If I Were a Herald Chapter 49: Secret Agent's Prayer, a valdemar universe fanfic

If I Were a Herald

Chapter 49

Secret Agent's Prayer

A/N (1/23/06): It's Richard Dean Anderson's birthday. Isn't that cool? I mean, he abandoned Stargate, but he's still awesome.

A/N (1/24/06): If you like this chapter, blame Simon R. Green. I've been re-reading Something from the Nightside.

A/N (1/24/06): I just realized something. In the last version of this story, my minimum requirement for chapter length was one page and a bit on notebook paper. So, two pages. Although a single word on the second page counted for the entire page. And that included author's notes and random bitchiness. In this version, my minimum is 2000 words, including author's notes, replies to reviews, and song lyrics.

Rachel: What a coinkidink—my computer hates me, too! In fact, its latest prank is that it lost a document it told me I'd saved. This document, actually. I had to do a search for it. Bloody computer! You hyped up about PotC 2?

Fireblade K'Chona: Yes, indeed, Jacoby is the "spitting image" of old Captain Jack Sparrow, come back to haunt us. And Gates really are wormholes—just magical ones, not scientific ones.

Tempeste-Silere: I'm glad you like my Eleventh Commandment. I figured, since I'm thinking in Elizabethan anyways, I might as well write in it, a bit.

Dark Angel Lytha: You go drive everyone mad. I love puzzles, too—all kinds. The 500 piece ones are kinda boring, though—I only do them if I want to finish them in an hour or so. If there's nothing else to do. I've got this one 3,000 piece puzzle that's sitting in my room at home, unfinished. I'll have to finish it someday. You keep guessing who the mole is. Of course, there are only two chapters left, so it's not going to be that long…

Picholita: Yay Maria, a review! Now I shall have to bribe you to continue reviewing.

When I step out from the shadows and assume my latest role,
And there is no way of knowing whether I'll return home whole,
Full of mixed anticipation as the dawn becomes the day,
And then Murphy plays his joke on me, and I begin to pray.

So here's to Mother Gaia, may she aid me in my plight;
And here's to warlike Ares, always itching for a fight.
Oh my Lady Luck and Fortune, now my life is in your care;
I hope that you will listen to a Secret Agent's prayer.

First I pray to Janus, may he bless me as I start;
And then to dearest Carna, the true goddess of his heart.
Oh dear delightful Cupid, reunite me with my love,
And I mean on this great solid ground, and not the skies above.

Oh, there's guards on every corner, and they know just who I am.
My cover's blown, my backup's gone, the whole thing was a scam.
Now Mercury, please aid me when I'm overcome with fear,
As the god of thieves and liars, like the ones who sent me here.

Oh bless me, wise Minerva, I could use your wisdom now.
And Helios—I love you too—please hide behind a cloud.
Great Neptune I have worshipped and your Goddess of the Sea—
Long ago I called to you, and now you're calling me.

Desperate now I watch as they lay fire at my feet.
My heart sinks to my toes before the Lord's great Judgment Seat.
I know I've not been pious, but have mercy on my soul,
And grant to me a miracle before You take Your toll.

I'm free at last, and I give thanks to all gods great and small,
And all those whom I didn't name, know well I love you all.
I thank you for your kindness and your sparing me from pain—
And next time I'm on a mission, we'll go through this all again.

I said a prayer at the outset of our journey. Even then, I had a nasty feeling that something would go wrong. It was just one of those days. The sun wasn't hidden behind a cloud, but blazed brightly down upon us, destroying all shadows and making me feel very exposed in my Herald Death black Whites. It just seemed appropriate. I had to keep telling myself that no one knew about my specially made uniform.

God must have taken a nap.

Just in case, I also said a prayer to Janus, Roman god of beginnings and endings, the two-faced god after whom the month January was named. Since the sun was still glaring at me as I finished, I added a prayer to Carna, Janus's lover, for good measure. All hail Carna, goddess of door handles!

It didn't work.

At least the kids were okay. I checked up on them, then told them that Mommy had to go away for a while. The older ones didn't seem to mind, but Marky cried endlessly. There were fleeting introductions to Jacoby—and a lecture from Jaym—but they all knew him from their dreams, and weren't nearly as shocked as I'd been to meet him face-to-face.

