Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

But now the sweet tune seemed to contain anger as well; I felt it prickle across my skin and I wished, longingly, for some weapon. But I had nothing more than an eating knife, and my belled staff.

Many of the men with whom I had shared ale last night had fallen into step behind her, and from all around, men and women drifted toward her in little groups, following as she paced slowly down the length of the valley. Some carried torches plucked up from around the dancing floors to light their way.

And then Moonwoman opened her mouth and sang.

To this day the experience seems unreal to me. Her words were of a father who has gone away hunting to feed his family and will never return; but the meaning had nothing to do with the words.

In Haven I had once been privileged to listen to a Master Bard enchant a whole hall of folk in just this way, standing upon a stage with a harp in his arms—but it was his audience that was his instrument. But the emotions Bard Ronton had conjured in audience were mild and peaceful, compared to the killing rage I sensed building in the people around me.

In a minute—or two, at most—it would crescendo into violence, and I could already guess its target. If we dared to run, we would only conjure the inevitable up faster. Meramay stood beside me, too terrified by what she, too, knew was about to happen to fall beneath the music’s spell.

The music—and the musician.

By now the mob was close enough that I could see the singer’s face clearly. Tears glittered in her pale eyes, and her face was set in a white mask.

She was as terrified as Meramay.

I could not let this happen, though I died trying to prevent it.

As Shavanne had died, swept downstream by floodwaters, her body battered against the rocks along the way, until she was impaled on a submerged tree branch that ended her glorious life as surely as a Tedrel spear.

We had nearly been safely across the river, risking the crossing because villagers downstream had to be warned about the flood. But the bridge ropes had been rotted through with age, and it had collapsed under our weight. Shavanne had nearly gotten us both to safety even so, but the far bank was water-sodden earth and it had collapsed beneath her hooves when she tried to climb it. She had spent the last of her strength throwing me to safety, but doing so had pitched her back into the water.

I had felt each moment of her struggle to live.

I had heard her dying scream.

I would not again fail to save a life.

Not here, and not tonight.

I willed Moonwoman to hear me, as I stepped into her path and shouted with all my might, both in Mindspeech and with my voice. To stop what she was doing was our only chance; the people she had englamoured could not be reasoned with, nor would they feel they were acting in anything but self-defense.

Someone threw a rock.

It struck me in the shoulder, too small and flung from too far off to do more than sting, but in that moment I knew despair and felt Death step near.

Yet I would not surrender nor flee, for I was a Herald still, in my heart, even though no one could see.

I had never ceased to be a Herald.

“Stop!” I shouted again, and this time I felt Shavanne add her strength to mine.

Power roared through my veins like the waters of that long-ago flooded river. This was the Mindspeech such as I had never wielded it, strong enough to match Moonwoman’s own gift, enough for all about me to hear.

She flung back her head as if I had struck her with a hand of flesh. The gittern fell from her hands, and she swayed, falling at last to her knees and burying her face in her hands, weeping.

All around me the hill folk roused, coming out of the trance into which she had Sung them. They gazed from Moonwoman to me with looks of awe, though I knew how quickly that would change to both fear and anger. The “sorceress’s” power over them was broken at last—and they would quickly hate what they had lately feared—but they had no idea how.

I did.

The night wind brought me the sound of phantom silver bells.

:Now at last I leave you, Beloved. Be well.:

I knew now how I had lived through my terrible bereavement, and why I had never been Chosen again. Why should a Herald with one Companion have another? In all the years I had walked the roads of Valdemar, Shavanne had never left my side, and in the one moment when I truly needed her, she was there.

Perhaps it is not possible. Perhaps her presence in my mind was no more than an illusion, nurtured by longdelayed grief. Perhaps my Mindspeech was so powerful for lying dormant all those years.

But I know what I believe.