If I Were a Herald

Chapter 15

The Shadow-Lover

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own. If you don't recognize it, I'll try to claim it as my own, whether or not I actually created it.

A/N (11/10/05): I really like reviews. Like really. They make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. So please, please, please review. Pretty please with sugar and cherries on top. Look, I'll even say it in Latin: Te precor dulcissime suplex.

Warning for bad language in this chapter. It's actually some rather fun and hopefully creative insults, though some of it, of course, is pure, ah, "borrowing" from other people. Any suggestions would be welcome. I'll put them in this chapter next time I update it.

Fireblade: Thank you so much or the website. I tried to find something like it a while back but couldn't. And I've sent you the songs; tell me if you got them. And thanks for the info about Vanyel and the Shadow-Lover. The Texas accent comes from my dad. Usually it only comes out in a couple words, like "wild," but occasionally I'm able to slip into a totally country accent. Strangely, I'm better at a British accent than a Texas one. God knows why….

Nawyn: Through cautious experimentation and the power of my mind, I have discovered how to send the songs via email. Sorry I missed you that one day; I was feeling rather under the weather. But if you could give me your email address, I could send them to you whenever. Savvy? As for the bandit gang… well, I'm not to sure I envy me. Living with bandits isn't all light and happiness.

Faeriesinger: So far I've tried to be true to myself with my character, and I hope I am indeed "a blast to hang out with." Thanks for the Ten Commandments. And I hope you keep reviewing!

The other bandits weren't quite so forgiving as William. They now saw me as sort of a favorite, and an undeserving one at that. Who was this upstart newcomer with the strange accent, anyway, to have gotten their leader in his debt? So they went out of their way to make my life miserable. Snakes in my bedroll, spiders in my socks… life was one adventure after another. The first snake I suspect was poisonous, but the second was just a common garden snake, rather cute actually, and about as harmful as my cat—meaning he could tear my homework to shreds, if I let him, and if I still had any homework. And he was really cute. Quite small, mostly black, with a single yellow stripe running the length of his back, and a white belly.

The poor creature cringed and hissed when I opened the bedroll, pretending to be dangerous. He reminded me of me, only when I hissed, people usually got scared. Probably because they thought I was psycho.

"Aren't you adorable," I cooed at him, holding out my hand. His tongue flickered out, testing my smell. He must have decided I was okay, because next thing I knew, he was coiled around my arm and wouldn't let go. At first I felt rather timid about the whole thing. I held my arm as far from my body as possible and eyed the snake cautiously. He rubbed his head against my arm, somehow reassuring me that everything would be okay. Since it didn't seem like I'd be able to get rid of him, I figured I might as well keep him.

I decided to name him Angus, after MacGyver. Long story, but it goes something like this:

MacGyver's archnemesis was named Murdoc. Murdoc was your typical reincarnating bad guy: slightly psycho, obsessed with killing MacGyver, and absolutely refusing to die. However, Murdoc did have one weakness: he was afraid of snakes. I found this rather amusing, because MacGyver's first name, which was only ever mentioned in two episodes because he absolutely despised it, was Angus, which is very similar to the Latin word for snake, anguis. So I decided that if I ever had a snake, I would name it Angus.

The spiders were more of a problem. Now, spiders are useful creatures; they eat bugs. That's all to the good. However, spiders in my socks were something of a problem. It's not that I was terribly afraid of spiders, just that I had a reasonable caution where they were concerned. I had no idea which typed were poisonous and which were harmless—except for the Daddy Long Legs, which was poisonous, but less so than a Black Widow, and could bite through human skin, but actually wasn't that dangerous because Adam Savage was bitten on MythBusters and he was fine. Mostly I settled for shaking out my socks and praying that whatever was in them wouldn't bite me.

They didn't even manage to surprise me the first time they tried to pull one of those tricks on me. Paranoia has its uses, and what with the looks I was getting from the bandits, mine was on full alert.

Then, to top it all off, it began to rain. Not just drizzle, either. No, this was proper, hurricane-season-in-Florida rain. At first I gloried in it. Ah, rain! The wonders of the falling water. I hadn't felt a proper rain since before I arrived in Valdemar. But it's one thing to play in the rain when dry clothes await you on the other side of the door; it's another to slog through muck day after day with no hope of reprieve. The rocky soil of the border had turned treacherous, a mud-puddle with hidden pitfalls and stones. Angus was miserable, and had taken to hiding out under my hood, making little hissy noises of displeasure. Lyrna grumbled every chance she got, until she began to remind me of myself. As for me, I felt like I'd never be warm again. As for dry, why, that was a long-forgotten dream.

