Page 42 of Valdemar

Three of the most gorgeous horses he had ever seen in his life stood in the middle of the clearing. Silver-white, silver-hooved, blue-eyed, they were incandescent with magical and spiritual power, and he found himself stepping forward, hand outstretched, longing to touch the arch of the middle one’s neck, and aghast at his own presumption. Restil and Beltran each reached out to one of the beings of their own, who stepped forward to meet them, with the sound of perfectly tuned temple bells coincident with each equine step.

Kordas felt a lurch in his belly, and a non-sound akin to a massive door closing, far away. But that didn’t stop him from continuing to move, as if in a dream, without mass or substance, until his hand lay gently on the center being’s silken coat and muscles. He looked up into those sapphire-blue eyes. . . .

:Hello, Kordas. I am Ardatha.:

He heard the voice in his mind as though spoken by some giant in a great hall tuned for music. It had a tone like no other mind-voice he’d experienced before, with a sense of depth and reach to it. The stallion’s lips certainly weren’t moving, but it had to be his. He was distracted for the briefest of moments by the sound of a purr as loud as thunder, and the flicker of black against the shimmering foliage as Sydney unhurriedly walked off into the trees. The rich voice in Kordas’s mind spoke with a nearly palpable, honest intensity.

:If you will have me, I Choose you to share my destiny with. For Valdemar.:

• • •

Kordas became aware that he was walking, and the white—well, it wasn’t a horse—the being at his side had been talking to him for some time.

And he was nowhere he recognized.

Silver light surrounded them—“silver” came to mind because there wasn’t any dust in the “air” to identify a light source by, only reflections from surfaces, and shadows were skewed as if light came from the two of them. They were on a path with no discernible ground around it, laid out in silvery sand, and outside of a circle of clear air around the two of them, there was nothing to be seen but silver mist.

He stopped. This was—so strange. Not at all dreamlike. He should have been in a panic, but instead, there was a deep sense of calm. And his mind had never felt so sharp. More than that, there was a deep sense of rightness here, and an ethereal joy that sparkled inside him like fireflies in the darkness.

Longtime habits of suspicion in the face of good appearances interrupted his reverie. Hold up. This is far too perfect. Exactly what someone like me would dream of, presented with orchestrated, encompassing pleasantness, removed from any familiar location. I’m being set up.

The being stopped at the same time he did. “Where are we?” he asked. I should be in a panic. I’m not in a panic. Why am I not in a panic?

Well, you dolt. You were praying. Maybe you are not in a panic because this is your answer.

:Ah, you woke up.:The creature—Ardatha?—nodded his head.

“I did—and where am I?” he repeated. The sense of safety and calm only deepened. Surely this isn’t some form of afterlife. . . .

:My fellows borrowed this place from Kal’enel with her permission. It’s where her Swordsworn train. This place will allow us to talk—and we have a great deal to talk about!—and yet your body will rest as peacefully as if you were in bed.:

He had no idea what Ardatha was talking about. Until a moment later, when he did. He knew who the goddess Kal’enel was, of course. But now he knew that the Swordsworn were Shin’a’in, and the Shin’a’in were once part of the same nation as the Tayledras and—

Well, it was as if several history books had just lodged in his head, and for a moment he reeled, disoriented. He’d used magic to give himself languages and other important information straight out of someone else’s memory before this, but never so much, so quickly.

He steadied himself with one hand on Ardatha’s shoulder. The creature didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to welcome the touch. “What did you say you are?”

:We decided on the name “Companions.” But the full what is why you and I are here. We’re the answer to your plea to the gods. We have been centuries in the making. And I promise you that we are in no way the kind of answer you expected.:

He looked the creature over; if this was an “answer from the gods,” then the gods had created the most perfect horse he had ever set eyes on. Even his Valdemar Golds were a pale imitation of this beauty. Still. A . . . horse?

:We have a lot to talk about,:repeated Ardatha. :Do you need some time?:

That simple, commonplace question made him stop in his tracks and take stock of his surroundings. The mist seemed endless, the expanse of silver sand really didn’t have anything interesting about it, and if this was, indeed, a place where a god brought people to train them—in fighting, presumably—it didn’t need to be scenic.

Do I have any reason to disbelieve this creature?Well . . . no. Everything about this place screamed “you are safe here” to his senses, material, magical, and mental. And not in a way that would have raised alarm bells in him. Under the Emperor’s tutelage (although he had faked being a lot less powerful, magically, than he actually was), he had learned scores of ways in which he could be magically tricked, and this place matched nothing he had ever trained for or heard of. Rather than lulling his senses, this place had them all wide awake and energized. Even his land-sense was telling him, “This is a safe and sacred space . . . although it’s not ‘land’ as you know it.”

:Would you prefer to stop for a while? Sit down if you need to,:Ardatha said, kindly.

“I need to. This is a lot to understand. If I even can,” he said.

:Excellent.:

The sand rose up in six columns, which each split into six, and then each split again. They darted and wove into an elegant reclining couch shape. Gingerly he took a seat, and his “throne” rose so that he was eye to eye with Ardatha.

“This is nice. I need to figure out how to do this,” he muttered. Ardatha snorted.

:Let me begin with the very basics of the . . . Way of things now. The Powers are more numerous than you know, and gods are made up of Powers. The gods do not directly interfere in mortal matters beyond a set level, though they easily could. This is a matter of a truce among all the gods, light and dark, good and evil. Exceptions, for emergencies, are negotiated. If it ever came to a god breaking that truce and striking down mortals directly, there would be retaliation wholesale, and this world would not survive.: