Disclaimer:  M.L owns, not H.K!

Sorry about the cliffhanger on the last chapter, I felt bad about it, but I had to go to bed and it seemed like a good stopping point. 

Fireblade:  More is coming!  Speaking of more –eyes suspiciously- How's the homework going?

Crinzin: Well, welcome back again, hope you had fun.  Grr –thwacks head against wall- MORE description?  I'm going to go mad!

Breezefire: No problem on the reviewage.  Yes, as you can tell, I was STARVING when I wrote the last chapter.  Yes, like I said, sorry about the cliffhanger.  Glad someone approves of the description levels.  –Glares at Crinzin-  I'm just kidding, lol.

Wizard: Thankies.  Hmm, I wonder what she could do –Herald winks-

Lurks in Shadows:  Tis coming.  Right now, actually. 

Badgerwolf: -Herald squeezes the life out of her new reviewer-  Yay!  You're my new hero!  Yes, the Healers fascinate me, and they never get more than a passing mention in ML's books, the poor things.

Tenshi:  Yes, but what would you think, given the tales he's probably been hearing about Heralds and Companions since his birth?  The poor thing is all confuzzled.

Stee Parker:  -Squeezes the life out of other new reviewer-  Yes, I know that bit is a little out there, but I beg your indulgence and suspension of disbelief.  I mean, it is just possible that something like that would happen.

Chapter 3: Heralds

Treet backed up as far as he could, which only resulted in him catching his foot on the bottom of the bench he had been sitting on and tumbling backwards, hitting the dirt with a loud thump.

The Herald moved closer.  She was tall and muscular, as was normal for the Heralds, given the active and physical life they led.  Her blonde hair was cropped short at the ears, and her blue eyes seemed to Treet to be flecked with chips of ice.  Her snowy whites were immaculate, and she cut a stunning figure.

All this added up to one thing for Treet, that it was time to run for it.  He tried to rise, but found his legs hopelessly tangled in the bench.  The Herald slowly advanced, her Companion beside her, a slightly predatory smile curving her lips.

"Don't worry, youngling, I'm not going to harm you.  Why don't you sit down again and we'll have a nice friendly chat?"

Treet was struck nearly dumb with terror at that last suggestion.  The absolute last thing he wanted to do was to converse with this being.  Whatever she was.  Even if only half the stories Treet had ever heard about Heralds were true, she would still be terrifying enough to avoid.

The Herald offered her hand.  "I'm Herald Karissa.  Let me help you up."

Treet supposed it had been meant as a friendly gesture.  Against his better judgment, Treet took the offered hand and sat down as calmly as he could on the bench, scooting as far away from Karissa as was humanly possible for him to do while sitting on a tiny bench in a crowded marketplace.

Karissa glared at him slightly, obviously getting sick of his skittishness.  She opened her mouth, presumably to say something scathing, Treet thought to himself.  Then, she got this look on her face.  It was intent and focused, but staring off into space like the Herald was looking into another world.

Shortly, Karissa seemed to return to earth a little, and the hard edges of her face softened.  "I suppose I may as well tell you why I'm here.  As you may not already know, given your upbringing, you have the Healing Gift.  A Healer at a nearby temple of Healing told me that the Healers there had sensed an awakening Gift.  I came looking for it, and I seem to have found it."

Treet had understood virtually one third of Karissa's sentence.  His nose wrinkled and his mouth hung open a little.  "I, huh, what?"

Treet could see Karissa take in a deep breath and slowly exhale.  "Going too fast for you?  Ok, you have a Gift.  A Gift for Healing.  Once it's trained, you will be able to Heal injuries with, well, you could call it magic."

"But, my folk say all magic is evil, demon's work.  I have a gift for demons work?"  Despite his rising apprehension, Treet remained calm.  After all, the Holderkin hadn't exactly steered him in the right direction so far.  No matter what else his folk said about Heralds, they grudgingly admitted that they were good hearted, if amoral, and served a useful purpose.  Treet would listen to this one, hard edged as she seemed.

