There were seven days left before the next wave, and Karal was not altogether certain he was going to live that long. There were simply not enough marks in the day to do everything he had to. Then again, he was not the only person working to exhaustion; the mages and the engineers were all walking around with dark rings under their eyes. The only reason he was getting any sleep at all was because he was seeing to it that Ulrich got a decent rest every night, and then dropping into slumber shortly thereafter.
The mages did their shielding work in the morning, when they were all fresh; then came a break for lunch, then their meeting with the Master Engineers, and then their own meetings. Karal was not always present at the latter; the mages needed his reports on what the engineers were doing, more than the reverse, since An'desha was making himself available to them for explanations and demonstrations. Karal had to wonder where he was getting the energy.
Generally he kept himself as unobtrusive and invisible as possible—except where Ulrich's health was concerned. It had taken a major effort of will to march right in on the mages and demand that Master Ulrich be allowed to get some rest, the first time he'd gotten back to the suite after returning from the Compass Rose only to find that Ulrich was not in his bed. He was nothing more than the merest secretary; he had no standing and no authority among such luminaries as Elspeth and Darkwind! But Ulrich's welfare was the most important job he had—Solaris had entrusted him with seeing that his mentor remained hale and well, and staying up until dawn, snatching an hour or two of sleep, and getting up to work complicated magics was going to wear him to nothing in a very short period of time. He didn't think the others, being much younger than Ulrich, were aware of how quickly he could be exhausted. So he had gathered up all of his courage, walked straight into the meeting, and respectfully "reminded" Ulrich that his master had left orders to be told when midnight arrived so that he could get enough rest to work the next day.
Ulrich had looked momentarily startled, then had given Karal a long, hard look. Karal had done his best to wear an expression of bland implacability.
I won't go away, sir, he'd thought hard at Ulrich. He'd never known whether or not his master could read thoughts as he had often suspected, but if Ulrich could, he was certainly getting an "earful" now. Whatever it takes to persuade you to get some rest, I'm going to do it, even if I have to fabricate emergencies, even if I have to recruit Altra. Though how he was going to persuade the Firecat to go along with the scheme, he hadn't had a clue at the time.
He still didn't know if Ulrich could read thoughts, but his mentor had risen with thanks for the "reminder," and had excused himself from the meetings whenever Karal appeared after that, and all without a contradictory word thereafter.
Still, if Karal felt as if he was constantly on the verge of exhaustion, how must Ulrich feel?
He knew what was driving them all; he felt it himself. Beneath it all, underscoring every waking moment, was the sense of urgency. Hurry, hurry, hurry, whispered a tiny voice. Don't waste any time. You don't have time to waste. Find the answer; find it now, before it's too late.
Some time, soon, too soon, scant months from now, it would be too late. The real storm would break over their heads, and Valdemar was closer to the center of one of the two places in peril than any other land and people—
Except for the Shin'a'in.
And except for the small group of Kaled'a'in that had made their new home on the very edge of the Plain. Those were the gryphons' people, and although Treyvan and Hydona said nothing about it, Karal knew that they were as grimly worried about their little group as the Shin'a'in ambassador was worried about her own people.
There was an option that no one liked, but which would at least save the lives of those in peril. Before the Storm actually hit, the people themselves could move. It wouldn't be easy, though; by then, disruption-waves would be arriving daily, making it impossible to set up Gates. They would all have to move the hard way; overland, by foot and horse, and even the Kaled'a'in "floating barges" would be useless unless the mages spent all their time and energy in holding shields against the disruption.
By then, though, the lands around the area would be the next thing to uninhabitable. There would be no possibility of anyone leading a normal life, not when your crop plants were suddenly warping into things that could kill you with flung thorns or poison, and the beasts of your fields had turned into rabid killers.
Karal had the latest maps spread out on the table in front of the fireplace and was studying them while he waited for Ulrich to return for lunch. These were the maps predicting the areas of effect from the next disruption-wave. It would come exactly one and one-half days short of a fortnight, and the circles of "change" would be twenty hands across—enough that now a large animal could conceivably be caught inside one.
A Shin'a'in horse, for instance. Or a Valdemaran bull.
Or a wild deer; it didn't matter. The "rabbit" had nearly taken off someone's hand; anything larger would be deadly to whatever was within its range of movement.
Karal shivered at the thought. With luck, and the help of all the Heralds out on circuit, they could warn people to keep their livestock at home that day, or confine them away from danger zones. That was in Valdemar, and it still left the possibility that some large game animal would be caught in a change. Altra had taken a copy of the map this morning as soon as he had made one, and had vanished with it; evidently now the Firecat had no problems acting as a messenger to Solaris. That took care of Karse—again, except for wild animals, and they would just have to chance that.
Presumably Firesong could send the information to the Hawkbrothers by magic—and they in turn would pass it to the Kaled'a'in and the Shin'a'in.
Prince Daren had sent a Herald off last night to Rethwellan, but there were no Priests or Heralds in Rethwellan to distribute the warning. There were none in Hardorn either, nor in the icy wilderness up above the Forest of Sorrows, nor in Iftel. There was no way to tell anyone farther south than Rethwellan, except if the Shin'a'in got around to it, nor were there any ways to distribute warnings there. Their only hope was that the wave centering on Evendim would be so weak by the time it got that far, that the combined effect with the one centered on the Plain would be negligible.
It wouldn't remain that way for long, though. Sooner or later the waves would be strong enough that the warping effect would be felt even farther away than Ceejay, and at that point, the waves would be coming more often, too.
Somehow, someone had to spread the word. Somehow, they had to find the answer to stopping this thing.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, before it's too late....
Nothing could be done about the Pelagirs or the northern mountains. What would happen when the beasts that were already strange and deadly, out in the Uncleansed Lands, encountered these warping forces a second time? One wag of a student had suggested that they might just go back to being rabbits, mice and tree-hares. That was an amusing thought, but unlikely.
And what about the Empire? There was still an army out there. What if whoever was in command decided that Valdemar, Karse, or both were the cause of all this? They had command of far more magic than either land did, and an unlimited supply of troops, or so it seemed. What if they decided this was an attack, and decided that it was worth carrying the battle to the enemy?
As if that thought had been a cue, the door opened, and Ulrich stepped in.
The sound of his limping footstep made Karal turn, with a frown of worry on his face. Ulrich should not be limping, not unless he was so exhausted that even walking was an effort.
His frown deepened when he saw the pale, translucent skin above Ulrich's beard, and the dark circles beneath his eyes.
"You've been overworking again," he accused.
"I've been undersleeping," Ulrich corrected. "I had troubling dreams last night, and this morning I urged that our work consist of sending out warnings, maps, and the formulae to calculate the schedules, not only to the Tayledras, Shin'a'in shaman, and Kaled'a'in, but to every mage-school any of us knew of. It occurred to me that in the schools there is always someone teaching or practicing a scrying spell, and we needed only to "interrupt" what was already in place. The Blue Mountain and White Winds mages were particularly helpful there." He smiled wanly. "We covered quite a bit of ground, so to speak."
"That's all very well and good, but—" Karal stopped himself in midscold, shaking his head at himself. "I'm sorry. I sound like your mother, or at least a nagging son, and I'm only your protege and secretary. Forgive me, Master Ulrich."
But to his shock and delight, Ulrich not only did not take offense, but he smiled again, this time with real warmth. Wan sunlight reflected from the white plaster-adorned mantel fell on him, accentuating his pallor. "You have every right, and if I had a nagging son, or any kind of son, I would hope he would be precisely like you. You are a never-ending delight to me, Karal. I had thought when I first took you as my protege that I would always be a little disappointed in you because you were not a mage. I was wrong."
"Wrong?" Karal replied vaguely, more than a little stunned by the sudden turn this conversation had taken.
"Very wrong." Ulrich limped across the floor to him and hesitantly put one hand on his shoulder. "You are something more important than a mage, and much rarer, my son. You are a warrior of the spirit and a healer of the soul. You have more compassion than I can begin to understand, and you are already showing the beginnings of true wisdom. People trust you instinctively, and instinctively you sense that and try to help them, even as you do your best not to betray that trust. You will be a great Priest in the purest sense one day, the sense that has nothing to do with magic, power, or politics; that, I think, is why Altra was sent to you."
Karal trembled under Ulrich's hand; this was not anything he had ever expected to hear, and he plainly didn't know what to think.
"Yours will not be an easy path, I fear," Ulrich continued. "But I can tell you one that you should make the time to speak to. Herald Talia is one who is very like you; her abilities differ in that she is a healer of the heart, rather than the soul, but otherwise she will understand you better than anyone else you are ever likely to meet."
"B-but—Solaris—" he faltered, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. Why is he talking like this! He sounds as if he thinks he might not be here while I still need him—
Ulrich shook his head. "Solaris is something else entirely; the Prophet and the Leader are concerned with the needs of the people as a whole, and not with the needs of individuals. Solaris will not be able to help you—although you may be called upon one day to help her."
Karal dropped his gaze to the floor, a lump in his throat, confusion in his heart. Ulrich put a finger under Karal's chin, and raised his face so that Karal was forced to look into his eyes. "In one thing, Talia will not be able to help you, and you will have to find your own way. The way of the true Priest is often solitary; he can sometimes tread a parallel road with another, but sooner or later, their ways must part, and they may not come together again. Your life belongs to others, and I think you already understand and accept that, although you have not put it into words for yourself. If you are very lucky, you may find a partner who can understand or accept that. If you are not, there will be heartache. If the heartache comes, remember what you are, and that if you may not be the lover of one, you will be beloved by many."
Karal blinked up into Ulrich's eyes, trying his best to understand what his master was saying, and not quite grasping it. Ulrich looked down at him for another heartbeat or two, then released him with a dry chuckle.
"Ah, my dreams have made me fey, a little mad, or both," he said lightly. "Either that, or I am so hungered that I am seeing shadows of a future that may never happen. Did you bespeak lunch?"
Karal released a sigh of relief and nodded. "And it's odd that you should have mentioned Herald Talia; she wanted to talk to both of us about An'desha. She says that he is all knotted up over something, and she thinks we can help him."
"Well, perhaps we can," Ulrich began, just as a light tap signaled someone at the door.
"Come!" Ulrich said immediately; the door opened and the Lady Talia herself stepped inside, followed by the page with their lunch. For a moment, there was a little confusion, as Karal quickly cleaned the papers off the table, the boy maneuvered the tray onto the waiting surface, and everyone sorted themselves out. The boy bowed quickly and left, Talia and Ulrich exchanged greetings, and Karal started into the other room to fetch a third chair.
He never even got as far as the door.
Something—some strange sound, or maybe not a sound at all, just a feeling—made him whirl around, every nerve afire with the certain knowledge of danger, deadly and imminent.
The fireplace was decorated with plaster ornaments much like the Council rooms and most of the other suites in the Palace. They were set into the wall on either side and above the mantel, a series of whorls and scrollwork, with four larger whorls, one just off each corner of the mantelpiece.
A shrill trilling sound split the air just as the plaster of those whorls split and shattered, releasing something that sprang out into the room and hung, hovering, in the air.
Karal didn't get a good look at them; they made his eyes hurt, and no matter how he concentrated, the very air blurred around them. He only had an impression of a diamond-shape of sharp blades, frightening and deadly.
He didn't think, he acted, instinctively flinging himself in front of Talia, keeping his own body between her and them. If anyone in this room was in danger, surely it was Talia!
In the next instant, Altra was in front of him. Every hair on the Firecat's body was on end, and the Cat howled a piercing battle cry that rivaled the whining trill of the devices.
The diamond-blades moved; the two nearest Karal flew at him as fast as a pair of glittering dragonflies. He flung himself backward, trying to knock Talia to the floor to shield her. He expected at any moment to feel one or more of those blades piercing his heart—
But there was a sharp crack, and two of the devices vanished altogether in a flash of fire, one that originated from Altra's extended claws. The third went careening sideways, into the path of the fourth, deflecting it—
But not enough.
The device slammed into Ulrich's chest with enough force to knock him to the floor, as the second device embedded itself in the wall.
The trilling stopped, leaving silence, and the sound of harsh, bubbling breathing.
