No True Way: All-New Tales of Valdemar (Valdemar Anthologies, Band 8) - Softcover

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Mercedes Lackey is a full-time writer and has published numerous novels and works of short fiction, including the best-selling Heralds Of Valdemar series. She is also a professional lyricist and a licensed wild bird rehabilitator. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, artist Larry Dixon, and their flock of parrots. She can be found at mercedeslackey.com.

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Raves for the Previous Valdemar Anthologies:

“Fans of Lackey’s epic Valdemar series will devour this superb anthology. Of the thirteen stories included, there is no weak link—an attribute exceedingly rare in collections of this sort. Highly recommended.”

—The Barnes and Noble Review

“This high-quality anthology mixes pieces by experienced authors and enthusiastic fans of editor Lackey’s Valdemar. Valdemar fandom, especially, will revel in this sterling example of what such a mixture of fans’ and pros’ work can be. Engrossing even for newcomers to Valdemar.”

—Booklist

“Josepha Sherman, Tanya Huff, Mickey Zucker Reichert, and Michelle West have quite good stories, and there’s another by Lackey herself. Familiarity with the series helps but is not a prerequisite to enjoying this book.”

—Science Fiction Chronicle

“Each tale adheres to the Lackey laws of the realm yet provides each author’s personal stamp on the story. Well written and fun, Valdemarites will especially appreciate the magic of this book.”

—The Midwest Book Review

“The sixth collection set in Lackey’s world of Valdemar presents stories of Heralds and their telepathic horselike Companions and of Bards and Healers, and provides glimpses of the many other aspects of a setting that has a large and avid readership. The fifteen original tales in this volume will appeal to series fans.”

—Library Journal

TITLES BY MERCEDES LACKEY
available from DAW Books:

*Coming soon from DAW Books

And don’t miss: THE VALDEMAR COMPANION, edited by John Helfers and Denise Little

The Whitest Lie

—A flash of snow, biting cold, the vertigo of falling. The face of a young boy.—

Herald Wil snapped up his shields and stumbled to his feet. He stood alone in a room lit only by cold moonlight, but a moment before he’d been sitting with his hands resting lightly on the top of a carved rosewood desk covered in ledgers and dust. The ledgers had belonged to the room’s former resident, the Bard Lelia. The dust had started accumulating the day he’d forbidden the Palace servants from entering and cluttering it with their lives.

He’d come here to tap his Gift and unwind a nagging mystery.

In the distance, he heard the first cries of the Death Bell.

Now it seemed he had a fresh mystery on his hands.

Unusual for him, he had no name for the face he’d seen in the moment before the Bell began ringing. His Gift usually told him exactly who had died and where, but not this time. One fact stood out—whoever it was had been young. Too young. Trainee-young.

:Vehs?: he thought to his Companion.

The normally jovial mind-voice of Vehs came back subdued and sorrowful. :Jalay. Chosen last week.:

:Last week?: That would explain why his Gift had failed to tell him who and where.

:He’s on the Collegium grounds, we just don’t know where. We’re trying to find him, but his Companion was asleep when whatever happened to him happened and doesn’t know where he was.:

:Not in his quarters?:

:No. And his yearmates haven’t seen him either.:

Wil’s mind flashed to all the awfulness of the last few years—a dead Herald and a tortured Queen’s Own, a high-born traitor in the Queen’s inner circle, the war with Hardorn, the inevitable war to come. Had young Jalay uncovered something he shouldn’t have?

Wil picked up his coat and went for the door. :I’ll see what I can do.:

His Gift had a few good uses. He had Foresight, yes, but it seemed to span all points in time, not just the future. He’d taken to calling this deviation “Hindsight” and had considered scouring the Archives to see if anyone else had ever exhibited similar Gifts, but he’d never been sufficiently motivated to take the time.

“You aren’t even curious?” Lelia had once said to him.

“What does it matter? It works, more or less,” he’d responded with a shrug, and his dear Bard had thrown her hands up in the air in exaggerated exasperation. Thinking about it brought a twitch of a smile to his lips, but it also reminded him that he wasn’t focusing on what he needed to, so he let the memory go and returned to the present.

Nudges. He needed nudges. He focused on his breathing, reorienting on that every time his mind wanted to wander, and drifted where he “felt” like he should go. Presently he found himself outside the Palace, wandering through snow until he came to the old Queen’s Garden, though he doubted Selenay spent much time there. No one did, this time of year.

Except there were fresh tracks in the snow, and as he followed them around a corner, Wil’s Gift no longer became necessary.

:Send any searchers to the Queen’s Garden,: he said, closing the gap between himself and the body in Grays. The boy—the child—lay sprawled face-up on the path. The icy, untended, unsalted, highly treacherous path.

Somebody’s son, he thought.

People started to arrive. Priests for the body, a Healer to verify how the boy had died. A few other Heralds—Kyril, Queen’s Own Talia and her husband, Dirk—appeared and, feeling outranked, Wil prepared to retreat.

“Herald,” Kyril said, addressing him. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“Sir?”

“Not here,” the Seneschal’s Herald said. “Tomorrow night. Please come see me after dinner.”

Wil nodded, his gaze sliding over to Talia and Dirk. Dirk’s arm circled his tiny wife’s shoulders, the two of them fitting together like puzzle pieces.

:You’re staring,: Vehs said softly, and Wil looked away, adopting a quick pace back toward the Heralds’ wing.

Lelia. Her smiling face surfaced briefly, but this time the memory didn’t elicit a smile of his own. He thought of Jalay’s empty eyes, his youth—a child, somebody’s son—and Wil suddenly needed to get back to his quarters. Someone was waiting for him there.

And though she probably wasn’t awake, he desperately needed to see her.

*   *   *

The door opened with only the slightest hiss of metal—the servants had finally oiled the hinges, per his persistent request. He crept in on soft leather soles, the shadowy soul of stealth—

And his foot landed on something simultaneously yielding and hard, sending him staggering across the room.

He windmilled helplessly for a moment and caught himself. Panting from the effort to not break his ankle or—worse—make noise, he bent down and picked up the offending cloth-and-wood dolly.

:How’s that Foresight working?: his Companion asked dryly.

Wil poked his head into his bedroom to find his daughter curled into the crook of her uncle Lyle’s arm. The Death Bell had gone silent not long after he’d found the trainee’s body, so all was quiet once more this side of Haven.

“Thank you again,” he whispered as Lyle disentangled himself. Wil covered Ivy with a blanket and briefly rubbed her back, coaxing her once more into the deeper depths of sleep.

“We had fun,” Lyle said with a grin. “After three years of war and Circuit duty, she’s a breeze.”

The two Heralds went out into the main room, where Lyle stoked the fire....