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twenty
Reynor sulked behind
Fortress in his regal apartment until all of the Mossland dignitaries had
finally returned to their homes, taking with them the furnishings and
appurtenances they had lent for the ill-fated coronation. Grand Master
Ridcanndal and Lady Zimroth had urged him to deliver a parting speech,
reassuring his vassals that the future boded well; but he was a youth of
sixteen for all his kingship and magical talent, and too consumed by fury and
the chagrin of his public embarrassment to accept their wise counsel. All he
had done for three whole days was hide away and burn and curse his dead
sister—she had to be dead! knowing that the absurd botch of his crowning would
never be forgotten by any of those attending.
He had not confessed the loss
of Destroyer and the Unknown Potency to the Glaumerie Guild. Now that he was
king, the wizards had no way to compel him to display the stones. He was
uncertain whether Ullanoth had taken them away or destroyed them, but he did
know now that she must own a Sender sigil. Its powerful sorcery was the only
thing that could have penetrated Fortress; and he himself, all unknowing, had
helped solidify the Sending.
His only consolation was
that the Didionite royals had not repudiated their Treaty of Alliance, nor had
they blamed him directly for the distressing events. So as his temper cooled,
he set about to do as he had promised, shutting down Fortress for hours at a
time and meticulously windsearching the kingdom of Cathra for any sign that an
invasion force was gathering.
He
discovered the peculiar fog.
It was
confined to the northeast and north central part of the country and the Dextral
Mountains, patchy but dense, and seemed natural enough. Except that it hid the
principal northern roads of Cathra from his oversight, and completely blotted
out the region between Elk Lake and Swan Lake that formed the crucial approach
to Beorbrook Hold and Great Pass—the region that an army bent upon invading
Didion would have to traverse.
Emerging at last from
seclusion, he called upon Lady Zimroth and other members of the Guild highly
talented in windwatching to concentrate their combined attention on the area
night and day, hoping that they would descry some-thing of importance when the
mists finally broke apart. Instead, the vaporous blanket continued to expand
until it began to pour over the mountainous divide into southern Didion itself.
"I'm beginning to think
this fog might be magical in origin," Beynor said to Lady Zimroth. They
were with eight other wizard-observers in the Guild's chap-ter room, seated at
a great round table, and had just completed another frustrating joint survey
of the enshrouded lands. It was early afternoon.
The dignified elderly woman
inclined her head. She was dressed in robes, veil, and a wimple of grey silk.
The skin of her face was grey as well and so full of fine lines and creases
that no part of it remained smooth. Only her eyes had color, being the vibrant
clear green of new alder leaves in spring.
"Boreal is the moon of
mists, Your Majesty," Zimroth said. "This fog certainly
might be a natural manifestation. But the fact that it hides the strategic area
and persists for so long is suspicious." Her calm gaze was full of
challenge. "Of course, there is one way to find out for certain if it is
caused by sorcery, but one hesitates to suggest it, since you have so recently
overexerted yourself using Weathermaker."
Beynor squared his shoulders
and rose from his seat at the table. "I'll deal with the matter at once.
You and the others wait here and keep watch until I return. I don't know how
severely the sigil will incapacitate me when I use it this time. It won't be an
easy job. Send Master Ridcanndal and the Physician Royal to my chambers if I
don't return in two hours. I'll command Fortress to admit them."
He left the chapter room and
went to his apartment in a foul mood. Even Zimroth, who'd been his dear
surrogate mother, still regarded him as a shrinking child, reluctant to
experience necessary pain! What would he have to do to convince them he was a
man, and strong?
Weathermaker
rarely left his finger now. He stepped out onto the balcony and held the
moonstone ring high, conjuring a strong north wind to sweep down from the
mountain heights onto the plain surrounding Beorbrook Hold. As he completed the
incantation, his head seemed pierced by a lance of agony that was first blazing
hot and then stunningly cold. He screamed, doubling over, and dropped to his
knees. The pain swelled to a white glare, and his voice failed as his breath
was choked off. His heart gave a great hurtful leap within his breast, a wave
of darkness engulfed him, and he fell senseless.
When he
woke the sun was lower. He lay on the moss-grown stone floor of the balcony,
chilled to the bone and stiff but otherwise not afflicted. Moaning and cursing,
he staggered to his feet. Weathermaker glowed wanly on his finger, quiescent
again. Down in the inner ward, Rothbannon's Marvel revealed that he had been
unconscious for just over an hour. He went inside, hauled on a warm robe, and
made his way slowly back to the Guild chapter room where the others waited.
"Did
the fog dissipate?" he asked. But their glum faces gave him the answer. He
heaved a sigh of frustration. All his pain had been for nothing. "Tell me."
Two of
the wizards hastened to help him into a chair, and Zimroth poured him a glass
of spirits, which he sipped thankfully.
"Your
Majesty, did you command Weathermaker to dissolve the mist?" Zimroth
asked.
"Nay."
Beynor wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "I conjured a mighty
north wind to blow it away." It had seemed the easier course, but he was
not about to admit that.
"I
thought as much," the High Thaumaturge said. "As we watched, a gale
began to push the fog down the slope before it. Great Pass was cleared and we
saw no troops or other unusual activity. But upon reaching the lowlands, the
wind seemed to strike invisible obstacles and form many conflicting streams of
air. The fog whirled and thinned in some places, but never again did it
disappear completely. Instead it seemed to become like a stormy sky brought
down to earth, tumbling and chaotic. Your blast of wind then moved through the
sea of vapor like a great wave—or perhaps an advancing avalanche. But when if
had passed, the fog was still there. It was impossible for us to see what might
be happening beneath it."
"The
fog is certainly of uncanny origin," said a wizard named Makartinal. He
was a craggy-faced scholar of impressive talent. "The fact that the
widespread blanket was churned and thinned at times, yet was not torn open,
leads me to think that it might be generated by more than one adept—perhaps by
scores or even hundreds of magical practitioners who made more fog as the wind
attempted to dissipate it. I believe the sorcery may be more powerful than the
Brothers of Zeth can exert—or even our Guild."
Beynor frowned. "But
who could be doing it? Certainly not the Salka. They would never aid Cathra."
"There
are always the Green Men," Makartinal said.
Zimroth nodded slowly.
"They hate the folk of Didion, true enough. But an arcane phenomenon such
as this would require cooperation amongst hundreds of them. And they live in
widely scattered small bands in the wolds and the Green Morass, and the groups
are said to have no bonds of loyalty one to another."
Beynor sighed, rising from
his seat. "My friends, I thank you for working with me. We can ponder this
problem of the fog another day. I must go now and bespeak our Didionite allies,
telling them what we know. And then I must rest. I'm all used up."
Lady Zimroth said,
"I'll prepare a soothing draft for Your Majesty and bring it to your
chamber."
"That
would be most kind."
"But before you
go," she added, her voice tense with foreboding, "you must see this.
The foreman of the crew clearing the rubble of the demolished South Tower
brought it to me while you were away conjuring the wind. It severely burnt the
hands of the slave who found it. I placed it in this box for safety's
sake."
She took up a small golden
casket that had been on the table before her and brought it to Beynor. He
opened it. Inside was a faintly shining moonstone shaped like a small octagonal
plaque. He felt his heart contract as he recognized the sigil named Fortress.
Not his own Fortress, which
still guarded his chambers: this one had to be Ullanoth's.
"The stone is no longer
in operation, since the place it was charged to protect is gone," Zimroth
said. "But it is alive, as you see, and so must be your sister, its owner.
Would you have us begin to windsearch the city for her?"
"No; said Beynor, in a voice barely audible.
Alive .
. . He'd deluded himself after all, and his secret fear was now con-firmed. She
was alive, and certainly beyond his reach. Could she have taken Destroyer and
the Unknown Potency with her? Damn Ullanoth to the Ten Hells of Ice!
"She will have gone
south with the Didionites." He spoke more forthrightly. "No doubt she
stowed away on one of their ships while concealed by a sigil. I must think
about this very carefully. How many other people know about this Fortress stone
of hers?"
"The foreman and his
crew of slaves," Zimroth said. "No others, I should think."
"Kill them," said
the Conjure-King. His gaze took in the group of wizards. "And all of you
keep silence about this until I decide whether or not to warn King Achardus and
his sons that Ullanoth may be alive and traveling among them."
Carrying the golden box with
its perilous contents, he left the room, knowing what he would have to do with
this sigil. If Ullanoth should discover that it was not destroyed, she could
command it, even from a distance, and perhaps do him great harm. So the stone
had to be abolished and then empowered to him. Immediately.
Coldlight Army, smite her!
he raged inwardly. Another hideous ordeal, and this time not a relatively brief
one—and all for the sake of a redundant stone that would not significantly
increase his own might.
Who could tell what havoc
Ulla might wreak in Didion, laying the ground-work for Prince Conrig's
invasion? He doubted that she would attempt to empower his own stolen Great
Stones. The risk was too formidable. But she certainly owned a Concealer; her
uncanny appearances and disappearances proved that. And he was virtually
certain that she possessed a sigil that enabled her body to become subtle. How
else to explain his sword passing through her like a ghost, or her escape from
the silken ropes? And only a Beastbidder would have enabled her to create chaos
at his coronation with the fitches, gulls, midges, and rats. How many other
stones did she have, and what were their capabilities? There was no way to know
. . . until she used them against him.
I must find a way to kill
her, he told himself in desperation. I must, or my own plans for the future
will be forfeit.
But he
had no notion of how to do that, short of seeking the counsel of the Lights, a
prospect that caused his soul to shrivel. So from that time on, without even
realizing it, he began to hate himself as much as he hated his sister, for
being young and afraid.
After
departing from Swanwick at first light, the small force of Heart Companions and
armigers had ridden steadily uphill all day and were now only a few hours away
from Castle Vanguard. Vra-Stergos, riding with Conrig at the head of the party,
did his best to scry the fog-swathed, dripping landscape ahead of them for
villains lying in ambush, while Snudge, by order of the prince, brought up the
rear and took a cautious windsight from time to time, making sure that no
suspicious persons came up suddenly behind them. His labors were all but
useless. The mists were so heavy that one could hardly see three ells, using
either eye or talent. But the prince's party was safe enough. No one
traveled the road in such weather save a few peas-ants and other harmless
persons, insubstantial ghosts in the murk who responded to Belamil's regular
calls of "Make way!" by drawing respectfully to the verge while the
cavalcade of anonymous-looking armed men passed them by.
At the beginning of the
journey, Snudge had been full of excitement and anticipation, like the other
squires. But the unending clammy gloom of the last two days had lowered his
spirits. With no observation of the passing scene to distract him while
riding, he was bored. The other armigers were often able to con-verse among
themselves; but he, relegated to the tail-end of the procession by his special
duty, was mostly left on his own, jouncing through white blankness, occasionally
calming his horse with his talent, silently bespeaking Stergos regularly to
tell him that all was well, while the other armigers had no idea what he was
doing.
Only one unusual thing
happened to break the monotony, a sudden roaring blast of wind that came from
nowhere and nearly blew him out of the saddle. But it was gone almost as soon
as it arrived, amounting to nothing.
So Snudge brooded, thinking
over his life thus far, his amazing good fortune and his narrow escapes from
death, wondering what future his wild talent would bring him as he served his
prince. He thought of many things . . . but most of all, he thought about the
sigil hanging around his neck.
Snudge
wanted to try it. Oh, how he wanted to try it!
