Magic's Promise Read Free

was using it. ” Tantras leaned back against the white-tiled wall of the bathing room, folding his arms across his chest in a deceptively lazy pose. “ Maybe because you're as prominent as you are. Can't go around calling the most powerful Herald-Mage in the Circle a 'pervert,' after all. ” He grinned. “ He might turn you into a frog. ”
    Vanyel shook his head again. “ Gods, I have been out of touch to miss that little bit of slang. Yes, of course because I'm shay'a'chern, why else would people look at me sideways? ”
    “ Because you scare the hell out of them, ” Tantras replied, his smile fading. “ Because you are as powerful as you are; because you're so quiet and so solitary, and they never know what you're thinking. Havens, these days half the Heralds don't even know you're shaych; it's the Mage-Gift that makes them look at you sideways. Not that anybody around here cares about your bedmates a quarter as much as you seem to think. They're a lot more worried that-oh-a bird will crap on you and you'll level the Palace. ”
    “ Me? ” Vanyel stared at him in disbelief.
    “ You. You've spent most of the last four or five years in combat zones. We know your reflexes are hypersensitive. Hellfire, that's why I came in here to wake you up instead of sending a page. We know what you can do. Van, nobody I've ever heard of was able to take the place of five Herald-Mages by himself! And the very idea of one person having that much power at his beck and call scares most people witless! ”
    Vanyel was caught without a reply; he stared at Tantras with the towel hanging limply from his hands.
    “ I'm telling you the plain truth, Van. I wish you'd stop wincing away from people with no cause. It's not your sexual preferences that scare them, it's you. Level the Palace, hell-they know you could level Haven if you wanted to- ”
    Vanyel came out of his trance of astonishment. “ What do they think I am? ” he scoffed, picking up his filthy shirt.
    “ They don't know; they haven't the Mage-Gift and most of them weren't trained around Herald-Mages. They hear stories, and they think of the Mage Wars-and they remember that once, before there was a Valdemar, there was a thriving land to the far south of us. Now the Dhorisha Plains are there-a very large, circular crater. No cities, no sign there ever was anything, not even two stones left standing. Nothing but grass and nomads. Van, leave that stuff; I'll pick up after you. ”
    “ But- ” Vanyel began to object.
    “ Look, if you can spend most of a year substituting for five of us, then one of us can pick up after you once in a while. ” Tantras took the wet towels away from him, cutting off his objections before he could make them. “ Honestly, Van. ”
    “ If you insist. ” He wanted to touch Tantras' mind to see if he really meant what he said. It seemed a fantastical notion.
    But Tran had not invited, and a Herald did not intrude uninvited into another's mind, not unless there was an overriding need to do so.
    “ Is ... that how you feel? ” he asked in a whisper.
    “ I'm not afraid of you, but let me tell you, I wouldn't have your powers for any reward. I'm glad I'm just a Herald and not a Herald-Mage, and I don't know how you survive it. So just let me spoil you a little, all right? ”
    Vanyel managed a weak smile, troubled by several things-including that “ just a Herald ” business. That implied a division between Heralds and Herald-Mages that made him very uneasy. “ All right, old friend. Spoil me. I'm just tired enough to let you. ”
    The fog of weariness came between him and and the corridor, and he was finding it all he could do to put one foot in front of the other. Lady, bless you for Tantras. There aren't many even among the Heralds I trained with that will accept what I am as easily as he does. Whether it's that I'm a Mage or that I'm fey - although I can't see why Mage-powers would frighten someone. We've had Herald-Mages since there was a