Savil fallowed Andrel through the halls of Healers and into the wing that housed the patients that had been deemed a threat to themselves or others. It hurt her heart to see the sun of her heart to see the boy she considered a son here of all places; even though she knew the area of the garden beyond the boy's room had been modified to allow Gala to remain close to her Chosen.
She shuddered, unable to escape the oppressive feeling that followed her down the narrow, cream with rose highlight stone corridor. Six doors lined the hallway, this infrequently full ward. She thickened her mental shields as she walked even if there were only two patients in residence at the moment, their thoughts pressed around her like a suffocating shroud.
Andrel led her to the last room on the left, knocked, once, rather sharply upon the door, and called out "Visitors" to Tylendel.
The only answer was a shrill, deranged, and wordless shriek.
Savil took a deep breath as her old friend opened the door and stepped into the, almost barren room. Her heart heavy at the thought of her dear boy trapped in a place where the both the bed and the lonely table and chair were bolted to the floor. An equine head, with its luminous blue eye gazed sadly in past the bared windows. Savil swallowed past the lump in her throat and inclined her head to the Companion standing her lonely visual.
"Make them go away," Tylendel wailed from his place in the corner. His wan voice shook something fundamental at her core and she reached instinctively for the support only Kellen could provide. She closed her eyes and felt the love and support of her Companion wrap around her like a cloak, supporting her when her knees threatened to buckle under the pressure of the mounting pain in her chest.
((({ })))
Tylendel squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore the people in the room with him, desperately trying to block out the sight of his mother's bloated body, the scent of the sick she'd died in. His brother's mangled form lounged against the far wall. Blood and guts spilling from his mauled, mangled and disemboweled body. His father stood off to the side, arms crossed, and glowered at him with parental disapproval. A slim, black and silver cat lounged under the table, watching him with unblinking blue eyes.
The cat watched, an unmoving Spector of death as their collective voices rose and fell, tumbling over each other. The voices whispered, ranted, raved, demanded, wailed and cajoled, calling out in a painful cacophony, discordant in everything, save their desire for blood. They blended mixed into a horrible harmonic, music torn from the strings of a tortured instrument.
He couldn't hear himself think.
"I can't!"he wailed into the deafening din, as his slain kin cried out for blood.
You won't! His father's spat, voice harsh with anger, hatred and pain.
"They won't let me!" He snarled, desperately trying to appease the souls of the restless dead. "Van is gone, Gala is watching me. The door is locked. Leave me alone."
His father's face screwed up with rage, his mother's face twisted with haughty indignation and his Twin his, beloved Steven's gaze narrowed with disappointment and grief.
"Why won't you avenge us?" Steven asked even as their father geared up for a tirade beside him.
A knock interrupted the tirade before it could get started and a Healer – Andrel he thought – belatedly informed him of the visitors who had been tormenting him for the last few hours.
"Make them go away," he wailed around the heart break and the despair.
His father's tirade had only been briefly interrupted though and the man started in on him again railing about his duty. His duty to avenge his family. Tears slid down his cheeks as he rocked, listening to his father's lecture as his mother and brother added their voices to the din. : do not listen to them Chosen!: Gala said firmly into his mind. : Do not listen to them my Chosen there is nothing there! :
"Get out of my head!" he wailed with mind and voice. As her mental voice wove its way in among the voices of his slain kin adding to the discordant, tortures harmonic of the room.
:Oh my poor befuddled Chosen, : She crooned at him even as his family mocked her words and tore at their bond with claws like ice that rent his very soul and threatened to pull him asunder.
Through it all the cat sat watching them with unblinking eyes blue eyes.
((({ })))
Healer Andrel sighed at the sight of Savil's favorite trainee, the boy huddled in a corner of his mostly empty room, rocking back and forth muttering to himself in a mostly soft but horse whisper. Occasionally the boy would break free of his torpor and shout or wail but these outbreaks were few and far between. He made his way over to the boy, Savil walking slowly at his side, and tried to assess the boy's condition. The boy seemed to oscillate between periods of catatonia and ravening hallucinations. Taking stock of his symptoms he began mentally debating a change of treatment. So far the mind-healers had turned up nothing
"Tylendel" he called softly crouching down in front of the afflicted Heraldic Trainee. "Tylendel can you look at me?"
"Go away." The boy whispered, eyes fixated on the empty air above his shoulder. "I won't do it. Leave me alone!"
Andrel sighed "Can you tell me what you're seeing?" he enquired, hastily looking the boy over with healer's sight. Desperate to find something -anything- wrong with him. They couldn't begin to fix this until they found someplace to start.
"I said no!" Tylendel thundered, as the boy shot to his feet, head cracking against Andrel's nose, and sending the Healer sprawling to the floor. Savil helped him to his feet, and stood beside him silent in her grief as the boy grabbed at his hair and paced, voice creaking as he pleaded with invisible tormentors. "Leave me alone, please leave me alone. I won't do it! I won't. Leave me alone. Go away! I'm a Herald! I won't let you hurt them."
Andrel swore colorfully, fixing his nose with a small jolt of healing power. He stood there for a moment watching as Savil tried to corral and calm the addled boy.
Tylendel's knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor before Savil could catch him, a marionette whose strings had been cut. "I don't know you," the boy whispered scrambling, gracelessly, back into his corner. "Leave me alone, you're not my brother. Staven would never …"
"I'm a Herald!" the boy yelled, slowly curling in on himself. "I can't, I won't. Go away." Finally he drew his arms up over his head and rocked frantically as he argued, piteously with his invisible assailants. "Mother please." He begged, voice a shattered broken whimper.
Savil shifted, lowering herself to the floor and wrapped the terrified child up into her arms. Andrel perched himself lightly on the foot of the boy's bed and considered to the boy's apparent argument with his dead family members. A vague suspicion forming in his mind as he watched the child alternate between enraged screaming and terrified pleading, before finally curling himself against Savil's chest sobbing his heart out.
Andrel watched them both as the Trainee cried himself to sleep, and his old friend carded her fingers through his wild tangle of, unkempt, golden curls like a mother soothing a sick child. He contemplated everything he knew, turning the facts over and over I his mind, as the stricken Trainee faded into sleep in his mentor's arms. Sedatives hadn't worked, unless they used enough to knock the poor child flat. The drugs that stop hallucinations hadn't worked and the boy shattered every outside shield they'd attempted to place on him so far, with a brutal efficiency the continued backlash from the efforts rending his own shields as well as the shields placed upon him by well-meaning Herald and Healer alike.
The Healing Circle had, somewhat tentatively suggested they burn out the boy's gift as they would have one of their own who'd behaved so egregiously or been so badly afflicted with insanity. The Heralds had put their collective foot down with the full backing of the Queen. As long as Tylendel's Companion remained with him, as long as she refused to repudiate him, they would not entertain even the idea of burning out the boy's powers. As far as he knew no one had tried temporarily shutting down the boy's gifts, though they had drugged the boy to the point that they were rendered impotent through apathy and sheer lethargy.
"Savil" he whispered quietly as the Herald Mage rose carefully to her feet the sleep slackened body of the young man cradled in her arms like a much smaller child. He turned down the sheets for her, as she placed the trainee gently upon the bed, covering him with all the gentle affection of a mother caring for a sick child.
He led her out of the room jumping, and swearing in surprise when a small black and silver cat scampered out between their feet.
Regaining his composure he closed and locked the door and made his way slowly down the hallway with his friend in tow before enquiring. "Tylendel's Twin, were the boy's linked mind to mind?"
Savil got that far away look he associated with a Herald talking to their Companion and stood stalk still in the hallway for a moment before appearing to come back to herself with a contemplative noise.
