Storm Warning

lost arts. We, the Tayledras, are also prepared to strip the Vales of mages and bring them here. We will not endanger our Vales, but there are many projects that can wait a little longer while we aid you.'

'White Winds, Blue Mountain, and any other school we can contact will be doing the same,' the White Winds representative put in. Quenten, I think. A friend of Kerowyn. Karal noted that they appeared to be about the same age. 'If the Empire moves this far west, we freelance mages cannot afford to stand by idly. The Empire will annex us, or destroy us. That has been their policy in the past, and it is what they are doing now in Hardorn.'

Firesong nodded. 'I did say that there is no way that we can even begin to equal the sheer number of mages that the Empire can bring to bear—and I still mean that. However, the fact that the Empire works in a different tradition from us can work against them as well. If we don't know what they can do, the reverse is true for them. Right now, absolutely the best thing we can concentrate on is to learn everything we can about the Empire and its mages.'

'True, and we're working on that,' Kerowyn replied, 'but don't forget they'll be doing the same thing about us.'

Karal was taking notes furiously, while fighting his wish to gawk at the rest of the table. Firesong was as flamboyant as the last time Karal had seen him, though this time his color of choice was scarlet with touches of bright blue; the Shin'a'in envoy was sleekly exotic, as quiet and deadly as one of her arrows.

Then there were the gryphons. Once again, hearing an intelligible, intelligent sentence emerge from those beaks gave him something of a start. If he had not seen the Firecat Hansa conferring with Solaris with his own eyes, he would have been even more startled—and inclined to suspect trickery, some kind of magic to make it look as if the 'beast' was speaking.

Ulrich stood up, and all eyes went to him. 'I am inclined to agree with the Herald Captain in principle,' he said, carefully, 'But there is another factor involved here. The Empire is enormous, very old, and has probably never met with serious opposition in a very long time. They are likely to be used to these favorable conditions. They may very well dismiss all of us as 'barbarians' and inconsequential. They may not pursue their own intelligence-gathering operations as vigorously as they should. We cannot count on this, of course—' he added, as Kerowyn looked ready to protest such hubris, '—but we should be watching for patterns that indicate this. In fact, I believe that we should pursue the notion of planting information that we are as disorganized on this side of the border as the poor Hardornens are, and as paralyzed with terror. If we see the attitude of complacence developing, we will then be poised to take instant advantage of it.'

Kerowyn smiled broadly at that, and bowed a little in acknowledgment of Ulrich's cleverness. He returned the ironic little salute as he regained his seat.

'What about the mages of Valdemar?' Prince Daren asked into the silence.

Now it was Elspeth's turn, and she rose to her feet. 'The obvious answer is that we should train as many, and as quickly, as we can—which we are doing. The second obvious answer is that we should also recruit as many freelance mages from the south as possible, just as we did during the last conflict with Ancar. The problem with that second obvious answer is that other than mages from the Kaled'a'in and Tayledras, and those coming from schools and teachers personally known to Quenten, we have to suspect that at least some of the mages we might recruit from the south are agents of the Empire. Most of the mages that Quenten knows and can vouch for are already up here. That leaves us with the first answer. We're training our own—but there are only so many of them.'

'Whoa, wait a moment,' Kerowyn interrupted, a look of concentration on her face. 'I just thought of something. Why make so hard a push for mages at all?'

'But—!' someone cried, triggering a storm of protest from around the table; she waved the protests away.

'No, I'm serious. What put the idea in everyone's head that mages were the answer to everything?' she asked.

Well that certainly put a fox among the hens. Stunned silence reigned for a moment, until Kerowyn broke it.

'Yes, we needed them desperately when we were fighting Ancar, but that was because without them there were things he could field that we simply couldn't fight. But that's not the case now.' More protests erupted; she waved for further silence. 'Wait, hear me out!'

The Queen herself ordered silence when it was obvious Kerowyn was not going to command it herself. From the looks of suppressed panic around the table, unless Kerowyn made her point very well, the silence was not going to last very long.

'Look,' Kerowyn said earnestly, leaning over the table to emphasize her point. 'The things that the Empire is simply not prepared for are the factors that make Karse and Valdemar absolutely unique in their experience. In Karse—it's something we aren't even prepared for, the fact that Vkandis Sunlord can, will, and does intervene with and guide His people directly. For all I know, if the Empire penetrates the borders of Karse, He might even decide to lob a few firebolts at some select Imperial generals!'

'It would take more than simply penetrating our border to cause Him to do so,' Ulrich murmured gently, as she looked at him with expectation, 'but it is possible He could choose to intervene selectively.'

'Yes, well, miracles do happen with predictable regularity in Karse,' she retorted.