"Ulrich!" Karal screamed, as he scrambled to his feet and flung himself down beside the Priest. Talia was right behind him, and stopped him before he could pull the damnable device out of Ulrich's chest. The Priest was still breathing, but he was unconscious, and a thin trickle of blood appeared at one corner of his mouth and ran down the side of his face.
"Don't touch him," Talia ordered. "I've called for help. I know some Healing, let me—"
Obediently, he moved aside and let her be the one to remove the device. Fearlessly, she pulled it out, and the wound whistled for a second until she slapped her hand over it, blocking it. "It's a lung-hit, that's bad," she muttered under her breath, distractedly. "Very bad—where is that damned Healer?"
Karal hovered beside her, in an agony of helplessness, wanting to do something, anything, and unable to aid her at all. "Ulrich, Master," he whispered, one hand on his mentor's forehead, the other on his shoulder on the uninjured side. "Please, help is coming, don't leave me, I need you, don't leave me."
Time just did not feel like it was moving right. Nothing felt like it was moving right. This couldn't really be happening, Karal thought through a mental sludge. The sounds of their voices and movements seemed truncated, as if they were down a well, and Ulrich's halting, gasping breaths were too loud.
Then, finally, the door burst open, and a dozen or more people crowded into the room, at least two of them in the green robes that denoted a senior Healer in this land. They swarmed over Ulrich, shoving aside both Karal and Talia. A moment later, they carried the Priest away, leaving Karal and Talia behind, with one other person. Karal started to follow, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.
"Let me go," he spat, grabbing the hand to pull it off. But another hand grabbed his wrist and made him turn, and he found himself looking into Kerowyn's sober green eyes.
"You can't help Ulrich, and you'll only get in the Healers' way," she said, bluntly telling him the truth that he didn't want to hear.
"But—" He looked at her, and unexpectedly burst into tears.
Talia put her arms around him—and strangely enough, so did Kerowyn. Both of them held him while he sobbed hysterically.
"Why?" he wept. "Why? He never hurt anyone! He was an old man! He never hurt anyone! Why?"
Neither of the women said anything to him, which was just as well, since he wouldn't have been able to hear them or respond. They simply made soothing sounds at him and supported him as time wobbled and spun. After a moment, or a candlemark, Kerowyn detached herself and left him to bury his head in Talia's shoulder while the Herald stroked his hair and swayed back and forth with him in her arms.
Terrible grief shook him, he couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't even think. The only things in his mind were the dreadful sound of the blade-device thudding into Ulrich's chest, never-ending, and the sight of Ulrich's body hitting the floor....
It was exhaustion that finally brought him back to himself. His tears stopped, mostly because his eyes were too sore and dry to produce another drop. Dully, he allowed Talia to lead him to a chair, and he sat down in it.
Kerowyn knelt in front of him, the two devices in her hands. "Ulrich wasn't the only one attacked," she said gently. "The Shin'a'in ambassador was killed outright, and it was just pure luck that the other mages were with the gryphons when more of these things came after them; they all managed to knock the things down, though Treyvan and Darkwind each took a wound. It looks, at the moment, as if someone hid these damned things in plaster ornaments in the rooms of every single one of the foreign mages."
He blinked at her, his eyes gritty and swollen. "Why?" he asked stupidly.
She shrugged. "Either someone wanted to eliminate all the ambassadors, or that same someone wanted to eliminate all the mages, and he settled for getting the foreigners because the rest of them live in the Herald's Wing and he didn't have access to that part of the Palace." She tilted her head to" one side, and frowned. "Come to think of it, he wouldn't have access to Firesong's place, either. Maybe that's why there were four in here—the other two might have been meant for Firesong and An'desha."
He shook his head again. "Why?" he persisted. "Why try to kill anyone? And who would it be?"
Kerowyn's mouth tightened. "Figure it was the Empire that planned this, and you'll probably have your answer. Since I don't recognize these things, and I thought I knew every kind of assassins' weapon there was, the Empire would be my first choice for who did this."
Her words set his frozen mind in motion again, and almost against his will, a myriad of possibilities occurred to him. "If I wanted to break up the Alliance, I'd kill all the ambassadors," he said reluctantly. "If Valdemar couldn't protect the envoys in the Palace itself, the allies might assume it was too dangerous to ally with Valdemar against the Empire. It's possible that some of the allies, like Karse, might even blame Valdemar for the deaths. It might only be incidental that the targets were mages."
Talia's eyes went wide, and Kerowyn's narrowed in speculation. "That hadn't occurred to me," she admitted. "But it's an even better reason than killing them to lessen our mage-power." His mind was still working, out of long habit and training with Ulrich—
Oh, Ulrich—I've lost you. We've all lost you—
"The Empire would believe that this is an ordinary alliance, especially with Karse and Valdemar," he continued; now that his thoughts were set in motion, they wouldn't stop until he followed them to the end. "They can't know that Solaris is working under a divine decree; they'd assume that the death of her envoy would mean she would go back to the old assumption of Valdemar-as-the-Land-of-Demons. That would be why there was a device in here for me, even though I'm not a mage—so that there would be no witness to the contrary."
Kerowyn's lips thinned, and she nodded once. "That makes the best sense of all. Good work, Karal. I'm going to take these to Elspeth and Darkwind, and maybe they can take them apart. You are being moved to another room, as quickly as I can get my people in here to move your things."
He saw immediately why she had said that. "There's an Imperial agent in the Palace, isn't there," he stated flatly. "Someone who had access to all the rooms, and the ability to hide those things in the plaster."
"And I bloody well don't know who it is," she agreed. "So I want you and the rest of the foreigners out of here and into the Herald's Wing. Or better yet, I'll move you in with An'desha and Firesong, if they'll take you. Firesong got at least five of those things all by himself."
He looked up at her as she stood, and he felt his lower lip starting to quiver, his eyes starting to burn. "What about—" he began.
"Ulrich's in the best of hands, Karal," Talia said gently. "It's too soon to tell—but he is an old man, and we both know that he's been overworking, putting himself under a lot of strain."
He nodded and looked quickly down at his hands, before Kerowyn could see the tears starting to form in his eyes again.
Kerowyn left, but Talia stayed, so that when he began to sob again, this time quietly, she was there to hold him.
Talia stayed with him for the rest of the day—later in the afternoon Kerowyn returned with her hand-picked crew of tough-looking mercenaries from her own Company, packed up everything in the suite, and carried it out—off to Firesong and An'desha's ekele, she said. Karal stifled his tears when they came in; he just didn't want to cry in front of these hardened soldiers. They'd think he was being childish; surely they'd look on him with contempt.
But one of the toughest-looking turned in the middle of the packing when Karal saw them carrying out some things of Ulrich's and choked back a sob. The man put down the robes he had draped over his arm and dropped down onto his heels in front of Karal's chair.
"Don' be 'shamed t'be a-grievin', boy," the man said, patting his hand awkwardly, his speech slow and so thickly accented that Karal barely understood him. "This kind'o thing don' get any nor easier e'en for the likes o' we. Gie yer tears t' a man who deserves 'em, an' take ye no shame i' the weepin', aye? Sure, an' we won' think th' less o'ye."
He stood up, as soon as Karal nodded numbly, and picked up his burden again. Karal just let the tears flow, then, and ignored all the comings and goings until the sun set, and the now-empty room filled with darkness.
"Do you want to go to the Healers' Collegium to wait, Karal?" Talia asked gently. "Or would you rather wait here?"
There was nothing for him here; the rooms held not even the scent of incense from Ulrich's robes—not that he could smell much after all the raw-nosed sniffling. "I'd like to go to Healers', I think," he said thickly. "If I won't be in the way."
"Of course you won't be," Talia replied warmly. She offered him her hand. "Come on, I'll take you there."
Somewhere he lost track of the walk, or else it was all swallowed up in misery. The next thing he knew, he was sitting down again, in another room, this one full of well-worn, ancient benches. The whole place had a sad air of waiting about it, interminable waiting. Talia was walking toward him as he looked up, suddenly aware of his surroundings again; she must have left him here without his noticing.
"There's no change, Karal," she said, and bit her lip. "I won't lie to you; you'd know it if I did. That's not a good sign. He hasn't even regained consciousness."
He nodded; she rested her hand on his shoulder.
"I'll stay with you if you want me to," she offered, and he knew that she meant it.
Just as he knew that she had much more important things to deal with than one boy's pain. Thanks to Florian, he knew what she was now, and how important she was. He knew that eventually he would be touched and grateful that she had given him so much of her time today, but right now, there was room for nothing but grief.
"You have to go," he told her. "I—I understand. I'll manage."
She searched his eyes for a moment. "You do understand, don't you?" she asked, wonder coloring her voice. "Thank you for that, Karal. If you can't bear it, send for me."
He nodded, and she walked off quickly, but with a slight limp. He watched her go, then turned his thoughts inward.
He prayed, even though he wasn't quite certain what to pray for. It would be no kindness to Ulrich to force him to live, if living meant he was trapped in a helpless body that held nothing but pain. Those blades were long—long enough to have pierced through the chest and damaged the spine. Perhaps that was why Ulrich had not awakened....
He tried to remember what Ulrich had taught him—that Vkandis was neither some cosmic accountant, who weighed and measured a man before deciding if he lived or died, nor was He a grand torturer, inflicting punishment after punishment upon the living to find their breaking points. We have free will, all of us, and Vkandis interferes very little in our life in this world, Ulrich had said. He does not play with us as a child plays with toy soldiers or dolls, nor does He test us to see what we are made of. He allows us to live our lives and make our own choices, and only after we cross to join Him does He judge us on the basis of what we have and have not done with the life and free will we were granted at birth—and how well we have kept our word in promises made to Him. What we choose to do intersects with what everyone else in our lives chooses to do, sometimes those choices mean joy, sometimes sorrow, often a little of both. That may be why good things sometimes happen to evil people. Most assuredly, with no cause by the Sunlord's hand, bad things sometimes do happen to good people.
So it was by free will that whoever it was had laid those deadly traps, and Ulrich and he had been the ones to encounter them. It was by sheer circumstance that there had been four of the things, one too many for Altra to deal with. In fact, had Altra not been there—by the Sunlord's own will—he would be dead right now.
But I wish it had been me and not him! he cried to Vkandis. Oh, Sunlord, I wish it had been me!
The marks crawled by, tedious and slow as an ancient tortoise, plodding painfully toward midnight, and then toward dawn. People came by at intervals, presumably to see if he was all right, but they did not disturb him, and he did not speak to them.
Finally, though, someone did stop, and touch his shoulder.
He looked up, and the sympathy in the Healer's face told him everything he needed to know.
He could not show his sorrow before all the strange faces, sympathetic though they might be, and he could not burden Talia further by asking someone to disturb her rest and bring her to him. Instead, he refused all offers of consolation and stumbled blindly away from the building, shaking with sobs he could not give voice to, throat so choked with grief he could not even swallow.
It was not yet dawn; frost-covered grass crunched underfoot as he wandered out into the waning hours of the night. He had to go somewhere... life would go on, and now he was the sole representative of Karse here. Where had Kerowyn said she was moving his things?
The ekele. An'desha and Firesong—
That was bearable. Better them, than to try to make a place among strangers, Heralds whose names he didn't even know.
Now that he had a destination, he set off through the darkness. Once he was out of sight of the Healers and their unwanted, professional sympathy, he allowed the tears to come again. Blinded as much by his weeping as by the dark, he felt his way along the path to the gate in Companion's Field; got it open, and slipped inside—
And there he stopped; or rather, collapsed against the gate post, shuddering with great, racking sobs that did absolutely nothing to ease the agony of his loss.
:Karal—: the voice in his mind was hesitant, but the sympathy was real. :Karal, I am not Talia, but I am here for you.:
Blindly, he turned and buried his face in the white shoulder that lowered to meet his trembling body as the Companion lay down. His tears trickled through the silky white mane that presented itself to him. He clung to Florian's neck and wept and wept until his throat was sore, his eyes were nothing more than slits, and his nose was so swollen and stopped up that he had to stop sobbing because he couldn't breathe.
The breathing of the Companion at his side was steady and soothing, and after what could have been a candlemark, the pace of his own breathing matched Florian's.