"Gala says he was, what's more, he not only felt it when Staven was killed, but his twin drew him in tight as he was killed. Poor 'Lendel lived it right along with his twin."
Andrel nodded, "I have a theory, a theory mind."
Savil nodded and motioned for him to go on. He closed his eyes briefly "Long ago I met a man who was newly come to Valdemar, he told me his people believe, as we do, that times of great stress and turmoil can awaken gifts that lay dormant within us. But more than that they believe twins are not only bound in a magical sense and in ways we can never fully understand, but are in a sense merely a single extraordinary person who happens to occupy more than one Body. They believed that when one dies, the other receives all that they were and might have been. In a sense, any latent gifts that may have been attached to Tylendel's twin, may have come home to roost inside the trainee himself. The duel stress of losing his twin and of experiencing – first hand – what it means to be mauled to death, may have awakened a little known gift."
Savil gaped at him then flung an arm out to indicate the hallway they'd just left and the room housing her poor afflicted trainee. "You are telling me THAT may be a Gift!" She all but shrieked. "What kind of a gift would do that?"
Andrel shrugged, "I have some suspicions, a theory nothing more."
Deep in thought he led the way out of the ward, contemplating his theory and whom would be best suited to help him find his answers. Maybe they could cure the boy after all.
((({ } )))
Savil sat among the rest of the Heraldic Circle as they debated what to do about her protégée. There was no denying what the boy had tried to do. Both his attack on the Leshara strong hold and what they now figured were Two attempts on Vanyel's life. Thankfully the boy hadn't managed to kill anyone. The only casualty of Tylendel's strike at the heart of the Leshara clan, had been Lord Evan.
The man's death had come not at Tylendel's hand, but by Gala's hooves, when he'd foolishly tried to murder the boys, while Vanyel fought to subdue a crazed Tylendel.
Still intent mattered in Valdemar, Tylendel had not managed to kill anyone that Night, but he had been intending slaughter down to the last babe. The law was clear, and Tylendel, was not above the law.
Still, they could not meat out the usual punishments for attempted Murder. Gala had not repudiated him, in fact she stood by him, maintaining that what occurred that night was not entirely his fault or his doing.
Gala's continued presence at the boy's side complicated matters for they could not punish Tylendel without by force punishing his Companion.
"The boy was and clearly is still beyond reason", one of the Circle argued. "We can hardly punish him now for the actions taken under these circumstance."
"And what of the other boy, Vanyel," Crown Prince, Herald Mage Darvi enquired. "Are we to punish him to? His Lifebonded Lover may have been beyond reason but the boy was not." He paused, the slightly glazed look on his face suggesting that he spoke with his Companion. After a moment he continued, sounding rather perplexed. "Yet, the boy is the reason we had time to prevent the crisis in the first place and the reason no one died by Trainee Tylendel's hand. How can we punish him for coming to his senses? And if we are not to punish him how can we punish Tylendel who was truly beyond reason when the events took place."
Elspeth inclined her head to her son and heir before turning her gaze upon Savil. "Herald Mage Savil, you have more knowledge of the boys' characters and the events leading up to this sad state of affairs. Have you anything to add on behalf of your protégée or your nephew?"