He could not resist
fingering the hard lump through his mail shirt and padded leather gambeson,
lying against his chest, not painful at all but alive and warm inside its thin
bag. A moonstone named Concealer, the most puissant tool imaginable for a Royal
Intelligencer, was now his own. The Tarnian shaman had told him it would hurt
any other person who dared touch it. In the small magical book, he had read
that it was possible to "abolish" a sigil—detach it from its owner
and render it inactive, so that it could be re-empowered and used by another.
But the spell of abolition had been long and complex (to say nothing of
incomprehensible to him), and apparently involved magic that was both painful
and tedious. So no sorcerer, not even Princess Ullanoth, was going to take
Concealer from him easily.
The urge to make use of it
was so strong that Snudge was tempted almost beyond endurance. He rode apart in
the fog that hid him from his companions, so who would notice if he vanished
for a few minutes, horse and all?
He was tempted, but in the
end he refrained because of Red Ansel's words: I strongly advise you not to
conjure Concealer except under the most grave circumstances. Even though the
Lights don't know your true name, there's still a danger of their interfering
.. .
Interfering! What did that
ambiguous word mean? Was he vulnerable to Beaconfolk torture each time he made
use of the sigil? That couldn't be true. The little book hadn't said so, even
though it had contained an impressive list of cautions. Salka had made the
moonstones and they'd evidently used them safely—during ancient times, at
least. And one of the brutes he'd seen swimming in Cala Bay wore a living stone
around its neck.
Beynor, in the dreams, had
uttered dire warnings about Beaconfolk sorcery, but Beynor was a despicable
liar who used sigils himself and even allowed his assistant to borrow one. His
sister Ullanoth possessed them, too. Snudge knew now that he'd seen at least
two living stones when he windwatched the princess in her tower, and Prince
Conrig had said she owned others. No doubt she intended to use her sigils to
regain control of her kingdom.
In his youthful innocence
and frustration, Snudge asked himself why the Salka would have invented these
magical tools in the first place, knowing that they were mortally perilous—but
he knew the answer almost before he formulated the question:
For
power.
People will risk a great
deal for power—even their lives. And the greater the power one sought, the
greater the risk one was willing to take.
Thinking about it, Snudge
rode on, and came at last with others of the Prince Heritor's company to Castle
Vanguard.
The
north-country lords and the Virago of Marley had faithfully fulfilled their
promises. Conrig felt his heart swell with joy as he, Duke Tanaby, Earl
Marshal, Parlian Beorbrook, and the other noble leaders inspected the mounted
knights and thanes massed in serried ranks in the castle's great outer ward. As
the prince had commanded, each warrior was armored in a coat of mail and open
helm, with steel greaves to guard the rider's lower legs. Voluminous hooded
cloaks of waxed leather in drab colors concealed most of the panoply of war;
shields and battle-axes were hidden by covers, and the horses' tack was
unadorned.
"We have some two
hundred mules and pack-ponies to carry our supplies," Duke Tanaby said,
"and thirty courser remounts. Mounted thanes will lead the sumpter beasts,
positioned in the middle of the column, with companies of knights at the van
and rear. You realize, of course, that we will have to ride single-file on the
worst sections of the Breakneck track. My best scouts surveyed the route to the
summit three days ago and found it relatively clear of landslides and
obstructions. There are several torrents to ford, but this time of year they
have not much water in them. Of course we know not what we'll find on the Didion
side of the range."
Conrig nodded. "Our
magical guides will doubtless be able to tell us about the condition of the
track above Redfern Castle, and whether there are other out-posts of the foe
closer to the pass itself."
"Where
will we meet these guides?" asked Lady Zeandrise.
"At the very top of the
pass; Conrig said. "I understand there is a kind of heath or meadow where
we may spend the night before moving down into enemy lands."
