Storm Warning v(ms-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  "Did you see any of the strange animals some people have described?" Elspeth asked.

  Karal shook his head. "No, nothing that didn't seem quite normal, just out of place where we found it."

  "I found some of the strange animals, and even a bird," Darkwind spoke up. "Or rather, Vree found them and caught them. I had the impression that the disturbances were not regular and not in a pattern, but it hadn't occurred to me that many of them would simply look just like the land around them."

  An'desha listened with a sinking heart. Oh, this sounded far too much like that ancient memory for his satisfaction! I had hoped they would prove me wrong, but they are only proving me more and more right!

  An'desha simply sat and absorbed it all, unable to garner the will to speak. Not just yet, anyway.

  Darkwind described the creatures that he had caught and brought back; the other mages who had gone in other directions added their observations. Karal offered more comments of his own, calmly, though with obvious deference to the others. He wouldn't venture any conclusions, but based on his own figures and those of the rest, he began to plot the rest of the observations on a larger map of the land around Haven. Karal's relative self-assurance—and his and Ulrich's occasional glances of encouragement—finally gave An'desha the courage to speak up in a moment of silence.

  "You all know—what, who I was," he said softly, his eyes fixed on a spot in the middle of the table.

  Every eye in the place turned toward him. Karal stopped writing.

  "I still have Mornelith Falconsbane's memories," he went on, haltingly. "And those of the lives he led before he was Falconsbane. I knew this mage-storm when it struck. I recognized it somehow, out of those memories, though I did not know what it was, exactly, nor how I recognized it." He swallowed; his throat and mouth felt terribly dry, and his hands were cold. "Please—please, do not think me crazy. What I say is true, as true as I can say it. With the help of Master Ulrich, I—I sought answers to that recognition. I believe I know what this storm was, what caused it, and even why."

  The silence was so thick he heard the hiss of the lantern flames behind him. "Please be patient with me—this was the oldest memory I have ever touched, possibly the oldest that Falconsbane himself had. It came from a time when Falconsbane was a mage and a king called Ma'ar."

  The gryphons hissed as one, hackles and crest-feathers smoothed flat to their heads, and sat straight up on their haunches. No one else moved.

  "The memory of a storm like this one—it came after a Gate was destroyed. Not a temporary Gate like we know, but a permanent Gate—one that was held ready to be opened at any moment. It was a small storm, and the effects were limited, but they were very like what you have been describing here." He swallowed again; what followed had been very, very hard to cope with, even at the remove of several hundreds, if not thousands, of years. "But when Ma'ar—died—it was with the knowledge that his realm, and that of his enemy, were both about to fall to a suicidal cataclysm. Both realms, rich in magic, built with magic, were about to have every spell within them broken within moments of his death. Many permanent Gates, shields, devices, all—and all at once. He died before he himself experienced that cataclysm, but the effects would have been very like those we are seeing now, but much, much worse, lasting for days, and traveling across continents."

  "Continents?" someone asked. An'desha nodded.

  "Hence, that it is called 'the Cataclysm' in the old texts," Ulrich murmured as if to himself.

  "But that wasss verrry long ago," Hydona said, puzzled. "What hasss that to do with usss?"

  He took another deep breath. This was even harder to speak of, but for a different reason. "I do not often tell of this, but when I was entrapped within my body by Falconsbane, I was aided by two—presences." Please, oh please, do not let them doubt my sanity!

  "Avatars of the Star-Eyed, he means," Firesong interjected, and reached under the table to squeeze his hand encouragingly. "The blade Need spoke to me of these, more than once. I believe they were what they claimed to be and so does she; after all, some of you saw them when they unmade both Nyara and An'desha, giving them back more human likenesses."

  "An'desha has told me of these Avatars," Karal spoke up. "I believe them to be true Visitations also."

  An'desha cleared his throat self-consciously, feeling his ears and neck growing hot with a flush he could not control. "They warned me then, several times, that there was something terrible in the future. Something that threatened not only Valdemar alone, but all our lands. I thought it was only Falconsbane, but I continued to have terrible dreams, and spells of great fear after he was gone. Now that this mage-storm has come upon us and I have searched out that old memory, I—I have—" he shook his head. "I am no great mage, for all the potential power that Firesong thinks I hold, but there are some things that are now making dreadful sense to me. The Avatars spoke to me once of 'power and chaos echoing back across time.' I thought that meant Falconsbane, but now I do not think so. I have the memory of how much power lay in all those spells that were released in that long-ago time of the Mage Wars. Ma'ar believed in his last moments that it was more than the fabric of the world could bear, to have it all released in a single moment—and as importantly, to have two such centers of power interacting with each other. I think that what happened then is about to echo back upon us now—but in reverse of the original. I think that the storm we just experienced is only the warning."

  An'desha drew a halting breath, and summed it up as best he could. "What we experienced was the little chill breeze that presages a hurricane."