I ran into Jello on my way out of the palace. We exchanged a few words, and he made fun of my black outfit. Jacoby glared daggers at him, and he hurried off, suddenly remembering a previous appointment.

Jacoby and I got separated almost as soon as we left Valdemar. Lucky him.

He got Lyrna.

Which left me alone in a strange forest. No bandits here. They knew better than to work out of the Pelagir. Thos who didn't soon learned their mistake. Unfortunately they didn't get much of a chance to learn from it.

Death can be pretty final.

:Kali! Where are you: Jacoby's panicked Mindvoice broke through my morbid musings.

:Truth to tell, I dunno: I replied. :Ain't never been here afore.: Why was I doing this, again?

:You volunteered: Lyrna responded. :Don't worry. We're coming. I've got a lock on you.:

Oh, right. Why had I done that?

:Because this is personal: Lyrna reminded me. :Someone gave out misinformation about you.:

Naturally. That answered the "Why me?" question quite handily, didn't it? And took all the wind out of my whine.

Looking back, I could trace my problems back to when I'd saved Jacoby's life in that alley. I'd forgotten the first law of being a Herald: no good deed goes unpunished. I'd learnt that one back on Earth, for crying out loud!

Shapes moved in the forest around me. Animals, right? Couldn't be bandits. Then again, animals were probably worse. Changebeasts that had survived the processes of natural selection. Monsters never seen in the civilized kingdom of Valdemar.

They were animals.

It was pretty easy to figure it out once they started growling. I froze, not daring to move a muscle. My ears strained to hear them as they circled ever closer. Wolves, it seemed. At least, that's what they sounded like. Okay. I could handle wolves. Right? I used to think wolves were cool. They were intelligent, independent, and didn't slobber all over people like dogs.

Growls filled my ears as the pack neared.

Um, Ares? Mars? Whatever you want to be called? I could use some help here. I'm a big fan of yours, honestly. Violence is the answer, what's the question? and all that. There seemed to be at least five of them, and they weren't wolves. The glimpses I caught through the trees were of beasts that were half wolf, half snake.

Wyrsa.

Hoo boy. This was not good. :Lyrna, Jacoby, stay away.: They couldn't help me now. If they came, they'd probably get themselves killed.

Then one came into full view, and true panic set it.

"Okay, Kali, you can do this," I told myself. "Don't panic. Hitchhiker's Guide. It says that on the cover. Okay. You just have to draw on magic. Magic. Right. Ley-lines." I grabbed at the nearest ley-line with my mental "hand" and threw the power at the nearest wyrsa. It went up in a burst of flame.

The others attacked at once. I wasn't able to get a good enough lock on any of them to blast them to bits—they were moving too fast. The best I could do was keep them at bay. Drawing even more power, I reinforced my shields, making them physical as well as mental. This stalemate couldn't last very long. I could only keep this up until I passed out—which, judging from the fuzziness in my eyes, wouldn't be very long now.

The world spun around me. Not much different than the Pelagir normally. Crooked trees at weird angles to the ground waved back and forth above my head. A twang sounded, and another. There were fewer growls now. Another three twangs and the growling was cut in half. I forced my eyes to focus. Three wyrsa now lay dead—the one I had burnt, and two that looked like porcupines. No, wait, they didn't. That was just the blurring because I couldn't focus. There were only five arrows, total. More twangs, and the last two wyrsa fell dead to the ground. Seemed that maybe Artemis had been kind to me, after all.

Then I got a good look at my rescuers.

Wonderful. Their clothes were in shades of green and brown—the nearest thing to camo you could find on Velgarth, not counting my Army surplus pants I'd brought from Earth. Raggedy and torn, they had the look of hard use about them. The men's faces were hard and cold, their mouths etched into permanent scowls. More than a few sported badly-healed battle scars. I'd seen their kind before. Lived with them for a while.

It looked like I'd been wrong about there being no bandits here.

