Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (71 page)

Marik blinked.  No.  That theory was flawed.  Knots
formed when two lines crossed, though they were hardly common.  Three-line
knots were far rarer, and only the strongest of the strong could successfully
harness their energies.  Knot energy boiled worse than a kettle over a blazing
fire.  Their power was far wilder than the lines that supplied them.

How could any mage, no matter his strength, so much as
touch a seven-line knot without being destroyed?  Why would an ancient mage go
to whatever horrendous efforts it took to redirect the forest lines and form a
knot that he could never use?

Colbey had said his ancestors had stayed in order to
protect the power left behind from being misused by the stupid, greedy,
thoughtless mages in the larger world.  They had created the strongest seals
they could toward that end.  But could any person capable of creating such
perfect seals have been unaware that it did not matter?  The knot could have
been left as it was without consequence.  No mage could have siphoned off so
much as a single energy shred.

He must be missing something.  Marik wracked his brain
for the answer.  What simple fact was he missing?  What about the scene before
him did he misunderstand?

The soft
thupping
of Dietrik’s dagger passing
from palm to palm soothed him, even if it irritated the scout.  Colbey’s mouth
was tight as his ears twitched, listening hard for the people he thought he had
heard earlier.  No one moved for minutes.

At last Marik thought he might understand.  A memory
of Tollaf unwound across his recollection.  One of the old fool’s lessons from
the first winter of Marik’s apprenticeship.  He had been explaining the
differences between the various magical talents.  In the end they had briefly
discussed…schools of magic.  That was where Marik had first heard of the Winds
of the Summer Sun.  Hadn’t Tollaf also mentioned that the schools created
reservoirs of power over time?  Large power reserves they could tap when they
attempted the fantastically difficult spells that altered weather patterns?

Marik cursed himself.  Why had he not pressed the
dried-up old stick on that?  He should have questioned the bearded goat on how
such reservoirs were made, how they stored power, and especially on what they
looked like.

Because he believed he now knew what one looked like. 
No mage in his right mind would create a knot so powerful he could hardly look
at it.  Yet if these seven lines were fueling an etheric
reservoir
instead…

That depended on a single factor.  A reservoir must,
he knew, be filled with tame energy.  In that way, any mage could draw from it
at a moment’s notice.  The energy flowing through these lines must have the
wildness forced from it when it entered the reservoir, until the power it
contained was as calm as the pool’s waters above.

Yes.  An etheric reservoir with the staggering power
of seven forest lines.  Immense power that was transmuted, enabling anyone with
mage talent to tap it at will.  If they could reach the power.

Colbey’s ancestors must have lacked the ability to
alter a line’s course.  Thus, they were unable to sever the lines and make the
reservoir wither away.  Their only option had been to seal it.  Energy from the
lines could still enter, but nothing could escape.  Not a perfect solution
since they had lacked the wherewithal to block both the inward and outward
flows in one fell swoop, though enough to solve the immediate crisis.

Marik felt proud of his clever reasoning until the
ramifications of that struck him.  For hundreds of years, seven lines had continuously
fed energy into the reservoir.  Were it water, it would have long since
overflowed.  Except etheric energy had no such physical restrictions.  Energy
could continue to build in a restricted space, gaining in density without an
equal mass increase.  The power would become increasingly concentrated.  A
single drop would fill Marik’s energy reserves to the brim, where it usually
required vast stretches of the mass diffusion to do so.

And…it must have reached that point centuries ago. 
The seal-sphere hovering under the pool was the size of the entire village
square.  How much energy must be inside it?  He could not comprehend the
magnitude of it.

Could the reservoir actually contain every last shred
of energy it had received since the seal’s formation?  Marik studied it
closely.  At last, he noticed the slight differences in the etheric mists
surrounding the square.  As before, it moved slowly from an unseen wind. 
Always in a direction away from the glowing sphere.  Closer scrutiny revealed a
fine miasma of purple mist emanating from the sealed reservoir.

Which meant…the power it contained was so incredible
that it actually
shed
life energy.  He followed the flows, seeing the
Euvea trees for what they truly were for the first time.  Sponges.  The trees bled
off excess life energy through their auras, as they should.  This bleed-off
became the free-floating mists of the mass diffusion, which eventually settled
down into concentrated form in the lines.  Lines flowed off to wherever they
did, in this case the reservoir, which in turn shed a portion of that energy
back into the air.

And the Euvea trees must be absorbing a good deal of
the mass diffusion.  Easily as much as they bled-off, or else the thicker mists
would have continued to spread into the outer forest and beyond.  No wonder the
trees were so colossal!  They re-absorbed the energy they lost through their
auras.  The excess energy would provide the necessary strength to transcend the
limits of ordinary, mortal trees.  It elevated a species of tree that was
already gargantuan into towering, boundless giants that burned with a fiercer
aura than ever.

It was an endless cycle.

A new truth occurred to Marik. 
Energy
could
pass through the seal, if only in vastly reduced mist form.  The thicker mass
diffusion must also permeate the other seals around the Rovasii.  No wonder
many of the seals had grown increasingly dangerous since they were first
created.  Extra power was flooding the environment.  Undoubtedly it would
eventually strengthen whatever distorted magics were contained within.  And,
his flash of insight continued, this must surely also explain the longevity of
those same distortions.  They fed on the super-concentrated etheric mists to
maintain their twisted existences.

The village’s ancestors had tried to seal the problem
away.  Instead, they had created an alchemist’s keg of black powder.  Sooner or
later it would explode when the distortions reached a critical saturation
point.

