Storm Warning

Then, finally, the door burst open, and a dozen or more people crowded into the room, at least two of them in the green robes that denoted a senior Healer in this land. They swarmed over Ulrich, shoving aside both Karal and Talia. A moment later, they carried the Priest away, leaving Karal and Talia behind, with one other person. Karal started to follow, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

'Let me go,' he spat, grabbing the hand to pull it off. But another hand grabbed his wrist and made him turn, and he found himself looking into Kerowyn's sober green eyes.

'You can't help Ulrich, and you'll only get in the Healers' way,' she said, bluntly telling him the truth that he didn't want to hear.

'But—' He looked at her, and unexpectedly burst into tears.

Talia put her arms around him—and strangely enough, so did Kerowyn. Both of them held him while he sobbed hysterically.

'Why?' he wept. 'Why? He never hurt anyone! He was an old man! He never hurt anyone! Why?'

Neither of the women said anything to him, which was just as well, since he wouldn't have been able to hear them or respond. They simply made soothing sounds at him and supported him as time wobbled and spun. After a moment, or a candlemark, Kerowyn detached herself and left him to bury his head in Talia's shoulder while the Herald stroked his hair and swayed back and forth with him in her arms.

Terrible grief shook him, he couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't even think. The only things in his mind were the dreadful sound of the blade-device thudding into Ulrich's chest, never-ending, and the sight of Ulrich's body hitting the floor....

It was exhaustion that finally brought him back to himself. His tears stopped, mostly because his eyes were too sore and dry to produce another drop. Dully, he allowed Talia to lead him to a chair, and he sat down in it.

Kerowyn knelt in front of him, the two devices in her hands. 'Ulrich wasn't the only one attacked,' she said gently. 'The Shin'a'in ambassador was killed outright, and it was just pure luck that the other mages were with the gryphons when more of these things came after them; they all managed to knock the things down, though Treyvan and Darkwind each took a wound. It looks, at the moment, as if someone hid these damned things in plaster ornaments in the rooms of every single one of the foreign mages.'

He blinked at her, his eyes gritty and swollen. 'Why?' he asked stupidly.

She shrugged. 'Either someone wanted to eliminate all the ambassadors, or that same someone wanted to eliminate all the mages, and he settled for getting the foreigners because the rest of them live in the Herald's Wing and he didn't have access to that part of the Palace.' She tilted her head to' one side, and frowned. 'Come to think of it, he wouldn't have access to Firesong's place, either. Maybe that's why there were four in here—the other two might have been meant for Firesong and An'desha.'

He shook his head again. 'Why?' he persisted. 'Why try to kill anyone? And who would it be?'

Kerowyn's mouth tightened. 'Figure it was the Empire that planned this, and you'll probably have your answer. Since I don't recognize these things, and I thought I knew every kind of assassins' weapon there was, the Empire would be my first choice for who did this.'

Her words set his frozen mind in motion again, and almost against his will, a myriad of possibilities occurred to him. 'If I wanted to break up the Alliance, I'd kill all the ambassadors,' he said reluctantly. 'If Valdemar couldn't protect the envoys in the Palace itself, the allies might assume it was too dangerous to ally with Valdemar against the Empire. It's possible that some of the allies, like Karse, might even blame Valdemar for the deaths. It might only be incidental that the targets were mages.'

Talia's eyes went wide, and Kerowyn's narrowed in speculation. 'That hadn't occurred to me,' she admitted. 'But it's an even better reason than killing them to lessen our mage-power.' His mind was still working, out of long habit and training with Ulrich—

Oh, Ulrich—I've lost you. We've all lost you—

'The Empire would believe that this is an ordinary alliance, especially with Karse and Valdemar,' he continued; now that his thoughts were set in motion, they wouldn't stop until he followed them to the end. 'They can't know that Solaris is working under a divine decree; they'd assume that the death of her envoy would mean she would go back to the old assumption of Valdemar-as-the-Land-of-Demons. That would be why there was a device in here for me, even though I'm not a mage—so that there would be no witness to the contrary.'

Kerowyn's lips thinned, and she nodded once. 'That makes the best sense of all. Good work, Karal. I'm going to take these to Elspeth and Darkwind, and maybe they can take them apart. You are being moved to another room, as quickly as I can get my people in here to move your things.'

He saw immediately why she had said that. 'There's an Imperial agent in the Palace, isn't there,' he stated flatly. 'Someone who had access to all the rooms, and the ability to hide those things in the plaster.'