by a purposeful wind-or a drift of fog with a mind of its own.
'I'm done,' she announced, dusting off her hands. 'Your turn.' She took a seat nearby, her face alight with interest. 'I thought these lines were like rivers or something. I didn't know you could change where they went.'
'Generally only the little ones,' Darkwind told her as he stretched.
'At least, the major lines take all the mages of a Clan to reroute. That's something we do when we- start a Vale; we find a node or make one, then relocate all the nearest big lines to it, so that we can drain the wild magic of an area into the Heartstone.'
'It isss much like crrreating a riverrrrbed before therrre isss a rrriver, Hydona said. 'When the waterrr comess, it will follow the courssse laid forrr it. Ssso isss the wild magic to the grreaterrr linesss. The grrreaterrr linesss have theirrr bankssss widened. The unsssettled magicsss join theirrr flow.'
' I can see how that would make sense. And when you leave, you drain the magic from the Stone-along a new-made set of 'riverbeds,' I assume,' Elspeth said, with a measure of surety in her voice.
'That, or a series of reservoirs are made temporarily.'
'Then what?' she asked Darkwind.
'Then we sever the lines and let them drift back into natural patterns, and physically remove the Stone,' he told her as he concentrated more of his attention on the complex of shields and probes he would need to handle his task. Shields against the Heartstone, some set to deflect energy away, some to resist, sensory probes to know what it was doing.
Heartstones were not precisely aware, they certainly weren't thinking creatures, yet they were alive in a sense and normally tractable. But this one was no longer normal.
'But didn't you redirect the greater ley-lines in the first place to get rid of wild magic?' she asked, puzzled. 'Or am I missing something?' At least this time she didn't phrase it in a way that made me sound like I didn't know what I was talking about.
'We did-' This juggling of preparations and explanations was going to get him into trouble if he wasn't very careful, which, again. was probably Treyvan's intention. In a job like this, 'trouble' had the potential of being very serious indeed. The gryphons were merciless in their testing. 'We do. And by the time we leave, it's gone, changed into a stable form. The magic we're draining... isn't in its natural state.' Set the shield just-so-got to be able to sense through it without getting blinded if the Stone surges- 'It doesn't belong here, and certainly not in a random state. Once we finish, the only thing left is the natural magic flow.'
'Ah, so you take down the Stone and leave, and everything goes back to the way it was before the Mage Wars.' Both he and Hydona had already explained the natural flow of magic energy to her; how it was created by living things, how it collected in ley-lines and reservoirs in the same way that water collected in streams and lakes.
'Probably not exactly, but at least a human can live here without fear that his children will have claws -or two heads. And there won't be any other Changecreatures there either, unless they manage to get past our lands somehow.' I'll need a secondary shield to slap between the end of the severed line and the Stone 'And when we leave, we take the innocent or harmless mage-created creatures with us, so they don't have t fear the full-humans who inevitably arrive.' Her face changed subtly at that, as if it was something that hadn't occurred to her until that moment. He would have liked to know what she was thinking.
Well, time enough for that, later.
'I would like you behind as many shields as you can put up,' he told her. 'I do not know what is likely to happen; there has been so much work with the Stone that it may have changed the way it is likely to react. Can you watch through my 'eyes,' or Treyvan's?' She nodded and extended a tentative 'hand' to him, waiting for him to take it.
Well, that's promising. She didn't just fling a link at me without asking.
He took her up; making certain that everything including surface thoughts was well-shielded against casual probes. He didn't think she would intrude, but there were always accidents. Some of his personal thoughts were less than flattering to her; most he would rather not share with anyone.
Treyvan indicated his readiness to act with a nod and a 'hand' of his own. He settled into partnership with the gryphon with the same ease that one half of an acrobatic team has with the other.
But Treyvan waited for him to initiate the action. The gryphon's intention was clear; he meant to observe the act as a backup in case of trouble but to otherwise let Darkwind take the lead. The Heartstone glowered before them, sullen red, pulsing irregularly, with odd cracklings of random energy discharge flowing over and through it. The lines were anchored firmly in its base, concentrated amidst the major lines like roots from a crystalline tree of lightning, their rainbow-patterned raw power transformed by the stone itself.
Was he ready?
He would have to find out sooner or later. Might as well get it over with.
'All right, old friend,' he Mindsent. 'Let's make this one clean and quick.'
Clean it was; quick, it was not.
The Stone resisted their attempts to sever the lines, as Treyvan predicted he was not prepared for the uncanny way in which it reacted when he severed the first of them, though.
He formed his own power into a thin, sharp-edged 'blade,' sliding it into the join of Stone and line, intending to excise the line as if cleaning a rabbit hide. To his surprise, though, it Felt precisely like trying to cut the leg from an old, tough) and overcooked gamebird; he encountered a flexible resistance that was at once yielding and entangling. from trying to cut his way through the join, He changed his tactic; changed to burning his way through. It resisted that as well, so he changed to a mental image of wielding bitter cold at the join, to make it brittle, then breaking it away. That worked, but it was a good thing he had secondary shields ready to protect the raw 'ends,' because the moment he got the line loose and held in one of his 'hands,' he Sensed movement from the Stone.
He passed the line to Treyvan, protected the end with an expanding shield. Just in time. The Stone itself created tiny tentacles of seeking power, probing after the lines it had lost. Thin, waving strands of sullen red energy groped toward him, lengthening as they searched. The hair on the back of his neck rose as they came to him, then ignored him, and sought after the line. For one frightening moment, he thought they were coming after him, that the Stone knew he had taken the line and wanted retribution. They reminded him of the filaments of energy cast out
