by Jean Johnson
“Then send it through,” Saleria told him. “I’ll get ready to catch it and the scroll.”
“Thank you.”
Rising, she braced herself, closed her eyes, and reached into the energies woven into the roof of the Bower dome. Sending and receiving things via the riftways was not quite as smooth as what she had heard from the other Guardians regarding their Fountainways. For one, it was often pure luck as to which rift an object might come from. For another, she was here, not beneath the base of any of the three locus trees.
Still, however incomplete the design of the post-Shattering Grove seemed to be, the riftways had been rerouted to come here. It was the conversion from magical tunnel to enspelled root-based tunnel, to the air over her head that was rough. Sinking mental fingers into the network, she shaped her magic into a cushioned lining for the passages.
It was a good thing, too; the mirror thumped and tumbled three times in the transition. Even with Guardian Kerric’s promises that it was nigh indestructible, her heart still missed a few beats in the mental scramble to soften the blows. A bright swirl of light opened up over her head, and the mirror descended, slowing as her magic shifted with a murmur into a netlike shape. The scroll wasn’t quite so worrisome; it did bang about a bit as well, but it arrived intact, landing in a second, smaller weaving.
She did heed the instinct to check them for possible magical traps, but the scroll was simply a scroll, and the mirror was exactly what it was supposed to be: polished, silvered glass in a metal frame, both carefully enchanted for transmitting visual and audible scryings in both directions upon command, and only upon command, but otherwise unsuitable for use as a mirror-Gate or a spying device. There were too many subtle flaws in the glass, physically preventing such a use; plus the spells involved against scrycasting and anti-scrying were far more refined than what she had seen before. But not to the point of being completely unfamiliar.
Since she didn’t exactly have a place to set the mirror, she leaned it against a mossy boulder, tucked the scroll into her belt, and approached the northeast communications pool. Swirling the mist up out of the surface, she attempted to contact the Tower. “Guardian Kerric, are you there?”
It took him a long moment to answer. “Yes, I’m here; sorry, several conversations at once. Did you get the mirror and the scroll?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“. . . And have you enchanted it yet with the spell to connect it to the Fountainways?” he prompted her.
“Oh. Right. I’ll, um, be back shortly.” Grateful he couldn’t see her blush, Saleria canceled the mist-spell and went looking for the scroll over by the mirror. It took her a few moments to realize it was tucked into her belt. Blushing harder, grateful no one could see her acting like a fool, she pulled it out and worked loose the red ribbon binding the spindles together.
The instructions were thankfully written in Katani, though the script was a bit archaic in style. Puzzling through them took her several minutes, and practicing the spell—without magic empowering it—took long enough to be aware of just how golden-red the sunlight had turned. A glance to the west showed the sun just beginning to touch the top of the Grove wall, which meant sunset was a very short time away indeed.
As much as she wanted to run through the complex mix of verbal and gestural components a few more times to be sure of the images meant to be held in her thoughts while shaping the energies at hand, she didn’t have much time left. Drawing a deep breath, she squared her shoulders, rested the unrolled scroll on the boulder, and started chanting, fingers, wrists, and elbows moving in graceful, precise angles, helping her to shape the intent of her magic with body as well as mind.
The glass of the mirror flared when she released the last bit of magic, fingers flicking upward. The light slowly faded, turning the surface a soothing shade of sky-blue. A few seconds later, the mirror chimed and the blue started to pulse and ripple in shades both lighter and darker. It was, Saleria realized, very much like the “hold” pattern used by the Council of Mages on the few occasions she had needed to contact them.
The last time she had seen it had been while waiting to speak with Councillor Thannig, in charge of the Department of Prophecies. Stooping, she tapped the mirror and stated her activation word, pushing a bit of will and magic behind it. “Baol.”
The blue field shifted immediately to an image of a curly-haired man in a brown tunic that fastened down the middle of his chest with odd, ribbon-knotted buttons. Behind him, she could see a book-lined wall, but the lighting that fell on his face didn’t quite match the lighting on the books. Some sort of privacy illusion masking the real background, she realized. Like the blue backgrounds some of the Councillors use.
“Greetings! You must be Guardian Saleria,” the man on the other end stated, flashing her a brief smile. It lit up his gray eyes, giving him a charming air. His voice, no longer distorted by the echoing effects of the Fountainways, was as familiar as his face was not.
“And you are Guardian Kerric,” she guessed, and received a nod in return.
“Correct.” Again, he smiled, then sighed and rolled his eyes a little. “If you will kindly wait a few moments, I’m still trying to get Guardian Koro through the steps of connecting his mirror to the Fountainways. There is a privacy screening spell imbued in the mirror that blanks out anything beyond four yards—roughly two body-lengths—from the surface of the mirror. You can choose a plain blue background, a library like mine, or from among a few other choices, though it’s currently set to blue if you don’t want to do anything.
“Otherwise, you could perhaps spend the time while you wait hanging your mirror upright, instead leaving it at this awkward angle you have it at,” he added, peering at her. “But do leave the link open; the moment everyone is connected, we will begin. Oh—hang the mirror sideways; it will help with what I’m going to be showing everyone. It’s been strung on the back for both vertical and horizontal. If you’ll excuse me, I need to put your link on hold . . .”
“Right,” she murmured, as he shifted his arm below her field of view and made the screen turn a rippling blue again. Straightening, she blinked, then turned in a circle, peering around the sunset-gilded Bower, her mind finally processing his last suggestion. “. . . Hang it from what?”
Somehow, Saleria didn’t think hanging it from the sap-dripping vines would be a good idea. Lacking anything else, she gave up and dug in her pouch. Grease pencil in hand—no mage went anywhere without some means of scribing power-focusing runes, and chalk was too easily dissolved in the open-to-the-weather Grove—she scribbled a line of markings along the upper edge of the mirror. Investing energy with a snap of her fingers and a lift of her other palm, Saleria floated the mirror up off the moss-cushioned ground. Then winced. It was the wrong orientation for Guardian Kerric’s request.
“Bollocks,” she muttered, and quickly scribbled a second set of runes along one of the long edges. A twist of her hand shifted the orientation of the rectangular frame from vertical to horizontal. It continued to pulse blue for a while more, long enough for the golden light of the setting sun to retreat up to the top of the Bower . . . which was when Saleria noticed something odd.
What she had thought were budlike, waxy nodules on the underside of the Bower weavings were now starting to glow. The light was soft and pastel, and would not be noticeable from a distance, but it was very similar to the pale blue glow of the warding stones set in the Grove wall. The nodules also came in more colors than blue. Soft pink, pale green, watery yellow, faint amber, dim lilac . . .
As the sun finished setting and dusk closed in, the different colors combined into a soft glow about as strong as the light from both Brother and Sister Moons when they were full. Saleria glanced up at the sky to make sure it wasn’t actually moonlight allowing her to see. Sister Moon was up in the east, slowly waxing toward the full of the coming summer solstice, but the larger curve of Brother Moon
had already gone down, and had been a sliver, nowhere near full. Not for over two more weeks. The light cast from those nodes along the underside of the Bower was brighter than what the smaller of the two moons could cast, though not by much.
I suspect there is some long-forgotten way to make them glow brighter, too, Saleria decided, turning in a slow circle so she could peer at the fist-sized bumps. But I’ve always completed my rounds quickly, then tried to put the Grove out of my mind . . . and the few times trouble has stirred, I always patrolled the wall paths, not the interior. Her next thought annoyed her, furrowing her brow with a frown. What else do I not know about my own Guardianship, thanks to having had to waste the last three years of my life just trying to keep up with plant containment and prayer management?
Her annoyance was strong enough to thoroughly squash that inner voice, the nasally one that sounded like High Prelate Nestine. Bollocks to the lot of them! I am in charge, and I will decide what to do with this place. Somehow. With Aradin’s help, and maybe a few others’ . . .
The mirror chimed again, rippling into the image of Guardian Kerric. “There we go. Now that everyone is on the scrycasting together . . . allow me to make all the introductions.” His hands lifted in odd poking and snatching gestures, and small rectangles started to appear down either side of his centrally aligned image. “Starting with your top leftmost corners and going down each column, we have . . . Saleria of the Grove, Dominor of Nightfall . . . Migel of Althinac . . . Keleseth of Senod-Gra, Pelai of the Painted Temple . . .”
Saleria didn’t see her own image in the top left corner, but she did see a man with long, dark brown hair and the slightly slanted eyes of a fellow Katani, followed by a man with a more rugged face, round eyes, and shorter, darker hair. Both were clad in dark tunics, though they were cut differently. Following him were two women, one elderly, with a tanned, wrinkled face and gray-streaked white hair that fell in waves to her red-clad shoulders. The other had a very round face by comparison, with high cheekbones and almond eyes, though the most eye-catching things about her were the subtle markings drawn on her skin. Some continued all the way down onto her shoulders, visible beneath the straps of a sleeveless black vest. It was a garment that was far too daring for most Katani to have worn but which looked oddly right against her inked flesh.
One of the two dark-haired men introduced interrupted Kerric. Saleria belatedly identified him as the one named Migel. “Wait, please—I thought Guardian Tipa’thia was in charge of the Painted Temple. Who is this Pelai? How do we know she isn’t a usurper?”
“She’s not a usurper,” the elderly woman, Keleseth, retorted tartly. “She’s a duly appointed apprentice to Tipa’thia. I’ve already worked with young Pelai on several occasions, at Tipa’thia’s request. The girl is trustworthy, and has my respect.”
The woman they were talking about, the round-faced, tanned woman with strange markings inked in lines both subtle and bold on her face, throat, and what could be seen of her shoulders, shook her head. “It is right to doubt me; I am only an apprentice. But Tipa’thia . . . Guardian Tipa’thia is suffering from an ailment of the heart, and cannot withstand the rigors of her Guardianship at this time. The Healers reassure me she will recover within the week, but it is not the first time, and so I have been set to watch in her place. I am not sure of what help I can be, since I am not fully attuned. But what help I can give, I will.”
“You can be helpful, Pelai, because you are there in Mendhi where some of these invasions may take place,” Kerric asserted. “Back to the introductions, if we don’t mind?”
Saleria nodded, glad to get things back on track. With eighteen Guardians to keep track of—counting herself, which she could not see, as well as Kerric’s larger-than-the-rest image in the center of the mirror—that was still a lot of people.
“After Pelai is Kelezam of Charong, Mother Naima of Koral-tai—whom several of you know was a past Guardian and is standing in for the current Guardian Serina in the final weeks of her pregnancy—plus Ilaiea of the Moonlands, and Koro of the Scales . . .”
Kelezam . . . could have been either male or female. The eyes were brown, the brows dark, the skin lightly tanned, but the hair and the face from nose down were covered in a dark blue cloth that had been wrapped to conceal the Guardian’s identity. Mother Naima also had her hair covered, but only in a white wimple and head-veil, leaving her squarish, middle-aged face exposed. She had a kind smile and hazel eyes, and reminded Saleria of one of her early teachers in the Katani Church.
The woman after Naima was also clad in white, but Ilaiea had no head covering; instead, she had long, straight hair so pale, it looked cream, with odd, pale gold eyes. It took Saleria a moment to realize the woman’s pupils weren’t completely round, but were instead shaped more vertically, almost like a cat’s. Only the light golden tan to her skin kept her from looking like an odd albino. Guardian Koro, on the other hand, had darker tanned skin, jet-black brows, and strange, round viewing lenses perched on his nose. The large crystals were tinted a rich cerulean, deep enough that the exact color of his eyes remained hidden behind them, and his hair—undoubtedly black—was more or less hidden by a deep, dark brown cloak draped over his head and shoulders.
It was clear that not every Guardian wanted their physical identity known to the rest. Saleria herself had no reason to hide, but then this wasn’t a group of petitioners crowding around her in a marketplace. She shook off the thought of her earlier encounter as the Guardian of the Tower continued.
