Six

Firesong had found the most private place in the Palace, a place where no one ever intruded, and a place where his own magics were shielded from the outside by the most powerful shields available inside or outside of a Vale. He could disappear here for hours at a time, and he did.

It was not the place he would have thought of first as a very private spot, but no one seemed to want to spend any time in the chamber of Valdemar's Heartstone. Perhaps they found the sensation of all that power rather unnerving; the pressure of it was as palpable as hot sunlight on one's exposed flesh. Firesong liked it, but for someone sensitive, and one who was not used to being in the presence of so much power, it was probably very uncomfortable. He had been told that even those who had no Gift for mage-craft could feel the Power in this room, and that in itself was impressive.

This was the most powerful Heartstone he had ever worked with; it represented the latent power of the Stone Vanyel had originally constructed and linked into the Web, and the power from k'Sheyna's Heartstone that Vanyel, now a spirit and able to work more freely with such energies, had cleverly purloined.

He opened the door—a door that was by no means obvious, even though everyone in the Palace knew it was here—and walked inside, allowing it to fall closed behind him. This chamber was identical to one directly above it that had been used for scrying for centuries. The room itself was tiny, with so many shields on it that even sound had difficulty penetrating the walls. A round stone table all but filled the available space, with four curved benches around it. A single oil lamp was suspended above the table, but it was not lit, for it was not needed. A single globe of crystal in the middle of the table itself glowed with enough light to illuminate the room perfectly. The fact that this light was merely a by-product of the power held in the Stone was astonishing. I've never known a Heartstone to glow before. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that it is crystal? This is quite fascinating.

That globe of stone was the tip of Valdemar's Heartstone; the globe was fused into the tabletop, which was fused in turn to the column that supported it, which was fused in its turn to the stone floor and the bedrock beneath it. If one chipped everything away, one would find a single column of fused, ultra-hard, heat-forged stone, topped by the crystal globe, extending downward into the earth until it touched the place where the rock flowed with molten heat. The end result would look rather like a charlatan's "magic wand."

Firesong felt completely comfortable and at home here, despite the fact that this room had no windows and was inclined to induce claustrophobia. He was one of two people who had been originally keyed into the Heartstone's powers, after all. Elspeth was the other, and they had both been given that particular "gift" because they were both descended from Herald Vanyel Ashkevron, who had created the Heartstone in the first place, and had taken the power of k'Sheyna's Stone to reactivate this one.

The chamber had dropped out of the minds of everyone in Valdemar during those years when, in order to strengthen the Valdemarans' reliance on the Heraldic Gifts of mind magic Vanyel's meddling had driven the memory and the belief in real magic clear out of their minds. The ward-spell he had set among the vrondi of this land to keep true mages at bay had served well enough to protect his land from the incursions of rogue magicians at the time. The sensation of being stared at by hundreds, thousands of unseen eyes the moment one cast a spell was enough to turn even the boldest half-mad.

But that was then. Now, everything was turned about; the protections at the border were down, and there were mages from four or five lands in Valdemar. Although magic had not taken a more important role than the Heraldic Gifts, Herald-Mages were certainly playing crucial roles.

But some of that avoidance of this chamber must still be in effect, for in all the times Firesong had come here, he had never found signs that anyone else had so much as touched the half-hidden door. Perhaps Elspeth came here now and again, but he doubted it. She didn't need to come here to feel the power of the Stone. It was in her blood more deeply even than in his, and it sang in his veins, hummed in the back of his head. He was too used to power for it to intoxicate him.

Perhaps the power-song frightened others. That was certainly fine with Firesong, for it gave him a place to work and to think without any danger of being interrupted.

Ever since An'desha had begun drifting away, he had been searching his memory for details about Falconsbane's spirit-sanctuary and the journey he himself had taken through the Void to find it. He had many questions about the whole procedure, and rather than ask An'desha about any of it, he thought he'd rather see if he couldn't deduce some answers himself.

When he was reasonably certain that he remembered where to go and what to look for, he launched his spirit out into the Void in search of the spot where the sanctuary had been.

He hadn't really expected to find anything but a few clues at best. After all, very few magical creations ever survived the deaths of their creators, much less the creator's total dissolution. Then there was the Void itself to contend with; changeless, yet ever-changing, how could anything so foreign to it remain after it had been ripped open?

Yet when he sank himself into a mage-trance and projected himself to the general area that he thought he remembered, not only was the sanctuary still there and open, it was intact except for the damage he himself had done to it! Even that was mending, as if the sanctuary were alive and had the Power to heal.

He was able to examine it in detail and at his leisure. One of the oddest things that he noticed was that it was substantially unaffected by the mage-storms echoing through the Void. There was a bit of surface turbulence, but the fabric of the sanctuary was unaltered.

He considered that as he took his seat on one of the stone benches in the room of the Heartstone. The sanctuary is so oddly solid, rather like the fabric of the land beneath a series of great thunderstorms. Even if the storms cause floods or landslides, beneath the movement of a little topsoil, the shape of the land and the contour of it remains the same.

With the ease of what had become habit, he settled himself on his bench, linked his own power in with that of the Heartstone, and leaped out into the Void, leaving his body behind.

The "track" of his passage was well-worn by now; he actually left a trail of residual power that linked his body to the sanctuary. Through the swirling, multicolored energy patterns, sparkled with tiny fireflies of power and now turbulent and roiled by the passage of so many mage-storms, the trail remained steady and unchanging, though faint. Then he came to the open mouth of the sanctuary, disguised in the swirl of energies by a swirl of chameleon colors on its surface.

He settled "himself" in the comfortable womb of the sanctuary, and the very existence of that link set off a train, of other thoughts, other observations. As he gazed out into the wild chaos of the Void with all of its tumbling energies, he noted two "links" back to his physical body. One was the tenuous path he had made, the traces of all of his journeys, a sparkling golden trail of faint sparks of power, a dusting of silver-gilt leading back to the Heartstone. The other was the stronger, brighter, ropelike silver link of power that tied him to his own physical self.

He'd made note of that before. But suddenly, what he noticed was that the path and the link were both comprised of energies that were completely homogeneous. That made sense, of course, for both were his energies; even the power; he drew from the Heartstone had to become his before he could use it.

But the energies the sanctuary had been built from were not homogeneous. Here they were, layer upon layer, warp and weft of a hundred, a thousand different threads of power. Some of them he recognized as having the taint of Ma'ar about them, the dried-blood dark-red and muddied energies of death and blood-magic. But others were quite clear and clean, pure, though thin. How had they come here? They had nothing to do with Ma'ar or any of his incarnations.

Finally, he found the clue, as he found every one of those pure, clear strands of power tagged at the very ends with the muddied colors of Ma'ar. And then the entire secret of the sanctuary's construction and the life it now had of its own unfolded before him.

The link between a living creature and a place like this one, similar to the link between his spirit and his physical body, could be artificially created or inflicted upon another. And when such unwitting victims died, a great deal of their power would go along that link to wherever the link led. And for that matter, a stronger link could be forged between a mage's physical body and this sanctuary and stretched as tightly as a harp string Even if the moment of death were instantaneous, making it impossible for Ma'ar to do what Falconsbane had done and make the conscious flight along the link into the sanctuary, the release of the tension at the end linked to the living physical body would literally snap the spirit into its sanctuary, whether or not the mage himself was even aware of what was happening to him.

So here was the answer to all of the questions. By investing the power of many, many followers in this place, the willing and unwilling, the witting and unwitting, Ma'ar had created a sanctuary that would outlast everything. By creating more links to underlings throughout the ages, Ma'ar had strengthened his creation so that it actually attained the permanent quality of a node. By putting in place the strong, tight link between himself and his sanctuary, Ma'ar ensured that he would always come "home" to it at the moment of his death.

While the result was appalling, the concept was intriguing. Oh, this is fascinating. Everyone knew, of course, that it was possible for an unscrupulous, immoral mage to make use of the power of someone's life-force by wresting it away in a violent death. Violent death was what often created a link to the physical world, in fact, as the power released, combined with the dying person's wish to live, forged a bond holding the spirit to the earth past the end of his life. That was how ghosts were created; that was probably how the spirits of Vanyel, Yfandes, and Stefen had been able to join with the great Forest in the north of Valdemar. Vanyel had done consciously, and under control, what others had done by sheerest accident and panic.

Now, there was no doubt that killing someone to take the power of their life-force was wrong, evil. But what if you simply forged that link to drain it off when they died naturally? Why would that be bad? The original owner wouldn't need that power, and it would only dissipate back into the energy-web that all life created. That would be why so many of the power strands woven into this sanctuary were so clear and clean; this power hadn't been stolen, reft away by violence. It had simply been taken up when the original owner no longer needed it.

No, there would be nothing immoral about that, no more than inheriting a house or a book from someone.

Hmm. This requires a great deal of thought. Granted, it does take power to create these links, but the outcome... when your donors did die, the power would go to whatever receptacle you had created for it, where you could tap it at will. It wouldn't even need to be invested in an object like this sanctuary.

Falconsbane could very easily have used the power in this sanctuary to keep himself aware of the world, even to keep track of those of his bloodline, picking and choosing among his "candidates" until he found one about to make that crucial step, opening himself to invasion by opening himself to magic.

All the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place, leaving Firesong with a most intriguing whole.

The view from here is enchanting indeed. Enough for one day. It certainly answers the first part of my question—how I create the same kind of sanctuary that Falconsbane did. Now he was left with the other half—how did one find a new body without stealing one?

He followed his link back to his own body, and opened his very physical eyes on the tiny stone-walled room, the stone table, and the glowing crystal.

It wasn't cold in here, or he would have gotten a great deal stiffer than he was. He stretched, getting his blood moving again. An'desha had said this morning that he would gladly take Firesong's place on the Grand Council; Firesong was not certain what had prompted that offer, although he was mildly grateful for the gesture.

Today, too, they were finally rid of Karal again—he'd gone back to the Palace and his official suite.

Today Karal was supposed to take up his duties again. And An'desha wants to be at the Grand Council meeting. Coincidence? I think not.

He frowned and rubbed the side of his nose with his finger in irritation. Karal and An'desha were entirely too solicitous of each other. And could Karal actually be the one responsible for An'desha's increasing independence? The Karsite had all manner of odd notions in his head; could he be imparting them to An'desha? After all, An'desha was perfectly tractable until he began spending so much time with Karal.

Well, if Karal keeps aggravating that Shin'a'in, he's going to find himself with more trouble than he can handle. It wouldn't surprise me too much if the man decided to declare blood-feud, which would certainly solve all of my difficulties with him.

A gloating, gleeful thought occurred to him. Karal's career as an envoy—as well as his life—seemed destined to be very short, given the number of times he'd been attacked and the number of enemies he'd collected. Perhaps he could persuade Karal to be a part of his own experiment with capturing the Power of another's life-force. And then—perhaps he could play with the situation a bit—

No, that's probably not a good idea, he decided immediately And I don't want to link a Karsite Priest into anything of mine; the Goddess only knows what Vkandis would do about that. Nor do I really want to manipulate the situation to get Karal into difficulties, even though an accident to Karal would make certain that An'desha was in great need of comforting, and pliant with grief.

He stretched again, grimacing at the numb state of his rump. Stone benches. How very typical of this place! Elegance without comfort....

He had come to realize that he was very discontented here. He hated the feeling of eyes on him every time he ventured out of the ekele, and so perversely went out of his way to be outrageous. Not that he hadn't been the center of attention back in the Vales, but the attention he attracted here was not the unalloyed admiration and indulgence he got back home. Here he was stared at because he was alien, flamboyant by the standards of these curiously dull people. When he gave vent to some strong opinion, people looked at him as if he had committed some breach of etiquette; often as not, when he inquired after something that should have been commonplace, they gave him looks that said clearly they thought he was out of his mind.

I miss the Vales, damn it all. I miss decent food that I don't have to prepare for myself. I miss my hertasi servants. There is no reason why I should be forced to pick up and clean after myself; there is no reason why I should have to devote a single moment to anything other than mage-craft! I am a mage—why should I do the work of a menial? Oh, he could have servants coming in, but he didn't want snoops from the Palace making free with his private areas.

He missed the way he didn't even have to ask for something he wanted at home; hertasi would anticipate what he wanted without his asking. He missed the varied temperatures of all of the springs in a Vale; here he was confined to one spring of hot water and one of cold. Most of all he missed the gentle, cultivated warmth of the Vales, the unvarying climate, the presence of flowers and fruit everywhere, at every season. His own ekele was a poor substitute for a Vale. It was too small, and there was no way one could pretend one was alone in a wilderness.

And I am mortally weary of the prudishness of these Valdemarans. One cannot even soak in a pool without some sort of modesty covering.

He was tired of their limited diet, tired of their limited understanding, their limits upon everything except their curiosity.

I have very simple tastes. I am not asking a great deal. Just some of the amenities of civilization, including civilized behavior.

As for the reason he was here, there were no answers and far too many limitations there as well. The mage-storms were too strong, too chaotic in their effects, to respond to the magics he knew, yet he could not bear to admit that they defeated him. If he had all the Adept-level mages of all the Vales at his disposal, he might be able to concoct a shield, but that was by no means a certainty. The storms themselves came and passed so quickly he could not study them properly, and even if he could, he simply didn't have the resources he needed.

He wanted, longed to go home, but to do so now would be to admit he had been defeated, leaving the field to those artificers An'desha was so enamored of.

Nothing in his life was satisfactory at the moment. He could not find success or contentment in his environment, his personal and emotional life, or his work. And no one cared, wrapped up as they were in themselves.

It was all so bitterly ironic! He had been the one they had all turned to when they needed problems solved, but when he wanted a little attention, a little consideration, they all found other things to do.

It would have been very pleasurable to find something or someone on which to vent some of his frustration.

He rested his chin on his hand and stared into the crystal globe of the tip of the Heartstone. Frankly, it seems to me that this land and its people owe me a great deal. If it had not been for me, Falconsbane would be secure in his sanctuary even now, waiting to find another body to seize. If it had not been for me, the mission might not even have gotten as far as the capital of Hardorn. Certainly neither Elspeth nor Darkwind would have survived their encounter with Ancar, much less made it back home to Valdemar.

So why weren't the leaders of Valdemar falling all over themselves to make certain that he was content here? Why weren't the people begging to be permitted to thank him? Why did they all treat him as if what he had done was his duty and no more? He didn't owe these barbarians anything! He wasn't one of their foolish Heralds, who practically stood in line for the chance to fling themselves in front of some danger!

I don't have to be here. I could go right back to the Vales at any time. I'm the most powerful Adept they have, and even if I haven't figured out a solution to the mage-storms yet, I have the best chance of doing so. I could have gone right back home as soon as everyone was safe in Valdemar after we got rid of Ancar and Falconsbane. I could leave this very instant. I wouldn't even have to go home; I could go to k'Leshya Vale instead.

With An'desha obviously not the life bonded mate he had hoped for, with everyone here trying to prove they didn't really need him, maybe he should go.

Once I'm gone, let's see just how independent An'desha really is!

But if he left, he wouldn't have the satisfaction of seeing An'desha learn that he was not as self-sufficient as he thought.

But there might be a better idea.

I'll stay. Too much is unfinished. And perhaps I can find a way to engineer something that will prove to An'desha just how much he and everyone else still needs me. And then I'll get what I deserve!

As usual the Grand Council chamber was too cold. Nevertheless, Karal remained in his seat after the adjournment of the Grand Council, ostensibly writing down more notes, but in reality just delaying his departure so that he could cool his temper and swallow some of his sour disappointment. Everyone else was getting out as soon as they could so that they could warm their frozen feet and noses, and he didn't blame them. It was going to be a dreadful winter.

"I'm sorry, boy," Jarim said in an undertone, leaning over and patting Karal on the arm in a decidedly paternal manner as he rose. "I wish there was something I could do to help you.

Karal managed to smile weakly at his odd and new-found ally. Jarim seemed determined to make up for his hostility by displaying a fatherly interest in the young Karsite. To his credit, not only had he dropped all of his opposition and outrageous charges after that public apology, he no longer treated Karal as if he were still a mere secretary. They now sat side-by-side at the Council table, the only two who took their own notes rather than leaving it up to a secretary. Of course, in both their cases that was a matter of necessity; there were no secretaries conversant enough with the written forms of Shin'a'in and Karsite to listen in Valdemaran and write in either tongue simultaneously.

"I wish you could, too, sir," he sighed. "Unfortunately, there is nothing that I can do about my youth." There was the core problem, all right. It hadn't gone away, and he was still trying to convince his superiors of that.

Jarim shook his head, the small braids in front of each ear swaying with the motion. "Perhaps it is only that among my people, men your age are found leading border-scouts, and as the fathers of families. These soft and civilized sorts see your lack of years and assume, because their sons have no more sense than a green and untamed colt, you must be equally foolish, to their thinking." He scratched his temple with a callused finger. "They also may be confusing the evidence of their eyes and the evidence of their ears."

Karal shrugged; Jarim had summed up the entire problem most succinctly and with a surprising amount of insight. It could be, now that Karal and others were taking the time to brief him on the background of all of his fellow Councilors, that he would make a better envoy than anyone had guessed.

The Shin'a'in envoy patted his arm again, and took himself out of the room, possibly sensitive to Karal's unspoken distress.

Though he might just be anxious to get back to his own hearth-fire. He might be a toughened Shin'a'in, accustomed to spending the winter in a tent, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel the cold as sharply as any of the rest of us.

The latest twist in the situation was that the other envoys had settled into a pattern of asking Karal for confirmation from his superiors in Karse for every single suggestion, statement, or decision. They had to see his authorization for every agreement or even statements of fact. Jarim alone was treating him as an equal, but in a way that was doing him more harm than good, given the Shin'a'in envoy's flamboyant and volatile temperament. At the moment, the only hope he had of changing anyone's opinion of him was to impress them with his diligence. He was not particularly sanguine about his chances of success.

When everyone else, including the secretaries, had cleared out, he finally packed up his own papers and left. He headed for his rooms, which once again were a sanctuary of peace, if only a fleeting peace.

The wave of warmth met him like a welcome. He closed the door carefully behind himself, and went directly to the waiting kettle on the hob. He poured hot water—now kept ready for him at all hours by orders of the Healers—over the handful of herbs in one of the mugs waiting on the mantelpiece. He had an entire series of those mugs lined up, refreshed every day by one of the servants. At least, thanks to the stomach-calming potions the Healers had prescribed for him, he was still able to eat, although he had given up his favorite sausage rolls and other spicy or fatty foods, none of which agreed with him anymore. At this rate, he would be reduced to living on turnips and cress.

Is it just me, is it only that they simply cannot accept me as their equal? he wondered as the tea steeped. Or is it an actual and calculated affront? Can it be that now that the immediate crisis is over, many of those people on the Grand Council are trying to alienate Karse?

He could not dismiss the possibility, and he was not feeling steady enough to judge whether it was a silly, childish fear or a real concern. He wished he had the ability to read thoughts that some of the Heralds boasted. He wished he had the ability to read intent.

:I wish that I did not have to make this particular request,: said a familiar, but long-absent, voice in his mind, speaking in a tone of considerable reluctance.

Karal spun around, hardly able to believe his "ears" and hardly daring to hope—but there was Altra standing behind him in a pool of sunlight, ears slightly flattened and tail twitching. There was a message-tube at his feet, but at the moment, that hardly seemed important.

The Firecat looked no different than he had the last time Karal had seen him; to all outward appearance, a blue-eyed, cream-coated feline with orange tabby markings on paws, ears, facial mask and tail, and thick, soft fur. Of course, there was one thing that marked him as out of the ordinary; his size. He easily stood with the top of his head even with Karal's hip.

"Altra!" Karal exclaimed joyfully, relieved beyond words at the Firecat's appearance and all that it implied. Vkandis is not displeased with me! I have not been heretical or blasphemous! I have been doing what He wants here—I have not been abandoned to my punishment—

Altra flattened his ears further, looking decidedly apologetic. :I am sorry, Karal. We have tried to be patient, and it is not your fault, but it does not seem that you are being granted the respect that you are due here. No one in Karse wanted to undermine your position or your authority, but things are getting out of hand. Would you feel terribly betrayed if Solaris took control of the situation here?:

Karal could not help himself; his jaw went slack with surprise for a moment. At last—at last!—the plummeting situation was going to be taken out of his hands and put into the hands of someone old enough to deal with it properly!

"Not only would I not feel betrayed, not only would I not be disappointed, I would be overjoyed," he replied, trying not to laugh aloud with relieved gratitude. "I thought I have made that perfectly clear in my dispatches! I am here to serve the interests of Karse and Solaris, not to indulge myself in fantasies of prestige!" He finally gave way to his feelings and laughed giddily. "I cannot even tell you how happy it will make me to be able to go back to being a simple secretary again!"

I might actually have something of a real life again!

This was the last thing he was going to admit to Altra or anyone else, but this message could not have come at a better time. His enforced idleness had given him a great deal more time with Natoli than he had ever enjoyed before, and things were developing in ways he found both pleasant and a bit unnerving. He would much have preferred to be able to capitalize on that—except that once he had resumed his duties, he had gone back to the same dull round of not having enough time to spend on anything but duty. It had been frustrating, to say the least.

But I'm not telling Altra that! Oh, no!

The Firecat's ears came up, and his tail stopped twitching. :You know I promised you that I wouldn't rummage around in your private thoughts, and I haven't. So I really didn't know how you would feel about being relieved of your authority.:

"Relieved is the correct word," Karal told him, taking his mug to the table and sitting down with the sensation that a vast weight had been taken from his shoulders. "Who is coming here as envoy? And how soon?"

:Ah—that's the thing I was told to prepare you for,: Altra replied nervously, :But I'm not certain that I can prepare you for it. The—person—is only coming up here to reestablish your credentials in such a way that no one will be able to treat you like a nonentity without creating a diplomatic incident. And the—person—is Solaris.:

He was very glad he was sitting down; doubly glad that the had not been drinking his tea, or he would have choked. "Solaris?" he repeated, dazed. "Solaris?"

:She wants to make a state visit.:

"Can she do that? Is she secure enough at home?" Solaris' rule was by no means rock steady; there had been several times in the past when only the intervention of events—or Vkandis—had kept her on the Sun Throne.

:Oh, she's secure.: Was that a hint of a chuckle in Altra's tone? :Believe me in that. Karse is closer to the Dhorisha Plains than Valdemar, although it's farther away from Lake Evendim—and before the breakwater went up, things were very... interesting. There is not a man, woman, or child in Karse that does not know how this Alliance has saved them.:

"Oh," Now he took a gulp of tea, as much to steady his nerves as his stomach. That was important information, but it was not something he had truly wanted to hear. Some small part of him had hoped that because Karse was so far from Evendim it might have been spared some of the worst effects of the storms. Evidently its proximity to the Plains caused nearly as many problems. He couldn't remember the model; couldn't remember how many intersections of the two series of waves happened over Karse; it was the intersection points that were the places where real damage took place—

Altra went on, ignoring Karal's furrowed brow. :She thinks now that it is time she actually met Selenay in person—and equally time that Selenay met her.:

"I have to admit that I find it difficult to disagree with that," Karal told him candidly. "I think it would prevent misunderstandings when things get tense again if each of them knew how her counterpart thinks." He frowned. "But I'm still not certain about this. Even if she feels secure enough to come here, can Karse afford to be without her? Things can happen without notice, without warning. What if a crisis arose and she wasn't there to deal with it?"

Altra looked a bit sheepish, an odd expression on a feline face. :As to that, she's arranging things so that even most of the Sun-priests are not going to be aware that she is gone.:

"Hansa isn't going to 'jump' with her, is he?" Karal felt his own stomach lurch at the idea. "I don't think that's a very good idea!"

Altra had the audacity to chuckle at him, irritating the Young Sun-priest, although he refused to show his irritation. :No, Hansa and I are going to establish a Gate between us, so that Solaris can come and go without depleting her own powers.:

Oh? This was the first he'd ever heard of that particular talent! Karal allowed an eyebrow to rise. "Well, isn't that convenient," he drawled.

Altra sniffed derisively. :If you had troubled to continue reading in those books that Ulrich left you, instead of bothering yourself with making letter-perfect copies of your notes to send to Karse, you would have seen that Firecats have created Gates between them in the past, when there have been two or more of them about. It is just an extension of "jumping," after all, and you could logically have deduced that. It is not—: he added smugly, :—an ability shared by the Companions.:

Karal rolled his eyes at that last, but let it pass without further comment.

:And I must point out to you that we could not have put you and your mentor in place this way, because I was not here, and I could not have come here without you. I am linked to you and to no one else.:

Another interesting bit of information. Altra was certainly being generous with it today! Was he making up for his prolonged absence by dropping his secretive stance?

:We had always intended to use a Gate in an emergency to remove you—or—or Ulrich, if we had to.: At the mere mention of Ulrich, Karal felt his throat knot and his eyes sting.

:Unfortunately, it takes more time to establish a Gate than we had when—: Altra faltered for a moment, then went on. :Just remember that is always an option for you, if there is an untenable situation.:

"I will," Karal promised solemnly, after he managed to clear his throat and rub the suspicion of tears from his eyes. "Now, am I to be the one to make the request for this visit official?"

:Precisely.: Altra tapped the tube with one paw, and it rolled over to Karal until it ran into his foot. He bent down to retrieve it.

:That is an official document from Solaris to Selenay, requesting her permission for a Visit of State.: Altra looked pensive. :I hope she is as sensible as we believe, but this is bound to come as something of a shock.:

Well, that was something of an understatement. The leader of a land that until very recently was Valdemar's deadliest enemy was now asking to come to the heart of Valdemar? "Then the sooner I get the shock over with, the better," Karal replied, drinking the last of his tea—more grateful for its stomach-easing properties than ever—and standing up. "I think I had best get on the way with this now, before something else happens."

He looked down long enough to put his mug securely on the table; when he looked up again, Altra was gone.

The Queen's Chambers were less impressive than Karal had expected. The furniture was in keeping with her station and extremely comfortable, but hardly constructed of priceless material. It showed slight signs of wear, the wood of the desk and chairs showed a few scratches no amount of polishing would remove. Karal waited, standing in front of that desk in respectful silence with his hands folded in front of him, while the Queen of Valdemar read through Solaris' letter for the third time. Her look of absolute incredulity had not diminished since the first reading.

Talia, however, did not seem particularly surprised. Then again, Karal reflected, she knows Solaris, perhaps better than many of us in Karse.

Finally, Selenay put the document down and looked up into Karal's face. For all the stress she had been through in her life, Selenay looked remarkably young. Karal could easily imagine that in her place, he'd have aged about fifty years in the past ten. "I have to admit, Ambassador Karal, this comes as something of a surprise," she said carefully. "I think I would be safe to say that it is altogether unprecedented."

"Not entirely, Your Highness," Karal said carefully. "The Crown Prince of Rethwellan has been here on at least two occasions; the Prince-Lord Martial Daren also, arriving at the head of an army."

To her credit, Selenay did not point out that Valdemar and Rethwellan had never been at odds, much less at war for generations. "But the King of Rethwellan has never been here", she pointed out instead. "I honestly cannot say that I can think of a single monarch who has made a state visit to Haven. In the past, when monarchs have conferred, they met at the border. This—this shows a great deal of trust on Solaris' part."

"And on yours, Highness," he felt constrained to tell her. "You have only my word and hers that she will not bring an armed force through this Gate."

But both Selenay and Talia smiled, and it was Talia who spoke. "The queen gave her greatest trust when she sent me into Karse with an escort of two," Talia said gently. "And logically speaking, it would take a great deal of time to bring an army through a Gate, one man at a time. I am sure we could do something about disrupting the Gate long before she could bring enough people in to threaten us."

"As for this," Selenay tapped the letter with her finger, "you know, of course, that I cannot possibly give you a yes or no answer immediately?"

"You must first consult your Council, if not the Grand Council," Karal agreed. "And I am certain you will have many questions, both of a personal nature and involving logistics, that you must put to Solaris." He spread his hands wide. "I am at your disposal."

"And Altra, too, I presume." Selenay's mouth quirked in a quick smile. "Although the idea of a cat being at anyone's disposal is rather at odds with the species."

Karal chuckled; he couldn't help it, since she was far too accurate. "Altra is also at your disposal to convey messages directly to Solaris so that you can have your answers immediately. If you would prefer, he and I can wait just outside your Council Chamber; you can have your pages bring me questions and Altra can take whatever communications You wish to have sent to Solaris, bringing back the answers. We are willing to remain on duty however long this takes to get settled."

"You may regret that offer." She wrote out something quickly; an order for an emergency Council session he guessed. Talia took it outside to a page, and Selenay herself stood up. "I think we should hold the meeting here, in the interests of security," she said, and nodded at a door just to the side of the office. "You can remain there since you have offered. I will send a page to you every so often to make certain you don't perish of hunger or thirst. Is there anything I can send one for now?"

"Hot water and the row of mugs on my mantlepiece," he replied quickly. "It is medicine I am supposed to be drinking. Or else send to the Healers for more of it." His stomach gave a lurch, as if to remind him that it would be a bad idea to forget that medication.

Selenay gave a glance of inquiry at Talia who nodded. Satisfied, she returned her gaze to Karal.

"If you would go in there, I shall see your medicines are brought," she promised, as Talia rose and walked over to the door, opening it for him with an ironic bow and a little flourish. "If you would please take your place?"

He bowed to her with no irony whatsoever, and followed her gesture to the door Talia was holding open. The Queen's Own closed the door behind him, and he found himself in quite a cozy little room, equipped with a piece of furniture that could serve as both a bed and a couch and was supplied with a blanket neatly folded at the foot of it. There was a single table, and one wall was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase full of books. A tiny fireplace kept the room comfortably warm; at the moment the light from the single window was more than adequate, but there were candles on the table for after darkness fell.

A page's waiting room, or else the Queen's reading room, he recognized, and relaxed. If the meeting went on for very long—

:Not bad. You can sleep in here if they decide to debate things for hours.: Altra faded into view; predictably, he appeared sitting on the couch. :They probably will—and you can certainly use the rest.:

"You don't mind my promising your services as a messenger?" That had been the one thing he'd been nervous about.

:I expected it. I'll be pleased and surprised if they can agree on this in a day. It may take several.: Altra curled up on the couch leaving ample space for Karal. Karal took the implied invitation and sat beside him. :Karal, I am very happy to be with you again. Believe me, it was not my choice that I was away for so long. I was needed elsewhere, but if there had been an emergency, I would have come to you at once.:

Impulsively, he hugged the Firecat who purred just like any ordinary feline and rubbed his face against Karal's. "I can't even begin to say how happy I am to see you. I've missed you, Altra, I've missed you for yourself, and not just for what you are."

:I'll bet you didn't miss the cat fur up your nose.: Altra batted him playfully, which practically left him speechless. He'd never seen the Firecat in quite so light a mood!

:I don't need to scold you into sense or spine anymore. You're doing quite nicely on your own, leaving me free to be your friend as well as your adviser.:

Karal blushed with embarrassment and pleasure, and was left utterly speechless. But that was perfectly all right, since Altra was quite willing to fill in the silence.

:You might as well pick out a good book and get comfortable. There will be a page along shortly with your medicine and something to eat for both of us.: Altra curled up on the foot of the sofa, the end of his tail twitching ever so slightly. :I believe that the fish is for me. Meanwhile, enjoy your leisure.:

Karal smiled, scratched Altra's ears, and followed that very sound advice.

In the end it took two days of solid negotiations before an agreement was reached, two days broken only by an adjournment to sleep. Selenay or Talia often looked in on Karal during the process to make certain he was all right, and to keep him briefed on what was going on with the Council. This was a meeting of only the officials of Valdemar, as Karal had anticipated. What he had not anticipated, although he was very grateful for it, was the attitude of Valdemar's Councilors. They were all cautiously in favor of the visit when it was first proposed to them. What they felt needed clarification was precisely how this visit was to take place.

In the end, there were precautions asked for and conference on both sides. Only Karal, Altra, and Florian would be present at the Valdemar Gate-terminus as Solaris stepped through; that was her demand, and it was a wise one, since she would be particularly vulnerable to attack at that moment. All others, including the Herald-Mages on guard against trickery would remain at a distance.

At the edge of Companion's Field, to be precise. The few standing remains of the Temple in the middle of the Field included the arch of the doorway. That doorframe had been used as a Gate-terminus many, many times in the past, when there had been mages and Herald-Mages able to create such things. Such use tended to attune the terminus to the forces of Gate-energy, and make each subsequent Gate construction a little easier, a little more stable. An'desha had said that he thought that this very tendency of stone to attune itself might be part of the basis for the long-lost ability to create the permanent Gates of the past.

One day, An'desha swore he intended to go all the way back to his past as Ma'ar, and try to fathom out more of those secrets. Ma'ar had never known how to make permanent Gates; that mastery had been reserved for Urtho, the Mage of Silence. But Ma'ar knew many of the secrets, and An'desha hoped that by consulting with modern mages and the mages of k'Leshya he might be able to rediscover the long-lost method of building permanent Gates.

That was on the end of a long list of other priorities, however. And given what they were all going through because of the mage-storms, Karal doubted that any of the Allies would ever be willing to rely entirely—or even regularly—on permanent Gates for transportation. Physical transportation was far more reliable, and less likely to be affected by anything short of utter catastrophe.

Karal knew why it had only taken two days to come to this agreement. The Valdemarans (although they would never admit this) were willing to trust to the Companions as an informal front line and expected Florian to warn them if anything or anyone besides Solaris herself came through the Gate. And, no doubt, the Valdemarans knew he knew, and he knew they knew he knew, and so they were all very comfortable together, for that which could not be admitted could still be tacitly acknowledged.

It took another two days to make the necessary arrangements, and somehow it was all accomplished without anyone but the Council members and those who were immediately involved finding out. That in itself was a minor miracle.

At least, it had been accomplished without anyone likely to make a public nuisance of himself finding out. Without a doubt, people with other agendas than public ones had learned of her arrival. That was why, if the Valdemarans had not insisted on the Gate being in Companion's Field, Solaris would have insisted on it being either there or in the heart of the Palace. The Companions would work equally well to guard Solaris as to guard against her.

The weather even cooperated; it was clear and sunny, though very cold, as Karal waited beside the tumbled stones of the old Temple. There had been a thick, hard frost last night; where the stones were still in shadow, they were covered with a heavy coating of white. The ruin stood in the heart of a thickly wooded grove; the Grove, the Valdemarans called it, and for all that it stood in the center of Haven, in the middle of the Palace grounds, there was an air of great age and mystery about it. The ruined stones were piled around the foot of a bell-tower still in relatively good repair; the only other place where there were still two stones on top of each other was the stone arch.

:Well, here we are,: Florian said as his breath puffed out into the still morning air. :Everything is as ready as it is ever likely to be.:

"Except me," Karal replied. He was dressed in every bit of Sun-priest regalia he or Ulrich had ever owned, and it felt as if he now labored under twice his normal weight. He couldn't imagine how any of the high-ranking Sun-priests managed to wear these things day after day.

"Why did you volunteer for this anyway?" he continued, as Altra daintily picked his way through the stones and examined the ground to find a place fit for his regal rump.

:It occurred to me,: the Companion said, with grim humor, :that anyone from Valdemar who might consider putting an arrow through Solaris would think twice about doing so with a Companion in the way. And I intend to be in the way at all times.:

"Ah." Karal inserted a finger in his collar and pulled on it to ease it a bit. "Well, that's certainly logical. I can't imagine anyone in Valdemar having the temerity to shoot anywhere near one of you lot."

:Thank you.: Florian had been groomed to within an inch of his life this morning, and although he was not wearing a saddle, he did have the full formal barding and belled halter that Companions normally wore for special occasions. His mane and tail were braided in multiple strands with blue and silver ribbons, and each braid ended in a silver bell.

:May I say that I hope your rigout is not as uncomfortable as mine?:

"Oh, it is; probably more so." Karal smiled. "If it was any heavier or stiffer, I wouldn't be able to walk."

:And they say that rank is not a burden!: Florian tossed his braided mane to the wild chiming of tiny bells, and whickered his amusement. :I could wish I was a Firecat; at least they don't have to put up with being beaded and braided.:

The Firecat looked back over his shoulder. :No, but when I am done, you will be glad you only need to bear beads and bells. Building a Gate is not like jumping—well, you'll see. This is, in my opinion, a small price to pay for the great good that will come out of it.:

With that, Altra examined the ground further, and something occurred to Karal. Altra was going to expend a great deal of energy—and concentration. He wasn't going to be able to concentrate if he was shivering. He needed to be off the cold ground, but none of them had thought to bring anything for Altra to sit on.

Wait a moment—Florian was not wearing a saddle, but he was carrying an ornamental blanket.

As he turned to ask Florian if he could borrow the blanket, Florian reached around and pulled the silver-embroidered blue blanket from his back with his teeth, clearly with the same idea in mind.

:Here. There's something appropriate about Altra sitting on a Valdemaran blanket to bring Solaris here from Karse, isn't there?:

Altra pivoted to face them again as Karal took the blanket from Florian. His blue eyes went from Karal to Florian and back again. :Thank you,: he said simply. "This is why the Alliance will work.:

:At least it is why we three make a good team, pulling as one in the same harness,: Florian said with amusement.

Altra snorted, indicating a place for Karal to lay the blanket with a tap of his paw. :Trust a horse to say we work in harness. I would have said we were running the same prey.:

:So you would,: Florian replied agreeably, watching Altra settle himself on the blanket. :And you may have my share of the mice we take.:

:And you, my share of the corn they were eating. Gentlemen, are we prepared? Hansa is ready on his side.:

It was a rhetorical question, and they all knew it. Karal gave his tunic a last tug, while Florian positioned himself very carefully beside him. They both turned their attention to the stone arch.

Every muscle on Altra's body was tense; not even his tail twitched. The stones of the arch began to glow, faintly at first, but the brightness increased with every passing heartbeat. Then, between one moment and the next, there was blackness inside the arch instead of the view of the stones and weeds on the other side.

A few tendrils of energy licked across the blackness; slowed lightning was all Karal could think of. Every hair on Altra's body stood on end, puffing him up to twice his normal size. More tendrils appeared, and still more—

Then, just as suddenly as the blackness had appeared, it vanished. But the view through the archway was not that of the ruins; it was of a wall of books and a wooden floor—and Solaris, with Hansa sitting beside her, the precise mirror-image of Altra.

The scene held for only a single moment, not even as long as it took to cough. Solaris wasted no time at all in acting, stepping through the stone archway with all the casual aplomb of one walking from one room to the other—

Except, of course, that she was stepping across a distance so vast it had taken Karal weeks to cross it. And that she, too, was in her full formal robes as the Son of the Sun, the Voice of Vkandis, the ruler of all Karse.

She glittered with gold; her robes were sewn with plates of it rather than simply being embroidered with gold bullion and braid. Her jewels of office were twice the size of Karal's. She was as covered with gold and sun-gems as the statue of Vkandis Himself. Karal wondered how she could move.

