Had he been set up to fail from the beginning?
Tremane ground his teeth as he pursued that thought. He had been under the impression that he was the Emperor's own choice for successor. Charliss could have been lying, or he could have changed his mind between now and when he had left. He could not ignore the possibility that Charliss now favored one of his enemies.
Could Charliss realistically get rid of him if he succeeded, against all odds and the Emperor's own opposition?
Probably not. A victory here would make him too popular to get rid of. Charliss would be forced to name him as his successor. And once I am back in Court, at his side, I think I can repair any damage that was done while I was gone.
That left him with new problems, though. I am going to have to assume that there will be interference with my orders and requisitions once the orders reach the Empire. Supplies will come in slowly, not at all, or not enough. Reinforcements may not come in time. So I will have to assume the worst and issue my orders well in advance, for more than I think I will need, once our communications are back.
And if communications could not be restored? That was another possibility.
I will have to plan to at least hold my ground with no help. A grim prospect. I have to find a way to throw as much interference in the ranks of the Valdemarans as I can....
Well, what had made them able to turn the tide against Ancar? What was enabling them to hold their own now?
If this was their doing, where had the magic come from?
Allies.
He ran his finger around and around the rim of the empty goblet. The new allies—that was how Valdemar was holding her own. So find a way to make those alliances fall apart, and Valdemar would probably have enough trouble at home to prevent any more interference in the situation in Hardorn.
He grimaced again, but this time with distaste. He used spies, he gathered unsavory information, but there was one aspect of this game of empire that he hated. Nevertheless, to buy himself time, he would use it, because he must win the game or die. It was not only his own life that lay in the balance of whether he won or lost, but the lives of all of those who had linked their fortunes with his. If he fell, his family and all their retainers fell as well.
He rang the bell that summoned one of his servants. There was one certain way to ensure that the tentative alliance of Valdemar, Karse, and Rethwellan melted away like snow in the summer, and that was to put one of his own agents into play. It was time for his Spymaster to go to work.
It was time for his Spymaster to make use of those little copies of that souvenir of Valdemar that had come into the Emperor's possession.
"Send me Lord Velcher," he said to the man when the servant arrived. "Tell him that I finally have need of his particular services."
Thirteen
Karal sat quietly on his bed, his legs crossed beneath him, waiting. His eyes were closed and his breathing was steady.
Ulrich would have said he was "meditating," of course; in fact, that was precisely what most of his teachers would say he was doing. Karal felt uncomfortable with that word. It implied that he was trying to touch the Sunlord in some way. It also implied a certain quality of "holiness" he felt equally uncomfortable with.
He certainly didn't think he was very religious, even if he was an acolyte of the Sunlord. He hadn't really wanted to be in Vkandis' Service. It had just turned out that way, due to fate, Vkandis' Will, or luck.
Still, he was being visited by a Firecat, and he had agreed to give An'desha some kind of moral support. So while he really didn't want to call any further attention to himself, it seemed to him that if he was just quiet enough, and patient, Vkandis might, well, dribble some kind of guidance into him.
So he waited, keeping his mind as free of thoughts as he could, hoping for a dribble, and trying not to ask for one.
Nothing came, though, no matter what he thought of—concentric rings in a pool of water, raindrops sprinkling on a still pond—and he gave up when his feet began to go numb. He opened his eyes and stretched, and discovered that at least the mental exercise had relaxed his physical muscles, even if it had made his extremities pin-tingly.
He was just about to swing his feet down to the floor, when he was abruptly no longer alone.
Altra flashed into the middle of the room, every hair on end, eyes as round and wide as a pair of blue plates.
:It's happening!: the Firecat exclaimed. :Brace yourself!:
And then, as abruptly as he had appeared, Altra vanished, without telling Karal just what "it" was that was happening.
He sat there, staring stupidly at the spot where Altra had been, for two or three breaths. Then he didn't have to wonder what "it" was.
From his point of view, the entire room heaved and rolled for just a moment, as if he was a speck on a carpet someone had decided to pick up and shake. Even though there were no outward signs that any actual movement was happening, his stomach dropped, and he clung to the bed as a wave of dizziness overcame him for no more than three heartbeats.
Then it was over.
That was all? What had Altra been so excited about? It was strange, yes, and felt a little like an earthquake was supposed to feel, but nothing in the room was disturbed, so obviously the "quake" wasn't really physical. Unless—was this some symptom of a disease? Could he be falling ill? Could it be some kind of plague, and was Altra warning him that an attack was coming?
Could Ulrich have it? If Ulrich was sick—
He's not strong; something serious could kill him! Karal was trained in basic field surgery, as were all acolytes. If his mentor was hurt, he could at least diagnose major problems. He was off his bed and out of his room without another thought; he wrenched open the door to Ulrich's room, nearly separating his wrist from his forearm, to find his mentor sitting up so stiffly in his chair that he might have had a metal rod for a spine. Ulrich's face was pale, and beads of cold sweat trickled down his temples; his white-knuckled hands clutched the arms of his chair, and the pupils of his eyes were mere pinpoints.
Ulrich blinked and suddenly relaxed, slumping back into his chair. Color came back into his face, and he raised a trembling hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
"Master? Master Ulrich?" Karal said, uncertainly. "Shall I get you some help? A Healer? Are you ill?"
"No—no, don't bother, my son," Ulrich replied, his voice tremulous with fatigue and other things Karal couldn't identify. "This is nothing a Healer can deal with. Did you feel anything, just now?"
"I was dizzy for a moment, and I felt like I was falling," Karal replied promptly. "Nothing more, though. Should I have felt something more?"
Ulrich managed a faint and tremulous smile, and shook his head. "Not necessarily. Altra warned me in time to brace myself. This is what he has been waiting for, what he has been warning all of us about, obliquely. And this may well be what your friend An'desha has been sensing would descend upon us. It was a mage-storm, Karal, but one unlike any we have ever seen."
"That?" Karal shook his head; Ulrich wasn't making any sense. "How could that be dangerous? It was no more than a little moment of dizziness!"
"For you, perhaps," the Priest replied sharply. "But for those of us who are mages—we just spent an eternity in that 'little moment' and for us, it was like being dropped into a cauldron and stirred! I suspect that the more mage-power one has, the worse one would be affected."
Karal gasped. "Then An'desha—"
"And Firesong as well," Ulrich replied, looking alarmed. "They will have suffered worse than I. They may well have injured themselves, falling—at the least they will be disoriented. Go to them! I can manage for myself."
Karal didn't need Ulrich to tell him twice—he shot off like an arrow from a bow, and ran all the way from the Palace to the secluded ekele.
It never occurred to him that he might find the two of them in an—embarrassing position—until he actually reached the door of the dwelling. He paused for only a moment, his hand on the latc
h, before going in anyway. After all, he would be embarrassed, and that hardly mattered, not when the other two might be hurt. He let himself into the garden.
There was no one there.
He headed for the staircase. "An'desha?" he called over the sound of falling water. "Firesong?"
"Here—" came a weak reply from above. It wasn't An'desha's voice; it had to be Firesong. He dashed up the stairs and found the silver-haired Hawkbrother lying in a heap with one leg twisted under him, his face as pale as his hair, and obviously dazed. His firebird was clenched to a chair arm nearby, scorching the wood in its agitation.
"My leg—" The Adept gestured at the offending limb. "I fell down."
"Don't move; I know some field surgery." This at least was something he could do. He knew enough to check for broken and dislocated bones, and if Firesong was hurt, he could go for a real Healer.
Firesong looked at him, and though his eyes were glazed, they held some recognition in them. And questions.
"What—who—" Firesong began. Karal answered the questions as best he could.
"My name is Karal, sir," he said, "I'm a friend of An'desha's. I'll tell you about that later. You've probably seen me during Council sessions, with my master Ulrich, the Karsite envoy. I think you've sprained your ankle, and it probably hurts like anything; can you flex your toes, then your foot, carefully?"
Grimacing with pain, Firesong did so. "I—ah!—if I can do this, nothing is broken. Find An'desha," the Adept ordered. "Tell me the rest when we know he's all right."
"Yes, sir." Karal left the Hawkbrother sitting on the floor of the ekele massaging his ankle, and sprinted up to the kitchen, calling An'desha's name as he ran. The third time he called, he got an answer.
"Here," An'desha said. "Here—" Karal found him in a small room, draped to look like the inside of a tent. His friend was curled up in a ball on the floor, but it didn't look as if he was hurt. Karal dropped to his knees beside the young mage.
"An'desha?" he said, touching the mage's arm tentatively.
"I am all right, Karal," An'desha whispered, slowly opening his eyes. "I believe it is over for now."
"You didn't hurt yourself, did you?" Karal asked anxiously.
"No—I felt it building, and something warned me to fall to the ground." An'desha blinked, as if he was forcing his eyes to focus again. "It is well I did so. I think—I think this, or something like this, is what I have been fearing." He blinked again, and astonishment and relief spread over his features.
"Karal? That dread I was feeling, waiting for something terrible to come—it is gone!"
"Can you stand?" Karal asked anxiously. "Can you walk? Your friend Firesong is hurt, and—"
He was not able to get anything more out of his mouth; An'desha scrambled to his feet, unassisted, and was already out of the door and running before Karal was standing. By the time Karal reached the two of them, An'desha had supported Firesong over to a couch, and was making distressed sounds over his rapidly-swelling ankle.
Karal blushed, his face and ears hot. "I'll—ah—get a Healer," he stammered, leaving An'desha to explain where and how he and Karal had met.
