Mercedes Lackey - Mage Storms 1 - Storm Warning

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Storm Warning
Mercedes Lackey
Mage Storms 01
Emperor Charliss sat upon the Iron Throne, bowed down neither by the visible
weight of his years nor the invisible weight of his power. He bore neither the heavy
Wolf Crown on his head, nor the equally burdensome robes of state across his
shoulders, though both lay nearby, on an ornately trimmed marble bench beside the
Iron Throne. The thick silk-velvet robes flowed down the bench and coiled on the
floor beside it, a lush weight of pure crimson so heavy it took two strapping young
men to lift them into place on the Emperor’s shoulders. The Wolf Crown lay atop the
robes, preventing them from slipping off the bench altogether. Let mere kings flaunt
their golden crowns; the Emperor boasted a circlet of electrum, inset with thirteen
yellow diamonds. Only when one drew near enough to the Emperor to see his eyes
clearly did one see that the circlet was not as it seemed, that what had passed at a
distance for an abstract design or a floral pattern was, in fact, a design of twelve
wolves, and that the winking yellow diamonds were their eyes. Eleven of those
wolves were in profile to the watcher, five facing left, six facing right; the twelfth,
obviously the pack leader, gazed directly down onto whosoever the Emperor faced,
those unwinking yellow eyes staring at the petitioner even as the Emperor’s own
eyes did.
Let lesser beings assume thrones of gold or marble; the Emperor held court from
his Iron Throne, made from the personal weapons of all those monarchs the
Emperors of the past had conquered and deposed, each glazed and guarded against
rust. The throne itself was over six feet tall and four feet in width; a monolithic piece
of furniture, it was so heavy that it had not been moved so much as a finger-length in
centuries. Anyone looking at it could only be struck by its sheer mass - and must
begin calculating just how many sword blades, axes, and lance points must have
gone into the making of it. ...
None of this was by chance, of course. Everything about the Emperor’s regalia, his
throne, his Audience Chamber, and Crag Castle itself was carefully calculated to
reduce a visitor to the proper level of fearful respect, impress upon him the sheer
power held in the hands of this ruler, and the utter impossibility of aspiring to such
power. The Emperors were not interested in inducing a groveling fear, nor did they
intend to excite ambition. The former was a dangerous state; people made too fearful
would plot ways to remove the cause of that fear. And ambition was a useful tool in
an underling beneath one’s direct supervision, but risky in one who might, on
occasion, slip his leash.
There was very little in the Emperor’s life that was not the result of long thought
and careful calculation. He had not become the successor to Emperor Lioth at the
age of thirty without learning the value of both abilities - and he had not spent the
intervening century-and-a-half in letting either ability lapse.
Charliss was the nineteenth Emperor to sit the Iron Throne; none of his
predecessors had been less than brilliant, and none had reigned for less than half a
century. None had been eliminated by assassins, and only one had been unable to
choose his own successor.
Some called Charliss “the Immortal”; that was a fallacy, since he was well aware
how few years he had left to him. Although he was a powerful mage, there were limits
to the amount of time magic could prolong one’s life. Eventually the body itself
became too tired to sustain life any longer; even banked fires dwindled to ash in the
end. Charliss’ rumored immortality was one of many myths he himself propagated.
Useful rumors were difficult to come by.
The dull gray throne sat in the midst of an expanse of black-veined white marble;
the Emperor’s robes, the exact color of fresh-spilled blood, and the yellow gems in
the crown, were the only color on the dais. Even the walls and the ceiling of the dais-
alcove, a somber setting for a rich gem, were of that same marble. The effect was to
concentrate the attention of the onlookers on the Emperor and only the Emperor. The
battle-banners, the magnificent tapestries, the rich curtains - all these were behind
and to the side of the young man who waited at the Emperor’s feet. Charliss himself
wore slate-gray velvets, half-robe with dagged sleeves, trews, and Court-boots, made
on the same looms as the crimson robes, in his long-ago youth, his hair had been
whitened by the wielding of magic and his once-dark eyes were now the same pale
gray ,as an overcast dawn sky.
If the young man waiting patiently at the foot of the throne was aware of how few
years the Emperor had left to him, he had (wisely) never indicated he possessed this
dangerous knowledge to anyone. Grand Duke Tremane was about the same age as
Charliss had been when Lioth bestowed his power and responsibility on Charliss’
younger, stronger shoulders and had retired to spend the last three years of his life
holding off Death with every bit of the concentration he had used holding onto his
power.
In no other way were the two of them similar, however. Charliss had been one of
Lioth’s many, many sons by way of his state marriages; Tremane was no closer in
blood to Charliss than a mere cousin, several times removed. Charliss had been, and
still was, an Adept, and in his full powers before he ascended the Throne. Tremane
was a mere Master, and never would have the kind of mage-power at his personal
command that Charliss had.
But if mage-power or blood-ties were all that was required to take the Throne and
the Crown, there were a hundred candidates to be considered before Tremane.
Intelligence and cunning were not enough by themselves, either; in a land founded by
stranded mercenaries, both were as common as snowflakes in midwinter. No one
survived long in Charliss’ court without both those qualities, and the will to use both
no matter how stressful personal circumstances were.
Tremane had luck; that was important, but more than the luck itself, Tremane had
the ability to recognize when his good fortune had struck, and the capability to revise
whatever his current plan was in order to take advantage of that luck.
And conversely, when ill-luck struck him (which was seldom), he had the courage
to revise plans to meet that as well, now and again snatching a new kind of victory
from the brink of disaster.
Tremane was not the only one of the current candidates for the succession to
have those qualities, but he was the one personally favored by the Emperor.
Tremane was not entirely ruthless; too many of the others were. Being ruthless was
not a bad thing, but being entirely ruthless was dangerous. Those who dared to stop
at nothing often ended up with enemies who had nothing to lose. Putting an enemy in
such a position was an error, for a man who has nothing to lose is, by definition,
risking nothing to obtain what he desires.
Tremane inspired tremendous loyalty in his underlings; it had been dreadfully
difficult for .the Emperor’s Spymaster to insinuate agents into Tremane’s household.
That was another useful trait for an Emperor to have; Charliss shared it, and had
found that it was just as effective to have underlings willing to fling themselves in front
of the assassin’s blade without a single thought as it was to ferret out the assassin
himself.
Otherwise, the man on the throne had little else in common with his chosen
successor. Charliss had been considered handsome in his day, and the longing
glances of the women in his Court even yet were not entirely due to the power and
prestige that were granted to an Imperial mistress. Tremane was, to put it bluntly, so
far from comely that it was likely only his power, rank, and personal prestige that won
women to his bed. His thinning hair was much shorter than was fashionable, his
receding hairline gave him a look of perpetual be-fuddlement. His eyes were too
small, set just a hair too far apart; his beard was sparse, and looked like an
afterthought. His thin face ended in a lantern jaw; his wiry body gave no hint of his
quality as a warrior. Charliss often thought that the man’s tailor ought to be taken out
and hanged; he dressed Tremane in sober browns and blacks that did nothing for his
complexion, and his clothing hung on him as if he had recently lost weight and
muscle.
Then again . . . Tremane was only one of several candidates for the Iron Throne,
and he knew it. He looked harmless, common, and of average intelligence, but no
more than that. It was entirely possible that all of this was a deeply laid plan to
appear ineffectual. If so, Charliss’ own network of intelligence agents told him that the
plan had succeeded, at least among the rest of the rivals for the position. Of all of the
candidates for the Iron Throne, he was the one with the fewest enemies among his
rivals.
They were as occupied with eliminating each other as in improving their own
positions, and in proving their ability to the Emperor. He was free to concentrate on
competence. This was not a bad position to be in.
Perhaps he was even more clever than Charliss had given him credit for. If so, he
would need every bit of that cleverness in the task Charliss was about to assign him
to.
The Emperor had not donned robes and regalia for this interview, as this was not
precisely official; he was alone with Tremane - if one discounted the ever-present
bodyguards - and the trappings of Empire did not impress the Grand Duke. Real
power did, and real power was what Charliss held in abundance. He was power, and
with the discerning, he did not need to weary himself with his regalia to prove that.
He cleared his throat, and Tremane bowed slightly in acknowledgment.
“I intend to retire at some point within the next ten years.” Charliss made the
statement calmly, but a muscle jumping in Tremane’s shoulders betrayed the man’s
excitement and sudden tension. “It is Imperial custom to select a successor at some
point during the last ten years of the reign so as to assure an orderly transition.”
