Storm Breaking

well, an exhausted node would be no more dangerous than no node. If there's no power to act upon, there will be nothing to go rogue.'

'Apologies, but things work somewhat differently where I am from, and we did not handle magic wells that way,' Tremane offered. Tremane did not take offense at her manner, perhaps because she was at least participating in these experimental sessions and demonstrating that she was not going to take out her animosity toward him on Hardorn and its people in general. He grimaced as if he was getting a headache. 'Then if we could simply find a way to keep a node spawning its own shields until the energy ran out—'

'This is all very nice in theory,' Elspeth pointed out impatiently. 'But even if we could do that, we haven't the time or the resources to run about the countryside slapping a shieldspell over every node!'

'Well, actually, we wouldn't have to do that, at least not here—' began Tremane.

'There are Priests enough in Karse to shield every node there,' said Solaris at the same time.

'And that works for Hardorn and Karse.' Elspeth frowned. 'But what about Valdemar? And the Pelagirs? And elsewhere?'

'Hmm,' Tashiketh rumbled, moving his gaze from Solaris to Tremane and back again. 'There is an answer to that question already in our hands.'

Hansa and Father Janas switched their gazes between the two rulers also, as Solaris and Tremane exchanged a very peculiar look.

There was something rather odd going on there, and Elspeth hadn't a clue to what it was all about, but the tension between those two suddenly increased a hundredfold.

'I do not like you,' Solaris burst out, as she abruptly got to her feet and stood, glaring at Tremane. 'I do not like you at all! Ever since you and your heathen army came here, you have stood for everything I find detestable—expediency above honor, craft above wisdom, guile above truth, self-reliance above faith! I do not like you!'

And with that, she gathered her robes about her and swirled out, Hansa padding in her wake. The heavy silence that followed her outburst made even their breathing seem loud.

'What in hell was that all about?' Elspeth asked, bewildered. She had never seen Solaris lose control like that before.

Tremane looked at the door that Solaris had closed—not slammed—behind herself. 'I'm not sure,' he replied, 'but it might have to do with a solution that involves a personal compromise on the part of the Son of the Sun.' He appeared to make up his mind about something and stood up. 'If you four can work on the problem of a self- renewing shield-spell that can take power from a node-source without the intervention of an Adept, I will go and speak with Solaris, and see if my guess mirrors actuality rather than just an outburst of frustration.'

He nodded at all of them, and left as well.

Darkwind snorted. 'A self-renewing shield-spell that takes power from a node without an Adept. At least he was only asking the impossible!'

But Elspeth wasn't so certain. 'Don't Tayledras Heartstones do self-renewing spells, like the Veil? And they don't need an Adept around to make them work.'

Darkwind started to object, then got a thoughtful look on his face. Tashiketh rested his beak on his foreclaws, looking expectant. 'They do,' Darkwind replied slowly. 'And I was about to say that nodes aren't Heartstones, but Heartstones are a kind of node. Let me think about this one for a moment.'

Father Janas simply shrugged. 'I haven't the least idea of what you're all talking about,' he said cheerfully. 'Tremane asked me to sit through this because I know how the earth-binding and earth-magic works. Other than that, my friends, I'm fairly useless. But it does seem to me that for your controlling factor, you could use earth- energy, the very slow and subtle energies that underlie everything, the ones even hedge-wizards and earth-witches use. Those are fundamentally unaffected by the Storms.'

Tashiketh raised his head and nodded eagerly; Darkwind looked at Father Janas as if he had unwittingly uttered something profound.

Elspeth had come late to magic and thus undergone a forced-growth process like a hothouse plant. She had never actually worked with such primitive energies as Janas described. But the theory seemed reasonable to her, and both Tashiketh and Father Janas obviously were familiar in detail with how those magics operated. 'Well, why don't we just pursue that particular hare until we either catch it or it goes to cover?' she asked decisively.

'It is these energies with which Vykaendys created the Shield-Wall,' Tashiketh said thoughtfully. 'This is why there is less magical energy to spare within Iftel itself than there is in other lands. It is constantly going to renew the Shield-Wall. If this works, there will be little energy to spare in any of the lands when the Final Storm has passed.'

'And the alternative?' Elspeth replied. 'I don't think any of us want to contemplate