Magic's Price, by Mercedes Lackey *Long Post with Spoilers *
I have trouble with some parts of this book, not because it's sad, though it it sad, but because everyone takes turns ranging from being slightly to very annoying about various things.
It's been around nine years since the events of Promise.
King Randale is going down hill fast. His wasting disease causing so much pain his "good" times are getting shorter and shorter. The new heir, Trevren, a young cousin is being trained to get his Heraldic whites quickly so he can take the throne. Jisa, Randi and Shavri 's daughter (through Van) who is being prepared to be King's Own Herald after her mother dies, is lifebonded to him.
Van and Yfandes are stationed at Haven because he has to work closely on behalf of Randi and Shavri. There are other problems as well. There are fewer and fewer mage gifted trainees coming in and soon there are not going to be enough Herald-Mages to work in the field and be guardians of the magical web that protects Valdemar.
Van has a plan to help somewhat with the lack of mages by weaving a spell to connect every Herald with every other Herald and make a Heartstone (a means to store and channel magic). This, along with employing the elemental spirits the Vrondi to keep watch for mages and alert Herald-Mages of their presence in Valdemar, was put into place just in case the ranks of Mage gifted Heralds got too thin.
Things are looking grim despite the above
But, Medren, Vanyel's nephew and Bardic trainee has an idea that just might help the king.
It seems that his roommate, 18 year old Stefan has a "wild" talent. Along with his bardic gift's ability to influence the emotions of others through music, he can also sing pain away.
Medren also has something else up his sleeve.
Stef is very talented and it was evident when he was brought to bardic by a Bard who heard him singing on the street as a child. He was well on his way to reaching full Bard status before the other students when this novel talent was discovered. To give him the rank to be able to be in the court to help the king, they give him the promotion quickly.
Stef is pragmatic and knows that while Heralds always have a home in Haven, Bards are not gartenteed anything like security. He wants to get the notice of someone in court to ensure that he has a place in the future. Growing up on the streets with a drug and drink addicted begger woman who used his talents to get the money she needed, the last thing he wants is to be poor.
He also has a crush on Vanyel.
Stef has known his preferences and explored them extensively for a long time. Of course being a bard trainee he had heard songs about Vanyel, and being roommates with Medren, heard all kinds of stories.
The two meet cutely after Stef plays for the king to allow him to conduct business. This goes on for hours and Van notices that the Bard has played his gittern to the point that his fingers are raw.
In a scene that echos a sweet one between teenaged Van and Tylendel, Van takes Stefen to his room and applies some ointment to his hands. Stef is star struck but the pair soon begin to have a conversation. They get on like a house on fire. This is the first time in a long time that Van has really made a friend. After the events of Promise proved that anyone close to him was in danger he walked a fine line trying to keep his friends and family close without *seeming* to keep them close, and he made no new connections.
The two talk well into the evening and get increasingly drunk, and Vanyel decides that Stefan shouldn't walk back to his room.Stef turns on all his charms, but Van simply gives him the bed and sleeps on the floor.
Getting back to his room, Stefan meets Medren who is eager to know if his matchmaking worked. Stef is surprised but Medren says that he has been trying to get them in the same room for a while. It becomes clear that Stef, while utterly besotted, did not have the night go in the direction he wanted it to.
The next part is where I would like to seal Shavri in a sound proof jar, and put Vanyel in a corner to contemplate the meaning of the word "jackass".
Shavri has expended a lot of energy making sure that neither she nor Jisa are in the line of succession. She can't handle the idea of ruling and because of Jisa's powerful gift of Empathy, it is thought that she wouldn't make a good queen.
So, when Jisa and the heir Trevren show up married one evening, Shavri goes into shrill hystarics flinging insults at both of them and Van sides with her.
The newlyweds explain themselves, very well. Jisa insisting that she's not like her mother and isn't afraid of the responsibility
I *hate* it when so called reasonable adults in stories throw temper tantrums and that is what Shavri does and the fact that Van backs her is annoying.
Ruffled feathers are somewhat soothed and they all just have to deal with the fact that the two are married.
Meanwhile, Stef is becoming a close friend and confident to Vanyel. However, dispite the fact that Stefan and Medren try all sorts of gambits and things that are straight out of a romcom, Van is keeping things stubbornly platonic.
This changes when Vanyel is called home for a visit and, it seems that all the time Van had been spending with the Bard has gotten to Forst Reach, *cough*Medren*cough*and it is clear that his father thinks its a romantic connection. In an astonishing turn of events, Whiten tells his son to bring Stefan along.
