Storm Warning

but I continued to have terrible dreams, and spells of great fear after he was gone. Now that this mage-storm has come upon us and I have searched out that old memory, I—I have—' he shook his head. 'I am no great mage, for all the potential power that Firesong thinks I hold, but there are some things that are now making dreadful sense to me. The Avatars spoke to me once of 'power and chaos echoing back across time.' I thought that meant Falconsbane, but now I do not think so. I have the memory of how much power lay in all those spells that were released in that long-ago time of the Mage Wars. Ma'ar believed in his last moments that it was more than the fabric of the world could bear, to have it all released in a single moment—and as importantly, to have two such centers of power interacting with each other. I think that what happened then is about to echo back upon us now—but in reverse of the original. I think that the storm we just experienced is only the warning.'

An'desha drew a halting breath, and summed it up as best he could. 'What we experienced was the little chill breeze that presages a hurricane.'

Firesong stared at him, stunned. Now it was Treyvan's turn to break the silence.

'It isss in the trrraditionsss of the Kaled'a'in k'Lesshya that therrre werrre weeksss of mage-ssstorrrmsss following the death of Urrrtho,' the gryphon said with steady calm. 'The old chrrroniclesss sssay that it wasss imposssible to dessscribe how terrrible they werrre, in effect, and in ssstrrrength. The verrry land wasss torrrn assssunderrr, and even time ssseemed to flow ssstrrrangely forrr the yearrr afterrr.'

'There is an oral tradition of the same among the Tayledras,' Firesong managed and shook his head. 'I can't even begin to guess what effect the release of that much mage-energy would have. If it could turn the land around the King's Palace where Ma'ar was into a cratered lake, and the land around Urtho's Tower into a plain of glass, there is no reason to suppose it might not even travel through the fabric of time itself. So many spells and wards are linked to time as if it were a physical presence—and even small magical explosions wreck the latticework of magic for a dozen leagues around them.'

The others turned their attention back to An'desha, who looked horribly pale. 'I do not have the learning to guess at more,' he said humbly. 'And if you will please forgive me, I do not wish to delve more into those memories that might give me that learning—at least not tonight. They make me feel ill.'

'I have knowledge of the old Kaled'a'in magicsss,' Treyvan rumbled. 'Asss passsed to Vikterrren and Ssskandrrranon by Urrrtho himssself. The making of Gatesss warrrps time, asss waterrr warpsss wood; the making of perrrmanent Gatesss warrrps it morrre. Therrre werrre at leassst twenty sssuch Gatesss at Urrrtho's Towerrr, perrrhapsss morrre. Therrre werrre all the weaponsss that Urrrtho would not ussse, forrr they werrre too terrrible. Therrre werrre the prrrotectionsss on the Towerrr, and the magicssss of the placssesss we grrrryphonsss werrre borrrn.'

Ulrich's brows knotted with thought. 'I—this goes beyond what I have learned,' he said at last, 'but I can tell you this; I have myself had warnings from an Avatar of Vkandis that something of this sort portended.'

Elspeth looked impatient. 'You had vague warnings, An'desha had vague warnings, why didn't anyone get anything clear?'

An'desha winced. That was a perfectly reasonable question. And he didn't have an answer.

But Ulrich only smiled slightly. 'Perhaps because even the Star-Eyed and Vkandis Himself did not know what the effect would be,' he replied gently. 'Hear me out. When the Gods granted mankind free will, They allowed uncertainty to enter the world. Some things can be predicted; others cannot. If I may make an analogy—I can tell you that a great storm is coming. With the knowledge I have that when the wind blows such-and-so, and the glass falls, and the sky looks thusly at this time of year, I can say that there will be a storm. But I cannot predict what places will flood, how high the floodwaters will rise, what homes will be battered to bits, and what keeps struck by lightning. As this power comes back to us, I think that even the Gods could not tell exactly what form it would take, perhaps because of what we and others have done with magic since then. They could only warn that there was danger.'

'So—' Elspeth said slowly, after a long silence, 'The good news is that this isn't anything we caused, and it isn't anything that the Empire is turning on us. The bad news is that this really isn't a 'mage-storm' as such. Not yet, anyway. It was—was one wave, created by the real storm that is out of sight of the land. It swamped boats and wrecked docks, but the real storm still hasn't come in yet.'

An'desha watched as the faces of all the mages around the table sank as they all accepted that conclusion. If it was not the truth, it was certainly the closest thing they had to the truth at the moment. No, it wasn't a weapon, or anything they had caused. But it also wasn't anything they could stop, any more than they could stop a real storm from sweeping in.

'I should point out that there may be a bright side to this,' Prince Daren said. 'Kerowyn said it herself; the Empire relies far more heavily on magic than we do. The real mage-storm will hurt them far more than it does us.'

'True.' Elspeth chewed her thumbnail, a habit that made An'desha wince. 'But it may destroy us all, Empire included. Well, there is one thing we can do, though whether it will do any good or not, I don't know. We have to get warnings out to every member of the Alliance about this, so that they will at least know what this last squall was, that it wasn't us, and that there's worse to come. There is worse to come, right?'

She looked at Firesong for the answer to that.

The Healing Adept shrugged. 'My guess is that there will be. An'desha's prescient dreams were terrible things, and I do not think this little 'squall' as you called it could account for them. There were 'waves of mage- storms' before, and if the reverse of the past is happening, these squalls will build into a powerful climax.'