Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

They’d learned the mage called himself Lompaux of the Greylorn. He had told Rhiannon that the second day, when he’d brought her a new and very lovely gittern and demanded she play the Lament for Twins for him.

He had her sing it for him every night, and every night she grew sadder, and the song escaped her lips with more power. He seemed a willing listener, the kind of audience she had been taught came too easily to song and sometimes had to be brought from sorrow to happiness at the end of a set. At the end of about a week’s stay (she’d lost track of the actual number of days), she watched him walk out of the room after a session where he’d asked her to sing for him. It dawned on her that they were developing a bond. In fact, he didn’t seem entirely evil. It felt more like he was just trapped in a circle of sadness and a set of decisions he’d made long ago, probably before he was even grown.

Without Dionne, she didn’t know how to sing happy songs with the full power of her Gift. But could she touch him anyway? She knew sadness, now that she spent her days locked in the cold keep without her sister. Maybe she could strengthen her bond to him by creating songs to show him the traps he’d set for himself.

Excited, she stood up to go find Lleryn and see what she thought of the idea. The Bard was sitting in the corner of the next room, practicing air-scales over and over, her fingers tapping silently at the air in their rather large prison. After Rhiannon finished explaining, Lleryn chewed on her lip for a long time before saying, “Sure, try it. Just be careful not to let the bond become two-way.”

Rhiannon grinned. “It won’t. I’ll keep my image of Dionne between him and me.”

The next morning, they crossed the border, taking the widest trading road that Herald Deckert knew of. He stopped at the first fork in the road, putting up a hand to stop the group. “We have to be careful now,” he said. “Having permission from the Rethwellan ambassador won’t keep us from getting shot first and the questions asked later. Rethwellan is anti-mage at the moment, though, so if they don’t shoot us first, they may not mind our mission.” He looked down at his Companion, Kadey. “And the Companions prefer that we just aren’t seen. They’ll try to help us with that.”

Dionne nodded.

The whole group stood still for a bit, and just as she was wondering why they didn’t get started, Deckert’s gentle voice interrupted her thoughts. “You’re the one who’s got to find her.”

Of course. Dionne closed her eyes. “Stay on the main road. I’ll know where to turn.”

And she did, again and again, until she led the group all the way to their first view of the imposing keep. She pulled Sugar to a halt, and the two Companions stopped, and everyone just looked. Rhiannon was there—she could feel her from here. She didn’t think her twin knew she was close. They didn’t have Mindspeech, but they did have something like Empathy, something her mother had always called the oneness of twins. Dionne closed her eyes briefly, closing away the keep, and thought what she wanted Rhiannon to know. I’m out here. I’m going to get you out of there. It will be all right. Get ready!

Her eyes snapped open. She was pretty sure Rhiannon had gotten the message, or the sense of the message. But what could either of them actually do?

The Heralds had been staring for some time, and of course they’d undoubtedly been using true mindspeech between themselves and their Companions. She waited, impatient, and less and less hopeful as time went on. She’d done her part, but the next move was up to Deckert and Ciena. And the Companions, of course.

After what seemed like a very long time, Deckert looked over at her. “Most of what you see is an illusion. There is a true Keep there, and twenty or so people. But it’s older than what you see, and a quarter that size.”

“How do you know?”

He reached down to pat his Companion. “Kadey was able to show me.”

“Can he show me?” she asked.

Deckert fell silent for a moment. “It isn’t necessary.” He sighed and glanced at her. “You’re a Healer, and your sister is a Bard. Between the two of you, you know Companions generally only give the least aid possible—the amount we need to do our jobs.”

She nodded.

He seemed to shift his focus to Ciena more than Dionne. “And sometimes not even that. For some reason, they want the twins reunited enough to help me see the glamour. I’ve come to accept that Companions are—in their own way—magical beings. But they keep their own counsel, and Kadey has seldom solved my problems for me.”

Both Ciena and Dionne nodded. Ciena was at most a few years older than Dionne, but she seemed so much more poised and controlled that it surprised Dionne to see her given a lesson. Older Healers almost always looked after the younger ones. Of course it was the same with Heralds.

Dionne looked at the Keep, willing herself to see it smaller. It didn’t help. “What do we do now?”