Disclaimer - Valdemar, Heralds and Companions are the works of Mercedes Lackey, and remain her sole and personal property. Firechild Legacy is a derivative fanfiction work not intended for publication or profit. Kahlen belongs to me!

Profound thanks and kudos to engulfingdawn, Fireblade, Stee and tjal for reviews/encouragement on Ch. 5.

Stee, Rand bears a more than passing resemblance to Herald Randale, who was King in Vanyel's time. Virtual cookies if you can deduce why he'd Choose Kahlen.

Still need to revise Ch. 4 to match latest offering. And update Kahlen's age to 16 seasons, vs. 12. She looks like mid-twenties. That's what happens when you grow up in a really rough neighborhood.

Chapter 6 – Interrogation

I should never have stayed. I should have died in the river. It would have been easier. Mantra for half the night, Kahlen thought wearily, as she walked slowly beside Herald Alberich. Last night she'd backed away, then simply turned and left the salle rather than face the questions raised by the folded black cloth in his hand. And the memories. Away from the implied threat and bleak sympathy in the Herald's eyes. And Alberich had let her go. Back to her room in the herald-trainee's wing, her refuge and haven since the healers had cleared her for training.

Joss had left a plate of bread rolls and sausage in her room, and a plaintive note that he'd missed her at supper. She forced herself to eat, then lay down and watched the moon drift past the window while cold tears ran down her face. She owed these people the truth. And she'd wanted, needed to forget. She must have drifted into sleep. The gray light sifting through the window had roused her just before true dawn, and exhaustion had spared her any dreams. She'd forced herself to wash, dress and head down to the meal hall. The trainees on duty had plied her with eggs, sausage, and bread spread generously with a soft cheese. She'd taken the tray, slid into a seat next to Joss, then nibbled listlessly at the bread. The boiled eggs had congealed on her plate. Joss had watched her for several moments with growing concern. After a moment he'd simply reached over and ladled some of his boiled oats onto her plate, then topped it with a generous measure of honey.

"You eat, or no desert tonight." He shoved a tankard of milk at her, and watched sternly while she drank.

Kahlen had met his implacable eyes for a moment, then smiled in surrender and began eating. She'd managed three bites when Joss glanced up behind her, eyes widening. She didn't need to look. She pushed back, stood up on shaking legs, then turned to meet Alberich's gray, measuring eyes. He nodded, then gestured that she follow. Almost, the boy slid out of his chair to follow, a bread roll clutched in his hand. A shadow moving across the table caught the boy's attention.

"Leave it alone, Joss." Herald Evan said quietly. "Alberich isn't going to let her starve, after all." The boy looked at him stubbornly. "The Circle needs information." He added gently.

Joss looked away, frowning. Kahlen needed a friend, he thought stubbornly.

* * * *

The girl sat, closed and withdrawn, at the large, rectangular table in the side council chamber. Alberich studied the others present. All save Treyvan were here, that had met with Sejanes the previous day, with the addition of a quiet, blue-eyed woman in whites who leaned unobtrusively against the back wall and met his eyes briefly. They waited now only for the old mage to join them. Alberich sat across from the girl, his eyes grave, his face unreadable. Despite the reservations of Weaponsmaster Jeri, Alberich's heart ached for her. He had not forgotten the suspicion he'd first lived under when Kantor first brought him here. A Karsite Captain, saved from his own people by a "demon" horse out of Valdemar, hereditary enemy of the very people he'd been chosen to protect. Selenay, King Sendar, and Monarch's Own Talamir had been the only ones who'd trusted him in those early days. He recalled the long misery of being forced to stand by during those first few years in Haven, then during the Tedrel Wars, while his herald-trainees rode south into the bloodbath on the border. Kahlen's face was a frozen mask – and he thought he knew very well what might lay behind it.

Alberich was not surprised when Sejanes entered accompanied by Queen's Own Herald Talia. The small, dark-haired woman took in the gathering, then nodded briefly to Elspeth, who smiled and relaxed a fraction. Kahlen glanced indifferently at the small woman dressed in pristine dress Whites, then looked away. Elspeth watched her narrowly. If anything, she was drawing even deeper into her own thoughts, and her shields were up…and hard as granite.