:Karal, I am with you. This might not be the best time, but there is someone who sorrows as much as you do,: Florian said hesitantly. :He needs you very badly, and right now he has no one to comfort him.:
Unlike me... The unspoken implication had not escaped Karal. "Wh-who?" Karal asked dully, wiping his nose.
:Listen,: was Florian's only answer.
Obediently, Karal stifled his sniffling for a moment. As he strained his ears to listen over the sound of the river nearby, he heard what Florian was talking about—a high-pitched wail so much like a baby's cry that he was startled.
A baby? But what would a baby be doing out in the middle of the Field?
The wail came again, so full of heartbreak and pain that Karal had to respond to it; he walked in the general direction of the sound, Florian following behind. A few moments later, he knew what it was—not a baby, but a cat.
"Is that Altra?" he asked, incredulously.
:Yes,: Florian replied. :He hasn't told you the whole truth, Karal. The Firecats are almost exactly like us—like Companions, except that they have magic to protect themselves, and they can move themselves the way someone who has the Fetching Gift can move an object. They are mortal, they eat—he's been stealing food from the kitchen—and they have no more idea about what is going to happen in the future than you or I do.:
"That was why he didn't know that the disruption-waves were coming, he only knew something was going to happen." Karal replied absently, distracted for the moment from his grief by this revelation.
:Yes. And that was why he didn't know you were going to be attacked until it happened. Nor does he know who your attacker was. He blames himself.: Florian's mental voice was saddened and subdued :I can understand that only too well. I had thought about urging you to take a break this morning and come out here for a ride on Trenor, you haven't seen him for days. I keep wondering what would have happened if I had done that instead of just thinking about it.:
"What's the point in rasping away at yourself with might-have-beens?" Karal retorted. "All you do is make yourself hurt more—"
:I know that. You know that. It is Altra who needs to hear that.: They were practically on top of the wailing now, and Karal made out a white form curled into a ball of misery, wailing disconsolately into the night. Karal's heart and his resolve to stay controlled broke at the same time.
"Altra—" he cried, flinging himself down in the grass beside the Firecat. He took the Cat into his arms exactly as Talia had taken him into her comforting embrace, and his tears started again. "Altra, Altra, it wasn't your fault."
:I had to choose,: the Cat cried in his mind. I had to choose, and I was sent for you, so I had to choose you.:
"And you almost saved both of us anyway," Karal told him, holding his furred body tightly, as the Firecat shivered with more than physical cold. "You aren't the Sunlord, Altra, you can't know everything or be everywhere at once. You did your best. I know that."
:But I couldn't—save—him!: The heartbreaking wail began again. Altra had no way to shed tears, so Karal did the crying for them both.
Florian stood vigil over them, a solid, comforting presence in the dark, until they were finally too tired to weep anymore.
In the end, Karal picked up the exhausted Firecat—who must have weighed nearly half what he himself did—and carried him to the ekele, with Florian walking beside them. Firesong was still awake, but he said nothing when he met them all at the entrance to his home, neither about the lateness of the hour nor Karal's odd burden. He only gestured for Karal to follow and led the way to that peculiar room draped to resemble the interior of a tent.
And this was where Karal talked to Altra until the sun rose, telling him all the things he had tried to tell himself, and in so doing, seeing the truth in those things. That was where they finally slept, spent and exhausted—but neither one alone.
When Karal awoke, he knew by the sun that it was well into the afternoon. He'd slept far later than he had thought he would, and Altra was still curled against him. The Firecat woke as soon as he moved, though, and raised his head to look at him with shadowed blue eyes.
"Altra?" he said, quietly.
:I will be all right,: the Firecat replied. :The pain—it is bearable, now. We have things we must do; you especially, and he would not thank us for neglecting them.:
Karal rubbed at his eyes; they were sore and gummy, the lashes all stuck together. His nose and cheeks were tender from scrubbing at them. Odd how such little discomforts distracted a person from grief, but not enough to be more than one more burden.
He had awakened with a heaviness of soul that cast a gray shadow over everything. He knew that he ought to be hungry, but he had no appetite whatsoever.
He scratched Altra's ears—the Firecat didn't seem to mind being caressed like an ordinary cat. All of his things were here, piled into baskets at the sides of the fabric-draped room. Was this supposed to look like the inside of a Shin'a'in tent? Probably. So this would be An'desha's room, though he doubted An'desha used it much.
Now he wondered what it was about An'desha that Talia had wanted to talk about. If she hadn't come to their suite, would things have fallen out any differently?
No matter. He should follow his own advice, and not torture himself with might-have-beens. The danger from the disruption-waves hadn't gone, just because Ulrich was—
His eyes stung.
There was still work to do. He should get changed and do it.
"Altra, you ought to stay here and rest." The fur under his hand felt harsh and brittle, and Altra looked in poor shape, as if the events of yesterday had completely depleted him. "I'll be back after I find out what everyone else is doing."
"Everyone else—the mages and the Prince, that is—is—are?—coming here," Firesong said from the doorway. Karal's head snapped up and he started; he hadn't heard anything at all to indicate that Firesong was in the hallway. "With an unknown agent somewhere in the Palace, the others are reluctant to trust that he or she might not be somehow listening. The ekele is safe enough; I supervised every bit of the building myself, and before you arrived I checked for more such little gifts as were distributed yesterday."
The Hawkbrother entered the room and sank down on his haunches beside the pallet that Karal and Altra shared. He studied Karal for a very long time without saying a word; Karal didn't say anything either. He was too tired, and too grief-laden to play at verbal fencing with the Healing Adept. If Firesong wanted to know something, then he could damned well ask it.
"I think I understand, now," Firesong said, out of the blue.
"What?" Still less was Karal ready to trade non sequiturs.
"What An'desha sees in you." Firesong continued to sit on his heels, watching Karal measuringly.
Karal traded him back look for look. Firesong was baiting him, and he was not going to rise to it. Maybe the Hawkbrother meant well, trying to distract him from his sorrow, but he'd chosen a bad tactic to use.
"Talia wanted to talk with you and—" Firesong hesitated, then went gamely on. "She had already spoken with me. An'desha is in the midst of a crisis, she thinks; he is afraid of setting his feelings free, and he is afraid of losing control of himself if he keeps examining those 'Ma'ar' memories. Evidently they are the most powerful and the most seductive of all. Falconsbane was mad, purely and simply, but Ma'ar was as close to sane as anyone of his ilk is ever likely to be. He had reasons and rationalizations for everything he did, and I suppose that is what makes his memories so seductive." Firesong shrugged. "An'desha is afraid of much, and I have lost patience with his timidity. Frankly, I do not think he is going to be of much use to us unless he can face what he has inside him without being afraid of it, and I know he will not be of much use—ah—to us, if he keeps shutting off how he feels."
"That's what you told Talia?" Karal asked.
"And now you," Firesong confirmed. "Now, more than ever, we cannot afford to have anyone handicapped, and at the moment An'desha is like a hooded falcon."
"Or a racehorse with hobbles and blinders." Karal nodded. "Let me think about this."
"Fair enough." Firesong stood; today he had chosen to dress all in white, as if to represent the winter that drew nearer with every passing day. "I—I am not always this insensitive. If I had a choice, I would not have mentioned it until you were feeling better. It is a burden you could do without."
"But we don't have the time for sensitivity," Karal acknowledged. "I understand."
"You can bathe in the pools below," the mercurial mage said then, changing the subject completely. "There is food in the kitchen. The others will be here shortly."
And with that, he turned in a swirl of long sleeves and crystal-bead fringe, vanishing as silently as he had arrived.
Food. No, he still didn't want to even think about food. Nor about all the times that Ulrich had teased him about how much he ate—
Wait. This is all wrong. I should think about things like that. He should remember as much as he could; there was good advice buried in nearly everything that Ulrich had told him, and now he was going to have to glean as much of it out of his memories as he could.
:He used to offer me cat-mint, you know, as a kind of joke, as if it would affect me as it does a real cat.:
Altra looked up at him from the pallet.
"And what did you do?" Karal asked obediently.
:Asked him to make it into tea, and serve it in a civilized fashion.: Altra sighed. :It was funny at the time.:
"It will be funny again," Karal promised warmly. "I'll bring you something to eat, if you like."
:So Florian spilled my secret, did he?: Altra actually snorted, and looked annoyed for a heartbeat. :Ah, well, I couldn't stay mystical and inscrutable forever, I suppose. Please bring me something that isn't breadish or vegetablish.:
"I'll be glad to, as soon as I have a quick bath." At least Altra still had an appetite. That was something, anyway, a sign that the Firecat was on the way to recovering.
He found that he felt better after a bath and a change of clothing. It did help that there was nothing at all here to remind him of Ulrich. He didn't think he would be able to maintain his own fragile stability if there had been.
He still had no appetite, though; rummaging around in the larder didn't do anything to remove the lump of cold grief from his stomach. He confined himself to taking care of Altra; he found some fish that was so fresh it must have been caught that very morning, and decided that someone in the two-person household had seen Altra for what he really was. And while the Firecat didn't precisely fall on the offering as if he was half-starved, he certainly polished every scrap off during the time it took Karal to change into clean clothing.
I'm the only Karsite representative, now, he thought, as he examined his clothing. Until Solaris sends someone else—it's me or no one. I'd better look the part.
He chose one of his formal robes, and carefully arranged his sun-disk pendant over the front placket. He wished there was a mirror.
:You look very impressive,: Altra observed from the bed. :You've grown since you came here. You're a bit young for an envoy, but as old as some ruling nobles I've seen, even as old as some reigning monarchs. I've even heard of Sons of the Sun no older than you.:
Karal tugged his tunic straight. "I'll have to do," he replied. "There isn't anyone else for the moment."
"You'll do very well." Once again, Firesong had appeared out of nowhere. He eyed Karal carefully and nodded with satisfaction. "No longer the retiring little secretary. Very good. Let's go down, the others are waiting."
:You'll be fine,: Altra murmured.
Well, he would, if appearance was all that counted. He only hoped he could be so confident of his abilities.
The subject, inevitably, was the attempt to uncover a presumed agent of the Empire.
"I've checked and rechecked the servants under Truth Spell," Elspeth told them all as Firesong and Karal took their places in the circle. Beside her, Darkwind nursed a bandaged shoulder, and the male gryphon had a stitched-up cut in his right wing. "They're all exactly what they seem to be, so it can't be one of the regular servants."
"It could be one of us, you know," Karal put in reluctantly.
Prince Daren grimaced. "That had not escaped me. It could also be any of the other ambassadors and envoys, including those of long standing. Whoever this agent is, it is likeliest that he has been among us for a very long time, and he could be one of a number of foreigners we trust. It is a bit difficult to persuade them to be examined under Truth Spell."
"Difficult?" Firesong put on his best sardonic look. "Only if you are not willing to risk an incident."
"Selenay is not," Daren replied flatly. "We have enough of an incident on our hands already, although mage-messages have come from Solaris this morning saying that she is aware of what happened and that it changes nothing."
Only that Ulrich is gone... and I promised to take care of him. Karal tucked his head down so that his grief would not show until he got his face back under control again. Altra must have gone to her with the news, before he fell apart. No wonder he looked so depleted.
"That leaves—what? Something like a hundred possible suspects?" Kerowyn hazarded. "And a good chance that whoever this is will do something again."
Karal frowned. Perhaps associating with the engineers had put an edge on his reasoning ability, but he was certain he could narrow the field down more than that. "Wait a moment. It can't be that many. It has to be someone who is high enough in rank that no one would question seeing him anywhere in the Palace, but low enough in rank—or apparently ineffectual enough—that no one would ever notice him. It also has to be someone who would have a reason to be in and out of people's rooms at least once this year. If this is an agent of long standing, then surely the Empire is using him to gather information—so it has to be someone who has a reason to receive and send packages at intervals of more than once a year. He couldn't have sent his information by magic-messengers before this year, remember? You had a guard against magic until then." Once again, his own intellect had seduced him into concentrating on something besides grief. "That virtually eliminates all of the Palace servants."
