Storm Rising

'You help me a lot,' Karal replied with feeling. 'Just knowing that I have a real friend here helps more than I can say.'

A light footstep at the door alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone with Florian in the stable. 'Only one?' An'desha asked as the Shin'a'in Adept entered the stable. 'If I didn't know you didn't mean that literally, I would be sorely hurt.' The teasing tone in his voice told Karal that he wasn't particularly serious.

As An'desha neared, Karal noted that he looked better than he had in days. Both of them had participated in a magical ceremony at the Valdemar/Iftel border that had been much more powerful and traumatic than either of them had ever dreamed possible. The end result of that was a temporary 'breakwater' running from the northernmost tip of Iftel to the southernmost end of Karse, a breakwater that disrupted the mage-storms as they moved across the face of the land, broke them up and dissipated their energies harmlessly. It wouldn't last forever—for as the storms increased in power and frequency, they were tearing away at the new protections—but it bought them some time to come up with a better solution.

Of the two, An'desha had been the most exhausted, for he had been the one doing most of the work. Karal was not a mage; his mentor Ulrich had said once that he 'had the potential to become a channel,' but no one here knew what Ulrich had meant, until he was needed at the Iftel border.

Channeling must be instinctive, rather than learned. That was what other mages had said, once he described what had happened. He had recovered quickly, once they all returned to the capital of Haven and the expert care of the Healers. An'desha's recovery had been much slower.

An'desha's complexion was closer to the healthy golden tones of his Shin'a'in ancestors now, rather than the pasty yellow he had been sporting. There was more silver at the roots of his hair, which was hardly surprising, considering how much magical power he'd been handling. Handling the extremes of mage- energy bleached the hair and eyes to silver and blue, so Karal had been told. That was why An'desha's lover, the Tayledras Adept Firesong, had hair as white as snow before his eighteenth birthday, as it was to this day.

Karal had been told that An'desha had once been something called a 'Changechild,' a creature with a body that seemed part-animal, part-human; changed into that form by the spirit of an evil Adept who had taken possession of An'desha's body and twisted it into the form he chose, that of a cat-man. Mornelithe Falconsbane had eventually been driven out and destroyed, and by some miracle—literally a miracle, according to those who had been there at the time—An'desha's body had been returned to the form it had once held. With one exception.

An'desha's eyes were those of a cat's, still: green-yellow, and slit-pupiled. Now, though, they were growing paler, more silvery blue than greenish yellow. Again, that was the effect of all the magic An'desha had handled in setting up the breakwater.

Those were the outward signs of change. There were other signs; a calm that had not been evident before, an air of relaxation. Confidence. An'desha knew what he was now, and was comfortable with the knowledge. He also knew what he was not.

He was not Falconsbane, though he shared that evil creature's memories.

'I'm glad you know I did not mean to exclude you,' Karal said with a welcoming smile.

'And I know what you meant—you are glad to have one Valdemaran friend. I am as much a foreigner and lost among these crazed folk as you.' An'desha winked at Florian and dragged a short bench over from beside the stove. He was wearing clothing that marked him as foreign as Karal's Karsite robes, a cross between Hawkbrother garb and the quilted winter clothing of his own Shin'a'in nomads. 'Firesong is complaining of the cold and swearing he will freeze to death before the first snow. Darkwind reminded him that his home Vale has winters worse than any in Valdemar. Firesong, of course, retorted that he never had to go out into such barbaric weather, and Elspeth chose to point out that he showed up at Darkwind's Vale riding through a snowstorm. He claimed it was because he represented his Vale and thus he had to make a dramatic appearance, and Darkwind said he was just posing. This became a contest of exaggerations, and no one noticed when I left.' An'desha was laughing, so the 'argument' must not have been that serious. 'Firesong looking for pity and he is not going to find it from a Herald and a Tayledras scout, I fear.'

'Nor from you?' Karal teased.

'Nor from me.' An'desha stretched out his booted foot toward the stove. 'If he seeks it, I shall only tell him what he told me so very often; too much sympathy makes one look for excuses, not answers. If he does not like the weather, perhaps he should consider making a Veil to cover Haven and turning it all into a Tayledras Vale.'

'Ouch! A hit, indeed.' Karal chuckled, and Florian whickered his own amusement. 'Poor Firesong! All hands are raised against him today.'

'It is only the weather that makes him irritable,' An'desha said matter-of-factly. 'In that, I cannot blame him too much. Grim, gray, gloomy, and chill! I hope that the farmers are able to get their harvests in, or we all shall be wearing tighter belts come spring.'

'I don't know. I haven't heard that things are any worse than previous years, but no farmer anywhere admits to a good yield,' Karal replied. 'I have heard that things have improved, now that the breakwater is up.' That gave him an opening he'd been looking for. 'An'desha—you were outside the Iftel border. Did you see anything when I went in?'

'How do you mean? I saw a great deal, both with MageSight and my own two kitty-slit eyes.' An'desha pointed to them, then crossed his legs gracefully and leaned forward a little. The wood of his seat creaked as he moved.