And now that Need was no longer in Elspeth's possession, Elspeth was going to have to learn how to do everything Need had done so that she could manage for herself. With an ironic smile, she thought how easily Need could have become less a sword and more a crutch.
Oh, Need would have forced her to learn it all anyway. The only reason Need had aided her for as long as she had was because they had been in something of an emergency situation. In all probability, Need would have insisted on her learning to fend for herself as soon as there had been some breathing room.
Obediently, she 'watched' as Hydona led her through the steps of anchoring and shielding, then practiced until they came easily. First, feeling the stable point in the power-flows about her and setting mental 'hooks' into it, then erecting a shield against mage-energies that was remarkably similar to mental shields. Hydona drilled her over and over, and after a while the exercises stopped being something foreign and started feeling like second-nature. Best of all, they took about the same effort it took to stay on a galloping horse. She was a little surprised by how quickly it all came to her, but Hydona said nothing of it. She seemed to think it was only natural.
'Now,' the gryphon said, after she'd repeated the patterns until she was weary of them, and thought she could do them in her sleep. 'Here isss when you rrreach for powerrr; when you arrre ssafe in yourrr protectionsss, and anchored against fluxesss. Now, there isss a ley-line to the eassst of you; a young one, eassily tamed-but you do not know that.
Ssso. Assssume you know nothing. Searrch for it. When you find it, rrreach forr it, asss Need ssshowed you, and ssample it. Sssee if you can usse it, orrr if it isss too ssstrong forr you.' She closed her eyes, found the line Hydona spoke of, and reached for it, dipping the fingers of an invisible hand into it, as if it were a kind of stream, and she wanted to drink of it.
She 'tasted' it; tested the textures, the strength of the flow and the complexity. It was very tame, and bland. Not terribly strong. Kind of boring, in fact, compared with the rush of power she had gotten when she'd tapped into the node under the gryphons' ruins for the first time.
I can't do much with this, she thought, and began to trace it out to whatever node it was linked into, without thinking twice about doing SO.
She felt her skull resound with a hard, mental thwap! Her eyes snapped open, and she rocked back on her heels for a moment, staring at the female gryphon, aghast.
'What did you do that for?' she cried, angrily. 'I was just-'
'You were jussst about to find yourrr way to the Hearrtssstone,' Hydona interrupted. 'And that, little child, would have eaten you whole, and ssspit out the piecessss. A trrrained and warry Adept can stand againssst it, but not you.' She licked her lips and blinked. 'I thought the Heartstone was shielded. I thought nobody but Adepts could reach it now. Isn't that what all the mages have been working on since we got rid of Falconsbane?'
' And ssso it isss,' Hydona nodded, 'But you arrre within the prrotectionsss of the Practice Ground. The ssshieldsss do not extend herrre, so that those who arrre trrrying to Heal the Ssstone can rrreach it without dissrrupting thossse sssame ssshieldsss.'
'So the Adepts healing, the Stone come here to work?' she asked.
Hydona nodded. Her voice rose with alarm; if the shields didn't extend here- 'Isn't it dangerous for us to be here, then? I mean, what if we interfere with what's going on?'
'Therrre isss no one herrre at the moment,' Hydona said calmly.
'Arrre you afrrraid?' Reluctantly, she nodded. After all she'd heard about the Heartstone and how dangerous it was in its current, shattered state, she wasn't very happy being somewhere that had no protections against it. The idea made her skin crawl a little with uneasiness.
'Good,' Hydona said, with satisfaction. 'You ssshould be afrrraid.
Verrry afrrraid. It isss nothing to disssregarrd, thisss Ssstone. It isss lightning harrnesssed, but barrrely, in itsss perfect sstate.' She refolded
her wings, and settled her tail about her forelegs. 'Now, why werrre you wanderrring off like that?' She shuffled her feet, uncomfortable beneath the gryphon's dark, penetrating gaze. 'I-there wasn't much power there,' she stammered. 'I wanted more than that. I mean, there was hardly enough there to do anything with.' ~ 'Morrre than you think,' Hydona scolded gently. 'Tcha. You arrre a child who hasss alwaysss had a forrrtune at herrr beck, and hasss never learrrned how to make do with less.' The gryphon shook her massive head, and the scent of cinnamon and musk wafted over Elspeth. 'You musst learrrn to budget yourrrssself ' She cocked her head sideways and watched Elspeth with a knowing eye. 'The mossst effective mage I know neverr rrossse above journeyman- classss. He wasss effective becaussse he knew exactly what hisss limitsss werrre, and he did everrrything possible inssside thossse limitssss. He neverrr perrrmitted lack of powerrr to thwart him; he sssimply found waysss for lesss powerrr to accomplisssh the tasssk.' That was the harshest speech she'd ever gotten from Hydona, the closest the gryphon had ever come to giving her a scolding.
Although the thwap a few moments ago was a great deal like one of Kero's 'love-taps.' She rubbed her temple, and considered the similarities between the two teachers. 'Delivered for your own good,' Kero used to say. Well, this is another kind of weapons' work I suppose. And what was it Kero always says? 'On the practice ground, the weaponsmaster is the one true God.' And this is the same as the practice ground, I guess. She nodded meekly, and Hydona seemed satisfied, at least for the moment.
'Ssso, do asss I told you in the firrssst place. Find the line, tesst it, and link with it.' Hydona sat back on her haunches and gave her a steady, narrowed-eyed look that Elspeth interpreted as meaning she would not permit the slightest deviation from her orders.
So, with a purely mental sigh, she found the tame, boring line of power again, and tapped into it. The amount of energy possible to get from a source so slight was hardly more than a trickle, compared to the sunlike fury that was the Heartstone. This time, she made the connection without even closing her eyes. The relationship between the inner world of power, unseen by physical eyes, and the outer world no longer confused her. Part of that was simply all the work she'd done with Farsight over the years; another instance of how working with mindmagic made work with real magic much easier.
Ah, but as Hydona pointed out, less power does not mean less effective power. Mind-magic is still strong. If there are more Heralds with the Magegift, after this I should be able to teach them in a reasonable length of time- not like the six or eight years it takes Quenten's students to become journeymen. I could just work from their own mind-magic Gifts outward.
When she finished her assigned task, sealing the connections with a bit of a flourish, Hydona nodded with satisfaction. 'Good. Now, channel the powerrr to me.' Her beak opened in a hint of amusement at Elspeth's dropped
