:l’ll stay here,: Lancir volunteered. :Elspeth can do without me for a moon or so. I’ll take care of the Leshara and see to- : his thought faltered. : - Gala.:
:And you’ll get home how?: Jaysen asked, concerned. : We’re going to shut the Gate from the other side as soon as we’re through, and you aren’t up to Gating by yourself these days.:
:Like ordinary mortals,: he replied, with a deathly seriousness. :On our feet.:
:What- what are we going to do about- : Savil’s eyes flicked to Tylendel and back; the boy was still staring vacantly into space, his face pale and blank, his eyes so full of inward-turned torment that she could scarcely bear to look into them for fear she wouldbreak down and cry.
. I don’t know,: Lancir replied bleakly. . I just don’t know. There’s no precedent. Get the boy home; worry about it when you’ve got time to think about it. Ask your Companions; it was one of their number that died. That’s all I can think of. But you’d better get on with it if you expect to leave the other boy with a mind.:
“Jays, take Tylendel, will you?” Savil said aloud, reaching for Vanyel’s arm and pulling him to his feet. “Lance-”
“Gods with you, heart-sibs,” said the Queen’s Own, pity and compassion momentarily transforming his homely face into something close to saintly, like that of a beautiful carved statue. “You’ll need their help. Taver?”
His Companion sidled up to him and held rock-still for Jaysen to help him to mount; like the Queen, like Savil, Lancir was feeling his age these autumn days, and needed the boost into place that Jaysen gave him. But once in the saddle, he resumed the strength and dignity of a much younger Queen’s Own - the man he had been twenty years ago. Taver tossed his head, and walked with calm and quiet steps toward the shocked, confused mob of Leshara at the other end of the garden.
Jaysen tugged on Tylendel’s arm; the boy rose, but with the automatic movements of someone spellbound, his attention still turned within himself. The Seneschal’s Herald led the way to the Gate, followed closely by his Companion, and guiding the boy with a hand at his shoulder.
He cast a look back at Savil. “I don’t fancy the notion of the ride we have ahead of us - too many things to go wrong on the way. You know more about this spell than I do - do you think you can reset this Gate to bring us out at the Palace?”
She wrenched her attention away from the unanswerable problem of what to do about the boys, and contemplated the structure of the Gate. The portal at thisend was an ornamental gazebo in the center of the blasted garden. Through the arch of the entrance lay the dark of the ruinous cottage yard.
“I don’t see any problem,” she replied, after study. “I can bring us out in the Grove Temple, if that’s all right.”
“That should do,” Jaysen said, eyeing the sky on the other side of the portal, which was flickering with lightnings. “Good gods - why did thatblow in? There wasn’t a storm due.”
“Don’t look so surprised, Jays,” she growled, needed to lash out at somethingand using his absentmindedness to make him the target. “I’ve told you a dozen times that Gating plays merry cob with the weather. That’s why I don’t like to use Gates. It’s going to get worse when I reset it, and all hell will break out when I collapse it.”
He pursed his lips and frowned, but didn’t reply, just waved at her with his free hand. She let go of Vanyel, who sagged back to his knees, too weakened to stay standing without her support. She raised both her hands high above her head, and made an intricately weaving little gesture. Filaments of dull red light floated from the Gate toward her, and were caught up on her fingers by that complex weaving. When she had them fast, she clenched her hands on them and sent her will coursing down them in a surge of pure, commanding power, the filaments turning from red to white as herwill flowed back along them.
When the wave of white reached the Gate, the portal misted over, then flared incandescently. When the light died, the scene framed in the gazebo arch was that of Companion’s Field, seen by the fitful flashes of lightning, as viewed from the porch of the Grove Temple.
Savil reached down and caught the fabric of Vanyel’s tunic, pulling him to his feet again. She dragged him with her as she followed closely on Jaysen’s heels. He hurried across the Gate threshold, pushing Tylendel before him; she half-ran a step behind him, dragging Vanyel with her by main force.
The Gate-crossing hit her with its all-too-familiar, sickening sensation of falling. Then - hard, smooth marble was beneath her feet, and they were home.
Lighting struck a nearby tree, and thunder deafened her for a moment. She cleared out of the path of the Gate and Kellan and Felar darted across, ears laid back, as soon as she and Vanyel were out of the way.
She let go of Vanyel, who stumbled the two steps to one of the pillars and clung to it. She turned to face the Gate even as another bolt struck nearby. The Gate was going unstable, wavering from red to white and back again, the instability in the energy fields mirrored in the increasing fury of the lightning storm overhead. She raised her hands and began the dismissal - and encountered unexpected resistance.
She tried again, wincing at the crack of thunder directly above her. There was something wrong, something very wrong. The Gate was fighting her.
“Jays - “ she shouted over the growl of thunder and the whine of the wind. “ - I need a hand, here.”
Jaysen let go of Tylendel to add his strength to hers - their united wills worked at the spell-knot, forcing it to unravel faster than it could knit itself back up again.
With a surge of wild power that brought a half-dozen lightning strikes down on the Belltower of the Temple itself, the Gate collapsed -
Then again the unexpected; the Gate-energy, instead of dissipating back into the air and ground, flared up, and surged back down the one conduit left to it. The force-line that had tied it into Vanyel. Savil Saw it - but not in time to stop it.
Vanyel screamed in agony, convulsing, clutching the pillar as the released power arced back into him - and from him, a second, weaker arc leapt to Tylendel.
Tylendel jerked into sudden alertness - and uttered the most painful cry of despair Savil had ever heard; it was a cry that would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life.
She pivoted and grabbed for him as quickly as she could as Vanyel collapsed in a moaning heap at the foot of the pillar.
But it was too late. No longer held in deceptive docility by his shock, he dodged her outstretched hand. She saw his face in another of the lightning flashes; his eyes were all pupil, his face a twisted mask of nothing but pain. He looked frantically about him with those terrible eyes that held no sanity at all, dodged her again, and then dashed past her into the tangled trees of the Grove.
Jaysen gave chase; Savil limped after both of them. Lightning was striking so often overhead now that the sky was almost as bright as day. She tried to use the line of their shared magic to get at Tylendel’s mind as she ran, hoping to bring him back to her, but stumbled in shock andfell when she touched his thoughts. There was nothing to get a hold on - the boy was a chaotic, aching void of grief and loneliness. It was so empty, so unhuman, that for a moment she could only crouch in the cold, dry grass and listen to her overworked heart beat in panic. It took every ounce of discipline she had to get her own mind back under control after touching that terrible, all-consuming sorrow.
Belatedly she thought of Vanyel. If anyone could reach Tylendel, surely hecould.
She lurched painfully to her feet and stumbled back toward the Temple. In the lightning flashes she could make out the younger boy staggering blindly out of the Temple, clutching himself as if he were freezing - saw him stumble and fall on his shoulder, without trying to save himself.
Then she saw Tylendel dart out of the tree-shadows to her right and race past her, past his fallen lover, and back into the Temple itself.