He moved quickly to a position where he could hover in the background, and he wasn't the only one! Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Talia moving unobtrusively into place at a similar position of potential rescue, and Darkwind doing the same. If Karal needed help in dealing with Jarim, there were going to be three people tripping over each other to see that he got it!
But Karal didn't seem particularly distressed; in fact, as Jarim talked, his expression changed from suspicion to surprise to open relief.
Had An'desha's plan worked?
Finally, Jarim said, in a voice fully loud enough for the entire room to hear, "I don't understand how you can feel that way, boy, but—well, according to the gods of both our people, that's more to my shame than yours." He shook his head and managed a grim half-smile. "I don't understand the gift of forgiveness and I never did, but there are those who do, and it seems you are among them. It's a good gift for a man of the gods to have, they tell me. Better than the opposite. I'm satisfied, and I apologize."
He slapped Karal on the back heartily, staggering him.
"Your apology is generous, and it is gratefully accepted, sir," Karal managed, also speaking loudly enough for the rest of the room to hear. "I never wanted any conflict between us. Our people need us to work together, not tear the Alliance asunder with misunderstandings."
"Good enough." Jarim glanced at the avid faces around the room and shrugged. "I'm sorry you were ill, I hope you're better, but we've wasted enough time waiting for you to recover. Let's get on with this."
With that, he strode to his seat, leaving Karal and the rest to take theirs. An'desha moved to the Tayledras delegation with a sigh; Firesong was not there, and he rather thought Darkwind could use another voice. He knew he was right when that worthy gave him a grateful smile as he took his seat.
Across the table, Karal was getting out his papers and pens, as usual, but his color was better and that look of strain was gone.
Good, An'desha thought with satisfaction. Karal would still have detractors, for there were and probably always would be people in Valdemar who would not trust any Karsite, but at least now he could work without fear of persecution. And maybe, just maybe, if Jarim started treating him with respect, the others on the Grand Council would, too.
Now, let's get down to the business we should be dealing with. The mage-storms aren't waiting for us to settle our internal quarrels. And settling grievances isn't doing a damned thing about stopping them.
Time is still against us, and we still do not have any answers.
Six
Firesong had found the most private place in the Palace, a place where no one ever intruded, and a place where his own magics were shielded from the outside by the most powerful shields available inside or outside of a Vale. He could disappear here for hours at a time, and he did.
It was not the place he would have thought of first as a very private spot, but no one seemed to want to spend any time in the chamber of Valdemar's Heartstone. Perhaps they found the sensation of all that power rather unnerving; the pressure of it was as palpable as hot sunlight on one's exposed flesh. Firesong liked it, but for someone sensitive, and one who was not used to being in the presence of so much power, it was probably very uncomfortable. He had been told that even those who had no Gift for mage-craft could feel the Power in this room, and that in itself was impressive.
This was the most powerful Heartstone he had ever worked with; it represented the latent power of the Stone Vanyel had originally constructed and linked into the Web, and the power from k'Sheyna's Heartstone that Vanyel, now a spirit and able to work more freely with such energies, had cleverly purloined.
He opened the door—a door that was by no means obvious, even though everyone in the Palace knew it was here—and walked inside, allowing it to fall closed behind him. This chamber was identical to one directly above it that had been used for scrying for centuries. The room itself was tiny, with so many shields on it that even sound had difficulty penetrating the walls. A round stone table all but filled the available space, with four curved benches around it. A single oil lamp was suspended above the table, but it was not lit, for it was not needed. A single globe of crystal in the middle of the table itself glowed with enough light to illuminate the room perfectly. The fact that this light was merely a by-product of the power held in the Stone was astonishing. I've never known a Heartstone to glow before. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that it is crystal? This is quite fascinating.
That globe of stone was the tip of Valdemar's Heartstone; the globe was fused into the tabletop, which was fused in turn to the column that supported it, which was fused in its turn to the stone floor and the bedrock beneath it. If one chipped everything away, one would find a single column of fused, ultra-hard, heat-forged stone, topped by the crystal globe, extending downward into the earth until it touched the place where the rock flowed with molten heat. The end result would look rather like a charlatan's "magic wand."
Firesong felt completely comfortable and at home here, despite the fact that this room had no windows and was inclined to induce claustrophobia. He was one of two people who had been originally keyed into the Heartstone's powers, after all. Elspeth was the other, and they had both been given that particular "gift" because they were both descended from Herald Vanyel Ashkevron, who had created the Heartstone in the first place, and had taken the power of k'Sheyna's Stone to reactivate this one.
The chamber had dropped out of the minds of everyone in Valdemar during those years when, in order to strengthen the Valdemarans' reliance on the Heraldic Gifts of mind magic Vanyel's meddling had driven the memory and the belief in real magic clear out of their minds. The ward-spell he had set among the vrondi of this land to keep true mages at bay had served well enough to protect his land from the incursions of rogue magicians at the time. The sensation of being stared at by hundreds, thousands of unseen eyes the moment one cast a spell was enough to turn even the boldest half-mad.
