Storm Warning

by Mercedes Lackey

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 and 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."

  I might die of fright before we go a hundred paces.

  "Good. It isss done." The gryphon turned his attention back to the other mages, leaving Karal feeling rather dazed.

  And feeling as if he had somehow been bowled out of his path by a very heavy object. Now what have I gotten myself into?

  He had occasion to ask himself that question again, a few marks later, when he saw the object that Treyvan casually referred to as "the carry-net." He had envisioned something a little more substantial; this was hardly more than a wicker laundry basket in a cradle of thin lines of rope, with laminated wood spars here and there above it. It
didn't look as if it would take the weight of a child.

  It sat in the middle of a patch of lawn in the gardens; there were no trees of any size here. He gathered that it would take the gryphons time to haul him above tree level. That did not comfort him much, either.

  "It's stronger than it looks," said Darkwind, who had come to the Karsite suite to fetch him.

  Karal held back a grimace. "I'm sure it is, sir," he replied instead, politely. He was past having second thoughts about this expedition—now he was into fourth and fifth thoughts!

  "Heh. I distinctly heard a tone of 'It would have to be stronger than it looks,' Karal. There's magic in the making of it," Darkwind continued blithely, as if they weren't out to investigate the effects of the failure of magic! "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. Treyvan told me that k'Leshya use carry-nets like this all the time, that they're as safe as the floating barges."

  As if I knew what a "k'Leshya" is. Or a floating barge, for that matter. He looked the "net" over dubiously; each end of the rope sling was meant to fasten to a harness worn by each gryphon, and the basket in the middle was evidently supposed to supply more stability to the rider than he would get from the kind of hammock this resembled.

  The rope was a lot stronger than its light weight suggested, and Karal discovered when he tried to tilt the basket while it was still sitting on the ground that it resisted all of his attempts to turn it over, even though he could lift it straight up quite easily. So, there was a great deal more to this contraption than met the eye!

  Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, after all. But still, flying?

  "The gryphons will be along in a moment," Darkwind said, glancing up at the angle of the sun. "I need to start my own search pattern with Vree, Firesong, and Aya, so I'll leave you here to wait for them."

  "Wait a moment." Karal hesitated, then asked the question he'd had on his mind anyway. "If what they need is someone to record what they see, why do they need me? They have perfectly good memories."

  "But no hands," Darkwind reminded him. "They read, but they can't write or draw—not easily, at any rate. That lets Rris out as well—I promise you, he was terribly disappointed. He wanted a ride through the air very badly; he said he would be the first of his clan to do such a thing, which would mean he would finally do something famous-cousin-Warrl hadn't!" The Tayledras mage smiled, and clapped Karal on the back. "Don't worry. After a few moments, you'll be glad they asked you to come. You'll do very well indeed."

  Karal could not imagine what it was about him that prompted such assurance on Darkwind's part, but he nodded bravely.

  A few moments after Darkwind's departure, Hydona appeared from inside the Palace, wearing her harness. It was a sturdy affair of leather and brass, and it looked a lot more substantial than the basket. The gryphon clacked her beak in greeting to him once she was within earshot, and sauntered over to stand beside him.

  "If you would fasssten that clip herrre—" she said to him, indicating what he should do with a touch of her talon. "And that one herrre—" She nodded with approval as he engaged the two fasteners. "That isss good. When Trrreyvan comesss, do the sssame on hisss harrrnesss." She cocked her head to one side and studied him for a moment, then added, "If it isss any help, I have carrried my little onesss in thisss verrry net. They may be fledged, but they arrre not trrruly flighted, yet. They tend to plummet."

  If she trusted her precious gryphlets in this— Hydona's maternal qualities were one of the first things anyone mentioned about her. She wouldn't risk her little ones. Relief made him relax, and he managed a tentative smile.

  How had she read his expression so accurately? And how had she guessed the very thing that would make him feel that the net was flightworthy? "Thank you, my lady," he replied humbly. "It does help. I have never flown before."

  With that, she chuckled. "I would be verrry sssurrrprrrisssed if you had," she rumbled smoothly. "But I think you will enjoy it."

  Treyvan appeared from above, backwinging gracefully to a landing beside the two of them. "I have been aloft, and therrre isss a patterrrn, I think," he said cheerfully. "Ssso—let usss sssee if I am brrrilliant, or deluded!" Caught up in his excitement, which radiated from him like warm sunshine, Karal snapped the hooks of the other side of the net onto the male gryphon's harness, and got into the basket, suddenly eager to be off. He arranged his stylus and waxboard, and didn't even think about being afraid until they were several stories above the ground, skimming the treetops.

  And at that point, he was too caught up in the incredible feeling of power and freedom to be frightened.

