Mercedes Lackey - Exile's Honor

How was he learning these things? What demonic magic was putting them inside his brain? Or was this all a fever dream, and was he lying in the embers of the chicken-shed, dying of his burns, conjuring all of this up? He had saved the village with his witch-power, he had been condemned to burn by a Voice, he had been imprisoned and his prison set afire. But after that?

Madness, illusion, hallucination, delirium.

Surely.

But the voice in his head told him otherwise, and as the moments of his lucidity came more and more often, it began to tell him things he could verify for himself—little things, but none of which he could have hallucinated for himself. That, for instance, the reason why he was not able to open his eyes very often was because they had been bandaged shut—at first, the skin of his face hurt so much he hadn't actually felt the bandages. And the skin of his hands was in such agony that he tried not to move them to touch anything, much less his face, which he wouldn't have wanted to touch anyway, given how much it hurt. The voice warned him when he was to be fed, and what they were going to give him—all soup, of course, and juices, and very, very often. The voice warned him when his bandages were to be changed—long before one of those Healer-people even got within hearing distance. And the voice told him about a great many other things.

:There is a large crow outside your window, Chosen,: it would say. :It is about to sound an alert, so do not be startled and jump, or you will hurt.: And sure enough, a crow would burst out with a raucous shout, but since he'd been warned, he was able to keep still. Or— :The Healers have come with a new potion for you, to soothe your burns. They think this will hurt so much that they intend to give you an especially strong dose of pain-medicine.: And indeed, he would then hear footsteps, feel himself tilted up, and he would drink what was put to his lips quickly, because the last time they had come up with a new potion for his burns, the pain had been excruciating.

He had always been a great believer in empirical evidence, and here it was. Slowly, and with great reluctance, he began to sort through his confused memories. With even greater reluctance, he had to accept that what he thought was madness and delirium was nothing of the sort.

So during one of his moments of relative lucidity, he steeled himself, and confronted the voice.

Relative was the operative term—he felt that he should be angry, embittered, but there were drugs interfering with those emotions, keeping him oddly detached. Perhaps that was just as well. He needed to think clearly, unemotionally, and this was as close to doing so as he was likely to manage. He coughed, hoping to clear his throat, but the voice in his head forestalled his attempt to speak aloud.

:Don't, Chosen. You don't need to actually say anything. Just think it.:

Think it. Well, he talked to himself in his mind all the time; this shouldn't be any different.

:It isn't, except that when you get an answer, you needn't be concerned that madness runs in your bloodline. Not that it's likely that it was true madness that struck your father, all things considered. If it were my case to judge, I would have looked very carefully at his wife's family, and considered all the reasons they might have had for saying he was mad....:

He'd have winced, if he hadn't known how much wincing would hurt. How had this voice—

:Kantor, Alberich. My name is Kantor.:

Kantor, then. How had this being known about his past?

:You've been quite generous in sharing your memories.: A hint of dry irony. :Actually, you've been shoving them down my throat. I know that your mother was not married, that your father was a prominent man in your village and she anything but. I know that he was her only lover and that at some point when you were very young, he was sent away with your priests, supposedly mad.: Alberich would have been flushing, had his face not been so painful. He was embarrassed—but embarrassed because he had been essentially blurting out every detail of his past life to a stranger, like the sort of drunk who would sit down next to you and begin telling you everything you didn't want to know. The very idea made him a little sick. :Not that I mind, truly,: the voice continued earnestly. :It's only that Herald and Companion usually grow to know each other in a more leisurely manner — and as yet, you know very little of me.:

Another suppressed wince. He didn't really want to know anything about this—Companion—did he? No. He didn't. This was a place full of witches—

— of which you might be one —

—and demons, and Vkandis only knew what other sorts of horrible creatures—wasn't it? Surely it was—

:Nonsense. You may be many things, Alberich, but a coward isn't one of them. I've asked the Healers to halve your pain-medicines, so that we can have this little discussion without the drugs interfering. There are several truths that you will have to face today, and the first of them is that virtually everything you think you know about Valdemar is wrong.:

Actually, the unsteady realization of that had been trickling down into his mind for the past—however long it had been. It had probably started when he'd fallen into the arms of those white-clad riders just over the Border. If they'd been half as evil as the Priests painted them, he'd have been roasting in chains right now, with demons nibbling at his soul.

:Excellent. That's another thing that you aren't — stupid. Those weren't just any Heralds, by the way. One was the King's Own Herald Talamir, and the other was the Lord Marshal's Herald, Joyeaus. We stumbled onto the end of a rather sensitive diplomatic mission, it seems.: There was a hint of a chuckle, and Alberich got the distinct impression that they hadn't merely "stumbled" into those particular Heralds—that Kantor had aimed himself quite deliberately in their direction. :Well, no harm done.:

He gathered his wits, and thought a question. :I do not suppose that the rank of our rescuers has anything to do with the speed with which I was taken to further help?:

The impression of a knowing smile. :Not entirely. All Heralds are considered highly important. Even the newly Chosen.:

He let that settle into his mind. :Even Karsites?:

:Well, since we've never had a Karsite Herald before, there's no basis for comparison.: There was a definite undertone there. Alberich decided that he was getting rapidly better at reading around what Kantor was actually telling him to what Kantor would rather just—imply. The undertone was that not everyone would have been as... open to the possibility of an ally out of Karse... as Heralds Talamir and Joyeaus.

:Excellent again. I do believe we are rather well-matched, Chosen. I would not go so far as to say that other Heralds would have run you through on sight—but we have been fighting a rather nasty undeclared war with you for some time, and there are some hard feelings on our side of the Border as well as yours, even among Heralds.: A sense of pondering followed that statement. :In truth, especially among Heralds, since your lot enjoys killing us so very much. Now no Herald would ever slaughter someone who had been Chosen out-of-hand — but there are many, many of them who are not going to welcome you as a long-lost sibling.:

Just his good fortune that he'd never led troops against anything other than bandits, then. At least no one would be holding a personal grudge against him.