Savil considered her words carefully. "As much as I love my family, it is a Herald's Job to remain impartial. It is critical to remember that whatever crimes he may have been accomplice to. Vanyel came to his senses and fought to prevent tragedy at great risk to himself and has now been Chosen. Furthermore, it should be noted that his Father, My brother Withen gave that boy a sense of Justice so skewed… I am unsurprised he saw no issue with Tylendel's plans. It is what my brother taught him was the honorable course of action. The boy had a snowball's chance in a frying pan of standing against his lover. As I understand it, Tylendel was the only one besides his sister to ever show him any affection. For all they played at being sworn enemies in public, behind closed doors, the relationship between them was one where Tylendel led and Vanyel followed." She paused and rubbed her temples with suppressed pain. "My Kellen tells me that prior to this incident Vanyel was developing a rather formidable, and peculiar form of Foresight. I know he foresaw Wyrsa, and the Death of not only Gala but Tylendel as well. It is one of the reasons the Companions would not give him over to us when he was first Chosen. The child was trapped within the many possibilities. I do not know if Vanyel came to his senses regarding Tylendel's Intentions or if he simply foresaw his lover's death and acted to preserve him. Yet the fact remains, Vanyel saved the many lives that night, and prevented us from having a Herald Murderer on our hands. Vanyel has been Chosen. The Companion Yfandes is no mere youngster. In the time we have been away I have seen with my own eyes that she has Vanyel well in hand. The Boy is already proving to be someone we would be proud to call our own."
She paused and rubbed at her brows, trying to relieve some of the tension. She sighed before continuing. "I have learned that Trainee Tylendel, may have unique circumstances surrounding his current state. Tylendel bore a mind-bond to his twin that was … more than the usual rudimentary bond seen between Gifted twins. Distance had no effect upon it whatsoever." She paused briefly to let that sink in. "Tylendel not only felt his brother's death but experienced it along with him, became trapped in it. Furthermore, Healer Andrel told me that the trauma of the event may have led to a rare, latent gift being blasted open. Andrel believes that this Latent gift may be partly responsible for both Tylendel's actions and his current condition. I will not argue that the boys should not be punished, however, in the end, Gala still stands by her Choice and Vanyel has been Chosen. If nothing else we must trust our Companions."
((({ })))
Andrel glanced around the Temple to the Goddess Ardana. It was a great stone barn of a building, which whistled in 7 voices when the wind blew, and threatened to replace your blood with ice in the winter. Still the Scriptorium walls had been decked out in thick tapestries to hold in the warmth. Thin gauzy curtains hung from the windows providing just enough cover to eliminate glare while still letting in a good amount of light. Little desks stood around the room, their surfaces laden with paints, brushes, pens and ink. All around him the various sisters perched upon cushioned stools, bent over their work, laboriously transcribing various texts. Diligently replicating the various illuminations and manuscripts within.
He glanced between every face, until at last his eyes fell upon the woman he'd come to see. Linden sat quietly in an out of the way well-lit corner painstakingly copying what appeared to be a religious text. He'd met the sister some years ago as a Trainee, when one of his teachers had sent him to the Sister's Temple with a pile of rare medical manuscripts that needed copying, she'd become something of a friend and mentor over the intervening years. Carefully he slipped through the various desks to her side, careful not to disrupt any of the delicate work.
"Linden," he said softly into a natural pause in her work. "Might I trouble you for a few moments of your time?"
The woman glanced up at him, before setting her supplies neatly aside and marking her place in the enormous tome she'd been copying. She shifted slightly and he couldn't help the brief flash of his gift. He blinked, pushing away the knowledge of joints going stiff with the change of seasons. He offered her his hand for support cloaking it in a fasade of courtly manners. She saw through him of course, raising a delicately arched brow at him, but she put her hand in his and let him support her as she climbed to her feet. Despite the phantom pain singing in his joints, she walked with a fluid grace befitting a woman half her age, gray woolen robes somehow accentuating her grace. He rather envied her those robes, at least she was warm. His own Greens while perfectly comfortable in the confines of Healer's Hall were not – quite – up to the drafty cavern that was Ardana's Temple.
"What brings you here, Healer" she enquired coming to a stop before one of the many charcoal Braziers that warmed the room.
Andrel sighed, and rubbed absently at the bridge of his nose considering the situation that had brought him to his old friend's hearth. More importantly the improbable conclusions he'd begun coming to in the last few days. He'd never cared much about gifts beyond learning how to use his own and how they effected and could act upon those who came to him for healing. Linden, however, was a scholar amid and order of scholars. Her interests were many and varied and unlike her fellow sisters, she rarely stopped simply because she had enough knowledge of a subject to prevent blindly copying an error that existed in the source material she'd been given to transcribe. Over the years she'd made a particular study of Gifts, helping to copy down and expand upon some of the books the crown used to teach the younglings who could not come to the capital for training.