Kerowyn gnawed on her lower lip. "That does eliminate most of my suspects," she admitted. "It could be one of the personal servants of one of our own nobles, though."
"Yes, and it could be one of your nobles." Darkwind was quick to point that out. "It would not be the first time that Selenay had had her own intrigue against her."
"The weapon, though—it had a residue of magic that made me think it was targeted to a specific individual," An'desha said shyly. "That would imply that your agent is a mage himself, or more likely, found a way to gain access to something personal from each of his targets to imprint the weapons with their intended victims."
"Then planted them into the walls." Kerowyn looked baffled. "Now you open it up to everyone in the Palace except the servants."
Karal pondered his next words long and hard before speaking them. How expendable am I? Realistically, very. And I have Altra, who will try to protect me. I think that I must do this.
"I can offer a possible trap," he said carefully. "With myself as the bait. Two of those weapons were meant to eliminate me; let me place myself where our agent can come at me. I honestly do not believe he will try to take me again, so soon. I think that he will try to ascertain what Solaris' position is, and whether or not the Alliance is in jeopardy, due—"
He couldn't say it; he choked up. The others gave him time to recover.
After a struggle, he got control of his voice again. "If disrupting the Alliance was this agent's primary goal, he will want to talk to me almost as soon as I appear in the halls of the Palace. Let me go walk there, and see who comes to offer condolences and fish for information."
"And what if this agent decides to ensure the Karsite defection by eliminating you?" Kerowyn asked quietly.
He twitched his mouth in what was supposed to be a smile. "Have you not been training me in enough self-defense to keep myself alive until help can come? Magicked weaponry is difficult to come by—if this person wishes to strike again so soon, I think he will have to do so through conventional means. That requires skill, opportunity, and time. I will assume he has the first, I will give him the second, and I will deny him the third." There. Hopefully, he sounded like the self-confident Karsite envoy. He certainly didn't feel like the self-confident Karsite envoy.
Kerowyn continued to gnaw her lower lip. "I like it, and I don't like it at all," she said finally. "I don't like it, because it puts you in so much danger, Karal. I like it, because it has a good chance of winkling out our agent. I wouldn't ask it of you, but if you are volunteering—"
:As am I,: Altra said, for Karal's benefit alone. :You were right in thinking that I can roam the corridors with you and protect you. I shall do better this time.:
"I am," Karal said firmly. "What is more, I am ready now."
"Well I'm not—or rather, my men aren't." Kerowyn reached over and patted his knee. "Give me a chance to get set up, say, after dinner. Don't come to formal dinner; that will make it look as if there might be trouble with the Alliance. Then come on over and roam to your heart's content. Among other things, you can reassure some of our own people that things haven't deteriorated to the point of war quite yet."
Karal sat back and let them discuss the weapon itself; they were mages, he was not, and what they had found did not mean a great deal to him. At least he could do something now, though. That helped, a little.
Only a little, but it was a beginning.
In the evenings, after formal dinner, Ulrich had often strolled in the gardens with the rest of the courtiers. During inclement weather, the same leisurely strolls took place in the hallways and the small informal audience chambers. The weather was barely warm enough for both to be in use, so Karal resigned himself to a long evening with a great deal of walking.
Most of the Valdemarans did not seem to know quite how to treat him—he had been the insignificant secretary, and now he was the only Karsite representative at Court, and he had dressed to reflect that rise in position, though the velvets were too warm for the indoor venue and not warm enough for the gardens. Most of the courtiers eventually opted for brief and uncomfortable expressions of regret and condolence, approaching him, making graceful but painful short speeches, and scuttling away again.
For the first few marks, no one even mentioned the fate of the Alliance, and as Karal alternately sweated and shivered, he began to wonder if this had been a fool's errand.
The first person who did was the Seneschal, a situation so absurd that Karal almost burst into hysterical laughter. The only ones that were privy to Karal's little ruse were the mages; Prince Daren had decided that it would be better not to let any of the Councillors in on the subterfuge, on the grounds that they were very bad actors, and would probably give the whole thing away. The Seneschal was pathetically transparent in his attempts to divine Solaris' position from Karal's attitude, and to keep up the illusion that Solaris was still undecided, Karal was forced to be distinctly cool to the poor man. It took all of Karal's ability to keep from revealing the whole trick with his reaction to the poor fellow's disappointment in learning nothing.
He eliminated the next few "fishers" on grounds that they were not likely to have a pretext that would let them move in and out of private rooms at will. Then came another long, dry spell; his sober face and black robes seemed to put people off, making their expressions of sympathy hurried and nervous.
He resigned himself to a fruitless, boring evening.
Ah, well, at least I tried—
"Master Secretary?" said a squeaky voice at his elbow.
He turned, and had to think long and hard before he could identify the fellow who had greeted him. He was utterly nondescript to begin with, and had the demeanor and apparently the personality of a mole—
"—ah, my condolences, Master Secretary," the mole said, squinting at him and twisting his hands nervously together. "You probably wouldn't recall me, I suppose, I'm not important or wealthy or—"
The spot of green paint caught in the cuticle of one finger gave him away.
"Of course I recall you, sir," Karal replied, in a properly subdued manner. "Master Celandine, is it not? The painter?"
"The artist, yes, and I was terribly grieved to hear about Master Ulrich, terribly," the mole replied, his fingers knotting together until his hands resembled a nest of worms. "I hope—I pray—that your gracious mistress will not take this incident badly—oh, dear, no—that would be dreadful, dreadful—"
"I suppose from the Valdemaran point of view it would," Karal replied, with careful neutrality. There was something about this man... something nagging at the back of his mind.
"Oh, I'm not from Valdemar, but it would be personally dreadful for me all the same," Celandine replied. "My pigments—so difficult to obtain, you understand, and before the Alliance so terribly expensive—"
A tiny thread of warning slipped down Karal's back, and his hands went cold. He's always sending people off after pigments and colors, I remember him saying that when Ulrich sat for a portrait. He must have at least one package coming in every fortnight or so! Could it be? Oh, surely not! This fellow was so ineffectual he couldn't possibly be their quarry! Everyone at court made fun of him and his pretensions of genius!
Then again, came the nagging response, wouldn't that make him ideal for the part? How better to observe people than when they think you're insignificant?
"—I wondered if your mistress would still be interested in that official portrait, or if she would prefer to wait until the next envoy was assigned or even have your little sketch turned into a portrait instead?"
Bright Sunlord! Didn't An'desha say the mage must have had something personal in order to set the weapons, or some kind of image? This man paints portraits, he sketches people in Court circles all day long and no one ever thinks anything about it!
:Karal,: said Altra carefully, :I think you may have something in this one. Can you get him to take you to his studio? I may be able to find real evidence, rooting around like a cat.:
"Perhaps," he said, assuming more dignity. "I have been given to understand that if the Alliance continues, the latter would be the most likely option."
The mole's tiny black eyes lit up, but before he could say anything else, Karal continued.
"That portrait of my—my Master, though, the one you mentioned," he continued, and it did not take any acting at all for his eyes to mist over. "I would like to have it for myself. Is it anywhere near completed?"
"Oh, yes! Yes, it is!" The mole was positively babbling. "Would you care to come to my studio to view it?"
:Excellent,: Altra applauded. :I'll warn Florian and he can warn Kerowyn through Sayvil. Go with him now, before he changes his mind!:
"I would very much like to see it," Karal said in complete and sincere honesty as he wiped his eyes. "Please."
The mole eagerly led the way down the hall toward the quarters of those who were not quite highborn, but were not servants, either. Altra padded along behind, tail in the air, pretending to be a housecat. The mole either didn't notice him or didn't care.
The mole's studio lay at the farthest end of the corridor, and Karal had a moment of trepidation when he realized that there was no way that Kerowyn could have them followed down here without it being painfully obvious. And if the mole left the studio door open, he would see if Kerowyn sent anyone down after them. Celandine might look like he was short-sighted, but as Karal already knew, there was nothing wrong with his eyes.
:I'll shut the door behind me,: Altra told him. :just enough that he won't be able to see down the corridor. With luck, he'll be so excited that he won't notice.:
That was exactly how the next few moments played out; Celandine ushered Karal into the cluttered, crowded studio with much bowing and scraping, and Altra slipped in behind them, nudging the door closed without Celandine noticing. The place was a mess, with easels and half-finished sculptures on pedestals everywhere, supplies piled on top of furniture and spilling down onto the floor, blank canvases stretched onto frames and leaning against the walls, and dust all over everything. Karal doubted that the servants ever even tried to clean in here.
In fact, the mole was only interested in getting Karal to the area where several canvases stood on easels, covered with drop cloths. He positioned Karal in front of one of them, and made a great deal of fuss about getting the lighting absolutely right, before whisking off the cloth.
Karal did not have to simulate his reaction. Whatever else the mole was, he was also a genuine and superb artist. He had captured Ulrich in one of his rare moments of relaxation; good will and humor glowed in his face, and a half-smile played on his lips.
Karal's eyes filled, and two tears ran down his cheeks unheeded. He took an involuntary step forward; the painting only improved on closer inspection.
Celandine smiled, baring tiny teeth in an expression of greed and satisfaction at Karal's reaction.
"My—good Master Celandine, you are—" Another tear escaped down Karal's cheek, and he shook his head as he wiped it away. "There are no words. There are just no words. I must have this painting."
Celandine fussed over the canvas, preening, as he dusted the easel unnecessarily. "Well, I must admit, I was rather pleased with the way the robes came out. You folk who affect black—oh, forgive me, but it is so difficult for an artist to render properly! This particular shade of sebeline along the crease for instance, that is my own little secret for simulating the sheen of good black velvet—"
He nattered on, but Karal had frozen in place at the foreign-sounding word for the streak of blue-white pigment that ran along the top of one of the sleeves in the portrait. That was not a Valdemaran term!
:No. It's not.: The murmur of quiet noise in the background ceased, as Altra froze as well. :Stall him, Karal! I need time to have Mindspeech with an expert!:
"How did you make the eyes look so—so—" Karal choked out.
That was enough to set Celandine off again, this time on a much longer dissertation, about reflection and transparent colors and glazes. Meanwhile, Karal waited, the back of his neck prickling, as he tried to recall if Celandine had ever been in their quarters.
Then, as Karal leaned forward to look at the painting more closely, and noted the distinctive whorls of the background, he remembered. He was. Not only to make the preliminary sketches, either! I found him there poking at those decorations one afternoon, complaining that every time some plaster decoration cracked, the Seneschal ordered him to repair it on the grounds that he was an artist!
Celandine was a sculptor, who could probably reproduce anything he chose at will. He had access to plaster. He had put himself in a position to plant whatever he cared to by allowing the Seneschal to order him to fix broken decorations!
And all he had to do to be called into a particular room was to crack the original himself—before, during, or after the portrait-sitting.
:Karal!: Altra called, panic in his mind-voice for the first time since Karal had met him. :That word, it's Imperial tongue—what's more, the pigment is only mined somewhere east of Hardorn!:
Celandine had worked his way in behind Karal as he spoke of colors and pointed this or that effect out. The prickling on the back of Karal's neck had become an agony. He tried to watch the mole out of the corner of his eye without being obtrusive.
:KARAL!:
Karal did not need Altra's mental scream to warn him; he had sensed Celandine's sudden movement half a breath before. Karal ducked under the blow and whirled at the same time, then dodged past the easel and the painting it held, winding up facing the artist.
No—the agent.
The artist was gone; in his place was someone far more dangerous, and nothing at all like a mole, more like a cornered rat. Celandine's beady black eyes glittered dangerously; he had a mallet in one hand, and a sharp palette knife in the other. The edge of the knife had a nasty, sickly green tinge, and Karal had the sinking feeling that it wasn't paint. "He'll kill me, you know," the artist said, his voice deceptively calm.
"Who?" Karal asked urgently. "What's wrong? Why would anyone kill you?" Stall for more time. Help has to be on the way.
"The Grand Duke. Tremane. I'm not his man. I'm expendable. I didn't finish the job. The little birds flew, and only pecked out the heart of one of the targets." The glitter in Celandine's eyes wasn't danger, it was madness. He feinted with the knife, and Karal winced backward. "He'll kill me; he has my likeness and my hair, he can do it. Unless I finish the job, right now."
