Storm breaking (32 page)

She would have said more, but at that moment, there came a knock on their door. When Darkwind went to answer it, much to her surprise, Tremane himself stood in the doorway, guarded by his older aide, and looking a bit wan.

"Might I come in?" he asked. "Something in these memories of mine says that you might be able to help me. Sort things out, that is."

Darkwind waved him in; the aide remained behind, but with a look that said he would station himself at the door and not move until Tremane left again.

The Duke took a seat on their couch, and Elspeth made a quick assessment of him. For once he was hiding nothing; she suspected that at the moment he simply was unable to. He was still quite unsettled, disoriented, and distinctly wild eyed. She handed him a fragrant cup of
kav
, a beverage the Imperials favored that she had also begun to enjoy, as much for the effect it had of waking one up as for the flavor.

"You know," he began plaintively, "when you came here, I told you that I accepted this mind-magic of yours, but to tell you the truth, I didn't entirely
believe
in it. You could have done everything you claimed simply by having two well-trained beasts and a clever set of subtle signals. Spirits, putting one's thoughts into someone else's head—that was all so much nonsense and only the really credulous would have given it much credence...."

His voice trailed off, and Elspeth nodded. "Now, for the first time, you are in the grip of something you can't explain. Right?" she asked.

He nodded, looking oddly vulnerable and forlorn. "Magic is
supposed
to be a thing of logic!" he protested. "It has laws and rules, they are all perfectly understandable, and they bring predictable results! This is all so—so—
intuitive
. So unpredictable, so messy—"

Darkwind started to laugh, and the Duke looked at him suspiciously. "I don't see what is so amusing."

"Forgive me, sir," Darkwind choked. "But very recently a friend of ours, who truly and with all of his heart believed that
magic
was wholly a thing of intuition and art, having nothing to do with laws and logic, was confronted with the need to regard magic as you and your mages do. And he sounded
just
like you do now—the contrast is just—" He choked, trying to swallow his laughter, and Elspeth, who recalled quite well how Firesong had sounded, had to work very hard not to join him. That would not have done Tremane's spirit any good at the moment.

"When you have gotten used to this, I think that you'll find it has its own set of rules and logic, and you'll be able to deal with it in a predictable manner," she soothed. "This is simply as if—as if someone had dropped
all
of the rules of mathematics and geometry into your mind, and expected you to deal with them. You're overwhelmed with information, and I promise you that will change."

Darkwind managed to get himself under control, and took a seat next to the Duke. "I'll help you as much as I can," he pledged. "I am probably the nearest to an expert, until Janas or someone like him comes back here."

Tremane let out a sigh, and began slowly trying to ask questions for which the vocabulary was as new to him as the concepts. Elspeth listened carefully, adding what she could, and relaying when Gwena had any useful information to add.

:Poor man,:
she said to Gwena, though not without a touch of faintly vindictive amusement.
:The only thing more unsettling to him right now would be for the ghosts of his ancestors to come back to haunt him, or for a Companion to Choose him.:

:Oh, now there's a thought,:
Gwena replied, and at Elspeth's reaction of alarm, sent a chuckle of amusement of her own.
:Don't worry. The only way that Tremane would ever be Chosen would be for most of the population of Hardorn and Valdemar to be swallowed up by the earth, and even then, I wouldn't put high odds on it.:

:At least now he'll believe us when we say you've said something.:
That was a satisfying realization.

Then something else occurred to Elspeth.
:Darkwind,:
she told her mate,
:I think this is best treated as something like Empathy. Janas may have put the rules for dealing with it in his mind, but if the Gift is so very strong, he may be so overwhelmed by the sensations that he can't actually relate them to what is happening. Try taking him through ground and centering, then shielding, just as you would someone with strong Empathy.:

He nodded slightly, and changed his angle of attack on the problem. To Elspeth's way of thinking, this was actually going to be easier than dealing with someone with Empathy; there would be no changes in what he sensed as people around him underwent emotional changes. Since what he felt from the land was quite steady, with no sudden increases in intensity, once he learned to shield he would not have to learn to strengthen or weaken his shields.

In fact, he wouldn't want to; he
needed
to know when the land was harmed, and he couldn't do that if his shields were too strong.

She watched the two of them as Darkwind coaxed him through his first exercises. She came to the conclusion, watching his rapid progress, that there was more to what Janas had given him than mere instructions; once he had a grasp of the technique Darkwind was showing him, it didn't take him long to apply the technique correctly.

:Too bad we can't teach every young Herald the way Janas "taught" him,:
she remarked wryly to Gwena.

:It would take an ability most Heralds haven't got,:
Gwena replied frankly, and a bit enviously.
:For that matter, most Companions haven't got it either. I didn't realize until now just how remarkable old Janas is.:

Oh, really?
That made her reexamine the priest and his mission in an entirely new light, and wonder just what his real rank in the hierarchy of his religion was. Something equivalent to the Son of the Sun, perhaps? Probably only someone like Solaris would be able to tell for certain.

The only conclusion she could make was that the Hardornens had left nothing to chance in this venture, and had gambled a great deal.

But she kept all of this to herself; it wouldn't matter one way or another to the situation, and Tremane had enough on his hands right now with this new ability and the responsibility of becoming a King.

Becoming a King. What a strange idea that is. I can't think of any ruler in this part of the world who has been picked by his people since—since Valdemar.
The parallels were coming closer all the time.

Tremane absorbed all that Darkwind showed him like dry ground absorbing rain; slowly the lines of anxiety and strain left his face, and the signs of disorientation and illness eased from his posture and expression. Finally, he sighed and closed his eyes with relief.

