The shorter man sighed. “I suppose you're expecting me to give you an ineffective and stuffy lecture about how you are supposed to be a new person and you can't go on doing that sort of thing anymore now that you're a Trainee.”
Skif stopped looking at his toes and instead glanced up, startled, at the speaker. “Uh — you're not?”
“You are not stupid,” the man said, and smiled faintly, though his tone sounded weary. “If you've already played over that particular lecture in your mind, then I will skip it and get to the point. I am Dean Elcarth. I am in charge of Herald's Collegium. The moment you entered the gate here, so far as we are concerned, whatever you were or did before you arrived here became irrelevant. You were Chosen. The Companions don't make mistakes. There must be the makings of a Herald in you. Therefore you are welcome. But when you get in trouble, and you will, because sooner or later at least half of our Trainees get in trouble, please remember that what you do reflects on the rest of us as well, and Heralds are not universally beloved among a certain faction of the highborn. The others will give you the details as they see fit, but the sum of what I have to say is that you are supposed to be part of a solution, not part of a problem, and I hope we can show you why in such a way that you actually feel that in your deepest heart.”
During this rather remarkable speech, Skif had felt his jaw sagging slowly. It was not what he had expected to hear. His shock must have been written clearly on his face, because the Dean smiled a little again. “This is Herald Teren,” he continued, gesturing to the other man, who although friendlier, was looking distinctly worried. “He is, technically, in charge of you, since he is in charge of all of the newly Chosen. You'll be getting your first lessons from him, and he will show you to your new quarters and help get you set up. Under normal circumstances, he would have picked out a mentor for you among the older students — but these are not normal circumstances. So although one of the older students will be assigned as a mentor, in actuality you will have a very different, though altogether unofficial mentor.”
“That,” said a grating voice that put chills up Skif's back, “myself would be.”
He knew that voice, and that accent — though when he'd heard it before, it hadn't been nearly so thick.
And when the third figure stepped out of the shadows, arms folded over his chest, scar-seamed face smiling sardonically, he stepped back a pace without thinking about it. Skif had never seen the hair before — stark black with thick streaks of white running through it — because it had been hidden under a hood or a hat. But there was no mistaking that saturnine face or those cold, agate-gray eyes. This was the sell-sword who'd spoken with (and spied on?) Jass, who had threatened Skif in the cemetery.
“You!” he blurted.
“This is Herald Alberich, the Collegium Weaponsmaster,” said the Dean, “And I will leave you with him and Teren.”
“But you can't b-b-be a Herald — ,” Skif stammered. “Where's yer, yer white — ,”
“Herald Alberich has special dispensation from Her Majesty herself not to wear the uniform of Heraldic Whites,” Herald Teren interrupted, as Alberich's expression changed only in that he raised his right eyebrow slightly.
And now, suddenly, an explanation for Skif's own rather extraordinary behavior in the cemetery hit him, and he stared at the Herald in the dark gray leather tunic and tight trews with something like accusation. “You Truth Spelled me!”
Now that he knew Alberich was a Herald, there was no doubt in his mind why he had found himself telling the man what he knew that night in the cemetery. Everyone knew about Heralds and their Truth Spell, though Skif was the first person in his own circle of acquaintances who'd actually undergone it, much less seen it.
The two Heralds exchanged a glance. “Elcarth's right,” said Teren. “He's very quick.”
“Survive long he would not, were he not,” Alberich replied, and fastened his hawklike eyes on Skif, who shrank back, just as he had that night. “I did. Because there was need. Think on this — had you by any other been caught, it would not have been Truth Spell, but a knife.”
Skif shivered convulsively, despite the baking heat. The man was right. He gulped.
Alberich took another couple of steps forward, so that Skif was forced to look up at him. “Now, since there is still need, without Truth Spell, what you were about in following that scum, you will tell me. And fully, you will tell it.”
There was something very important going on here; he didn't have nearly enough information to know what, or why, but it was a lot more than just the fact that Jass had been killed, though that surely had a part in it. But Skif raised his chin, stiffened his spine, and glared back. “T'you. Not t’im. I know you. I don' know 'im.”
The Heralds exchanged another glance. “Fair enough,” Teren said easily. “I'll be outside when you're ready for me to take him over.”
Herald Teren turned and strode out the door on the other side of the stable. Skif didn't take his eyes off Alberich, whose gaze, if anything, became more penetrating.
“Heard you have, of the man Jass, and his ending.” It was a statement, not a question, but Skif nodded anyway. “And? You followed him for moons. Why?”
“ 'E burned down th' place where m'mates lived.” Skif made it a flat statement in return, and kept his face absolutely dead of expression. “They died. I heard 'im say 'xactly that with m'own ears, an' 'e didn't care, all 'e cared about was 'e didn' want t' get caught. Fact, 'e said 'e got rid of some witnesses afore 'e set th' fire. Might even've been them.”
Alberich nodded. “He was not nearly so free with me.”
Skif tightened his jaw. “Honest — I was in the cem'tery by accident, but I was where I could 'ear real good. An' I 'eard 'im an' th' bastid what hired 'im talkin' 'bout a new job, an' talkin' 'bout the old one. I already figgered I was gonna take 'im down somehow — but only after I foun' out 'oo 'twas what give 'im th' order.”
A swift intake of breath was all the reaction that Alberich showed — and a very slight nod. “Which was why you followed him.” A pause. “He was more than that — more than just a petty arson maker, more even than a murderer. As his master was — is. Which was why I followed him.”
Skif only shook his head. Alberich's concerns meant nothing to him —
— except —
“You know 'oo 'e is!” he shot out, feeling himself flush with anger. “The boss! You know!” He held himself as still as a statue, although he would cheerfully have leaped on the man at that moment, and tried to beat the knowledge out of him.
But Alberich shook his head, and it was with a regret and a disappointment that went so deeply into the tragic that it froze Skif where he stood. “I do not,” he admitted. “Hope, I had, you did.”
At that moment, instead of simply glaring at him, Alberich actually looked at him, caught his eyes, and stared deeply into them, and Skif felt a sensation like he had never before experienced. It was as if he literally stood on the edge of an abyss, staring down into it, and it wasn't that if he made a wrong move he'd fall, it was the sudden understanding that this was what Alberich had meant when he'd said that these were waters too deep for Skif to swim in. There were deep matters swirling all around him that Skif was only a very tiny part of, and yet — he had the chance to be a pivotal part of it.