There were plenty of myths and plenty off people paid for the services of One of the people whose existence he was about to enquire about. But many, many of these people turned out to be charlatans preying upon the grief of others. Even asking the question made him feel rather like a Trainee jumping at shadows. Still the old myths rang suspiciously true when stacked against Tylendel's symptoms; and his Granddame had once told him 'myths were lies meant to teach' and that 'the hard part was sifting lies from trues, like one would sift wheat from chaff'.
There were even older Myths, spoken of only in the quietest of tones around a communal fire by the elders of his little village. The tails were not anathema, but they were spoken of only by the elderly and only as one prepared to depart this world for the next. He glanced at his friend's patient expression and winced.
How could he ask his question without sounding as if HE had taken leave of his senses?
"Is there a Gift that will allow someone to see and hear the dead?" he finally blurted, like a youth several decades his junior, his cheeks heating in humiliation.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Why do you ask?" she finally enquired.
He sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face, finally explaining about his friend's protégé, the circumstances that had turned a Heraldic Trainee into a would-be killer, and the very real argument he appeared to be having with people who were not there. For a moment she simply looked at him, and he began to feel rather like a trainee who'd come up with the most outlandish diagnosis for an extremely simple ailment.
"Come with me." She said, and turning made her way deeper into the temple.
((({})))
Tylendel lay on his bed in his dark sparsely furnished room and wondered just how his life had gotten so out of control. Just a few scant months ago his world had been almost perfect he'd had Gala and Vanyel, and he was going to be a Herald-Mage. The only things that could have made his life better would have been if he'd been able to acknowledge Vanyel openly as his beloved, his lover and his friend. Barring that the only other thing he'd wished for had been, his beloved twin standing beside him, a Herald in his own right.
A few short months ago his biggest ambition had been to get through Training with their deception intact. To wait for the day Vanyel reached his majority and was firmly out of his chauvinistic, domineering, prejudiced ass of a father's control. He'd dreamed of taking his beautiful lover home. He'd dreamed of introducing Staven to the boy who made him deliriously happy. He'd known that unlike their Father Staven would have supported them, would have ensured that even if something happened to him, Van would be taken care of- kept safe.
Now Staven was dead.
He was locked in a small room in the Healer's wing, drugged up to his eyebrows, all of his gifts blocked and wrapped in shielding so heavy it physically muffled sound. While the voices prowled at the very edge of his awareness and faint visions of his family's ghosts flitted in and out of his vision, like mist.
Vanyel…
He gulped, visions of his lover's skin parting beneath his blade assaulted his dreams and made his waking sanity hell. The strangely soft tension of a pillow under his hand, and the vague memory of a body struggling beneath his own made him almost physically ill.
He shuddered at the red tinted, foggy, memory
The memory of his own silently wailed protests as he tried to appease the ghosts in his mind baying for his lover's blood. His sudden horror and understanding of what he had done as blood bloomed across Van's pail skin following the path of the knife in his hands. A Knife he had been powerless to stop.
He choked back a sob at the memory of a tortured clattering ring, like some mad man had given a hyperactive toddler a bell and allowed them to bash it repeatedly into a wood paneled floor. The way the floor had pitched and rolled around him. His abject terror as something monstrous and whiter then new fallen snow rose out of the fog around him. The sharp jerk of fabric tightening around his neck. The strange weightlessness of his body as the ground was torn out from under him and he was flung into the air. The sharp, solid pain of twin impacts upon his shoulder blades as he flew. The shrill all-encompassing sound of his assailant's rage filled, trumpeting battle cry. The crash of impact, he felt in his bones. The scrape of polished wood against his hands and the rasp of fabric against his backside as he crawled backwards trying to escape the monstrous – Thing – hell bent on pounding him into paste.
