Changes by Mercedes Lackey

Author:Mercedes Lackey [Lackey, Mercedes]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf, mobi
ISBN: 9780756406929
Publisher: DAW Hardcover
Published: 2011-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

“. . . and they won’t tell me!” Bear fumed, his anger underlaid with anxiety. Of course it was. Poor Bear—the first thing he would think was that this delay was because “everyone” had realized that his father was right, and it was the height of madness to have put him in charge of this project, only no one would tell him that because they were all going to be polite about it.

Then he would be certain that the truth was that they all knew, and they were talking about him in pitying tones behind his back.

Pitying or scornful.

Bear had an active imagination. His next leap would be that shortly his father would be sent for, and he would go home and—

And he would never see Lena again, nor any of his friends. He’d become an animal Healer, dispensing herbs for sick sheep. Maybe his father would allow him to take a human as a patient, so long as it was nothing serious—or was purely mechanical, such as setting a bone or stitching someone up prior to the “real” Healers doing their work.

“Look—” Mags said, desperate to hold off the inevitable cascade of “and-then-they’ll-do-this.” “Has anybody said anythin’ ’bout this, ’cept ’tis bein’ delayed?”

“No—but—”

“How d’ye know it ain’t some Foreseer seein’ a summer plague i’ Haven?” Mags rubbed his temples. Getting Amily calmed down had been hard enough. Getting Bear calmed down was giving him a headache. “Hellfire, iffen there was one’a those, they’d be needin’ alla beds an’ ev’ry hand.”

Bear gave him a look. “There hasn’t been a plague in Haven for over two hundred years.”

“Then yer overdue,” Mags retorted. “It don’t have’ta be a plague. Could be a fire.” He thought about what a disaster that fire the assassins had set could have been if there had been a wind. “Hot, dry, big ol’ windstorm, some’un’s lantern goes over, whut happens then? Bad time t’hev some’un laid up i’ middle uv a complisticated Healin’.”

“That’s not even a word,” Bear said crossly, but he was listening at least. “So why not just tell me that?”

“Cause Foreseers got caught lookin’ stupid ’bout me?” Mags replied. “Mebbe ’cause—look, yer part’a my crew, so I kin tell ye. They’s a couple new lads from thet merry band’a killers, an’ they are whoa better’n the first lot.”

Quickly, he told Bear about the situation he and Nikolas had unearthed. As he had hoped, it at least got Bear’s attention and got his mind off his own troubles. “So what’f they seen this new lot doin’ somethin’ that hurt a buncha people? So, aye, they tell head of Heralds and head of Healers, and they find out Nikolas knows ’bout ’em already. But they ain’t a-gonna bandy this ’bout. Iffen it gits out, people’ll panic, start seein’ assassins ev’where, next thing y’know, there’s people beatin’ up people on account’a they got a funny way’a talking, or they look furrin’ or—well, you know people.”

Bear nodded, slowly, reluctantly. “But wouldn’t Nikolas tell you?”

“Not iffen ’e was ordered not to.

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