Mercedes Lackey - Changes

Yes.

He needed to know how to find the Karsite agents. And that was for everyone, for all of Valdemar.

Trivial. Valdemar will persist. It may weaken for a time, but it will return, so long as balance persists. And I am balance.

Miserable— I won’t get mad. I won’t get mad. Stupid damn thing! Doesn’t it know if the Karsites get their way—

If the Karsites get their way!

This... thing... only knew what was and what had been. It couldn’t imagine, or plan, or do anything that required speculation. It wasn’t really alive, so all it could do was repeat what it already knew.

If there aren’t any Heralds or Companions, there won’t be a Web. There won’t be a Valdemar.

There was a long, long pause.

Impossible.

That’s what these irritations want. And they’ll get it, too. Now he drew on every unlikely, hysterical, ridiculous scenario that Amily had used to frighten herself with and exaggerated them a hundred times over. He flung the whole house of cards at the stone and showed it Nikolas going to pieces, the King himself falling apart, the Monarchy in ruins, the factions in the Court taking advantage of the situation and bringing out every petty quarrel they’d ever had—

Then the Karsite army crossing the border with hordes of demons that sought out Heralds and Companions and killed them, until there weren’t enough to sustain the Web, and the Web itself collapsed.

When he was done, he felt more exhausted than he ever had been in his life. If he’d had to crawl two paces to reach safety, he would never have been able to. He felt Gennie’s alarm and her immediate instinct to get him to come out or pull him out herself.

::Mags—::

::Not yet.:: he replied instantly.

::Bear says—::

::Not yet,:: he repeated.

He waited. This thing might not feel emotion, and it might not exactly be alive, but it didn’t want to die, either.

Suddenly he was engulfed in a flood of information.

It overwhelmed him, rolled over him, then scooped him up and tossed him about like a cork on a raging river.

Finally it tossed him out again, leaving him so drained he could barely breathe.

What do you want?

I want... to find Amily.

He sagged back, not expecting an answer.

Which one is Amily?

It seemed to think she was a Herald. She ain’t in the Web.

A long, long, long pause.

Give me your mind.

He was too weary to object. Too weary, and too desperate, to do anything but obey. He completely opened his mind to the thing, half expecting to be swallowed up in something immensely bigger than he was, maybe to never come out again.

But that wasn’t what happened.

Although he did lose all but a germ of his “self,” as he was stretched thin as gossamer on the wind, that germ was held tight and cradled safely. And finally, he sensed Amily, wisps and hints and glimpses of drug-induced nightmare.

And that was when the thing that held him magnified everything around that tenuous presence in a way he could never have managed alone. There was someone with her.

Not Ice or Stone, someone else.

Like smacking the Kirball as hard as he could, he flung what he got at Gennie, who caught it and relayed it on.

Such a fragile connection could not be held for long, not when he was as exhausted as he was. It faded. His hold on the stone faded.

You have what you need. You have what you want. Hold the balance.

Then he found himself lying on the table, gasping like a fish out of water.

They’d been given a little room on the same lower-level hallway as the one with the stone in it, furnished with chairs, an ordinary table, and pens and paper. It was cool here—but not nearly as cool as the room with the stone. Bear read over Sedric’s notes on Amily a second time, and then a third. Sedric had taken the originals with him, but he’d left them a copy. Lena then divided up the pages, and each of them made four copies of the pages they had. Bear had the ones at the end, describing the impressions Mags had gotten of Amily’s captor, and the more he read, the deeper his frown grew.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” he blurted.

“I know,” Mags sighed. “ ’Tis all like babblin’. I thin’ mebbe I was so tired by then I was seein’ things all cockeyed.”

“No, that’s not what I mean!” Bear exclaimed. “This doesn’t make any sense because it does make sense, to me at least!”

“Now you’re the one not making sense, Bear,” Lena chided.

“You mean you don’t see it?” He looked from face to face around the table; they all shook their heads. “Amily’s been drugged, like I was. And there’s a person with her all the time. And that person is a Healer! Look—here—” he pointed at a passage—“that’s something someone who is Gifted does with someone who is drugged to make sure they don’t burn through the drug too fast. But that doesn’t make any sense! Why would a Healer do this?”

“Because he’s a Karsite religious fanatic?” Gennie suggested. “Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves. The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it.” She leaned over the table and put one hand seriously on top of Bear’s. “Bear... not every Healer thinks the way we do. The way you do. If they did, there wouldn’t be any Karsite Healers.”

Mags was still trying to put the pieces together. Whoever was minding Amily was a Healer... “Would a Healer hurt some’un, or kill ’em, e’en iffen ’e was a Karsite religious fanatic?” he asked, slowly.

“I... I don’t think so,” Bear replied, after a very long moment. “He might stand by and let her be hurt or killed, but I don’t think he’d be able to do it himself. I mean, he could, but he would have to be seriously crazy, right insane. You know, sort of an antiHealer, as seriously insane as that crazy person who kidnapped me, and there’s nothing in these hints that looks that crazy to me.” He paused, thoughtfully. “Actually, someone that crazy would be the wrong person to leave in charge of someone you wanted to keep in good shape. They just plain wouldn’t be able to do that. They kind of feed on other peoples’ pain; sometimes they feed on their own, too. If you left someone like that alone with Amily, he’d definitely hurt her.”

Mags nodded. “Aight. Could it mebbe be some’un thet’s jest... greedy?”

Bear looked at him oddly. “I suppose it’s possible.” He scratched his head. “I... never actually met a greedy Healer; even my father isn’t greedy, just . . .”

“As bloody arrogant as Marchand,” Gennie said crisply.

Bear flushed. “Aye. That. But I know they have to exist. There’re plenty of rich people that want a Healer all to themselves, or want one who... who won’t take just anyone. And I know there’re Healers that will do that.” He blinked and regarded Mags curiously from behind his thick lenses. “You think someone could be greedy enough to—to take the money of kidnappers to keep their captive healthy?”

Mags shrugged. “I seen a lotta good people since I come t’Haven. But... there was plenty’a priests what came by th’ mine an took Cole Pieters love-gifts an’ looked t’other way at starvin’ kiddies. Iffen there’s priests what’ll do thet, why not Healers?”

“Last possibility . . .” Gennie said slowly. “Someone who got in over his head.”

“Eh?” It was Mags’ turn to stare curiously.

“Someone who... oh, I don’t know, was like Marchand, didn’t see any harm in blabbing everything he knew to someone who offered plenty of money—and, yes, by the way, under threat of Truth Spell, Marchand finally admitted that was what he’s been doing. I thought Master Bard Lita was going to die of a brainstorm right then and there.” Gennie smirked, then sobered. “But, what about someone who was taking bribes without thinking twice about it because he thought what was being asked seemed harmless enough. Then when the Karsites grabbed Amily, they needed a Healer, so they lured him to a meeting and grabbed him as well. Now he knows what’s going on, he knows he’s in over his head, and all he can do is try to keep Amily safe and pray we manage to figure out where they have her. Honestly? I think that’s the most likely.”