  Like most people he knew, he'd had dreams of flying before, but it had never been like this. He was buffeted by wind from all directions—from the backwash of both gryphons' wings, and the maelstrom of their passage. They were moving much faster than the fastest horse he had ever ridden. He clung to the edge of the basket—which did not tip over, even when he dared to lean out to look straight down—and stared at the city below.

  Was this how the gryphons always saw things? From this vantage, the city took on an entirely new look. Patterns emerged that he would not have seen from below. Now he could judge what houses were built about the same time from the way the roofs were constructed, for instance. Now he could tell that someone who had an otherwise impressive house might be either very careless or falling on hard times by the dilapidated state of what did not show from the street level. People in the poorer sections used every bit of space, too, which was not the case with those who were better off; roofs in the poorest parts of town held plants, vegetables grown in carefully-tended tubs of soil, and were strung with lines for hanging out wash. People gathered up there, women and children mostly, who gaped and pointed at him and the gryphons when they passed overhead. Children stopped in their games, and one woman even shrieked and flung her wet laundry over her head to hide.

  A moment later, they were over a district of warehouses—and a moment after that, they were outside the city walls.

  The gryphons strained for altitude, and climbed higher into the cloud-strewn sky. Karal watched those clouds worriedly—this would be a very bad time for a lightning storm to blow up! But, even if he were struck from the skies, he would die knowing what it felt like to be so close to Vkandis....

  "Look," Hydona called, over the thunder of her own wings. "Down therrre. That isss the firrrssst of the sssignsss."

  Karal looked down obediently and saw exactly what she was talking about. Right in the middle of a green field was a circular space that held black sand. Sheep eyed it dubiously.

  "We need morrre height to sssee the patterrn," Treyvan called back. She nodded and strained upward.

  The sheep dwindled into white toys, then into clots of wool, then into small dots on the green field. The air got colder and thinner—not even while going through high mountain passes had Karal been this high up! His ears and nose were numb, and his eardrums popped again and again as they surged higher. Treyvan pointed, and Karal followed the direction of his talon.

  A thrill of excitement touched him. There was a pattern! Beyond the circle of black sand, there was another discoloration in the middle of a field of grain, a place that appeared to be circular as well. And beyond that, a mere blot of color in line with the first two, there seemed to be a third at about the same distance as the interval between the first and second.

  "Go down!" he shouted to Treyvan. "Land next to the sand-circle! I'll make some notes and take a sample; we'll go on to the next one and do the same. We'll measure that distance, and see if there really is a third and what the distance is to it—"

  "And if therrre isss a fourrrth, and a fifth," Hydona added. "Good idea, Karrral!"

  They dropped a lot faster than they had climbed. Karal clamped both hands firmly around the front of the basket, but felt like he would be better served by clutching at his stomach. Still, the basket landed with a controlled bump that rattled Karal's teeth but did no other damage. He hopped out and measured the circle of sand by
pacing it, folded a bit of paper into a cone and scooped up a sample, then sketched and described the circle. There didn't seem to be anything alive in it; he stirred the center of it with a stick and came up with nothing but fine, black sand, completely uniform in makeup and texture. The sheep watched him with vague alarm on their silly faces but couldn't make up their minds whether to flee or stand. They were more afraid of him than they were of the gryphons and shied sideways, bleating each time he made a move toward them.

  The gryphons watched, panting, sunlight glinting off their feathers. He made sure to take long enough at his tasks to allow the gryphons enough time to catch their breath.

  "All right," he said, when he couldn't think of anything else useful to measure. "Are you ready?"

  Treyvan nodded, and he climbed back into the basket. The takeoff was a little slower this time; with only sheep to impress, Treyvan didn't seem to be in as much of a hurry.

  The next spot was, indeed, a circle—but this time, it wasn't of sand. This spot contained a short, wiry grass of an odd yellow-green; the soil beneath it was hard and full of reddish clay, so that the earth itself looked red. There were dead insects in this patch, but they didn't look any different from the ones Karal was familiar with. Nevertheless, he took a sample of the earth, the grass, and a little black beetle. Maybe someone else could make something of this.

  The third circle held something quite unexpected; a section of ground that could have come from a Karsite meadow. The ground was exactly right; gray and full of stones. The plants were that tough gorse and mountain grass that only goats could eat, and in one side of the circle was a patch of kitten-paw flowers that Karal knew would not grow in Valdemar. He knew that because they were the common Karsite remedy for headache, and when he had asked for some, the Healers hadn't a clue what he was talking about.

  Dutifully, he sampled this as well. He also took every kitten-paw bunch that was handy because he felt there would be a lot of headaches in his immediate future. He added notes and observations on the waxboard, and each page of paper. The distance between the first and second circles and the second and third was precisely equal.