I stood up, trying to control the shakes. It wouldn't do to look weak before these human wolves. They'd pounce before I could say "wyrsa." "Thanks a lot, man," I said, infusing the words with as much sarcasm as I could summon. "I had things perfectly under control until you showed up." In the back of my mind, I was still praying. Bacchus, my ancestor and constant inspiration. Once you turned some pirates into dolphins; do you think you could turn these bandits into wolves? Okay, so maybe wolves wasn't such a good idea. Birds, then? Or rabbits. Yes, rabbits sounds about right.

"Oh, we didn't come here to rescue you. No, not at all. You're in worse trouble now than you were with the wyrsa—and don't think I didn't see you cowering behind your shield. The wyrsa would have killed you quickly. Me and my boys plan to have some fun first. That is, before we hand you over to the Evendim Confederation in return for a full pardon. Herald Kali."

Fuck. How the bloody hell had they managed to find out who I was? I was supposed to be in Karse, damnit!

There's no one closer than an old enemy. Or an old friend. But my Empathy would have told me if one of them planned to betray me. So that left enemies. Who among my enemies knew me well enough to predict my actions? I had a nagging suspicion I knew who it was.

Uh, Zeus, now would be a nice time for a thunderbolt. Come on. Nothing. Okay, Hera next. What did I know about Hera? Hera, oh great queen of the gods, if you help me, I won't try to seduce your husband. Okay, I won't anyway, but could ya give me a hand? Still nothing.

Looked like I was on my own. "Here's the deal, boys. You can leave now, and I'll let you live. At the moment, I have more important things to worry about than tracking down a few bandits who are going to get themselves killed soon anyway. Or you can stay and die. Suddenly and violently and all over the place." Cupid, be kind to a girl in love, and reunite me with Jacoby before I die.

"You couldn't summon enough strength now to knock over a feather."

"You think so?" I asked. "Maybe that's true. Maybe all my strength is going into holding me upright. Maybe it's all a bluff. Then again, maybe it's not." Now that I no longer had to maintain shields, I was quickly regaining strength—magical, if not mental. Along with the renewed strength came a reaction-headache to rival any hangover. Not the worst I'd ever had, but it was definitely a close second. "Maybe," I continued, "just maybe, my reputation as Herald Death is more than wisps of smoke. It's said that I laughed in the face of the Shadow-Lover."

"I don't believe that tale," the bandit said dismissively.

"Good, because it's not true. Death respected me too much for me to laugh at him." I was feeling more and more like John Taylor as the seconds passed. With an effort, I Fetched all their coins into a pile around my feet. I would have done their knives and arrows, but I couldn't concentrate enough. "Now leave, before I do something unpleasantly similar to your internal organs." I could feel Jacoby and Lyrna close by, but it had to be a hallucination. I'd told them to stay away. Right? And none of the gods were listening today, so I couldn't really expect Cupid to be any different.

"I suggest you do as the lady says," Jacoby said, sounding quite a bit like good old Captain Jack. Hey, now my hallucination was talking.

The bandits responded to his voice, turning and drawing their weapons on him.

:I'm not a hallucination any more than I'm just a voice in your head: Lyrna said sternly. Well, she certainly wasn't acting like Samantha Carter when Rodney McKay hallucinated her in Season 2 of Stargate Atlantis.

When the bandits began to die by Jacoby's blade, I decided that it must not be a hallucination, after all. One of them backed toward me. I fumbled for a knife, but before I could get one, he bonked me on the head. Unconsciousness, which had been threatening for the past ten minutes, leapt over me and swallowed me whole.

I woke in the process of being turned over to one of the constables. Seemed the bandit who'd taken me figured the safest bet was to get me off his hands as quickly as possible. Lucky me. I blinked blearily at the constable. "What bleeding idiot told the Confederation I was going to do them in? I'm into world domination, not revolution. Not that I'm saying this place doesn't need it."

"A former friend of yours, to whom you confessed your plans," the constable gloated. Hey, look at that. I'd found someone in the know.

"Funny, I don't remember confessing any such plans."

"Jelon says you did." He said the name like it should pain me to hear of Jelon's supposed betrayal.

Surprisingly, it did pain me. My rivalry with Jelon had always seemed rather, well, friendly. Gentlemanly. I'd called him Jello, rather than the more appropriate terms of dumbfuck, fuckwit, or fuckturd. Not the sort of thing that would make him want to betray me. Seems I'd misjudged him. "Old pudding-face?" I snorted. "I wouldn't trust him to kill me right. He'd probably bungle that, too. I'm actually surprised he managed to pull this off."

