Magic's Pawn

Vanyel shook his head, bewildered.

The wizard gri

Vanyel felt no magical coercion, which rather surprised him. “If you don’t mind,” he said carefully, “I’d really rather not.’’

This time Krebain’s smile held a hint of real humor. “Then I shall have to come to you, beautiful Vanyel.”

He paced gracefully across the pounded dirt of the village square, taking each step as though he walked on a carpet of petals strewn especially for his benefit. The mage-light continued to follow him faithfully. He strolled around Vanyel as he had walked around Gallen, but his expression this time was less cruelly cheerful and more acquisitive. His path was an inward-turning spiral, with Vanyel as the center, so that he completed his circuit facing Vanyel and less than a handspan away. He reached out with one crimson-gloved hand, ignoring the presence of everyone in the square as if he and Vanyel were alone together, and laid it along Vanyel’s cheek. Vanyel looked steadily into his blue-black eyes within the shadowed eyeholes of the helm-mask and did not flinch away. Those eyes were the first indication he had seen that the wizard was something other than human. Those dark and frightening eyes were slitted like a cat’s - and under the velvet of the glove, Vanyel could feel something very sharp and talonlike resting on his cheek.

“My goodness,” Krebain breathed, “Silver eyes. Rare and beautiful, Vanyel Ashkevron. How wonderful, and how strange, that you should be here, at this moment. And I wonder, now - given what I know of Tylendel Frele

Still ignoring everyone else, he leaned forward and kissed Vanyel passionately and deeply.

Vanyel trembled with an unexpected reaction comprised of both revulsion and desire.

Half of him wanted to pull away and strike at this creature who could casually force a man to stab his own wife, who could regard the villagers about them so lightly as to totally ignore them at this moment.

The other half of him wanted to melt into the wizard’s arms.

He fought the temptation to yield. This - dammit, it’s nothing but sex, that’s all it is. Iknow what real love feels like- and this - isn’t- close.

He closed his eyes, as his knees went to water.

A dream-flash -

“Surrender to me, Herald-Mage Vanyel, “ Leareth said. ‘ ‘Take my darkness to you.’’

Had that dream been, not Foresight, but a warning?

He fought to think clearly, battling silently, but daring to give no outward sign of his struggle. It was at that moment that he realized that whatever other powers this wizard had, he did notshare Vanyel’s Mind-Gifts. Like -

Thought-sensing, for instance. The shield over the village was spellcast, not mindcast. Which meant that Vanyel should be able to read the wizard, without Krebain knowing he was being read.

Krebain finally brought an end to the kiss, pulling away slowly and reluctantly, taking his hand from Vanyel’s cheek with a tender caress of his velvet-clad fingers.

“Oh,” he whispered, his eyes half-shut, the slits in them narrowed to near-invisibility. “Oh, beautiful and rare, lovelyVanyel. Come with me. Come with me, be my love. I can teach you more than you have ever dreamed. I could carve you a kingdom, give you power, pleasure - anything you desired. Name it, and it would be yours.”

The temptation was incredible. And the thought - I could guide him. I could bring him to compassion. He doesn’thave to be this way. I could make him into something better. Couldn’t I? Even if I don’t love him- wouldn’t that be worthwhile? Wouldn’t that be a worthy goal? And I don’t love him- but I could care for him, I think. There’s a mutual need- isn’t that enough?

His heart raced. I have to know- what is Krebain truly made of? If there’s something there to work with- something I can influence-

Krebain smiled. “I could even,” he whispered, “grant you the finest revenge upon Wester Leshara the world has ever witnessed. A revenge so complete that it would even satisfy Tylendel’s lover.”

The wizard’s mind was open to Vanyel’s at that crucial instant; completely open and unguarded.

Vanyel saw howKrebain had gotten his power; how - and from what - he had learned it. And the uses he had put it to. And how he had enjoyedwhat he had done. There was nothing there that was human or humane.

Gods! Never- never would I give myself to that!

Utter revulsion killed all trace of desire - and nowVanyel flinched away, his nausea plain for anyone to read.

Krebain stepped back an involuntary pace, his face flushed. He frowned with anger, and his expression hardened. “I will have you, Vanyel Ashkevron - with or withouta mind.”

Vanyel had that much warning to get a shield up; had that much warning to scream “Run- “ at the villagers.

At least, he thoughthe screamed that warning at them. They certainly scattered as quickly as if he had, scrambling up and over the barricades that they had built to keep the menace out, leaving him alone with the wizard.

Who called the lightnings down on him.

Vanyel’s body screamed with pain, despite the shielding; his hair stood on end, and fire ran along his nerves. He went to his knees beneath the onslaught; reinforced his shielding and felt it weakening - and then remembered what Moondance had said about the power-nodes.

He reached, desperately; found them, tapped into them, and felt their power flowing into him, giving him a heady surge of strength, driving out the pain and renewing the will to fightthis monster in human guise.

He staggered to his feet, backed up a pace, and deflected Krebain’s own lightnings back into his face.

The fires arced across the square and the wizard retreated, getting his own shields up just in time. Vanyel did not give him a chance to recover from his surprise, but launched an attack of his own; not lightnings this time, but a vise of power, a glowing shroud that he closed around the wizard and began tightening.

But Krebain broke it after a moment’s struggle, and countered with a circle of flame that roared up about him and began eating its way inward. Vanyel could smell his boot-soles scorching, and his skin tightened and hurt.

Vanyel in his turn, sweating with the heat, and his fear and effort, called upon the dust of the square to rise and snuff the flames.

This time Krebain gave him no chance to invoke a counterattack, but summoned a mage-storm like the one in Vanyel’s dream. It howled down out of the night sky and surrounded him in a cloud of wind and energy, crackling with it, screaming with it.

And like the one in Vanyel’s dream, this one ate away at his shields as fast as he could bring them up.

The whirlwind howled and raged, obscuring sight - he couldn’t see - couldn’t see anything anymore, just the flickering storm of power shrieking around him, coming closer by the moment.

One by one the nodes went drained and dead; now there was only his own strength left.

He went to his knees, holding the last of his shields up with little more than desperation left to sustain him -