But that was then. Now, everything was turned about; the protections at the border were down, and there were mages from four or five lands in Valdemar. Although magic had not taken a more important role than the Heraldic Gifts, Herald-Mages were certainly playing crucial roles.
But some of that avoidance of this chamber must still be in effect, for in all the times Firesong had come here, he had never found signs that anyone else had so much as touched the half-hidden door. Perhaps Elspeth came here now and again, but he doubted it. She didn't need to come here to feel the power of the Stone. It was in her blood more deeply even than in his, and it sang in his veins, hummed in the back of his head. He was too used to power for it to intoxicate him.
Perhaps the power-song frightened others. That was certainly fine with Firesong, for it gave him a place to work and to think without any danger of being interrupted.
Ever since An'desha had begun drifting away, he had been searching his memory for details about Falconsbane's spirit-sanctuary and the journey he himself had taken through the Void to find it. He had many questions about the whole procedure, and rather than ask An'desha about any of it, he thought he'd rather see if he couldn't deduce some answers himself.
When he was reasonably certain that he remembered where to go and what to look for, he launched his spirit out into the Void in search of the spot where the sanctuary had been.
He hadn't really expected to find anything but a few clues at best. After all, very few magical creations ever survived the deaths of their creators, much less the creator's total dissolution. Then there was the Void itself to contend with; changeless, yet ever-changing, how could anything so foreign to it remain after it had been ripped open?
Yet when he sank himself into a mage-trance and projected himself to the general area that he thought he remembered, not only was the sanctuary still there and open, it was intact except for the damage he himself had done to it! Even that was mending, as if the sanctuary were alive and had the Power to heal.
&nb
sp; He was able to examine it in detail and at his leisure. One of the oddest things that he noticed was that it was substantially unaffected by the mage-storms echoing through the Void. There was a bit of surface turbulence, but the fabric of the sanctuary was unaltered.
He considered that as he took his seat on one of the stone benches in the room of the Heartstone. The sanctuary is so oddly solid, rather like the fabric of the land beneath a series of great thunderstorms. Even if the storms cause floods or landslides, beneath the movement of a little topsoil, the shape of the land and the contour of it remains the same.
With the ease of what had become habit, he settled himself on his bench, linked his own power in with that of the Heartstone, and leaped out into the Void, leaving his body behind.
The "track" of his passage was well-worn by now; he actually left a trail of residual power that linked his body to the sanctuary. Through the swirling, multicolored energy patterns, sparkled with tiny fireflies of power and now turbulent and roiled by the passage of so many mage-storms, the trail remained steady and unchanging, though faint. Then he came to the open mouth of the sanctuary, disguised in the swirl of energies by a swirl of chameleon colors on its surface.
He settled "himself" in the comfortable womb of the sanctuary, and the very existence of that link set off a train, of other thoughts, other observations. As he gazed out into the wild chaos of the Void with all of its tumbling energies, he noted two "links" back to his physical body. One was the tenuous path he had made, the traces of all of his journeys, a sparkling golden trail of faint sparks of power, a dusting of silver-gilt leading back to the Heartstone. The other was the stronger, brighter, ropelike silver link of power that tied him to his own physical self.
He'd made note of that before. But suddenly, what he noticed was that the path and the link were both comprised of energies that were completely homogeneous. That made sense, of course, for both were his energies; even the power; he drew from the Heartstone had to become his before he could use it.
But the energies the sanctuary had been built from were not homogeneous. Here they were, layer upon layer, warp and weft of a hundred, a thousand different threads of power. Some of them he recognized as having the taint of Ma'ar about them, the dried-blood dark-red and muddied energies of death and blood-magic. But others were quite clear and clean, pure, though thin. How had they come here? They had nothing to do with Ma'ar or any of his incarnations.
Finally, he found the clue, as he found every one of those pure, clear strands of power tagged at the very ends with the muddied colors of Ma'ar. And then the entire secret of the sanctuary's construction and the life it now had of its own unfolded before him.
The link between a living creature and a place like this one, similar to the link between his spirit and his physical body, could be artificially created or inflicted upon another. And when such unwitting victims died, a great deal of their power would go along that link to wherever the link led. And for that matter, a stronger link could be forged between a mage's physical body and this sanctuary and stretched as tightly as a harp string Even if the moment of death were instantaneous, making it impossible for Ma'ar to do what Falconsbane had done and make the conscious flight along the link into the sanctuary, the release of the tension at the end linked to the living physical body would literally snap the spirit into its sanctuary, whether or not the mage himself was even aware of what was happening to him.
