A Companion's Worth

by Aesop

A new Herald is chosen and learns that Companions are wondrous creatures with remarkable abilities, and that they always do what they believe is right. They are, however, mortal and fallible. Good intentions can go awry far too easily, and actions taken for the greater good aren't necessarily good themselves.

2. A Student's Worth

See chapter 1 for disclaimers.

Chapter 2: A Student's Worth

The trip to Haven, after Arctus had gotten him a good meal at the outpost, was uneventful but incredibly informative. He learned some of the history of the Heralds, and about their function in Valdemar. The fact that Arctus could speak directly to his mind, mindspeech the Companion called it, was quite a shock, but the gift itself was a familiar one. His grandfather, his uncle, and one of his brothers had had it.

Arctus was quite pleased that Jebel had this particular gift. Apparently, the Companion was quite a chatterbox. He sympathized over Jebel's situation and assured him that the Heralds could help locate his family if any had arrived in Valdemar. What might have become of them, he wasn't prepared to guess, but he assured Jebel, there were ways of finding out.

Haven was far more impressive than Hardorn's capital, not that he'd seen the palace or any of the fancier parts of Crown City. While Haven probably did have slums, somewhere, Jebel didn't see them. Every part of the city and the Collegium, as it was called, were clean, well-maintained, and very impressive. The lower parts of the city were busier, to be sure, but all of the buildings he saw were in good repair and the people seemed healthy and happy.

They traveled a winding route through the city and into the Collegium proper. People nodded respectfully to Arctus and some even called him by name. Most paid Jebel little heed or eyed him speculatively. It was still a better reception than he'd received some places, so Jebel smiled and nodded to people and otherwise tried to be inoffensive. Normally, he would have tried being inconspicuous as well, but that, he realized, was impossible while riding a Companion.

He was greeted on arrival by an older man in white leathers. It was, Jebel thought, a rather bizarre uniform. Clearly, these Heralds had no interest in stealth. He heard Arctus chuckle softly at that thought.

:You aren't the first to make that observation.: Jebel jumped slightly at the mental contact.

"Are you going to be in my head from now on?" He looked at the horse, a bit irritably. He wasn't particularly comfortable with the idea.

:Sorry. You'll learn to shield your thoughts as part of your training, here. Until then, I'll stay clear unless you call on me.:

"Thanks." He turned to the man, who was watching them curiously. "Um, sorry. This is all…" He trailed off with a shrug, lacking a word or phrase to sum up how overwhelmed he was feeling.

"It takes some getting used to," the man smiled, making a guess at what had passed between them based on Jebel's expression, "but I'm sure you'll manage. The Companions always choose well."

"I'll have to take your word for it," Jebel offered. "Can't tell by me."

"My name is Elcarth. I'm the Dean of the Collegium. Greeting new arrivals isn't usually part of my duties, but Arctus has been searching for quite a while. When word reached me of his return, I just had to see for myself."

Jebel dismounted and Arctus went his way, assuring him that he was in good hands. They talked about the Collegium as Elcarth showed him around and asked him about his background. The man's open curiosity over Jebel's travels and various adventures and his description of his job at the Collegium, put Jebel in mind of his journal in which he had written what he knew of his family history, speculative and known, and made entries about his own experiences. At least, he did when he had access to writing implements. His father had been dubious about the journal. Keeping one seemed not only a needless expense, but a potential weakness. Jebel had felt it necessary, though, and had argued successfully for the materials to keep one. Such materials were often hard to come by, so he found tricks to save paper and ink, but always managed as much detail as he could.

He did take his father's advice, though, and kept it a secret. It hadn't always been possible to make entries, but it was a priority for him, right behind family, food, and shelter. Perhaps, he mused, someday, he'd be able to add to the Heralds' chronicles.

"That has some appeal." He murmured out loud.

"Really?" Elcarth perked up. "Not many Heralds are interested in history, sadly. Perhaps you'll hold my old post of chronicler someday," the man half-joked. "It isn't easy to find a dedicated chronicler."

"Worth thinking about," Jebel admitted. "I've always been interested in history, mostly I focused on family history. So much gets lost and has to be rediscovered simply because no one took the time to pass on what they'd learned." The notion did have some appeal, history being an interest of his. He asked a few questions about Heralds and their Companions, concerning their duties and responsibilities, but admitted that he didn't yet know enough to have any good questions.

"That'll come in time," Elcarth assured him. "If your instructors can't answer them, I'll be around." The two talked for a while longer and then Elcarth turned him over to one of his future instructors and one of the Collegium's servants, a young man named Tobin, who would show him his quarters and help him to settle in.

