and pool those men whose skills can provide us shelter suitable for the worst winter you can imagine. Do not neglect the sanitation in this; we are going to need permanent facilities now, something suitable for a long stay, not just latrine trenches. Besides shelter, we will need some way to warm that shelter and to cook food—if we begin cutting trees for the usual fires, we'll have the forest down to stumps before the winter is half over.' Was that enough for them to do? Probably, for now. 'You scholars, search for efficient existing shelters, ones that hold heat well, and some fuel source beside wood. If you find anything that looks practical, bring it to my attention. Mages, you have your assignment. Gentlemen, you are dismissed for now.'
The men had to wait to file out of the great double doors at the end of the hall, suffering the cold blasts penetrating the hall as one of the shutters broke loose and slapped against the wall. The Grand Duke was not so bound; his escape was right behind the dais, in the form of a smaller door at which his bodyguard waited, and he took it, grateful to be out of that place. The short half-cape did nothing to keep a man warm; he wanted a fire and a hot drink, in that order.
The guard fell in silently behind him as he headed for his own quarters, his thoughts preoccupied with all the things he had not—yet—told his men.
The mages probably guessed part of it. They were not simply cut off, they had been abandoned, left to fend for themselves, like unwanted dogs.
The Emperor, with all the power of all the most powerful mages in the world at his disposal, could (if he was truly determined) overcome the disruptions caused by the mage storms to send some kind of message. Tremane had never heard of a commander being left so in the dark before; certainly it was the first time in his own life that he had no clue what Charliss wanted or did not want of him.
There could be several causes for this silence.
The most innocent was also, in some ways, the most ominous. It was entirely possible that the mage-storms wreaking such havoc here could be having an even worse effect within the Empire itself. The Empire had literally been built on magic; distribution of food depended upon it, and communications, and a hundred more of the things that underpinned and upheld the structure of the Empire itself. If that was the case—
They're in a worse panic than we are here. Civilians have no discipline; as things break down, they'll panic. He was enough of a student of history himself to have some inkling what panicking civilians could do. Rioting, mass fighting, hysteria... in a city, with all those folk packed in together, there would be nothing for it but to declare martial law. Even then, that wouldn't stop the fear or the panic. It would be like putting a cork on a bottle of wine that was still fermenting; sooner or later, something would explode.
Tremane reached the warm solitude of his personal suite, waving to the bodyguard to remain outside. That was no hardship; the corridors provided more shelter from the cold drafts than half of the rooms did. Fortunately, his suite was tightly sealed and altogether cozy. He closed the door to his office with a sigh. No drafts here—he could remove his short winter cloak and finally, in the privacy of his quarters, warm numb fingers and frozen toes at a fire.
The second possibility that had occurred to him was basically a variation on what he, himself, had just ordered. The Emperor could have decreed that literally everything was to be secondary to finding a way for the mages to protect the Empire from these storms. There would be no mages free to try and reopen communications with this lost segment of the army. The Empire itself might be protected, but that might very well be all the mages could manage.
But the Empire would hardly spend such precious resources as Imperial mages on the protection of client- states. No, only the core of the Empire, those parts of it that were so firmly within the borders that only scholars recalled what names they had originally borne, would be given such protection.
Which means, he mused, feeling oddly detached from the entire scenario, that the client states are probably rearming and revolting against Charliss. If the Empire itself is under martial law, all available units of the army have been pulled back into the Empire to enforce it. They won't be spending much time worrying about us.
No, one segment of the Imperial Army, posted off beyond the borders of the farthest-flung Imperial Duchy, was not going to warrant any attention under conditions that drastic.
But no one born and raised in the Imperial Courts was ever going to stop with consideration of the most innocent explanations. Not when paranoia was a survival trait, and innocence its own punishment.
So, let us consider the most paranoid of scenarios. The one in which our enemy is the one person who might be assumed to be our benefactor. It was entirely possible that these mage-storms were nothing new to Emperor Charliss. He could have known all along that they were going, to strike, and where, and when. In fact, it was possible that these storms were a weapon that Charliss was testing on them.
Tremane grew cold with a chill that the fire did nothing to warm.
This could be a new terror-weapon, he thought, following the idea to its logical conclusion, as his muscles grew stiff with suppressed tension. What better weapon than one that disrupts your enemy's ability to work magic, and leaves land and people beaten down but relatively intact?
There was even a 'positive' slant to that notion. Perhaps this was a new Imperial weapon that was meant only to act as an aid to them in their far-distant fight, and it simply had a wider