  Firesong stared at him, stunned. Now it was Treyvan's turn to break the silence.

  "It isss in the trrraditionsss of the Kaled'a'in k'Lesshya that therrre werrre weeksss of mage-ssstorrrmsss following the death of Urrrtho," the gryphon said with steady calm. "The old chrrroniclesss sssay that it wasss imposssible to dessscribe how terrrible they werrre, in effect, and in ssstrrrength. The verrry land wasss torrrn assssunderrr, and even time ssseemed to flow ssstrrrangely forrr the yearrr afterrr."

  "There is an oral tradition of the same among the Tayledras," Firesong managed and shook his head. "I can't even begin to guess what effect the release of that much mage-energy would have. If it could turn the land around the King's Palace where Ma'ar was into a cratered lake, and the land around Urtho's Tower into a plain of glass, there is no reason to suppose it might not even travel through the fabric of time itself. So many spells and wards are linked to time as if it were a physical presence—and even small magical explosions wreck the latticework of magic for a dozen leagues around them."

  The others turned their attention back to An'desha, who looked horribly pale. "I do not have the learning to guess at more," he said humbly. "And if you will please forgive me, I do not wish to delve more into those memories that might give me that learning—at least not tonight. They make me feel ill."

  "I have knowledge of the old Kaled'a'in magicsss," Treyvan rumbled. "Asss passsed to Vikterrren and Ssskandrrranon by Urrrtho himssself. The making of Gatesss warrrps time, asss waterrr warpsss wood; the making of perrrmanent Gatesss warrrps it morrre. Therrre werrre at leassst twenty sssuch Gatesss at Urrrtho's Towerrr, perrrhapsss morrre. Therrre werrre all the weaponsss that Urrrtho would not ussse, forrr they werrre too terrrible. Therrre werrre the prrrotectionsss on the Towerrr, and the magicssss of the placssesss we grrrryphonsss werrre borrrn."

  Ulrich's brows knotted with thought. "I—this goes beyond what I have learned," he said at last, "but I can tell you this; I have myself had warnings from an Avatar of Vkandis that something of this sort portended."

  Elspeth looked impatient. "You had vague warnings, An'desha had vague warnings, why didn't anyone get anything clear?"

  An'desha winced. That was a perfectly reasonable question. And he didn't have an answer.

  But Ulrich only smiled slightly. "Perhaps because even the Star-Eyed and Vkandis Himself did not know what the effect would be," he replied gen
tly. "Hear me out. When the Gods granted mankind free will, They allowed uncertainty to enter the world. Some things can be predicted; others cannot. If I may make an analogy—I can tell you that a great storm is coming. With the knowledge I have that when the wind blows such-and-so, and the glass falls, and the sky looks thusly at this time of year, I can say that there will be a storm. But I cannot predict what places will flood, how high the floodwaters will rise, what homes will be battered to bits, and what keeps struck by lightning. As this power comes back to us, I think that even the Gods could not tell exactly what form it would take, perhaps because of what we and others have done with magic since then. They could only warn that there was danger."

  "So—" Elspeth said slowly, after a long silence, "The good news is that this isn't anything we caused, and it isn't anything that the Empire is turning on us. The bad news is that this really isn't a 'mage-storm' as such. Not yet, anyway. It was—was one wave, created by the real storm that is out of sight of the land. It swamped boats and wrecked docks, but the real storm still hasn't come in yet."

  An'desha watched as the faces of all the mages around the table sank as they all accepted that conclusion. If it was not the truth, it was certainly the closest thing they had to the truth at the moment. No, it wasn't a weapon, or anything they had caused. But it also wasn't anything they could stop, any more than they could stop a real storm from sweeping in.

  "I should point out that there may be a bright side to this," Prince Daren said. "Kerowyn said it herself; the Empire relies far more heavily on magic than we do. The real mage-storm will hurt them far more than it does us."

  "True." Elspeth chewed her thumbnail, a habit that made An'desha wince. "But it may destroy us all, Empire included. Well, there is one thing we can do, though whether it will do any good or not, I don't know. We have to get warnings out to every member of the Alliance about this, so that they will at least know what this last squall was, that it wasn't us, and that there's worse to come. There is worse to come, right?"

  She looked at Firesong for the answer to that.

  The Healing Adept shrugged. "My guess is that there will be. An'desha's prescient dreams were terrible things, and I do not think this little 'squall' as you called it could account for them. There were 'waves of mage-storms' before, and if the reverse of the past is happening, these squalls will build into a powerful climax."

  "We have to collect every bit of information we can," An'desha insisted. "We have to know every spot of disturbance in Valdemar. If we have a pattern, maybe we can deduce the next places that will be struck."

  "We—or, rather, the Tayledras—have another task before us first," Firesong interjected grimly. "Which is why I plan to send a mage-message to my parents as soon as we are done with this meeting. We must get the best shields ever created around each and every Heartstone, including the one here beneath the Palace. If that is not done, we, Valdemaran and Tayledras alike, could all find ourselves facing rogue Stones, and the storms will be immaterial for we will already be dead."

  An'desha blinked in surprise as both Elspeth and Darkwind blanched. He had not thought there was anything that could rattle those two.

  "Then Darkwind and I—all the Herald-Mages—had better get to work right now," Elspeth said, pushing away from the table and standing up. "Anything else can wait."

  "I will help you, if you like," Ulrich offered. "I believe that I may know some shielding techniques you do not."

  "We ssshall asss well," Treyvan said, with a dry chuckle. "Afterrr all, it isss ourrr tailsss in jeoparrrdy, too!"

  "Shall—" An'desha began to add his offer to theirs, but Elspeth and Firesong both shook their heads.

  "I know that you dread another walk through those memories, ke'chara," Firesong said quietly, "but if there is any more information in them, I wish you would look for it."

  "I will be sssending a messsage to k'Lessshya, forrr accurrrate copiesss of the chrrroniclesss," Hydona told them. "Therrre may be morrre anssswerrrsss therrre."

  "Huh. Rris might even have something to add. But he's so selfish with his stories!" Darkwind raised an eyebrow as a chuckle of nervous laughter met his comment. "Well, he is a kyree historian—there might be an oral tradition about this among the kyree."

  "True enough," Prince Daren said as he stood up, smoothing his white uniform in a gesture of habit. "Well, I think we have wrung the last drop of water from this for now. I will go report to Selenay; I leave you to your various tasks."

  He paused for a moment before leaving, as his troubled eyes met each of theirs in turn. An'desha could not sustain that contact for long; he felt somehow guilty about all of this, as if he were somehow the cause of it.

  "As unpleasant as my task will be, giving Selenay ill news," Daren said at last, "I do not envy any of you your jobs.. For once, I am glad I am no mage. You must all feel like oarsmen trying to outrun a wave you cannot stop."

  With that, he took himself out, and the rest of them followed his example. An'desha wasn't certain how the others felt, but so far as he was concerned, Prince Daren had summed up the entire situation far too accurately.

  Despite Prince Daren's gloomy words, Karal was not about to give up the fight before he had even started! Surely there was something they could do about this! Even if they couldn't stop the storm itself, well, people built houses against storms all the time—why couldn't they build shelters against this one?

  They survived back then, or we wouldn't be here now. What we need is more information. The more we know, the better we'll be able to prepare.

  Maybe he was no mage, but he did know exactly where to go to find people who were absolutely, precisely ideal for the task of gathering and categorizing information.

  As Ulrich followed Elspeth, Darkwind, and the gryphons to some mysterious room in the cellars of the Palace, he went off in a different direction entirely.

  The clouds of this afternoon had thickened, and the air smelled damp, so he stopped just long enough to fetch a cloak from his room before heading out the side door to the little postern gate in the Palace walls that Natoli had shown him. The Guard there tonight wasn't one he knew, but it didn't much matter; most of the Guards probably knew how to get to any tavern in Haven.

  His supposition wasn't wrong; the Guard was only too happy to give him exact directions to the Compass Rose, directions that matched very well with his own hazy memory of the way Natoli had led him the first time.

  By the time the Guard was satisfied that he had the directions straight, thunder rumbled off in the far distance, and he thought he glimpsed a flash of lightning against the dark night sky. He set off down the street just as the first few fat drops of rain fell onto the cobblestones in front of him with audible splats.

  The few drops had become a downpour by the time he reached the tavern door, and just before he opened that door, he had a horrible thought. What if the rain kept everyone away? What if I can't find them all? What am I going to do then?

  But the blast of sound and warmth that hit his face as he opened the door against the rising wind told him that his fears were groundless. The Compass Rose was packed to the rafters; rather than avoiding the tavern because of the storm, the storm seemed to have had the effect of driving every Blue in Haven into the taproom.

  Mouthwatering aromas hit his nose and made his stomach growl, but he ignored his hunger for the moment. Karal waited just long enough to get his senses used to the noise and light before pushing his way through the crowded tables in the general direction of the one Natoli and her friends generally used. He heaved a sigh of relief as he spotted the back of her head; one of her friends saw him and waved to him. Natoli turned around, saw who it was, and beckoned to him to join them.

  He didn't need any further prompting; he increased his pace, leaving apologies to those he had unceremoniously shoved aside in his wake, and wedged his way in beside their table.

  "Karal! We've just been talking about all the weird things that happened today," Natoli said, as
several of the others edged over on a bench to give him a place to perch. "Some of us got dizzy, and a couple even thought there was an earthquake—and now there are all kinds of strange things outside the walls! It has to be magic, but none of us can figure out what in the Havens' name happened, or who caused it all." She eyed him with speculation. "You're in the thick of things at the Palace; I don't suppose you have a clue, do you?"