“And on the right, top to bottom, nearest column first . . . we have Daemon of Pasha, Alonnen of the Vortex . . . Marton of Fortune’s Hall, and Suela of Fortune’s Nave,” Kerric introduced, nodding to the scrying windows set to his immediate right, in between glancing downward, no doubt at whatever out-of-sight notes he had taken on who was who. Saleria couldn’t blame him; there were a lot of Guardians in this meeting.
The first, Daemon, was a man in his prime somewhere between Aradin’s and Teral’s ages, with short blond hair, blue eyes, and light skin. The second male was a more ruddy-faced man who wore green-tinted viewing lenses much like Guardian Koro’s, a soft woolen cap much like the head of a medium gray mushroom to conceal most of his hair, and a mouth-muffling scarf knitted from darker shades of gray. His nose was a bit sharp, sticking out above the muffler almost like a raptor’s beak, and his eyebrows an indeterminate shade of brown.
On the other hand, Guardian Marton had brown, curly hair and hazel eyes, his somewhat overweight face—unusual in a mage, where expending magic meant expending life-energy—looking a bit older than Daemon’s, unconcealed by anything that could impede identification. The woman in the image below his had sun-streaked light brown hair and light brown eyes, with similar facial features, sort of ovalish heads with pointed chins, high hairlines, and high cheekbones. They didn’t exactly look like siblings, but they did seem to be from the same nation, probably Fortuna, from what their titles suggested.
“. . . And in the final, far right row, we have Tuassan of Amaz, Shon Tastra of Darkhana, Sir Vedell of Arbra, and Callaia, newly appointed Guardian of Freedom’s Thought,” Kerric finished.
Saleria nodded at Tuassan; his skin was a rich dark brown, the hue of someone who lived close to the Sun’s Belt, much as those who lived in the far north of Katan could boast. She knew Amaz was a kingdom along the southern coast of Aiar, just to the north of the Belt. Tuassan was one of the four she had worked with before, and it was good to actually see his face for once.
Shon Tastra of Darkhana . . . she belatedly realized was a Darkhanan Witch. He also looked older than Teral, with greenish eyes, long, light brown hair streaked heavily with gray, narrower shoulders, and the same ubiquitous black-lined, sleeve-bearing cloak that Aradin Teral wore, visible when he lifted a hand in greeting. The outer layer of his robe, however, was a shade of blue just a little bit darker than the masking background the mirrors provided. When he held himself
still, only his head, throat, and a stripe of dark green tunic down the middle of his chest could be easily seen.
Sir Vedell was also older than average, with a gray-streaked beard, short-cropped brown hair, fair skin, and brown eyes. A scar marred one cheek, but otherwise he looked like any confident man just past his prime. Callaia, the last of the women and the last Guardian to be introduced, looked rather young. She also looked rather sober; either that, or possibly annoyed by this meeting.
Her viewing lenses were grayish and small, unlike Koro’s or Alonnen’s; the wire frame perched on the end of her nose, allowing her blue gray eyes to look out over their tops. Of all of them, her hair was the curliest, framing her face in thick ringlets. For a brief moment, Saleria wished she had hair that luxuriously curly, instead of merely wavy. But then it’s probably a pain to comb out and keep tangle-free . . .
Having given everyone a chance to examine their counterparts, Kerric cleared his throat and resumed speaking. “Unfortunately, while there are a lot of you attending this call, you are the only Guardians I could get to cooperate with this endeavor. Nor are all of you going to be affected directly by what the problem is, unless circumstances keep changing randomly . . . which they have been, so there are no guarantees. But the more minds we bend to this problem, the greater the hope is that some of us will have clues to what is going on, and that all of us will be able to think of a solution.”
“What is the problem, Guardian Kerric?” the last woman to be introduced, the curly-haired blonde named Callaia, asked him tersely, almost tartly. “Forgive my impatience, but it is early morning here, and I have much to do today.”
“I may know something of what is wrong already, but it is sunset here, and I would like to retire for the night at a reasonable hour,” Saleria added. “Can you summarize it for the others?”