creates waves and eddies, whether or not he knows it. He maybe stirs up muck from the bottom if he digs his oars in too deep. Yes?'
Firesong's eyes darted from Lisha's face to Elspeth's as she translated, for Lisha had spoken far too quickly for him to understand her. He laughed when Elspeth was done, and nodded vigorously. 'Exactly so, and an excellent analogy. Now - we have just opened and closed a Gate in the midst of all this instability, and that has only made things worse. In fact, in this case, it has turned what would have been only a minor storm into a tempest.' He shrugged. 'We do not have these problems, because all Vales have what you call Journeymen and Apprentices balancing the forces while Masters and Adepts work, or doing specific weather-controlling spells to avoid this kind of mess.'
He took on a 'lecturing' tone, and he might well have gone on in this vein for some time, except that he caught sight of Elspeth's expression. She was directing a rather accusatory glare at him, Darkwind, and Treyvan.
'Why didn't you tell me we'd be doing this to Valdemar?' she demanded, as Firesong broke off, and the three Heralds watched in bewilderment, unable to follow what was going on since she had switched to Tayledras. 'Why didn't any of you let me know?'
Firesong shrugged, and crystals braided into his hair reflected flashes of lightning from outside.
'It would have done you no good to know,' he pointed out. 'What would you have been able to do about it? Nothing. You were a great distance away. Your people have no weather-workers, and until that barrier comes down, you will have none coming in. There was no point in mentioning it.'
Shion cleared her throat, her round face telling of her puzzlement and curiosity eloquently. 'Please,' she said, 'What are you talking about?'
'The weather,' she replied, then took pity on her and gave her a quick translation.
'You mean,' she said at last, 'It really is possible to do something other than complain about the weather?'
She smiled and nodded. 'Eventually, we will. But right now, the trouble is that all this wonderful new magic is bringing killer storms down on our own heads.'
'Ke'chara, you must think of the other side of this stone,' Darkwind put in, speaking again in Valdemaran. 'Ancar is getting this weather - ah - in the teeth. And he is getting it as much as we; it must be at least as much of a hindrance. Consider how much magic he works, and completely without safeguards.'
He sounded positively cheerful about it. Elspeth couldn't be quite that cheerful, thinking of all the innocent folk who were suffering much more from the wicked weather than Ancar was. But still, it was rather comforting to think that some of Ancar's chickens at least were coming home to roost.
'Oh, quite,' Firesong said, just as cheerfully, when Elspeth had finished translating. 'In actual fact, I would be much surprised if the effect was not a great deal worse over there in his land. He, after all, is the one who has been working the most magic - and it is he and his mages who also care little for the balances of things.'
At Lisha's ironic nod of agreement, Firesong sighed, and shook his head a little. 'On reflection, I fear that I will have a great deal of work ahead of me, once the current troubles are settled.'
Current troubles - as if the war with Ancar wasn't much more complicated than a brushIire.
'It's going to take a lot to 'settle' Ancar,' Lisha replied, with heavy irony. 'I don't trust the current stalemate, and neither does anyone else in this Kingdom. You'll have your hands full of more than weather before you're here long.'
Mornelithe Falconsbane stood in the window of his suite, with the shutters flung open wide and a cold wind whipping his hair about his head. He scowled and watched a night-black storm walking toward his 'host's' castle on a thousand legs of lightning. As it neared, the light faded and thunder growled a warning of things to come. The wind picked up and sent the shutters to either side of him crashing against the wall, sending dust and the heavy scent of cold rain into his face. He crossed his arms and watched the storm racing over the empty fields beyond the city walls, lightning licking down and striking the earth for every beat of his heart. This would be a terrible and powerful storm; before it was over, crops would be beaten down in the fields, and many of those fields would lie under water.
He had expected nothing less, given what he already knew.
He waited until the last possible moment before closing windows and shutters against the winds of fury; they howled as if in frustration and lashed at the closed shutters with whips of rain. But the shutters were stoutly built. All the storm could accomplish was to rattle the thick glass of the windows behind them.
Thunder did more than rattle the glass; it shook the palace to the cellars, making all the stones in the walls tremble. Falconsbane felt the vibration under his feet as he turned and walked back to the chair he had abandoned at the first hint of the coming storm.
This was the fourth such storm in the last week. Two of the four had brought little rain, but had sent whirlwinds down out of the clouds and hail to damage roofs and break the glass in windows. Falconsbane had seen one of the whirlwinds firsthand, as it had dropped down out of a black cloud, writhing like a thick snake or the