"It's mostly a boggy
mess up there at the summit," Count Ramscrest said, "But we haven't
had much rain this fall, so perhaps it'll do. This fog is all very well for
hiding our troop movements from the enemy, but it's going to make dicey going
on a steep trail. You lowlanders don't have any notion how bad this route's
going to be. In some places, we'll have to blindfold the horses. Heights and
steep dropoffs tend to spook the more skittish nags, and they won't fancy loose
talus skidding under their hooves, either."
Cloudfell, Catclaw, and
Bogshaw, mountain dwellers like their overlord, Ramscrest, murmured their
agreement.
"The
mules and ponies should be fine, though," Lord Catclaw said. "They're
bred for high-country travel." He was a powerfully built man in the prime
of life, handsome and dashing, with thick blond hair that curled freely below
his shoulders. The other nobles joked about his flowing locks, but Tinnis
Catclaw claimed that braided buns of one's own hair made the best possible
cushion for a war-helm.
Cloudfell, managing to look
elegant even in the drab garb prescribed for the expedition, spoke languidly,
as was his habit. "Perhaps we'd do better to scatter the ponies and mules
amongst the steeds, once we reach the worst parts of the trail. That would help
keep the horses calm."
"Good idea," said
the earl marshal. He turned to Vanguard. "What kind of time can we expect
to make, Tanaby?"
"Normally, in clear
weather, the summit can be reached in about ten hours, riding a strong animal.
With such a large army—and in the fog, of course—we'll be lucky to get to the
top in fourteen hours, even if we leave before sunup."
"Must we spend the
night at the pass?" Beorbrook's lumpish son, Count Elktor, didn't bother
to hide his dissatisfaction.
"Oh, yes, my
lord." Tanaby Vanguard's smile was ironic. "You may recall my comment
at the council of war about a certain lack of comfort we might expect to endure
on this adventure. Furthermore, there will be no fires—not even for
cooking—unless they can be kept tiny and smokeless. Even in fog, the scent of
burning wood might travel far and alert the enemy to our presence. Of course,
there's almost no fuel in the summit heath except brush and dead bracken
..."
"More likely,"
said Viscount Skellhaven, with an evil grin, "the air up there will be so
sodden we'll be hard put to strike a light, even with tarnsticks. Oh, we're in
for a foul night, my lords—unless the Conjure-Princess sends us a pack of
dancing nymphs to lift our spirits as well as guide us."
"Does anyone else have
a question?" Conrig asked, with some impatience. "We must dismiss the
men, eat a hearty supper, and go early to bed if we intend to be off in the wee
hours."
The Virago of Marley spoke
up. "I have one, Your Grace. At the council of war, you told us that if
any of us distrusted the aspect of the uncanny guides provided by Princess
Ullanoth, we would be free to turn back. Does this dispensation still
apply?"
Conrig smiled at her.
"I hardly expected hesitancy in so stout a heart as yours, my lady. At the
council, you seemed charged with your usual valor."
"I am responsible for
the safety of my warriors," she retorted, "and I reckon each of them
dearer to me than the sons I never had. Leading them into a battle that may pit
them against sorcery is not the duty of a prudent mother. Please answer the
question, Your Grace."
He inclined
his head gravely. "I swear to you, Lady Zea—and to all of you, my
lords—that so far as I know, we will fight only mortal men in Didion, not
magic. The uncanny guides provided by Ullanoth will only show us the way
through the mists, not fight at our sides. And, yes—if you mistrust them when
we meet them, you may freely retreat. But I pray you'll all stand fast at my
side as we conquer King Achardus and his sons, and free Cathra from foreign
menaces forever."
The once prosperous port
city of Holt Mallburn was in a lamentable state as a result of the famine. Its
more wealthy inhabitants had long since fled to their manors in the
countryside, leaving their townhomes in charge of servants and hired guards.
