Storm Breaking

that?' if Tremane's voice was sharp with anxiety, Darkwind couldn't blame him.

'No, sir, that much is quite clear,' the aide said with certainty. 'The old man at the signal did say that the term used was one that he hadn't seen very often, but that it was definitely noted as being friendly.'

'Thank the gods for small favors,' Tremane muttered, and sighed, running a hand over his chin. 'Well, now I know what it—ah—feels like to have the Iftel Border open up. That's useful information. But how whatever is coming expects to travel in this winter weather, I can't begin to imagine.'

'Peregryn and his men did,' Darkwind pointed out. 'There's no reason to suppose others can't, but it will take time for them to arrive, perhaps weeks on foot, ten days by horse.'

'By then, I might even have a throne I can sit on without worrying if it's going to break and drop me on my rump,' Tremane sighed, then laughed. 'Listen to me complaining about a flimsy throne! As if that was the worst thing we have to face!'

'A delegation from Iftel,' Elspeth mused, twisting one of the rings she wore around and around. 'They've always allowed a single envoy from Valdemar inside their land, so long as it was a member of the Merchant's Guild—but never anyone from the Mercenary's Guild. And they would never permit Heralds inside.' She shook her head. 'The envoy never would tell us much, only that they 'preferred peace' but weren't particularly interested in any exchanges with us.'

'Very insular,' Darkwind commented, quite well aware that this was a case of the goose complaining that the swan had a long neck. One can hardly call the Tayledras anything but insular.

'They could have good reason for being insular,' Tremane pointed out. 'When was the first time people of Valdemar encountered them?'

'Quite some time after the Founding,' Elspeth admitted. 'Their barrier was already in place then, at least according to the Chronicles. It was a merchant who was first allowed inside, and it has mostly been merchants who crossed it since.' She smiled deprecatingly. 'They may be insular, but like the rest of us, they enjoy buying things.' Darkwind hid his own smile. for that last shot had been meant for herself. She had been unable to resist spending some of her own money on a few odd trifles that had turned up in the loot of the Imperial storehouse.

'So they could have encountered someone or something extremely dangerous before they ever saw you,' Tremane pointed out, his eyes speculative, as he probably tried to envision what could have been so terrible that it caused an entire country to erect a magical barrier to keep out intruders. That it was a barrier that had survived centuries and baffled the magic powers of Ancar, Falconsbane, and the Empire alike made it all the more intriguing.

'They probably did,' Darkwind put in. 'In those early days, there were terrible things that far north. There was at least one Tayledras Vale somewhere about there, and our Chronicles report that at some time while they lived there, they encountered and defeated a Dark Mage much like Ancar's servant Falconsbane, but with a larger following.'

He did not add that this mage probably had actually been Falconsbane in one of his earlier incarnations. Tremane neither knew about Falconsbane, nor likely cared; the only person still concerned with Ma'ar-Falconsbane was An'desha, and only because An'desha still held those critically-important memories. But as for the rest of them...

Falconsbane is dead, with the past, and this time he will stay that way. And about damned time, but we have more important things to worry about. The sober glance that Elspeth cast his way said virtually the same thing. For now, the situation was grave enough that even isolated Iftel was opening her borders and sending representatives to them; there was no leisure to dwell on the past.

'I don't know what, if anything, these representatives of Iftel might offer you,' Darkwind cautioned.

'If nothing else,' Tremane mused, 'perhaps we can get them to part with the secret that makes up their Border. It's shielded them from the worst of the Storms so far; it might be able to shield us as well.'

'Provided these people arrive here before the question becomes academic,' Gordun, Tremane's chief mage, reminded him dryly. 'It's a long way to the northern border and the going is difficult; by the time they get here, the Final Storm could have left us in ruins here.'

Tremane nodded ruefully. 'A good point, though it was an entertaining thought while it lasted. Well, that brings up the next decision; what shall we tell our newest Baron tomorrow about the Final Storm?'

'Hide, and finish your card games quickly?' one wag suggested. There was a general, strained laugh, and then the discussion moved into the serious channel of what to do in the immediate future. Eventually, late that night, precisely what should be told to the Baron and his entourage had been worked out; enough to make him understand the gravity of the situation, but not so much that he would panic. Panic would be bad for Peregryn and his people as well.

Over the course of the next couple of days, the Baron got his pick of surplused supplies, was given a review of troopers interested in resettling up north, and got his briefing and warnings about the Final Storm. He and his own advisers were philosophical about that last; there was nothing they could do to stop it, and they could only hope that the physical effects were limited to places with no human populations. During the first of the storms, caught both by the initial storm waves and the reflected waves from the Iftel Border, they had suffered more damage than anyone yet reporting in. 'We have already had a half-dozen people unfortunate enough to be caught in one of the things we are calling 'change-circles,' and they were changed even as beasts are,' Peregryn said, with a