But move she did, from Karse to Valdemar and away from the Gate quickly, so that Altra and Hansa could break the connection and close it down. The instant she was clear, that was precisely what they did; the Gate went black, then vanished completely, leaving only the view of the ruins in the picturesque archway.

Altra sagged, and Solaris bent quickly to support him for a moment until he regained his strength. "Thank you, Altra," Karal heard her say very quietly. "That was well and smoothly done."

If Altra made any answer, he made it only to her, for Karal "heard" nothing. When the Firecat seemed better, Solaris straightened and turned her attention to those waiting to welcome her.

Karal quailed beneath that direct gaze, as hard to meet as the full glare of the sun at noonday on the Summer Solstice. He shivered and tried to drop his eyes, entirely overwhelmed and not just by the fact that he was in the presence of his ruler. He now had what he had never wanted, the full and undivided attention of the Son of the Sun. But more than that he stood before Solaris with a heavy knowledge in his heart that he had failed her; he had broken his promise to her by failing to keep Ulrich safe.

He trembled, and her gaze softened; for a moment he saw the woman beneath the High Priest. Her mask dropped altogether at that moment, she took several swift steps forward, and before he could bow to her, she caught his shoulders in her hands, then embraced him.

"I need not be the Sun's Son just yet," she whispered into his ear as he forgot to breathe. "And Karal—I know. I know what you feel. You did the best you could, and if you can be said to have failed at all, it is because I gave you tasks suited for a score of seasoned mages and priests, not for one young man alone. The trouble is, I did not have those seasoned mages and priests to send here. I had only you, and hope, and you have repaid that hope by accomplishing more than anyone had a right to expect."

He felt caught in the silence and could not reply.

"Twice now, I have unthinkingly given you a task too great for you, and I am sorry. Can you forgive me?" She released him so that he could look into her anxious eyes. He nodded dumbly, and her eyes brightened with a suspicion of tears. "Oh, Karal," she breathed, "I miss him too!"

That was too much for him; with a spasm of heart and throat, he lost all of his control and broke down, weeping. But she was doing the same, and the two of them wept together in silence.

She regained control of herself first, though she did not push him away. Instead, she held him while he wept himself out, while the pain of loss ebbed, and released him only when he made a tentative move to free himself.

"Here," she said, handing him a handkerchief which she produced out of the capacious sleeves of her robes. "I had the feeling this would happen, and I came prepared." She managed a wan smile, for a moment more, no longer the Son of the Sun, but just a harried and weary woman. "The one thing these robes are good for is being prepared. I could hide a donkey, a week's provisions, and a small tent in these sleeves."

That made him laugh, as she must have known it would. He composed himself as she carefully removed the last damage from her tears and resumed her dignity. Karal blotted his own face, glad that the cold air would quickly restore him and that the redness of his eyes would be attributed to staring into the bright sun for too long. When he was ready, he nodded to her, and with Florian at her left and himself at her right, and a much-subdued and slightly shaky Altra bringing up the rear, they moved out of the Grove and toward the waiting delegation.

Selenay waited there, clearly visible among the rest in her white and gold, as impressive in her simplicity as Solaris was in her ornate robes. Beside her stood her Companion, as beaded and belled as Florian, but wearing full formal tack, including a saddle; behind her stood Talia and Prince Daren and their Companions, likewise bedecked, and the rest of the welcoming delegation behind them. Those who were not Heralds had dressed in sun colors as a tribute to Solaris; they made a bright and welcoming patch of warm color against the dead, gray-brown grass and barren branches.

It was an interesting moment; the first face-to-face meeting of two strong-willed, strong-minded women, both the rulers in their own lands, and each of them once the greatest enemy of the other. Karal felt the pressure of their gazes as Solaris approached with that graceful, gliding step he could never emulate. Neither of them had an iota of attention for anyone else.

Finally Solaris stopped, no more than a pace or two from her counterpart, both of them eyeing each other for a breathless moment of assessment.

Breathless, indeed; once again, Karal forgot to breathe. Would they hate each other? When they were so far distant from one another, personal feelings had meant nothing, but now that they were within touching distance, it was imperative that they at least be able to tolerate each other! What if they were instant enemies?

His heart pounded painfully in his ears as he waited for one or the other of them to speak—or something!

Finally, though, it was Selenay who broke the impasse, and she did it with a smile.

"Talia told me that we were much alike, Holiness," she said, as Solaris answered that smile with a wary one of her own. "I suspect that she was being tactful."

"Very tactful, Majesty," Solaris replied, in that peculiar, carrying voice that never seemed to rise above conversational level, yet could reach clearly to the back of the Temple, "But I would expect that level of tact, knowing Our Priestess."

Cleverly phrased; Karal marveled at how clever—in the same breath, by saying "I" first, she had given Selenay notice that they were equals and she was claiming no special precedence for herself, even as Selenay had not. But by referring to Talia as "Our" Priestess, she reminded Selenay that unlike the Valdemaran ruler, Solaris spoke with more voices than her own. Talia was a Priestess to Vkandis as well as Solaris, and where Solaris was, so, too, was her God.

"I suspect," Solaris continued, reinforcing that status of equals with another "I', "that what she truly meant and would not say is that we are too much alike."

She raised a long, thin, elegant eyebrow at Talia, for the first time taking her attention from the Valdemaran Queen. Talia had donned Karsite Sun-priest robes—but they were in white and silver, rather than black and gold, in token of her dual duties as Priest and Herald. Another nicely balanced gesture.

Talia blushed, as Selenay chuckled very softly, and relaxed the tiniest bit. Karal relaxed a great deal more than that; finally letting out the breath he had been holding. They like each other! Oh, thank you, Vkandis! Solaris was never that frank except with people she liked and trusted. She would never lie, but she was a past master at partial truth and dissimulation. She had to be, after all; she could not have gotten as far as she had if she was not.

Then again, although he could not speak from personal experience, Selenay was probably just as clever.

Solaris moved forward the remaining few paces and held out her hand. Selenay took it immediately, clasping it heartily.

"Now, Holiness," the Queen of Valdemar said, turning adroitly so that she now stood side-by-side with the Son of the Sun, "if I may begin the introductions. Talia you know—and this is my husband and consort, Prince Daren...."

Karal took a discreet step to the rear, placing himself in a modest position behind his ruler; at last laying all the intolerable burden of authority on the proper shoulders to bear it.

Seven

Dear gods, it's a frozen wasteland out there. Commander Tremane—who no longer thought of himself as a Grand Duke, nor in any other context than as the commander of his men—gazed out at the now-empty courtyard of his stronghold. It was buried beneath snow that reached to the knee, and the weather-wizard from the town said that more was coming. Even though the old wreck couldn't change the weather anymore, he could still predict it, and he thought he could teach one or two of Tremane's mages the trick. Snow. I haven't had to deal with this much snow since the years I spent on my estate. In the Imperial capital, of course, all snow was neatly steered away from the city itself, except for a dusting that looked ornamental and could easily be swept from the streets.

Winter had arrived, bypassing most of fall altogether. But with the help of his men, the locals had gotten their crops in, the foraging parties had brought in bales of hay, baskets of wheat and root crops, pecks of nuts and fruits, and even some livestock that had not gone altogether feral. The armed parties had brought back some of the livestock that had gone feral, in the form of carcasses now hanging frozen in a locked warehouse in the city. Ownership of those carcasses was not a matter of dispute; Tremane owned them, traded one-for-one for Tremane's half of the living animals collected. The fresh meat would be a welcome change from the preserved and salted meat in the Imperial warehouses—having it so far from camp, while it increased the chances of pilferage, ensured that the cooks would do as he had ordered, and plan meals that alternated fresh meat with preserved. He didn't want the fresh meat used up all at once, leaving only preserved. The men would complain, and rightfully, if meal after meal was nothing but the salty stews and other dishes that were all that could be made with preserved meat. It was a little thing, but in winter, and under the conditions that the men were now living in, little things could amount to great problems of morale.

It could be worse. Snow is not the worst thing that could happen to us. He was happy enough with snow, actually, because two days ago what had come down out of the sky was an ice-storm. Snow was infinitely preferable to ice that made walking between buildings into an ordeal. There were two men down with broken legs, five with broken arms, and a half dozen with broken collarbones, according to the roster.

Such injuries were not the calamity they would have been a few weeks ago, when he had needed every able-bodied person. The walls were completed; so were the new barracks. The builders had arrived at a clever and elegant solution to the heating problem—or, rather, one that made the best use of limited fuel and equally limited time for building. It was a variation on the idea of a furnace that one of his own men had concocted.

The barracks were still being finished inside, but that could be done while the men were living in them. As long as there was room to put down bedrolls, that was what mattered. They were similar in design to the plan of the earth sheltered buildings he had looked at earlier, but instead of making the entirety of one wall into a chimney, these plans arranged for the warm air to run under the floor to the opposite wall, and there were additional chimneys built into the support posts. Directly above the furnace were brick ovens for baking and depressions shaped exactly like the huge army kettles for heating water and making soups and stews.

That meant there were no windows, so all light came from candles and lanterns. What the barracks lacked in light, they made up for in warmth. Tremane reflected that if a vote had been taken, the men would probably have voted against windows in favor of heat in any case.

Of course, since they had not been consulted, the men called the new barracks "the holes," or "the caves," and although they were not happy about living in such dank and poorly-lighted places, a fair majority of them admitted that the barracks were far, far preferable to not having solid shelter.

They had still been in their tents when the first ice-storm hit. They had been a great deal less happy about that, as fully half the tents had collapsed beneath the weight of the ice that had built up on them. It was amazing how quickly the last bit of building went up after that.

There was a faint but persistent smoky animal odor about the places, caused by the dung bricks and peat blocks they were burning instead of wood in the furnaces. It wasn't too unpleasant, though the men complained about that too, claiming it got into the bread and the soup. He had given orders that strong herbs be added to both to cover the scent and taste.

There were plenty of complaints; the rumor mill was positively acidic these days, but the complaints and rumors were all of the sort that appeared when people had an excess of time and energy, and none were the kind that presaged mutiny. In fact, in a strange way they were a sign of health; the natural result when men who were used to activity were confined in comfortable but boring surroundings.

I will have to find creative ways for them to use up all the energy. Wood gathering parties—hunting parties, too. But that won't take very many. Snow maneuvers? Or perhaps something in the town? But what? I don't want to have them take over the duties of the local constables this soon; that could only cause resentment.

Tremane had made certain that the men were given leave to go into town on a regular basis; there was no point in cooping them up in barracks when a mug of beer and an hour with a pliant girl would make them cheerful again. The townsfolk were getting along reasonably well with the men and vice versa; the only incidents had been caused by drunkenness, either on the part of the soldier or more rarely of one of the townsfolk, and all had been resolved. As might be expected, the man who was drunk was usually to blame, and punishment was meted out by the appropriate authority. Between them, Tremane and the Shonar council had established a list of infractions and punishments, based on the imperial Code, that was applied to townsman and Imperial soldier impartially.

On the whole, Tremane's world was in relatively good shape, as long as he kept his gaze within the walls of Shonar.

Outside, however—

From somewhere beyond the walls, out in the snowy gloom, came a high, thin wail. One of them. That cry had not come from the throat of a wolf, a lynx, or a feral dog; it had come from... something else. He heard them howling and wailing at night from dusk to dawn, and the sentries on the walls reported shadows by dusk and glowing eyes in the dark, gazing up at them and then vanishing. Whatever they were, they were smarter than the spider-creature, for they had not been caught—but he pitied the farmers who had declined the hospitality of the town for the winter. It must be terrible to hear those creatures crying beneath the windows, and know that only one thin wall of wood separated you and your family from them. Did they snuffle at the cracks under the doors, and sniff at the barred shutters? Did they scratch at the walls or gnaw on the doorposts? He hoped that long before the beasts became a danger, those farmers would change their minds and pack up what they could, and head for the high brick walls of Shonar, driving their stock before them. Thus far, whatever they were, the walls were keeping them out—but every mage-storm brought more and potentially worse creatures to roam the snow-covered landscape. And the winter had just begun....

Turn your eyes within your walls, Tremane.

The roofs of his barracks, like the roofs of most of the buildings in town, were thick thatch, and pitched steeply enough that a buildup of ice merely broke free and slid down the straw rather than collapsing the roof. That had been necessity rather than wisdom, but it was fortuitous; the same storm that had collapsed half of the tents had collapsed the roof of one building in town that had been covered with plates of slate rather than bundles of thatch. Yes, with thatch there was a danger of fire, and that was a consideration. By design, though, there would be no chance of a soot fire in Tremane's barracks, for all soot built up in the roof of the furnace itself, and could be poked loose when the furnace was stoked.

Tremane's roof here was slate—but laid over stone rather than wood. This manor had been designed to last for centuries, which was no bad thing at the moment. Some of the rooms were perishingly cold, but very few of the officers or mages spent much time in their tiny closet-sized rooms. If the room was cold, one could always warm up in the Great Hall before retiring, send a servant in with a bed warmer first, and then bury oneself in blankets with a hot brick for comfort at bedtime. There was no lack of servants now; plenty of folk were happy to serve in Tremane's manor. Imperial coin spends better than their own now. Ours is of fair weight, and theirs has often been shaved and clipped.

But there were few places, other than his suite here, that were truly warm. In that much, he envied his men their "caves." Many of the floors on the first story of the manor were of stone and no treat to stand on; even through thick boot soles cold numbed the feet. Someone had recalled the old country trick of covering the floors with a thick layer of rushes mixed with herbs to keep them sweet, and he'd ordered the floors of those rooms with no carpet so buried, which had helped with cold drafts coming up the legs of one's trews. The men on housekeeping detail and the newly-hired servants had appreciated the move, since it meant they no longer had to sweep and wash the floors on a daily basis. The only exception was in the room he was using as the manor mess hall; there he would allow no rushes, and the daily sweeping and scrubbing went on as it had in the summer.

Outside the bubbly glass of the window, snow fell in fat flakes the size of coins. You couldn't even make out the clouds when you looked up, for the sky was a solid sheet of gray-white. Clouds? You can't even see the sun!

His nose itched, and he sneezed convulsively as his foot crushed a sprig of a pungent herb carried up from the lower floors. He let it lie there; the stuff was everywhere anyway, and just as well. The only product of the mage-storms to pass inside the walls was not a huge, vicious monster, but a tiny, vicious monster, and a prolific one at that. It had probably begun life as a flea; it was about the same size and general shape as a flea, but it was venomous. Not enough to poison a man, but certainly unpleasant; its bite left painful boils that had to be lanced and drained immediately or they went rotten. One of the locals had found a common herb that kept them away, so now every clothes chest, every bed, and every storage closet smelled of the stuff. Sprigs of it were in the rushes, and crushed on the bare floors. Both town and barracks were coping with the plague, but there were many poor people who couldn't afford the herb and were suffering from the bites of the thing. He'd heard that the poor were carting off the discarded rushes and searching through Imperial rubbish piles for the dried-out bits of the herb. He'd left orders not to stop them. He hated to think of children covered with bites from the things....

At least the cold weather would probably kill what specimens were outside, and as for those inside—bored men were hunting the things down and keeping tallies of the kills. It might be prolific, but it couldn't last long under those conditions, unless it lingered in the slums.

So there is my life; reduced from candidacy for Emperor to a war against monsters and fleas.

Well, better monsters and fleas than other things he could name.

He had a full war sentry out on the walls; men posted every few paces with pitch torches burning between them at night. The watches were for four marks, but if it got as cold as Tremane feared it might, he intended to reduce the watches to two marks. It would be pretty pointless to make all this effort at building tight, warm barracks only to afflict the men standing sentry watch with frostbite.

Those that were not standing watch he'd assigned to finishing their own barracks. The floors were rough wood and needed to be finished and polished so they could be kept clean. There were still the partitions to put up, the bunks and storage lockers to build, walls to plaster, furniture to put together. And when they finished all that, he'd think of something else for them to do. Maybe build attic space beneath the thatch; lowering the ceiling would conserve still more heat.

And still no contact from the Emperor, not that he had expected any. Oh, it was possible that one of his agents could have made it back to the capital to report the looting of the warehouse, and it was possible that the Emperor would then have gotten together a score of powerful mages to open a Portal and fetch Tremane home to justice. It was even possible that Charliss would have sent a physical message with a physical, overland courier or with a troop of heavily armed men and mages. Whether or not he did so would depend on how badly the Empire was suffering the forces of the mage storms—if indeed the Empire was suffering them at all.

But as the days had stretched into weeks, the possibility of Imperial recontact diminished rapidly. Now, with the onset of winter, there was no way that even a physical courier would be able to reach them. It would take something the size of the army he already had to do so, for travel across the winter landscape would be impossible under these conditions unless one had an army.

So now Tremane stared down at the wintry isolation beyond his windows that was an uncomfortable mirror for the state of his own spirits.

Well, I certainly have my empire now. A small one, but all mine. I doubt that anyone is likely to dispute me for it until spring.

"Commander sir?" One of his many aides was at the door; he turned to face the boy, composing his own expression into one calculated to bring confidence.

"Yes, Nevis?" he replied, keeping his tone even.

"Sir, there is a rather—odd group of men here to see you." The boy was clearly puzzled. "Frankly, sir, I don't know what to make of them. They're none of them from the same units or even the same disciplines, but they say they wish to see you for the same reason and that they must speak with you personally."

"And they won't tell you what it is?" He pursed his lips at the aide's nod. "Well, perhaps you'd better show them in. it might be we have another nasty little insect to contend with, one that bites people in... places they'd rather not discuss."

The boy flushed, which amused Tremane; how had that youngster managed to climb through the ranks and still be able to blush at the idea of a flea that bit a man's privates? "I'll bring them up, sir." he said hastily, and took his leave.

Blue dusk outside the window gave little light for a meeting, and one thing they had in abundance was candles. There must have been hundreds of sealed caskets of candles, and hundreds more of the cruder tallow dips. Tremane set about lighting them himself before the delegation arrived. He'd set the last one alight and was trimming the wick when Nevis brought in the men.

They were a very mixed bag, some dozen or so of them. One mage, one of his high-ranking generals—which was probably why Nevis hadn't dared send them away without consulting Tremane—two sergeants, two leftenants, and an assortment of scouts and troopers.

That's odd. The one and only thing these men have in common is that they were all someone's agent, and I doubt any of them know that the others are agents—

He sat down behind his desk and contemplated the sober-faced group before him while Nevis closed the door. "Well," he said finally, "I hope this is not the prelude to a mutiny."

General Bram laughed. "Hardly, Commander. In fact, that's the point, and I'll be brief. I've no doubt you already knew this, but we're all spies—some of us reported to your rivals; I reported to the Emperor. We've decided to come admit it and fling ourselves upon your mercy. You're too good a leader to throw us away; our request is that you retain us in our current positions."

Tremane was very glad that he was sitting down; agents were not normally that blunt and open. Not normally? This is unprecedented! A mass defection to my side? I don't think that's ever happened in the history of the Empire! "I—ah—take it you all knew each other?" he said, hoping he did not sound as dazed as he felt.

"Of course," said the mage—a minor fellow, Tremane didn't even remember his name, but he had just recently been graduated from Apprentice. "Just as you knew who we were." He shrugged. "That's the whole game-within-the-game, now, isn't it? We all knew each other, though until we all got together this afternoon, none of us knew who the masters of the other fellows were."

"Were," Tremane repeated carefully. "Not 'are'."

"Were," General Bram said firmly. "What's the point in beating around the bush, hoping to flush a bird that scuttled away hours ago? We haven't had any more contact than you have, and what's the point of serving a man you haven't heard from since the beginning of a crisis? About half the lot that stayed on the other side when you organized that raid on the storehouse were agents, too, and if our masters were ever going to contact us again, it would have been a week or so after the raid." He shrugged. "There's no point in pretending otherwise; we've been abandoned out here, and we all know it."

"Bram called us all together to talk it over, but we'd all been thinking the same thing," the mage said, scratching his unruly hair. "They're there, and you're here; you could have had the Portal opened just for you and an escort big enough to get you to your estate. You stuck with us. By our way of thinking, that makes you a better master than the ones back home."

"The gods know you're more dependable," said one of the scouts in a disgusted voice. "Anyway, we came to show you who all the agents in your ranks were just in case you'd missed any of us, and let you know we're coming over to you so you can stop worrying about sabotage from inside. That'd be like poking a hole in the bottom of the boat you're riding in anyway."

"I see." He took a moment to settle himself, for of all the unlikely events he'd endured in the last several months. this was the least likely of all. It was utterly unprecedented; agents simply did not go over to the man they were sent to spy on, much less come over en masse!

"Fact is, Tremane, you're the most popular commander I've ever seen," Bram said, with wonder and a tinge of envy. "There isn't a man out there, for all the complaints, who doesn't know you could have left us high and dry, doesn't know everything you've done since we bivouacked here has been aimed at keeping 'em all alive and healthy. It wasn't just the way you kept up their pay; after the way you went around digging the men out of collapsed tents and making sure none of 'em was hurt or frostbit, there isn't one of 'em that wouldn't serve you for nothing. I'll stake my reputation on that."

I'm a popular commander? he thought, with another twinge of bemusement. Again, it was nothing he had expected, although it was something he had hoped would happen. He hadn't a clue what made a "popular" commander, and he wasn't certain anyone did. Commanders who had not only kept up pay, but paid bonuses, had not been popular; successful commanders had not been popular. Even commanders who had made attempts to curry favor with the troops had not been popular. I'm working them hard and I intend to go on doing so to keep them busy. I've asked them to perform tasks wildly outside their duty. I might have been keeping up with their pay, but it's no secret that the pay chests are going to run dry some time in late spring or early summer. I try to be fair and impartial when I'm administering justice, but there is no guarantee that I will always be right. I simply haven't done a thing that should make me so overwhelmingly popular that even Bram should notice.

But if Bram and the other agents had made note of the fact, that he was "popular," there was no doubt it must be true, and he was not about to inquire too closely into the lineage, of this particular gift horse.

I can only hope that I continue to enjoy that popularity. The winter is young. And it's going to be the hardest winter, these men have ever seen.

"Gentlemen," he said finally. "I accept both your allegiance and your request to remain in your current positions. I only ask that you in your turn continue gathering intelligence—or rather, let us call it, simple information—and report back to me directly." He fixed Bram with a stern gaze, picking the General as the ringleader of the group. "I don't want to hear about the men's private lives. I don't want to hear about simple grumblings. You are all experienced enough to know when the men are just venting frustration. I want to know about real difficulties, complaints that need attention, things I can do something about. Or serious situations I might not be able to do anything about directly, but which I must be aware of."

With thought, or even direct appeal to the men, I might even be able to cope with those. The Hundred Little Gods know that no one in the Imperial Army has tried direct appeal to the men in generations.

"Oh?" Bram replied, putting a volume of meaning into the single word.

"I have no choice," he said heavily. "I am being frank with you all, because you are all intelligent men. We have no choice. I believe I am the only man in this benighted place with the experience, with the fitness to lead here. You must think the same, or you would not be here. If I am to be the leader I must have all the information I can get, and I must not ignore unpleasant information because I don't like it. I rely on you to bring me that unpleasant information because I am not sure my own people will, every time."

That was a bit of a lie, but a tiny lie of that nature might well cement them further to his cause. And the truth was, these men who had been used to looking for weaknesses in his leadership on behalf of another master were more likely to see such weaknesses than his own agents. They'd have had practice, after all.

General Bram nodded, very solemnly. "We can do that. Are you at all interested in any of us taking a more active role, if we see something a word or two can set right?" He smiled rather grimly. "The Hundred Little Gods themselves know we are used to looking for situations where a word or two can set them wrong."

"Yes," he replied decisively. "You aren't stupid; you know not to expose yourselves. I'll make this bargain of trust with you. You can trust me to do the best I can for every man in our forces; I will trust you to do the best you can to keep me in power." Again, he fixed Bram with that gimlet stare. "This is not a situation where the men can be permitted to rule by popular vote, for there will be things I must do that will not be popular. My hand must remain on the reins, mine and no other, or there will be disaster." He smiled slightly. "There is a saying that it is not wise to change drivers in the middle of a charge. I am the driver of the war chariot in this charge, and you had all better stick with me or be thrown beneath the wheels while you're grabbing at the reins."

Bram, who had led no few charges in his time, nodded. "I can agree with all of that—and I believe that I can speak for all of us in agreeing with your conditions." He looked down at his feet for a moment, then looked up again, with a peculiar expression on his face. "You are the best leader we could hope for in this situation, Tremane. You've got civilian experience we old war dogs lack; and where you get your foresight, I'll be damned if I know. And you've got two other things that can't be calculated; you've got luck, and you've got heart. We won't be rid of a leader with that combination."

Tremane closed his eyes for a moment. Of all the many things that had happened here, this was of a piece with the rest. Luck, was it? Well, he was not about to spit on luck and he would capitalize on every piece of luck he got, but he was not going to count on it either. Perhaps that was the essence of luck.

He opened his eyes. "Gentlemen, thank you. Never forget that we must all work together to save our people here. Remember that our people now include these Hardornens of Shonar, although they may not yet realize that fact—and never forget that in the future to continue to preserve all our lives, we may have to look for friends in strange places."

The General saluted slowly in answer to this, and without another word, led the delegation of former spies out and back to their posts.

After the snow cleared off, they had steady cold but sparkling and beautiful weather for two days. The weather was so cloudless that Tremane began to wonder if the Hardornen weather-wizard was losing his talent at weather prediction to the mage-storms. The old man kept insisting that there was more bad snow on the way, and a great deal of it, but where was it?

If they couldn't rely on the weather-wizard for predictions, it would make preparations a great deal more difficult.

The third day dawned just as clear and beautiful as the first two, and Tremane was just about resigned to the fact that the old man was slipping. Restlessness made him eager to stretch his legs in the afternoon, after a long day of dealing with the paperwork needed to keep up with the state of the supplies in the warehouses, and he decided to go in an unusual direction. Rather than taking his walk down, to make another informal inspection, he would go up, to the walkway at the top of his tower. The weather was good, the air still, the sun bright enough that even up there, exposed, he shouldn't get too chilled until he'd walked out his restlessness. The tower was the highest spot in all of Shonar; he should get a good view of the surrounding countryside outside the walls from there. He might even spot one of the furtively lurking monsters.

It was a long walk, but worth it; he left his escort at the foot of the last stair, for he intended to savor the rare experience of being outdoors and yet completely alone.

I have not been alone except in my own rooms since I accepted this post. I have not stood alone beneath an open sky since my last hunt on my own land.

The stairs came right up onto the roof; there was a small slant-roofed affair covering the last few of them, rather than a trapdoor one had to push open. He approved of the arrangement; if there'd been enough heavy snow, he wouldn't have been able to budge a trap door.

He opened the door at the top to emerge into brilliant sunlight that made his eyes water even as it lifted his heart. What was it about sunlight that made a man feel so much better? He was glad now that he'd ordered a general standing-down for all the men during the past two days; he'd heard they were doing absurd, lighthearted things, acting like schoolboys, making snow forts and having snow fights—creating snow sculptures. I wonder if I ought to give out prizes for the best snow sculpture? Should I order a winter festival? That wouldn't be a bad notion! It would give the men something to occupy them that had nothing to do with duty! He resolved to find out what sort of festival these people celebrated; he could make it a joint effort of garrison and town, foster some friendly competitions between the two.

Skating races, sled races—an archery contest—could we somehow adapt stickball to snow or ice?

Someone had been up here already, clearing away the snow. The brilliant sun had evaporated what had been left behind, leaving bare stone beneath his sheepskin boots. He moved forward to the edge of the parapet and looked down.

Below him were part of the manor, a few of the barracks, and beyond them, the walls. His men stood at their regulation intervals along it; not at all like statues, for he had made sure his orders included that they move about to keep themselves warm, and that each man be permitted to chat with the ones next to him provided they kept their regulation distance and didn't bunch up. Some of them were stamping their feet to warm them, others leaned on the edge of the wall, talking, and one was even making snowballs and lobbing them off into the distance, while the ones stationed at either side of him watched. They were probably wagering on how far he was throwing them. There was no sign at all from here of the night-monsters, although prints had been reported in the snow and the mages were trying to work out what kind of creature could make such prints. Tremane wished them luck; judging by the spider-creature, there was no telling what odd beasts might suffer changes into something unrecognizable.

I would rather not imagine a vole, which must eat its own weight in prey three times a day, transmuted to something the size of a cart horse.

He made a quarter-turn, and now looked out at Shonar, all of which lay beneath the level of this tower. It was not a big town by the standards of the Empire, and from here it was easy to see the signs of decline; abandoned houses where the thatch had disappeared or rotted, warehouses and workshops where walls had fallen in or been broken down. There were a lot of them; more than he had guessed, and certainly more than the Town Council would want to admit. If Ancar had not been killed, he would have driven his land into oblivion in a few more years, by taking the able-bodied and leaving behind those unable to keep towns, farms, and businesses going.

He was mad. There is no doubt of it. Irrational anger stirred briefly in Tremane's heart, but it faded quickly, for what, after all, was the point? Ancar was dead, dead as last year's grass. What was important was this; there were empty and abandoned structures in the town that could be taken over and put to good use. That was what he would do when the men were finished with their barracks; he'd send them into town and begin repairing and refurbishing the houses, warehouses, and workshops. Those would become Imperial property—and he would have his quarters for married couples, his workshops for men wanting to retire into a profession.

Satisfied with that idea, he made another quarter-turn to look out over more of his barracks and empty land beyond the walls.

The men down below him were drilling in an area cleared of snow; the ones on the walls doing much the same things as the men on the other side. The one difference was that two of them were having a snowball-hurling contest with improvised slings. Now there's an idea for a festival competition Target-throwing snowballs with bare hands and with slings. There certainly won't be any dispute about where they hit!

But as he raised his eyes past the level of the walls and out over the landscape beyond, he was puzzled, sorely puzzled. There were no mountains in that direction, so what was that long, dark line on the horizon? A forest of exceptionally tall trees? But it was so far away!

A moment later, a wind sprang up out of nowhere, and the long, dark line moved nearer—and he knew what it was.

Huge clouds, black and heavy with snow, were hurtling toward him on the wind that blew into his face. The old weather-wizard had been right!

Before he could call out anything to the sentries on that side, they had already reacted to the rising wind by leaving off their games and conversations and peering toward the horizon. It took them longer to see what he had because of his higher vantage, but as the clouds raced into their field of vision, they reacted.

"Is that a storm?"

"Looks like one to me!"

Shouts up and down the line quickly confirmed what Tremane knew, and one of the men with an alarm-horn at his belt lifted it to his lips and began to blow.

Three long, steady tones and a pause, repeated for as long as the man had breath, that was the agreed-upon signal for a heavy storm approaching. It might seem alarmist to signal the approach of a storm, but Tremane was taking no chances. He'd heard of dreadful snowstorms in the far north where men could get lost and freeze to death not a dozen ells from their own doorstep. if there were men outside the walls, hunting or gathering wood, he wanted them alerted and homeward bound before a storm hit.

Other men with alarm-horns all across the walls took up the call, amplifying it and sending it out over the snowcovered fields and into the woods.

The men drilling stopped what they were doing at a barked order; a moment later, the officer in charge divided them into one group for each barracks, and marched them off to the piles of dung bricks, peat bricks, and wood to stockpile fuel beside each barracks furnace. Below him, Tremane saw men going off purposefully in small groups, presumably sent on other errands by their officers. He didn't even have to send men into town to fetch back the ones on leave of absence—they were coming in through the gates by threes and fours, secure that although their excursions had been cut short the time would be made up later.

It was all running like a smoothly-oiled clockwork, and he marveled at it. It wasn't just my foresight; they understand why the orders are there, and they're cooperating. If a bad storm is on the way, I want our men here so that their officers can account for all of them and we can send out search parties for the missing.

Well, he had better get back to his desk so his officers knew where he was! The clouds had already filled up half the sky to the north, and now even the men below the walls could see them. They weren't getting any lighter the nearer they got, either, and the wind was picking up. There was a damp bite to the wind, something that was almost, though not quite, a scent.

Was that lightning? He paused for a moment and stared in fascination. It was! It was lightning! He'd heard of lightning in a heavy snowstorm, but this was the first time he'd ever seen it!

As if to remind him that he was lingering too long, a growl of thunder reached his ears.

He turned and pulled open the door to the roof, hurrying back down to the escort of guards waiting.

"Bad storm coming," he said to them.

"We heard the alarm, Commander," the leader told him. "Is there anything you want to assign us to?"

He thought for a moment. "Just to be on the safe side, once you leave me at my office, go down to the chirurgeons and see what they'd want in the way of a snow-rescue kit and put one together for them. I don't believe there's anyone of ours likely to get caught out there, but you never know, and that's one thing I forgot to look into."

The leader of his guards saluted, and once the escort left him at the door to his office, they hurried off to follow his orders.

He walked back to his desk and sat down but restlessness was on him and it was hard to just sit there and wait while the windows darkened and the alarm call rang out, muffled by stone and glass. The one thing he could not do in a case like this, however, was to run off and see what was going on. If there was an emergency, he needed to be where people expected to find him.

Search parties... if I need to send out search parties, how can I keep them together, and prevent their getting lost? How can you set a trail in a blinding snowstorm?

As long as they weren't searching a forest, the men could go roped together like a climbing party. That would prevent them from getting separated. But what about a trail back to safety?

If it's still daylight... sticks? Red-painted sticks? It was too late to go painting sticks—No, wait, we still have all the sticks from surveying the walls and a lot of chalk line. He made a note to get both out of storage. You might see lanterns through thick snow. Another note. Bells. You might hear bells. Weren't there ankle and wrist bells with those dancers' costumes that no one in town wanted to trade for? He noted down the bells as well. The chirurgeons would know best what a half-frozen victim would need; he'd leave that part of the kit up to them.

I wish there was a better way of getting around in snow besides walking. Well, there wasn't and that was that. But if they're looking for someone who's half-buried in snow, perhaps they ought to have walking sticks to probe the snow for a body. Blunt spear shafts would do, and they might make walking easier. Wait, I'd better insist on every two men staying very close together, one to probe and one to guard, the Hundred Little Gods only know what's out there and a storm will give those howling things lots of cover for an attack.

He tried to think of anything else that rescue parties might need and failed to come up with anything else. Putting his notes into a coherent form, he called in one of his aides and sent the young man down to ferret out all the disparate rescue objects and lay them out on the floor of the manor armory.

By now it was too dark to see without a light; it might as well have been dusk rather than just after noon—except for the weirdling flashes of lightning, a strange and disconcerting greenish color, that illuminated the office in fitful bursts. He lit a twist of paper at the fire and went around his office, lighting all his candles and lanterns himself. He waited until he had finished his rounds to look out the window, and when he did, he was astonished.

He couldn't see a thing beyond the thick curtain of snow, and the snow itself slanted obliquely. The wind driving that snow howled around the chimney of his fireplace, and vibrated the glass of the window. No wonder he couldn't hear thunder now; the wind was drowning it out. The lightning strikes were not visible as bolts; instead everything lit up in unsettling green-white for a moment.

Now I know what they mean by a "howling blizzard." And I'm glad we designed the barracks around those furnaces, rather than fireplaces. It'll be harder for the wind to steal the heat from the fires. That was always a problem with a true fireplace; in a high wind most of the heat went right up the chimney. He couldn't afford that to happen in his barracks. They'd use up most of their fuel in no time.

One by one, his officers brought their reports, and he lost a little of his tension. Everyone was accounted for; the hunting and wood-gathering parties had returned before the blizzard hit, in fact they had returned even before the alarm went up. All the barracks were provisioned for a long storm; ropes had been strung between the buildings, barracks, and manor so that no one would get lost.

"You can get lost out there, sir," one of the last of the officers said, as he brushed at snow that had been driven into the fabric of his uniform coat. "Make no mistake about it. You can't see an ell past your feet once you're out of shelter. I've never seen the like."

"Well, there'll be plenty of fresh water at least," Tremane remarked, initialing the report. "Just melt the snow."

The officer nodded, then paused for a moment. "Sir, you did know most of the men in my barracks are from the Horned Hunters, didn't you?"

Since the Imperial Army made an effort to integrate all of the recruits into a single culture rather than cater to individual cultures, Tremane didn't know a thing about it until that moment. "Actually, no—wait, they ought to be used to this sort of weather, shouldn't they?"

He had an obscure notion that the Horned Hunters were a nomadic tribe from land so far to the north in the Empire that they never saw summer. "Don't they herd deer and travel by sled?"

"You're thinking of the Reindeer People, sir. My lot are a sect, not a tribe. Shamanistic, animal spirits, that sort of thing." The officer coughed and looked a little embarrassed. "They sent me with a request, since we're all going to be confined to barracks for a while. They want permission to turn a corner of the barracks into a sweat house permanently. I don't see anything wrong with it, but I told them I had to have your permission."

"I believe this comes under the heading of Article Forty-Two—'the Empire shall not restrict the right of a man to worship—' and so on." Tremane smiled slightly. "I don't see the harm so long as they understand there won't be any ritual fasting without special permission, and if they want to undergo any prolonged dream quests, they'll have to apply for and use their leave days to do it."

The officer sighed and looked relieved. "That was the one thing I was worried about, sir, and using leave-days takes care of the problem. Very well, sir, I'll tell them. I doubt they'll have any trouble with it."

"I certainly don't have any difficulty with it," Tremane told him. "And if we get multi-day storms like this all winter well, I might even make concessions on the leave-days. If you're cooped up in the barracks, you might as well send your spirit out for a little stroll, hmm?"

The officer laughed. "May I tell them that, too, Commander? I think it would appeal to their sense of humor."

He shrugged. "I don't see why you shouldn't. If they know I'll let them have their proper rites, it'll probably keep them more content."

The officer saluted and headed back down to return to his men. Tremane toyed with a pen and wished he had an outlet for pent-up energies for all of his men that would match the Horned Hunters' dream quests. If this storm went on for too long, there'd be fights as the men got on one another's nerves. While many commanders did not like having the odder, shamanistic cults going on among the men, Tremane had never minded; provided you made an effort to understand what they wanted and see that they got it, they were generally easier to please than the "civilized" men.

There was something to be said for diversity, though it sometimes did complicate matters.

Once all of his officers had reported in, he relaxed. Now, no matter what came up, he knew where all the men were. He tried to think of ways they could fill in long days of being snowbound once the insides of the barracks were finished.

Well, now I wonder. The Emperor's Guard has their Guard Hall all hung with captured banners and painted with murals of great battles of the past, and those were all done by the men themselves. So—what about seeing if we can't dig up a few men with some artistic talent, then let each barracks decide how the inside of their place should be painted? The lad with the talent can rough things in, and the rest of the boys can color it. We've paint enough for a thousand barracks. That would encourage division pride, camaraderie—

Should he let the Horned Hunters do their barracks with religious symbols? Yes, but only in the sweat lodge area. That would work. And if there was another cult that wanted to do up a small shrine, he'd let them build that, too. Better standardize a size, or they might get greedy and take over half a barracks.

