Storm Breaking

Storms were coming in all the time now, and although the Tower shields were still holding, they had been forced to evacuate the remains of the Shin'a'in camp some days ago as a blizzard like none of their hosts had ever seen before raged across the Plains. Similar weather ravaged Valdemar, Karse, Hardorn, the Vales—

Probably everywhere else, too, Karal thought, listening carefully. And it's supposed to be spring out there. If he paid very close attention, he could ignore all the sounds coming from inside the Tower, and was able to pick out, very faintly, the howling of the winds outside. You couldn't even stand out there, the wind would knock you to the ground in a heartbeat. It was a good thing that they had evacuated the Plains weeks ago; tents wouldn't take this kind of pounding, and no horse, sheep, or mule would survive exposed to a storm like this.

As for the Vales—Firesong said that the Tayledras were incorporating the magic that shielded nodes with the one that formed the Veil that protected each of their Vales. Hopefully, these would hold; if not, they would have to live as the scouts did from now on, exposed to the elements, without their little lands of artificial summer.

Karal wished he knew what was going on in Karse; Altra would only say that Solaris had the situation well under control, and that most of the people were being well cared for. He hoped that his family was all right, though since they were living in a fairly prosperous village, they should be. The ones in real danger would be the remote farmers and shepherds who, isolated and alone out in the hills and mountains, might not have gotten warning in time to get to adequate shelter.

He hadn't thought about his family in a long time; the Karal that had helped his father in the inn's stables was another person entirely, and he knew that if his mother or father were to pass him in the street, they would not recognize him. And he would have nothing whatsoever in common with them. He had always expected to change as he grew up—but not this radically.

He tucked up his legs and rested his chin on his knees, thinking wistfully about all he had left behind—all he would leave behind if this effort failed. When it came right down to it, there were only a handful of people who would actually miss him if he didn't come out of this, and most if not all of them would recover quickly enough. Natoli probably wouldn't exactly recover, but she would manage, and go on to make something good out of her life. And meanwhile, he would have done something important with his life, and there weren't too many people who could actually say that. The thought, though bleak, was curiously liberating.

He had made his good-byes to everyone except those who were still in the Tower itself, down in the workroom; he still had time, and this might be the moment to take care of that little detail.

He got to his feet and slipped down the stairs, hoping to find Tarrn and Lyam alone. He was lucky; Lo'isha, Master Levy and Silverfox were still up above, with the handful of Shin'a'in who were still here, wedging doors to other weapon rooms open and helping to drag the cube-maze out of its little room into the main one. No matter what else happened here, they were at least going to accomplish one thing Urtho could not; they were going to render every other weapon in the Tower inactive.

Their industry left the workroom mostly untenanted. Only Aya sat nervously on a perch in the corner, while Lyam and Tarrn puttered about, storing things away more efficiently.

He stood uncertainly on the stairs, and it was Tarrn who noticed him first. :Well, young one, it is nearly time,: the kyree said, looking unusually solemn.

'I know,' he replied, sitting down on the bottom steps. 'I came to tell you both that I'm very glad I knew you, and I learned a lot from both of you.'

They left what they had been working on to join him. 'I am very pleased to have been your friend, Karal,' Lyam said earnestly, taking Karal's hand in his own dry and leather-skinned claw-hand. 'I hope we will be able to continue that friendship after Tarrn and I have gone back to k'Leshya.'

:And you figure prominently in my Chronicles, young scholar,: Tarrn said gravely, with a slight bow of his graying head, giving Karal what the young Karsite knew were the two most important accolades in the kyree's vocabulary—being called a scholar and being told he had a prominent place in the history Tarrn was writing. :In days to come, cubs will be astonished that I actually had the privilege of your friendship.:

An awkward silence might have started then, but at that very moment, Silverfox came trotting down the stairs, followed by all the rest. 'It's time, Karal,' the kestra'chern said, and gave Karal a completely unself-conscious hug. 'They're waiting for you.'

'Good luck, boy,' Master Levy called, and cracked an unexpected smile. 'Don't disappoint Natoli; she's expecting you to take careful notes and tell her all your observations.'

Lo'isha only clasped his hand warmly and looked deeply and gravely into his eyes, and the rest of the Shin'a'in paused long enough to give him the nod of respect they normally only accorded to Lo'isha.

Each of them in his own way was saying farewell—giving him what encouragement they could—without doing anything that might unnerve him or shake his confidence. He knew that, and knew that they knew it as well. And he knew that he should be afraid, but somehow all his fear had passed away as he made those farewells, as if each of them was taking a little bit of it with them, so that he could be freed to do his task.

He walked quickly up the stairs; Firesong and An'desha waited up there to lower the hatch down into place, once again sealing it behind shields both magical and physical. The cube-maze was the first thing he saw as his head came up out of the hatchway; placed in the center of the room, it was curiously dwarfed by the sheer size of