Tremane nodded, with just the proper shading of respect. Charliss noted with
approval that Tremane did not respond with toadying phrases like “how could you
even think of retiring, my Emperor,” or “surely it is too early to be thinking of such
things.” Not that Charliss had expected such a response from him; Tremane was far
too clever.
“Now,” Charliss continued, leaning back a little into the comfortable solidity of the
Iron Throne, “you are no one’s fool, Tremane. You have obviously been aware for a
long time that you are one of the primary candidates to be my successor.”
Tremane bowed correctly, his eyes never leaving Charliss’ face. “I was aware of
that, certainly, my Emperor,” he replied, his voice smoothly neutral. “Only a fool
would have failed to notice your interest. But I am also aware that I am just one of a
number of possible candidates.”
Charliss smiled, ever so slightly, with approval. Good. Even if the man did not
possess humility, he could feign it convincingly. Another valuable ability.
“You happen to be my current personal choice, Tremane,” the Emperor replied,
and he smiled again as the man’s eyebrows twitched with quickly-concealed surprise.
“It is true that you are not an Adept; it is true that you are not in the direct Imperial
bloodline. It is also true that of the nineteen Emperors, only eleven have been full
Adepts, and it is equally true that I have outlived my own offspring. Had any of them
inherited my mage-powers, that would not have been the case, of course....”
He allowed himself a moment to brood on the injustice of that. Of all the children of
his many marriages of state, not a one had achieved more than Journeyman status.
That was simply not enough power to prolong life - not without resorting to blood-
magic, at any rate, and while there had been an Emperor or two who had followed
the darker paths, those were dangerous paths to follow for long. As witness the idiot
Ancar, for instance - those who practiced the blood-paths all too often found that the
magic had become the master, and the mage, the slave. The Emperor who ruled with
the aid of blood-rites balanced on a spider’s thread above the abyss, with the
monsters waiting below for a single missed step.
Well, it hardly mattered. What did matter was that a worthy candidate stood before
him now, a man who had all the character and strength the Iron Throne demanded.
And what was more, there was an opportunity before them both for Tremane to
prove, beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt, that he was the only man with that kind
of character and strength.
“Your duchy is in the farthest west, is it not?” Charliss asked, with carefully
simulated casualness. If Tremane was surprised at the apparent change of subject,
he did not show it. He simply nodded again.
“The western border, in fact?” Charliss continued. “The border of the Empire and
Hardorn?”
“Perhaps a trifle north of the true Hardorn border, but yes, my Emperor,” Tremane
agreed. “May I assume this has something to do with the recent conquests that our
forces have made in that sad and disorganized land?”
“You may.” Charliss was enjoying this little conversation. “In fact, the situation with
Hardorn offers you a unique opportunity to prove yourself to me. With that situation
you may prove conclusively that you are worthy of the Wolf Crown.”
Tremane’s eyes widened, and his hands trembled, just for a moment.
“If the Emperor would be kind enough to inform his servant how this could be done
- ?” Tremane replied delicately.
The Emperor smiled thinly. “First, let me impart to you a few bits of privileged
information. Immediately prior to the collapse of the Hardornen palace - and I mean
that quite precisely - our envoy returned to us from King Ancar’s court by means of a
Gate. He did not have a great deal of information to offer, however, since he arrived
with a knife buried in his heart, a rather lovely throwing dagger, which I happen to
have here now.”
He removed the knife from a sheath beneath his sleeve, and passed it to
Tremane, who examined it closely, and started visibly when he saw the device
carved into the pommel-nut.
“This is the royal crest of the Kingdom of Valdemar,” Tremane stated flatly,
passing the blade back to the Emperor, who returned it to the sheath. Charliss
nodded, pleased that Tremane had actually recognized it.
“Indeed. And one wonders how such a blade could possibly have been where it
was.” He allowed one eyebrow to rise. “There is a trifle more; we had an intimate
agent working to rid us of Ancar, an agent that had once worked independently in
Valdemar. This agent is now rather conspicuously missing.”
The agent in question had been a sorceress by the name of Hulda - Charliss never
could recall the rest of her name. He did not particularly mourn her loss - she had
been very ambitious, and he had foreseen a time when he might expect her value as
an agent to be exceeded by her liabilities. That she was missing could mean any one
of several things, but it did not much matter whether she had fled or died; the result
would be the same.
