Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

It was almost full dark by the time they fed and brushed and watered the animals, and gathered enough fuel to start a small fire. Lioran did his share, silent and sullen, but without actual complaint. After they finished, the twins settled near the fire, stretching their fingers wide and close to the warm yellow-orange flames. Lioran didn’t sit beside them. He climbed up on Mila’s bare back, and looking out into the woods, he said, “Me and Mila are heading off. We’ll be back in an hour or two.” He didn’t wait for acknowledgement but simply faded into the trees and the darkness, his dirty Whites and Mila’s clean white outline the last thing they saw disappearing into darkness. If tonight was like every other night, when he came back, he’d look soft and sad.

Rhiannon sighed. “It’s too bad he’s not a kid. Then I could just tell him to snap out of it. I know he’s hurt, but all this pouting and whining is unbecoming in a Herald.”

“In anybody.”

“I sure hate him going off like that.”

“He’s a full Herald; he’s supposed to be watching over old women.”

Rhiannon arched an eyebrow.

“Well, that’s what most would think.” Dionne flexed her fingers and added another handful of small sticks to the fire. “Hard not to see him as a kid, even if we were younger when we got our uniforms. This is our last chance to get him out of his depression—we’re due back in Haven in two weeks.”

“So how do you think Shelter’s End is going to help?”

Dionne shook her head. “It’s not Shelter’s End itself. I mean, it’s a good town, and they always need help from a strong back. I hope that will get past his head and engage his heart.” She sighed heavily, shifting her weight to ease her aching back. “I haven’t been able to do it.”

“So what makes you think anybody else can? He’s skittish and hard.”

Dionne added a log to the fire and watched the sparks do a sky- dance in the wind. “Well, one of my old teachers is there. Melony. She helped us all out of funks, and that’s what he seems to need. I mean, it seems like he stopped being an adult in full Whites the minute he learned his parents died, and became a spoiled kid. I haven’t been able to reach him; whatever’s broken in him isn’t physical, or even really in his emotions. It’s like his very self is cracked. I bet Melony has some ideas. I’m going to ask her for advice. Don’t you remember how she helped Jon after he broke his hand and Yvette after that merc in town roughed her up?”

“Maybe. I was pretty dazzled by the Collegium.”

“Melony taught me salves and teas in my first two years there. Everybody loved her so much she got awarded Teacher of the Year three times in a row.”

“She’s still alive?”

“She was last time we came through.”

“Five years ago? I think I remember her. Gray hair?”

Dionne play-slapped at Rhiannon. “That describes the whole town.”

“Sorry. I don’t remember everything.”

“Yeah, well maybe age is getting in the way of your memory.”

“Already?” Rhiannon laughed. “We’re not gray yet.”

“I pulled out two gray hairs yesterday.” She looked toward the trees Lioran had disappeared through. “We should think about what we’re doing next.”

Rhiannon sighed. “I’m not ready to stop performing yet. But I hope your friend’s alive to help. Old age and experience beats smarts.”

Dionne let out a short, bitter laugh. “Then we should have succeeded by now.”

“We’re not old.”

“Tell that to my fingers.” Truth tell, it was Rhiannon she worried about, even though she showed no interest in even slowing down. As a Healer, Dionne would be fine even with the beginnings of arthritis, which was, truthfully, a bit noticeable on a cold morning of late. But old hands did real damage to a Bard. A Healer could speed the body’s natural response to damage, but there wasn’t much Dionne, or anybody else, could do about old age. And Rhiannon was stubborn as an old mule. She liked to take charge of everything. Queen of the Road. It made Dionne smile.

Sure enough, Rhiannon had a pronouncement about the topic. “We’re not ready for Shelter’s End yet.” And that would be the end of that. Rhiannon reached into her pocket and pulled out a hand-carved wooden flute. She started playing, and Dionne settled in to listen, content for the moment to just be with her sister and pleased that the unhappy Herald had taken himself off somewhere else. They’d both be older tomorrow, and they could worry about being older then.

Lioran, true to form, returned after about an hour. He looked as bad as Dionne expected him to, his face thin and drawn, his skin so pale he might be the child of a ghost. It was all she could do not to wince as Mila picked her way carefully through camp and stopped at a good place to drop her tack. Lioran took good, if quick, care of his Companion. Then he lay down on his rumpled bedroll, plumped his coat up to be a pillow, pulled his thick woolen blanket close up around his ears, and turned away from them all.