Storm Breaking

'So I'll bundle up,' Karal shrugged. 'I've felt cold before. Karse isn't exactly a pleasure garden in winter, and up in the hills, there's snow on the ground for half the year. I'm beginning to sympathize with the gryphons; if I don't see some open sky, I'm going to start babbling.'

'Then I'll go with you.' It didn't take An'desha very long to pull on a heavy tunic, a second of the same weight, then his quilted Shin'a'in coat over it all, but Karal needed a little more help getting all that clothing on. He was quite steady on his feet, however, which An'desha took to be a good sign of his recovery.

By now, Master Levy was deep in his prodding and poking of the floor, and he jotted down measurements and diagrams in one of his notebooks. Silverfox and Firesong were sitting on their heels, the pages of notes neatly stacked in front of them, regarding another sheaf of their own notes with some dubiousness. 'Where are you two going?' Silverfox called as the three of them passed by.

'We're going out for some fresh air,' Karal replied. 'Why don't you join us? We'll go frighten the Shin'a'in into thinking what you found in the workroom turned us all into monsters.' He made a hideous face and Silverfox laughed.

'Fresh air? Not a bad idea.' Firesong raised his head as Karal tendered his invitation. 'We aren't making much more out of these notes. Maybe a little sun will wake up my mind. Go on out, we'll catch up with you.'

An'desha noticed at once that their hosts had been at work on the tunnel to the surface—the opening they had made into the side of the Tower was large and quite regular, without any debris of broken masonry to trip over. The tunnel was also wider, though no higher, and there had been some extensive work done in shoring it up since the last time he'd come through it. It was still claustrophobic, but on this trip he no longer had the feeling that the tunnel was going to collapse and trap him at any moment.

He sent a small mage-light on ahead of Karal; he couldn't see past Florian's rump, so a mage-light was hardly of much use to him. Altra had declined to come, saying that he had seen quite enough of snow, and was planning another nap in Karal's bed.

He scented the outside before he saw any indication they were nearing the entrance. Although the air below remained remarkably clean, and the scents that lingered, thanks to some small magics on his part and Firesong's, were all pleasant in nature, there was a fresh quality to the outside air that nothing below could duplicate. Some of that was due to the cold, but not all.

The other thing they could not duplicate below was the light. As he stumbled out into the late afternoon sunlight, he squinted and put out a hand to steady himself against Florian's side. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky; the great bowl of the sky itself was an intense and blinding blue, and with all of the glare reflected off the snow, there was as much light coming from below as above.

Karal stood to one side, taking in huge gulps of air, his pale face taking on more color with every breath. Florian trotted off and kicked up his heels friskily.

Seen from the outside, the Tower itself was hardly more than a snow-frosted stub of melted-looking rock protruding from a snow-covered, rolling hill; the only projection above the otherwise flat Plains at all, not prepossessing except for its size. Because they had dug a long, slanting tunnel to reach the wall of the Tower below, the entrance came out quite some distance from the remains of the Tower itself, and it was at the foot of the Tower, precisely above the point where they had broken into the walls, that the Shin'a'in had pitched their tent-village. The round felt tents, white and brown and black, made a very orderly and neat array against the snow, so neat and orderly that it looked like a model rather than a place where people were actually living and working.

'Whoof!' Firesong exclaimed from behind An'desha, as Florian frisked and gamboled in the snow with Karal laughing and throwing snowballs for him to dodge. 'Very bright out here! I shouldn't wonder if you could get a worse sunburn than in high summer!'

Silverfox ducked as Karal turned and lobbed a snowball at them. Karal laughed, and the kestra'chern pelted after him, swearing vengeance, while Firesong looked on indulgently.

'So,' the Adept asked quietly, while Karal and Silverfox took shelter behind facing snowbanks, and hurled missiles at each other. 'What did your Avatars have to say for themselves?'

An'desha flung him a startled glance, and Firesong chuckled at his expression. 'You have a certain quiet glow after you've gone visiting them,' the mage told him. 'It's not terribly obvious, but it's there if you know what to look for. So? What did they have to say? Anything useful?'

'Mostly that nothing has changed that much. We've successfully bought some time for ourselves and our friends, things outside the areas we protected are deteriorating quickly, and eventually even our time will run out,' An'desha said, wishing his news was better.

Firesong nodded, unsurprised. 'And when our time runs out, we'll get—what? A replication of the Cataclysm? After all, everything is supposedly converging here.'

'Maybe. Even They don't know for sure.' An'desha sighed. 'If She has any idea, She's not saying anything. If you want my guess, the gods are doing what They always do—unless and until all life is threatened with catastrophe, They'll see to it we have the tools and the information to find our own solutions, then leave us alone to find them. The Avatars think the things we're finding in the Tower will help us, but—'

''But there's no clear 'future' to see or even guess at.' Firesong looked surprisingly philosophical. 'I'm