They get there and when the first evening winds down it is found that the servants were told to room Stef with Van.
Stef confesses his feelings, assures Van that he is far from a starry eyed innocent and Van finally let's his own feelings come to the surface.
This whole section is so good, but I can't do it justice here.
All things are nice for about 35 seconds and then an evil mage makes his way into the keep and attempts to assassinate Van's mother and Van gets in the way of the attack.
The results bring the Hawkbrothers to Forst Reach. They bring about some major revelations and even help Whiten to understand and accept Van more.
Family healing, everything mostly content
This can only mean that someone is about to get smacked with the tradagy stick.
Slowly, every remaining Herald-Mage in Haven dies. First, it seems like accidents, and then it is clear that someone is targeting them. When Savil is killed, Van is the last Hearld-Mage. And he's going to avenge his aunt come hell or high water. Shavri whines and cries again, and I beg the book to make her shut up.
Van and Stef head out to find the person responsible.
This book steadily matches to the sad end that anyone who had read any of the other Valdemar books knows is coming. This books is called The Last Hearld-Mage for a reason.
While I could go into the various happenings in the rest of the book, I really want to look at all the ways this book ties into the other two and into other books in the series.
Just before Van and Yfandes call down a mutually fatal attack on the evil mage preparing to attack Valdemar, Yfandes says that she knew how everything was going to end when she Chose him.
Back when I wrote about the first book, I said that Vanyel wasn't the only character to be magic's pawn.
I think that every human character was moved in such a way to *make sure* that Van was put exactly where he ended up.
Even when Van was alive, no one outside of his immediate circle spoke of Tylendel. Instead, his Companion Gala was whispered about, how she repudiated her Chosen and died tragically.
Look at what actually happened.
First, we are told in the first book that Tylendel’s gifts were active and out of control for two years before Gala came for him. We are told in other books that Companions come when they are needed. Tylendel didn’t need her for two years with his gifts running wild? He came to Haven a little unstable because of that.
Companions have deep connections with their Chosen, yes, the Herald can block them out, yes, ‘Lendel says that he can keep her from knowing what he and Van are planning, that he kept other things from her. Now, either she knew more than he thought she did, or their bond was meant to have these weak spots.
Either way I refuse to believe that Gala didn’t know that after Staven’s death ‘Lendel was *not well*. She wasn’t an idiot. This plot that he hatched took a little while to bring about. You’re going to tell me that this magical being with a soul connection to this one Herald trainee didn’t notice that her Chosen wasn’t right, that he was being evasive, or something just didn’t feel right?
I’ve known my best friend since we were 8, and I can tell by the tone of her silence when something is wrong. You’re going to tell me that this magical being who’s job is to be a life long partner to her Chosen didn’t *think* that after he felt his twin brother die, he might need some mental help of some kind?
It is revealed in Price that Herald-Mages have been targeted for years even before they earned their whites, set up to look like accidents, or misadventures. This includes 'Lendel.
Yfandes knew the way things were going to end when she Chose Vanyel. People are Chosen because of their moral fiber and what kind help they can be to Valdemar.
Pawn’s sometimes need to be sacrificed.
Gala could have figured out what was happening. Like I said, she *had to know* something wasn’t right. Vanyel was ungifted at the time, but he was soul bound to Tylendel. We learn in Price that Companions can look into the mind of anyone they want to. Knowing how unstable her Chosen could be at times, having even the slightest inking that something was off, she would have been able to make a case for looking into Van’s mind and finding out what was going on with ‘Lendel. She didn’t do this.
Gala could have stopped Tylendel and Van before the former actually went so far as killing someone. She didn’t.
Gala could have gotten him to the Heralds and proven that he wasn’t in his right mind. She didn’t.
What did she do to a person who just lost his twin? Not just lost, but actually *felt* being murdered? She breaks her bond with him. She simultaneously took away her support and his purpose in life - because you can't be a Herald without being Chosen - and then *dies in front of him*.
Tylendel was set up to be broken and to die, Gala knew it and played her part. Tylendel fulfilled his role as a Herald to lay the groundwork for Vanyel to become a Herald-Mage. It could be argued that this is backed up by the fact that the other Companions felt that Tylendel should be laid to rest as a full Herlad despite no longer being Chosen.
Later in the series Tylendel is spoken of very harshly, and no he wasn’t perfect, he was flawed, prone to acting without thought, and all too sure of himself. Even when in the deepest pain, he didn’t learn to think or to trust others view points before it was too late. He was in no way mature enough to be trusted with the power he had in the way that he was. But his story couldn’t have ended any other way because Van’s story had to go the way it did. Gala had to guide her Chosen on this path.