"What are you talking about?"

"Jelon and I aren't friends, we're enemies. Have been for six years. It was hate at first sight. Well, the fact that I dumped gravy on his head may not have helped matters much. But as I recall, he insulted me first."

"Regardless, you're coming with me."

"No I'm not." I pulled out the last of my reserves to lash out at him and his men. My best efforts bounced off their shields. They laughed.

The constable grabbed my arm and dragged me closer to town. His men were all pointing swords at me, and my reserves were completely depleted so I decided to cooperate. I would so hate to have to mend my black Whites.

From the looks of things, I was screwed. A glance about me confirmed that assessment. Yep, I was screwed. That looked suspiciously like a cross on that hill toward which they now led me. Of course, acceptance of your fate never changes the fact that you're still screwed.

Cheer up, I told myself. The worst is yet to come.

Indeed it was. When I tried to reach into a nearby ley-line in order to restore my supply of magical energy, I found my access blocked. If I'd had any reserves left, I might have been able to break through the barrier—but I'd gotten myself into this situation in the first place by depleting my reserves. I tried to contact Lyrna, but I was cut off from her as well.

Have I mentioned lately what an idiot I am?

We were definitely heading toward that hill with the cross. At least that looked like rope at the bottom, not nails. So I'd die of suffocation rather than blood loss. Wonderful. It was like that reenactment of Caesar and the pirates all over again. We'd done that in third year Latin, and I'd been the pirate captain. I'd wound up crucified against the white board at the front of the class.

I struggled, of course, as they tied me to the cross. There wasn't much else I could do. Sure I was Herald Death, but without my powers or weapons, and against ten men, I was just another girl. A really bitchy one, to be sure.

"I'm a pirate, not a bloody martyr!" I yelled down at them. "You're supposed to hang me, not crucify me!" Okay, so maybe being a Herald was being a martyr. Still… "I'd much rather live for my cause than die for it. You don't join the army to die for your country; you join the army to make the other bastard die for his country. Let me down, do you hear?" Of the ways I'd thought I might die, not only had crucifixion been nowhere near the top, it hadn't even been on the bloody list in the first place.

A bit of old wisdom came to me: there is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole. Or on a cross.

The sun was still glaring at me from the sky. I tried to glare back, but had to turn away. That hurt. Helios, Ra, Apollo—whatever you want to call yourself—you know I love you, but please, go stick your head behind a cloud. Vkandis especially. I really love you. Really. But could ya keep your priests in line? Okay, I know these aren't your priests. They're not anybody's priests. But I don't like your Sun-Priests much either.

A gust of wind interrupted my rant at the sun-gods. Aeolus, could you cut it out with the wind? I whined, pulling uselessly at the knots in an attempt to rub my freezing arms. It's bloody cold up here.

Astera, Kernos, Kal'enel. I thought desperately. Who else? Kali, of course. Kali, oh great and wonderful Goddess of Death, who embodies both creation and destruction, please kill those damn bastards who put me here—and that includes Jello FitzJohan! That trail of thought led to another: what Goa'uld names did I know? They usually turned out to be gods. Oh, great, I'm going to pray to snake-headed aliens who enslave humans in their free time. Well, what the hell? Here goes nothing. Cronus, great god of time—hey, Janus is the god of time, too! Maybe Janus could come here in his time-traveling puddle jumper and rescue me. Better yet, Colonel Sheppard. He's funny. Oh, Goa'ulds. Right. There's Nirrti. And Apophis. Snakey god who keeps coming back to life. Now he could be a real help. Apophis, can you hear me? Please? And Ba'al. Oh, yeah, I'm going to pray to the devil. Better yet, Sokar. He'll be a big help. Maybe I shouldn't pray to him, but I could at least invoke his name.

A crowd had gathered around me, mostly curious onlookers. Trouble was, none of them moved to help me. That didn't endear them to me at all. A couple threw stones—probably the thieves who may or may not have run into trouble with Heralds in the past. We weren't that far from the border. Some might just have been sadistic. "Go to Sokar," I snarled at them.