"Sir!" His aide Nevis interrupted his train of thought. "Men from Shonar with an emergency, sir!" The young man didn't wait for permission to bring them up—which was quite correct in an emergency—he had the group with him. Tremane didn't recognize any of these people, but their expressions told him they were frantic. He recognized their type, though; farmers. Rough hands, weather-beaten faces, heavy clothing perfectly suited to working long hours in harsh winter weather—they were as alike as brothers. That, and their expression, told him everything he needed to know.

And they came to me instead of to Sandar Giles or Chief Husbandman Stoen.

"You've got people lost in this, outside the walls, right?" he said before they could even open their mouths to explain themselves. "People you sent out with herds? Children?"

The one in front, delegated to be the spokesman most likely, dropped his mouth wide open in surprise. Clearly, that was a correct guess. Tremane seized his arm and led him over to the map table, clearing the surface with an impatient brush of his arm, seizing one particular map from the map stand. Nevis scrambled to pick up the discarded maps while he released the man and spread out the map of the countryside around the town his men had finished just before the first snow, anchoring it with candlesticks so it wouldn't roll up. He glanced at the man, who still hadn't spoken, and who still looked stunned.

"Shake yourself awake, man!" he snapped. "What else could have brought you here? Now show me where these people were supposed to be; the sooner we get out there, the better the chance of finding them before the damned boggles do!" That seemed to bring the man around, although it took him more than a moment to orient himself to the map. Evidently, he'd not seen a map before with symbols on it instead of rough sketches of landmarks.

When he finally did open his mouth, his accent and vocabulary betrayed him as the rough farmer Tremane had assumed he was. "We didn' send 'em out too fur, sor," he said apologetically, "Kep' em within sight uv walls. We niver thought lettin' 'em take sheep out tedday would—"

"Of course not, you wouldn't have sent them out into danger, I understand, now just show me where they were," Tremane interrupted. "You can apologize later. Show me where they last were. Frankly, man, as fast as this storm blew up, they could have been within sight of my men on the walls and be lost now. You can't have known that would happen."

The farmer stared at the map, his companions peering over his shoulder, and poked a finger hesitantly at the white surface. "Here—there's three chillern with sheep. Here—Tobe's eldest with cows. Here—the rest uv the sheep with Racky Loder—"

"That's five children, in three parties." Tremane signaled Nevis. "Go to the barracks; explain what's happened. Call for volunteers to meet me in the armory, then go get kits from the chirurgeons. I'll lead the party going out the farthest." That would be the group going after the sheep with the lone boy in charge. He turned to the nervous farmers, who were twisting their woolen hats in their hands. "I'll want you to go with us; the children might be frightened of strangers and run away from us; they won't run from you."

Without waiting for one of his aides to help him, he dashed into his bedroom and rummaged through his clothing chests to layer on two heavy tunics and pull woolen leggings on over his trews and boots. Then he caught up his heaviest cloak and the belt from his armor stand that held his short sword and long dagger, and belted it on over the cloak, holding the fabric against his body. A pair of heavy gauntlets reaching to his elbows completed his preparations, which were accomplished in mere moments.

Despite the bulky clothing, he took the stairs down to the bottom floor two at a time, leaving his visitors to clamber along behind him. He waited for them at the bottom of the staircase, then led the way to the manor armory.

Despite his own expectations, he and the farmers were not to wait long for his volunteers. Men began to straggle in before he had a chance to grow impatient, and soon the armory was full to overflowing with snow-covered volunteers. It soon became obvious that he was going to get far more volunteers than he had thought.

By now Nevis was back with his three rescue kits from the chirurgeons, and with two of the chirurgeons themselves. "Nevis, stay here and send any stragglers to the Great Hall," he called. "The rest of you—we need more room, let's go."

He did not lead them; there were too many men between him and the door. He simply went along with the crowd, and only when they had reached the frigidly-cold Great Hall did he push to the front. Someone brought in lanterns; he took one and climbed up to stand on the table. "Right; we have five lost children. Hopefully the three that were together have stayed together. You, you, and you—" he pointed to three of the farmers. "You go after the three children with the sheep. You and you, go for the boy with the cattle, and you come with me after the last boy. Now, you go to that corner, you over there, and you stand by the table. Men, divide yourselves into three parties and position yourselves with these farmers."

He watched them separate and distribute themselves with a critical eye. He redistributed the result a trifle, adding more men to his group, which would be going farthest out. "Right. Weapons—boar-spears, long daggers and short swords. Bows are useless out there. One man is responsible for taking stakes and surveying cord and marking your trail out. When you get to the general area your children are lost in, he stays there with someone to guard, blowing a horn at regular intervals."

They hadn't had time to practice moving while roped together; wiser to use some other way to keep track of each other.

"The rest of you spread out in a line, but make sure you're always in sight of the lantern of the man next to you. if you find anything—kick up a sheep or a cow, for instance, yell for the others. The rest of you—when someone finds something, we all gather on that spot."

That should work. He continued. "Watch out for boggles; keep your weapons out. This would be prime hunting time for them. When you find the children, yell again; we'll gather, retrace our steps, and follow the horn back to the stake man. If you get lost, try first to retrace your steps, and remember to listen for the horn. You lot going after the three children, take the west gate, you going for the boy with the cattle take the north. Got that?"

There was no dissent, and the men looked determined, but not grim. "All right, then. Let's move."

He led his group out of the manor and into the driving snow, each man carrying a weatherproof lantern. Snow pounded at his face, and the wind tore at his clothing; it wasn't quite sunset, but you still couldn't see more than a few paces away; the lantern light reflected from the snow in a globe of chaotic, swirling whiteness. Now he wished devoutly for magic lights that would neither blow out nor be extinguished if they were dropped in the snow. He wished for a mage-rope that would hold the men together without interfering with their movements. He wished—

To hell with wishes. We make do with what we have. Wishes are no good anymore.

The wind and snow came at them from the side, and he was glad he'd belted his sword on over his cloak; he'd never have been able to hold the fabric closed. He led the entire troop across the practice grounds, and past the hastily-erected warehouses that held the supplies so vital to them. Many of these warehouses were nothing more than tents with reinforced sides and roofs, just enough to keep the snow off; these structures loomed darkly out of the undifferentiated blue-gray of the rest of the world. The walls were first visible as a line of spots of yellow light above a black mass—the lanterns of the men on guard along the top. The men guarding the gate looked startled to see them, but the officer in charge had a good head on his shoulders when he heard where they were going.

"I'll have my men build a beacon fire above the gate!" he shouted over the howling wind. "If we shelter it on three sides it should stay lit. And if you get lost out there anyway, have your man blow the storm signal, and I'll have mine answer it."

Well, the beacon might be invisible at fifty paces and the horn inaudible, but it was another slim help and worth doing. He nodded his agreement, the stake man tied off the end of the survey string to the gate, and out they went.

Every step had to be fought for; despite his swathings of clothing he was still freezing before they had even reached the point where they were to spread out. He and the rest of the men had swathed their faces in scarves, but every exposed bit of skin stung and burned under the pinpricks of driving snow. He frankly didn't know how the old man leading them knew where he was going, although frequent checks of his own north-needle showed him that the old boy was keeping a straight heading. He'd pulled the hood of his cloak tightly around his head, but his nose and ears were numb in no time. Now he was glad he'd had the foresight to order the men out in pairs, one with his weapon ready and one with a lantern; if there were monsters out here tonight, you'd never know until they were on top of you.

The snow had been about calf-high before the storm began; it was thigh-high now, and drifting with the wind. There'd be drifts up to the rooftops in some places by morning.

His feet were frozen and aching with cold; his legs burned with the exertion of pushing through all that snow. Convinced that the old man knew where he was going, Tremane finally handed the lantern over to him and took out his sword; the old farmer handled his boar-spear like a pitchfork, and probably hadn't the least idea how to use it.

Is it his boy we're looking for, or perhaps a relative? There was no doubt of the single-minded determination he'd seen on the man's weathered and leathery face. Now, of course, he couldn't see much of anything!

Finally, after an eternity, the man stopped. "Here's the edge of the Grand Common!" he shouted over the wind. "The boy should be somewhere out there—" He waved vaguely in an east-to-west semicircle.

Tremane waited for the rest of the search-party to catch up and gather around. "Stake man, horn man, stay here!" he shouted. "The rest of you, spread out in pairs—and remember what I said about keeping each others' lanterns in sight! I'll take farthest left flank, the rest of you fill in."

He led the old man off to the left, determined to hold down the farthest position so that he could be certain of one flank, at least. He positioned the pairs of men on his side himself, then marched off into the dark with the old man still at his side until the last lantern was a fuzzy circle of light through the curtain of snow. He turned and moved north again, slowly, and the lantern at his right kept pace with him.

He had the uncanny feeling that they were completely alone out here; that the world had ended, and the lantern to his right was nothing more than a phantom to torture him. When did the last mage-storm hit? Gods, if one comes in while we're out here— He'd be helpless, as helpless as a babe. Anyone with mage-power, mage-senses, was completely flattened by the storms. He tried to calculate the times in his head. I should be all right. It shouldn't come in until tomorrow or tomorrow night. But if he was wrong, if it came in and sent him reeling into that maelstrom of hallucination and disorientation now, while he was out here—

Then hopefully the old man would know enough to call for help, or drag him over to the next pair.

If I ever want to punish a man worse than simply executing him, I'll send him off in a blizzard like this one. Impossible to tell how long they'd been out here; impossible to tell where they were! There was just the burning of his legs, the burning ache in his side, the knotted shoulders, and the cold, the cold, the everlasting cold and dark and the tiny space of light around their lantern....

Then the snow in front of him exploded upward, in his face! It boiled skyward as something hiding beneath it lurched for him.

All discomfort forgotten, he shrieked and floundered back, sword ready, fumbling for his long dagger, his heart pounding.

"Baaaaaaa!" the snow-monster bawled. "Baaaaaaa!"

Tremane tripped over something hidden beneath the snow and fell over on his rump as terror turned to relief. He coughed twice, and the coughing turned into helpless laughter as the old man helped him back up to his feet. And now the snow all around him was moving, as more of the flock became aware of the presence of humans, humans who must surely represent safety to them in all of this mess. "Swing that lantern and call!" he ordered the old man. "We've found the flock, the boy has to be in here somewhere."

The farmer obeyed him with a will, bellowing like one of his own ewes, and soon more lights came up through the snow as the rest of the men got the message and gathered to this new spot. By now the sheep were pressed up against Tremane like so many friendly puppies, and except for the fact that they kept stepping on his feet, he was rather glad to have them there; their woolly bodies were warming his legs. More sheep came floundering up out of the snowy dark. Once again the men divided up and this time used Tremane as their center point for the search, and it wasn't long before the boy Racky was found, safe and warm, lying down between two of the biggest ewes Tremane had ever seen, with the sheepdog lying atop him.

While the old man greeted his nephew—for that was who this boy was—and the men congratulated one another with much backslapping and laughter, Tremane caught his breath and took careful note of the faces of those he could actually see. What he read there made him smile with satisfaction.

They're mine. By the Hundred Little Gods, Bram was right.

Now, if he could just keep them.

"All right, men—back to town"' he shouted over the howling wind. "I'll order hot spice-wine for all, and throw a joint on to roast!"

With a cheer, the men formed a long line, with the best tracker in front, the one most likely to read the falling traces of their passage in the snow. Tremane, the old man, the boy and the flock brought up the rear. He hadn't thought the sheep would be able to keep up, but they plowed valiantly along, spurred on by the sheepdog. And perhaps urgent thoughts of a warm byre and sweet hay, and shelter from the wind and snow moved through those woolly heads as well. They shoved right along beside the last of the men, their bleating barely audible over the wind.

The last traces of their path were obliterated by the wind, but at that point, by listening carefully, some of those with the best hearing made out the sounds of the horn calling out. By spreading out again, they quickly found the men left beside the end of the string-and-stake markers. At that point it was an easy task to make their way back to the gate, and the beacon fire over it was a welcome sight indeed.

Tremane sent the old man and his charges off to the town without waiting to hear his thanks; for one thing, he wanted those sheep out of his garrison, and for another, he wanted to know how the other two parties had fared. With a word to the quartermaster to break out some barrels of wine and mulling spices, bring in a joint of beef for each building, and send them all along to the barracks, he paused only long enough to leave his snow-caked cloak in the hands of an orderly. He ran up the stairs to his office, leaving lumps of melting snow from his boots in his wake.

Nevis was waiting for him, with a smile on his face. "The other two parties are back, Commander," he reported. "There was some injury due to frostbite, and one man hurt by a boggle, but it was a minor wound. All the children and the better part of the livestock were recovered."

The last of his energy flowed away like the melting snow, and he collapsed into a chair. "We have had more than our share of good luck," he said heavily. Nevis nodded vigorously.

"Have you any orders, sir?" the young man asked.

He started to say no, then changed his mind. "Yes, I do," he told the aide with a smile. "First—you and the other aides see that the men get that hot spiced wine I ordered. Second, see to it that the volunteers get spiced brandy instead of mere wine; you have sufficient authority to order it, so do so. Third—" he got up and began walking toward his bedroom, shedding wet garments as he walked. "—pick up this mess, and see that I am not disturbed. I intend to hibernate. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Commander—" Nevis began.

And if he said any more, it didn't matter. The closing door cut it off.

Eight

Firesong stood at one of the windows of his ekele garden, feeling the chill coming off the "glass," frowning out at the snow-bedecked landscape beyond. The first snowfall of the season in Valdemar was usually nothing more than a light frosting of white; this snow had fallen for hours, and covered the ground to an uncomfortable depth. Firesong had not troubled to leave the ekele since he'd last returned to it to warm his bones. Snow. I hate snow, he thought rebelliously, arms crossed over his chest. It isn't worth crossing all that muck to get to the Palace, not for anything short of a terrible emergency. An'desha wasn't in the ekele; he hadn't been "home" last night or the night before. Much as Firesong would have enjoyed indulging himself in a jealous fit, he knew he couldn't legitimately permit himself one. The same snow that kept him here had discouraged a weary An'desha from coming back. Firesong knew where both Karal and An'desha had been for the past two days. Karal was dancing attendance on Solaris, and when she Gated back to Karse, he was busy with Natoli, with whom he was spending most of his free time. An'desha had been working with the artificers the entire time. On nights when he worked late into the morning. he had taken to staying at the Palace—sleeping chastely enough, taking a bed in the pages' and squires' dormitory. Had Firesong cared to, he could have used a touch of magic and the still water in a basin to see exactly that, as he had the first time An'desha spent a night at the Palace.

He couldn't even be angry at An'desha anymore; the Shin'a'in was hardly to blame for the fact that they were drifting apart. An'desha's changing interests alone dictated that. He shifted restlessly from one foot to the other and his heavy silk clothing shifted softly against his skin. He's gone mystical, and I never could handle mystics. And yet, at the same time, he keeps trying to make magic into a craft rather than an art—something controlled by formula rather than intuition. Both of those positions were in diametric opposition to Firesong's own beliefs; An'desha could not have chosen anything more contrary if he'd planned to.

Firesong gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. Logically he couldn't be angry at An'desha for failing to fulfill Firesong's dream... but emotion does not respond to logic. Part of him wanted to let An'desha go with a sad blessing, but most of him wanted An'desha to be just as miserable as Fire song was.

So An'desha didn't need or want an emotional bond? That was fine for him, but what about Firesong? I am not growing younger, and my opportunities become fewer with every passing year. Shay'a'chern number no more than one in ten; how can I hope to find a permanent partner when all like me are already paired up? Why must I go through my life like a white crow, cast out by the flock? Hadn't he earned his rewards by now? Didn't he deserve them?

All right, so he wouldn't have An'desha. He was resigned to that; he wouldn't go around beating empty bushes, hoping to flush birds from them. He needed more time, youth, more years of life! Then, perhaps he might find his soul match, given decades to search rather than mere years.

And he knew how to do it, too.

But it was wrong. That was what Ma'ar had done, though for different reasons. Ma'ar had wanted power, and there was not time enough in one life to accumulate all the knowledge and power that Ma'ar craved.

I only want—love. Is that purpose enough to make us different?

Not unless he could find a way to get those years of life without cheating anyone else of his. There must be a way to work the trick without hurting anyone!

His frustration grew as he stood there, once again racking his brain, trying to find a way to make the trick viable. It was so easy, that was the worst part! Ma'ar and all his successive incarnations had done all of the hard work, all the really dark work. Now the Sanctuary was in place and self sustaining; he had only to power it a bit further and link himself to it, and then he would have all the leisure he needed for his searches.

And even if I was old when I finally found him, I could link him there as well, and then find new bodies for us both....

Was that so wrong? Was it possible to use something built with blood and not be tainted himself? What dark paths were these thoughts leading him down?

But they kept intruding on everything he did. Solutions a bit less shadowed than the ones Ma'ar had used whispered to him. Would it be wrong to take the body from someone who does not deserve to live? A murderer, perhaps? A blood-path mage such as one of Ma'ar's or Falconsbane's underlings?

There was the small matter of needing a physical bond however—Ma'ar had used the bond of blood-relationship. Could another bond serve as well? Could he inflict that bond on someone?

Aya stirred behind him and uttered a tense trill. Aya did not approve of the path his thoughts were tending—or at least, the bond bird did not approve of the little he understood. That irritated him further. Bad enough to be troubled by his own conscience, must he put up with Aya's as well?

And what does a bird know? he thought impatiently, dismissing Aya's discomfort. Was he going to have to follow the dictates of the wayward mind of a bird? He had a flash of regret for not having chosen a raptor over the flashier firebird; Vree was certainly amoral enough, and not much inclined to consider anything in the way of a conscience when plump prey or a gryphon's crest-feathers were in sight!

As if to compound his troubles, now An'desha came trudging cheerfully into view, up to his knees in snow looking far too happy to fit in with Firesong's black mood. And it was too late to go up into the ekele to avoid him; the Shin'a'in saw him standing in the window and waved to him.

Damn, damn, damn. His black mood soured further. He did not want to be good company for anyone, least of all An'desha, but he'd better make a try at it. He put on a mask of a pleasant expression, and waited for An'desha to enter the protected area between the two doors. There was a further wait for An'desha to shake off the snow encrusting his legs inside the first of the doors, then enter the ekele itself.

"You'll never believe what's here!" An'desha called, as Firesong opened the second door. "The city's in an absolute uproar—there hasn't been such a carnival procession since—well, since you arrived! Anybody with a free moment at the Palace and the Collegia is gawking like any country cousin!"

"I can't imagine what you could be talking about, or what it is that's come," Firesong replied, curiosity piqued in spite of himself. "Well, what is it? A captured monster? Solaris parading through the city with a portable Temple of Vkandis?"

"Neither." An'desha pulled off his quilted Shin'a'in jacket with a shower of droplets from the melted snow, and grinned. "A floating barge from k'Leshya. They've been Gating their way across country with help from the gryphon's, which is why we didn't know they were coming; the gryphon-mages were taking it in turn to fly ahead, scout a remote location, and come back to build a Gate to the next spot. That let them get within striking distance of Haven without raising a fuss. Once they got there, they came overland by road the rest of the way. They were just waiting to see if the breakwater would hold before they chanced a Gate."

A barge? From k'Leshya? "Who? And why?" he blurted without thinking. "And why now?"

"To answer the last question first, now is because they had to. Among other things they brought someone who calls herself a trondi'irn; apparently she's a sort of gryphon-keeper, and she's come to make sure our four stay in good health. About a quarter of the barge is full of her stuff, or rather, the stuff for the gryphon's." An'desha looked quite smugly pleased with Firesong's surprise. "There's also one of my people, a Sworn-Shaman like Querna, but a man. He's supposed to be here to advise Jarim, rather than replacing him, and I must admit Jarim seemed kind of relieved to see him."