Sejanes looked curiously at the girl, then at the princess. At Elspeth's nod, he recounted his conjectures and speculations from the day before. Kahlen sat quietly, saying nothing, her face pale and strained. When Sejanes finished, every eye on the room turned to her. :Rand?: He was there, a comforting, trusting presence in the back of her mind. But he could not do this thing for her.

"Master Sejanes is essentially correct." Kahlen said quietly. "Most of us – the mage-bred – did not know our parentage. We were placed in training cohorts of ten children each as soon as we could follow simple commands. We lived and trained together for seven seasons. My cohort -" She closed her eyes. "We were matched against each other, in the beginning. Simple matches, basic hand weapons, but training only. Mage training came later." Her voice had a dead, wooden quality. "Then the cohorts were disbanded, and death matches started when we were ten." She nodded to Jeri, but would not meet the woman's compassionate eyes. "As I told you. My first match was against Chansin. A small boy, about my age." Her fingers went to the first disk on the cloak lying bundled on the table. The I'nazadi were…selective. They wanted us well matched, you see."

"Why?" Jeri asked, horrified. She didn't expect an answer. There could be no answer for such a thing. Kahlen would not meet her eyes.

"To ensure maximum potential, among the survivors." The girl replied softly. "Chansin… panicked. Not because he feared me, but because of what he was expected to do.
I took three fire strikes before – well." Her face had gone gray under the bronzed skin. "Seven
death matches I had. The teachers were very pleased, I think." She looked down at her arms, rubbed lightly at the fabric over her arms, then flexed her hands. "Then came Joram, and …we chose not to continue on the path they had set us. We broke the enclosing shield, but the backlash killed him."

"How old were you, Kahlen?" The mage, Sejanes stared at her, appalled but fascinated.

"Almost twelve seasons." Her voice shook.

"My ninth match was against Morren, who had been of my birth cohort. Again, we broke the shields, but the I'nazadi struck him down before we could recover. I think is not dead. Our energies were exhausted. They did not expect, I think, that I would use a sword on a teacher – or that I would take him." A bleak smile crossed her face at the memory of that victory.

"I'nazadi. Just what does the word mean?" Elspeth asked, scribing the word on her tablet.

"Lifemaker, in your tongue." Kahlen answered, shivering. "Adepts with both Healing and Mage gift, who ply their craft in the making of new lifeforms, seeking to make or reshape them."

"Sorcerer-adepts." Elspeth said shortly, glancing at Darkwind, who nodded grimly.

Kahlen nodded, and a bit of life came back into her voice. "Rand told me – in your histories – of an adept named Ma'ar, who was one such. And one called Urtho, who created gryphons." A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "Gryphons. I would like to see one, I think. The I'nazadi play at such things – I do not think they have truly achieved that craft. But that they crafted us, seeking to bind us to their purposes – that I do believe."

"What happened after your last deathmatch." Alberich queried, his voice dangerously neutral.

She shrugged. "Too dangerous to keep, I was deemed. Taken away then, to have the mind paths burned away." Odd, Elspeth noted, how her language shifted to match Alberich's when he questioned her directly. Then the import of the girls words registered.

"They meant to burn out your mind channels."

Kahlen shrugged. "It mattered little to them. I would still have had the potential - could still be used for breeding stock. But the mage storms had grown stronger. The I'nazadi were pressed to find ways to prevent them, or barricade against them. They had no time to deal with me and thought to put that task on the regular mage corps." She finally looked at the people watching her, and her heart eased a bit. They were listening carefully. Jeri's face was tense with rage, but her eyes were sympathetic. Elspeth's was strained, but she was listening very carefully, and there was no anger or revulsion directed at her.

"I was taken to Granite's gate for transfer to an imperial mage school, when a mage storm hit and challenged the gatemasters' control. Sethren had the gate duty that day - had held it through previous storms, despite the disruption waves, but even his strength was failing. Enough. I took the gate and held it while he renewed the channels and closed it. And -" She drew a deep, shuddering breath – "He challenged the I'nazadi for me, and claimed me for his gateward."

Incredibly, Sejanes was chuckling. "Sethren Morrene? Young for a gatemaster, but brilliant. Innovative. Claimed you right out from under Charliss' elite mage guild?"

