Mercedes Lackey - Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

Two volumes of Valdemar short stories have been published already, and you hold in your hands the third. It’s been a great trip so far, and even better for having all these wonderful folks along for the ride.

TRANSMUTATION

by Larry Dixon

Larry Dixon is the husband of Mercedes Lacky, and a successful artist as well as science fiction writer. He and Mercedes live in Oklahoma.

Prologue

VALDEMAR weathered the Mage-Storms, and all the nations and peoples of Velgarth worked to stabilize in the aftermath. In the north of Valdemar, Darien and his compatriots returned from their quest to find Darien’s parents. Errold’s Grove, Kelmskeep, and the newest Hawk-brother Vale, k’Valdemar, forged ahead alongside the western refugees while in the east, ancient Iftel opened its borders for the first time, and to the south Hardorn and Karse were no longer the threats they once were.

The trouble now, though, was from within. A trade baron named Farragur Elm and a coalition of major tradesmen, distributors, and warehousers seized all resources in the vicinity of Deedun and created a putative secessionist movement, using the entire—stolen—livelihoods of the region’s workers as leverage. The strong arm of the plan was a mercenary force, once under Haven’s pay, hired over to Elm’s side. The Crown sent Heralds, Guard Regulars, and Cavalry to test the situation. In the first engagement with the mercenaries, Cavalry officer Hallock Stavern was mortally wounded, and dragged back to camp—whereupon he was put in medical isolation as an untreatable casualty. He heard a commotion outside, and discovered that a gryphon, sent from Kelmskeep in the north to scout the situation, dove in and smashed a mercenary attack against Valdemaran troops—but was himself gravely hurt. The gryphon, given only the crude medical treatment available and expected to expire soon, was housed with Stavern. They shared each others’ company with stories of their homes and loves. Hallock told the gryphon, Kelvren, about his wife Genni. Charmed by the tales of Genni’s love for the man, Kelvren is soothed, but then Hallock critically weakens—and would have died, if not for Kelvren’s desperate Healing spellwork to save him.

It came at a great cost, though, because aside from his terrible wounds going septic, Kelvren was sliding into an agonizing death as a result of using literally all of his magic capacity to heal Hallock—and it was not coming back. . . .

Darkwind k’Treva handed over a strip of paper. “Here’s trouble.”

Elspeth turned away from the Lord Marshal and read the paper’s battlefield shorthand aloud. “Gryphon, male. Defended First Company Sixteenth. Wounded. Recovered from field. Initial aid bad. Disposition: Gryphon near death, from attempt to heal Guard officer by spellwork. Healers unable to aid further.” She frowned as she put that dispatch aside from the rest, and tapped her command baton thoughtfully on her chin. “We’d better tell Treyvan and Hydona.”

“Mmm. You know how they are. Protective,” Darkwind observed. He leaned forward against the most massive of the many strategic planning tables in the Haven palace. It held charts far more detailed than the great map inlaid on the wall in the main court room. “They’ll be concerned. You remember those parental instincts of theirs from when we first met. With Jerven and Lytha getting older, they treat every other gryphon as clueless little fledglings to be herded about and taught not to fall into wells.” He murmured to a page, who nodded and left immediately.

Less than half a candlemark passed before there were results.

“Unbarrr the way,” a deep voice boomed from behind the double doors as palace guards hastily tried to open them. An imposing male gryphon shouldered into the room, causing the guards to stumble back as the heavy doors swung against them. Truth be told, he liked the feeling of people trying to get out of his way. And no wonder people did, considering both of the resident gryphons’ reputations and relative power—and sheer presence. Treyvan had a wicked beak and formidable talons that were, at the moment, sheathed in wood-and-leather coverings to protect the Palace’s floors. He was golden brown, with shadings of pure metallic gold and darker sable, with golden eyes the size of fists. Completely aside from being a predator the size of a horse, Hydona alone could wither a tree just by staring at it, or should the mood strike her, restore it to life. Treyvan was smaller, just as powerful magically, but faster, stronger, and more direct in action. Together, they put forth a presence in Haven felt in more ways than just the body heat they radiated. Treyvan’s crested head flicked side to side, then homed in on the main table and its dozen or so planners and pages. “Who isss it?” he demanded, with no preamble.

Elspeth retrieved the dispatch slip and looked it over for any new clues she might have missed in the dozens of lines of code. She finally shrugged, holding the paper up. “It doesn’t say. Dispatches can be annoyingly vague, I’m sorry. It’s just how they are,” she offerred.

“And concsserrrned about all grrryphonsss isss how I am. No morrre than that?” Any excuses about field vagueness clearly did not placate the beast that stalked toward the largest planning table. Respected friend of the Crown’s or not, Treyvan had long ago established that he wasn’t someone to obstruct, for any reason. Lesser commanders, analysts and staff alike, parted to make room. Elspeth handed over the dispatch, and Treyvan accepted it delicately with the tips of his talons.

“It might be from one of the Vales due west of there, but that would be more than a hundred miles. It wouldn’t have any good reason to be in this region, would it? Maybe it got lost,” a lieutenant suggested, but that only gained him a loud click of Treyvan’s beak, snapping a warning. “He,” Treyvan said sternly. “The grrryphon isss a ‘he,’ not an ‘it,’ sssoldierrr. Flesssh, bone, blood, beak,” and he clacked his own for emphasis, making a sound like branches snapping, “talonsss,” and he flicked up thumb and forefingers of his right “hand,” causing subtle magical sparks to split off, “and mind asss sssharrrp asss any herrre.” A nearby sergeant visibly winced, and tapped the lieutenant’s shoulder. They made themselves scarce, each giving a weak salute to Elspeth before fleeing.

Darkwind snorted a barely suppressed laugh. “Another stellar triumph for interspecies diplomacy, Treyvan. Good work.”

The gryphon Adept ground his beak and clicked it softly. “He ssstrrruck sssomething that annoyed me. I cannot abide usss being thought of asss lesss than yourrr equalsss. Hissstorrry ssshowsss that—” he growled.

Darkwind interrupted, “Maybe he thought of you all as something more than equals. You don’t call an Avatar or sacred vision ‘he’ or ‘she.’ Unless you’re very good friends. I’m sure he was just overwhelmed by the dazzling thought of—”

Elspeth rolled her eyes and sighed, giving a wave of reassurance to the staff as they backed off. The Lord Marshal raised a brow, then drifted to another table, shaking his head. A few adjuncts stayed. Elspeth snapped her fingers. “You two. Featherheads. Come visit my world,” she said, and loudly tapped her baton on the map.

Treyvan loomed beside Darkwind and studied the map, twitching his massive wings a few times. “K’Valdemar Vale,” Darkwind surmised, and tapped a fingertip on the map symbol. “He might be from there. Firesong’s new roost. They’re near Kelmskeep, they’ve got a wing of gryphons, and they’re threatened by the land grab. Assuming Kelmskeep and k’Valdemar are on good terms, they may have gotten gryphons to fly scout. Bondbirds can only do so much. Range and stamina would all be improved by a healthy gryphon.”