But privation, the spread of disease, and violence born of the increasing
desperation of the lower classes had caused numbers of these guardians to
abandon their posts. Many of the fine city dwellings and business
establishments had fallen prey to looters, or were used as shelter by beggars
and outlaws who had formerly lived in the streets. The common townsfolk barricaded
their dwellings and emerged as rarely as possible. Only a few enclaves remained
completely secure, patrolled by the King's Household Guard and well-fed private
forces: the palace and the parkland surrounding it, the so-called Golden
Precinct where the great merchant-lords lived, and Mallburn Quay, with its
all-important deepwater docks, warehouses, and shipyards.
Princess Ullanoth, using
Concealer and Interpenetrator, had wasted no time once she disembarked from the
Didionite flagship. Taking with her a sack of food and a blanket roll, she
quickly found shelter inside a deserted warehouse. Unlike the majority of the
quayside structures, which were wooden, it was sturdily built of brick, the
property of the city's Guild of Winesellers. The place was mostly full of empty
barrels and bottles, waiting for the day when trade in luxury items would
resume; but its heavily shuttered offices had lamps, a stove with a supply of
charcoal, and a few old cloaks left hanging on pegs that could be fashioned
into a bed. There was even a cache of decent wine and spirits, doubtless hidden
away by some of the clerks for their secret refreshment.
"Good enough," she
said to herself, smiling. She could find water tomorrow. There had to be a
public fountain nearby. The Sending's bathing experiment, unfortunately, had
proved a failure.
When she had arranged her
new quarters to her satisfaction, she took out the sigil named Subtle Loophole,
put it to her eye, and began the onerous task of watching and listening.
For the first days of her
vigil, she concentrated her efforts on the Didionites, passing the intelligence
along to Conrig by windspeaking Stergos or Vra-Doman Carmorton, Vanguard's irascible
Chief Alchymist, as the prince had instructed her to do. It was necessary,
Conrig said, that her continuing participation in the invasion be known and
appreciated by the other nobles under his command, so they would support him
when it came time to reward her.
She saw Somarus, the second
son of Achardus, assemble a company of heavily armed knights and set out for
Boarsden, the strongest inland fortress of the kingdom, where he intended to
gather forces to defend against the expected invasion through Great Pass.
Crown Prince Honigalus busied himself supervising the provisioning of the Royal
Navy, but Ullanoth was unable to determine when he intended to set sail for the
south. Perhaps, she told Stergos, Honigalus was awaiting some signal from his
Continental allies before disembarking. Or vice versa, since she saw that the
corsair fleets of Stippen and Foraile also remained in port. Cathra's navy, on
the contrary, had finally taken up defensive stations in Cala Bay, patrolling
the area between Castle Intrepid and the Vigilant Isles. The Tarnian
mercenaries still awaited the arrival of the grain ships, which had been slowed
by adverse winds.
When she was not
scrutinizing the activities of the nations, she watched her brother, and was
both surprised and dismayed to discover that he was obviously engaged in the
lengthy process of abolishing her Fortress sigil, even though she could not
descry the stone itself. It had never occurred to her that Fortress might have
survived the destruction of her tower. From her arcane studies, she knew that
there were supposed to be spells for delaying or even countering abolition of a
stolen sigil; but she had never seen such spells in the archives of the
Glaumerie Guild, so there was nothing she could do to prevent Beynor from
taking her Fortress for himself. Indeed, if the abolition process kept him
distracted for some days, unable to interfere in Conrig's invasion, then the
loss of the moonstone would benefit her own cause in the end.
Scrying through Loophole was
far more painful and exhausting than using any of her other sigils had been,
and she could not bear to do it for longer than an hour or so at a time. When
she left off her uncomfortable labors, she found her-self taking refuge more
and more in sleep, and she had to force herself to eat. High sorcery was
obviously taking a greater physical toll on her than she had anticipated, and
it worried her when she chanced to think about it. But for the most part she
was too engrossed in the scrying—and too consumed with relief when she let
herself stop—to be apprehensive about her health.