So here was the answer to all of the questions. By investing the power of many, many followers in this place, the willing and unwilling, the witting and unwitting, Ma'ar had created a sanctuary that would outlast everything. By creating more links to underlings throughout the ages, Ma'ar had strengthened his creation so that it actually attained the permanent quality of a node. By putting in place the strong, tight link between himself and his sanctuary, Ma'ar ensured that he would always come "home" to it at the moment of his death.
While the result was appalling, the concept was intriguing. Oh, this is fascinating. Everyone knew, of course, that it was possible for an unscrupulous, immoral mage to make use of the power of someone's life-force by wresting it away in a violent death. Violent death was what often created a link to the physical world, in fact, as the power released, combined with the dying person's wish to live, forged a bond holding the spirit to the earth past the end of his life. That was how ghosts were created; that was probably how the spirits of Vanyel, Yfandes, and Stefen had been able to join with the great Forest in the north of Valdemar. Vanyel had done consciously, and under control, what others had done by sheerest accident and panic.
Now, there was no doubt that killing someone to take the power of their life-force was wrong, evil. But what if you simply forged that link to drain it off when they died naturally? Why would that be bad? The original owner wouldn't need that power, and it would only dissipate back into the energy-web that all life created. That would be why so many of the power strands woven into this sanctuary were so clear and clean; this power hadn't been stolen, reft away by violence. It had simply been taken up when the original owner no longer needed it.
No, there would be nothing immoral about that, no more than inheriting a house or a book from someone.
Hmm. This requires a great deal of thought. Granted, it does take power to create these links, but the outcome... when your donors did die, the power would go to whatever receptacle you had created for it, where you could tap it at will. It wouldn't even need to be invested in an object like this sanctuary.
Falconsbane could very easily have used the power in this sanctuary to keep himself aware of the world, even to keep track of those of his bloodline, picking and choosing among his "candidates" until he found one about to make that crucial step, opening himself to invasion by opening himself to magic.
All the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place, leaving Firesong with a most intriguing whole.
The view from here is enchanting indeed. Enough for one day. It certainly answers the first part of my question—how I create the same kind of sanctuary that Falconsbane did. Now he was left with the other half—how did one find a new body without stealing one?
He followed his link back to his own body, and opened his very physical eyes on the tiny stone-walled room, the stone table, and the glowing crystal.
It wasn't cold in here, or he would have gotten a great deal stiffer than he was. He stretched, getting his blood moving again. An'desha had said this morning that he would gladly take Firesong's place on the Grand Council; Firesong was not certain what had prompted that offer, although he was mildly grateful for the gesture.
Today, too, they were finally rid of Karal again—he'd gone back to the Palace and his official suite.
Today Karal was supposed to take up his duties again. And An'desha wants to be at the Grand Council meeting. Coincidence? I think not.
He frowned and rubbed the side of his nose with his finger in irritation. Karal and An'desha were entirely too solicitous of each other. And could Karal actually be the one responsible for An'desha's increasing independence? The Karsite had all manner of odd notions in his head; could he be imparting them to An'desha? After all, An'desha was perfectly tractable until he began spending so much time with Karal.
Well, if Karal keeps aggravating that Shin'a'in, he's going to find himself with more trouble than he can handle. It wouldn't surprise me too much if the man decided to declare blood-feud, which would certainly solve all of my difficulties with him.
A gloating, gleeful thought occurred to him. Karal's career as an envoy—as well as his life—seemed destined to be very short, given the number of times he'd been attacked and the number of enemies he'd collected. Perhaps he could persuade Karal to be a part of his own experiment with capturing the Power of another's life-force. And then—perhaps he could play with the situation a bit—
No, that's probably not a good idea, he decided immediately And I don't want to link a Karsite Priest into anything of mine; the Goddess only knows what V
kandis would do about that. Nor do I really want to manipulate the situation to get Karal into difficulties, even though an accident to Karal would make certain that An'desha was in great need of comforting, and pliant with grief.
He stretched again, grimacing at the numb state of his rump. Stone benches. How very typical of this place! Elegance without comfort....
He had come to realize that he was very discontented here. He hated the feeling of eyes on him every time he ventured out of the ekele, and so perversely went out of his way to be outrageous. Not that he hadn't been the center of attention back in the Vales, but the attention he attracted here was not the unalloyed admiration and indulgence he got back home. Here he was stared at because he was alien, flamboyant by the standards of these curiously dull people. When he gave vent to some strong opinion, people looked at him as if he had committed some breach of etiquette; often as not, when he inquired after something that should have been commonplace, they gave him looks that said clearly they thought he was out of his mind.
I miss the Vales, damn it all. I miss decent food that I don't have to prepare for myself. I miss my hertasi servants. There is no reason why I should be forced to pick up and clean after myself; there is no reason why I should have to devote a single moment to anything other than mage-craft! I am a mage—why should I do the work of a menial? Oh, he could have servants coming in, but he didn't want snoops from the Palace making free with his private areas.
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