William Greencloak stood before us, hands on hips, his green cloak weighed down with water, ready to make a speech. "Men, we're low on supplies. The rains have soaked into our rations and completely ruined them. If we want to eat, we'll have to steal ourselves some food. I've planned a raid on a Karsite border-town. So get yourselves ready. Check your mounts for stones, clean your weapons. You know what to do."

We went through the motions of preparing for a raid with half a heart. Swords were cleaned but not shined, and we didn't even bother trying to squeeze the water out of our cloaks. We'd given that up days ago. I'd even almost given up on trying to convince Gordon to leave the bandits. Of us all, he seemed to be the only one enjoying this—probably because he was from north of here, and there was lots of poetry in the rain. So using the miserableness of all the pour to try to get him to leave was an exercise in futility. He liked it even better than I did, and I'd grown up in weather like this.

As soon as we left the cover of the woods, things started to go wrong—like we didn't have enough problems already. A Karsite patrol showed up. Greencloak cursed, but his heart wasn't really in it. The Karsite patrol would chase us back into the woods, hoping that in the future we'd limit our expeditions to the Valdemaran side of the border.

Only that wasn't how it happened. The Karsites, on order from their Captain, drew their swords and charged us, with the intent to kill. Damn Karsites. The one time they actually got themselves some morals, it was the one time I wished they hadn't. The Karsites were trained troops, and the bandits were no match for them. They were being cut down like pigs at the slaughter, though they fought desperately.

:We have to get the Ashkevron boy out of here: Lyrna said.

"Yeah. Him and Greencloak," I agreed. "But Gordon first." Together, Lyrna and I expertly herded the bard and bandit leader toward the edge of the fighting. When they were a safe distance away, I yelled, "Now run! Make for Valdemar. I'll cover you."

The Karsites closed in around me as Gordon and Greencloak rode like the wind. I fought like a demon, foregoing all the rules and etiquettes of fighting, trying only to keep myself alive long enough to get away.

Then I saw the Sun-Priests. What was more, I recognized the Sun-Priest. In my moment of distraction, one of the Karsites managed to unhorse me. My last thought as I fell to the ground was, Oh, God, I'm going to die.

I woke slowly from dreams about home. Not college—home. Melbourne. My bedroom, with my cats purring in my ear. White carpet, four walls, bunkbed. Harry Potter curtains on the windows. Blue. They were blue, with flying cars and moons and owls.

Before I even opened my eyes, I knew I wasn't home. So when my eyes fluttered open, I expected to see either my Captain Jack Sparrow poster next to the kitty-cat posters on the wall of my dorm room, or the opposite wall, with the green glow-in-the-dark silly string. But I didn't see either. Instead, I saw the face of the Sun-Priest, and, cliché as it sounds, it all came rushing back to me. It probably helped that I was vertical. That always helped me think.

Sometime during the battle Angus must have slithered away, because he was no longer curled around my arm. I hoped the Sun-Priest hadn't killed him.

:Lyrna:

:I'm here, Chosen. They didn't catch me, but they've got a search party out. So far I've managed to avoid them.:

I tried to lash out at the Sun-Priest with magic, but no dice. He'd put a spell on me, one of those obnoxious mirror-spells. Luckily I'd just tried to throw him across the room, not kill him, or I'd have been dead. I may have been a very violent person, but I preferred beating on things to killing them. At least I knew how to counter this spell. I reinforced my own shields and built up pressure between them and the egg-shell put on me by the Sun-Priest. It was no use. I just didn't have enough power, nor enough training. And I had no way to access a node, assuming that I could use one safely. I'd sensed them before, but hadn't dared to try to use them. So I wasted away my power with nothing to show for it but my own exhaustion.

Though exhausted, I was still determined to get out. So I tried Fetching, though with more care than I'd shown for the magic.

That didn't work, either. Neither did any of my other Gifts, other than Mindspeech.

"Where are your Whites, Herald of Valdemar?" the Sun-Priest demanded, making my title sound like a curse.

For about half a second I considered taking the tack that I wasn't really a Herald, I was the Goddess of Death. I discarded the idea, however, because I knew it wouldn't work. Not after Lyrna's wonderful rescue of me on my first ill-fated trip to Karse. "Back home, you idiot," I responded. "Duh. No one wears white when undercover. Way too obvious. It's like painting a bloody target on your back and wearing a sign that says 'Shoot me! I'm a Herald!'"

The Sun-Priest, needless to say, didn't take too well to that statement. He struck me on the face. "You will keep a civil tongue in your head. The Sunlord Vkandis will not stand for your insolence."

I just grinned. He makes Vkandis sound like a bloody Goa'uld. The slap hurt, sure, but I'd had friends hit me harder than that for doing something incredibly stupid. And I figured that if I acted extremely obnoxious, he might forget about torturing me and just kill me then and there. I wasn't afraid of death. Death eventually came for all of us, and I'd long ago accepted, even before I came to Valdemar, that I would likely die defending someone else. I'd wanted to go into the army, for crying out loud. Not really the occupation with the longest life expectancy. So death didn't bother me.

Pain did.

Ask me to list my phobias, and I'd say technophobia (no longer applicable, since there was nothing on this entire planet resembling technology); acrophobia (something which I generally ignored); stage fright (gradually lessening); and the fear of pain. I hated pain. Minor pains I'd grit my teeth and suffer, like putting alcohol on a wound—that always impressed the nurses; but major ones had me crying like a baby. So I really wasn't looking forward to the torture aspect of what the Sun-Priests liked to do with Heralds they managed to get in their grasp. Although this wait was beginning to get on my nerves.

My only regret was that I hadn't gotten a chance to raise a family. I wanted children, damn it. I wanted to pass on my genes.

"Where is your Hellhorse?"

Oh, lovely, more questioning. Come on, just start the torture already. We've yet to see how I'll deal with pain, but I already know I can't deal with the anticipation.

:Just be calm, Chosen. I'm trying to figure out a way to get you out of there.: Lyrna's soothing voice calmed my anxiety, but not to the degree I might have liked.

:Yeah, well, try faster, would you:

:He's asking about me. You might as well answer him, since you don't know where I am.:

:What makes you think I want to cooperate: "Don't got a Hellhorse," I muttered, thrusting out my chin as best I could. I was tied to a bleeding chair, trussed up like an offering to the gods. Thuó what? No, that's 'I sacrifice.' Thuousi, that's it. Thuousi Kalén Vkandó. They sacrifice Kali to Vkandis. Wait, no, I need more articles in there, and I should probably put the verb at the end. Or would the Greeks have used articles with proper names? Probably not.

"Nonsense. All Heralds have Hellhorses."

I knew what he meant, of course. My Companion. I'd read the damn books; I knew what "Hellhorse" meant. But damned if I was going to cooperate with this obnoxious priest. "Well this one doesn't."

Another slap, this one with more force. "You lie. I saw you riding it last time you were in Karse."

"Idiot. That was my Companion. Hellhorse!" I snorted. "Honestly!"

The Sun-Priest glowered down at me. "You will face the wrath of Vkandis Sunlord for your crimes."

I smiled as sweetly as I could through the stinging of my cheek. "Vkandis loves me. In fact, all the gods love me. We're best buddies. Get along swell. Or did you forget that I'm the Goddess of Death?" I began to sing. "Vkandis loves me, this I know, for the Sun-Priests tell me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong. Yes, Vkandis loves me. Yes, Vkan—" I was cut off by yet another slap.

And so the torture began. I won't go into all the nasty implements of pain they used on me, because frankly, I don't care to remember. I do recall that at one point I thought it prudent to pray. God, if you're there, now would be a nice time for a miracle. You don't even have to be my God. Any god will do. Really. Sunlord Vkandis, I've heard you're a nice guy. Maybe you're not too inclined to help me fight against your own priests, but this guy is, like, way corrupt. But no miracle was forthcoming.

There was another time when I tried threats. "They'll come for me, and you'll be sorry. I'm a big deal back in Herald-town, they won't just leave me here to rot. You'll have the entire army of Valdemar after your head. I'm best buddies with Vanyel Demonsbane. He never really died, you know. He still resides in the Forest of Sorrows."

At another point I felt it a good time to confess all my sins so I could die with a clean slate. That took a while. Just for amusement, I confessed them aloud. There were quite a lot of them.

:You're giving the Heralds a bad name: Lyrna complained.

"Yeah, well, I don't see you in here, being tortured by a mother-fucking Sun-Priest son of a bitch and a three-legged ass, who eats shit for breakfast and piss for lunch. And his grandmother smelled of elderberries," I added for good measure.

"What did you call me?" the Sun-Priest asked, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Apparently he understood Valdemaran, or at least a smattering of it.

"I'd repeat it for you, but I'm not finished," I replied in Karsite. "Your grandfather worked for a bleeding bureaucracy, your bitch of a mother was a whore as well, both your parents died of the plague in a sewer full of rotting garbage, and your ancestors were all landlubbers," I finished with typical sailor contempt. Not that I actually had any real advantage over him in that regard, since I'd never sailed on the open seas, only on a couple rivers and in a bay. But I'd heard the call of the ocean, and that was enough. I'd sailed Lake Evendim in my dreams. "You'll never amount to anything beyond a low-class mage and a bully-boy. Vkandis has never intervened on your behalf, and he never will, because he likes me, a Herald and a heretic, better than you, you hypocritical varlíón. You're a traitor and a witch, and you look like monkey shit. Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione. Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris. Utinam barbari spatium proprium tuum invadant. Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant. Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem." I was rather proud of myself for having remembered that much Latin from the notes I'd printed out from one awesome website way back in my Senior year at High School. I'm not interested in your dopey religious cult. If Caesar were alive, you'd be chained to an oar. May barbarians invade your personal space. May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy. In the good old days, children like you were left to perish on windswept crags.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I fart in your general direction," I replied in English/Valdemaran, with the requisite fake French accent. "Go fuck yourself with a deli slicer." I think I'm bleeding from my fingernails, I thought irrelevantly.

:Hang in there: Lyrna encouraged. :I think I've found us some help.:

:You do that. I think I'm going to faint now.: And I did just that.

That's when the dream came.

"Oh, hello. It's you again." It was indeed. Him. I still didn't know his name, and I still couldn't see his face, but I knew it was him from the pull of the bond.

"Songbird. Are ye alright?" he asked, concern etched on his face.

"Me? I'm fine. Just peachy." I smiled brightly.

"No yer not. Something's wrong. I can feel it through the bond. What is it?"

He was right. Even in sleep, I couldn't forget where I was, couldn't forget the pain. And if he felt the bond as well… "The Karsites caught me."

"Karsites? What the bloody hell are ye doin' in Karse?"

"That's a long story. But you're not real, so what does it matter? I was trying to help this bard, he'd gotten in with a group of bandits. So I joined the bandits as well, to try to convince him to leave. Long story short, we got caught by a Karsite patrol, one of the Sun-Priests recognized me, and now I'm their lovely subject to test out wonderful new torture techniques."

His eyes flashed with anger. "I'll get 'im. The bastard'll pay for what he's done to ye."

"How are you going to help me?"

"I'll find a way. I'll get ye out o' there, I swear it. I haven't found ye just to lose ye."

"You're a pirate. What can you do on land?"

"I don't know yet, but I'll think o' something. Just hang in there. I don't want ye dyin' on me. I don't know if I could survive the loss."

"I love you."

"Come with me now, and I'll make you forget all about Karse and her Sun-Priests." And he did.

When I woke, I was smiling. That just pissed off the Sun-Priest even more. My smile didn't last very long. Neither did my will to live, nor my ability to stay conscious. My lucid spells were becoming briefer, few and far between.

"Oh, the pain. Make me forget the pain." But it was not my pirate who faced me. It was a man of more graceful beauty, his form utter perfection. Vanyel Ashkevron could not compare. His face was pale as death, his hair gothic black. Black was his garb, the monotony relieved by silver fastenings.

"I can take away the pain forever," he offered me. "I can bring you the sweet release of oblivion."

His words were like a balm on my wounds. I could take what he offered me. The peaceful rest of eternal sleep, forever to be in the Shadow-Lover's embrace. He couldn't compare, no one could compare to my pirate, but he was here now, offering what I most craved. "Yes," I said. "Shadow-Lover, lead me into light."

He looked down at me with mournful eyes, full of centuries of pain and sadness. "I will do what you ask, but first, I must give you a choice."

"What choice?" I asked. What choice could he possibly give me? Death was not an option, it was a certainty.

"If you die now, you will go to the Havens. That is your first choice. If you live, you will go through more pain, but will eventually be rescued. You will go on to become a great hero."

"Don't want to be a bloody hero," I muttered, though that wasn't entirely the truth. I wanted to be a hero like Vanyel, someone who deserved to be called hero.

The Shadow-Lover held up a hand for silence. "Hear me out. If you choose to die, King Roald will be greatly injured, but will survive. More importantly, a dark mage by the name of Mortimer will gain a foothold in Rethwellan, and many innocent people will die before he is eradicated. One of his victims, albeit not an entirely innocent one, in his passage through Valdemar will be your pirate captain."

