gloating over his new-won prize as he had gloated over so many in the past. 'That is predictable, too.
Probably in his study; he is jealous of his things of power and often will not put them where other mages may even see them. He will want such a thing as near to him as may be.'
'That would be a bad place to put a Gate,' Darkwind observed. 'A Gate works both ways-'
'No, I suspect he will try to anchor it in a stone or crystal of some kind, rather than as a Gate,' she said, trying to remember if Falconsbane had ever indicated that he knew how to make the Greater Gates.
'I am not sure. I believe he knows how to make a Gate but has not the strength. I think he would rather create something to use as a powerpole, to bring in more lines, if he can.'
'What, use it to create his own kind of Heartstone?' Darkwind asked in surprise, and was even more surprised when she nodded. 'Make a Heartstone like a Hawkbrother?'
'It seems amazing that he should imitate you,' she told him earnestly,' but he has seen your success. He is not good at creating things.
He is good at twisting them to his own ends, or warping them to suit his fancies, but not at creating them. He will imitate you, therefore, and tell himself that he is making something entirely new.'
'So, whatever he tries is going to have a focus,' Darkwind mused.
'The personal link will have to be taken from Firesong, of course-but if he has to have a focus, he has to have something physical. Focus; his ideal choice would be something shaped the way the proto-Gate Looks in the halfworld. And we can attack that.'
'What are you thinking of?' Skif asked, sounding just a little belligerent and definitely protective.
Darkwind looked up at the tall Herald, and shook his head. 'You are not going to care for my notions,' he said. 'No, you are not going to like them at all.'
'Probably not,' Skif agreed. 'On the other hand, I don't like the idea of Falconsbane with all that power.'
'Nor do I.' Darkwind turned back to Nyara. 'Before I broach any ideas, there's something I really need to know, both from you, and from your friend in the sheath.' He nodded at Need. 'Do you think you can hold out against your father's control now? I mean in a face-to-face confrontation; can you hold against his will?'
'Good question, boy. My vote is yes-but she won't unless she believes she can.' Nyara looked deeply and carefully into his eyes. 'I think so,' she replied after a long moment of thought. 'I know that I can for some time if we are not near one another. I think that I can, if we are not in physical contact. If he had me in his hands-' She shrugged, trying to hide her fear, but Darkwind saw it and sympathized with it anyway. 'I would have no chance with him, if I were in his hands. But the old means by which he controlled me no longer work. He tried upon me what he perfected upon your father. Because none of this was perfected, there were places where Need and I could break what he had done to me. He would have to work magic-perhaps even cast actual spells-to get new controls on me. And just at the moment he might not realize that.'
'Part of the way he reacts in a typical fashion when he feels himself under pressure?' Darkwind asked.
She nodded. 'Especially if he were distracted or busy,' she told him.
'The more distractions he has, the more likely he is to revert to what has worked in the past.'
'Absolutely,' Need agreed. 'Half the reason I was able to help her so much was because I was watching Kethra Heal your father. His problems are a superior copy of hers. We've thrown Falconsbane off-balance by destroying the Heartstone, and he's reacting predictably, by trying to steal the power it harbored. there are a dozen other things he could do with it, or about it, but instead, he's doing exactly what I would have predicted for him.'
'I could prolong the moment that he thinks he still has me controlled by feigning it,' Nyara offered, trembling a little inside from fear. 'Need might be able to help with that.'
Nyara watched Darkwind turn all that over in his mind-and she wondered.
One plan, with a fair likelihood of success, had already occurred to her. She wondered if he was thinking the same thing that she was.
She had been thinking about something like this for some time-fearing the idea, yet knowing it had logic to it. And knowing that if she were asked, she would follow through with it.
Skif was most definitely not going to like it.
*Chapter Twenty-two
Falconsbane stepped back and surveyed his work, nodding with satisfaction.
He had done very well, given the short notice he'd had. And it had been at minimal cost to himself. There were, after all, two ways to create power-poles. The first way was to produce the power from yourself; much in the same way that a Gate was created. That was not the ideal way to proceed, so far as he was concerned.
The other way was to induce it from the body of another-as skilled and powerful a mage as one could subdue. The drawing out of the power would kill the mage in question, of course; there was no way to avoid that. A pity, but there it was.
Then, given the plan he had created, one needed to fix the pole in place-that required another mage. Fixing the pole absolutely required the life of that mage, this time by sacrifice, although Falconsbane had managed to crush the man's heart with no outward signs and no blood spilt. It would have been a pity to stain the new carpets.
And lastly, in accordance with the plan, he had needed the full power of a human life and the full power of a mage to establish a web of energy linking the power-pole he had created with every possible point in his territory. Naturally that had required a third mage.
It was possible to do all of that from his own resources, but that would have required exhausting himself completely. That wasn't acceptable at this point. Doing it through others was far less efficient; it took three mages to create what he could have accomplished alone.