Kahlen nodded warily. "His gateward…did not care how I had come to be there. Only that I could help keep the gates stable, their work to ease. They took me, and trained me." Made me family. Loved me. Her hands were shaking now. "Three years they kept me – safe. Then to Granite we went, following whispers of a plague risen there, that might trouble the empire should it spread through the gates. To see what else the I'nazadi had wrought. Worse it was, than rumored. Worst still, that it had escaped its makers and spread unchecked across the isle. Nine of ten who sickened died of it, and those surviving crippled and blind. Sethren ordered that we close the gates, lest this thing spread beyond Granite, and deny the passage of new gates. Three days, we held them, before the our strength began to fail, and Sethren fell ill. Then Drisae collapsed, and the others…burnt out. And Sethren ordered me – he ordered -" Her throat closed. She could not say it. She would not. Five days, we held. No choice. No choice at Granite, no choice when he threw us here, to this place, that warning at least could be given. No choice when he found himself dying of that horror, bound only by the thin shields we contrived from the remnants of the gate that brought us here. And what would these people say, did they know the whole truth?

"He was dying when he gated you here, and caught Josseran inside his shields." Evan said quietly. She nodded mutely. "And you kept the shields up, so that the disease couldn't spread. Even if it killed you and Josseran."

"I never caught it." She whispered. "We'd tried the blood infusion on Drisae, and others, before the Gate failed, and it seemed to work. I thought I could give Josseran immunity – I didn't know if I carried it as well. The Healer, Kevren has said - not."

Elspeth nodded, then swept the room, gathering the attention of the attendees. "I've seen the destruction at Granite, and some evidence of a plague swept through it. Apparently, when the gate there collapsed, much of the island was immolated." Kahlen flinched. Implacable, these heralds, in their duty and curiosity.

"He was already infectious then." For the first time, Talia spoke, her eyes focused intently on the girl. "The man that brought you here. Young Josseran said he was too far gone for the blood infusion to work."

Kahlen nodded, eyes closed. She startled when Talia's hand came down lightly on her shoulder. "You did rightly, Kahlen." The Queen's Own said quietly. "You are not the first Herald to do such a thing. And to spare Josseran, if it could be done."

"Sethren – Sethren asked that I try." Kahlen closed her eyes, and simply leaned against the woman. "I didn't know if it would work..."

Jeri reached for the water goblet near her left arm and drank, wishing angrily it was something stronger. She glanced the lean, scarred man in gray leather, then at the young woman in Talia's arms, with the blue glow of Alberich's truth spell, still shimmering about her face. And wished with all her heart that the light had vanished as soon as Kahlen had begun to speak.

"Will they come here, do you think?" Darkwind asked. "These I'nazadi?"

"I do not know, M'hada." Kahlen replied, meeting the Hawkbrother's brilliant blue eyes and according him a small bow of respect. "Sethren is dead, that they might have sought revenge against. We – those at Granite have long been bred and trained as weapons, but this sickness – not so long, I think. Six years it has been, since the storms first swept through the eastern lands, bringing the seeds of this sickness. Among the I'nadazi, the blame for the storms was accorded to Valdemar. I do not think they have forgotten. If they have the means to use this thing, while yet protecting the empire…"

"More likely these I'nazadi are an renegade group within the empire's mages." Sejanes interjected, then glanced seriously around the room. "The empire has remained in considerable disruption since the mage storms ended. We've had no contact with the interior, and no new incursions in Hardorn. Left untended, the different mage factions may very well have splintered. It may be time, and past time, for the Alliance to send word to the Eastern Court of the true cause of the storms, and why they ended." He studied the young woman they'd brought into this room carefully. Her face was pale and strained, the amethyst eyes rimmed with exhaustion and grief. No need for more questions, he decided. Then another thought occurred to him.

"Child, your mage training." Sejanes asked gently. "Just how far had it progressed? You can build gates, and you were trained in battle magics. What other training did you receive?" She blinked at him, obviously not expecting such a question. "Herald-mages must have training to match their gifts. Do you know yours?" The pale blue light surrounding Kahlen's head and shoulders abruptly went out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alright, it's a little cruel. And a little short. But Kahlen's keeping some whopping secrets she's not about to tell – unfortunately.