OOOOOOOOOO

Life at the Collegium was unlike anything Jebel had experienced before. He'd learned the basics alongside his siblings; reading, writing, and numbers. How to ride and how to fight using a couple of different weapons was both a family tradition and very necessary, given the way they had lived, but this was new.

He had never experienced anything like a formal academic setting. Much of his day sitting in various rooms with other students, most of them younger than him, listening to lectures on everything from mathematics to history. He had no responsibility save to learn what he was being taught, and he soaked up the knowledge greedily. Jebel quickly decided that he really liked the Collegium.

He had also never had such fine accommodations in his life. The room Tobin had taken him to was spacious, and the furniture solid, well-made, and functional. It was some of the finest he had ever seen, frankly, having lived much of his life traveling from place to place. Luxury was not something he often encountered, and when he had, it generally hadn't impressed him.

A baron in Seejay, that his father had once entered the service of, had many things in his home that he was proud of. They were all finely made, delicate works of 'art.' To Jebel, they looked absurdly delicate and lacking in functionality. What was the point of a tiny table on spindly legs that served only to support a weirdly shaped piece of glass? What was the point of an equally elaborate and delicate bowl that wasn't used to hold anything? It baffled him, but he had kept silent, especially as the noble in question had had no time or patience for commoners that weren't being useful to him in some fashion.

His quarters at the Collegium had a small window that provided a breeze in the summer and could be solidly shuttered during the winter, were luxurious by his standards. The things he found there and elsewhere in the Collegium were all finely made, but still solid and functional, which, to his eyes, made them admirable. The bed, desk, chair, and lockable cabinet for his belongings might seem minimalistic to some, but he felt as if he was being treated like a lord, himself.

The baths were another revelation. He had been taught the importance of keeping clean, but the Heralds seemed to take it to an extreme. They bathed daily, and scrubbed themselves thoroughly. Their uniforms, the white leathers, got similar care. It was not the sort of thing that he'd ever had the time or resources for in the past.

The fact that there were servants to assist with such things as cleaning the uniforms, the quarters, and the baths was all that made it possible, but that was just part of the Heralds' daily lives when they were at the Collegium. Having been a servant himself for some fairly unpleasant people, he made a point of learning their names and thanking them for their work. He also did what he could to make it easier when he could do so by putting forth a little effort of his own. He also made sure to get to know them. This startled some of them, as many Heralds didn't bother, but they soon got used to it, and began to trust and talk openly with him.

Not all learning was done in the classroom, of course. Heralds were warriors when the need arose. That meant there was also physical training, which included lessons in riding, fighting with and without weapons, and generally thinking on one's feet.

The weapons master was a stone-faced man named Alberich. He was originally from Karse, apparently, but no one at the Collegium seemed to hold that against him. Alberich had, on the first day, looked at Jebel in his training tunic and much-abused mail shirt, with his old but well-cared for kopis, and sighed in exasperation. Sounding rather put upon at having his time wasted, he began putting Jebel through a series of drills and exercises that left the young man bruised and exhausted.

Alberich had despaired openly at times of ever making something worthwhile of his newest student, and had seemed to delight at working him into the ground. Over time, though, the number of biting comments tapered off. The weapons master rarely praised anyone, but Jebel did see the man smile on occasion, when he thought no one was watching, such as the time Jebel had managed to counter one of his attacks and actually disarmed him. He hadn't won that match, though. Alberich had laid him out with a right cross when Jebel had begun to celebrate his victory a bit too soon.

OOOOOOOOOO

Over a year passed in this manner, during which no information about his family had been found. Meticulous records were kept regarding new immigrants to Valdemar and he perused them regularly without success. While this frustrated him a bit, he did not give up hope. It had taken him quite some time to work up the courage to trust the people around him with information about his family, but he knew there was really no choice if he was to find any trace of them. He simply couldn't do it alone. And, although it shamed him a bit to admit it, he was often too busy to think about them.

The classes were as challenging in their way as Alberich's lessons, but he welcomed that challenge. Learning for learning's sake was a new concept for him, and he loved it. Jebel learned the history of Valdemar and the Heralds. There was some blurring of myth and fact, as best he could tell, but that was normal, at least in his experience, the family history being vague and even contradictory at points. The Heralds tried, mostly, to distinguish between what was known and what was suspected and what was believed, but he noted that certain things were taken as fact without question. Certain things about the origins of the kingdom and about the Heralds' great heroes, for instance, were simply accepted, but he supposed that was to be expected.