Tremane’s brow wrinkled in thought. “The most obvious conclusion would be that
your agent turned,” he said after a moment, “and that she used this dagger to place
suspicion on agents of one of Ancar’s enemies, thus embroiling us in a conflict with
Valdemar that would open opportunities for her own ambitions in Hardorn. We have
no reason for an open quarrel with Valdemar just yet; this could precipitate one
before we are ready.”
Charliss nodded with satisfaction. What was “obvious” to Tremane was far from
obvious to those who looked no deeper than the surface of things. “Of course, I have
no intention of pursuing an open quarrel with Valdemar just yet,” he said. “The envoy
in question was hardly outstanding; there are a dozen more who are simply panting
for his position. The woman was quite troublesomely ambitious, yes; however, if she
uses her magics but once, we will know where she is, and eliminate her if we choose.
No. What truly concerns me is Valdemar itself. The situation within Hardorn is
unstable. We have acquired half of the country with very little effort, but the ungrateful
barbarians seem to have made up their mind to refuse the benefits of inclusion within
the Empire.” Charliss felt a distant ache in his hip joints and shifted his position a little
to ease it. A warning, those little aches. The sign that his spells of bodily renewal
were fading. They were less and less effective with every year, and within two
decades or so they would fail him altogether....
One corner of Tremane’s mouth twitched a little, in recognition of Charliss’ irony.
They both knew what the Emperor meant by that; the citizens of what had been
Hardom wanted their country back, and they had organized enough to resist further
conquest.
“In addition,” Charliss continued smoothly, “this land of Valdemar is overrun with
refugees from all the conflict within Hardorn and from the wretched situation before
Ancar perished. Valdemar could decide to aid the Hardornens in some material way,
and that would cause us further trouble. We know that they have somehow allied
themselves with those fanatics in Karse, and that presents us with one long front if
we choose to fight them. Valdemar itself is a damned peculiar place....”
“It has always been difficult to insinuate agents into Valdemar,” Tremane offered,
with the proper diffidence. Charliss wondered whether he spoke from personal
experience or simply the knowledge he had gleaned from keeping an eye on
Charliss’ own agents.
From beyond the closed doors of the Throne Room came the soft murmur of the
courtiers who were waiting for the doors to open for them and Court to begin. Let
them wait - and let them see just whose business had kept them waiting. They would
know then, without any formal announcements, just who had become the Emperor’s
current favorite. The little maneuverings and shifts in power would begin from that
very moment, like the shifts in current when a new boulder rolls into a stream.
“Quite.” Charliss frowned. “In fact, that Hulda creature was once one of my
freelance agents in the Valdemar capital. I was rather dubious about using her again,
despite her abilities, until I realized just how cursed difficult it is to work in Valdemar.
As it was, her progress there was minimal. Most unsatisfactory. She was never able
to insinuate herself any higher than a mere court servant’s position, and she had
more than one agenda and more than one employer at the time.”
The corner of Tremane’s mouth twitched again, but this time it was downward.
Charliss knew why - Tremane never knowingly worked with someone who served
more masters than he.
“Why did you trust her in Hardorn, then?” the Grand Duke asked in a neutral tone.
“I never trusted her,” Charliss corrected him, allowing a hint of cold disapproval to
tinge his own voice. “I trust no agents, particularly not those who are as ambitious as
this one was. I merely made sure that this time she had no other employers, and that
her personal agenda was not incompatible with mine. And when it appeared that she
was slipping her leash, I sent an envoy to Ancar’s court to remind her who her master
was. And to eliminate her if she elected to ignore the warning he represented. That
was why I sent a mage, an Adept her equal, with none of her vices.”
“Your pardon,” Tremane replied, bowing slightly. “I should have known. But - about
Valdemar?”
Charliss permitted his icy expression to thaw. “Valdemar is peculiar, as I said. Until
recently, they’ve had next to no magic at all, and what they had was only mind-magic.
There was a barrier there, according to my agents, a barrier that made it impossible
for a practicing mage to remain within the borders for very long.”
“But how did Hulda - “ Tremane began, then smiled. “Of course. While she was
there, she must have refrained from using her powers. A difficult thing for a mage -
use of magic often becomes a habit too ingrained to break.”