He feinted again, and Karal flinched. He obviously knew what he was doing; he had all the moves of an experienced knife fighter. Karal's best bet was to keep him talking.
But Celandine rushed him; he ducked and sidestepped and barely managed to avoid the knife and the mallet blow aimed at his head.
"If I get you, I can leave you in the garden with one of Elspeth's knives in your heart," he continued. "We made copies, you know, just in case. You know the one I'm talking about."
"Actually, no I don't—"
Altra's mind-voice was frantic. :Karal! I can't get him! You're in my line of attack!:
Karal stepped to the side at once, but Celandine lashed out viciously with the mallet, and he stepped back again hastily.
"The one Elspeth left in the heart of our ambassador, of course!" Celandine said, as if he was some kind of dolt. Then he blinked. "You're playing for time!" he accused, and slashed at Karal with the knife.
:Karal! There's poison on that knife! Stay out of reach—use something as a shield.:
A shield—something Celandine wouldn't want damaged!
He grabbed one of the canvases at random as Celandine drove him back, and held it in front of him as he backed toward the windows. Celandine's mouth twisted in a snarl.
"Put that thing down, you idiot!" he screamed. "How dare you put your hands on—"
He never finished the sentence.
There was a crash of glass as all the windows shattered at once. Karal ducked instinctively, crouching and making himself as small a target as possible as shards of razored glass went everywhere. Celandine came up out of his fighting crouch in shock and glanced around wildly—
Then a dozen crossbow bolts hit him at once from the direction of every window; his body jerked wildly in a grotesque parody of a dance—
—then he dropped to the floor, eyes already glazing in death.
Karal dropped to the floor as well, as his knees gave out.
"Karal!" Kerowyn leapt through one of the broken windows and crashed through the easels to get to him, knocking paintings in all directions. "Karal, are you all right? Did he scratch you? Sayvil said there was poison on his blade. Are you—"
"I'm all right, I'm fine," he replied weakly. "Oh, dear Sunlord, I have never been as grateful for any lessons in my life as I am for yours." He hugged the painting to his chest, and took deep, steadying breaths. "He was going to kill me and leave me with a copy of one of Elspeth's knives in me. He said they got it when she left one in their ambassador."
He was babbling and he knew it, but he couldn't stop himself. Altra finally wormed his way through the tangle of art supplies and tumbled easels, and began winding around and around him frantically, purring loud enough to make both of them vibrate.
"Elspeth's knife?" A large man climbed over the windowsill with a crossbow in each hand; after a moment, Karal's mind put a name to him. Skif. He wasn't a mage, but he often sat on the Council with Kerowyn.
"Elspeth's knife?" the man repeated, scowling ferociously. "Demons take it, I knew that thing was going to come back to haunt us!"
Karal started to shiver, when he happened to look down to see just what painting he had snatched up as an impromptu shield.
Ulrich's warm, amused eyes gazed up at him; he froze for a moment, then burst into tears.
:Are you sure that you're ready for this?: Altra asked anxiously. :This is going to be very dangerous for you.:
Karal shrugged, and shook his head.
"Actually, I'm quite sure that I'm not at all ready for a confrontation like this," he admitted to the Firecat. "But we just don't have a choice. An'desha needs help; besides being afraid of allowing his emotions free play, he's locking down his anger because he is certain that if he lets it go, he'll use his powers to hurt whoever he's angry at. The problem with doing that is that it just makes things harder for him the next time he's angry." Karal rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully. "He has to discover that 'control' doesn't always mean 'containment.' He's got to see that the simplest solution isn't always the right one."
The Firecat washed a paw thoughtfully. :I saw how he was when they told him how near you'd come to being killed—both times,: he said. :Terrible anger—then nothing. He just turned it all inside himself.:
"Terrible anger is dangerous when you are—or were—an Adept who specialized in destruction," Karal said grimly. "Someone has to prove to him that he can lose his temper and his self-control, vent his emotions, and not hurt anyone in the process. Then he'll feel safe enough to go after those very emotional memories of Adept Ma'ar and learn all the destructive magic that Ma'ar knew. Firesong thinks the Ma'ar memories are important; I know that they have to be the key to this situation. I can't tell you why I'm so certain, I only know that I am."
Hurry, hurry, hurry. That sense of terrible urgency made him as tight as a strung crossbow. The sense that time was running out on them was stronger than ever.
:But are you the best person to do that?: Altra asked, with complete logic. :Shouldn't it be someone who's also a mage, who can defend against his attack if he should lash out? He can turn you into a cinder, and you haven't got any kind of protection.: The Firecat looked up at him with large, bottomless blue eyes, full of candor and concern. :I'm not completely certain even I could protect you against his full power, in a killing rage.:
Karal sighed. "That's why it has to be me. It has to be someone so completely vulnerable that An'desha knows that person is defenseless. It has to be someone who knows An'desha well enough to make him rage with anger in a very short time. Firesong won't do, Firesong could hold his own against any attack An'desha could launch, and what would that prove? And it has to be done, because if it isn't, I think he'll be incinerated. Talia and Firesong both agree with me. If he keeps turning his anger inward, one day his power will turn inward as well, and it will consume him."
:And besides,: Altra added, :he's your friend.:
"That's right," Karal agreed. "He's my friend. Friends help friends. We're both strangers in this Valdemar place. Sometimes friends are all we have."
He didn't have to mention all the nights this past week that An'desha had held him while he wept out his grief for Ulrich; Altra knew all about that, since he'd been there. He didn't say a word about the thousand little kindnesses that An'desha had shown him since—and the way he had gently deflected Firesong's resulting jealousy. None of that really mattered anyway. What did matter was that An'desha needed help, and it was help that Karal could give him.
In the larger picture, if he didn't help An'desha, they might never have their "breakwaters" to use against the disruption-waves. The latest one had caught at least one large animal that Karal knew of, turning it into a monstrous killer that had savaged an entire herd of cattle before twenty men shot it full of arrows. Word had trickled back that the Tayledras Vales were suffering damage to their special shielding. According to Master Levy, the engineers and mathematicians had constructed a pattern of increasing power to these waves. Natoli had explained it to him, and he had felt the jaws of time closing on them. Something had to be done, and done quickly.
It had taken Karal the better part of the afternoon to work up the courage to face this particular trial. It had been relatively easy to steel his nerve to face a possible enemy, but to have to face a friend who just might kill him—that took a different kind of courage altogether.
Now, though, he was as prepared as he was ever likely to be. An'desha was hiding down in the tent in the garden, already shaken by a preparatory confrontation with Firesong, carefully planned and choreographed by Karal and the Healing Adept beforehand. The effects of the last disruption-wave were over, which meant there would be no interference from that quarter. Now, if ever, was the perfect moment.
As always, his eyes met the painted eyes of Ulrich in the portrait he'd hung on his wall. I hope I'm doing the right thing, Master, he told the painting silently. I'm not as sure of this as Altra and Firesong think I am.
He really didn't expect an answer from the portrait, and he wasn't surprised when he didn't get one. He tugged his tunic into place, and headed down the stairs into the garden.
An'desha had been getting alarmingly predictable in his reactions to emotional confrontation; now that Karal had the fabric-draped room—for Kerowyn did not want to risk another assassination attempt and ordered him to stay in the ekele for the duration, or at least until Solaris sent official word of what she intended to do—An'desha had no other refuge than the small tent in the garden. Whenever he was upset or had an argument with anyone, that was where he went.
He had been spending a lot of time in that tent, and the number of times in a given day he was retreating to it was increasing.
Karal nodded to Firesong, who was lurking just out of An'desha's hearing. Firesong's jaw tightened, and he nodded curtly back. Firesong didn't like this any better than Altra did; he liked his part in it even less. He was going to have to create a very tough mirror-shield around that tent to hold in whatever An'desha let loose.
If there're going to be any victims here, let's keep it to one. The expendable one. I am expendable. I am stupid. Here I go.
He pulled the tent flap aside and dropped down on his heels next to An'desha, who was sprawled on his back with his arm over his face, cushioned by a pallet identical to the one that Karal now used for a bed upstairs.
"Down here again?" Karal said incredulously. "What's wrong this time?"
An'desha didn't even remove his arm. "Firesong. He does not understand. He wishes me to sift through the memory fragments of Ma'ar again." An'desha's hands clenched into fists, and his mouth tightened, sulkily. "He will not understand. Those memories are very old, and to read them I must grow very close to them."
"So?" Karal let scorn creep into his voice. "I think that Firesong is right, An'desha. You aren't thinking of anyone or anything but your own self. You are, quite frankly, becoming a spoiled brat. We have been coddling you, making allowances for you, and now you have no more spine than a mushroom!"
An'desha sat up, suddenly, his mouth agape with shock, staring at Karal with a dumbfounded expression. "Wh-what?" he stammered.
"You are spineless, An'desha!" Karal accused. "You know yourself that what we need lies in your mind, and you are too frightened to even try to look for it!" He let his own expression grow pitiful and petulant, and pitched his voice into a whine. "'Those memories are dangerous, they might hurt me, I am afraid of them—' as if we all aren't afraid of much worse than a few paltry memories!"
"But I—" An'desha began, his eyes glazed with shock at the way Karal had abruptly turned on him.
"But you. Always you. What about the rest of us?" Karal asked. "What about all that we have been doing? What about the losses, the harm that we have suffered, while you have been curled here in your little cocoon of self-pity, feeling, oh, so put-upon? What about the Tayledras, who are trying to piece their Vales together again, the Shin'a'in who fear their herds of precious horses will turn into herds of monsters—what about the Shin'a'in ambassador who died a few days ago? What about them? What about Karse? And Rethwellan?"
An'desha was on his feet now as he tried to push past Karal. Karal shoved him back rudely, not letting him leave the tent, and evidently it never occurred to him that he could just turn and slash his way through the walls to get away. An'desha backed up a pace, and Karal shoved him again, getting right up close and shouting into his face.
"You are a spineless, lazy, selfish coward, An'desha," he spat. "You've been playing the poor little wounded bird for too long! I have had quite enough of this, and so has everyone else! It is about time you started doing something to help, instead of whining about how afraid you are! We're all afraid, or hadn't you noticed? I was afraid, when Celandine nearly killed me, but you didn't see me whining about it, did you? You don't hear Firesong whining about how exhausted he is, even though he is working on shields until he is gray in the face?"
An'desha's face had flushed to a full, rich crimson.
But he wasn't angry enough yet, and Karal kept right at him.
"You don't hear Darkwind whining about how put-upon he is, even though his shoulder still isn't healed and he is working night and day with the other mages! It's time to stop whining and start doing something, An'desha—or go find someone else to whine at, because we are all tired of you!"
An'desha's face was contorted out of all recognition, but Karal continued the verbal abuse, continuing to attack him for being cowardly, selfish, and spoiled.
An'desha's hands were clenched at his sides, and he stood as rigidly as a tent pole—
—and there were colors swirling around those clenched fists—brilliant scarlets and explosive yellows, mage energies that, if they were visible to him, were probably quite potent enough to flatten an entire building.
He'd seen Ulrich strike down something by magic once, and the powers gathering around An'desha's hands right now were twice, perhaps three times as bright.
He wanted to run. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to turn and flee. Every hair on his head felt as if it was standing straight on end from the power in this little space.
But instead of fleeing, he did the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life; harder than facing Celandine, harder than coming to this strange land in the first place.
He stepped back a pace, spread his hands, and sneered.
"Well?" he taunted. "I'm right, aren't I? I'm right, and you're too spineless even to admit it!"
And he waited for An'desha to strike, still holding that merciless sneer on his face....
The air hummed with power; he'd read of such things, but he'd never experienced it. Now every hair on his head did stand straight on end—
And An'desha's control finally exploded.
"Damn you!" An'desha screamed. "Damn you!"
There was a flash of orange and white, and the energy dissipated, draining away into the ground so quickly that in one breath it was completely gone.
An'desha collapsed down onto his pallet, folding up as if he was completely exhausted, his face pale and pained. "Damn you," he repeated dully, as Karal dropped down to his side in concern and a fear that he'd managed somehow to make An'desha burn himself out. "Damn you, Priest, you're right."
He looked up, as Karal tentatively touched his shoulder, eyes bleak. "You've been coddling me, and I've been unforgivably selfish."
Karal grinned, which obviously astonished him, for An'desha gaped at him. "I'm right twice," he pointed out. "I told you that you were underestimating yourself, believing that because you have the memories of a Falconsbane or a Ma'ar, you also have their ways. You thought that if you 'lost control' of an emotion, you'd lose control of everything. Well. You lost control of your temper, didn't you? You were afraid to learn everything that lay in your old memories, because you were afraid that if you got too angry with someone, you'd use it. You just got angry, and there you are, after doing nothing more than curse me—and here I am, unsinged, unflattened. Falconsbane would have sent me through a wall, or incinerated me. You are sitting there, back in control again, and your own man. Right?"
An'desha stared at him. "You mean—all that was just to prove to me that—" He reddened again. "Why, I should—I—"
Karal raised an eyebrow at him. "And?" he said impudently. "Why don't you, Adept?"
"Because you aren't worth the effort it would take to blow you through the wall, Priest," An'desha retorted, a ghost of a smile lurking around his eyes. "And because it's not worth taking on your vengeful god as an enemy just so I can get some satisfaction! Damn you! Why do you have to be so right?"
"It's not my fault!" Karal protested. "I can't help it!"
"Pah!" The young mage mock-hit his shoulder. "You revel in it, and you damn well know you do! One of these days you'll be wrong, and I'll be there to gloat!" The ghost of a smile had become a grin. "Just wait and see!"
"I'll be looking forward to it," Karal replied, and he meant every word. A moment later, Firesong looked in on them both, with a small but loving smile on his handsome face.
After all that, though, he felt an obligation to be there along with Firesong when An'desha worked up his own courage and took the plunge into those old, dangerous memories. It became something of a vigil for the two of them—An'desha lay in a self-imposed trance, looking much like a figure on a tomb, while the two of them watched, waited, and wondered if they might have been wrong in urging him to this. Firesong hadn't expected it to take more than a mark or two, but the afternoon crawled by, then most of the evening, and still the trance showed no signs of ending.
"Is this getting dangerous?" Karal asked in a whisper, as Firesong soberly lit mage-lights and returned to his seat beside An'desha's pallet.
"No—or not yet, anyway," the Adept replied, although he sounded uncertain to Karal. "I have been in trances longer; for two or three days, even."
But those were not trances in which you pursued the memories of power-hungry sadists, Karal added, but only to himself. Still, nothing had gone overtly wrong yet. There was no point in conjuring trouble.
He wished that Altra was here, though. The Firecat had waited just long enough to be sure that he had survived An'desha's anger, then had vanished without an explanation. He could have used Altra's view on this; if Solaris' behavior was anything to go by, a former Son of the Sun should be much more familiar with trances and their effects than he was.
A hint of movement riveted his attention back on An'desha. Had his eyelids moved? If the lights had been candles, he would have put it down to the flickering shadows, but mage-lights were as steady as sunlight. Yes! There it was again, the barest flutter of eyelids as the sleeper slowly, gently awakened.
A moment later, and An'desha opened his eyes and blinked in temporary confusion—Firesong poured the tea that had been steeping all this while, and helped him to sit up, then offered him the cup. An'desha took it, his hands shaking only slightly, and drank it down in a single swallow.
"How late is it?" he asked, as he gave the cup back to Karal, who poured more tea for him.
"Evening. Not quite midnight," Firesong told him.
An'desha nodded. Karal watched him covertly, and was relieved to see nothing in his expression or manner that was not entirely in keeping with the An'desha that he knew. "I discovered that we have been laboring under a misconception," he said, finally. "Before Ma'ar died, there was a time when he had to deal with the kind of situation we have now, although the initial destruction was of a single Gate and the spells of the area around it, and nowhere near so cataclysmic as what came later."
Firesong nodded with excitement in his eyes, and Karal leaned forward. "So what did he do?"
An'desha sipped his tea before replying. "It isn't so much what he did, as what his enemy did," he said. "He wasn't concerned with the effect of the waves outside his domain, so he simply built the sort of shield that I think we've been assuming we'd need all along." An'desha shook his head. "That would be a dreadful mistake," he continued. "A shield wall alone would simply reflect the waves again, and the reflected waves have the potential for causing more harm than the original waves!"
Karal sat back for a moment, and pictured the physical model that the engineers had constructed, a large basin filled with water, the bottom covered with a contour map of Valdemar and most of the surrounding area. He thought about the experiments that Master Levy had been making, dropping large stones into the basin over "Evendim" and "Dhorisha Plains" and watching the wave-patterns, seeing how those patterns interacted.
And when the waves reached the edge of the basin, the experiment was over, because they reflected from the edge and made new and different patterns that had nothing to do with the ones he was studying.
"I see it," he replied, "but—"
"But it was what Ma'ar's enemy did that was interesting—and more importantly, appropriate," An'desha interrupted. "Instead of making a flat shieldwall he literally created a breakwater, exactly what Master Norten has been talking about; something that not only stops the waves, but absorbs their force. Ma'ar studied it and knew how to recreate it, but he considered it a waste of his time and resources." He paused. "Because he knew how to recreate this, so do I. What's more, I also know how to recreate his 'shieldwall.' If we combined both—we can absorb the waves coming at us, and we can reflect the rest back at the Empire!"
Firesong sucked in his breath, and Karal sat back on his heels.
"I don't know if we ought to do that," Karal said at last, troubled by the implications. "Does the Empire deserve that?"
Firesong shot him an incredulous look. "You say that after what they've done to you?" he exclaimed.
But Karal shook his head. "They didn't do anything. There are two, perhaps three people who are responsible; Celandine, who got what he deserved, this Grand Duke Tremane, whoever he is, and possibly the Emperor. They, the whole of the Empire, is very large, and composed mostly of people who aren't even aware of the existence of Karse." He sighed. "Firesong, don't make the mistake that we of Karse did for so long with Valdemar. Don't make the Empire into a vast conspiracy of faceless enemies who are all personally responsible for what the leaders do and do not do. There are thousands of perfectly innocent people in the Empire, who do not deserve to have their chickens turns into child-eating monsters just because a few ruthless people caused us harm."
Firesong shrugged, but Karal could tell by the troubled look in his eyes that he had listened to what Karal had said.
"And don't make another mistake," he continued. "Don't assume that because a leader ordered something be done, that he had any idea what the consequences were going to be. Unless you have someone like a Herald or Solaris, who has a—" he grinned wanly, for he sensed Altra padding in the door just at that moment, "—a rather insistent and altogether meddling four-legged conscience always at his side, leaders are just people, and they frequently forget to think before they act."
:Indeed,: Altra said sardonically. :A very nice speech. Meddling, am I?:
He only reached out and scratched Altra's ears, a caress that the Firecat "submitted to" quite readily.
"That's all very well, but we still need to do something about the next wave coming in, don't we?" An'desha replied pragmatically. "Once I can think properly again, we need to get all the mages together. I can explain this once, and get the questions over with."
"Should I bring over Master Levy and Master Norten as well?" Karal asked, assuming that it would be his task to find everyone and notify them that their presence was needed.
An'desha considered that for a moment. "I believe so," he said finally. "They can find the key points where we can place our defenses to do the most good; I think their formulas will be useful there."
Karal was struck, suddenly, by the fact that An'desha sounded different somehow; it was nothing very obvious, and he wasn't saying things that he wouldn't have said before, but it was the way he said them that had changed.
He's—by the Sunlord, he sounds older, that's what it is! He doesn't sound like a half-child anymore! He sounds—yes, and he acts—his true age! Karal didn't say anything, but the change delighted him; so far as he was concerned, this was all to the good.
:One wonders what Firesong is going to make of an independent An'desha,: Altra remarked, as if to himself. The same thought had occurred to Karal, just as Altra made the comment.
Well, there was nothing to be done about it. Firesong was just going to have to cope. Whether the Adept liked it or not, Karal was certain that this change in An'desha was not going to be temporary. Firesong should be allowed a little time to recognize it and deal with it in private.
:Or not,: said Altra. Karal aimed a sharp thought-jab at the Firecat; once in a while it would be nice to have a private thought or two!
"I'll go tell the others that we'll have a meeting in the morning," he said, getting to his feet. "And I'll be back only when I find them all. Don't bother to wait for me."
He trotted off down the hall and down the stairs without giving either of them a chance to reply.
But was it his imagination, or did he actually hear An'desha say "We won't," and chuckle?
By the time the morning was half over, the Master Craftsmen had narrowed down the "necessary" key points for the new shields from several dozen to the absolute minimum. There would be three major, essential points of blockage, and several minor points. The minor points could all be handled by sets of Master Mages, and all of them were within a few days' ride of Valdemar.
"We have enough mages here, between Herald-Mages and the envoys, that we can post people to each of those minor points," Elspeth said, pursing her lips over her list of available personnel. "This shouldn't be a problem."
"But here, here, and here—" An'desha pointed on the map to the three major points—north, in the heart of the Forest of Sorrows—south, at the border of Karse—and east, at the place where the borders of Iftel, Hardorn, and Valdemar all met. "These are problems. The breakwaters are unstable in their first stage; they actually require the energy from a wave to stabilize them and make them self-supporting. You will have to have either two Adepts or one Adept and two Masters to create them, join them to the two others, and hold them until the wave comes." He studied the map, and put his finger on the third point. "This one will be the easiest, but the most vulnerable; it's like the keystone of an arch. It will need less power, and more craft. And the mages will have to be at the site in order to create the breakwater and join it into a whole."
Elspeth grimaced. "We only have four Adepts," she pointed out gently. "And we only have a few days to get them in place, before the next wave comes."
An'desha took a long, deep breath. "You have two Adepts, one Healing Adept—and me."
Firesong turned to stare at him, and it was as clear to Karal as the color of his eyes that he had no idea what An'desha meant.
"You have a Sorcerer-Adept," An'desha elaborated. "A creator. The kind of mage who actually made living beings. All of Ma'ar's knowledge is mine, now. I know how to build these breakwaters because in a sense, I've done it before. I can work with two Masters; you don't have to pair me with Firesong."
Firesong paled but said nothing.
Elspeth's mouth formed a silent "oh," but she wisely bent her head over her list. "Right, then—let's think about how we get the Adepts in place." She bit at the end of her quill, and looked at the map. "For obvious reasons, at least to some of you," she said, finally, "I think that Firesong and I should go north. We can Gate there—"
"We'll probably have help," Firesong muttered. Elspeth's mouth quirked, although Karal had no idea what he meant; evidently this was a private joke.
"Hydona and I arrre Masssterrrsss," Treyvan said. "Darrrkwind can Gate parrrt of the way, then we can carrry Darrrkwind in the basssket. We have done ssso beforrre." He cocked his head at Hydona. "Ssso, sssouth orrr eassst forrr usss?"
:You will go south.:
Everyone's head came up at the imperious mind-voice. Altra jumped into the center of the group, landing right on top of the location of the eastward key-point. The Firecat posed like a statue, holding a folded and sealed parchment packet in his mouth—with the exception of An'desha and Firesong, the rest of the group gasped, and Karal guessed that they were finally seeing the Firecat as he really was, and not in the guise of a household pet.
:You and the gryphons will go south, Darkwind,: Altra repeated. :For reasons I am not permitted to reveal at this time, Karal and I will accompany An'desha to the east.:
"Karal and you?" Elspeth said incredulously. "But he's not even a mage! He's not even an envoy!"
:He is an envoy now.: Altra dropped the parchment packet on the table. :Solaris has decided. Karal will replace Ulrich. He is a full Sun-priest now, and a channel for magic as Ulrich recognized when he was a child. I am a mage. Karal, one Companion, and I will accompany An'desha.: Altra stared her down, and she finally dropped her gaze.
"So that's how all those miraculous documents of Ulrich's were getting here!" Prince Daren exclaimed.
Altra favored him with a faintly approving look but said nothing.
"Wait a moment. You said one Companion," Elspeth objected. "Who is the Herald?"
:There is no Herald. Florian is unpartnered. He, too, is a mage and will use Karal as his channel as well,: Altra shot back. :Although we may not work magic as a human can, we are mages and can support as Masters with Karal as our channel.:
Elspeth looked back up at him, her face showing nothing but disbelief. "This is impossible!" she cried. "You're breaking all the rules!"
:And who made those rules?: he countered, just as swiftly.
Karal cleared his throat. "This is Altra," he interjected mildly. "He is what we call a Firecat; and he is—something like an Avatar. I don't think any of you are aware that there were four of those Imperial weapons targeted for Ulrich and myself. Altra dealt with two and deflected the third."
Everyone in this room had seen the swiftness and deadly power of the weapons at firsthand; they stared at Altra with surprise and growing respect.
"We of Karse generally consider it wise not to argue with a Firecat," Karal concluded as the silence grew. "They are often acting on orders."
:As I am now,: Altra stated. :There are reasons for what I have said. Those reasons do not yet concern you, and may never concern you. The future is fluid and subject to change.:
And you are being your most inscrutable and infuriating, Karal thought hard at the Firecat. Altra turned his head slightly in Karal's direction, and dropped one eyelid in a quick, but unmistakable, wink.
Elspeth was clearly fuming. "Look, you—Avatar or not, I won't be manipulated on some grand playing board of—"
She stopped in midsentence as Altra turned to face her directly.
:I understand,: the Firecat told her with surprising gentleness. :Please believe me, Lady Elspeth. What I have been ordered to tell you is not meant to manipulate you all like so many game pieces—it is to ensure that you have the opportunity to exercise your free will.: He sighed, and somehow conveyed the impression of a burden of terrible grief. :The future holds the secrets, not I, Solaris, or even Vkandis. Ulrich should have been here. He was an Adept, although he seldom made that known. It would have been he who accompanied the gryphons in the east, Elspeth and Darkwind together in the south, and An'desha would have gone north with Firesong. This is not optimal; now Florian and I must serve as the suppliers of power—you have not enough Master Mages to cover all the minor points and send two with An'desha. Besides, there is another consideration. Karal is the most acceptable substitute for a—a guardian—that must be placated by a presence it will understand. The guardian is not intelligent, but it will recognize Karal. I am not yet permitted to tell you why. Be assured that when I can, I will—although—: His ears twitched. :—I have the feeling that by that time, you will have deduced the reason for yourself.:
"Guardian," Elspeth muttered to herself, and her eyes dropped to the Firecat's hindquarters—or rather, where those hindquarters were set. "Bright Havens!" she exclaimed. "Iftel!"
The Firecat bowed his head to her. :Precisely. Check Master Levy's calculations. You will find that the middle key-point stands at the exact joining of the three countries. Because of the mages who are available at this moment, this key-point requires a certain diplomacy where that guardian is concerned. You will be working Great Magics that will become one with the border of Iftel, after all; the guardian must be reassured that this will cause no harm. Originally, this would have required two Adepts, or Ulrich and the gryphons. Now it requires a balance of four workers. Two will stand in and for Valdemar—:
"That will be Florian, obviously," Elspeth stated. "The other would be An'desha?"
:Yes—and two will stand in and for Iftel. That must be Karal and myself. The Vkandis Priest-mages still in your land would not be recognized by the guardian as legitimate; although they are good men and women, they are mages first and Priests only as an afterthought. Talia—: the cat paused. :If Karal were not here, Talia might possibly be an acceptable substitute, but I am not willing to risk the chance of failure. It must be Karal; he is the only one besides myself available that the guardian will allow to pass the border. And since he is not a mage, but is a channel, he can support An'desha with help from myself and Florian.:
"This is beginning to sound like a religious ritual," Prince Daren said, finally, with a chuckle. The chuckle died when Altra turned those fiery blue eyes on him.
:You are not entirely wrong,: Altra replied. :The circumstances are extraordinary. If Karal had died along with Ulrich—: he paused again :—it is possible that Solaris herself would have been with you at this moment, at whatever cost. The situation is that grave.:
"Oh, no." Elspeth said hastily. "No, no, no! Talia has told me quite enough about Solaris, and I don't even want to think about that possibility!"
Altra actually shrugged, although a cat's body was not particularly suited to that gesture. :Think on this, then. It is also true that if you had been able to learn the magics for the breakwater-shieldwall before this last wave, the key-point would have involved only the borders of Valdemar and Hardorn. If you wait until this wave is passed, however, the next will involve only the borders of Valdemar and Iftel. You will still need Karal, which means you would still need me and Florian.: He shrugged again. :This is simply the way that things fell out. There is no Great Destiny involved, if that comforts you any.:
"Great Destinies generally involve great funerals," Elspeth muttered, as if she was quoting someone. Both gryphons laughed. "All right; I can accept all this, then. Thank you for taking the time to explain."
:Well,: Altra replied, standing up again and walking carefully to the edge of the table. :Your dislike of manipulation is well-established. Infamous, even. Had I not explained, you might well have found some way to subvert my orders entirely. In this case, that would have been a disaster for all concerned.:
"I guess he does know you," Prince Daren whispered roguishly to his stepchild. Elspeth blushed.
"Cats," Elspeth muttered. "They always know. Why don't we get back to the business at hand, then?" she added hastily.
"I don't care what that cat is, or what it says it is!" Firesong said waspishly. "I do not like the idea of you holding the middle key-point all by yourself!"
An'desha suppressed the response that had been second nature to him; to give in to Firesong and defer to his judgment.
We can't afford that now, he thought, chillingly aware of how little time they did have. As blithely as Altra had spoken of "waiting until the next wave," he and Master Levy both knew that would be a very bad idea. The wave that was approaching would have intersection-points in several populated areas.
He knew, as no one else did, what that would do to the humans in those areas—and not all of those populations were in places that could be warned in time.
"I don't like it either, ke'chara," he said instead, very quietly. "To tell you the truth, I'm terrified. I'd much rather it was you beside me; Karal has never served as a channel before, and no matter how well Altra prepares him for it, this will still be an entirely new experience for him. What's more, I don't like the idea of you being at the most volatile of the key-points! Elspeth may be an Adept, but she is very young in her power, and I had much rather that you had someone experienced beside you."
"You aren't experienced—" Firesong began, then coughed sardonically. "Of course. You have all that secondhand experience to draw on, correct?"
He had not been distracted by An'desha's own, very real, concern for him. Ah, well, I tried, An'desha thought.
"You were the one who rightly insisted that I learn to use those memories," he began.
Firesong interrupted him. "Oh, well, throw my own words in my face!" he replied angrily. "And what next? I suppose now that you have all this experience at your behest, I am no longer interesting to you! Shall I expect to find myself left by the wayside, with the rest of the unwanted discards?"
There was more in the same vein, and it was a very good thing that Karal and Talia had seen the signs of this turnabout in Firesong and had warned An'desha. This would have been very hurtful, had An'desha not understood what was behind it all.
Firesong, possibly for the first time in his life, was jealous and afraid—afraid that An'desha would simply walk off and leave him behind. He could, now. He was no longer frightened and dependent. Firesong had never been in the position of the courter, rather than the courted, and he had no idea how to deal with it.
Firesong was also afraid for An'desha; the substitution of two mages and a channel for a real Adept was dangerous enough to make An'desha's hair stand on end when he stopped to think about it. Only his faith in Karal allowed him to even consider it.
Karal will allow himself to be burned out before he breaks, he thought, as he let Firesong continue to rant. He has changed, too.
He knew what Firesong's conscious intention was—to make him so emotionally wrought up that he would give in, and let Firesong find some other solution to the situation.
There was only one problem with that idea. An'desha had spent too much time with Karal. I suppose a sense of responsibility must be contagious, he thought, a bit wryly.
"Aren't you even listening to me?" Firesong cried desperately. "Don't you care what I'm saying, what I'm going through?"
"Yes," he replied, reaching out to catch Firesong's hands in his own. "But more importantly, I have listened to everything you didn't say, but meant. You are afraid for me, and you think I am in great danger. You are afraid I will leave you, that I no longer care for you. You are right in the first instance, and completely, absolutely, utterly wrong in the second."
Firesong's hands tightened on his; Firesong's silvery eyes begged for something he could hold in his heart.
"I am in danger; all of us are in danger. If we do nothing, your people, mine, and all these friends in this adopted land of ours will suffer, and maybe die." His eyes, he hoped, told Firesong that this was wholly the truth, nothing held back. "If we try to change this plan—" He sighed. "I must tell you that I do not know what difference the changes will make. Altra swears that this is the optimal use of our powers, and that anything less will not guarantee success. With all of my so-called 'experience,' I cannot tell you if he is right or wrong, but I am willing to trust him."
Firesong nodded, reluctantly.
"I will not leave you." He said that with such force that Firesong winced. "I am not tired of you, nor bored with you, nor do I find you less than my equal." He allowed a hint of a smile to flick across his lips. "I do find you my superior in more than you know." Now he tightened his hands on Firesong's. "I have never said this in so many words, ashke, and I believe it is time that you heard it."
And take this with you, to hold in your heart.
"I love you." He said it softly, simply, and with all the conviction in his body, mind, and soul, and not entirely sure that even this would satisfy him.
But the truth is often enough in itself. So it was, now.
They made an odd little group; Altra beside Florian, An'desha in his Tayledras finery beside Karal in his sober black, holding the reins of Trenor. An'desha would have to ride Florian as soon as they got through the Gate; he wouldn't be fit to sit on an ordinary horse afterward. They would need to ride for about two days to get from the place An'desha knew—where he and all the others had crossed into Valdemar from Hardorn, fleeing the destruction of the capital—to the place where all three borders met. All three groups would have to travel about two days to get to their ultimate destinations, once they Gated as far as they could. And for the first day, whichever mage had created the Gate would be altogether useless for much of anything.
Firesong and Elspeth had gone first, then Darkwind and the gryphons. Now it was An'desha's turn.
He turned to Karal, as if to say something, then turned back to the stone archway in the weapons-training salle they would all use as their Gate-terminus.
Karal had heard of Gates, but he had never seen one. And after a few moments of watching An'desha build his, he never wanted to see one again.
It wasn't that the Gate itself was so terrible to look at; it was actually rather pretty, except for the yawning Void in the archway where the view of Kerowyn's office should have been. No, it was because Karal sensed that the Gate had been spun out of An'desha's own spirit; An'desha was a pale shadow of himself, as this Gate fed upon him, a lovely parasite draining his very essence. It was quite horrible, and Karal wondered how anyone could bear to create something like this.
Suddenly, the gaping darkness beneath the arch became the view of a forest—a place where the forest had taken over the ruins of a farm.
"Go!" An'desha said, in a strangled voice. Altra bolted through. Karal set Trenor toward the Gate; Trenor fought the bit. The gelding did not want to go in there!
Karal started to dismount, then looked back at An'desha and saw the terrible strain holding this Gate was costing him. With a silent apology, he wrenched Trenor's head around and dug his heels into the gelding's sides.
Although he wasn't wearing spurs, the startled horse acted as if he was; Trenor neighed frantically and bolted through the Gate.
It felt as if the ground dropped out from underneath them. For no longer than it took to blink, Karal's body swore to him that he was falling; for that long, his senses swore to him that the entire universe had vanished and he was blind, deaf, and frozen. Then they were through, and Karal spun Trenor around on his heels as soon as they had cleared the immediate area. He saw that this side of the Gate was the remains of a ruined stone barn, with only the frame of the door and part of a wall still standing and a view of the salle where only weeds and tumbled stones should have been. A moment later, Florian and An'desha came barreling through, and the scene of the salle vanished behind them.
An'desha swayed in the saddle; someone had thoughtfully strapped him in so that he wouldn't fall. He clutched the pommel with both hands, leaving the reins slack on Florian's neck; his face was alabaster-white, and his eyes were closed. He opened them slowly as Karal rode Trenor up beside him.
"I never want to Gate anywhere ever again," Karal said, putting such intensity into every word that An'desha sat up straight in surprise. "I never want to put you through something like that again!"
"It won't be so bad, next time," An'desha replied weakly. "I promise you. Next time, we will make the journey in several smaller portions, over several days."