He also learned about the various gifts Heralds possessed and indeed, were chosen for. The array of abilities that were there to be used and abused were astonishing and a bit worrying. What he learned of them encouraged him to hasten his efforts to learn to shield his mind, and he quickly got to the point where his shields were the strongest among all of the trainees. Aside from Mindspeech, which he found somewhat intrusive, he learned that he could also use FarSight and somewhat unreliably, TouchReading.

The first was useful, once he learned how to focus correctly. He could see distant objects that were in his line of sight quite easily, reading a page of text from half a league away was something he managed after a bit of practice, and his teachers admitted was, potentially, quite useful. It took more effort to see things that were not in his line of sight, and he had to have had some personal experience with the object or person he was focused on. It grew harder the farther away the target was.

He had given himself a headache that nearly left him unconscious trying to find his family when he had first learned to focus that gift properly. Reaction headaches, his instructors told him, were normal, and one of the downsides to the gifts. He might have better luck if he tried while out riding his circuit.

His other gift, TouchReading, he could not get to work consistently. Jebel would sometimes try for over an hour without result, only to be surprised later that day when he touched a random object and learned something he really didn't want to know. He had once sat down on a bench in one of the courtyards, merely wanting to rest after a session with Alberich, and had learned which pair of Heralds liked to have private relations in very public places.

He shuddered a bit over the memory when relating it to his Companion later, much to Arctus' amusement.

Being horses, or at least horse-shaped, the Companions had no sense of shame or modesty in such matters. Jebel supposed that was understandable. He was still not entirely sure what the Companions were, and the pseudo-horses themselves were resolutely mum on the subject. It didn't bother him overmuch. Everyone had secrets, and the one thing that the histories he had been assigned to read were clear on, was that while the Companions and their chosen Heralds might not always agree, the Companions always acted in the best interests of the kingdom.

Everything he had learned about Valdemar over the course of his training, so far, he liked. The fact that the country's monarch, by law, had to be a Herald, ensured that the ruler had a Companion's stamp of approval. And the Companions, he learned, were very picky. The only thing that concerned him was the origin and nature of the Companions themselves.

They were, he admitted, fine creatures with the country's best interests in mind, but what were they? It didn't seem to matter to most people. Largely because of the Heralds and their Companions, Valdemar, as a nation, had held together for over a thousand years. They must, Jebel allowed, be doing something right.

The bond between Companion and chosen was also a subject that interested him. He asked his instructors and his Companion. The former, despite being Heralds, could not really explain the nature of the bond, and Arctus admitted that he had never actually given it much thought, as it came as naturally as breathing to a Companion. This only made Jebel more curious, and he began considering the nature and limits of the bond.

Each chosen had some gift for mind magic. Each chosen also, apparently, had a strong code of ethics, even if they didn't think of it in those terms. Jebel wondered at this. He knew that ethics and morals and such could crumble under pressure. He'd seen it happen, though he shied away from certain memories.

His instructors acknowledged this, and spoke, reluctantly, Jebel thought, of a time when a certain Herald had lost his way, and given in to an impulse for revenge. It was possible for a Companion, it seemed, to break the bond between Companion and chosen. Repudiation, the texts called it, and the effect on each was terrible. That was why, Jebel supposed, the instructors barely touched on the subject. He decided to let it lie, for the time being, in favor of studying other things.

The histories the students were given indicated that King Valdemar, after whom the country was named, had gone into the grove at the center of what later became Companions' Field, and prayed for three days. What did he pray to? For that matter, what did he pray for? Apparently, no one knew. The first Companions had emerged from the grove, and once in a while, a new Companion would emerge, rather than being born in the normal way, as most were in modern times.

Jebel's family had never been religious. To his knowledge, they had never worshipped any of the gods that presided over the world, and he had never really thought to wonder about it when he was young. He did recall that his mother had always worn an odd pendant, the way some people wore symbols of their faith, but he'd never seen her pray. He'd asked once, and she had simply looked conflicted, and said that she would tell him when he was older. She'd never gotten the chance.

What he did know was that his grandfather and father had distrusted priests and avoided temples whenever possible. Whether this had something to do with the family's nebulous history, was superstition, or a simple personal bias against religion in general, Jebel had no idea. Personally, he tried to keep an open mind. He did not always succeed. From what little personal experience he had of priests and the gods they served, he concluded that the whole lot of them was better avoided.