Firesong got the feeling that Jarim wasn't the only person relieved to see this shaman. Another point of difference, of rift, between them?

But An'desha didn't notice his silence. "Then there's a expanded delegation from k'Leshya, about a dozen, counting the trondi'irn, and three more gryphons, and they've brought a lot of things Darkwind's been fussing over—" He interrupted his own description with a shrug. "I'm starving and missed breakfast and lunch at the Collegia. Well, why don't you go see for yourself?"

"I believe I shall." Surprise gave way to a consuming curiosity. "Would you mind if I offered them the hospitality of the ekele? I can't imagine any of them would feel all that comfortable in the Palace."

An'desha flushed faintly. "Actually, I wanted to talk with you about that. Would you mind if I—moved temporarily into the Palace? I seem to be spending all my time there, and I've been offered a room in the Palace if I want it. That would—ah—leave you more room for the people from k'Leshya."

For one moment, Firesong throttled down rage. Deserting me already? How dare he—after everything I did for him!

But he hid it carefully. Getting angry at An'desha would only drive him further away. Instead, he tried assuming a mask of indifference. "If that's what you really want, it's fine with me."

"I would think it will just be until we find another solution for when the breakwater goes." An'desha looked at him pleadingly, and Firesong now felt a surge of satisfaction.

So—since I agreed so easily, now he's worried? Good. Maybe I can make him jealous for a change!

He shrugged, deepening his pose of indifference. "Whatever you want. I'm going to go see if I know any of these folk, and tender my invitation."

He felt his mask slipping and turned away. Then, so that An'desha did not see any of the conflicting emotions on his face, he ran up the stairs to fetch his own cloak and boots—which fortunately were not in the bedroom. He heard An'desha following slowly and waited until the Shin'a'in was rummaging around in the bedroom, packing up, before he went back down to the garden again. Aya joined him with a trill of satisfaction, flying to take a secure perch on his shoulder as he went out the doors.

He pushed through the snow with his restless thoughts flitting from one subject to another. For one thing, he hadn't given any thought to the gryphons' health; he'd just taken it for granted that they were healthy. They always recovered quickly from injuries, and never seemed to be ill.

But the youngsters were about to fledge; this fall they'd been making short glides from the tops of fences and woodpiles. Well, not quite glides. More like controlled plummets. They still were only about half the size of their parents, so they probably had one major growth spurt coming. If they doubled their size in a year or so, from all Firesong knew of other creatures, he was certain that would put a tremendous strain on their bodies. There would be special nutritional demands to keep up with such a growth spurt. Perhaps that was why the trondi'irn was here....

Or perhaps it was because of Treyvan and Hydona themselves. There might be some traces of minerals or other things they needed that they couldn't find for themselves. They are a created race, after all. The Mage of Silence made them up, and I don't care how much of a genius he was, he couldn't possibly make every detail perfect. Humans had been around for a great deal longer than gryphons, and look how imperfect they were!

Even our bond birds get strange ailments; that's why we each have to be an expert in the treatment of each particular type of bird. He hated to think of all the strange things that might go wrong for a gryphon.

As he broke through the trees, it was clear that there was something causing a great stir at the regular Palace stables. There was quite a crowd there, and something bulky and dark in the middle of them. The floating barge?

Probably. Firesong recalled very clearly how he had coveted one of those wonderful creations; coveted it as he seldom coveted any material object. Like many other creations, only k'Leshya had retained the knowledge that made them possible after the Cataclysm, largely because only k'Leshya had custody of as much of the Mage of Silence's library as had been saved. Based on the kind of covered barge that transported goods and trading families up and down the rivers of the time, the floating barges did just that—float. They generally hovered about an arm's length above the ground, but could go as high as the treetops or as low as the width of a single finger. It was possible to use magic to move them forward, but normally they were drawn by teams of horses, mules, or oxen-beasts being far "cheaper" to use than a mage. The biggest advantage was that they could carry literally as much as you could stuff into and strap onto them, for they were "without weight" and could be drawn by beasts with scarcely more effort than if they were moving unencumbered. Since they did not have wheels, they could go where there were no roads. Firesong could easily picture being able to load everything he owned into one of these barges, and traveling the world....

He hurried his pace, and saw the package-laden top of the barge rising above the crowd around it. An'desha must have come to fetch him as soon as the delegation arrived; it didn't look as if anyone had even unpacked as yet.

He joined the crowd of curiosity seekers; as soon as those nearest him saw he was there, they parted for him, enabling him to work his way in to the center. There seemed to be a lot more baggage than even a delegation of a dozen could account for—what had they brought with them?

The newcomers were instantly obvious from their costume; a blending of Shin'a'in and Tayledras style, but with a curiously antique feeling and exotic cut to it, and in colors as vivid as the flowers of a Vale. The gryphons were already in attendance, all four of them, paying close attention to three new gryphons and a young woman in brilliant orange and scarlet garments billowing out to the elbows and knees, where they were then confined by wrapped bands of black-and orange embroidered straps. Beside her was a man in vivid blue and white, whose long black hair and back seemed oddly familiar.

Treyvan raised his head and spotted Firesong. "Heigho!" he said. "And herrre at lassst is that old frrriend of yourrrsss, Sssilverrrfox!"

Silverfox? Firesong froze in mid-step, as the kestra'chern Silverfox turned to greet him with a cheerful face lighting up with pleasure. Why didn't An'desha tell me Silverfox was here?

For a moment he was angry all over again, but reason prevailed. How could he have known I even knew Silverfox? That was long, long before we met each other, and I don't recall ever mentioning the k'Leshya except in passing.

His temper cooled again quickly, and he was able to greet Silverfox with unalloyed cheer—which was just as well, because the quality of the embrace that the kestra'chern gave him was very promising indeed.

"What brings you here, of all people?" Firesong asked as they separated. "I should have thought you would have preferred to stay in the Vale and not plunge yourself headlong into this inhospitable clime!"

"As to that, it's no worse than the weather outside the Vale," Silverfox replied easily. "And as to what brought me—we traditionally send members from each of the Disciplines when we put together a delegation." He nodded at Treyvan and Hydona. "The first to make an approach are always from the Silver Gryphons, of course. The Silvers are—well, I suppose you'd call them our version of Heralds. Peacekeepers, law enforcers, and so forth, but they also include our scouts. Usually they aren't actual gryphons, unless we're sending them quite far away. That was why Treyvan and Hydona were first selected to find the Vales, and then volunteered to come to Valdemar."

"But why a kestra'chern?" Firesong repeated.

Silverfox laughed. "Because the kestra'chern are one of the Disciplines, pretty bird!" He indicated his fellow k'Leshya with a long finger as he told off the "Disciplines." "Artisans, Administrators, Scholars, Silvers, Husbandry, Mages, and Kestra'chern. Actually, there are two of us kestra'chern; trondi'irn come under the Discipline of Kestra'chern. And we never send the last Discipline—that's Shaman—out with a delegation. There's no need for that, and besides," he added with a grin, "we brought Lo'isha shena Pretara'sedrin with us, so there's rather a superfluity of priestly types."

As if responding to his name, a Shin'a'in garbed from head to toe in a dark, midnight-blue turned and flashed a pearly smile in their direction, before returning to his conversation with Jarim.

A cold burst of air reminded Firesong just how ridiculous it was for them all to be standing around in the snow. "Look, I can't imagine why we're all freezing out here when we could be warm. I came to offer you the hospitality of my home. I think you'll all fit in; there's at least a few amenities of civilization—"

"Oh, Whitebird will want to stay with the gryphons, so that will be one less—and Artisans, Administrators, and Mages will want to set up a proper embassy suite in the Palace. I suspect you're only likely to get me, Husbandry, and the Scholar," Silverfox said cheerfully. "That's only four. And we store easily. If you've got a hot pool for soaking, the rest will probably come use it. Summerhawk of Husbandry is a marvelous cook, so they'll probably come to eat as well, but I suspect otherwise they'll want to be where the business is." He smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid they are all very earnest and intent on their duty. They're planning on spending every waking moment with your mages and artificers, developing the next set of protections from the mage-storms."

Firesong was secretly relieved that the k'Leshya mages would probably not be taking him up on his offer. He doubted any of them would think highly of his excursions to investigate Falconsbane's Sanctuary, much less that he was considering using it.... He'd been able to conceal his activities so far from the other mages at Haven, largely because he was better than most of them. I don't know that I can hide what I'm doing from mages with unfamiliar skills. Gods only know what k'Leshya has still in the way of mages we've lost. And as for what they might have developed, I can't even begin to guess.

"We need to unpack—and I think you ought to stay for that much of it, my friend," the kestra'chern continued. "We brought some things along I suspect you've been missing. Our hertasi made you up some new clothing for one—you came here rather lightly packed, and I doubt these folk, pleasant as they are, have any notion of fabric or design!"

Firesong shuddered, recalling some of the things he'd been presented with by well-meaning tailors of Haven. No sense of style, and as for the limited palette of colors, the less said, the better! They wanted to dress him as a molting peahen.

"Introduce me to everyone so I can make my offer and they can decline or accept it on their own, would you?" he said, rather than commenting on the deficiencies of Valdemaran costume. "That way we can take the luggage and all straight to the ekele and you can get settled in properly."

"Luggage and presents, my dear friend," Silverfox said slyly. "I oversaw that part of the packing myself."

Firesong laughed. "Should I be greedy or polite? Being polite, I should pretend I don't have any great urgency to see what you've brought, but being greedy, that is the only reason why I would willingly stand here in snow up to my elbows while you sort yourselves out!"

Already his heart felt lighter for Silverfox's presence. And as he helped unload the barge and sort packages and bundles, something else occurred to him.

Here, presented on a platter as it were, was the perfect way to make An'desha anxious and jealous, if it could be done at all. He had one last chance to win the Shin'a'in back.

Silverfox reclined indolently in the hot pool several days later, after having given Firesong a profoundly satisfying demonstration of at least one of a kestra'chern's sets of skills. "I fear we have annoyed one set of your artificers with our arrival," he said lazily.

"Oh?" Firesong was feeling too pleased to be annoyed at the mention of the artificers. "How is that? From all I hear, your mages are getting along splendidly with them. It's a bit awkward cramming Treyvan and Hydona into the room so that there are enough translators, but so far as I've heard that's the only thing like a problem."

"Oh, it is the ones who are messing about with boilers and steam," Silverfox chuckled. "I must admit I fail to see the attraction; the only places I care to have steam are in the kitchen, in the steam-house, and rising above the waters of a soaking-pool."

Firesong laughed. "Oh, I understand what the trouble is. That girl Natoli and her friends were helping the steam fanatics when you arrived, but now they are crawling all over your floating barge, day or night. And when they are not examining the barge, they are trying to take apart some of the other useful things you brought with you. In the meantime, they have deserted the steam proponents to learn what mechanical wonders you have devised."

"That is why we brought artisans, dear friend," Silverfox retorted, with a half-smile. "So that the rest of us do not have to attempt to explain what we do not understand. So far as I know or care, it is all magic!" He laughed. "I told one of them that it is all run by magic smoke. When the smoke escapes, the object ceases to function!"

Firesong had to laugh at that, too—since most of the mechanical contrivances of the artificers normally emitted great quantities of smoke when they stopped working, exploded or burned to the ground, especially the ones powered by steam boilers.

"Your friend An'desha has been making himself invaluable to them, so they tell me," Silverfox added.

Firesong's thoughts darkened at the mention of An'desha's name, and he controlled his expression to avoid giving himself away. He had been paying Silverfox his exclusive attentions in the hope that if anything would bring An'desha back it would be jealousy, but to his dismay, An'desha actually seemed pleased and relieved to see him so often in the kestra'chern's company. His last attempt to fix An'desha's wandering attention had certainly not turned out the way he had thought it would. In fact, another kink in his plans had developed, for when An'desha was not translating for the k'Leshya, he was most often in the company of the Sworn-Shaman, which certainly put paid to any hopes of weaning him away from his growing mysticism!

Yesterday he'd decided to bury the remains of the relationship before they began to stink, although he was not at all happy about the end of it. That really only left him back in the same position he'd been in when the k'Leshya delegation arrived. Either he resign himself to a life predominately alone, or—

Or I find a way to extend that life and even my odds of finding my lifebonded.

Just as his thoughts took that grimmer turn, however, Silverfox stretched languidly, striking an unconsciously provocative pose that distracted him. Steam veiled Silverfox's head and torso, giving him an air of mystery. "You've been rather quiet and subdued for the past several days," the kestra'chern observed. "If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were brooding over something, but you keep saying it's only the weather. Is the weather here really depressing you that much?"

"Oh it isn't the weather, really—at least it isn't the primary problem," Firesong found himself admitting. "I do confess that I hate leaving all that snow where I have to look at it every moment, though. Back in our Vale you'd never know it was winter unless you went outside the protected area, and I generally managed to avoid that in bad weather."

"Hmm." Silverfox stretched again, arching his back and closing his eyes for a moment. "Still. There's something rather pleasant about being in here, where it's warm and comfortable, and being able to look out there and know that if you don't want to subject yourself to miserable weather, you don't have to. Don't you think?"

Firesong shrugged uncomfortably. "I said it wasn't the primary problem."

"So what is depressing you?" Somehow Silverfox had managed in all his stretching to work around behind Firesong, and began massaging his tense shoulders with strong, skillful fingers. "Perhaps I can help."

"What depresses anyone?" he countered with irritation. "I'm shay'a'chern, alone, surrounded by people who have paired off comfortably—Elspeth and Darkwind, Treyvan and Hydona, Karal and Natoli, Selenay and Daren, Kerowyn and Eldan—and gods save us, Talia and Dirk, who are mature parents and quite old enough not to be mooning over each other like a pair of romantic teenagers! Everywhere I look I'm surrounded by hopeless romantics!"

"And here you are, a bird with a perfectly charming nest and no one to share it with." Silverfox managed to make that sound sympathetic without being syrupy. "I understand that's enough to depress anyone."

"The lifebonded couples are the worst," Firesong continued acidly. "There seem to be more of those here than is decent by anyone's standards."

"Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that all the Heralds congregate here," Silverfox observed casually. "It would be rather like concentrating all the shay'a'chern in Valdemar and the Vales in an institution that was something like the Collegium. It makes such meetings of matching souls much more likely."

If only I could do that.... But if he could extend his years, that would have the same effect. "Still. It's indecent, and it's irritating."

"I can see where it would be, although I find it rather charming. And at the same time, I rather feel sorry for them." In spite of Firesong's resistance to being soothed, Silverfox's ministrations were having an effect. But that last statement was positively bizarre.

"Why on earth would you feel sorry for them?" he asked in surprise. "I thought everyone was looking for a lifebonded mate! Isn't that the point?"

"I'm not looking for a lifebond," Silverfox said firmly. "I would much, much rather have someone who loved me out of pure attraction or simple affection than have someone who couldn't help loving me. So far as I can see, the difference between being in love and being lifebonded is rather like the difference between doing something because you want to and doing it because someone came along and put a geas on you to compel you to do it. You might have wanted to do it anyway, but the notion of being compelled to it makes me very uncomfortable." He uttered a dry chuckle. "No—not uncomfortable; it makes me very rebellious. Quite frankly, if I met my lifebonded, I would try to fight the compulsion just because it was a compulsion. And I would insist that something more than a compulsion held us together."

"I can't see that." Firesong shook his head. "Lifebonded mates are so devoted to one another, so bound up with each other, it seems the perfect way of life to me. Being lifebonded means there are no misunderstandings, no jealousies, no incompatibilities; none of the things that cause so many problems in ordinary relationships—"

But Silverfox was chuckling in earnest now, as if he had said something very amusing. "Who told you there were no misunderstandings, no incompatibilities? Did you read it somewhere? Do you know any lifebonded couples intimately enough to say that with authority? Believe me, I've had life bonded couples as clients in the past, and they have their share of both those things. The only difference between them and ordinary couples is that if they don't resolve problems quickly, they're going to suffer far more agony of spirit than you or I would."

"That sounds like an advantage to me," Firesong retorted stubbornly.

"Huh." Silverfox did not seem to have a response to that statement. "You seem very sure of that."

"I am." Firesong was not going to back down on this "And I can't see where 'agony of spirit' is any worse than fires of jealousy. I'd say a person would be better off if he forced to reconcile differences; I think it's better for two people to be impelled to fix things between them than for or suffer heartache while the other goes off blithely about business without a care in the world. That would make a great deal more even-handed," he finished grimly.

"Now that was certainly stated with conviction," the kestra'chern observed. "I might almost suspect you've found yourself suffering the slung shot of jealousy a time or two."

"Enough," Firesong replied cautiously. "Enough to know it's probably one of the most poisonous of emotions, and it encourages obsession. How is being so obsessed with someone that you can't get your mind on your work any better than being forced to be compatible?"

Silverfox moved his ministrations to below Firesong's shoulder blades. "You have a point. Certainly for some people it would make getting one's work done much easier. Obsession is a fairly ugly condition, and as you said, it is poisonous. It tends to warp one's outlook."

"And it is one that is hard to cure." Firesong winced as Silverfox's fingers encountered a particularly knotted muscle.

"So that is what is depressing you? Loneliness, jealousy, and obsession?" Silverfox sighed. "That is a combination sufficient to depress anyone, even at the height of summer and with all going well. Given the current situation, I marvel you are getting anything accomplished. I am not certain I would."

When did I admit that I was obsessed? Firesong caught himself, keeping himself from saying anything further. Silverfox was the most persuasive person that Firesong had ever encountered, not excluding Herald Talia. This was not the first time that the kestra'chern had managed to maneuver him into admitting something he had not intended to.

And despite the fact that he was anything but a nuisance, Silverfox had been doing a remarkable job of somehow being present whenever Firesong contemplated a little trip over to the Palace and the Heartstone for another visit to Falconsbane's Sanctuary. If Silverfox had been anything other than what he was, Firesong would have been dying to get rid of him by now, and he would have considered the kestra'chern to be a prime nuisance.

As it was, every time the kestra'chern turned up so very inconveniently, he managed to change the encounter into something pleasant, enjoyable. His timing was amazing; too coincidental to be an accident, but how did he know? How could he know? And he never made anything so obvious as an outright interception; he was just there when Firesong's thoughts turned grim, striking a casually provocative pose, or flirting cheerfully with him.

This was not the first time that he'd gotten Firesong to confess things to him, but this was the first time he'd coaxed the conversation into the dangerous grounds of emotional obsession, jealousy, and anger. This was very dangerous ground, in fact, since it might lead to other deductions.

Firesong restrained growing anger—not at Silverfox, but at the impossible, intolerable situation.

"It doesn't matter; there's nothing I can do about the situation, so I might as well just endure it with proper Tayledras stoicism," he lied, trying to steer things off that precarious ground and hide his own feelings.

"Ah, but it does matter," Silverfox countered. "You are a mage, and as such, your control is dependent on your emotional state. As a Healer-with-knives should not practice when his hands are unsteady, a mage should not practice when his nerves are unsteady. You know that well enough to teach it!"

Firesong's muscles knotted again under Silverfox's hands, betraying his temper to the kestra'chern. "I do know that, and my nerves are steady enough," he replied, "I know what I'm doing. And to tell the truth, at the moment my skills are not needed anyway."

"Oh, my friend," Silverfox sighed, releasing him. "Your body tells me a different story." He slid around to his former position, and his expression was dead sober. "The chiefest language of the kestra'chern is that of emotion; his chiefest skill is in the matters of the heart rather than of the mind or spirit; we leave the former to the Scholar and the latter to the Priest. That is what we do, but there comes a point when we cannot do our work without cooperation."

