'I'm the abbot. I can do whatever I want.'
Silverdun swung the sword harder in the air, striking at an intangible foe.
'Fine,' said Silverdun. 'Kick me out. I'll go back to Oarsbridge and live out my days as an eccentric country gentleman. Find a pretty, dumb daughter of a nearby baron to marry to keep me warm at night. How's that?'
Estiane smiled. He walked to the door. 'It's not that simple, Perrin. Life never is.'
'It can be.'
'Here,' said Estiane, holding out the envelope. 'This was delivered just after Everess left. There were two notes inside. One was addressed to me, the other to you. My note simply asked me to pass yours along to you before I allowed you to leave here.
Silverdun took the envelope, again noting the chamberlain's seal. Inside was a single sheet, printed in a flowing, beautiful hand. It was not the script of Chamberlain Marcuse. Silverdun knew whose script it was, though. He knew it without needing to be told.
Perrin Alt. Lord Silverdun:
When last we met, I warned you that there would come a time when I would call on you by name. That time has come. Consider well what has been asked of you. You are one who, like a prize racehorse, thrives only when placed upon the track. Go where you will thrive.
The note was not signed, but it didn't need to be. It had been penned by the queen herself.
'Shit,' said Silverdun. 'Shit! Shit! Shit!'
He reached up to the shelf and pulled down his boots.
The difficulty, which has yet to be resolved, is as follows. For an Elemental unbinding at a distance, the standard formulation requires the spoken trigger (i.e., the unbinding word) to interact physically with the binding. Given a distance, d, and the speed of sound, r, the effects of an unbinding word should require time t, where t = d/r. It has been demonstrated in controlled circumstances, however, that the unbinding occurs simultaneously with the trigger.Thaumaturges have debated this question for centuries, but no satisfactory explanation has ever been offered. Since reitic force decreases exponentially over distance, this is rarely a problem in practice. Students are encouraged to use the standard release-chain formulation in most circumstances.
-Dynamics, Chapter 7: ''Indirect Mechanisms of Release in Distributed Systems'
L was dawn, and Ironfoot was still awake, his head throbbing, poring over the map. The thing was so big that he'd had a local craftsman create a table for the sole purpose of holding it unrolled. It was a topological map, commissioned some number of years ago by a local governor with a penchant for geography and dreams of wealth from silver mining. The map had been of no use whatever to the governor, save perhaps feeding his ego. But to Ironfoot it had become invaluable.
The readings came in from across the site, and Ironfoot meticulously added them as points of data, using a ruler to draw perfectly straight lines of radiance from one point to the next. A pattern was beginning to emerge, but it still wasn't enough.
He slammed the table with his fist. Years as a scholar had never tempered the wild part of his nature. He knew it and it infuriated him.
He rubbed his eyes and took a long sip of coffee. His mug had been holding down the lower left corner of the map, and now it tried to roll up a bit. He absently smoothed it with his hands. He reached for the next slip of paper and there were none left.
He stood, feeling the ache in his shoulders and back, feeling the fatigue that flowed through him. He could have himself spellrested by the on-site medic, but that false rest affected only the body and not the mind. He needed sleep. Real sleep.
He opened the flap of the tent and was assaulted by the dusty wind that assailed the site day and night. The dust got into everything: clothes, boots, instruments. Some of it was blown south from the Unseelie steppes, but some of it-and this he tried carefully not to think about-was the incinerated remains of Fae men, women, and children. The descendants of the founders of the oldest Elvish city.
'Armin,' he called out to his assistant, who stood at the edge of the crater, sipping water from a metal cup. Armin was young, still a student, but already teaching classes of his own at the university and almost certain to be made full professor once they returned to the City Emerald.
'Over here, Master Falores,' Armin said, still looking down into the crater. Ironfoot joined him.
'I wish you'd call me Ironfoot like everyone else does.'