Arctus had no real opinions on the matter of religion, save that he had an intense dislike of Karse' Sunpriests. He wouldn't go into detail as to why. Although Companion' secrets occasionally worried Jebel, the reasons, in this case, didn't matter at all to him. It was sentiment he shared.

OOOOOOOOOO

The better he got to know Arctus, the less the secrets the Companions kept mattered. Arctus proved himself friendly and open, about most things. Jebel wasn't inclined to pry into the things his Companion chose to stay mum about. Arctus returned the favor, and on that basis, they got along fine.

Some of the most interesting things about the Heralds, however, he didn't learn in the classroom. Students, he discovered, loved to gossip. So did servants. So did instructors. By keeping his ears open and his mouth shut, he picked up quite a bit of interesting information. Knowing who was who at the Collegium was important, and knowing a few salient facts about various important people helped him keep from embarrassing himself or them.

So, he learned who was who and a few basic facts about them. Queen Selenay had come to the throne after her father had been killed in battle. Her late consort/lust interest, Elspeth's father, was a noble from another country that had tried to assassinate her to take the throne, despite the fact that he wasn't a Herald. It seemed Jebel wasn't the only one who had made poor choices when it came to trusting people. He felt a little guilty as the thought passed through his mind, but the knowledge e that nobles and royals weren't as infallible as some of them liked to claim still gave him a bit of satisfaction.

Arctus had chided him over that. Seeing people as a homogeneous group rather than individuals with their own lives, hopes, desires, talents, and faults was something that the more abusive among the noble class were too often guilty of. They didn't see individuals, or even people. They saw 'commoners.' Thinking like that didn't pay in the end.

Jebel acknowledged the point and moved on, determined to do better in that respect. The Blues, as they were called, did not make that easy. The unaffiliated students at the Collegium were, largely, the children of Valdemar's nobles. They took great pride in the pale blue coats they wore, regarding them as a sign of their station in life, and they looked down on those that didn't share their breeding.

Jebel did his best to avoid them, as they tended to try his patience, but he felt compelled to intervene on behalf of younger students once or twice, diverting the blues' attention from them when they felt the need to prove their supposed superiority. This tactic quickly became ineffective, though, as the blue-coated students found him far more difficult to intimidate. They simply became more circumspect in their bullying of the younger 'commoners.' He urged those being bullied to speak up, but they tended to fear retaliation. Arctus counseled patience with such people, as they tended to dig their own graves. Jebel didn't think much of that advice, but he kept his peace, settling for quietly helping where he could.

Princess Elspeth, he learned, hadn't been chosen yet, and this was a source of worry, as some were doubting that she ever would be. It seemed the girl was spoiled rotten and had some very odd ideas about nobility and privilege. At least, the Heralds Jebel learned about the matter from found them odd.

In his second year at the Collegium, that changed abruptly. A new Queen's Own Herald had been chosen. The girl, Talia, was given the task, by the queen herself, of working with Eslpeth, but Talia kept being balked in her efforts by the Princess' nurse.

One night, there was a disturbance at the palace. He never did learn the full details, but he did know that the nurse had vanished, and was being sought for crimes against Valdemar, as was some mysterious 'lord' who had aided her escape, or so the rumors said.

Talia had started working to adjust young Elspeth's attitude and disabuse her of her bizarre notions. She had had some success, according to various rumors. The girl still hadn't been chosen, though. Talia was still in training, being roughly a year and a half behind Jebel himself, but she was making good progress.

Talia, he learned, had come from a reclusive, and very strict, religious community in southern Valdemar, that no one seemed to know much about. Talia, apparently, never spoke of her family, and Jebel wasn't about to pry; especially as he only vaguely knew her on sight. Life as a Herald-in-training was remarkably busy, and the amount of gossip people had time to spread, frankly, astounded him.

He met Skif, a younger Herald-trainee with an interesting history. Apparently, he had been a thief before he was chosen and had actually tried to steal his Companion when he saw her untended one day. Apparently, instead of going where he wanted to go, she took him straight to the Collegium.

Jebel was writing about the incident in his journal when a voice at the door startled him.

"Been listening to tales, I see."

Though startled, Jebel only grinned at the other trainee. The two had become friends fairly quickly. "Care to set the record straight?" Skif had discovered his habit of keeping a journal, and had teased him a bit about it, but he had agreed not to mention it after Jebel explained his reasons for keeping it secret. Even Arctus didn't know about the journal. It wasn't a secret, exactly, it had simply not come up.