To me, this is made even more obvious when on their way to face the dark mage, Stef, Van, and Yfandes are attacked, and Van is kidnapped and tortured. He is pushed beyond his limits and lashes out with his gifts killing two people that were not a threat to him. Van is convinced that Yfandes will repudiate him, like Gala did Tylendel, that Stef will break their lifebond. He finds that neither are true. Instead Van is cared for by the closest to him. Yes, Tylendel ‘s circumstances were different, but he was no less broken in his mind.
In a later book a Companion says that they learned from Tylendel, that none of them would let their Chosen get to that point. But Companions are famous for saying the exact truth without telling the whole truth, needing to keep secrets from the Heralds. In this case I think it is likely that the secret they are keeping is the fact that Gala had to let things happen the way they did.
This would probably be beyond disturbing to the Heralds. Much like Van being worried when the people of Valdemar and even other Heralds start seeing those with the mage gift as superior to those without it that this would diminish the trust in Heralds especially as the mages dwindle. He knows that this notion has to be gotten rid of or suppressed. This is why he tasks Stef as Bard to convince the kingdom that Heralds without the mage gift can and will keep Valdemar safe.
If the Chosen think that they may be sacrificed to fate, as Tylendel had to be, how can they trust the Companions like they need to? So no, that will never happen again because the circumstances will never need to be manipulated like that again.
That’s my interpretation, anyway.
The thing about Vanyel and Co. in the Valdemar universe is, after this trilogy, they are a legends, known in songs and stories, until much later in the chronology. And just like any character in any story there is something of the "learn from the mistakes" right along with the awe and respect for his deeds.
It is said in a later book that for all Vanyel was a hero,he wasn't very good at his job, namely focusing on Valdemar. He does often intervine where it isn't his place. Reading his story from his perspective you understand *why* he did those things.
Knowing the why doesn't make the other characters wrong in their assessments any more than knowing why everyone acted like they did makes what this trilogy's characters fully in the right.
This is one of the things I really love about the Valdemar books, you get different perspectives like that and no one comes up and says "but actually you don't know the whole story!" Of course they don't know the whole story, how could they? Vanyel, Tylendel, and Stefan lived decades, and then centuries before the people talking about them were born. They are part of the collective hindsight.
Of course, some of this adittude could come from the mass inability and general boredom that settles on the kingdom in regards to magic. However, this phenomenon, or just the skepticism that comes with time, no one is going to consider individual mindsets.
They're not going to consider that Tylendel had something of divided loyalties, to his duty as a future Hearld and to his twin. They're not going to know that Vanyel, having lost his lifebonded, had gotten the idea that he wasn't really worthy of that bond in the first place and maybe he tried to save everyone regardless if it had anything to do with Valdemar because he was always trying to prove to himself that he was good enough for the one he lost. Not to mention the fact that he was trained outside of Valdemar and saw hardship and need that he could help with.
This type character building is why I think that these books and the other Valdemar books are so compelling.
I also like how things dovetail in the universe. Some people don't like it when things wrap up well, but I think it depends on the story.
Van and Tylendel 's story mirror's Van and Stef's for good reason.
But there was a big thing missing for Stef. The only reason Van was able to survive 'Lendel's death was because he was Chosen right after and he eventually had a purpose.
Hearlds have a calling, almost like clergy. If they didn't have the capability for feeling this pull to use their gifts to help people, they wouldn't be Chosen. Bards don't nessrarly have a greater calling beyond music. Yes, they are meant to keep the history, give the news of the kingdom. But they have to make it into songs that people want to listen to. That's why Vanyel became a hero in his own time. He kept doing stuff that made good songs.
Stef didn't have a mission that pushed him onward. Van gave him one, and that's why Stef was able to carry on. When Van died Valdemar had to learn to accept and trust that Heralds with out the mage gift, because without one mage to even recogize the gift in new trainees, he was the last and would be for a very long time. Van asks Stef to take on this task.
This is why it all ends in a bittersweet way. Stef lived the long life that neither Lendel nor Vanyel got to have, he had to do it without his other half - but he did his mission the best he could meaning that he knew that his next stop would be reuniting with the one that mattered most. It didn't come easy and took a very long time, but they all eventually found peace.
This works for this story, it would, in my opinion, ruin the whole trilogy if the reader was left thinking that the cycle of pain was never ending.
As you can tell, if these book speak to you, they linger, it is much better to have it linger on even the smallest of happy notes.
