Storm Breaking

When they arrived at the chamber, they found Lo'isha, a few of the Kal'enedral, Florian, and An'desha already waiting there, with Altra on Karal's lap and an unopened message tube beside them.

Firesong blinked, and realized that after all the time of working with the mages and Artificers back in Haven, he'd been unconsciously expecting to see more people. So it's just us now. I don't know if I like that. I hate to admit it, but those Artificers had some good ideas.

'I hope this message is written in Valdemaran, but it probably isn't,' Karal said. 'I know enough of Imperial tongue to translate, though, if you want me to.'

'Go ahead,' Firesong said, motioning to him to pick up the tube. 'I don't even read Valdemaran that well; you're the best reader we have except for Florian.'

'And I can just picture Florian trying to unroll the paper!' Karal chuckled, though Firesong noted that Florian came to look over Karal's shoulder, probably to help with the translation.

If only Aya could read foreign tongues! he thought with envy. We could each specialize in a language; it would be so convenient!

Karal broke open the tube and extracted a roll of paper; he unrolled it with an accompanying crackling sound.

Evidently it was in Valdemaran; Karal's frown faded and he began reading immediately. Probably Florian was prompting him.

The letter began abruptly. 'Greetings, and do not attempt to make or use a Gate. We have already tried and the results were Unfortunate. That's with a capital 'U' by the way.'

Firesong winced. I was afraid of that.

'Things must be more unsettled than we thought,' An'desha said with alarm. 'My little magics have been working so well I thought certainly that the larger ones must surely be all right.

'That might simply be a function of where we are,' Firesong reminded him. 'For all we know, there are upper shields on the remains of the Tower, strong enough that we could do almost anything in here and not be affected by what's gone on outside.'

Karal cleared his throat to get their attention again. Firesong turned back to him and nodded, and the young man continued. 'I fear this means you are exiled for the duration, colleagues. We built a small local Gate as soon as we could after you unloosed the power of your Device, and we attempted to transfer a few small nonliving items through it. I am glad now that we opted for caution and made those items of a nonliving nature, for the result on the other side was rather messy. Parts were recognizable, and that is the best I can say. Many suffered from desiccation, aging, or physical compression. Altra's Jumping seems to cause no such problems for the moment, even when he 'carries' someone with him, but he reports that it is becoming more and more difficult to lump as time passes.'

At this, Altra himself raised his head and spoke up. :I find that the distance I can Jump decreases as time passes. I am afraid that within a few weeks I will not be able to Jump across a given distance any faster than a Companion could run across it.:

Firesong let out the breath he'd been holding in. I wonder if I ought to go back to k'Leshya after all? I'm not sure I can continue to live like this and not begin to lose my temper, if not my sanity. 'Well, that's not welcome news,' he said as casually as he could. 'Is there anything else?'

Karal scanned the letter quickly. 'Once the bad news is out, he gets a lot more formal and technical; the short version is that Altra can probably bring one or two people from Haven to here before he can't Jump anymore, but that we need to work on a way to communicate with Haven—maybe using scrying Magic that doesn't transfer or move anything physical seems to work better than magic that does. I just hope that if there are shields protecting this place, they wouldn't interfere with scrying, too.'

He handed the letter over to Firesong. 'Here, you can get all the details yourself later; most of what he says only partially makes sense to me.'

'I'll study it later,' Firesong promised. 'The question now is, what are we going to do? If we're going to have Altra bring someone over, we'd better do it soon.'

'If we can get them,' An'desha said slowly, 'I'd like both Sejanes and Master Levy here.'

Firesong rolled his eyes up at that, but had to grudgingly agree. 'If they'll put up with the unpleasantness of Jumping, they would be the best choices.' he sighed. 'Sejanes has an entire magic discipline that is foreign to us, and Master Levy—' He paused for a moment, reminded himself to be charitable, and chose his words carefully. 'Master Levy has a very unique way of looking at our problems. If not him, then we should have at least one of the Master Artificers here. Even I have to admit that we could not have accomplished anything here without their help.'

An'desha and Karal both nodded vigorously in agreement, which made him feel a bit sour, but he had to admit that without the Artificers, they would be working without a resource as valuable as the presence of an Adept. We need that utterly different viewpoint here. And Master Levy might even be as intelligent as