A Road Less Travelled

Lately I’ve been reading through my Heralds of Valdemar books. Valdemar is a little world created by an author named Mercedes Lackey and the Heralds are these folks with special Gifts who go around the countryside dispensing justice and protecting the people and stuffs like that. But what makes the Heralds really cool is the Companions. A person becomes a Herald by being Chosen by a Companion. The Companions are these beings who are like angels or some such in horse shape. A Companion will go find someone who is supposed to be a Herald and when the Companion chooses a Herald a link is formed between them. Most times they will be able to talk to each other in their minds. What one knows can easily be projected into the other’s mind. There is a link between their minds or maybe it would be better to say there is a link between their souls.

Mercedes Lackey is not the first who came up with this link. Years ago an author named Anne MacCaffery created the Dragonriders of Pern. The Dragonriders have a similar link with their dragons as the Heralds have with their Companions. If you hurt the rider his dragon will feel pain and the same the other way around. When a rider dies his dragon will suicide and when a dragon dies it leaves his rider broken.

  Whenever I start reader any of these books I have a hard time putting them down. The plots are interesting and I enjoy watching the characters, but a goodly part of what is so attractive about these books to me is the bond between Herald and Companion, between Dragonman and dragon. There is something about a creature other than you who can get inside your head and who knows you and yet still loves you. And there is something about this other creature having the ability to travel great distances fairly easily, but that is a minor point. There is something about someone other than me being knowing what I am thinking without me having to fumble for words.

It is a common daydream of mine that one day I wake up with someone else riding around in my head. This other person would see my day and know what I was thinking and maybe this person would come to understand me a little bit better. Of course I wouldn’t know the other person was there. If I knew it would ruin everything. I’ve had this daydream for a long while now and the person who hitches a ride in my head has changed over the years. But it’s always someone I felt I could never express myself to or someone I had fumbled my words when I was last talking to him about something important. And if this other person could just walk around a day watching everything I was thinking about then he would understand. Or more often, then she would understand and maybe we could actually be friends. But it never happened.

So I’m reading this book and there’s this kid with a whole heap of trouble and woe and then he gets Chosen. His troubles don’t just vanish and his woes are still there. But now there is someone else in his head. There is his Companion who will go through all these woes with him and she will never leave him and she understands. That is a big deal. She gets it. He doesn’t have to finish his sentences and he doesn’t have to explain himself very much. She gets it. Oh, wouldn’t that be great? To have someone other than you understand. Maybe this would be the only person who understands including you, but it would be someone. And you wouldn’t ever be lonely. There would always be someone to talk to and there would always be someone there even if you were all alone in a room. Wouldn’t that be great?

Sometimes it gets lonely in my head. And sometimes I can be in a room full of people who are being pleasant to me and I can still feel lonely. In a different book and world entirely a character commented that humans really were very lonely people. He wasn’t human so this was an outsiders opinion. He said that we humans have to rely on words to express our thoughts to each other and how very lonely that was. I think I agree with him. I just spent I don’t know how long sitting at this computer in this uncomfortable chair and I’m not sure I have actually expressed what I wanted to say. And there’s lots more I want to say, but I know the words aren’t where I want them to be. So for now I’ll stop. When my words come back maybe I’ll finish this thought. Or maybe this thought will have to go to the room where all my thoughts I haven’t been able to finish or communicate to others are. It’s getting kinda crowded in there.