Mercedes Lackey - Storm Warning

Kerowyn's lips thinned, and she nodded once. "That makes the best sense of all. Good work, Karal. I'm going to take these to Elspeth and Darkwind, and maybe they can take them apart. You are being moved to another room, as quickly as I can get my people in here to move your things."

He saw immediately why she had said that. "There's an Imperial agent in the Palace, isn't there," he stated flatly. "Someone who had access to all the rooms, and the ability to hide those things in the plaster."

"And I bloody well don't know who it is," she agreed. "So I want you and the rest of the foreigners out of here and into the Herald's Wing. Or better yet, I'll move you in with An'desha and Firesong, if they'll take you. Firesong got at least five of those things all by himself."

He looked up at her as she stood, and he felt his lower lip starting to quiver, his eyes starting to burn. "What about—" he began.

"Ulrich's in the best of hands, Karal," Talia said gently. "It's too soon to tell—but he is an old man, and we both know that he's been overworking, putting himself under a lot of strain."

He nodded and looked quickly down at his hands, before Kerowyn could see the tears starting to form in his eyes again.

Kerowyn left, but Talia stayed, so that when he began to sob again, this time quietly, she was there to hold him.

Talia stayed with him for the rest of the day—later in the afternoon Kerowyn returned with her hand-picked crew of tough-looking mercenaries from her own Company, packed up everything in the suite, and carried it out—off to Firesong and An'desha's ekele, she said. Karal stifled his tears when they came in; he just didn't want to cry in front of these hardened soldiers. They'd think he was being childish; surely they'd look on him with contempt.

But one of the toughest-looking turned in the middle of the packing when Karal saw them carrying out some things of Ulrich's and choked back a sob. The man put down the robes he had draped over his arm and dropped down onto his heels in front of Karal's chair.

"Don' be 'shamed t'be a-grievin', boy," the man said, patting his hand awkwardly, his speech slow and so thickly accented that Karal barely understood him. "This kind'o thing don' get any nor easier e'en for the likes o' we. Gie yer tears t' a man who deserves 'em, an' take ye no shame i' the weepin', aye? Sure, an' we won' think th' less o'ye."

He stood up, as soon as Karal nodded numbly, and picked up his burden again. Karal just let the tears flow, then, and ignored all the comings and goings until the sun set, and the now-empty room filled with darkness.

"Do you want to go to the Healers' Collegium to wait, Karal?" Talia asked gently. "Or would you rather wait here?"

There was nothing for him here; the rooms held not even the scent of incense from Ulrich's robes—not that he could smell much after all the raw-nosed sniffling. "I'd like to go to Healers', I think," he said thickly. "If I won't be in the way."

"Of course you won't be," Talia replied warmly. She offered him her hand. "Come on, I'll take you there."

Somewhere he lost track of the walk, or else it was all swallowed up in misery. The next thing he knew, he was sitting down again, in another room, this one full of well-worn, ancient benches. The whole place had a sad air of waiting about it, interminable waiting. Talia was walking toward him as he looked up, suddenly aware of his surroundings again; she must have left him here without his noticing.

"There's no change, Karal," she said, and bit her lip. "I won't lie to you; you'd know it if I did. That's not a good sign. He hasn't even regained consciousness."

He nodded; she rested her hand on his shoulder.

"I'll stay with you if you want me to," she offered, and he knew that she meant it.

Just as he knew that she had much more important things to deal with than one boy's pain. Thanks to Florian, he knew what she was now, and how important she was. He knew that eventually he would be touched and grateful that she had given him so much of her time today, but right now, there was room for nothing but grief.

"You have to go," he told her. "I—I understand. I'll manage."

She searched his eyes for a moment. "You do understand, don't you?" she asked, wonder coloring her voice. "Thank you for that, Karal. If you can't bear it, send for me."

He nodded, and she walked off quickly, but with a slight limp. He watched her go, then turned his thoughts inward.

He prayed, even though he wasn't quite certain what to pray for. It would be no kindness to Ulrich to force him to live, if living meant he was trapped in a helpless body that held nothing but pain. Those blades were long—long enough to have pierced through the chest and damaged the spine. Perhaps that was why Ulrich had not awakened....

He tried to remember what Ulrich had taught him—that Vkandis was neither some cosmic accountant, who weighed and measured a man before deciding if he lived or died, nor was He a grand torturer, inflicting punishment after punishment upon the living to find their breaking points. We have free will, all of us, and Vkandis interferes very little in our life in this world, Ulrich had said. He does not play with us as a child plays with toy soldiers or dolls, nor does He test us to see what we are made of. He allows us to live our lives and make our own choices, and only after we cross to join Him does He judge us on the basis of what we have and have not done with the life and free will we were granted at birth—and how well we have kept our word in promises made to Him. What we choose to do intersects with what everyone else in our lives chooses to do, sometimes those choices mean joy, sometimes sorrow, often a little of both. That may be why good things sometimes happen to evil people. Most assuredly, with no cause by the Sunlord's hand, bad things sometimes do happen to good people.

So it was by free will that whoever it was had laid those deadly traps, and Ulrich and he had been the ones to encounter them. It was by sheer circumstance that there had been four of the things, one too many for Altra to deal with. In fact, had Altra not been there—by the Sunlord's own will— he would be dead right now.

But I wish it had been me and not him! he cried to Vkandis. Oh, Sunlord, I wish it had been me!

The marks crawled by, tedious and slow as an ancient tortoise, plodding painfully toward midnight, and then toward dawn. People came by at intervals, presumably to see if he was all right, but they did not disturb him, and he did not speak to them.

Finally, though, someone did stop, and touch his shoulder.

He looked up, and the sympathy in the Healer's face told him everything he needed to know.

He could not show his sorrow before all the strange faces, sympathetic though they might be, and he could not burden Talia further by asking someone to disturb her rest and bring her to him. Instead, he refused all offers of consolation and stumbled blindly away from the building, shaking with sobs he could not give voice to, throat so choked with grief he could not even swallow.

It was not yet dawn; frost-covered grass crunched underfoot as he wandered out into the waning hours of the night. He had to go somewhere... life would go on, and now he was the sole representative of Karse here. Where had Kerowyn said she was moving his things?

The ekele. An'desha and Firesong —

That was bearable. Better them, than to try to make a place among strangers, Heralds whose names he didn't even know.

Now that he had a destination, he set off through the darkness. Once he was out of sight of the Healers and their unwanted, professional sympathy, he allowed the tears to come again. Blinded as much by his weeping as by the dark, he felt his way along the path to the gate in Companion's Field; got it open, and slipped inside—