The sudden presence of Gala in his mind, at the same time as another white monster rose up before him.
His own terrified attempts to get his beloved Companion to leave him to his fate. The daemons had come for his soul. He'd known that with desperate Clarity, he wouldn't let it take Gala as well. But she was near and he could sense her preoccupation with the furious daemon attacking her, could feel her frantic desperation as she strove to protect him from the – thing – that had come to claim him. He felt each blow against her body as though they rained upon his own.
He closed his eyes trying to work his way through the tortured, disjointed and frankly abstracted memory. He shifted slightly feeling Gala's comforting presence, as one acknowledges a faintest wisp of smoke on the breeze. She was there on the very edge of his awareness, held away from him by medications and shielding. Just like the voices and the visions.
A shame he could have used her help working through his memories of the last few months. Her memories where bound to be more reliable than his own. The distance between them was an almost physical ache, at least he could still feel her, a comforting if distance presence.
He examined the memory, the reoccurring nightmare from all angles trying to make out just what sort of demon had attacked him, and why it was so tightly intertwined with his horrible nightmare of attacking and killing Vanyel.
Realization slithered through his awareness, sending ice through his veins and freezing him to his spot in abject horror. A Cold Drake of clarity as the nightmare creature solidified in his mind's eye.
A horse
A beautiful and deadly, little white mare.
A little white mare with blazing blue eyes.
A Companion
He'd been attacked by a Companion
For one horrible moment he thought it was Gala, then he saw the differences.
This Companion was more finely boned and slightly smaller. A Palfrey to Gala's Hunter.
He sat there for a moment trying to figure out what the hell he had done to enrage a Companion that badly. The memory replayed in his mind. Horrifying detail after horrifying detail.
Still it took him a moment to work out
He'd been attacked by a Companion.
An utterly enraged Companion
Vanyel's Companion
Vanyel had been Chosen
Oh God's had he… he'd actually tried to kill Vanyel.
Had he?
Had the other boy survived?
Panic gripped him as he tried vainly to remember if Vanyel had survived the incident. Faintly he felt Gala try to sooth him.
: The Boy… lives … Chosen.: her voice was slow and halting, sounding very much as if she spoke to him from the bottom of a well. Still he strained to hear it. Pulling against his bonds in a desperate attempt to soak up that voice.
He squeezed his eyes shut, suppressing tears by sheer will alone.
Vanyel would probably never trust him again – not that he deserved trust when he'd taken a knife to his lover's wrists
If nothing else, Van was safe now. From his family at least.
The voices pressed in around him, edging out Gala's voice in his mind. Slowly he became aware of the odd black and silver cat watching him from the corner. There was a second cat this time a golden brown, with markings in a deeper brown, a spot of cream visible at its chin and neck. He shuddered at this the first sign of his hallucinations breaking past his medication. The Golden cat met his gaze, and then began to slowly fade from his sight one marking at a time. The black stayed but a moment longer fading slowly from his gaze.
: Interesting: the unfamiliar voice purred into his mind. : Very interesting. :
He clutched at his ears as the voices drew steadily closer and the apparitions became steadily more solid. He shuddered and fought as the rising wave of madness threatened to overcome him. Taking deep breaths he tried, desperately, not to acknowledge the steadily solidifying mangled form of his beloved twin. He rocked himself against the pillows that propped his weakened body up, trying to foster at least a weak illusion of comfort, shelter and love.
Gala's presence slammed into him again. He clung to her, trying desperately to hold his head above the waves of madness.
:I am here my Chosen: Gala whispered as he lost his tenuous grip upon reality and slid bonelessly beneath the rising tide of madness, just as the cat eyes vanished into the shadowy corner.
Terrified, He screamed.