"Nah." Skif shook his head, the amusement at his expense, apparently, not offending him. "The stories told around here got the right of it."

"That your Companion stole you?" Jebel teased. He assessed the way the other man stood, even as he joked. Skif looked casual enough, but the way he held himself made it clear he was in some discomfort. Jebel remembered that his friend would have just finished a session with the Collegium's weapons master, and suppressed a sympathetic wince. Alberich's training sessions could get rather rough, especially if he thought his students weren't taking the training seriously enough.

"Pretty much," Skif chuckled, then winced.

"Alberich put you through the wringer again?"

Skif nodded.

"My grandfather could be nearly as rough when training me and my brothers. He used to say, 'the pain means you're alive, and have the chance to learn from your mistakes."

"Sounds like he and Alberich would've gotten on famously." His demeanor then sobered a bit. "I heard about your family situation from Elcarth," he offered. "I also understand you're headed out on your internship, soon."

"I'm not sure what the one has to do with the other," Jebel admitted.

"Well, the Heralds travel all over Valdemar during their circuits. If the trainees and their mentors know who and what to look for while they're out, they may find a lead about your family. I know that you're headed south, and isn't that the region where they most likely crossed into Valdemar?"

Jebel nodded. That was probably the case.

"A lot could have happened in the time you've been apart," Skif reasoned. "If you shared some information with the others, you wouldn't be the only one looking."

Jebel considered this, his desire to find them warring with the reluctance to trust so many people with such important information about himself. He was being asked, after all, to give the names and descriptions of his only living relatives to a group of strangers. He had shared the details with a few whose discretion he had learned to trust, but spreading it generally among the Herald-trainees and their mentors was another matter.

"I understand it's a lot to ask," Skif said. "It probably feels a bit soon to be trusting us with that kind of information, but Heralds are good people, and we know how to be discreet." He straightened. "Well. Elcarth will be approaching you with the idea soon. I thought I should give you a bit of warning and time to think about it."

"I appreciate that, Skif. Thank you." The other trainee nodded and left without another word, leaving Jebel to his thoughts.

Jebel finished his entry, making note of Skif's visit and comments on the matter, before closing the diary and locking it in the desk again. He then leaned back in his chair and considered his options as well as his priorities.

He didn't like the idea of sharing the information, of trusting people he barely knew or knew not at all with something that could be used against him, but keeping it too himself wasn't getting him anywhere.

Newly resolved, he went to see Elcarth. The man's office was, per usual, one poorly balanced book or file away from complete disaster. Jebel honestly wasn't sure how Elcarth found anything in such a mess. He knocked on the doorframe. The Dean looked up from the chaos that only he could make sense of, and smiled.

"Ah, Jebel. Good. I assume Skif told you why I wanted to see you?"

"Actually…" Wait. What?

Elcarth shook his head with a smirk. "I knew he would tell you, even before the servant I was planning to send could reach you. Just faster to mention it and ask him not to tell you."

Jebel took a moment to parse that statement, and decided that it made some sense. "Um, I would like to get some help finding my family," he hazarded, putting that behind them. "I'm not even sure where to start, though. What information besides name and description would help?"

"If we find them," Elcarth answered easily, "we'll want to have a specific message to relay to them," Elcarth paused and thought for a moment. "Perhaps something they would recognize as coming from you."

He considered a moment. It had to be something they would all know and something that would be meaningless to anyone else. "Mother used to wear a necklace that made her sad. It was silver and looked like a half-moon. There was a tree engraved on the front. She never took it off, and she would never explain why it made her sad."

Elcarth nodded. "That should do it." He then frowned. "That description sounds familiar, for some reason, but I can't place it." After a moment's thought, he shook his head. "I'll check the archives, if you like. Maybe I'll find something. It could provide another clue to your family's history and answer some questions for you."

"Thank you," Jebel offered, touched by the other man's consideration. Then, in an effort to put avoid any potentially embarrassing display of emotion, changed the subject. "My first circuit is set to start at the end of the month. I haven't been told who I'll be accompanying."

"Ah." Elcarth nodded, willing to move on to a new subject. "That hasn't been decided, yet. We want to send you toward the southern border, in hopes that you'll find some trace of your family. There are three prospects, we just haven't chosen."

"I have no real preference as to who," Jebel offered. "I take it each is going to a separate area?" He turned to the map on the wall and Elcarth nodded. They began discussing the routes, and that led to a discussion of the particular challenges and histories of the various regions. They barely noticed the afternoon passing.