Storm Rising

picking up handfuls and dropping them back into the box, one at a time. Darkwind began wrapping the shaft of a feather with fine silver wire, and Elspeth began methodically sharpening one of her knives. The stropping sound blended with the tick tick of pebbles dropping into the box, forming a peculiar and hypnotic pattern.

:Karal!:

Karal's hand closed hard on the pebbles; Altra materialized with lightning suddenness right in front of them.

Elspeth dropped her dagger.

:Karal, I've just been to Natoli—she's fine. Or rather, she's no worse than the Healers told you. Concussion, cracked collarbone, bruises, broken wrist, but only a badly sprained ankle.:

Karal babbled all this to the rest of the room, as quickly as Altra relayed it to him mentally. As he spoke, the atmosphere in the room changed dramatically.

:Justen will live, and in fact he's already making rather narcotic-induced plans for artificial legs or a wheeled chair. His burns are painful, but they have new dressings and new narcotics from the k'Leshya that will make a big difference. Ferd's concussed and his wrists are both broken, but they'll heal fine, David broke three ribs and his arm. That's it. That's all. They're going to be all right!:

Cheers rang out across the room, although Karal's mind was only on Natoli. He let out a whoop, and threw his handful of pebbles into the air. An'desha yelped and dropped the hoop he was holding onto to cover his head with his hands as pebbles showered down around him.

The hoop and one of the stones hit the water simultaneously, the stone falling in the middle of the area enclosed by the hoop. An'desha ignored it, vaulting across benches to join Karal in a back-slapping indulgence of relief.

But Master Levy ignored them, leaning over to peer intently at the water- table.

When they finally stopped acting like a pair of demented idiots, he beckoned imperiously to An'desha. 'Get over here, would you? Something interesting happened this time.'

Heads turned all over the room at that, and a sudden silence fell, for Master Levy never used the term 'interesting' unless something of cosmic portent had occurred or been calculated. An'desha trotted back to his place beside Master Levy and picked the hoop up out of the water.

Master Levy picked up a stone.

He gave the signal to An'desha to drop the hoop, and at the same time dropped the stone into the exact center of the area defined by the hoop.

'There,' he said, as An'desha leaned over the table. 'Where the two sets of waves meet—you see?'

'They're canceling each other,' An'desha breathed. 'The water isn't exactly smooth, but it's just a minor disturbance. It jitters... it breaks up.'

Darkwind rose to his feet with alacrity, Elspeth following. 'Do that again!' he ordered. 'I want to see this.'

Others quickly gathered around the table, including those who had only come here on the chance that there was word about the injured students. The experiment was repeated over and over again, with the stone being dropped simultaneously with the hoop, a heartbeat after the hoop was dropped, and a heartbeat before. In all cases, the waves in the water caused by the hoop were at least partially canceled by the waves from the dropped stone.

And the trick worked best when the stone was dropped in the exact center of the area defined by the hoop.

'This is it,' Master Levy breathed, his eyes lighting.

'But how are we going to set up an opposing force, in the proper modulation, that will cancel the mage-storm waves?'

Karal came back to hear Master Levy ask one of his typically brutally precise questions. He would rather have been at Natoli's side, but the Healers still weren't letting anyone in with the students. Now he was back, half a candle mark later, and the discussions were still going strong.

'More magic, like a Final Strike,' Darkwind replied promptly. 'The storms were caused by magic. We can set up a canceling force by magic, something that releases an immense amount of energy all at once. We've canceled magic before—we do that all the time to blunt effects, in containment spells—those are just spells that exactly