Charliss blinked slowly in satisfaction. Tremane was no fool; he saw immediately
the solution and the difficulty of implementing it. “Precisely,” he replied. “On both
counts. And that was why I continued to use her. In business matters, the woman’s
self-discipline was remarkable. As for Valdemar - though they have begun again to
use magic as we know it, the place is no less peculiar than before, and many of the
mages they seem to have invited into their borders are from no land that my
operatives recognize! Well, that is all in the past; what we need to deal with is the
current situation. And that, Grand Duke Tremane, is where you come in.”
Tremane simply waited, as any good and perfectly trained servant, for his master
to continue. But his eyes narrowed just a trifle, and Charliss knew that his mind was
working furiously. A current of breeze stirred the tapestries behind him, but the
flames of the candles on the many-branched cande-labras, protected in their glass
shades, did not even waver.
“Your Duchy borders Hardorn; you will therefore be familiar with the area,” Charliss
stated, his tone and expression allowing no room for dissension. “The situation in
Hardorn grows increasingly unstable by the moment. I require a personal commander
of my own in place there - someone who has incentive, personal incentive, to see
that the situation is dealt with expeditiously.”
“Personal incentive, my Emperor?” Tremane replied.
Charliss crossed his legs and leaned forward, ignoring the pain in his hip joints. “I
am giving you a unique opportunity to prove, not only to me, but to your rivals and
your potential underlings, that you are the only truly worthy candidate for the Wolf
Crown. I intend to put you in command of the Imperial forces in Hardorn. You will be
answerable only to me. You will prove yourself worthy by dealing with this situation
and bringing it to a successful conclusion.”
Tremane’s hands trembled, and Charliss noted that he had turned just a little pale.
How long would it take for word to spread of Tremane’s new position? Probably less
than an hour. “What of Valdemar, my Emperor?” he asked, his voice steady, even if
his hands were not.
“What of Valdemar?” Charliss repeated. “Well, I don’t expect you to conquer it as
well. It will be enough to bring Hardorn under our banner. However, if during that
process you discover a way to insinuate an agent into Valdemar, all the better. If you
take your conquests past the Hardorn border and actually into Valdemar, better still. I
simply warn you of Valdemar because it is a strange place and I cannot predict how it
will measure this situation nor what it will do. Valdemar can wait; Hardorn is what
concerns me now. We must conquer it, now that we have begun, or our other client
states will see that we have failed and may become difficult to deal with in our
perceived moment of weakness.”
“And if I succeed in bringing Hardorn into the Empire?” Tremane persisted.
“Then you will be confirmed in the succession, and I will begin the process of the
formal training,” Charliss told him. “And at the end of ten years, I will retire, and you
will have Throne, Crown, and Empire.”
Tremane’s eyes lit, and his lips twitched into a tight, excited smile. Then he
sobered. “If I do not succeed, however, I assume I shall resume nothing more than
the rule of my Duchy.”
Charliss examined his immaculately groomed hands, gazing into the topaz eyes of
the wolf’s-head ring he wore, a ring whose wolf mask had been cast from the same
molds as the central wolf of the Wolf Crown. The eyes gazed steadily at him, and as
he often did, Charliss fancied he saw a hint of life in them. Hunger. An avidity, not
that of the starving beast, but of the prosperous and powerful.
“There is no shortage of suitable candidates for the Throne,” he replied casually,
tilting the ring for a better view into the burning yellow eyes. “If you should happen to
survive your failure, I would advise you to retire directly to your Duchy. The next
candidate that I would consider if you failed would be Baron Melles.”
Baron Melles was a so-called “court Baron,” a man with a title but no lands to
match. He didn’t need land; he had power, power in abundance, for he was an Adept
and his magics had brought him more wealth than many landed nobles had. His
coffers bulged with his accumulated wealth, but he wanted more, and his bloodlines
and ambition were likely to give him more.
He also happened to be of the political party directly opposite that of Tremane’s.
Tremane’s parents had held their lands for generations; Melles was the son of
merchants. Melles was, not so incidentally, one of Tremane’s few enemies, one of
the few candidates to the succession who did not underestimate the Baron. There
was a personal animosity between them that Charliss did not quite understand, and
he often wondered if the two had somehow contracted a very private feud that had
little or nothing to do with their respective positions and ambitions.
