Storm Breaking

He caught Elspeth's face taking on that slightly vacant look that meant she was Mindspeaking to Gwena, and he waited for her to say something. Tremane was always forgetting that Gwena was 'present' in spirit, if not sitting at the same table, and the Companion would hardly forgo a chance to remind him.

'Gwena says that she can relay an inquiry to Skif's Cymry at k'Leshya Vale, and get the answer back in a couple of days,' Elspeth said, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners, telling Darkwind that she was holding back laughter. Gwena had probably said far more than that, probably about Tremane and his faulty memory, but this was a diplomatic mission and such things would not be diplomatic to relate. 'There are enough mages there that surely someone will know the answer. And she says if not, then she can relay on to Florian at the Tower and see if An'desha knows anything.'

Not every Companion had that long-distance capability; in fact, there were only two in all of the world as far as Darkwind knew. One was Gwena, and the other was Rolan, the Companion of the Queen's Own. They were special; 'Grove-born,' the Heralds called it, and claimed that instead of being physically brought into being in the normal way, they simply appeared, full-grown, out of a grove in the middle of Companion's Field. They had unusually powerful abilities in mind-magic, and through most of the history of Valdemar there had never been more than one Grove-born Companion at once. But then again, this was, by all accounts both sacred and secular, a crucial point in the history, not only of Valdemar, but of this entire part of the world, and if ever there was the need for a second Grove-born Companion, this was the time.

Tremane chewed on his lip, and ran a hand over the top of his balding head. 'You know,' he said cautiously. 'The fact that those weapons they are looking at in the Tower survived at all might indicate that some shields held, wouldn't it? Surely there were very powerful shields on that Tower at the time of the Cataclysm.'

'And it might only indicate that things at the heart of the Cataclysm had some natural protection, like things in the eye of a whirlwind,' Elspeth reminded him, twisting a silver-threaded chestnut curl around one finger. 'I wouldn't count on that. I also wouldn't count on any of us, singly or together, being able to replicate shields created by the mages who lived back then. These were people capable of creating living beings —gryphons, basilisks, wyrsa—and I don't know of anyone living now who would even attempt such a thing.'

Darkwind cleared his throat softly to regain their attention. 'To get back to your question about the effects of the original Cataclysm—afterward, the natural flows of magic energy in those areas changed completely, and we can only assume that the same thing will happen again. And as for the physical world—well, we Hawkbrothers are still healing the damage that was created in the wake of the original Storms. If you think the monsters that you've seen so far are bad, wait until there are hundreds, thousands of them, when the number of warped and changed creatures equals or exceeds the number of normal creatures.' He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment as he made some quick calculations. 'To give you an idea, it has taken us something like two thousand years to clear an area approximately half the size of your Empire of dangerous creatures and even more dangerous magic.'

Tremane brooded over his stack of paper for a moment. 'So your suggestion would be...?'

Elspeth and Darkwind exchanged another look, and it was Darkwind who replied. 'If our group at the Tower can't do anything—warn everyone you can reach, create what shields and shelters you can, assume that they won't hold, and endure. Make your plans after you see what the effects are this time.'

The Duke made a sour face, but did not respond. Elspeth tried some sympathy.

'Duke Tremane, I know this is difficult for you, but at least you are in command of an area in which much of the magical energy has been drained away, and which never relied on magic to get things done in the first place,' she pointed out. 'You can count on most buildings staying up, most bridges standing firm, count on fires heating your barracks as they always have, candles lighting the darkness, and food cooking properly in a well-made oven. Hardorn is prepared for everything except what the final Storm will do to the physical world—and in a way, you can even prepare for that, simply by knowing what the last Cataclysm did.'

Tremane sighed, and rubbed one temple with his fingers. 'Yes, I know this, and I also know that this is not going to be the case in the Empire. Things were falling to pieces so badly that when I mounted my raid on that Imperial warehouse complex, the men there hadn't heard from their superiors in weeks, and now—I can't even imagine the state of chaos the Empire must be in. It's just that things were difficult for us before, and the one comfort I had was that I couldn't envision them getting any worse. Now I have to, and plan for it, somehow.'

Elspeth shook her head emphatically. 'You can't plan for this, Tremane. All you can do is to warn people of what they might expect, and put things in place that will give you information once the worst happens. The signal-towers, for one thing. They work almost as well as Companions, and you ought to make it a priority to get them manned by people who know how to use them. You ought to make it a priority to get more of them in place if it is at all possible! If every little village had a tower, the way every village has access to a Herald, you'd be able to get help to people long before a messenger could have reached you.'

Darkwind nodded. 'Don't plan for specific events; doing that will inevitably prove to be an exercise in futility.'

'Plan for flexibility, you mean?' The Duke considered that for a moment, and nodded. 'All right, I can see that.' Then he sighed. 'And plan for communication, put ways of bringing in information in place while we still can. That's good, as long as the trouble spots are places where there are still people living. But if they aren't, there could be a nest of something brewing, some monstrous creatures, say, and we wouldn't know about it until the creatures had wiped out an entire town. Maybe not even then.'

He rubbed his forehead, and Darkwind saw the shadow of physical pain in his eyes, in the tense muscles of his homely face. 'I just wish there was a way to watch the land,' he said fretfully. 'I used to be able to get my mages to scry entire stretches of countryside, and that's what I'd give my arm to have working again.'

Darkwind exchanged another look with Elspeth. :What do you think? This is the best opening he's ever given us.: