He pulled the deep green tunic over his head, and suddenly realized something. He wasn't drugged - and he wasn't hurting, either. Those places in his mind that had burned - he could still feel them, but they weren't giving him pain.
Moondance said he Healed me. Is that why it feels like I halfway know him? Tayledras. Didn't Aunt Savil tell us stories about them? I thought that was all those were - stories. Not real. He looked around at the strange room, half-structure, half-natural, each half fitting into the other so well he could scarcely tell where the hand of nature left off and the hand of man began. Real. Gods, if I were to describe this place, nobody would ever believe me. This - II 's all so different. I even feel different.
He could sense some kind of barrier around him, around his thoughts. At first it made him wary, but he tested it, tentatively, and found that it was a barrier that he could control. When he thinned it, he became aware of presences, what must be minds, out beyond the limits of this room. Animals, surely, and birds, for their thoughts were dim and here-centered. Then two close together - very bright, but opaque and unreadable. One "felt" like Savil and the other must be the mysterious Starwind. Then two more; just as bright, just as opaque - but one he recognized by the "feel" as being Yfandes. Then a scattering of others…
Yfandes. A Companion. My Companion.
So - it was no hallucination, then. He had somehow gotten Herald-Gifts and a Companion.
Gifts I never wanted, at a cost I never thought I'd pay. I'd trade them and half my life to have - him - back again.
That hit like a blow to the gut. He descended from the level of the uppermost pool to the floor and sat heavily on one of the stone benches around the edge of the room, too tired and depressed to move.
Oh, 'Lendel… gods, he thought, bleak despair overcoming him. What am I doing here? Why didn't they just let me die?
:Do you hate me, Chosen?: said a bright, reproachful voice in his mind, :Do you hate me for wishing you to live?:
:Yfandes?: He remembered what Savil had said, about how his Companion would pine herself to death if he died, and sagged with guilt :Oh, gods, Yfandes, no - no, I'm sorry - I just - :
He'd been able to not-think about it when he'd been drugged. He'd been able to concentrate on nothing more complicated than the next moment. Now - now his mind was only too clear. He couldn't ignore the reality of Tylendel being gone, and there were no drugs to keep him in a vague fog of forgetting.
:You miss him.:she replied, gently :You need him, and you miss him :
:Like my arm. Like my heart. I just can't imagine going on without him. I don't know what to do with myself; where to go, what to do next.:
If Yfandes had a reply, he never heard it; just at that moment Savil and a second Tayledras, this one in white breeches, soft, low boots and jerkin, entered the room. Vanyel started to stand; Savil motioned for him to stay where he was. She and the stranger walked slowly across the stone floor and took places on the bench beside him.
Vanyel was shocked at her appearance. Although her hair had always been a pure silvery white, she'd never looked old before. Now she did; she looked every year of her age and more. He recalled what Moondance had said about Tylendel's death being as hard on her as it was on Vanyel. Now he believed it.
"Aunt Savil," he said, hesitantly, as she and the stranger arranged themselves comfortably beside him. "Are you all right? I mean - "
"Looking particularly haglike, am I?" she asked dryly. "No, don't bother to apologize; I've got a mirror. I don't bounce back from strain the way I used to."
He flushed, embarrassed, and feeling guilty.
"Van, this is Starwind k'Treva," she continued. "He and Moondance are the Tayledras Adepts I told you younglings about a time or two. This," she waved her hand around her, "is his, mostly, being as he's k'Treva Speaker.''
"In so much as any Tayledras can own the land," Star-wind noted with one raised eyebrow, his voice calling up images of ancient rocks and deep, still water. "It would be as correct, Wingsister, to say that this place owns me."
"Point taken. This is k'Treva's voorthayshen - that's - how would you translate that, shayana?"
The Tayledras at her side had a triangular face, and his long hair was arranged with two plaits at each temple, instead of one, like Moondance - and he felt older, somehow. At least, that was how he felt to Vanyel.
"Clan Keep, I think would be closest," Starwind said, "Although k'Treva is not a clan as your people know the meaning of the word. It is closer to the Shin'a'in notion of 'Clan.' "
His voice was a little deeper in pitch than Moondance's and after a moment Vanyel recognized the "feel" of him as being the same as the "blue-green music" in his dreams.
"My lord," Vanyel began hesitantly.
"There are no 'lords,' here, young Vanyel," the Adept replied. "I speak for k'Treva, but each k'Treva rises or falls on his own."
Vanyel nodded awkwardly. "Why am I here, sir?" he asked - then added, apprehensively, ' 'What did you do to me? I - forgive me for being rude, but I know you did something. I feel - different."
"You are here because you have very powerful Mage-Gifts, awakened painfully, awakened late, and out of control," the Adept replied. His expression was calm, but grave, and held just a hint of worry. "Your aunt decided, and rightly, that there was no way in which you could be taught by the Heralds that would not pose a danger to you and those about you. Moondance and I are used to containing dangerous magics; we do this constantly, it is part of what we do. We can keep you contained, and Savil believes we can teach you effectively. And if we cannot teach you control, then she knows that we can and will contain you in such a way that you will pose no danger to others."
Moondance had not looked like this - so impersonal, so implacable. Vanyel shivered at the detached calm in Starwind's eyes; he wasn't certain what the Adept meant by "containing" him, but he wasn't eager to find out.
"As to what we have done with you - Moondance Healed your channels, which are the conduits through which you direct energy. And I have taught you, a little, while you were in Healing trance. I could not teach you a great deal in trance, but what I have given you is very important, and will go a great way toward making you safe around others. I have taught you where your center is, how to ground yourself, and how to shield. So that now, at least, you are no longer out of balance, and you may guard yourself against outside thoughts and keep your own inside your mind where they belong. And there will be no more shaking of the earth because of dreams."
So that was what had happened - with the music, the colors - and this new barricade around his mind.
Star wind leaned forward a little, and his expression became far more human; concerned, and earnest. "Young Vanyel, we, Moondance and I, we are perfectly pleased to have you with us, to help you. But that is all we can do; to help you. You must learn control; we cannot force it upon you. You must learn the use of your Gifts, or most assuredly they will use you. Magic is that kind of force; I beg you to believe me, for I know this to be true. If you do not use it, it will use you. And if it begins to use you," his eyes grew very cold, "it must be dealt with."
Vanyel shrank back from that chill.