Too, Marik could see why Xenos would move the very
heavens to attain the reservoir.  Perhaps he could do as the ancient mage had
and redirect lines to form his own private power supply.  But it would not be a
depthless sea formed by centuries of patient feeding.  Destroying a village,
inciting a war across oceans…they seemed like reasonable steps now, with the
goal finally known.

How far would he be able to spread his mad religion
with power so indomitable at its core?

Colbey heard a noise and stood up fast.  His head
smashed into Marik’s chin.  “I almost bit my tongue off!”

“You will give us away, mage!”

“Then kindly inform us instead of expecting blind
obedience,” Dietrik muttered.  “I do not see where you became our leading
officer.”

“The minute I saved your skins,” Colbey hissed back. 
“This is my home, my territory.  If you jeopardize my defense of it, I will cut
you loose without hesitation.”

“Hey, it’s all right,” Marik placated.  “But tell us
what you saw.”

Colbey graced them only with the corner of his eye. 
“I have heard movement through the water.  They are below.  You stay here,
mage, and do nothing!  I will go and see what faces us.”

The scout pulled thin gloves from his pack.  They were
studded with tiny steel spikes.  He left the pack behind and, rather than climb
down the trunk to the pool, he ascended into the higher reaches too fast to be
believed.

“I do not like standing still alone,” Dietrik said a
moment later.  “Mate, we are in over our heads.  The territory is unknown, the
enemy superior, the timing wrong and the position terrible!”

“There is too much at stake to run away, Dietrik.”

“If this is so bloody important, then we should have
gone to the nearest town.  You said that there are dozens along the forest.”

“What good would that have done?”

“We could have found a mirror for you to contact
Raymond’s royal enclave.  This Celerity woman is no fool, and with the
knowledge of a court’s library at her disposal, she could have put a stick in
Xenos’ jaw.  Her and her fellow mages together.”

Marik paused, the idea new.  “That might have been a
good idea,” he agreed.  “Except I don’t have any catalyst to target the scrye. 
Though I might have managed to figure something.  They could have started
making preparations, anyway.  They couldn’t have moved fast enough to stop
Xenos from reaching this village.”

“Perhaps not, but as it stands, there are the two of
us alone against the likes of them.”

“And Colbey.”

“We can’t rely too heavily on him.”  Dietrik switched
to spinning his dagger around one finger by the curving guard until it
resembled a rotating wagon wheel.  “Broken pots are never fully mended.  Do not
allow his lighter demeanor to make you think he is fixed and whole.”

“I know.  But I can also feel what he’s gone through. 
I doubt he would allow himself to fall as low as he did before.  He would cut
his own throat first.”

“All the same, if we trust too much in—”

Marik’s hand flew to cover Dietrik’s lips.  The
gesture had been unnecessary.  Dietrik had heard them as well.  Splashing. 
From the ground.

They hunched low to reduce their target profile. 
Together they crept to the edge, stopping before the large doors to what must
have been a town hall.

Two men waded through the pool.  They had abandoned
their black armor in favor of swimming if the water grew too deep.  Their
foreign words were an unintelligible murmur.

Water came up to their chests and they moved with as
much arm flailing as underwater steps.  They quickly found the place where the
ground sank away.  Up to their chins, they called loudly through the quiet
trees.  Answering calls were returned until a larger group came from the north,
rather than the east as the waders had.

The new arrivals were spared a drenching since
dock-like decks had been constructed.  Ghostly images of lantern-lit festivals
with people dancing until dawn flashed across Marik’s vision.  For an instant
he could have sworn he actually saw them.

Four soldiers still clad in their armor rounded a
large root, following a walkway to the larger, square deck set at the pool’s
side.  A moment behind them strode Xenos with Mendell at his side.  The four
prisoner women had been stripped of their clothing and were being chided along
by two white-robes.  Three Taurs followed, quelling any thought the women might
have had to make an escape.

Marik waited for the rest.  Xenos stood at the deck’s
edge to survey the setting before issuing quick orders.  Two of the dry
soldiers started removing their heavy armor.  Apparently they were to join
their fellows in the pool.  The remaining two walked to separate edges before
leaping onto the nearest root.  They began following the roots across the
water, jumping to the next nearest, ranging afield to act as guards for the
waders.

It must only be them!  All that remains of the large
Arronath force that entered the Rovasii are ten men, three Taurs and four shivering
prisoners.  The fight between Xenos and father must have been legendary…

Marik ruthlessly shoved the thought down.  If they
survived this encounter with the harvester, he would insist on returning to
that clearing on their way out. 
Perhaps
his father had fallen in that
fight.  He would only accept that when he found Rail’s body.

The original two waders sloshed through the pool until
they stood at Xenos’ feet.  Chains leading to collars around each woman’s neck
were separated and distributed among the unarmored soldiers.  They offered no
gentility to their prisoners.  Hard yanks pulled the women into the water. 
Each man led his enslaved victim to the artesian well.

It was at the moment when the women fell into the pool
that Marik first noticed.  With their hands clutching at the air, rather than
covering their bodies with ashamed modesty, their nude forms were exposed.

He could see that each woman’s belly was swollen with
an unborn child.

It could be no coincidence that all four were so.  A
cold touch caressed his spine.  What evil did Xenos have it in mind to commit? 
What made these pregnant women so critical to his plan that he had protected
them above his soldiers during a battle that cost him most of his men?

Marik studied the women with his magesight.  They
seemed somehow brighter.  Or was that his imagination?  The result of searching
for a difference that might or might not exist?  Their auras looked stronger
than the soldiers pulling them along like cattle.

Of course.  How damned obvious.  Two lives in one. 
They must generate far more life energy than any normal person could.