Then it was back to praying. Maybe if I ignored them, they'd go away. Um, more Goa'uld? Well, all that's left is Anubis, and since he's the god of the dead, I think I'll leave off praying to him until I'm a bit closer to death. Same with Hades. Pluto, god of wealth. So named because the Greek word for "wealth" was "plouton." Maybe if I promised him gold?

Asgard. Hmm. Thor, god of thunder. I looked at the sky. Helios was still blazing bright. Not a cloud to be seen. So thunder was out of the question. He could beam me out on his ship, were he so minded. And close enough to hear me call.

Not bloody likely.

Fraea, or however her name was spelt. Goddess of fertility, wouldn't do me much good. Kinda like Ceres in that regard.

Loki! My old buddy, god of mischief. As I thought that, people in uniform approached, bearing logs. I swallowed a bout of panic. Buddy, it's been fun, and I'm sure you've had a wonderful laugh at my expense, but that looks suspiciously like firewood they're piling beneath my feet, and I have a sinking feeling that things are about to get distinctly unfunny.

"Whoa there, I said pirate, not witch. Okay, I'm a witch, too, but I'm a pirate first. And the only rope I see is the stuff tying me to this cross."

Well, God, it looks like I'm back to you again. Heaven is wonderful and all that, and I'd really like to go there, but I would strongly prefer not to have to go through Hell first.

I looked down from the cross once more, and there was Jelon FitzJohan, holding a torch. "Herald Kali," he sneered, "you're far too likely to escape from a hanging. No, best to get you out of my hair by making sure there's nothing to resurrect. You'll go up in a tower of flame, like the witch you are."

Contact Jacoby.

No, I'd already tried that. Well, I'd tried to Bespeak Lyrna. Surely Mindspeech with Jacoby would be no different.

Not Mindspeech, you idiot. Okay, that was weird. The first thought could be attributed to my desperation, but this one definitely didn't come from me. Maybe one of my prayers had finally been answered? But what did it mean?

Realization came like a thunderbolt, leaving me stunned. The lifebond. Of course.

Jacoby. I need you. Those were the words I thought, but the bond didn't convey words, it conveyed emotion. Love and reassurance came back to me. Still, it wouldn't hurt to keep praying.

In between words with my main God, I had little asides to others. Neptune, or Poseidon, or whoever, I know I rejected your call, and I'm really really sorry, but no hard feelings, right? You'll lend me some of your water? Wait, what was I talking about? I wasn't even near an ocean; how was old Trident going to help me? Better to pray to the goddess of Lake Evendim, if such existed.

A disturbance began at the back of the crowd. I watched, hoping maybe there'd be something interesting to distract me from the pain that was sure to come. Jelon tossed the torch onto the pile of kindling. It sputtered, then caught. I forced my attention back to the disturbance. At least the heat from the fire chased away the chill of the breeze.

The knot had migrated toward the center of the onlookers. Like a shark's fin under the water, it trailed toward me. Not circling, though. But it had that triangle ripple-wake effect.

Jelon dusted off his hands and laughed cruelly. "Did you really think you could get away with insulting me? You're nothing but a farmgirl."

"Farmgirl with pretensions," I corrected. "Of course, I suppose 'pretensions' is too big a word for you to use. It has three whole syllables, after all."

"Where's your pirate? I know he came here with you. There's a price on his head, too. Not as large, though. When I got here three days ago, I told the president you were together. Had to ride five horses into the ground in order to get here before you, but it's worth it to have my revenge."

Hot. Ooch. Hey, I'd felt like this before. Well, only on my fingers, really. When I'd play with candles and dip my fingers in the molten wax. "Unfortunately, the cowardly bandit who sucker-punched me didn't dare approach the pirate who was busily handling the other bandits. You should know, Jello, that you'll never get away with this. Lyrna will know what happened to me, and she'll tell everyone in Valdemar."

"No she won't. You've been blocked off from all magic. You can't contact her," Jelon gloated. "This, then, is the end of the great Herald Death."

"Yeah," I said with all the scorn I could muster. "I feel like some victim of the Ku Klux Klan. Burning crosses and lots of repetitive threats."