"But my pirate doesn't really exist," I protested. "He's a figment of my imagination."

"He exists. You will forget all this if and when you wake, but for now it is necessary for you to know. His name is Captain Jacoby of the Bloodred Falcon, and he is, indeed, a pirate. There is danger in your future, to both you and to him, and there will be heartbreak and pain, but if you follow your heart, you will find true happiness."

"Will I have children?" I asked. Even if I couldn't remember when I woke, I had to know. I'd already made my decision. I had to go back. I couldn't live with myself otherwise. No way was I going to take the coward's way out. When I died, I wanted it to be for a good reason, helping people, not at the hands of some bastard Sun-Priest.

"Many, many children. All you have to do is follow your heart. Can you do that?"

I smiled. "I've never done anything else. Send me back. I'm going to save the world from an evil mage. Bring on the pain."

The dream about the Shadow-Lover remained locked in my memory banks for a very long time. I was slightly more lucid when I woke, though for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. There was blood everywhere—on the floor, on the chair, on the walls, on my rags of an outfit, even streaming down my face. With the amount of blood I'd lost, I shouldn't even be conscious, especially considering the fact that I had low blood pressure to begin with. My right arm dangled at an odd angle. I studied it detatchedly, observing the way the jagged edges of bone pressed against the skin. Never before had I had so much as a broken finger. The pain should be driving me mad. Maybe it already had.

:It's alright, dearheart. I'm here. I'm sharing your pain. Try to hold on. I'm coming for you.:

The Sun-Priest approached. "You, Herald, have entirely too much will to live. But that will do me good. I will have answers."

"Really? Because I'm not seeing it. See, at the moment, I can't remember my own name or the questions you've been asking, much less the answers to them." I could remember insults, however, and I spewed them forth as quickly as possible, translating what I could into Karsite for the benefit of the Sun-Priest. "You're scum at the bottom of a pond, to be eaten by scum-sucking lampreys and regurgitated into the mouths of little fish. You're not worthy of being wiped off the bottom of my shoe; if I ever stepped on you I'd throw the boot away before touch it."

:You're just making matters worse.:

"Yes, love, but this keeps my—my—animus—up," I replied. Through the pain I couldn't remember the word spirit, so I used its Latin equivalent. "Damna hoc nothum, anyways." I began to speak directly to the Sun-Priest once more. "Tu me fais chier, gros con. You're nothing but a to's de merde." That was about all I remembered from the French cursing lessons my first college roommate had given me, and I couldn't even remember what half of it meant. So I lapsed back into English. "Fuck you, you fucking fucker. I'm going to break your fucking mirror-spell, and you're going to wish your pox-ridden father had never fucked your bitchy whore of a mother in that fucking plague-infested cathouse." Usually I kept my cussing at a minimum, holding to the theory that overuse degraded the value of the word. So far it seemed to have worked. Anytime I started overusing a curse word, it lost its ability to make me feel better. It was so much more satisfactory to yell "Damn!" if I hadn't already overused the word. "Hell" was about its equivalent for dirtyness, but I'd used that one a few times too often, and it didn't have as much satisfaction. But I figured that right now was exactly the situation for which I'd been saving up all my cussing. So I let it loose. "Futue te ipsum et caballum tuum," I added with all the venom I could muster.

One of the Karsite guards ran screaming into the torture chamber. "Attack! We're under attack!" The Sun-Priest followed him at a run, all his calm exterior gone. Maybe he had believed all that stuff about how someone would certainly come to rescue me.

My Gifts still weren't working properly, but I had to do something about my arm. Perhaps if I tried a bit of Fetching—that Gift was blocked outside the mirror-spell, but maybe I could make it work on myself? Yes—it was working. Slowly, but no doubt that was due to my own weakness. My arm screamed in pain, but it moved, inch by inch, until it snapped together. Unfortunately my Mage-Gift was still depleted, except for the small amount that was going into my shields. That wasn't enough to make a magical splint.

There was screaming outside, and the clash of swords. Someone kicked down the locked door to the torture chamber. It was a man, wearing brown pants and a bright blue vest over a dirty white shirt, with a red sash around his waist. A tricorn hat adorned his head.

It was love at first sight. Not true love, but a love of his image; I knew that and accepted it. Just because he looked awesome didn't mean I could trust him.

He put away his sword, a short blade hardly longer than a dagger, and pulled out a knife.

"Just kill me and get it over with," I said with resignation.

"I'm not going to kill ye, songbird. Don't ye recognize me, love?"

