and then on, across the Slammerkin and the Treppanek. And all the time, the sorcerers had drawn strength from the stones, as if they lived symbiotic, the glittering chunks of quartzlike material invested with a crystalline vitality that none could properly understand or explain, only use.
With them, to those standing always in close proximity, there was a growth of power. It was, Rwyan thought, as if the crystals were hearthfires on a winter night, their blaze warming those closest to them, useless to any standing beyond the aegis of the heat. Thus were only the most talented of the College sent to the islands, only the most gifted of those allowed entry to the guarded chambers that held the strange stones; Chiara was somewhat piqued that she could not yet attend. Rwyan wondered if the crystals and her dreams were somehow linked.
It was an idle musing. She could no more understand the workings of the stones than those long versed in their use: they granted power, not knowledge. Neither was their employment without hazard-to remain in close proximity for too long resulted in madness or in a draining of the occult talent, as if the flow of power became reversed, leaving the victim a mindless shell. No sorcerer remained indefinitely on the Sentinels, and the crystals were shielded behind walls of lead and stone, exposed only at need. Were she not dismissed earlier, she knew she must depart the island in ten or fifteen years-a lifetime!-to live in Durbrecht or find place in some keep as commur-mage. Meanwhile, however, she sensed her powers expanding, growing, as if accelerated by the unseen pulsing of the crystals. She knew there was a dreadful insensate energy in the stone behind her and that it might be shaped and directed, by those with the talent, to blast the Sky Lords’ vessels from the heavens.
She thought it sad (though she was careful to hold the notion to herself alone) that such occult power be used bellicose. She wondered what might be achieved, did the Sky Lords not force her kind to bend the crystals to warfare. She supposed she was not, for all she owned recognized ability, a good mage: Chiara would never have entertained such thoughts.
But then Chiara had never sat with Daviot, building an imaginary world of
She rose, shaking out a gown damp with sweat, and “looked” a last time across the smooth surface of the Fend. It was as though the sea steamed; the coastline of Kellambek was a shadowy blur on the horizon, a faint, dark line drawn through the shimmering heat.
Had Daviot ever sailed such a sea? Might he, even now, stand somewhere on that vague shore, staring toward the Sentinels, remembering?
She brushed an errant strand of hair now more golden than red from her face and turned away, resolute. There were duties to attend, lessons; come dusk, she must take a turn on watch in the tower. The vigilance of the Sentinels was never-ending: to allow thoughts of Daviot to intrude when she must be alert against the danger of the Sky Lords was to be derelict of her duty. She found the path and began the long descent.
She had reached the foot of the path when the summons came:
She registered confirmation and her presence, and began to run toward the tower, all thoughts of bath and fresher clothes forgotten.
She was but one of the many racing to Dharbek’s defense, the island become abruptly a place of organized confusion. No more than a handful of Adepts would join their talents directly to the crystals’ power, but for that score there would be another, living conduits between the wielders and the human fodder lending their ability to those who sent the magicks against the intruders. She had liked the experience not at all, when she had been amongst the suppliers of occult strength. It was needful and she had submitted without demur, but she could never quite overcome the feeling it was a thing vampiric, as if the used-ho matter the purpose or the need-gave up some part of their souls. She enjoyed it little more when she took the part of conduit, for there seemed to her something of the pander about that, and always, after, she must find a tub and scrub herself. She was glad (albeit a gladness tinged with guilt) that now she would stand amongst the senders, distanced from the others.
The thought was traitorous, and she pushed it away, composing her mind in readiness for what was to come. She was at the tower’s door. Alrys and Demaeter stood there, ushering her inside, pointing unnecessarily to the arched opening on her left, where sorcerers already mounted the winding stairway to the column’s topmost level. The stairway rose, spiraling up the tower’s interior, lit now by globes of heatless white floating overhead, the walls unbroken by door or window until there came a second arched entry. Here the twenty channelers gathered, settling into high-backed chairs placed in a circle in a bare chamber. Rwyan clambered on until she reached the topmost level, where the tower stood open to the sky. There were no chairs here, nor decoration of any kind, only the chest-high walls that granted a wide view over the Fend, and the pedestal supporting the crystal, that no more than waist-high, carved of black basalt, the stone in a hollow at the center, the shields removed.
It was so small a thing to hold such power. She might have held it in both her hands, and it looked no more than a knob of agate, lumpy, and banded with layers of pale color, all shifting and shining under the sun. So small, so insignificant to those without the talent; to the sorcerers, so powerful, its strength a palpable force. Rwyan felt the familiar tingling run through her body, as if all her nerves throbbed. It was a seductive sensation: there were some had fallen so deeply under that crystalline spell, they gave up their minds, even their lives to it. She shuddered, fighting off the temptation to touch the stone, to feel its power and let it drink of hers. That would come soon enough; instead, she directed her attention to the sky.
There was no disruption of the blue. Neither gulls nor kittiwakes, indeed no birds at all, ventured close to the roofless chamber, and she could not “see” the promised skyboats. She turned her face toward Gwyllym, whose mental broadcast had sounded this alarm. He had the watch, with Jhone and Maethyrene, and she could even now feel the faint vibration deep inside her skull that told her he communed with those below. His eyes were closed in concentration, and so she “looked” to the others. Jhone stood with her head raised, cocked slightly to one side, as if she listened to the silence. Maethyrene was turning, frowning as she counted the Adepts emerging from the arched doorway. Rwyan caught her eye and raised her brows in silent question.
The hunchbacked woman nodded, jabbing a thumb skyward. “No doubt of it, they come.” Her voice was deep and musical. It seemed almost she sang the words. “Either a full-blown skyboat or a flock of those God- cursed little ones.”
Jhone said, “They come swift. The little boats, I think.”
Gwyllym said, “All below stand ready. Do we prepare?”
They grouped about the pedestal. Rwyan waited nervously for Maethyrene’s command.
“Let us be ready.”
She said it mildly, but none were slow to obey. Rwyan stared at the crystal, opening her mind to its magic, feeling it enter her, shocking as sudden immersion in freezing water, startling as an unexpected blow. For an instant nausea gripped her and she gagged, her sight gone. Then calm, the linkage with the minds below, not conscious, but as if she drank of naked power, was become insuperable. It was a heady sensation and always at first disconcerting. She was herself individual and at the same time a part of a greater whole, a unit in the gestalt formed with her fellows, joined in purpose and power. As her vision cleared, she “saw” the crystal pulsing, faint streamers of multihued light flickering like umbilical cords between the stone and those around it. She had not known she staggered until she became aware of Gwyllym’s thick arm about her shoulders. She smiled her thanks and turned as he did, eastward, to where the enemy came.
They were the little boats, a score or more, bloodred cylinders hung within the disruption of the air caused by the elementals that drew them onward. Beneath were suspended the black baskets, like dories, containing the Sky Lords. She felt the weirdling magic of the aerial spirits, wild, angered by such enslavement, and beyond that the cold confidence of the Kho’rabi wizards, the implacable meshing of their sorcery, defensive and eager to strike.
Maethyrene’s command was swifter than speech; obeyed no slower. As one, all twenty sorcerers summoned the power and sent it against the Kho’rabi vessels. Light pierced the sky, brighter than the sun, redly glittering lances of brilliance striking at the sanguine vessels, the sable baskets.