Instead of getting off that dangerous ground, they were now firmly atop it. Firesong feigned incomprehension and stifled alarm. "Why would you need my cooperation for anything more than you already have?"

But Silverfox frowned. "You already know the answer to that question. I do not know all, by any means, but I do know a few things. You are lonely and profoundly unhappy here, you live in a bower built for two but you are alone in it, you tense with anger when Karal and the artificers are mentioned, you tense with pain when An'desha's name comes up. Your heart and your mind must of necessity reflect both your heart and body. Even an apprentice in my art could put those facts in their proper order."

"What, is that all you have deduced?" Firesong retorted, more sharply than he had intended.

Silverfox looked directly into his eyes with unveiled candor. "There is more, but those are the things I can do something about, and only if you will talk about them."

"Oh, you can, can you?" Firesong hoisted himself up out of the pool abruptly, wrapping himself in an enveloping robe so that his body would not betray his thoughts any further.

Silverfox heeded his example, and followed him when he headed for the stairs to the ekele. "Yes, I can, and it is not a boast. That is my particular avocation, and I am as skilled in it as you are skilled in your avocation of mage. I have been studying and practicing my art for as long as you have."

Firesong remained silent for the time it took to climb the stairs, but turned angrily to face the kestra'chern when they both reached the top. "I suppose you can do something about the way that An'desha has turned away from me, then? And you can silence that interfering sprout, Karal, so that An'desha gets no more stupid ideas, no more obsession with mysticism? Things between us were perfectly adequate until he came along! If there is anyone to blame here, it is Karal! An'desha depended on me, not on some idiot priest from a land that considers the Star-Eyed's people to be barbaric eaters of raw meat!"

Too late, he realized that his mouth had run away with him again; he flushed, turned away, and flung himself sullenly onto the couch. He stared out the window rather than looking at Silverfox. It should be easier to keep a tight rein on his mouth if he wasn't staring into the kestra'chern's eyes.

If only it were possible to keep a tight rein on his emotions.

Outside the window an interlacing of stark, leafless branches against the snow reminded him of clutching talons.

A soft shush of fabric told him that Silverfox had taken a seat nearby, but not on the couch itself. "An'desha is not your lifebonded mate, and you knew that the moment he began to turn away from you. You also must know that nothing you could have said or done, nothing that was said to him, could ever make him into something he was not," the kestra'chern pointed out with cool logic. "And as for the way he no longer depends on you, is that as a result of meddling by Karal, or as a result of things you yourself did? You are a Healing Adept, Firesong—your own heart surely told you that such clutching dependence as you have described to me already was not healthy. You yourself must have set in motion the course that eventually led him away from your side; you could not betray your own avocation. Heal he must, even if it leads him away from you."

Firesong flushed again, and before he could stop himself, he had turned to face Silverfox once more, his anger smoldering within him and threatening to burst out. "But Karal's interference ruined everything! Where he led An'desha was not the direction I intended to take things!" he stormed. His voice rose, and his throat tightened as he clenched both his fists with barely restrained rage. "Damn him! He has no idea of my forbearance—a hundred times I could easily have killed him to get him out of our lives!" His rage rose into a killing thing. "I still could!" he shouted. "I wish I had!"

Across the room, Aya shrieked, and simultaneously, a vase shattered.

Silverfox did not even wince, but the crash of splintering glass dampened Firesong's anger as effectively as a bucketful of cold water splashed into his face. He stared at the heap of glass shards on the table with his jaw clenched.

What am I doing? I haven't let my temper rule my power since I was an apprentice mage! What's wrong with me? Where did my control disappear to?

"Firesong, if it had not been Karal, it would have been someone else," Silverfox said calmly into the heavy silence. "Given that he is half Shin'a'in, it would probably have been Querna. I cannot picture a Shin'a'in Goddess-Sworn leaving him in the unsettled state you have described to me yesterday. He was and is going to grow and mature, and short of damaging his mind, there is nothing you could have done to change that."

I admitted I want to murder Karal, and he says nothing. Doesn't he care?

"What would you have felt if it had been Querna rather than Karal?" Silverfox persisted. "Would that have made it any easier for you, as he grew away from you? Would you have been less angry than you are now?"

Of course he cares; he just realizes I still have that much control left that I wouldn't murder Karal out of hand.

Would I?

"No," he said slowly. "No. If he had turned to Querna, that would probably have made things worse. Karal is not precisely the figure of authority that Querna was; a Goddess-Sworn would certainly have turned him to mysticism much more quickly than Karal did."

Only now did Silverfox rise and take a place on the couch beside Firesong, although the kestra'chern made no move to touch him. "As you have said yourself, if it had been Querna who helped him answer his questions, we both know you would have lost him sooner," the kestra'chern said quietly. "As it was, since in some ways both An'desha and Karal were groping for the truth through the same fog of uncertainty, you held him to you longer. You cannot keep a chick in the shell, my friend, no matter how hard you may try."

Firesong had no answer for that, but Silverfox didn't appear to expect one. Fine, so I couldn't hold him back—but why did he have to grow away from me?

"There are many ways in which his spirit was scarred that you and I will never and can never understand, thanks to the Gods," Silverfox continued, his blue eyes thoughtful. "I have talked to him since I arrived here, since I became aware of your troubles."

He has? I didn't know that—

Silverfox paused and smiled slightly. "I knew at once that was not the one to help him in his personal quest, but I did learn some things. I think, perhaps, that he will never be able to have a strong emotional bond to any one person—not because he is not capable of one, but for other reasons. He has seen how emotions can be a weapon in the hands of someone as unscrupulous as Falconsbane, and I think he will avoid emotional attachments for fear of using them himself in that way." The kestra'chern closed his eyes for a moment. "For him, the best and surest path may be that of the spirit and intellect rather than the heart. I could wish for your sake that this was not the case, but that is my reading of him."

Bitterness welled up in him, as much at the logic of Silverfox's words as at the conclusion. It matched what he himself had observed, all too closely. It is true, but I am not going to rejoice over this!

"But where does that leave me?" he asked, allowing his bitterness to well over into his words. "I spent all of my time here caring for An'desha when I might have been cultivating other possibilities. Now he has found other interests, and the possibilities I might have had when I first arrived are closed to me. Should I return to the Vales, I would find that all those of my inclination have paired off. So what am I to do? Where am I to look? He has had our time together and he has all that he now wants! Am I to have nothing for all my work and care but a few memories?"

Silverfox pursed his lips, then grimaced. "Well, I must admit that you have me there. You have given of yourself and your abilities here when you could easily have gone back to your own Vale or to k'Leshya. You have benefited a land and a people that are not even your own. Now, in fairness, I must point out that there are many who find your life and your position enviable, but that does not help how you feel now." He sighed. "I do not have a solution for you, or even much comfort to offer. Being exclusively shay'a'chern as you are limits you, and we both know it."

"And I am no pederast, to go looking for companions in the nursery because all those of my own years are paired," Firesong said sourly.

Only now did Silverfox offer to touch him, and only to place one hand on his knee. "Firesong, my pretty bird, I like you very much. What comfort, physical and otherwise, that you feel you could accept from me I gladly offer—and that is as a friend, not as kestra'chern. I know that it does not help—"

"But it also does not hurt." He managed to smile thinly. "I will have to find a solution for myself."

I think it is best if I leave it at that.

The sitting room of Karal's suite was warmer and quieter than the common room of the Compass Rose, and you didn't have to wade through snow to get to it. A cheerful fire burned on the hearth, and a kettle of hot tea and one of hot water hung on hooks where they would stay warm. Karal stood behind Natoli as she scribbled numbers and watched intently; he didn't understand anything he saw, but that didn't matter. Behind him, An'desha lounged on the couch, pretending to read a book. Karal knew that he wasn't actually reading, because he hadn't turned a page since he sat down.

"Damn and blast!" Natoli exclaimed, suddenly standing up and tossing the papers of scribbled calculations over her head in disgust. "Every time I make a calculation, it comes out differently!"

"Have a cup of tea," Karal advised, before the last of the pages had hit the floor. He took a hot pad to seize the nearest kettle, pouring a fresh mug full and dosing it liberally with cream and honey. He brought it over to her and handed it to her with a smile he hoped looked encouraging. "I know you wanted to try for yourself, but that's the same conclusion all the others, even the Masters like Master Levy have come to. Sun strike me, but they can't even agree on when the breakwater will finally erode to the point where it doesn't protect us anymore! They say it's all too complicated for any human to calculate."

She grimaced as she took the hot mug from him. "All right, Florian was watching me calculate through your eyes, and through him all the rest of the Companions that have any interest in mathematics were also watching. So what does he have to say?"

:Tell her what I told you the third time she went through the calculations,: Florian advised. :That answer hasn't changed.:

"He says that as far as the Companions can tell, the solution will have to involve Hardorn because we'll have to put something in place beyond the existing breakwater. Some of them believe that we need to make a different kind of breakwater and some think we'll have to do something new, but as the storms strengthen, we will have to move the protections outward. Others just have the feeling, too vague to be a ForeSeeing, that Hardorn will be involved in finding the next solution." That was a surprising conclusion, coming from Companions, but it was a welcome one, as far as he was concerned.

And Natoli went a step further. "We might as well talk about what we've all been hinting at for the past week. Hardorn and the imperials. We need them, and we all know it, so let's start trying to figure out a way to get them without getting anyone in trouble or murdered."

:The Son of the Sun isn't going to like this, Karal.: Altra switched his tail nervously and got up from his spot on the couch to pace over to Karal.

"What about you?" Karal asked him, looking down into his intensely blue eyes.

:In the abstract, I don't object. I do not much like making allies of people who personally attacked my own charges, but in the interest of the greater good, it is probably going to be necessary. Solaris, however, will dislike such expediency.:

Yes, well, Solaris' reaction was going to extend rather beyond "dislike." But from the look on An'desha's face, the news was fairly welcome to him.

"So, what about you?" he asked his friend.

An'desha sat up. "They have snow up to the eaves, monsters rioting through blizzards, they're starving and freezing over there. Even Kerowyn isn't urging any kind of confrontation with the Imperials," he said obliquely. "You heard her this afternoon: 'Let General Winter take care of them.' And even Jarim agreed with her. She thinks that 'General Winter' is going to kill them, I bet. The trouble is, a lot of innocents are going to die, too."

"So, you're saying—?" Karal prompted.

An'desha spread his hands wide. "Haven't the people of Hardorn and the Imperials—even the guilty ones—been punished enough?"

Karal sat down at the desk that Natoli had abandoned and cupped his chin in both hands. "I know what you're saying, and I know what Florian is saying, but I've got another problem here. I want to know what the Imperials are going to do if they're desperate and feel they have nothing to lose? More assassinations? By Vkandis' Crown, what better time could they strike but when Solaris is here for a meeting? How can we keep that from happening and at the same time keep them from using an opportunity to talk to us as one to strike at us?"

"By bringing them within our protections of course," Natoli said firmly, sitting down beside An'desha in the spot that Altra had abandoned. "If they're protected from the mage-storms, that should make them less desperate. What's more, I think we need to work with their mages as well as with the ones from k'Leshya. The Masters all think we need an entirely new set of observations anyway, and a new set of outlooks on magic could be what we're missing. It worked the last time."

"All very well and good," Karal pointed out, "but to get Imperial cooperation, we have to find someone with sense about the whole situation—someone who will think rather than react when we approach him. In point of fact, it will have to be someone high enough up in their ranks that we have a chance of negotiating with their leaders. So who do we find and how do we find him? I can't exactly send in a messenger with a flag of truce!" He snorted at the very idea. "I can't exactly send anyone anywhere! I don't have any authority to do anything of the kind!"

:Perhaps just as a point of beginning we could scry and try to find someone of sense?: Florian suggested diffidently.

"Florian says we should scry to see if we can find anyone who might listen to us. How we're supposed to do that with no target and over such a huge distance, I have no notion," Karal relayed, trying not to sound as if he thought the idea was completely lunatic. "Qualifications of 'authority and good sense' seem a bit vague to hang a scrying spell on."

"Well," An'desha said slowly. "As for the distance part, there's a perfectly good way to boost the power of a scrying spell, and that's to use the Valdemar Heartstone. I'd have to ask for permission, but if I'm careful who I ask, I think I can get it. I am an Adept, if rather unpracticed. I think I can manage a simple scrying spell."

:Tell him to ask Talia to ask Elspeth and he will get permission,: Florian said with authority. :Rolan and Gwena both agree.:

Karal relayed that information. "Are you going to use the kind of spell that makes a picture anyone can see and sounds anyone can hear?" he asked hopefully. He'd always wanted to see a scrying, but Master Ulrich had never used that kind of spell.

"It's the only one I know," An'desha replied ruefully. "It takes a lot more energy than the kind that works like FarSight but I don't have a choice since I don't know that one."

"I'd prefer it even if you did have a choice," Natoli replied, tucking her hair back behind her ear. "With others watching, you have extra sets of eyes and ears to catch what you might miss."

An'desha smiled. "True. Right, well, that's how we'll have the power."

:As for a target, why don't you use the Imperial arms?: Altra said, unexpectedly. :You're not likely to find that anywhere except in the quarters of someone with authority, either on the wall or on documents—we already know from Kerowyn's spies that they've taken the arms off their uniforms.:

"Using the Imperial arms as a target—that's what Altra suggests. Can you do that?" he asked An'desha. "Then we can just observe people to see if they fit what we need."

An'desha looked blank for a moment. "I don't know why I couldn't. Given that, we can decide how we speak with our chosen contact once we actually have him."

:I'll find Talia for you.: Florian "vanished" from Karal's thoughts for a moment. Karal discovered how agreeable it was to be able to use the varied abilities of Companions; normally they would have had to go in search of Talia, but through her Companion Rolan, they were able to "ask" her to come to them in Karal's suite. They couldn't convey anything in detail, however, since Talia, unlike most Heralds, did not have Mindspeech. Rolan could only "send" an image of them and convey a sense of need.

When she finally arrived on Karal's doorstep, she wore an expression of faint annoyance overlaid with curiosity. "I hope this is more important than what I was doing," she said without preamble as Karal let her in.

"I think so, Sun's Ray," he said, calling her by her priestly title. She raised an eyebrow at that, but permitted herself to be coaxed into accepting a chair and a mug of tea. "Natoli will explain what we're up to, and I hope we haven't overstepped our authority."

Ulrich used to say that it is easier to apologize than get permission. I hope he was right.

Natoli did explain, not only their conclusions but the reasoning leading up to them. Talia listened patiently, nodding from time to time, until Natoli was finished.

"You've come perilously close to overstepping your authority," Talia told him, "but you succeeded in staying just on the right side. I'll ask Elspeth, and honestly—I think she'll agree with you. She's become more pragmatic since the mission into Hardorn after Ancar and Hulda than I gave her credit for being."

"I think it was traveling through Hardorn, seeing how the people were suffering then, and knowing that it must be worse now," An'desha suggested. "She might not be in line for the throne anymore, but you can't remove the sense of responsibility that you trained into her."

Talia smiled faintly. "One hopes. Well, let's see what can be done—and I have a suggestion for a place where you can do your scrying. Directly above the Heartstone chamber is a room that mirrors it exactly, right down to having a crystal sphere in the center of a table. You could use that, and it's shielded to a fare-thee-well. We've used it for FarSeeing in the past." She put her mug down on a side table and stood up. "I'm beginning to think that the Queen ought to recognize you lot as a working entity; I'll have a word with her about that as well. You're all adults, you're all responsible, and you're all coming up with ideas, if not actual solutions. We ought to grant you enough authority that you can test out some of your ideas without constantly coming to one of us."

That last had Karal staring at her with an open mouth for a moment.

"Don't get too excited," she said, with a slight hint of a smile. "It won't be a great deal of authority. But you have a fair amount on your own, you know. You and An'desha are aliens on our soil, and do not necessarily have to answer to any authority in Valdemar for your actions so long as you don't break any major laws." She put the mug down decisively. "Now, if I'm going to catch Elspeth alone, I have to go now. I'll send you word through Rolan and Florian."

She walked to the door, and Karal opened it for her again, but just before she left, she turned and looked at him with a peculiar, penetrating stare. "You are something of a puzzle, young priest, she said at last. "You are the only person I have ever encountered that has a Companion speaking with him who was not also Chosen. I wish I knew why."

"So do I, Sun's Ray," he said fervently. "I would sleep better at night if I did."

Inside the scrying room, it was as silent as a cave. Even noises from outside were muffled to the point of vanishment. An'desha settled into his seat, now softened with a down cushion, brought by the ever-practical Natoli who could not see any reason why the four of them needed to get numb behinds from the hard benches when there were plenty of cushions kicking around in the Palace storerooms. The others took their places at equal distances around the table—in Altra's case, on the table, licking his back fur—and waited expectantly for him to begin the spell.

Their initial few attempts had ended in nothing more exciting than warehouses and a few barracks, for the Imperials might have taken their embroidered arms from the tunics of their uniforms, but they still had their battle banners displayed prominently in their barracks and the Imperial mark burned into the sides of crates. One or two had even begun murals including the arms on the walls as well. The trouble with this spell was that once it was set on a target, you couldn't move the point-of-view more than a foot or two from the target without starting over, and he couldn't do that more than two or three times a day. The spell might take most of its energy from the Heartstone, but it still required his personal power to control it.

"You know—I've got an idea. You might try the arms in the form of a seal," Natoli said after some thought. "That might at least get you a place where we can see a clerk in the headquarters. Then you can shift your target to him and set the spell again; sooner or later he's bound to go to someone in authority."

An'desha made a gesture of helplessness. "That sounds like as good an idea as any; we certainly haven't made any other progress."

"We wouldn't say that," Karal objected, speaking for both himself and Altra. "You found Shonar and the Imperial Army—and you didn't catch on to something over in the Empire itself. That's not bad for not having a specific target."

An'desha smiled faintly, and flexed his hands to warm up the muscles before he placed them palm-down on the table in front of him. He stared at a point a little above the crystal ball in the center of the table. and reached for the weighty power seething below him, embodied in the Heartstone of Valdemar.

There was no way of describing just how it felt to him, to seize this incredible energy, a force both ordered and chaotic, and with a rudimentary consciousness of its own. Were other Heartstones like this one? If so, no wonder Falconsbane had wanted to learn the secrets of constructing them! Nodes were powerful, even deadly, but this Heartstone was a hundred times more powerful than any node he had ever encountered. Linking himself in with it was similar to walking the Moonpaths, in that he found himself "somewhere else"; this "somewhere," however, was a crystalline structure thrumming with ordered power. Once there, he was possessed of the strength to do just about anything he chose, if only his control could hold up.

That was the real key, control, and it was what required so much of his own strength. If I were riding an unbroken war steed that happened to like me, and had decided to permit me to sit on her back, it might be like this. There is a sense that at any moment I might be thrown and trampled. "Ordered" does not mean "tame."

Once he had the reins of power in his hands, he dropped his gaze into the crystal itself, setting the patterns and sigils written only in the invisible fire of magic to burn about it. He knew the moment it was all complete; the ring of power fused into an unbroken whole, and the "setting" sat empty, waiting for the target object.

This was the only purely mental part of the spell; he concentrated on the Imperial arms in the form of a wax impression, a seal such as he had often seen on other documents of importance. This is what you want, he silently told the spell as he set that image within it. Go and find it, and bring us the picture of where it is.

Distance meant very little to this spell if it had the power it needed to reach as far as it had to. He felt the spell straining to be off, a restive hound with the quarry in view, pulling at the leash.

He let it go, and immediately sensed power flowing from the Heartstone, through him, and into the set-spell. Oh, it was sweet. Now all he had to do was control the flow of power so that it was even, and sit back and watch the crystal with the others.

A red blur formed in the heart of the crystal, transparent, but three-dimensional. It could have been a reflection of something on the table, or something one of them was wearing; except that they all saw it, for they all leaned forward at the same time.

The haze of red solidified, the blurring focused, and the indistinct image became a clear, sharp picture, a blob of red sealing wax, centered by the now all-too-familiar arms of the Eastern Empire. The image showed him nothing more, because that was all that the spell had been set for; it did not even show the document the seal was on.

That was just fine, for now that he had his target, he could widen the parameters of the spell.

He seized more power from the Heartstone and wove it into new patterns, ones that told the spell to broaden its "gaze" and to open its "ears." Round about the crystal he set the new patterns, weaving them in and out of the old ones, until once again the energies fused into a whole.

The image changed; the blob of red wax grew smaller, down to a mere pinpoint, as it seemed to recede into the middle distance. It became a dot of red on a sheet of yellow-brown parchment; the document lay on a desk, on top of a stack of similar documents. Behind the desk sat a man in a sober and severely cut tunic and trews of that no-nonsense styling that says "military," both of which had the familiar look of the Imperial uniform. The desk itself was the only piece of furniture in a very small room, lit by a single lantern suspended from a chain above the desk. The top of the desk was littered with papers, inkwells, and all the paraphernalia of a clerk.

"Yes," Karal hissed under his breath. An'desha did not bother with self-congratulations; this part of the spell manipulation was too delicate. He rotated his viewpoint, slowly, taking it down and around until at last his "eyes" were in the middle of the desktop, staring up at the clerk working so diligently there.

There was no sound but the scratching of the clerk's pen and the hiss of his breathing—and, occasionally, a sniff as he took a moment to rub his nose with the back of his hand. An'desha stared intently into his surprisingly young face, a very earnest face, and one showing a fierce concentration on the work at hand. It was not a particularly memorable face for all that it was young; the clerk was very much of a "type." His brown hair was cut short, and from the precision of the style, An'desha guessed it was probably a regulation haircut. His brown eyes were neither very large nor very small, neither deepset nor bulging, neither far apart nor set too near the bridge of the nose. His forehead was not too broad or too narrow. His cheekbones were neither prominent nor flat nor buried in fat. His nose was neither hawklike nor pugged, neither thin nor spread, absolutely average in length and shape. His mouth was neither thin nor generous, his chin neither square nor pointed, rounded nor prominent. It would have been very difficult to pick him out in a crowd, but he did have one tiny scar crossing his left eyebrow and another marring the otherwise average chin. An'desha concentrated fiercely on those two flaws, branding the man's face in his mind.

Once he was sure he had the clerk as firmly in his mind as possible, he broke the spell, shattering the brittle energies with a single burst of power. He sagged down on the table for a moment as the shattered remains dissipated; feeling his own strength melting away with it.

Natoli and Karal were both ready for that moment; instantly they were each at his elbows, Natoli with a cup of something sweet and hot, Karal with cheese and bread. The moment of weakness did not last long. He had the Heartstone to draw on, after all, and he was soon sitting up again and restoring his physical strength while his magical energies slowly rose to near the level they had been when he began.

"Looks to me as if we got an Imperial clerk, one with enough status to handle important documents," Karal said, as An'desha drank the restorative brew and nibbled on the cheese.

"I hope so," An'desha said, doubt now creeping into his mind. "I don't know about that office, though. Would someone with any status be shoved away into that cramped little closet?"

But Karal only laughed. "Oh, certainly," he said, with the surety of one who has been a clerk himself. "First of all, this man wasn't wearing a heavy cloak or even a particularly heavy tunic—that means wherever he is it's warm. We know that Shonar didn't have a Great Lord, so the manor that the Imperials took over isn't going to be huge—and the Commander has consolidated all of his officers there. As many of them as can will be in the manor, not the barracks. His mages are probably in there, too. That's a lot of people to be crowded into one smallish manor house; any clerk that has his own office, and a warm office at that, must be of a fairly high rank."

An'desha nodded; that made good sense. "Well, I'm ready to try for him again if you are," he said. "If I can, I'm going to put a magical 'link' on him, so that it won't be as difficult to get him in the future."

Natoli nodded but also sighed. "We're likely to be doing a lot of watching before he goes in to see whatever official he reports to."

He shrugged. "There's no escaping that. I'd rather be watching him than watching the men in the barracks play dice and scrub floors."

Natoli laughed at that, since she had been the first to complain about watching the floor scrubbers and gamers. "I don't even know who to bet on!" she had protested. "That would at least make it a little more interesting!"

Once again, An'desha set the spell, this time with the face of his chosen clerk as the target. Once again the power settled into the familiar patterns, the energies drained through him, and an image formed in the heart of the crystal.

This time, he changed the point-of-view to one just above the clerk's shoulder, so that they were looking down at what the man was doing. "Another lesson in Imperial script?" Karal asked dryly.

An'desha didn't bother to answer, since Karal was the one who had suggested they use these opportunities for just that. They'd all learned what they could from one of Kerowyn's agents, and now from their various vantage points they were polishing and adding to what they'd learned. Predictably, Karal was the best at picking up the language; Natoli and An'desha were about even in their lower level of proficiency.

It was harder to concentrate on the spell and read than it was to do so and listen. An'desha soon gave up. "What's it say?" he asked Karal.

The Karsite licked his lips and narrowed his eyes as he peered into the crystal. "Something about snow—oh, it's a report about the last blizzard they got. I wish I knew what their measures meant, I'd have some idea how deep it is. Deep enough that he's writing orders to the barracks commanders to build arches out of snow blocks and turn the paths between the buildings into tunnels so the men don't have to keep digging themselves out."

An'desha whistled. "Sounds pretty grim."

"Huh." Karal was already on to something else. "Well, if Kerowyn is still counting on 'General Winter' to starve them out, she's in trouble. The supplies are holding up very well; they even have a warehouse full of frozen meat. Oh—I've got the name of the man in charge of the whole army, it's "Grand Duke Tremane." That's a name we've heard a time or two."

Indeed it was, and usually it was with something complimentary attached to it. The men of the Imperial Army had both a competent and a popular commander, and that wasn't always the case.

"Let's not tell Kerowyn unless we find out we can't make any headway with our idea, shall we?" Natoli suggested delicately. "I don't want her to try something that might make the Imperials nervous. I'd rather they weren't nervous as long as Solaris keeps attending Grand Council meetings."

An'desha nodded vigorously, and so did Karal. "Solaris keeps trying to get me accepted as her trusted representative, but I'm still too young for most of the Council members to think of as a real envoy. And as long as they are thinking that way, she's either going to have to find someone to replace me or keep showing up here herself." He sighed. "I'm tempted to think that she likes getting away. Maybe she does; she doesn't get out of the High Temple grounds anymore, so maybe this is a nice change of scene for her."

They watched the man write out several more copies of the same set of orders, until Karal and Natoli were cross-eyed with boredom and An'desha felt his control slipping with fatigue. Finally, he let the image dissolve and broke the spell.

"That's all for now," he said. "We'll have to try again tomorrow."

The next day, with their scrying session sandwiched in between other duties, was just as boring and disappointing as the first in many ways. But on the other hand, they soon learned that the orders being copied were actually straight from the hand of Duke Tremane himself—and in An'desha's opinion, they showed a remarkable amount of that sense they were all looking for in a contact. Dared he hope that Duke Tremane would prove to be the man they needed?

Finally, very late on the third day of their vigilant watching, the clerk was summoned out of his tiny office. They followed his image through hallways and up staircases, until he was stopped by a pair of well-armed guards outside a door. An'desha held his breath; the clerk identified himself and the guards let him pass. There didn't seem to be any kind of checks for someone spying by the means that they were using!

At long last they were about to see the Enemy himself, the author of so many of their troubles, Grand Duke Tremane—

That's him? That's the enemy?

"That can't be Tremane," Natoli said in an astonished voice that reflected her disbelief. "No. That's some other clerk."

But their target saluted the unprepossessing man behind the desk as "Commander Tremane, sir," and there was no doubt. No matter how much like one of his own clerks the man looked, he was Grand Duke Tremane.

"How can that be him?" Karal wondered aloud. "I expected a monster like Falconsbane, or some rock-faced hulk in armor. This man looks like—like—"

"Like a petty bureaucrat," Natoli supplied. "Like the man who makes out requisitions, the man who sees to it that you never have exactly what you need, or who demands to know how you could go through a dozen pens in a month."

"Exactly!" Karal replied. "How could anyone who looks like that have done what he did?"

"That's precisely why he could have," An'desha said slowly. "Because to a clerk, people who are not immediately around him are nothing but numbers. They aren't people, and it doesn't matter if you just ordered their deaths, because you don't know them and you never will—all you are interested in is that a certain result is achieved. The most evil people in the world might be such clerks, because everything is just another number to the ones who don't consider the implications of what they are doing, who concentrate only on making the numbers add up the right way." He shivered as old, old memories drifted through his mind. "Dying soldiers don't matter—they're 'acceptable losses.' Burned crops don't matter—they're 'denying resources to the enemy.' People starving and homeless don't matter—they're 'non-taxpayers.' All that does matter is getting the numbers to come out your way, no matter what it takes."

Both Karal and Natoli glanced at him with odd expression of interest. "How did you figure that out?" Karal asked warily.

"Ma'ar," he replied shortly. "Ma'ar thought like that—as an apprentice he was also his mage-master's petty clerk and he learned to think like that. Worse, he learned how to make other people think that way, how to reduce the enemy to a faceless, dispassionate number." He shook his head, and shook the memories away at the same time. "Well, that's how Tremane could order terrible things on a regular basis—but that doesn't mean he has. He can't have slipped as far into that way of thinking as Ma'ar or he wouldn't be as popular with his men. At least, I hope I'm right in that—give me some time to study him so I can switch the spell."

While the clerk was absolutely average, Tremane was not. He was not handsome by any means, and certainly was not An'desha's idea of the way a leader should look, but it was possible to remember his face very clearly without having to strain to find tiny flaws or other marks of identification.

Just as their clerk was dismissed, An'desha felt he had Tremane's face adequately in mind, and broke the spell.

The moment he did, exhaustion overcame him so suddenly that he actually blacked out for a moment, and came to just in time to catch himself falling face-first into the table.

He would have done exactly that if Altra hadn't made a leap across the crystal ball and inserted his body between An'desha's face and the marble table. He got a mouthful of fur, but not the crack to the head he would have if it hadn't been for Altra.

"Browf!" the Firecat grunted as An'desha's face hit the cat's side. Karal was beside him a moment later, pulling him up and then forcing his head down between his knees. Once he was in that position, his dizziness began to clear. Eventually he was able to sit up again.

"Th-thank you, Altra," he said as the Firecat stared at him with real concern. "I nearly knocked myself out!"

:You're welcome,: the Firecat replied in his mind, and followed the words with a swipe of a rough, wet tongue across his nose. :I hate having to clean up blood, and you'd have split your forehead wide open if you'd hit the table.:

He took the inevitable mug of tea from Natoli and sat there sipping it while he assessed his own condition and tried to make up his mind about what he should do next.

"I want to do another, while I still have Tremane fresh in my mind," he said after a moment.

Natoli frowned. "Is that wise?" she asked sternly.

"No," he admitted, "but it's necessary. And the two of you can catch me if I pass out again. I want Tremane; I want him before he has a chance to slip out of my mind. Once I've put a link on him, it won't be too hard to get him again."

Karal studied his face. "You think Tremane might be our man, don't you?"

He hesitated a moment before answering. "I think if he isn't our man, he'll take us to someone who is," he replied, after that pause to think. "I'm torn. I'd like to believe that he is for a great many reasons, and that's why I don't want to trust my judgment alone on this. It would be so much easier if we were able to work with the man on the top, for one thing. But I have the feeling that if I don't establish a link to him now, we might lose him."

"All right," Karal said, after a long pause of his own. "You're an adult; you have the right to decide what you're going to do for yourself. You certainly know what you're letting yourself in for if you exhaust yourself."

"Mostly one demon of a headache," An'desha told him candidly. "What I'm doing just isn't that dangerous."

In that, he was stretching the truth—or rather, not telling the whole truth. It isn't that dangerous providing that Tremane doesn't have magical protections against little scrying attempts like mine. That was the one thing that worried him. It was possible that his faint was due to brushing up against such protections. Actually touching them—

He didn't know. It wouldn't be fatal, not after the batterings such shields would have taken during the mage-storms. But it probably wouldn't be pleasant.

On the other hand, he had learned to trust his intuition about magic—knowing very well that in his case, "intuition" was really the result of an unconscious analysis of many lifetimes of accumulated memories, few of them directly available without an effort.

His "intuition" said that he'd better establish that link quickly. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with Tremane—maybe it's because of the mage-storms. The links seem to hold up well as the storms pass through, but the ability to scry past the breakwater might not hold up immediately after a storm if I don't also have a link.

The paths that magic took were seriously disrupted after a mage-storm and it took time to reestablish them. Perhaps because he was Shin'a'in, the reason seemed clear enough to him. One of the effects of the storm was to "wash" everything away ahead of its cresting power, exactly like a wave of floodwater washed away things in its path. And, like on the floodplain, when the water receded, the roads and markers that had been there before the flood were gone. You had to build them all back up again.

At least, it made sense that way to him. He'd tried to explain it to Master Levy but the artificer had only shaken his head. "If I could 'see' your magic, I could tell you if your analogy works past the surface into manipulation," he said frankly. "But I can't, and I can't test it, so I'll take your word for it. If I work out a way to test the analogy, I'll let you know. Who knows? It might give us another clue to solving our predicament."

Our predicament. It all sounds so ordinary when he calls it by that term.

He steadied himself, and when he placed his hands on the table, they were quite still, not trembling at all. "I think I must do this," he said quietly. "I know that I can with such friends standing by to help me."

Again, he established the spell, then the target; Tremane's face and upper torso appeared in the crystal, but he had someone with him other than the clerk. An'desha quickly widened his view. It was a middle-aged, ordinary woman, dressed roughly, but not poorly; she looked like a farmer's wife. There were no women with the Imperial Army, and this woman did not have the look of a camp follower about her.

The woman in question was absolutely hysterical, wringing her hands as tears poured down her face. She spoke so fast that An'desha, with his limited command of Hardornen, could not make out what was the matter.

Nor, it seemed, could Tremane. After several embarrassed and abortive attempts to calm her, he finally walked over to the door and called something An'desha did not catch.

A moment later an old man shuffled in, a man dressed in several layers of rich woolen robes. "...see if you can't get her to calm down enough to explain where she thinks the children might have gone, will you, Sejanes?" Tremane said in an undertone as they passed into the area of the spell's influence. "I can't make head or tail of what she's babbling, and nothing I do makes her anything other than hysterical."

The old man chuckled. "Boy," he said, in the Imperial tongue, "you never could manage a woman. Leave her to me."

Indeed, in a few moments, the old man did have her calmed down, in spite of the fact that his Hardornen was extremely limited and horrendously accented. He patted her shoulder and made soothing noises, and extracted information in usable bits between her bouts of sobbing.

Evidently she was a farmer, as An'desha had guessed. After the fright of seeing one of the mage-born monsters on the prowl, she had brought her family to the town to spend the winter. Restless at being more confined than they were used to, her children had taken it into their heads to make off somewhere outside the walls of Shonar. She thought they might have tried to go home, to their farm; several of them had left toys or wild animals that had been made into pets that either had been left behind in the packing or were considered to be too much of a nuisance to deal with in town. But she didn't know, because they had somehow slipped out without anyone noticing. She begged "Lord Tremane" to send men out to find them before the "boggles" did.

"Lord Tremane" sighed.

"Take her off and feed her, Sejanes. I know how the brats probably got out; I'd bet they left with the children tending the flocks or herds. The guards wouldn't notice a few more children with the animals than usual. Tell her we'll see to it; I'll take a party out to question the herding children, and we should have our hands on her wandering brats before dark."

The old man took the weeping woman off, and to An'desha's surprise, Tremane went to the next room and began pulling on heavier clothing, boots, and weapons. "Come on, boys!" he shouted out as he struggled to fit boots over two pairs of heavy socks. "Get me more volunteers, we've got some lost children again! I'll meet them in the armory, as usual."

"And thanks be to the Hundred Little Gods," he muttered as he stamped to get the boots comfortable. "At least this time it's not during the height of a blizzard."

"Unbelievable," Karal breathed, as the Commander of all the Imperial Forces, Grand Duke Tremane, trotted down the stairs to the armory to personally organize a rescue party. And not just any rescue party, but one chasing after a handful of lost Hardornen peasant children. "Solaris wouldn't do this. I don't even think Kerowyn would."

"Maybe he just appreciates the excuse to get outside," Natoli said cynically, as Tremane led his group down snow walled and -roofed tunnels. It was light enough in there; light came right through the thick snow, illuminating the interior in a blue twilight. Still, it could get very claustrophobic.

But just at that moment, Tremane's little troop got outside the walls of Shonar, and into the hard, diamond-bright sunlight, and confronted the brutal, snow-covered wilderness beyond. The only tracks were those made by the herds he had mentioned, tracks cut through snow up to the waist of a grown man with drifts going higher than his head. Moving dots off in the distance might represent the herds he had mentioned, browsing on the ends of branches and whatever greenery they could get at under the shelter of the trees. The men themselves adjusted scarves wrapped around their faces to stave off frostbite before they trekked across the snow after their leader.

"Firesong should see this," An'desha remarked. "He thinks our weather is bad; this is brutal!"

Before he forgot, and while the man's concentration was elsewhere, An'desha reached out tentatively and laid his "link" very carefully on the Grand Duke himself.

He was jolted back in his seat by the reaction of Tremane's shields. Energy backlashed painfully through him for a fraction of a heartbeat, setting every nerve screaming.

In the next moment, it was over, though Natoli and Karal were at his elbows supporting him anxiously. His head throbbed in time with his pulse, and he knew he was going to have that appalling headache he had mentioned, but otherwise he was untouched.

"I'm all right," he assured them, checking the crystal to see that the spell had not been broken.

It hadn't; what was more, Tremane did not appear to have noticed his meddling. The link was in place, and he would be able to scry the Grand Duke no matter what havoc the next mage-storm wrought among the Planes.

"Do we need to see anything more?" he asked them. Natoli shrugged, and Karal shook his head. He broke the spell and let his weight sag into their hands.

That was all—and it was certainly enough—for one day. He let them assist him back to his room and make a fuss over him; they were rather charming about it, actually. If his head hadn't hurt so much, he would actually have enjoyed it.

The next two days proved equally enlightening. The Hardornen townsfolk appeared to have adopted Tremane as their new liege lord, and were perfectly happy with the situation. And as for Tremane himself, the man was taking equal care with the town as he was with his own men. He sat in on meetings of the town Council, his own Army Healers were serving the townsfolk, and townspeople were working to help finish the interiors of Tremane's barracks. Things were not working with absolute smoothness—there were conflicts to be resolved all the time—but Shonar was not rejecting the Imperials, and Tremane was not riding roughshod over Shonar.

Even Florian remarked through Karal that Grand Duke Tremane had all the earmarks of an excellent commander in anyone's forces.

There was no doubt in An'desha's mind that the man they needed to communicate with was none other than the leader himself. He was sensible, he seemed sensitive to the needs, not only of his own people but of these who had adopted him as their leader. He was a man inclined to reason and reasonableness.

There was only one small problem.

By watching and listening they had learned one thing further from the man's own lips. He, and no other, had been the one who had ordered the assassinations that had killed Karal's beloved Master, the Karsite Sun-priest Ulrich.