At that, there was something familiar about him, but I couldn't identify what it was. "No, can't say I do." I squinted at him, but the more I concentrated, the more he seemed to waver around the edges, as if he wasn't really there. But he was solid enough when he cut me free. "Careful about the arm, it's broken."

He paused a minute, then laid his knife against my arm, took out another to lay on the other side, and took off his sash to use it to hold them in place.

"Are you real?" I asked, tilting my head to one side.

He paused a minute to looked at my face, then turned his attention back to securing the sash around my broken arm. "'Course I'm real," he replied gruffly. He finished tying off the scarf and looped the excess around my neck like a sling. "Anything else broken?"

"Dunno. Can't feel my legs. They're still there, aren't they?"

"Aye, ye've got the right number o' limbs."

"Good." I smiled with relief.

"Come wi' me now. We've got to get ye out of 'ere."

I tried to stand, but I took only one step before my leg collapsed underneath me. The pirate was there to catch me, holding me tenderly. There was no part of me that didn't ache, but at least my left arm was strong enough to drape around his shoulder. He wrapped his right arm around my waist, supporting me, and held his sword with his left. We stumbled out into the sunlight, where bodies were strewn across the rocky Karsite ground. The Sun-Priest spotted us and began spouting something in Karsite, but I was too far gone to translate. I did, however, notice what he was doing: gathering power. I threw myself on top of my rescuer just as the lighting came down from the sky. It struck through the mirror-spell that was still on me and took down the rest of my shields, but somehow I managed to catch the power and fling it back at its creator. It left a lighting-bolt-shaped burn on my palm, but I was still alive, and so was the pirate. I hurt like hell, but I was alive.

Then Lyrna was at my side, kneeling for me to mount. The pirate helped me get on her back, then sat down behind me and held me around the waist as she stood. I leaned back against his comforting warmth.

:Hold on: Lyrna said, and somehow I got the feeling the pirate heard her, as well. I wondered briefly if he could ride—but as soon as the question occurred to me, I had my answer. He couldn't. Even on the verge of death, I was a better rider than him. But he caught on fast. Perhaps it was the fact that he was used to adjusting to the rocking of a ship, so the rocking of a Companion wasn't too very different.

The entire journey from Karse to Valdemar was spent in varying degrees of unconsciousness, until I wasn't entirely sure if I could stay on any longer. No, I've gotta stay on, I can make it. I think I can, I think I can.

Lyrna slowed and came to a halt. Again she knelt like a Shin'a'in-trained horse, so that I could get off. Lyrna refrained from commenting on my analogy. The pirate helped me walk. I stumbled along, not knowing where we were going, and not really caring, either. He took me to a little hut, and a man I recognized answered the door.

"William Greencloak. Heyla."

Greencloak took a step back in shock. "What happened to you?"

"Sun-Priests," the pirate replied shortly. "She needs a place to stay, and her horse recommended you."

I let go of my helper and leaned painfully against the doorframe.

"Her horse? You mean she's a Herald?"

But the pirate was gone. Just gone. No sign that he'd ever been.

That left me to answer the question. "Yeah, I'm a Herald. Look, mate, I saved your life. In my book, that means you owe me a favor." That wasn't very Heraldic of me, but at the moment I didn't really care. "I'll sleep over here, you'll leave me alone, and we'll call it square. Savvy?"

"What's going on here?" the bandit leader demanded. "Where did he go?"

"I've no more idea than you, mate. He showed up, rescued me, and never even told me his name."

"If you're a Herald, why were you in my bandit gang?"

"Not to get you in trouble," I assured him wearily. "I was there for the Ashkevron kid. Gordon. Did he get out okay?"

"Yeah, he was fine. Said he was swearing off banditry for life and going back to the safety of Haven."

I grinned. "Good. At least something good came of all this. I completed my mission. Now, I've been to hell and back again. Is there anywhere I can rest in peace?"

"Sure, come on in. You did save my life." He helped me to the sketchy bed in the corner. In my state, it looked like heaven.

:Who was the pirate: I asked Lyrna once I'd gotten settled in.

:I don't know. A spirit, I think.:

:Didn't feel like a ghost to me: I told her with a grin. He'd felt perfectly solid, and angry.

:So you noticed.: There was a teasing overtone to her Mindspeech that would usually have had me clawing for her fur.

Instead, I smiled dreamily into the darkness. :Yeah. I noticed.: Without really realizing what I was doing, I caressed the sash still tied around my arm.