Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

And that was how Aellele went off to Haven to become a Herald.

Only ... it wasn’t absolutely certain that she’d become a Herald, because being Chosen was really only the beginning. There were lessons—years of lessons. Some of them were simple, things she didn’t need so much but others did (reading and writing); and some were things she had a little bit of but now needed more of (math and history—not just Valdemar’s, but of every land that surrounded her—Karse and Hardorn and Rethwellen and Iftel); and others were things she didn’t know anything about at all (swordplay and diplomacy and legal codes and precedent). All meant to shape her and prepare her for the day when she and Tases would ride out on their first Circuit, accompanied by a senior Herald and Companion, of course, who would make the final judgment as to whether the two of them were ready to set off on their own.

Privately, Aellele was sure that day would never come.

She loved Tases (how could anyone not love Tases?) and she loved Haven and she loved the Heralds’ Collegium and she even loved some of her fellow students, because some of them were nobles (who knew it was their duty and honor to serve in this wonderful special way), and some of them were the sons and daughters of soldiers (who had been brought up to service in a different way), and some of them were from farming families just like hers (so it was almost like having her own family with her), and some of them were the children of tradesmen (who had led lives so different from hers that hearing about them was like hearing a Harvest Festival wondertale), and the ones she didn’t love, she liked.

And she was pretty good in her classes (except for combat and self-defense, and it was early days yet, and the older students said that nobody satisfied either Master Alberich or themselves in the first moonturns of classes).

But.

Heralds (she heard this morning noon and night, more from the senior students than from the instructors, and she already knew—in the back of her mind—that the reason she wasn’t hearing it from them was because they didn’t want to scare any of the First Years to death) had to not only be perfect and right all the time, but they had to be nice, too. And being nice meant not being petty or small-minded or cruel or deliberately handing down a false judgment or a less-than-the-best-judgment just because they could get away with it, or shirking their duty, or ...

The fact that Aellele knew that if she ever did such an awful thing she’d disappoint Tases horribly just made it all worse. And it didn’t matter how many times he told her she wouldn’t do something like that, that she was years away from ever even getting the chance to do something like that, well ... Aellele knew herself. Hadn’t she thrown a handful of feed at the head of the old rooster who’d pecked at her instead of scattering it properly—and more than once? And switched the salt for the sugar in the canister (making sure to leave a layer of sugar on top so the switch wouldn’t be noticed) when she’d known Saraceth was going to be baking something special for that boy she was courting? She’d said hurtful things—true things and flat lies both—more times than she could count, and gotten into fights, and stolen things (and lied about it), and when she came to reckon up all the bad things she’d done, it was a complete mystery to her why she was here at the Collegium at all.

Tases kept saying there was time enough—years—to get it all right, but it wasn’t the part about being right that had her worried. She figured he could help her out with that. It was the part about being nice. She didn’t think there was anybody under the sun—not even a Companion—who could help her with that. And the real trouble was, all of her new friends didn’t think that would be a problem—at least not once they’d finished their training. And none of them seemed to have any doubts that they would finish their training, and their Circuits, and become Heralds, either. She knew that.

That was the real joke.

Because every Herald had a Gift, some kind of Talent that set them apart. It wasn’t the whole reason they were Chosen, but it was part of it. Farsight, Foresight, Fetching, Mindhearing and Mindspeech, Magesight, and the almost unknown Firestarting ... these were all Gifts with which young Herald-Trainees might show up at the Collegium to have fostered and nurtured. Some with the barest whisper, some with Gifts so strong they’d been a burden to them until their Companions arrived.

And hers was Empathy.