Keff colored satisfactorily. «Now that we're all acquainted, we have to talk seriously before Chaumel and his Wild Hunt catch up with us. What in the name of Daylight Savings Time just happened out there?»
«I have never seen the High Mages so . . . so insane,» Plennafrey offered, shaking her head. «They have gone beyond reason.»
«That's not what I mean,» Keff said. «The magic stopped all at once when we were hanging over that riverbed.»
«It has happened before,» Plenna said, nodding gravely. «But not when I was in the sky. That was terrible.»
«The huge drain on power obviously caused some kind of imbalance in the system,» Carialle said. She plotted a chair for her image to sit down on and gestured for the other two to seat themselves. «The drop came after the whole grid of what the lady called 'ley lines' bottomed out all over the planet. There was, for an instant, no more power to call. It came back after you all suffered a kind of blackout. Look.»
In their midst, Carialle projected a two-meter, three-dimensional image of Ozran, showing the ley lines etched in purple over the dun, green, and blue globe. Geographical features, including individual peaks and valleys on the continents, took shape.
«Oh,» Plenna breathed, recognizing some of the terrain. «Is this what Ozran looks like?»
«That's right,» Keff said.
«How wonderful,» she said, beaming at Carialle for the first time. «To be able to make beautiful pictures like that.»
Carialle ducked her head politely, acknowledging the compliment.
«Thank you, miss. Now, this is the normal flow of those mysterious electromagnetic waves. Here's what happened when you got that blast of dust in Chaumel's stronghold.»
The translucent globe turned until the large continent in the northern hemisphere was facing Keff and Plennafrey. The dark lines thickened toward a peak on a mountain spine in the southeast region, thinning everywhere else. What remained were small «peaks» on the lines here and there. «I think these are the mages who didn't come to dinner. Now here'—the configurations changed slightly, the bulges shifting southward—'is what happened when you escaped from the dinner party. And this next matches the moment when you teleported to Magess Plennafrey's sanctum sanctorum.»
The purple lines performed complicated dances. First, a slight bulge opened out in lines near a river valley in the southernmost mountain range of the continent, corresponding to a slight drop in the forces in the southeast. Chaumel's peak was nearly invisible amidst the power lines, until the mages dispersed to points all over Ozran. Occasionally, they reconverged.
«This big spike indicated when the eight mages found Plennafrey's hidey-hole,» Carialle said, narrating, «followed by the big one when everyone came to see the fun. Here comes the chase scene. A huge buildup as the others left Chaumel's peak. And—»
Abruptly, the lines thinned, some even disappearing for a moment.
«That has happened before,» Plenna repeated. «Not often, but more often now than before.»
«Absolute power corrupts, and I'm not just talking about political.» Carialle finished the ley geographic review.
«Can you run that image again, Cari?» Keff said, leaning close to study it. «Magic shouldn't cause imbalances in planetary fields.»
«But it does, depending on where it comes from,» Carialle said. «What's it for? Why is there a worldwide network of force lines? It must have been put here for a reason.» She turned to Plenna. «Where does your power come from, Magess?»
«Why, from my belt amulet,» Plennafrey explained, displaying the heavy buckle. The sash is an amulet, too, but it was my fathers, and I don't like to use it.» She undid her waist cincture and held it out to Carialle.
Carialle had her image shake its head. «I'm not solid, sweetie.» Instead, she directed the artifact to Keff. Carialle turned on an intense spotlight in the ceiling and aimed it so she and her brawn could have a better look. Keff turned the belt over in his hands. Carialle zoomed in a camera eye to microscopic focus.
The five indentations were there, as Chaumel had said, part of the original design. The buckle had been adapted for wear by some unknown metal smith at least eight hundred years ago, Carialle judged by a quick analysis. Braces and a tongue had been welded to its sides. The whole thing comprised approximately ninety cubic centimeters, and was plated with fine gold, which accounted for its retaining a noncorroded surface over the centuries. Carialle recorded all data in accessible memory.
«Can you teach me how to use it?» Keff asked, smiling hopefully at her. Plennafrey seemed uneasy, but allowed herself to be persuaded by the fatal Von Scoyk-Larsen charm.
«Well, all right,» she said. «I'll trust you.» Her expression said that she didn't trust often or easily. Such behavior on this world, Carialle noted, would not be a survival trait.
Plenna stood behind Keff and showed him how to place his fingers in the depressions. «Do not push down, not . . . solidly,» she said.
«Physically,» Keff corrected IT's translation. He cradled the buckle in his other hand, raising it to eye level. «Correct,» Plenna said, unaware of the box's simultaneous transmission as she spoke. «Imagine your fingers pressing deep into the heart, where they will contact the Core of Ozran.»
«Is that why you wear the finger extensions?» Keff asked, after trying to fit his hand into the depressions. His thumb and little finger had to curve unnaturally to touch all five spots, while Plenna, with her pinky prosthesis, could cover them without effort, bending only her thumb.
«Yes. Most mages do not have fingers long enough. It is one way in which we are inferior to the great Ancient Ones who left us these tools,» Plenna said with a trace of awe. «Now, think hard. Do you feel the fire inside? It should run up inside your arm to your heart.»
«I feel something,» Keff said after a while. «Now what?»
She looked around and pointed at me pedometer lying on the console. «Make that box fly,» she said.
Keff stared fixedly at the pedometer. His face turned red with effort. To Carialle's satisfaction, the device lifted a few centimeters before clattering back to its resting place.
«There, you see?» she said. «Mechanics.»
Plennafrey held out her hand for the belt, and Keff gave it back. «Now, here is how I do it.» Barely touching the five depressions, the magiwoman glanced at the box. It shot up to dangle in midair. Keff walked over and tried to push down on the hovering device. It didn't budge. He yanked at it with all his strength.
«It's as if you fixed it there,» Keff said, sweeping Plenna off her feet and kissing her. «Carialle, we're both right. They do use machines, but it's more than that. I can't duplicate what she just did. I nearly got a hernia raising the pedometer as far as I did. She set it like a point plotted in a three-dimensional grid, and she's not even flushed.»
The Lady Fair image didn't show the exasperation that Carialle let creep into her voice.
«All right, so they have natural TK and psi abilities which are amplified by the mechanism. Probably increased by selective breeding over centuries—you see what they've done to the Noble Primitives.»
«Sour grapes,» Keff said cheerfully. «And this gizmo can work from anywhere on the planet?» he asked Plennafrey.
«Yes,» the magiwoman said, «but closer to the Core of Ozran makes it easier.»
Keff nodded and sat down next to Plenna so he could examine the buckle once again. «Chaumel mentioned that, but he wouldn't say what it is. Is that the power source? Do you know how it works?»
«I do—or I think I do.» Plennafrey's eyes grew dreamy as she raised her hands to sketch in the air. «It is a great, glowing heart of power, somewhere deep beneath the surface of Ozran. It was the Ancient Ones' greatest work.» For a moment, the young woman looked sheepish. «My power is weak compared with the others. I have tried to figure out more about the Ancient Ones and the Core to try and increase my power, though not . . . not in the way some did.» She glanced uneasily at Carialle.
«I know all about your father, Magess,» Carialle said. «Whatever Keff sees and hears, I do, too.»
That reminded Plennafrey of what Carialle must have seen and heard that morning, and she blushed from the roots other hair to her neckline.
«Oh,» she said. Carialle kindly tried to take the sting out of the revelation.
«I also agree with everything he said about your situation. You're very brave, Magess.»
