Storm Rising

essentially working very small, limited magics of extremely limited duration and at very close range, but he doubted that the Chief Chirurgeon would agree with his particular definition.

Evidently his subordinate didn't even care for his expression. 'Healing just is not magic as you understand it,' the man persisted. 'There's an old term for healing and a number of other abilities all lumped together: mind-magic. No one these days ever bothers with most of the other abilities, except a few practitioners of some of the odder religions.'

Mind-magic? Where have I heard that term used before? There's something very familiar about that term. 'What are those other things that were lumped in with healing?' he asked, out of a feeling that the answer might be important.

'Oh,' the chirurgeon waved dismissively. 'They're hardly important, things many educated people think are mostly delusional. Speaking mind-to-mind without the assistance of a teleson-spell; moving objects or even people with the power of the mind alone and no Portals involved; seeing and speaking with spirits of the dead; communicating directly with deities; seeing into the distance, the past, or the future without benefit of a mirror- spell; and imposing one's will upon another.' He shrugged. 'Most folk in the Empire are rather skeptical about those sorts of things. It is very easy to pretend to powers that are only in the mind, and thus very subjective.'

He'd been speaking in Hardornen, though whether it was out of politeness for the company or simply because he'd forgotten to switch back to the Imperial tongue, Tremane couldn't have said for certain. The locals, who had been listening to his speech with some interest, laughed uproariously at that last statement. The chirurgeon glared at them in annoyance.

'I fail to see what was so amusing,' he said acidly. 'Perhaps you would care to enlighten me?'

'You people wouldn't be so skeptical if you'd ever met a Herald out of Valdemar,' was the reply. 'They don't use your 'real' magic over there, or they didn't until just lately. Everything they do is with mind-magic, and they think yours is poppycock and fakery.'

Affronted, the chirurgeon turned his own underlings; the Hardornen builders got involved in a discussion of the best 'furnaces' and other devices to heat the barracks, and whether or not the walls really needed to be piled with earth. There seemed to be a brotherhood of builders, of stone and wood and metal, that transcended nationalities.

That left Tremane with an interesting tidbit to mull over. The Valdemarans did everything with mind-magic? That must have been where he'd first heard the term.

So Heralds must be the people born with these abilities; somehow they have a way of testing for them, I suppose. Then they get herded up the way the Karsites collect children with Mage-Talent, and sent off for training. Clever, to put them all in service to the Crown; the Empire could do with that policy regarding mages. And they aren't used to using real magic; it's new to them, so they don't rely on it. Fascinating.

No wonder they weren't having the kind of problems with mage-storms that he was having! They simply didn't have things that would be disrupted by the storms!

There are plenty of folk in the Empire who would call that a barbaric way of life—but they can heat their homes and move their goods and we can't.... So who has the superior way of life now?

Heating homes... all very well to heat the barracks with cow dung, but what was he going to cook with? 'Wood,' he said aloud. 'We have a problem; trees don't grow as quickly as wheat, and I don't intend to denude the countryside to keep my people warm if I can help it. Have any of you any suggestions?'

The Hardornens exchanged glances, and one of them finally spoke up. 'Commander Tremane, you know as well as we do the state of things here. Half the people of Hardorn are gone. Whole villages are wiped out just because some lieutenant of Ancar got offended over something someone said, farms were abandoned when the last able-bodied person gave up or was carried off. We were going to suggest that once the harvest was over, your folk and ours go out together on foraging expeditions.'

He considered this for a moment. 'Do I take it that there is a reasonable chance that such expeditions will be left alone by the—the loyal Hardornen forces?'

The man snorted. 'The loyal Hardornen forces aren't 'forces' at all. Most of them will be getting their harvests in, if they can. They're battling time and weather just as we are, and they won't have the extra men we will.'

He nodded; that confirmed his own ideas. 'How is the harvest looking?' he asked, thinking that this man just might be honest enough to tell him.

'That's another reason for foraging,' the fellow told him frankly. 'The harvest isn't bad, but some of us aren't sure it will hold the town over the winter. Sandar wants to send out foraging parties to some of the farms that have been abandoned and see what we might be able to get out of the fields, or even the barns and silos.' He grinned. 'There's sure to be stuff good enough for your thatching straw, if nothing else.'

'You'd prefer to have some of my forces along, I take it.' He made that a statement; another bizarre killer- beast had been taken today, after it had attacked one of the harvesting parties. This time no one was killed, and only a few men were hurt, but no one was going to forget that these things were still out beyond the nearly- completed walls. 'So what do my people get out of this?'

'We find out just who's left—after Ancar, the Empire, and the mage-storms,' the man said bluntly. 'You get a