Mercedes Lackey: The Eagle And The Nightingales

Nightingale flushed, and mentally levied a few choice Gypsy curses on the Deliambren for choosing the precise words guaranteed to make her go on. Gypsy lore held that to retrace one's steps was to unmake part of one's life_and you had better be very sure that was something you wanted and needed to do before you tried it.

Leverance blinked benignly at her as she muttered imprecations, just as if he didn't know the implications of his words. "Well," he asked. "Can you go? Will you help?"

Signs and portents, omens and forebodings. I do not want to go, but it seems I have no choice .

But she was not going to tell him that. For one thing, if they had sent others on this path, others who had been found out, that argued for someone knowing in advance that they had been sent. She trusted those Deliambrens that she personally knew, but within very strict limits_just as she trusted, within limits, those Elves she knew. But there were Gypsies that she would not trust, so why should every Elf, every Deliambren, or even every Free Bard be entirely trustworthy?

Talaysen probably didn't know about the others. The Elves might not have thought it worth stooping to ask help of mere mortals until now. Only the Deliambrens know the whole of this; but if there was someone acting as an informant against their agents, there is no reason why it could not have been an Elf, a Deliambren, or even one of us. Everyone has a price; it is only that most honest folk have prices that could never be met .

"I will think about it," she temporized, giving him the same answer she had given Master Wren. "My road goes in that direction; I cannot promise that I will end up there."

If there is an informant, damned if I will give you the assurance that I will be the next one to play victim! It is too easy for a lone woman, Gypsy or no, to simply disappear .

She smiled sweetly and ate a bite of tasteless roll, as if she had not a care in the world. "I am alone and afoot, and who knows what could happen between here and there? I make no promises I cannot keep."

Leverance made a sour face. "You'll think about it, though?" he persisted. "At least keep the option open?"

She frowned; she really did not want to give him even that much, but_she had a certain debt to his people. "Did I not say that I would?"

Leverance only shrugged. "You hedge your promises as carefully as if you were dealing with Elves," he told her sourly, as she packed up the rest of the uneaten lunch in a napkin to take with her. "Don't you know by now that you can trust us?"

The suns heat faded again, although no clouds passed before it, and she took in a sharp breath as she steadied herself, looking down at the rough wood of the table, grey and lifeless, unlike the silver of her bracelet.

Trust them. He wants me to trust them, the Elves want me to trust them, and Talaysen, damn his eyes, trusts me. There is too much asking and giving of trust in this .

Her right hand clenched on the knot of the napkin; her left made a sign against ill-wishing, hidden in her lap.

"I only pay heed to what my own eyes and ears tell me," she said lightly, forcing herself to ignore her chill. "You should know that by now, since it is probably one of the other reasons why you picked me. Thank you for the meal."

She rose from the bench and untied her donkey from the handrail beside the road without a backward glance for him.

"Are you sure you won't_" Leverance began plaintively.

Now she leveled a severe look at him, one that even he could read. "I gave you what I could promise, Deliambren. A nightingale cannot sing in a cage, or tethered by a foot to a perch. You would do well to remember that."

And with that, she led her donkey back out into the road. It was, after all, a long way to Lyonarie, and the road wasn't growing any shorter while she sat.

She only wished that she could feel happier about going there.

From the vantage of a low hill, at the top of the last crest of the King's Highway, Lyonarie was a city guaranteed to make a person feel very small, entirely insignificant.

That was Nightingale's first impression of the metropolis, anyway. There was no end to it from where she stood; seated in the midst of a wide valley, it sprawled across the entire valley and more.

It did not look inviting to her; like something carved of old, grey, sunbleached wood, or built out of dry, ancient bones, it seemed lifeless from here, and stifling. In a way, she wished that she could feel the same excitement that was reflected in the faces of the travelers walking beside her. Instead, her spirit was heavy; she hunched her shoulders against the blow to her heart coming from that grey blotch, and she wanted only to be away from the place. Heat-haze danced and shimmered, making distant buildings ripple unsettlingly. As she approached, one small traveler in a stream of hundreds of others, she had the strangest feeling that they were not going to the city, it was calling them in and devouring them.

It devours everything: life, dreams, hope....

The great, hulking city-beast was unlike any other major population center she had ever been in. There were no walls, at least not around the entire city, though there were suggestions of walled enclaves in the middle distance. That was not unusual in itself; many cities spilled beyond their original walls. It would have been very difficult to maintain such walls in any kind of state of repair, much less to man them. The city simply was; it existed, just as any living, growing thing existed, imbued with a fierce life of its own that required it to swallow anyone that entered and make him part of it, never to escape again.

Was this the reason why I felt such foreboding? That was reason enough; for someone of Nightingale's nature, the possibility of losing her own identity, of being literally devoured, was always a real danger.

It was not just the heat that made her feel faint. Thousands of silent voices, dunning into my mind _ thousands of people needing a little piece of me _ thousands of hearts crying out for the healing I have.... I could be lost in no time at all, here . She would have to guard herself every moment, waking and sleeping, against that danger.

She took off her hat and wiped her forehead with her kerchief, wishing that she had never heard of Lyonarie.

The shaggy brown donkey walked beside her, his tiny hooves clicking on the hard roadbed, with no signs that the heavy traffic on the road bothered him. Traffic traveled away from the city as well as toward it, right-hand side going in, left-hand side leaving, with heavy vehicles taking the center, ridden horses and other beasts coming next, and foot traffic walking along the shoulder. The road was so hard that Nightingale's feet ached, especially in the arches, and her boots felt much too tight.

She'd had a general description of the city last night from the innkeeper at the tavern she'd stayed in. From this direction, the King's Highway first brought a traveler through what was always the most crowded, noisy, and dirty section of any city, the quarter reserved for trade.

Oh, I am quite looking forward to that. Stench, heat, and angry people, what a lovely combination .

About six or seven leagues from the city itself, the road had changed from hard-packed gravel to black, cracked pavement, a change that had given both Nightingale and her beast relief from the dust, but which gave no kind of cushioning for the feet. She knew by the set of the donkey's ears that his feet hurt him, too. This grey-black stuff was worse than a dirt road for heat, on top of that; waves of heat radiated up from the pavement, and both she and the donkey were damp with sweat.