Karissa forced a grin.  Dealing with feuds between irate farmers, fine.  Even dealing with littles who knew the basics was fine, but Karissa had very little patience for explanations.  She also had a very short temper.  Riding circuit, mostly alone but for her Companion, suited her just fine.  Training with the Heralds and Veria, her Companion, had enabled her to hold her temper, and she was actually very good at resolving conflicts, but she still tended to lose it every once and a while.  She tended to try to do it in the woods, alone, but that had a varying success rate.  She didn't always make it that far.

"Well, you'll get all that information eventually, I suppose.  We have very little time, and I've got to take you back to Haven with me.  You'll get training with other Healers at the Collegium there."

"You mean, leave my family for good?"  Treet couldn't believe his ears.

"Well, that is the snagging point for most Trainees.  We tend to get them from the city, which does facilitate visits, but when they're Borderers like you?  You can come down here for holidays, of course, but yes, you have to leave your family."

"Really?  I can?  And not come back?"  Treet's face shone with joy.  It seemed that all of his greatest wishes had been fulfilled.  Hadn't he been wishing only recently that there was a way that he could just leave everything behind?  Treet wasn't exactly sure if this new situation Karissa had described would be better, but it would be a change, at the very least.

Treet smiled finally, if a little shakily.  "I'll go with you."

Karissa snorted to herself.  "Not much of a choice, dear.  Your Gift would hang over you all your life if you didn't use it."  She saw the confused look on Treet's face and sighed again.  It was going to be a long ride home.  "Never mind, youngling.  I'm glad you're coming along."

Treet's face lit up at the words.  Him?  Wanted by someone?  It was a thought that made him feel warm and safe inside, even if it was only a hard faced Herald who he had met not a quarter mark ago that wanted him. 

'Sometimes,' Karissa thought to herself wryly, seeing the grin on Treet's face.  'A little white lie goes a long way.' 

"We have a long way to travel, and even Companion back, it will take us some time to cover it.  You will have to ride pillion behind me.  I suppose you have a horse, but her speed will be nothing compared to my Companion.  Matching my pace to yours would slow us down more that Veria will mind the extra rider.  Now, mount up."

Treet looked up at the Companion he was supposed to be riding, and his knees shook.  She was huge!  She gazed at him with one knowing, sapphire eye, and tossed her head, as if to indicate her impatience to be moving.

Herald Karissa was already in the saddle.  She looked down at Treet, but instead of barely masked annoyance, to her own surprise, she felt a twinge of pity for the boy.  Obviously, he was unused to being out in the world, and he knew less about Heralds and Mind Magic than the smallest little living near Haven.  Well, pity or not, Karissa had to get moving.  She had most of a circuit to do, and coming after this boy had put her well off schedule.  If the Healers hadn't been so damned insistent, she could have been halfway home!

This little detour was well off of her circuit.  Female Heralds were never positioned near Treet's home sector.  They would never be able to gain the respect necessary to administer justice.  Her sector was actually between Exile's Road and the South Trade Road, diagonally down to Zalmon and back.

She had been on her way back from Zalmon, on the second half of her circuit, when she had encountered a small band of raiders.  She and Veria, with the help of the local villagers, had dispatched them, but Karissa had taken an arrow in the shoulder.  Nothing serious, but enough to warrant the attention of someone from the local Healing Temple.  While she had been recovering, one of the Healers with the most sensitive Empathy had sensed someone who's awakening Gift of Healing was developing to the point where they should have been gravitating towards Haven, or at least doing something about their Gift.  They developed shielding over time, but it was as holey as an arrowshot target, and not conscious at all in nature.  When they didn't move into the realm of conscious shielding, the Healers had conscripted Karissa to go and bring the incipient Healer to Haven to be trained.  Why she had agreed, Karissa had no idea, but here she was.

She snapped herself out of her reverie just as Treet, with visible apprehension, mounted up on Veria.

