'Of course, with four gryphons along, I wonder if anyone is going to notice me!' she added with a tired smile.
'There is this,' Darkwind put in, speaking slowly in his careful, accented Valdemaran. 'The notion of you in company with gryphons is so strange that no one would make it up; it is so strange it must be believed.'
'You don't intend to bring those creatures to Haven!' Cavil exclaimed without thinking.
She started to snap; caught herself, and answered instead, quietly and calmly, 'Treyvan and Hydona are not only envoys from the Tayledras and Kaled'a'in, they are mages in their own right. They have offered to teach any Herald with Mage-Gift. Yes, Mage-Gift. They can do that best at Haven, and they are needed there. I would be doing everyone a disservice if I insisted they remain here until they were sent for.'
The three Heralds exchanged hasty glances, and the one called Shion said, cautiously, 'But what of the rest? The other - ah - people?'
A sidelong glance told her that Shion meant Nyara, but she deliberately chose to take her literally.
'Darkwind and Firesong are Tayledras Adepts, and they are just as badly needed as the gryphons, if not more so,' she replied, 'And as for the others, Nyara is Skif's lady, and the dyheli and Rris are envoys from their respective peoples. Everyone with me is either a representative of a potential ally, or someone who is practiced in mage-craft and is willing to teach.'
At the startled looks she got, she could not repress a chuckle. 'It's a strange world out there, my friends,' she added. 'You can't assume that something that looks like an animal isn't an intelligent person - or that something that looks human is more than a beast. Havens, you should know that from Court duty.'
Cavil shook his head, biting his lip in what was obviously a nervous habit. 'Lady, this is the single most confusing day of my life,' he said at last, with honest bewilderment.
He glanced at the single window in the chapel that still faced the open sky. It was made of thick glass that allowed little view, but enough to show that outside it was black night - except when lightning glared across the sky, turning the window into a patch of white. Obviously the storm had not abated in the least since they had arrived. Here inside thick stone walls, most of the fury of the storm was muffled, but it might very well be the worst storm Elspeth had ever seen.
'It is too late to travel tonight,' Cavil said reluctantly. 'But in the morning, we must be off. We have taken more time than I like as it is.'
That took her a little aback. 'In this storm?' she exclaimed without thinking. 'The way it's raining, it'll still be going strong in the morning! Can't we wait until it clears, at least?'
Herald Lisha sighed. 'It probably won't clear, not for two days at least,' she told Elspeth. 'Not that I'm a weather-witch or anything, but the weather all over Valdemar has been rotten this year. It got bad around Midwinter, when everyone got hit with that headache, and right before you people popped out of that doorway this storm just blew up out of nowhere. I've never seen anything like it, and I'm not exactly young.'
'No one knows what is causing this,' Cavil said glumly, 'although many people blame Ancar, and a great many more are convinced he has somehow learned to turn the very weather against us. Lisha understates the case, Lady Elspeth. The weather has been simply hellish.'
Elspeth noticed that Firesong had been listening intently to this entire conversation, and decided to invite him in on it. 'Cavil says the weather has been hellish, that this storm is just one example,' she called over to him. He took that as an invitation, and stalked gracefully toward them, his robes flowing about him in a way that made Lisha smile at him appreciatively. 'Cavil, Lisha, Shion, this is Firesong k'Treva, another Adept. Firesong, they think Ancar is to blame for the state of the weather. Is this something we need to warn Haven about? Have you any ideas?'
He nodded a greeting to each of the Heralds before replying.
'Of course the weather has been hellish,' he said matter-of-factly while Elspeth translated. He understood Valdemaran far better than he could speak it. 'There has been a disturbance in the magical currents here, and that always makes the weather act up, unless someone is working to balance it. Since you have no weather-wizards and earth-witches working to rebalance the weather, it will continue to be bad.'
Lisha's long face was puzzled, Shion's round one thoughtful, but Cavil brightened. 'You mean Ancar isn't to blame?'
'In a sense, but it was not deliberate,' Firesong explained. He held up a finger. 'First - that moment when all of you were struck with that blinding headache - that was when a powerful packet of energy was flung up here and linked to a physical object in your chief city. That was meant entirely to help you, and indeed you will need it, but it also created great disturbances in the natural order of magic in this land. Weather is influenced by these energy patterns, and so the weather began to turn awry. Now, outside of your land, this Ancar has been mucking about with magic as well, and I suspect without any safeguards at all. That will also stir things up. The forces he has been meddling with are powerful ones, and this has had an effect on the weather over both your lands.'
Lisha had the look of a hunter on the track of game. She leaned forward a little. 'So what is basically going on is that magic has been like someone rowing across a pond - while the boat is getting from here to there, the rower
