Disclaimer: Not mine at all, except for the bits which are (they're easily to spot, they're odd shapes and slightly sticky).

Notes: I seem to jump straight from piling things on up to resolving them? I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. Also, Jaelle asked me nicely (and, seriously? I need prompting to remember things like you would not believe).

Chapter Fourteen

Illumination of several sorts – Philosophy of a kind – Cookery, except not – Storm warning

It was past midnight by the time Giff heard sounds of movement from inside Michael's room. The Companion jerked himself out of the half dose he'd been in, pricked his ears and stepped towards the ajar window. The sounds inside—low mutters, and the scrabbling-scratch sounds of someone who was not at all used to candles and lamps as a form of illumination—could only be from his Chosen, but Giff still hesitated a moment before announcing his presence.

It wasn't exactly like he had good associations with this window.

A faint yellow glow flickered and caught within the room; obviously Michael had won his fight with at least one candle.

:Michael?: Giff poked his head around the window frame and found that the young man in question was half sitting, half sprawling on his bed, looking as if he'd been through several wringers of differing sizes. :Michael, are you well?:

Michael grunted and waved one hand half-heartedly in the air. "No talking, more sleeping," he mumbled.

Giff sighed. :In that case, don't you think you'd manage to do that better by undressing and actually getting into your bed?:

Another grunt, but at least this time Michael opened his eyes and squinted in Giff's direction. "What?"

:Your bed. I heard that it's easier to sleep if you're actually in it.:

"I guess." As Michael made a half-hearted attempt to sit up and slide off the bed, Giff side-stepped so that he was able to stick his head fully into the room.

:How did the Council meeting go?:

Michael paused in the act of trying to undo his shirt. "I thought you'd be eavesdropping with all the other talking animals—hey! Shut your eyes! I'm not about to put on a show here."

:Michael, I'm a Companion—your Companion.: Giff caught sight of the expression that Michael was wearing and, over his shoulder, a dim reflection of himself in the small silvered glass hanging on the wall. His nose was still a distressing shade of purple. :Okay, okay,: Giff amended hastily, :I'm shutting my eyes right now.:

"So," Michael continued after a moment, "why weren't you eavesdropping?"

Giff twitched his ears, feeling somewhat silly for carrying on a conversation with his eyes shut. :It was a closed session. You did notice how only the Privy Council, Alliance Envoys and the Collegium heads were there? Besides it not being polite to try and listen in on a closed session like that, the Mages always put up some serious shields, so it's fairly impossible.:

"Oh." Muffled, as if Michael had fabric covering his face. "Well, all I know is that a whole load of really grumpy people kept on asking me the same impossible questions over and over again. I mean; I know enough to changes fuses and rewire a plug, but I totally drifted through physics as much as I could get away with in school. It's not like I'm an engineer or electrician."

Possibly, Giff imagined, that would make sense at some point.

"At any rate; they got bored after a while, and then the Tayledras woman, Shadowflame? She got into it with someone and Rhiska suggested I sneak out."

:Imagine; Shadowflame having an argument with someone.:

Michael startled Giff by snorting something that sounded remarkably like laughter. Giff almost opened his eyes to check that it was laughter, and not his Chosen having a brainstorm or anything, but decided at the last moment that he rather liked not having blazing argument or having things thrown at his head.

"Has she always been that…"

:Belligerent? Confrontational?: Giff supplied. :Certainly in the whole time she's been in Valdemar, yes. There are rumours around the Field that when she was back in the Vales, before she had the accident that gave her the limp, she was much more easy-going. But, well; that's supposedly what someone overheard Hirrn say and she's not exactly all honey coating and sunshine.:

Another smothered snort of probably-laughter. "They both give the impression of wanting to bite you in two, don't they? You can open your eyes now."

Giff blinked against the sudden brightness of the candle. :Something like that,: he agreed.

"I don't know what they're going to do. I don't suppose that you—?"

:That's why I was asking you.: Giff suppressed the urge to flinch. There wasn't anything particularly contentious about his tone, but Michael seemed to take exception to, well, pretty much everything.

All Michael did, however, was sigh, so Giff relaxed.

"I don't know how they expect me to help," he said despondently. "I mean; there's people here who can blow stuff up with their minds. How much more use am I going to be?"

Unbidden from Michael's mind, Giff received an image of one of the outdoor Gift classes that he'd seen a few days ago. A youngster with unruly black hair was demonstrating her Firestarting Gift by detonating acorns in a methodical line.

The window frame was very useful for reaching the itchy spot just behind Giff's ear, and he availed himself of it as he tried to think of a response to Michael's question.

:I—Companions can't Choose wrongly, you know.:

"So everybody and all the books I've been given keep on trying to convince me." Michael cracked open his eyes enough to give Giff an opaque look.

:It's the truth,: Giff felt the need to say.

Michael rolled over and gave him a more comprehensive version of the opaque look.

:Michael, I believe that everything happens for a reason, and I believe that Valdemar has a reason for needing you.: Giff tried to put the sincere belief that he had in that behind the words. From Michael's expression of scepticism, the Companion was only partly successful.

"You know, the other theme in the books I've been reading is that your country's big damn heroes end up with big damn deaths." Michael flung one arm over his eyes and yawned. "I'm not being set up, if that's what you lot are thinking."