'Thankfully,' Karissa remarked internally, 'he's probably been riding since he could walk.  We aren't going to have that problem, at least.'

With a mental cue from Karissa, Veria started to walk at a sedate pace out of the marketplace.  Once they got onto the open road, she would pick it up a bit, but for now there was no sense in rushing.  Heralds didn't like to trample people if it was at all avoidable.

The boy was so small and light, Karissa barely noticed that he was there.  She realized then that she had been so wrapped up in carrying him off that she hadn't even asked his name.

"Youngling?  Since I can't call you 'boy' all the way to Haven, what's your name?"

Treet started.  The hypnotic rhythm of Veria's hooves, along with the easy gait the mare had adopted, had lulled Treet into a slight doze.  "Tretin is my name, but I prefer Treet.  People only call me Tretin when they're mad at me."

"Ah, yes.  Well then, Treet."  Karissa said, not wanting to sound angry with him, but uncomfortable using a nickname for someone she didn't know.  "My name is Herald Karissa, as you may remember."

Suddenly, an unwelcome thought occurred to her.  "Herald Karissa.  JUST Herald Karissa.  Not Rissa, Kari, Ari, Arissa, or any variation thereof.  Is that quite clear?"

"Yes, Herald."  Treet said.

"Good.  Now, I advise you get settled in, because it's going to be a few Candlemarks before we make the Waystation we're stopping at tonight."

This kept Treet silent for a while, but his curiosity got the better of him.  He was already ignoring his feeling that he should have run away from the Herald when he had the chance.  He knew nothing about where he was going.  He was, essentially, venturing into a whole new world, betting that he could make a life for himself.  The Holderkin didn't hold with betting.

'If it wasn't for this 'Gift,'' Treet thought to himself.  'If it weren't for this Gift, I would be nearly home right now.'

'Yeah, and probably preparing to get beaten up again.'  His more cynical half interrupted.

Still, however horrible it had seemed, home was something Treet knew.  A known danger versus a completely unknown quantity.  It was a quandary, to be sure.

Treet decided that there was nothing much that he could do to make it less of one, sitting on a Companion that was heading further from his home every minute.  The only thing he could do was to try to turn the unknown quantity into a more known one.

"Herald?"  Treet asked softy, proud that his voice only shook a little.  "Can you tell me about this 'Collegium' that I am to go to?  I don't know anything about it yet."

Treet cringed, waiting for the slap or shout that his long established habit told him that asking a question would cause.  He could feel the vibrations of annoyance coming from Karissa, had felt them nearly the entire trip so far, except for one moment, when she appeared to feel something like pity for Treet.

When Karissa turned around, she was indeed a little annoyed, although she tried to keep it from showing in her face.  Her rides with Veria were the only parts of her life that were truly hers, not done for anyone else but herself, or at least, they were pleasurable enough that Karissa could pretend that was so.  She did not appreciate the interruption.

She saw the look on Treet's face, though, the hunger for knowledge and the dreadful fear that battled for precedence.    He deserved to know what he was getting into.  "The Collegium is like a great big school.  There are three of them.  One for us Heralds, one for Bards, and one for you Healers.  Probably, when you get there, you'll be interviewed, assigned someone to show you around, and then you'll start classes.  You'll learn how to use your Gift, and then you'll apprentice to each of the older Healers in turn, one from each specialty Healing field, until you find the one who's field is the closest match with your Gift, then you'll start intensive training.  When you graduate, in about four years, depending on your specialty, you will be given a permanent post, usually with other Healers in a Healing Temple, or in Haven at the House of Healing."

Karissa took a breath.  'Whew, long speech.'  She thought to herself.  The youngling, Treet, she corrected herself.  Treet looked more interested than afraid, although she expected that his fears would resurface with a vengeance as soon as they reached the Collegium.

"That's enough for now, Treet."  She said, as he opened his mouth for a stream of questions.  "I see the path to our Waystation, and I'm getting too tired to speak.  I'll tell you anything else tomorrow."