prime Gift is thought-sensing.”

“Well what could it be?” Talia cried in frustration.

“Everything you've told me and what I've seen for myself points not to the mind, but the heart. Look, your own mind-call to Rolan was fear; the times with Selenay and other Heralds—sorrow, pain, loss. Even what you picked up from me was an emotion—love. Or maybe lust,” she winked at Talia, who coughed politely and blushed, “since I'm not sure exactly what you were getting from me that time, and it had been a
long
trip. Seriously, though—you
can
hear thoughts if you're properly prepared or you're in deep trance, but what you receive first and strongest is
emotion.
When there's no emotion involved, and there hasn't been in these training sessions, it's that much harder for you to receive meaning. I didn't think about that because the Gift for emotion-sensing—we call it ‘empathy'—is almost
never
seen alone, or in a Chosen. The only times I can ever remember seeing it is in company with the Gift of true Healing, and the Companions never Choose someone with the Healing Gifts, probably because they're needed too much as Healers. What have I been telling you to do all this time?”

“Relax and clear my mind of everything—” Talia said, beginning to grasp what Ylsa was saying, “—and especially to clear my mind of emotions,
even the ones coming in from outside
.”

“So naturally you fail. Our Gifts are tricky things, you know; they depend very strongly on how much we believe in our own abilities. When you failed, you disbelieved a little and made it that much harder the next time. It's time we abandoned this tack and tried something different.”

“Like what?”

“You'll see—just keep your shields down. If all this isn't moonshine, I don't want you expecting anything in particular, and maybe having your imagination supply it for you,” Ylsa turned to Neave and whispered in his ear. He nodded and left the room, while Talia waited with half-perplexed anticipation for something to happen.

Suddenly she was inundated by terror, and hard upon the terror came a picture—and then it was something more than a picture. It was a vision of a filthy, smoke-filled taproom—a vision that she was a part of, for the room around her and her fellows had vanished. All around her loomed the slack bodies of drunken, half-crazed people; mostly men, but with a few slatternly women sprawled among them. They were very much bigger than she; she seemed to have shrunk down to the size of a ten-year-old. She was trying to slip through them with as little stir as possible, serving their cheap wine, when one of them woke from his daze and seized her arm in a grip that hurt. “Come here, little boy, pretty boy,” he crooned, ignoring her struggles to free herself. “I only want to give you something....”

She wanted to scream, knowing very well what it was he wanted, but found her throat so choked with fear that she could barely squeak. It was like a nightmare from which there could be no awakening. She began losing herself completely in panic when something broke the spell she was in.

“Talia!” Ylsa was shaking her, slapping her face lightly. “Talia, block it out!”

“Goddess....” Talia slumped in her seat and held her head in both hands. “What happened?”

“I told Neave to project the most emotional image he could think of at you,” Ylsa said, a bit grimly, “We succeeded better than I had guessed we would. You not only received it, you were trapped by it. Well, that answers
that
question—your Gift is empathy, beyond all doubt. And now that we know for certain what your Gift is, we can do more about training you properly.”

“Lady of Light,” Talia said, burying her face in her hands. “Poor, poor Neave! If you'd seen what I saw . . . how can such filth be allowed to exist?”

“It's not—not here,” Neave himself came through the door, looking quite ordinary; far calmer, far more natural than Talia would have believed possible for someone whose mind held such memories. “I'm from outKingdom, remember? Where I come from, an orphaned child of the poor is fair game for whatever anyone wants to do with him. So long as the priests and the Peacekeepers aren't
officially
aware of what's going on, and there's no one to speak for the child, just about anything is tolerated. Are you all right? I could tell something was wrong, but not what. I stopped sending, but you'd already broken off contact. Talia, you had an awfully strong hold on me; I found myself reliving that whole filthy episode—”

“Neave—I'm so sorry—” she strove to express her horror at what he'd gone through, and failed utterly.

He touched her arm hesitantly, his eyes understanding. “Talia, it was long ago and far away. Thanks to people like Ylsa and the Dean, it doesn't even hurt that much anymore. I know now it wasn't anything
I
did that caused it.” He licked his lips, his calm shell cracking just a little. “Time does heal things, you know, time and love and help. I just wish that I could somehow make sure that nothing like that ever happens to another child.”

“Someday, we hope, that's exactly what the Heralds will accomplish,” the Dean said gravely. “Someday—when there isn't a Kingdom on this world that doesn't welcome us. But for now—well, Neave, we save the ones we can, and try not to think too hard about the others, the ones we couldn't save. We can't be everywhere....”

But Elcarth's eyes told them how little it helped, at times, to know that, and how hard it was to forget the ones still trapped in their little hells.

Eventually, Ylsa declared the class to be officially over, saying that there was nothing else she could actually teach them. Now their proficiency depended on their own limits and how well they honed their Gifts with practice.

The end of the class meant that it was time to learn the only “real” magic that they were ever likely to see. It was time to learn the Truth Spell.

“Legend says this was discovered by a contemporary of Herald Vanyel, just before the incursions of the Dark Servants,” she told them. “Since Vanyel himself was the last of what were called the ‘Heraldic Mages,' this is the last real bit of magic ever created in Valdemar and is about all the ‘real magic' we have left except for a few things the priests and Healers use. Most of the rest was lost to the Dark Servants, abandoned because of negative associations, or just plain forgotten. In some ways, it's too bad—it would be nice to still be able to build a fortress like the Palace—Collegium complex and to pave roads the way the old ones did. At any rate, this spell starts with a cantrip; a little rhyme, just like some of the others you've learned—”

With the rhyme came an image they were to hold in their minds, one that made very little sense to Talia, the image of a wisp of fog with blue eyes. While holding this image, they were to recite the rhyme mentally nine times; no more, no less. On the ninth repetition they were to imagine the fog enveloping the person they were casting the spell on.

Ylsa demonstrated on Dean Elcarth; closing her own eyes briefly then staring fixedly at him for a few moments. Within a few heartbeats, Elcarth was surrounded by a faint but readily visible glowing blue nimbus of light.

“I've just put the first stage on him,” Ylsa told them. “I'm not forcing the truth out of him, but just registering whether or not he's telling it. Lie for me, Elcarth.”

“I'm passionately in love with you, Ylsa.”

The glow vanished, while Ylsa and her students laughed.

“Now tell me the truth.”

“I consider you to be one of the most valuable assets of the Circle, but I'm rather glad you're not
my
lifemate. You're altogether too difficult a woman and you have a nasty temper.”

The glow reappeared, and Ylsa sighed dramatically. “Ah, Elcarth, and here all this time I'd been hoping you secretly cared.”

“Elcarth, sir, can
you
see what we're seeing?” Neave asked curiously.

“Not so much as a glimmer,” he replied. “But anyone except the person bespelled sees the glow, whether or not they've got a Gift. Why don't you invoke the second stage, Ylsa?”

“If you're ready for it.” Again she stared at him; Talia could see no perceptible change in the glow surrounding him.

“How old are you, Elcarth? Try to tell me ‘twenty.' ”

His face twisted with strain and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. “T-t-t,” he stuttered, “T-fifty-seven.” He sighed heavily. “I'd forgotten what it felt like to try and fight Truth Spell, Ylsa. Take it off, would you, before I get tricked into revealing something I shouldn't?”

“Now why would I do something like that to you?” she teased, then closed her eyes briefly again, and the glow was gone. “You banish the spell easily enough—just picture the cloud lifting away from the person, close its eyes, and dissipate.”