"I feel—normal," he said, as if he had never expected to feel that way again.

He opened his eyes, and Darkwind smiled with satisfaction. "That is precisely how you should feel," the Hawkbrother told him. "You shouldn't have to think about those shields for them to be there, since you are already acquainted with setting magical shields. They should remain in place until you take them down or weaken them yourself.
Now
the only things you will feel will be when something happens to Hardorn for good or ill; you'll sense the change as soon as it happens."

Tremane colored a little, and coughed. "I seem to recall some injudicious words to the effect of
wanting
an ability that would give me that information."

Darkwind's smile turned ironic, but he didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

Surely every culture has a variation on the saying, "Be careful what you ask for, you may get it."

"Well, sometimes the Hundred Little Gods display an interesting sense of humor," Tremane sighed.

"They've displayed it more directly than I think you realize," Darkwind told him. "Are you aware that thanks to this 'gift' that Janas bestowed on you, that you are
literally
bound to Hardorn? You can't leave, at least not for long."

Tremane shot him a skeptical glance. "Surely you are exaggerating."

Darkwind shook his head. "I am not. You will not be able to go beyond the borders of this land for very long. Janas was not speaking figuratively as we both assumed when he made his explanations to you. I know enough of magical bindings to recognize one on you, and I doubt that anyone can break it. This is the magic of a very primitive religion, meant to ensure that a ruler could not get wandering feet and go off exploring when he should be governing."

Elspeth watched Tremane's face; though normally opaque, this experience had left him open—not as open as an ordinary person, but open enough for her to read his expressions. "What you're saying is, this
earth-binding
they put on me ensures that there is no possibility of going back to the Empire."

Darkwind held his hands palm up. "The most primitive magics tend to be the strongest, the hardest to break. Perhaps a better word would be
primal
. I suspect this one may date back to the tribes wandering this area before the Cataclysm. It was a fascinating piece of work to watch; no chants, no real ritual, just a tonal component as a guide for invocation, and of course the mental component. Simple but powerful, and that argues for a piece of work that is
very
old, and so proven by time that it is, in fact, a benchmark by which later magics could be judged." As Tremane sat there, with a dazed look in his eyes and a numb expression, Darkwind warmed to his subject. "It really does make sense. If you have a tribe that has recently settled, given up nomadic, hunting and herding ways and gone into agriculture, it stands to reason that your best leaders, the ones who are likely to be the most successful at defending your settlement from other nomads, are the people most likely to want to go back to the unsettled ways. If you want to keep them where they belong
and
give them a powerful incentive to hold the land in trust and not plunder and ruin it, you'd bind them to it."

"I get the point, all too clearly," Tremane interrupted dryly. "Seeing as I am the one blessed with this particular application of 'primitive' magic, and now am prisoner in an all too clear way." He rubbed his head with his hand, absently. "No disrespect to you, Darkwind k'Sheyna, but speculation about the origin of this bit of religious arcana is moot, and it can probably wait until the happy day when everything is settled again and you and Janas can argue about history to your hearts' content."

Darkwind was not at all embarrassed. In fact, he graced Tremane with the expression of a teacher whose student has missed the point of the lesson. But all he said aloud was, "Duke Tremane, if you wish to know how and why a magic works the way it does, you must learn or deduce its origin and purpose. In complex spell-work, the causes, triggers, paths, and effects are not always obvious, and are often fragile. In more primal spell-work, the variables may be fewer, but they are not necessarily any more obvious. You cannot unmake a thing—supposing you should choose to do so—without knowing how it is made."

"Supposing I should choose to do so..." Tremane's voice trailed off, and he stood up to go look out the window. "I am not, by nature, a religious man," he said, with his back to them.

"We rather gathered that, sir," Elspeth put in, her tone so ironic it made Tremane turn for a moment to give her a searching look.

"There is not much in the Empire that would make one believe in gods, much less that they have any interest at all in the doings of mortals," he said, looking straight into her eyes. "Tangible effect is the focus in the Empire. Results and tasks of the day take a distinct precedence over thoughts of divine influence or the spirit world. The closest thing to a religion of state is a form of ancestor veneration, which takes its higher form as the honoring of previous Emperors and their Consorts, who are collectively known as the Hundred Little Gods. Not that there are exactly a hundred, but it's a nice, round figure to swear by."

"I'd wondered about that," Darkwind murmured.

"Nor have I in the past been one to put credence in either predestined fate or omens. Nevertheless," he continued, "since arriving here, I have been confronted, time and time again, with situations that have literally forced me into the path I am now taking. I find myself beginning to doubt the wisdom of my previous position regarding destiny."

Elspeth could not resist the opportunity. "If you would care for some further proof that your previous position on the divine is faulty," she offered, "I am sure that High Priest Solaris would be happy to arrange for a manifestation of Vkandis Sunlord."

It was wrong of her, but after all that Tremane had been responsible for, she could not help but take a certain amount of vengeful pleasure in the way that his face turned pale at the mere mention of Solaris' name.

"That won't be necessary" he said hastily.

"As you wish," she murmured, with an amused glance at Darkwind.

:Well, talk about fire to the left and torrent to the right—not only does he have Solaris' curse of truthfulness on him, but the Hardornen earth-binding.:
Gwena sounded unbelievably smug, but for once, Elspeth was in full agreement with her.
:I do believe that Grand Duke Tremane is going to be very cooperative with the Alliance from now on—because if he isn't, he hasn't got the option to escape and he knows it.: