Storm breaking (27 page)

Elspeth and Darkwind exchanged another look, and it was Darkwind who replied. "If our group at the Tower can't do anything—warn everyone you can reach, create what shields and shelters you can, assume that they won't hold, and endure. Make your plans after you see what the effects are this time."

The Duke made a sour face, but did not respond. Elspeth tried some sympathy.

"Duke Tremane, I know this is difficult for you, but at least you are in command of an area in which much of the magical energy has been drained away, and which never relied on magic to get things done in the first place," she pointed out. "You can count on most buildings staying up, most bridges standing firm, count on fires heating your barracks as they always have, candles lighting the darkness, and food cooking properly in a well-made oven. Hardorn is prepared for everything except what the final Storm will do to the physical world—and in a way, you can even prepare for that, simply by knowing what the last Cataclysm did."

Tremane sighed, and rubbed one temple with his fingers. "Yes, I know this, and I also know that this is not going to be the case in the Empire. Things were falling to pieces so badly that when I mounted my raid on that Imperial warehouse complex, the men there hadn't heard from their superiors in weeks, and now—I can't even imagine the state of chaos the Empire must be in. It's just that things were difficult for us before, and the one comfort I had was that I couldn't envision them getting any worse. Now I have to, and plan for it, somehow."

Elspeth shook her head emphatically. "You can't plan for this, Tremane. All you can do is to warn people of what they
might
expect, and put things in place that will give you information once the worst happens. The signal-towers, for one thing. They work almost as well as Companions, and you ought to make it a priority to get them manned by people who know how to use them. You ought to make it a priority to get more of them in place if it is at all possible! If every little village had a tower, the way every village has access to a Herald, you'd be able to get help to people long before a messenger could have reached you."

Darkwind nodded. "Don't plan for specific events; doing that will inevitably prove to be an exercise in futility."

"Plan for flexibility, you mean?" The Duke considered that for a moment, and nodded. "All right, I can see that." Then he sighed. "And plan for communication, put ways of bringing in information in place while we still can. That's good, as long as the trouble spots are places where there are still people living. But if they aren't, there could be a nest of something brewing, some monstrous creatures, say, and we wouldn't know about it until the creatures had wiped out an entire town. Maybe not even then."

He rubbed his forehead, and Darkwind saw the shadow of physical pain in his eyes, in the tense muscles of his homely face. "I just wish there was a way to watch the land," he said fretfully. "I used to be able to get my mages to scry entire stretches of countryside, and that's what I'd give my arm to have working again."

Darkwind exchanged another look with Elspeth.
:What do you think? This is the best opening he's ever given us.:

:If we can make him believe in earth-sense,:
she replied, with some pessimism.
:Still, you're right. It isn't just the best opening, it's the only opening he's ever given us.:

:You, or me?:
he asked.

:Me first, just to open the subject. I'm the local royalty, the local Herald, and the local expert in mind-magic. I could be expected to know about these things, and know if the Hardornens were just making something up. You pick up if you see an opening to insert something you know.:

He folded his hands on the table in front of him as she cleared her throat. "Duke Tremane," she said, "I may have a solution to that particular problem, and oddly enough it is a part of a proposition that the Hardornens outside your domain wanted me to make to you on their behalf." She smiled apologetically. "I think you probably were anticipating that the loyalists might ask us to serve as their envoys as well as envoys for the Alliance. We promised we would put their proposal before you at an opportune time, but we promised nothing else; that seemed harmless enough."

He looked up sharply, and a little suspiciously. "A proposition? What sort of proposition?"

Elspeth bit her lip and looked down at her strong, well-muscled hands for a moment. They were hardly the hands of a pampered princess, and Darkwind had a suspicion that Tremane had noticed this. "Well... it's a rather interesting one. It seems that they've been watching how you manage things here, and you've frankly impressed them. There seems to be a general consensus that under certain very specific circumstances, they would not only be happy to arrange a truce with you, but they would be willing to offer you the crown of Hardorn itself."

He looked as if she had hit him in the back of the head with a board. It was the first time he had ever actually shown surprise. "The
crown
? They'd make me their
King
? What about their own claimants?"

"There aren't any," Darkwind said crisply. "Ancar was very thorough when it came to eliminating rivals. We were told that there weren't even any claimants on the distaff side; apparently he didn't in the least see any reason to exclude his female relatives from the purges, nor children, nor even infants. From all anyone can tell, he went back to the fourth and fifth remove of the cousins. By the time he was finished, well, you have as much right to the throne as any of the natives, that's how thin the royal connections are."

We learned most of that when we were here last, but I don't think it would be politic to mention that little trip.

Tremane didn't exactly pale, but he did look a little shocked. "And I thought that politics in the Empire were cutthroat," he murmured, as if to himself. Then he blinked, and collected himself. "So, just what
are
these specific circumstances you were talking about? And how will all this give me intelligence about what is happening to the land?"

Elspeth toyed with her glass of water. "This is where I am going to have to ask you to stretch your imagination a bit,
 
Tremane," she replied. "You know that mind-magic exists, now that you've seen the members of our party use it."

He nodded cautiously.

"You also have your own Healers who use Healing magic, which is similar to, but not identical with, mind-magic," she continued, "And you know that neither are affected by the mage-storms which are disrupting what we in Valdemar call
true
-magic."

"I'm following you so far," Tremane said with a nod.

"'Well, as near as we can tell, there is another form of magic which is
like
mind-magic and
like
Healing-magic, but isn't exactly either of them," she told him, leaning forward earnestly. "It's called earth-magic, and it seems to have entirely to do with the land, the health of the land, and restoring that health. We think that's what hedge-wizards and earth-witches use, rather than true-magic; people who are trained in those disciplines—so they tell me—also refer to their power as earth-magic, and they call what you and Darkwind and I are accustomed to using by the name of
high
-magic."

:Right. So you tell him about Hawkbrother Healing Adepts while I figure out how to segue this into the earth-binding ritual.:

Darkwind nodded very slightly and caught up the conversational ball. "We Tayledras have specialized Adepts, called Healing Adepts, who have the ability to sense the poisoned places, the places where magic has made things go wrong, and fix them again," he told Tremane, who was sitting back in his chair with an odd expression that Darkwind could not read. "And if you need evidence of how well this works, it is in the fact that we have restored so much of the land to the pre-Cataclysm days. The special ability that makes this possible—Elspeth's people would call it a
Gift
—is something we all call the earth-sense."

"It's not just Tayledras Healing Adepts and earth-witches that use this. Both the King of Rethwellan and my stepfather Prince Daren have earth-sense, in fact," she said, taking the narrative back. "It seems that the Gift has always been in the Rethwellan royal line. They haven't needed it for generations, but it's obvious how useful it is when you know that even though Daren was not familiar with Hardorn and not ritually tied to the land here, he could
still
sense what Ancar had done to it when he came here to help Valdemar drive Ancar out. That actually proved to be of tactical value, since it gave us an idea of where Ancar was finding all the power he needed."

Tremane nodded, his brows knitted intently, and seized on the phrase that they had both hoped he would. "Ritually tied to the land?" he asked. "Just what does that mean?"

"The monarchs of Rethwellan—and I presume, of Hardorn—have always taken part in a very old ritual known as
earth-binding
," she told him. "Because we in Valdemar do not have that particular ritual, I can't even begin to tell you how it works, or why, but when it is over, every major injury or change to the land is instantly sensed by the monarch. Ancar obviously never participated in that ritual, or he could not have done the things he did—I suspect that, as in Rethwellan, the earth-binding is part of the Hardornen private rites that take place just before the public coronation. Ancar crowned himself, without the usual rituals, so—" She shrugged. "My stepfather says that those who even have earth-sense latently can have it aroused by such a rite."

"The point here is that the people of Hardorn have found some of the priests of the old ways who know that ritual," Darkwind continued, as she glanced at him to cue him to take up the narrative. "
They
think that if you were to be tested for earth-sense and had it even latently, that would qualify you for the Hardornen crown. And if you were to undergo the earth-binding ritual, thus awakening the earth-sense and binding you to Hardorn, you would be a—a
safe
monarch for Hardorn, because you would be unable to harm, abuse, or misuse your land the way Ancar did."

"Because harming the land would hurt me." He lifted one eyebrow skeptically.

:Is he going to laugh?:
Elspeth sounded dubious, and Darkwind didn't blame her. This was such a primitive, unsophisticated concept—for someone from the Eastern Empire, so sophisticated in the ways of magic that its power was used for practically everything, this must seem incredibly savage and crude.

But he didn't laugh, and in fact, he seemed to be thinking the concept over. "Can you tell me anything else about this earth-sense? Just what does it entail? How do you learn to use it."

"Among my people, it isn't very complicated," Darkwind told him. "You don't so much learn to use it as you learn to keep it from using you. It's rather like Empathy in a way, or extremely strong Mindspeech. You actually learn how to shut it out so that it doesn't affect you all the time."

"Interesting. I can see how it would be inconvenient to be affected adversely by the very condition you are attempting to remedy." His brows creased in thought. "And does it go the other way? Does the physical condition of the King affect the land?"

"Havens, no!" Elspeth exclaimed. "For one thing, the King is not exactly as—as monumental as a country! It would be like a flea stepping on a horse. For another, it's only a sense, like the sense of smell, and..." She trailed off in confusion as Darkwind shook his head.

"I hate to have to contradict Elspeth, but that's not entirely true, Duke Tremane," he said, feeling the need to be totally frank. "Under certain very specific circumstances, the health of the King who is bound to the land can affect the land. He can, in fact, sacrifice himself—give up his own life—to restore the land to its former health. This is something that my people know, and that the Shin'a'in not only know, but have even, very rarely, practiced. I must also say, however, that I personally do not believe that the Hardornens ever practiced that form of earth-binding. As with all crafts, there are scores, even hundreds or thousands of ways to do them, and nothing that they told us gave me any indication that they even know such a possibility exists. And I must also point out that to be valid, to have any chance of working, the sacrifice must be a
self
-sacrifice, entirely voluntary—and indeed eagerly sought by the sacrificial victim." He managed a thin smile. "Hauling one's King to the stone of sacrifice and spilling his blood upon the ground only serves as a sort of gruesome fertilizer to the local grass; it won't change anything else without that will to be sacrificed."

Tremane's brows crept halfway up his forehead as Darkwind imparted that choice bit of information, but he made no comment. After a moment, he stood up.

"I'd like to go think about this for a little," he said. "I assume you have a way of contacting someone if I make a decision?"

"I can find a contact,:
Gwena said firmly in both their minds.

"We do," Elspeth told him.

"Then give me—about a mark," he replied. "I'll send for you, if you have no objections."

Since it had been a very long time since breakfast, and this would provide an excellent excuse to send their Imperial aide in search of food, Darkwind had no objections whatsoever, and neither did Elspeth. With a polite exchange of bows, they retired to their own quarters, leaving him sitting back in his chair, staring at the ducal ring on his finger, clearly deep in thought.