The crowd opened and spit forth Jacoby, angry as hell and as welcome as heaven. His anger burned its way down the bond and into me as he took out a knife and threw it at Jelon. It impaled Jelon's back. Jelon screamed, convulsed, and fell into the flames. The stench of burning flesh reached my nostrils as the flames licked higher. Not noticing how much it burnt him, Jacoby forced the logs away from the smoldering wood of the cross. Before the authorities could be summoned, he'd cut me free and handed me a knife. My fingers closed over the blade in grateful possession.

"Come," he said roughly.

"No, wait!" I hadn't yet sensed Jelon's death. I could only surmise that Jacoby had missed his intended target—or perhaps he'd intended for Jelon to suffer before he died. At the moment, such suffering pleased me greatly. He'd meant to burn me alive—only fitting that he should receive the same fate. But he could yet be useful. So I pulled him away from the still-burning logs and patted out the small fires on his clothes.

"What do you want with him?" Jacoby demanded.

"A confession," I replied, my face the mask of Herald Death. "He set me up. If I can get him to confess to the authorities, then we'll both be free to go." I turned my cold gaze on the man on the ground before me.

"What if he doesn't tell the truth?"

"Oh, that's part of the fun of being a Herald." My smile boded ill for Jelon FitzJohan. "We have this lovely device called the Truth Spell. It shows when someone is lying, if I can teach you how to work the spell in the short time we have. I doubt I'll be able to break through this spell upon me before then."

By the time the proper authorities arrived, Jacoby had managed to work a first-level truth spell. In full view of everyone, Jacoby worked the spell on the whimpering man. A cloud of blue appeared around his head. "This is the truth spell," I announced. "Jacoby has summoned the air elementals known as vrondi, which cannot abide lies. If Jelon says something untrue, they will disappear for a short time."

"Herald magic," I heard someone mutter. I ignored him.

"What is your name?" I asked FitzJohan.

"Jelon," he replied sullenly. The blue mist around his head remained constant.

"Do you consider yourself my friend?"

"No."

Okay, of course not. He wasn't a moron, he was just stupid. With an effort, I tried to think like a lawyer. "Did you ever consider yourself my friend?"

"Yes." The blue cloud disappeared, accompanied by a gasp from the onlookers. "That is, until you confessed to me your foul plot."

"Liar," I said easily. "I swear before witnesses that not only did I never conceive such a plan, but had I done so, I would never have told you. All present bear witness to what the spell shows. Jelon is lying about the existence of a plot."

"No! I tell the truth!" he said desperately. "Herald Kali planned to overthrow the Evendim Confederation and instill herself as sole ruler." Only after he shut up did the vrondi return.

"We can take this to a trial, if you'd like," I reluctantly offered the man I could only assume was the city's mayor. "I'll stand witness, as will Jacoby. But what we'd really like to do is take this traitor back to Valdemar where King Roald can deal with him as he sees fit." Then Jacoby and I could head for Vertin to be married. I'd still rather be married by that Sun-Priest than by anyone in Haven, and Jacoby was pretty sure the man still lived in his hometown. "I give you my oath as a Herald that I mean your country no harm. My presence here earlier was to rid you of a tyrant mage who already had seized control of several towns, and the incident with the pirates was simply a debt I owed them for giving me aid."

"Very well," the mayor allowed, clearly nervous about this turn of events. He was quite grateful that Herald Death didn't choose to make threats at this point. If he took this much farther, Valdemar might see it as an insult. One of Valdemar's Heralds had almost died today—a Herald innocent of all wrongdoing. Well, maybe not all. "I apologize for the inconvenience. I will tell the president what happened and hope this mess is cleared up as soon as possible."

"I'll need a horse," I said. "Actually, make that two." I'd lost my horse when we were separated. I'd been riding the horse because, again, Jacoby couldn't ride, so needed something that could keep him in the saddle without any skill on his part being necessary.

The mayor signaled for his men to fetch a pair of horses. When they came, I tied Jelon unceremoniously to the saddle of one, took hold of the reins, and mounted the other. With Jelon's horse's reins tied to my saddle, I turned my horse in the direction of home.

Next chapter is the last. The end is in sight! Suggestions on how I should end it? My two failings are beginnings and endings. Even if you don't have any suggestions, reviews are still appreciated.