No one disturbed her in the
secure warehouse. (She had banished the rats and mice early on with
Beastbidder, and got rid of the spiders for good measure.) She left the place
only to find water, more food, extra blankets against the increasing cold, and
to use the clerk's necessarium at the end of the loading dock. She always went
invisible, and used Interpenetrator to go through the brick walls like a
phantom.
I feel I'm turning into a
phantom, she thought in bemusement, returning gratefully to the warmth of the
lamplit office after a brief night excursion. I've become nothing but an
observer, watching events from afar in a haze of pain and torpor, participating
in nothing except information-gathering.
And there were the dreams,
their details all but forgotten when she woke. Dreams of the Great Lights .. .
Reluctantly, she finally had
to accept that the powerful magic was changing her mentally as well as
weakening her. She could not go on like this much longer, or she would be
unable to assist Conrig as she had planned. She lacked the strength to Send
herself to him now, and was shocked when she realized how strongly she missed
the prince.
Surely, she thought, I can't
really be falling in love with the man! But Conrig persistently intruded into
her thoughts, and she could not resist windwatching him, even though she now
only communicated with him through Stergos or Duke Tanaby's alchymist.
Finally, on the day Conrig's
army left Castle Vanguard for the pass, some-thing happened that jolted her
back to her senses. She had bespoken Stergos in the middle of the night,
telling him that conditions were fair for the invaders to proceed, then gone
back to bed. Now, some time in mid-morn, she woke to discover that the fire in
the office's iron stove had gone out. The room was bitterly cold, and she
rekindled the blaze swathed in blankets, drowsy and grumbling. It occurred to
her to heat up some pea soup with sausage she had made the day before, but when
she groped for the pot in the shadowy room it felt strange.
Peering
into the container, she cried out, "Moon Mother, save us!"
The
soup was frozen solid.
A rush
of dread energized her, and she threw off her blanket cloak and began to
scramble into her clothes. It could be a fluke, a brief spasm of cold provoked,
perhaps, by Beynor's futile attempt to blow away the fog with a northerly gale.
But what if it wasn't?
Be calm! she told herself.
Even if the worst had happened, there was yet a remedy.
But first she had to
discover the truth. She would not act in haste, much less surrender to panic.
After donning warm clothing she heated the soup and spooned some up while the
room warmed around her. Then she took Subtle Loophole, arranged herself
comfortably in a chair in front of the stove, and began to study the four great
volcanos of Tarn. Their names were Donor, Mornash, Goldeye, and Thunderstone.
They were thickly beclouded, but Loophole penetrated the vapors with ease, as
her windsight had never been able to do.
And thus she discovered that
the ash-vents of each mountain were almost sintered shut, with only plumes of
harmless steam rising from them, and the crater rims were already dusted with
snow. The Wolf's Breath had apparently come to an end. The abnormally mild
autumns and winters that had attended it would no longer occur.
Had Beynor known this would
happen? Is that why he'd dared to tell the Didionites he could stop the
eruptions?
The warm weather she had
depended upon to support the magical fog of the spunkies was probably over as
well. Hard frosts would either turn the mist into flesh-freezing billows of
tiny ice crystals, or else change the moisture into hoar, clearing the air and
precipitating slippery white rime on the ground and everything resting upon the
ground. Either outcome would be fatal to Conrig's invasion.
She let Loophole go inactive
and opened the leather wallet where she kept the sigils when not wearing them.
One by one she took them out and lay them in a row on one of the wine-clerks'
desks. The empowered lesser stones glowed softly: Concealer, Interpenetrator,
Beastbidder. Sender shone more brightly as she took it from her neck and placed
it beside Subtle Loophole. Only the one remaining Great Stone had not yet been
brought to life: her own Weathermaker.
I can fend off the cold and
save Conrig's enterprise with this stone, she told herself. But in my present
frail condition—dreaming of the Lights!—what will the empowering do to me?
Do I
need him badly enough to risk my life for him?
Do I love
him enough?
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