:Here,: came the reply, immediately.
She sent their dilemma in a complicated thought-burst, and waited while Kellan digested the information, and possibly conferred with Felar and Yfandes.
:Yfandes says that the bonding is weak,: came the reply, flavored with the acid tang of concern :It fades in and out - and it hurts the boy, sometimes, to speak with her.:
:Can we do anything about that?: Jaysen fell into the rapport, and if there was anything other than genuine distress there on Vanyel's behalf, Savil couldn't feel it. Through him, she could Hear Felar.
:Physical contact,: Felar said shortly.
Kellan agreed :As much as possible. That is what strengthens the bonding; now she cannot help him to get control of what he does.:
:And if the bond is strengthened?: Jaysen asked.
:Perhaps,: said Felar.
:A hope,: added Kellan.
Jaysen looked into Savil's eyes from across the room, and nodded, a little grimly. At this point they would accept even a hope, however tenuous.
Nothing hurt much, now, not since he'd drunk that fiery stuff the red-haired Healer had given him. Those places inside him, the mind-things, that had burned so - they still burned, but remotely, as if the hurting belonged to somebody else. He couldn't concentrate on much of anything for very long, and none of it really seemed to matter.
Only the empty place in him was pretty much the same; only that continued to ache in a way the Healer's potions couldn't seem to touch. The place where Tylendel had been - and now -
But the potions let him sleep, a sleep without dreams. And he'd had the snow-dreams again - that was what had thrown him into that fit.
Oh, gods - he'd thought - he'd thought they'd never come again. He'd thought 'Lendel had driven them away.
But they weren't the dreams about being walled in by ice, so maybe 'Lendel had -
Maybe not. He couldn't tell. It was the other dream, anyway. Clear, vivid as no other dream he'd dreamed had ever been, and much more detailed than the last time he'd had it.
He'd been in a canyon, a narrow mountain pass with walls that were peculiarly smooth. He'd known, in the dream, that this was no real pass - that this passage had been created, cut armlength by armlength, by magic.
He'd known, too, that the magic had been wrong, skewed. It had an aura of pain and death about it, as if every thumblength of that canyon had been paid for in spilled blood.
It had been night; cloudy, with a smell of snow on the wind. Where he stood the canyon had narrowed momentarily, choked by avalanches on either side. He'd been very cold, despite the heavy weight of a fur cloak on his shoulders; his feet had been like blocks of the ice that edged the canyon walls.
He had felt a feeling of grim satisfaction, when he'd seen that at this one point the passage was wide enough for two men, but no more. And he knew that he had somehow caused those blockages, to create a place where one man could, conceivably, hold off an army.
Because an army was what was coming down that canyon.
He'd sent for help, sent Yfandes and Tylendel -
Tylendel? But Tylendel was dead -
- but he'd also known that help was unlikely to arrive in time.
He had waited until they were almost on him, suspecting nothing, and knowing that they could not see him yet because he willed it so. Then he had raised his right hand high over his head, and a mage-light had flared on it; so bright that the front ranks of that terrible army winced back, and their shadows fell black as the heart of night on the snow behind them. He had said nothing; nothing needed to be said. He barred the way; that was all the challenge required.
They were heavily armored, those fighters; armor of some dull, black stuff, and helms of the same. They carried the weight of that armor as easily as Vanyel wore his own white fur cloak. They bore unornamented round shields, again of the same dull, black material, and carried long broadswords. For the rest, what could be seen of their clothing under the armor and their cloaks over it, they were a motley lot. But they moved with a kind of sensitivity to the presence of the next-in-line that had told Vanyel in the dream that they had been drilled together by a hand more merciless than ever Jervis had been.
They stared at him, and none of them moved for a very long time -
Until the front ranks parted, and the wizard stepped through.
Wizard he was, and no doubt; Vanyel could feel the Power heavy within him. But it was Power of the same kind as that which had cut this canyon; paid for in agony. And when it was gone, there would be no more until the wizard could torture and kill again. Vanyel had all the power of life itself behind him; the power of the sleeping earth, of the living forest -
He spread his arms, and the life-energy flowed from him, creating a barricade across the valley -
- like the barricade across his heart -
- and a shield behind which he could shelter. He faced the wizard, head held high, defiance in the slightest movement, daring him to try and pass.
But the ranks of the fighters parted again, and the first wizard was joined by a second, and a third. And Vanyel felt his heart sinking, seeing his own death sentence written in those three-to-one odds.
Still, he had stood his ground -
Until Mardic touched his mind.
It had hurt, that touch; salt on raw flesh. He'd interpreted it as an attack of the wizards, and had struck back, struck to kill, and only as he'd made his strike had realized that -
- a dream, oh, gods - it's a dream, it isn't real, and that's Mardic -
And had tried to pull the blow; had pulled the blow, but that sent the aborted power coursing back down places that burned in agony when it touched them. And he'd tried to stop the flow, but that had only twisted things up inside him, until he was a thrashing knot of anguish and he didn't know where he was or what he was doing. It all hurt, everything hurt, everything burned, and he was trapped in the pain, in the torment, crying out and knowing no one could hear him, and lost - he couldn't feel his body anymore, couldn't hear or see; he was foundering in a sea of agony -
Then a shock - like being struck -
He found himself gasping for breath, frozen to his teeth, but back in a normal body that hurt in a normal way.
Then he had blacked out for a moment; came to with the Healer shaking him, talking to him.
He was soaking wet, and shivering.
Mardic? What about Mardic?
The Herald Jaysen was holding him upright, more than half supporting him -
Tylendel, dead, crumpled at Jaysen's feet. My fault, oh, gods, my fault -
The grieving came down on him, full force; but somewhere at the back of his mind he knew that they were feeling what he was feeling and he clamped down on it - closed that line off -
In the stunned, mental silence he heard Jaysen's anguished thoughts, as clearly and intimately as if he was speaking them into Vanyel's ear.