By the time Karal returned with a Healer, he was also full of other news. In general, there was no real physical damage to anything in or around the Palace, and the worst physical hurt seemed to be a couple of bruises, bloody noses, and Firesong's ankle. From all he had been able to make out, some of the weaker magical defenses about the capital had been taken down by the storm and would have to be put up again, but there wasn't much more to worry about. If this was what An'desha's attacks of fear and dread had been about, it was certainly anticlimactic.
Besides the Healer, Karal brought orders for Firesong and An'desha to come to an emergency meeting of the allies and the Council, though, which tended to make him think that there had been effects outside of Haven that were a lot more serious than disorientation and the disruption of weak shields.
He was right.
"Once you are outside the shields that Elspeth, Darkwind, and Firesong erected to protect Haven, there are places all across the country where very weird things have happened," said Skif. "I went out for a fast reconnoiter with Cymry, and I saw some of them for myself. There are places where rock turned to liquid for an instant, places where circles of land have been cut out as if someone was making cookies, and circles of land from somewhere else were fitted into the holes! People brought me insects, plants, fish—even animals, all strange, all things I've never seen before in my life! People are scared."
"Surely this was the work of the Empire," the Seneschal began, but oddly enough, it was the Lord Marshal who shook his head, and Kerowyn who echoed that headshake.
The Lord Marshal deferred to the Herald Captain with a raised eyebrow and a nod, as if to say, "After you."
"It can't have been the Empire's doing, unless it was some new magic they were trying that backfired on them," Kerowyn told them all, drumming her fingers nervously on the table in front of her. "I already have short reports from two Mindspeakers behind their lines, and word is that their forces have suffered much more damage than ours have. They depend more than we do on magic, and right now they are working with most of their support systems reduced. By that, I mean they have no means of communicating between groups except by messenger, and no Gates back to the Empire for supplies and reinforcing troops. In a word, gentlemen and ladies," she said, with a certain satisfaction, "at the moment, they are well and truly flattened. The only thing that could have hit them worse would have been an army-wide outbreak of dysentery."
Silence followed that pronouncement, and Queen Selenay sat back a little in her seat. "I trust you'll forgive me if I take some pleasure in that news," she said dryly. "Base though such a sentiment is—"
"Forgive me, Majesty," Darkwind said, interrupting her. "As a mage and an Adept, I cannot help but be more concerned, rather than less. These physical effects—it seems to me that they indicate something very serious. They worry me more than the effects upon magic. How do we know this thing will not come again?"
He turned to Firesong as if for confirmation, and the handsome Hawkbrother nodded in complete agreement. "If we cannot tell what it is and from whence it came," Firesong said gravely, "we cannot hope to judge whether it will fall upon us again, nor when."
He glanced aside at Karal, who was busy jotting down notes. Karal had caught a couple of strange looks from him, but otherwise, he had said nothing about Karal's acquaintance with An'desha.
"And you don't think this will be an isolated incident." Selenay's inflection made that a statement rather than a question.
"Absolutely," Firesong replied. "And before we can make any guesses as to what it may be, we need to know more about these physical effects—what they are, at what intervals—"
As the other mages chimed in, Elspeth and Treyvan, Hydona and Master Ulrich, and even An'desha venturing a word or two, it became obvious to Karal that for this, the rest of the Council and allies were superfluous. It must have been obvious to the Queen as well, for after regaining order and promising all of the resources needed for whatever the mages required, she ended the Council session and left the chamber to the mages and Prince Daren as her representative.
Karal remained as well, in his usual capacity, but he soon found himself drafted to serve another purpose altogether.
"We need a view frrrom above," the male gryphon said, flatly. "If therrre isss a patterrrn, we may only sssee it frrrom above."
"That's true enough, old friend," Darkwind agreed. "But you should have a human with you. You two aren't familiar enough to the average Valdemaran that some poor farmer is going to be able to take the sight of you lightly. I'd hate to have to pick arrows out of your rump. And it should be someone with hands, and at least a mediocre talent at drawing sketches of what you see."
"Rrr." The gryphon ground his beak, then glanced around the table. His eye lighted on Karal.
"Him," the gryphon said. "He isss light a
nd sssmall enough, and intelligent. He can take notesss. With yourrr perrrmisssion?" he added, nodding graciously at Ulrich.
The Priest looked the gryphon straight in the eye, as Karal shivered with mingled shock and apprehension. The gryphons wanted to fly with him? Fly? Like a bird?
"It is up to my secretary to speak for himself," Ulrich said, with a nod to Karal. "I have no objections, but rumors to the contrary, we of Karse do not make slaves of our subordinates. If he chooses not to volunteer, I shall not force him."
"Well?" the gryphon asked bluntly, turning his huge eyes on Karal.
Karal swallowed hard. "Ah—yes, sir," he replied, managing not to stammer. "If you think I will be of help. I've never done anything like this. I might only get in your way."
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