Giff flattened his ears at the tone in Michael's voice, which wobbled right on the edge of the place where things usually got thrown at Giff's head.

:I won't let anything happen to you.:

"Yeah, right."

:I'm serious, Michael. You are my Chosen, I will not let anything happen to you unless I'm there, standing next to you.:

Another, jaw cracking yawn. "You know, that's not as reassuring as you think it is."

Giff sighed. :One thing I don't have certainty about is the future; no one does. I—just—I'm always going to be with you, please believe that.:

Michael mumbled something that could have been agreement, but was lost amidst a yawn that was so significant Giff felt his own jaw ache in sympathy.

:You should get some sleep, Chosen.: Something remarkably similar to a faint snore answered the Companion's observation. Sighing, Giff extracted himself from the window and glanced thoughtfully in the direction of Companion's Field. As much as he didn't want to, perhaps it was time to beard the Grove Born in his Grove.

*****

The Mistress had flown fully through the breadth of her anger and was now residing firmly on the glacial plains of utter fury thanks to whatever information that she had extracted from her surviving Darlings. Even Dupe, half-witted and spell-bound as she was had scraped up enough common sense to go and herself lost amongst the scrub bushes and hills surrounding the Mistress's keep once she had found the Darlings and sent them to the Mistress.

Consequentially, she had missed the vast majority of the extended bout of destruction that had accompanied the Mistress's flight through bad temper. What Dupe hadn't missed, some three candlemarks later, was the way that the geas-charm tattooed onto her left wrist had flared with orange-green light and acid-burned at her skin like the day the Mistress had put it there.

Dupe had crouched low to the rocky ground, ignoring the way the sharp edges of gravel dug into her shins and forearms in favour of cowering as much under a dead thorn bush as she could.

The charm burning that way signalled the use of only one spell; that the Mistress had used it could only mean that she was intent on nothing less than a battle—one which she was determined to win.

Dupe pressed further under the bush as growing sounds of stones slithering and falling against each other, crunching with footsteps, began to echo around the hills. The first to pass her was a thin, elderly fox, its gait stiff and its face twisted in a mindless rictus. Trailing a short distance behind the fox, like recalcitrant children instead of a potential meal, were two rock-hares and at least half a dozen mice. After them, there was a dirt encrusted man, his mule (its pack still bearing the simple mining equipment of its master) shambling after it. A crow, moth-eaten and silent, blundered drunkenly through the air above.

All of them were heading the direction of the Keep.

Dupe wrapped thorn-scratched arms around herself and keened quietly with near-mindless fear. The Mistress was in a mood for making, and she'd Summoned the fodder to make that possible.

*****

For the first time, Michael found himself waking up without any more than his usual amount of post-sleep disorientation. He wasn't sure whether this was a good thing or not. On the one hand; no more braining himself on the bedside table as he flailed his way out from between alien sheets, on the other hand; getting used to living in a medieval fantasy land where pretty much every man and his dog (especially his dog) could talk inside his head.

Frowning as the chill nature of the room announced that the window had been open all night, Michael burrowed further under the bed covers and actually put some thought into figuring out just how long he'd been party to the freak show.

At least two weeks, maybe three. He seemed to spend at least one day out of four rendered unconscious by one thing or another. The one creature who would know—and would probably tell him straight, was probably Giff. Michael tentatively reached for the place in his mind that wasn't him and tried to make it feel questioning. While he couldn't actually speak to the Companion (and wasn't that unfair? No freaky telepathy powers like every other damn thing he'd come across), Giff had assured him that he had enough receptive Mindspeech to attract his attention if he thought about it.

Except…not this morning.

Usually, trying to prod that little patch in his mind made Michael think of something the consistency of a jelly-filled sponge, and was shortly followed by a large white talking horse putting in a nervous appearance. Today the patch was slick; slippery and hard like glass, and even thinking hello? at it until Michael could feel a headache starting behind his eyes produced absolutely nothing in the way of a Companion.

Michael eased himself out of bed slowly, hissing as one foot missed the brightly coloured rag-rug on the floor and came into contact with the cold flag stones. That was distinctly odd and, if Michael admitted it to himself, worrying as well.

As he wrestled with the arcane lacing of one of the grey tunics that the Housekeeper of the Heraldic Collegium had provided him with, Michael also admitted to himself that a large part of his worry was centred on Giff. Infuriating and cavalier certainty about what was right aside, Michael was fond of the Companion.

His Companion.

The slight headache spiked suddenly and Michael rubbed at his forehead with a grimace. Fine; it looked as if he was going to have to find some information out on his own and the best place that he could think of to do that was from either Hirrn or Rhiska. It shouldn't be that hard to find the kyree or the ratha. After all, he was still living in the House of Healing, and the Mage's Collegium was only a little way along the bank of the river. Not too big a job, even for a clueless foreigner with a headache and a gimpy ankle.

Shuffling down the corridor and out into one of the mathematically precise herb gardens that spread out from the end of the building his room was in, Michael squinted and rubbed at his head again. There was a strange heaviness in the air, one that weighed him down and gnawed on the pain in his head.

There must be a storm on the way.