Heir, about his encounter with Kero's grandmother Kethry and her partner.
Tarma shena Tale'sedrin, a Shin'a'in Kal'enedral, sworn to the service of her Goddess, was plainly some kind of a priest. In fact, much to Roald's surprise, she had achieved a physical manifestation of her Goddess right before his eyes. Never having seen a Goddess, he was rather impressed.
So would I be!
He'd described the manifestation; the impossibly lovely young Shin'a'in woman, clothed as one of her own Swordsworn-but with strange eyes with neither pupil nor white; just the impression of an endless field of stars.
Brrr. I would probably have passed out.
He and Tarma had become quite firm friends after that; Roald's Companion approved of both the priest and her Goddess, which Roald had found vastly amusing. But if Tarma was a powerful priest, Kethry was just as clearly a talented and powerful mage. Roald had quite a bit to say about her; it was evident that he was quite smitten with her, and if it hadn't been for the fact that she was obviously just as smitten with the Rethwellan archivist they had rescued, he hinted that he might well have considered a try in that direction.
A superb tactician, however, he knew a hopeless situation when he saw one and wisely did not pursue his interest any further.
It was Roald's account of Kethry's magical abilities that interested Elspeth. It was in this account that she got a clearer idea of the differences between journeyman class and Master, of Master and Adept. That alone was useful, since it proved to her that what Valdemar needed was indeed an Adept, more than one, if at all possible. Certainly a teacher.
There was no reason why the Mage-Gift should have vanished from the population of Valdemar, when it was clearly present elsewhere.
Roald did not have a great deal to say about Kethry's magical sword, 'Need,' other than the fact that it was magical, with unspecified powers, and would only help women. So at that point in time, the song 'Threes' had not migrated up to Valdemar, or Roald would have made certain to mention it.
Interesting about songs...As evidence of just how strong that magic-prohibition had been, Elspeth had come across another fascinating bit of information in the Bardic Chronicles, which were also stored here. The song 'Kerowyn's Ride' had preceded the arrival of the real Kerowyn by several years-ascribed to 'anonymous.' Which it wasn't; several times visiting Bards had attempted to set the Valdemaran record straight. Each time the attribution was duly noted, then the very next time the song was listed in a Court performance, it was ascribed to 'anonymous.' It was the habit of Master Bards, particularly the teachers, to write short dissertations on the meaning and derivation of popular songs to be used as teaching materials. Out of curiosity, Elspeth had made a point of looking up the file on ' Kerowyn's Ride.' At that point, it would have strained the credulity of even a dunce to believe that there was nothing working to suppress the knowledge of magic-for even after the arrival of the real Kerowyn, Master Bards were writing essays that claimed it was an allegorical piece wherein the Goddess-as-Crone passed her power to the Goddess-as-Maiden at Spring Solstice. She found several other papers stating that it described an actual event that had taken place hundreds of years ago, as evidenced by this or that style.
That was quite enough to get Elspeth ~ into more of the Bardic Chronicles, and that was when she discovered corroborating evidence for her, theory that something was suppressing the very idea of magic.
Despite the fact that there had been a concerted effort to get the songs about Herald Mages and magical conflicts' back into the common repertory, despite the fact that this was Bardic Collegium's top priority-and despite the fact that perfectly awful, maudlin songs like the unkffiable ,MY Lady's Eyes' stayed popular-the 'magic' songs could not be kept in repertory. Audiences grew bored, or wandered away; Bards forgot the lyrics, or found themselves singing lyrics to another song entirely. When given a list of the songs for various occasions, a Seneschal or Master of the Revels would inexplicably choose any song but the ones describing magic.
Only those songs that did not specifically mention magic, or those where the powers described could as easily be ascribed to a traditional Gift, stayed in popular repertory. Songs like the 'Sun and Shadow' ballads, or the 'Windrider' cycle, songs that were hundreds of years older than the Vanyel songs and written in archaic language, were well known-was it because not once was there a reference to a specific spell, only vague terms like 'power' and 'curses?' Furthermore, Elspeth herself had heard the 'problem' songs being sung, not once, but fairly often, and with a great deal of acclaim and success. So it wasn't that there was anything wrong with the songs themselves.
It had to be because of their content. And was it possible that the reason the songs had been successful was that they were sung in the presence of many Heralds? For at seemed to be the common factor. It was when they had been sung with no Heralds present at all that the worst failures occurred.
She had learned several other things from the Chronicles of Vanyel's time-things which had no direct bearing on her present mission, but which explained a great deal.
For instance: there had been something called 'The Web,' which demanded the energy and attention of four Herald-Mages. Those four apparently had been somehow tied to one-quarter of Valdemar each, and were alerted to anything threatening the Kingdom by the reaction of the spell. The problem was, by the end of Queen Elspeth the Second's reign, there were not enough Herald-Mages to cover the four quarters... not and deal with enemies, too.
That was when Vanyel altered the spell, tying all Heralds into this 'Web,' so that when danger threatened, everyone would know. Before that, it was only chance that a Foreseer would bend his will to a particular time and place to see that something would be a problem. After, it was guaranteed; Foreseers would see the danger, and
