I can give only counsel, for the rest is up to you.

This only will I counsel you; that if you build a shell

Of armor close about you, then you close yourself in Hell.

And if your heart should harden, then your Gift will fade and die

And all that you have lived and learned will then become a lie.

My child, your Healing hands are guided by your Healing heart

And that is all the wisdom all my learning can impart.

You take this pain upon you as you challenge life unknown—

And there can be no answer here but one—and that’s your own.

HERALD’S LAMENT

Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

Music: C. J. Cherryh

(Dirk: Arrow’s Fall)

A hand to aid along the road—
A laugh to lighten any load—
A place to bring a burdened heart
And heal the ache of sorrow’s dart—
Who’d willing share in joy or tears
And help to ease the darkest fears
Or my soul like his own defend—
And all because he was my friend.

No grave could hold so free a soul.
I see him in the frisking foal—
I hear him laughing on the breeze
That stirs the very tops of trees.
He soars with falcons on the wing—
He is the song that nightbirds sing.
Death never dared him captive keep.
He lies not there. He does not sleep.

But—there is silence at my side
That haunts the place he used to ride.
And my Companion can’t allay
The loss I have sustained this day.
How bleak the future now has grown
Since I must face it all alone.
My road is weary, dark and steep—
And it is for myself I weep.

FOR TALIA

Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

Music: Larry Warner and Kristoph Klover

(Dirk: Arrow’s Fall)

The lady that I cherish is enamored of a fool—
A fool who lacks the wit to speak his mind,
A fool who often wears a mask indifferent and cool,
A fool who’s often selfish, dense, and blind.

The lady that I cherish is enamored of a fool—
A fool too often wrapped in other cares,
Forgetting that his singlemindedness is wrong and cruel
To lock her out who gladly trouble shares.

The lady that I cherish is enamored of a fool
Who sometimes does not value what he holds

Until his loneliness confirms ’twere time his heart should rule

And the comfort of her love around him folds.

But though he must have hurt her without ever meaning to

Her temper never breaks and never frays,
And she forgives whatever careless thing that he may do
And loves him still despite his thoughtless ways.

She only smiles and says that there is nothing to forgive—

And I thank God she does so, for you see

I fear without her love and care this poor fool could not live—

The fool she loves and cherishes is me.

KEROWYN’S RIDE

Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

Music: Leslie Fish