Winds Of Fury

he had, for the most part, ignored the damage done to the people. Up until this moment, the pain of these people had been mostly an abstraction to the Adept - something to be deplored and kept at a distance, but nothing that really affected him. Now it had hit home. He had seen willful, cruel violence close at hand. Firesong had opened himself to pain and could not avoid it any more.

Firesong returned to his fellows late in the afternoon, uncharacteristically sober and silent, but with a certain amount of weary satisfaction on his face. When Liam finally appeared as the wagons were setting up for the shows, Darkwind understood the expression.

Liam appeared to have found a kind of peace and support. He was ready to get to work, and could look his fellows in the face. The young man had come through the immediate crisis well; while he would bear scars, they would not be as devastating as they might have been.

And Firesong seemed to have learned a great deal, too. When he looked about him, his beautiful face radiated empathy and compassion for those people who felt pain.

He no longer wore a mask of any kind, frivolous or haughty. 'Saving the defenseless' appeared no longer to be a meaningless phrase spoken as any other platitude, but rather a goal to be understood as a way of life. Real pain had been touched and understood; Healing was no longer simply a mental exercise for Firesong.

That night, Need finally conveyed to them what she had learned from her 'contact.'

Darkwind wished devoutly that he could go to bed early, but he had done with less sleep in his life, and this was more important. They wanted things to look as normal as possible, though, and 'normal' meant that the wagon should at least look as if they were all asleep. So the five of them sat on two of the beds, heads together, whispering into the darkness of the wagon.

:Firstly - we've all had some ideas about who was the real power in Hardorn, the one who's responsible for the way things have gone to pot around here,: Need said :We all thought it was Ancar, but it wasn't. He isn't more than a Master, if that. It was Hulda.:

Elspeth choked. 'Hulda?' she whispered urgently.

:That's right. She is an Adept.:

'But - the protections that were on Valdemar when she was there - how could she have been an Adept?' Elspeth sputtered.

:Apparently she never used any magic while she was there, child, so she never invoked the interest of the vrondi. She knew what she was doing, and understood the nature of the protections. Anyway. She set up this draining effect that's been pulling life-force out of this land; Ancar's been getting all the loot, all the gold and the pretties, baubles to keep the baby happy, but she's been hoarding the power for herself. What she's done with it, though - I don't know, and neither does Mornelithe. Falconsbane thinks she was courting the Emperor's envoy; they use magic over there, so maybe she was sending them the power. If she was, it's the first time I've ever heard of people being able to do that sort of thing.:

Darkwind shook his head, feeling nauseous. That had to be one of the strangest and most perverted things he'd ever heard. 'So Hulda has been deliberately wrecking this land?'

:Pretty much. Encouraging Ancar to do what he wants, without ever giving him any real power or training past a certain point. Huh. Maybe I do know what she was doing with all that power. Those magical attacks, coercive spells on the troops - all of that is far too powerful for the mages Ancar has in his employ to be able to successfully invoke - unless someone was feeding them the energy to do it. Interesting idea.:

'That makes a great deal of sense,' Firesong agreed, his voice flat with exhaustion. 'More sense than that she would be making courting-gifts of mage-power. So Ancar has been the puppet, and she the manipulator?'

:Until lately. She's been sloppy, and he's been chafing at the constraints she put on him. She made the mistake of promising him more training and not delivering. So he started experimenting on his own; that's how he got Falconsbane. Put up half a Gate without knowing what he was doing or what it was for, wished desperately for an Adept to get him out of it before he got eaten alive, the Gate took the wish for the destination, and delivered Falconsbane with a bow on him.:

Firesong bit off an exclamation. Darkwind could only sit and shake his head with weary astonishment. 'Either he is the stupidest lucky man in the world, or the luckiest stupid one,' Darkwind said at last. 'I would not have given him the chance of a dewdrop in an inferno of surviving such a blunder.'

'And Mornelithe has the luck of a god, I swear it.' Firesong snorted with a little more energy.

:He put Falconsbane under coercion while still magically naked and helpless - for once in his life, the Beast couldn't fight or break what was put on him. So; now Ancar has an Adept, he starts to feel as if he can do without Hulda. Falconsbane has been encouraging this, figuring on setting both of them against each other and running out while they get rid of each other. Except that Ancar managed to catch Hulda in a moment of weakness, and right now he has her inside a mage-mirrored prison cell she helped create. So she's out of the way, for the moment.:

'So, what we have is the three powers at the top, who should be working together, who we've assumed have been working together, are actually fighting each other?' That was Skif, and he sounded incredulous despite his own weariness. 'We might yet be able to pull this off!'