Storm Warning

by Mercedes Lackey

  He picked up the pile of papers on the table before him, with hands that were as steady as a surgeon's. "These are the reports I have from messengers I sent out on horses to the other mages in the army. The tidings they returned with were not reassuring. From Halloway: 'There are places where rocks melted into puddles and resolidified in a heartbeat, sometimes trapping things in the newly-solid rock.' From Gerrolt: 'Strange and entirely new insects and even higher forms of life have appeared around the camp. I cannot say whether they were created on the instant, or come from elsewhere in the world.' From Margan: 'Roughly circular pieces of land two and three cubits in diameter appear to have been instantly transplanted from far and distant places. There are circles of desert, of forest, of swamp—even a bit of lake bottom, complete with mud, water-weeds, and gasping and dying fish.'" He waved the papers. "There are more such reports, from all up and down the lines, and from behind them as well. You are well beyond my needing to prompt you, Tremane, but this cannot have been an act of nature!"

  "And it isn't likely that it is residue from King Ancar's reckless meddling, either," Tremane agreed.

  "I cannot see how," Sejanes replied, dropping the papers again. "Ancar was not capable of magic on this scale. There is no mage capable of magic on this scale. I can only assume that it must have been caused by many mages, working together. Perhaps that would account for the variety and disparity of its effects."

  Tremane racked his memory for any accounts of anything like this "mage-storm," and came up with nothing. Oh, there were mage-storms of course, but they all had purely physical effects, and were caused by too much unshielded use of magical energies. Those storms were real storms, weather systems, very powerful ones. This was not like any mage-storm he had ever seen, and yet the term was an apt one. It had struck like a storm, or a squall line; it had passed overhead, done its damage, and passed on.

  And there was only one place this storm could have come from.

  "There is only one place this storm could have originated from," Sejanes said, echoing his own thoughts. "Despite the fact that it began east of us—well, any fool knows that the world is a ball! What better way to surprise us than by sending out an attack to circle the world and strike from behind?"

  "You're saying that Valdemar sent this against us," Tremane replied slowly.

  Sejanes shrugged. "Who else? Who else has access to strange allies from lands we never even heard of? Who else uses magics we don't understand? Who else has reason to attack us from behind?"

  "Who else indeed," Tremane echoed. "They lose nothing by making life miserable for the Empire and the Imperial allies, and they could have warned their friends to erect special shields. Except that—according to all of you, Valdemar has the absolute minimum in the way of magic!"

  He cast an accusatory glance around the table. Most of the mages cringed and averted their eyes, but Sejanes met him look for look.

  "We still don't know what those horses are," Sejanes pointed out acidly. "And we don't recognize their magics. So how could we tell what they had and didn't have? We made our best guess based on the fact that they simply do not use magic in their everyday lives. There are no mage-lights or mage-fires—they have only candles, lanterns and torches, and physical fires. There are no Constructors; they build contrivances with no magic at all to haul water, grind grain. There are no Replicators; all documents are copied by hand, or printed with much labor. Messages are sent by those crude mirror-towers, or by human messenger. So what are we to think? That they have no magic, of course."

  "But if they have no magic in daily use," Tremane pointed out, thinking out loud, "then they will not suffer from this attack as we have."

  Sejanes nodded, his head bobbing on his thin neck like a toy on a spring. "Precisely. As if they used this kind of attack all the time. As if they planned for this kind of attack to be used against them."

  It made sense. It more than made sense. If you expected someone to hurl fire at you, you built your fort of stone. If you expected catapults, you built the walls thickly. If you expected to be deluged with mage-caused thunderstorms, you built truly good drainage.

  And if you expected to be attacked by something that twisted and ruined your spells, you didn't use any. Unless, of course, it was the spell intended to twist and ruin all other spells.

  "But where did this come from?" he asked, thinking aloud again.

  Sejanes shrugged, and the rest of the mages only shook their heads. "It passed roughly east to west, and at a guess I would say that if it came from Valdemar as we think, it truly did circle the whole world to get here. That is logical, and in line with the notion that it originated in Valdemar. Frankly, if I had such an attack, I would use it that way, because it would be at its weakest when it finally got back to me. It was certainly strong enough to wreak havoc for us when it reached us!"

  That made sense, too. "You're saying you can't find a point of origin, though," he persisted. "If you could, we would know where their best mages were." And that useless artist could find out who they are. Then we could neutralize them.

  "Not a chance," Sejanes said flatly. "At the moment, we're lucky to find the mages in the other camps, much less a point-of-origin for this thing. We are fundamentally disarmed at this point, and we'd better hope that neither the rebels nor the Valdemarans have anything planned for us, because we're so disorganized that we'll be lucky to hold the ground we've got."

  The others chimed in with more tales of woe—he had already heard from his military commanders by now, and he was simply glad that so many of them were used to working under primitive and uncertain conditions. They had found substitutes for the magics that weren't working, but there was no substitute for the lack of communication. That was the worst.

  Tremane was just grateful that he had called a halt to the attempt to advance before all this happened. If he had been in the midst of a military maneuver, it could have been a disaster.

  Sejanes was the only one who really had anything useful to say, and what he had was all too meager. The rest simply floundered, out of their depth.

  "I can only see one thing useful at this point," Tremane said at last. "Repair the damages, and armor the repairs against a repeat of this attack. Communications, first. Then the Gates; if this goes on too much longer, we'll be short of supplies in a week. Shield and reshield everything you do. Then check back with me; I'll determine what is most important."

  Tremane finally dismissed his mages back to their work of repairing the damages after a little more exhortation, and slumped back into his chair, his temples throbbing. He hoped that he was the only one suffering from a headache, that it was caused more by stress than by the mage-storm; if all his mages were working under the burden of an aching head, they'd only be about half as effective as they were normally.

  He rang for a page and called for strong wine. He seldom drank, but at this point he needed at least one cup of fortification.

  He stared at the polished surface of the table and turned the cup around and around in his hands. One question was uppermost in his mind: How did they do this?

  It was not just that the attack was like nothing he had ever seen before. It was not only the sheer size and scope of the attack. It was the randomness of it all.

  Insane. Absolutely insane. Not even Ancar had been crazed enough to have developed a spell like this one.

  And the effects—what possible use was there in an attack that ripped up circles of land and planted them elsewhere? Were the Valdemarans simply hoping that there might be strategic targets inside those circles? Or were they just striking for the effect on mind and morale?

  Was there a meaning behind it at all? Or was the chaos really the meaning? Was this representative of how Valdemarans thought? If so, they were more alien than the gryphons they courted!

  If they can do this, he thought to himself, sipping the bitter, dark wine, what else can they do? Have I taken on even more than Charliss himself could handle? Or is this another of Charliss' little
tests?

  That, too, was possible. Charliss and the Empire were in the east, and the storm had come from the east. The Emperor could be testing him under fire, to see how he handled such an attack.

  It still could have been one of his enemies who had sent this; or more likely, several of his enemies working together.

  As he reached the bottom of the glass, another thought occurred to him, one even more bitter than the wine, and more frightening than the mage-storm.

  What if Charliss wanted to be rid of him? How better than to embroil him in a conflict he could not win?

  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."

  Ka
ral 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 latch, 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?"