"There won't be a next time, if we don't," Karal replied acidly. He looked down. "Florian, is he fit to ride?"
:Even if he weren't, I am fit to carry him. That is why he is bound to the saddle,: came the reply. :We have no choice. Time is speeding.:
"So we had better speed ourselves." He reined Trenor back and gestured. Florian knew the way without a map—he was the best guide they could have had. "If you would lead?"
He steadied Trenor, and Altra leapt up to the padded platform where a pillion-saddle would have been. Rris had sworn that his "famous cousin Warrl" often used such a contraption to ride behind the Shin'a'in warrior Tarma shena Tale'sedrin, and in the interest of making the best speed possible, Altra had agreed to try it. Trenor didn't seem to mind too much, although he'd tried to buck a little the first time Altra had jumped up there.
Florian swung off into the deeper woods, and if he was following a trail, it wasn't a trail that Karal could read.
Then again, I'm not a woodsman, am I?
There must have been a trail there, though, since Florian pushed through the brush and rank weeds with no real problem. He was making good time, too—not quite a canter, but certainly a fast walk.
Poor Trenor, Two days of this is going to wear him out.
But there was no choice; every mark that passed was a mark that brought the next wave nearer—and Natoli had confided to him that there were several small villages lying where interference-points would fall. The ones in Valdemar had been evacuated, of course—but there could be no such guarantees of the villages elsewhere.
They had to stop this wave. They had to be in place in time.
When we have done all we can, then it is time to add prayer to the rest. That was one of Master Ulrich's favorite proverbs. Well, they had done all they could; Karal shut his eyes, trusted to Trenor to follow Florian, and sent up fervent prayers.
Whenever Karal sensed that Trenor was tiring, they stopped for a brief rest, water, and food; other than those stops, they rode right on through the night and on into the next day. This country was all former farmland, now gone to weeds and desolation; Karal didn't really want to ask why it had been left like this. He had an idea that the answer would involve the war with Hardorn, and the little he had learned about Ancar from An'desha did not make him eager to hear more.
Hurry, hurry, hurry. There isn't much time.
The countryside was desolate in other ways, too; there didn't seem to be a lot of wildlife. Birds were few, and mostly oddly silent. Although it was late fall and frost soon crusted every dried, dead leaf and twig, there should have been night sounds; owls, the bark of a fox, or the bay of a wolf. The only sounds were the noises they themselves made, and that very silence was more than enough to put up the hair on Karal's neck. An'desha slept in the saddle, as he had since they left the area of the Gate; Altra was not disposed to conversation, and Florian had his mind on finding their way. That left him with nothing to do but half-doze, worry, and try another prayer or two.
When dawn came, it brought a thin gray light to the gray landscape, and matters did not improve much. Trenor was tiring sooner, now, and it hurt Karal to force him on, but he knew there was no choice. They only had until two marks after dawn tomorrow to get into place.
But not long after the sun rose, An'desha actually shook himself awake, and looked around.
"I remember this," he said quietly. "This was land that Ancar held briefly, and he drained it while he held it. It has made a remarkable recovery."
"This?" Karal replied incredulously. "Recovered?"
"You did not see it before," the Adept told him grimly, turning in the saddle to face him. "Nothing would grow; nothing. By next year this may be back to the kind of land it once was." His eyes were shadowed by other memories than of this place, and finally he voiced one of them. "Ma'ar made places as desolate as this. The truly terrible thing is that he thought he was doing right in creating them."
"Because in creating them he served some kind of purpose?" Karal hazarded.
An'desha nodded. "He served his own people very well; he made them into a great and powerful nation. The only problem is that in doing so, he turned other nations into stretches of desolation that are still scarred by his wars today. For him, nothing mattered except himself and his own people—who were extensions of himself. He did horrible things in the name of patriotism, and thought that he was in the right. I do not like Ma'ar, but I understand him. Perhaps I understand him too well."
Karal heard the self-doubt creep into An'desha's voice again, and answered it. "Understanding is the essence of not making the same mistakes, An'desha," he replied. "I rather doubt that Ma'ar ever understood himself, for instance."
An'desha actually laughed. "Well, now that is true enough," he said cheerfully. "So, once again you unseat my problems before they can dig spurs into me. How far to the key-point?"
:Most of the day, if we are not delayed,: Florian replied—
—just as they topped a hill to find themselves staring down at a gorge many hundreds of hands below. The gorge held a river—a river so full of Whitewater rapids that it would be insane to try and cross it.
:This should not be here!: Florian exclaimed.
They all stared down at the river below, all but Trenor, who took the occasion to snatch a few mouthfuls of dried weeds.
:And here, right on schedule, is our delay,: Altra said finally.
"Not necessarily," Karal pointed out quickly. "There may be a bridge. Do we go upstream or down to try and find it?"
"Upstream, I think," An'desha said, after a moment of consideration. "It takes us nearer the Iftel side that way."
In the end, they did find a bridge—a narrow, shaky affair of old logs and rough planks. Karal had to blindfold Trenor to get him across, after Altra tried the footing by carefully padding over first. But that put them several marks behind schedule, and it was nearly dawn before they finally reached their goal.
Karal had wondered just how they would know what side of the border was the Iftel side, and what was the Valdemar side. As the sun rose, he had the answer to that question.
"What is that?" he asked in awe, staring at the wall of rippling light that lay along the top of the ridge, just above them. He couldn't see the top of it, whatever it was—it wasn't air, unless there was a way to solidify air and make it into a curtain of refraction. It wasn't water, although it moved and rippled like water with a breeze playing over it, and Karal was just able to make out large masses of green and gray-brown on the other side of it that could be trees and bushes.
:That is the border,: Florian replied warily. :It wasn't always like that. Before the war with Ancar, it looked just like the border between Valdemar and Rethwellan, but once Ancar tried to bring an army across it, that was what sprang up. Anyone who tried to cross it was forced back. Anyone who tried to drive their way in with magic—died. I've heard that there are some very select traders who are allowed to come and go between here and there, but they are a close-mouthed lot, and they won't talk about anything that they've seen over there.:
"I thought they had an envoy at the Valdemar Court," An'desha observed.
:They used to, a very long time ago. Not anymore.: Florian let out his breath in a sigh. :It's tradition to keep their suite ready for them, but no one has come to claim it in anyone's lifetime.:
Karal swallowed as he contemplated that shimmering wall of—of—
Of power, that's what it is. Pure force. And I'm supposed to walk across it? And anyone who tried to cross it is dead!
What was more, he was supposed to walk across it right now. There couldn't be more than a mark to go until the next wave was upon them!
"Come on," he urged as his hands shook. "We have to get moving now. We haven't got any time at all to spare!"
To set an example, he urged poor, tired Trenor into a clumsy trot, sending him down the valley, through the knee-high grass, and up the ridge. The wall just loomed larger and larger—it didn't change at all except for the continuous rippling of the surface as he drew nearer to it. He sensed An'desha and Florian at his back, but the sheer power of the wall drove them mostly out of his thoughts.
There wasn't time for finesse, for study, for anything other than what he was already doing—running headlong into the thing, and hoping that it didn't decide to kill him, too.
Fear held him rigid and made a metallic taste in his mouth. He closed his eyes and shouted at Trenor to drive him the last few spans remaining—
—opened his eyes again, just as they actually reached it, and passed into it—
Something seized and held him.
****what?****
He could not move, not even to breathe. He was surrounded by light, yet could not see. He could only wait, while whatever it was that held him examined him, inside and out.
****Priest?****
Was he a Priest? An'desha had named him "priest," but it had been in jest. Or had it? Solaris had named him "priest," but he thought it had merely been expedience. What had he done to earn the name?
****ah****
Suddenly, it let him go. He found himself still in Trenor's saddle, looking at An'desha and Florian through a curtain of rippling light that seemed thinner here than elsewhere.
:It is thinner. That is so we can reach them,: Altra said, urgently. :It is coming, Karal, take your position. Don't just stand there thinking, move!:
He tumbled off Trenor's back and took the stance he'd been coached in, bracing himself and holding both his arms out and up.
:Now. Into the trance I taught you.:
Obediently, he spoke his keywords and fell into a light trance; not so deep that he was unaware of everything around him, but too deep for him to move on his own now. He wasn't sure what was going to happen after that; Altra and An'desha hadn't gone into it—
A fraction of a heartbeat later, he realized why they hadn't gone into it. If they had, he'd have been too terrified to go through with it all.
From Altra's side, a torrent of power poured into him; from Florian's, another. There was something in him that managed to join those two streams of energy and actually hold them—even though from his point of view, it was like the one time he'd foolishly mounted an unbroken stallion. He was not controlling the power—it was permitting him—briefly—to hold it!
Then An'desha somehow reached out to him from across the border, and the two streams of power that had been made one found their outlet.
Now An'desha did something with that energy that Karal could not see, and could only sense, very dimly, as a blind man might sense a mighty fortress being built beside him. He arched his back and closed his eyes to concentrate on holding the power steady—the longer the power "permitted" him to hold it, the more control he actually had over it.
It was not easy, and he sensed something else. If he slipped, it was going to do terrible things to him, and if he survived the experience, the likelihood that he would regret surviving was very high.
He no sooner had that unsettling revelation than the disruption-wave hit.
It was worse than all the others combined.
The ground heaved and buckled under him, as if this was the earthquake that would end the world. He went entirely blind, but not in the sense of being immersed in total darkness. Instead, there was nothing to see but color and light, swirls and whirlwinds and cascades of color and light. The light was something he could hear; it roared and rushed in his ears. The color had flavors; iron, scorched stone, and copper. Somewhere out there he knew that Florian and Altra were still pouring energy into him; he felt it, hot and primal, deep inside him—and An'desha needed that power. So he held to it, even when the light turned into a million serpents that threatened to crush him, even when the colours tried to wash him away, right up until everything collapsed and he was all alone in an unending darkness, and he knew he would never, ever find his way out again—that was when he faltered.
Fear overcame him; he felt the power slipping through his tenuous grasp.
I can't take this! he thought, gasping in panic. I can't do this! This was for someone like Ulrich, not me! I can't—
His control slipped a little more, and he flailed in confusion.
I don't even know what I am anymore.
His heart raced in panic, and he wanted Ulrich. He wanted to be like Ulrich.
Then from deep within him came a feeling of conviction, of responsibility, too strong for even fear to shake.
I have to. There's no one else.
He held the power, though it writhed and threatened to escape. He ignored his confusion, fought his panic, and held.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. Abruptly, he found himself back on the Valdemar side of the barrier, knee-deep in dead grasses, staring into An'desha's eyes from a distance of no more than an arm's length. How he had gotten there, he had no clue.
:The other breakwaters are up,: Florian said, his voice so faint with exhaustion that it might have been nothing more than a whisper of Karal's own thoughts. :All three are joined. The Iftel border is part of it all. We did it, Karal.:
Karal sat down in the grass; Altra was already lying down beside him, completely drained, one very flat Cat. "We did, didn't we?" he said, wonderingly.
:Ah.: That was Altra. :I believe that I will lie here for a while. A month would be good. Maybe two. How do you manage with the limits of these bodies?:
"I manage very well, thank you," An'desha replied sharply. "I had a taste of doing without one, remember? Don't complain."
Karal decided that Altra's idea of lying flat was a good one. He felt—he felt as if someone had filled him full of light, then drained him; as if someone had turned him inside out, left him under the desert sun for a while, then turned him right-side out again.
:There is help coming,: Florian said. :A Herald on circuit. Just rest now, until he comes.:
"We did it," he said again, wonderingly.
:We did. The barriers will hold for now. We have bought some breathing space.:
Breathing space. Time. He blinked, and looked up at the blue sky. Maybe a little rest. All three sounded impossibly good.
Never mind that he was truly going to be the Karsite envoy now, a position he didn't want, and wasn't sure how to fill. And never mind that there was a young engineer back in Haven who made him think very uncomfortable and yet delightful thoughts.
There was still the Imperial army out there—and no telling what they would do. Karal himself was now a potential major target for them. And the cataclysmic mage-storm was yet to come.
But at the moment, it doesn't matter. For now, they had time—and a little time—and each other—could be all they needed.