Melles would be only too pleased to find Tremane a failure and himself the new
successor. This meant, among other things, that if Tremane happened to survive his
failure to conquer Hardom, he probably would not survive the coronation of his rival,
and he might not even survive the confirmation of Melles as successor. Melles was
the most ruthless of all the candidates, and both Charliss and Tremane were quite
well aware that he was a powerful enough Adept to be able to commit any number of
murders-by-magic, and make them all appear to be accidents.
He was also clever enough not to do anything of the sort, since his political rivals
would be looking for and defending against exactly that sort of attack. Melles was
fully wealthy enough to buy any number of covert killers, and probably would. He was
too clever not to consolidate his position by eliminating enough rivals that those
remaining were intimidated.
That was, after all, one of the realities of life in the Empire; lead, follow, and
barricade yourself against assassins.
And the first in line for elimination would be Tremane - if Melles were named
successor.
Charliss knew this. So did Tremane. It made the situation all the more piquant.
Interestingly enough, if Tremane succeeded and attained the coveted prize, it was
not likely that he would remove Melles. Nor would he dispose of any of the other
candidates. Rather, he would either win them over to his side or find some other way
to neutralize them - perhaps by finding something else, creating some other problem
for them, that required all their attention.
Charliss had used both ploys in the past, and on the whole, he preferred subtlety
to assassination. Still, there had been equally successful Emperors in the past who
ruled by the knife and the garrote. Difficult times demanded difficult solutions, and
one of those times could be upon them.
The entire situation gave Charliss a faint echo of the thrill he had felt back at the
beginning of his own reign, when he first realized he truly did have the power of life
and death over his underlings and could manipulate their lives as easily as the
puppeteer manipulated his dolls. It was amusing to present Tremane with a gift of a
sword - with a needle-studded, poisoned grip. It was doubly amusing to know that
Melles, at least, would recognize this test for what it was, and would be watching
Tremane just as avidly from a distance, perhaps sending in his own agents to try and
undermine his rival, and attempting to consolidate his own position here at court.
The jockeying and scrabbling was about to begin. It should produce hours of
fascination.
Charliss watched Tremane closely, following the ghosts, the shadows of
expressions as he thought all this through and came to the same conclusions. There
was no chance that he would refuse the appointment, of course. Firstly, Tremane
was a perfectly adequate military commander. Secondly, refusing this appointment
would be the same as being defeated;
Melles would have the reward of becoming successor, and Tremane’s life would
be in danger.
It took very little time for Tremane to add all the factors together to come to the
conclusions that Charliss had already thought out. He bowed quickly.
“I cannot tell my Emperor how incredibly flattered I am by his trust in me,” he said
smoothly. “I can only hope that I will prove worthy of that trust.”
Charliss said nothing; only nodded in acknowledgment.
“And I am answerable only to you, my Emperor? Not to any other, military or
civilian?” Tremane continued quickly.
“Have I not said as much?” Charliss waved a hand. “I am certain you will need all
the time you have between now and tomorrow morning, Grand Duke. Packing and
preparations will probably occupy you for the rest of the day. I will have one of the
Court Mages open the Portal for you to the Hardornen front just after you break your
fast tomorrow morning.”
“Sir.” Tremane made the full formal bow this time; he knew a dismissal even when
it was not phrased as one. Charliss was very pleased with his demeanor, especially
given the short notice and the shorter time in which to make ready for his departure.
There were no attempts to argue, no excuses, no plaints that there was not enough
time.
Tremane rose from the bow, backing out of the room with his eyes lowered
properly. Charliss could not find fault with his posture or the signals his body gave;
his demeanor was perfect.
The great doors opened and closed behind him. Alone once again in the Throne
Room, Emperor Charliss, ruler of the largest single domain in the world, leaned to
one side and chuckled into the cavernous chamber.
This would be the most enjoyable little playlet of his entire reign, and it came at the
very end, when he had thought he had long since exploited the entertainment value
of watching his courtiers scramble about for the tidbits he tossed them. But here was
a juicy treat indeed, and the scramble would be vastly amusing.
Charliss was pleased. Entertainment on this scale was hard to come by!
* * *
Steam curled up from the water as An’desha gingerly lowered himself into the
soaking-pool of Firesong’s miniature Vale. A Vale in the heart of Valdemar - no larger
than a single Gathering-tent. I would not have believed that such a thing was
possible, much less that it could be done with so little magic - yet here it is.
It was amazing how much could be created without the use of any magic at all.
Most of this enchanted little garden had been put together by ordinary folk, using
nonmagical materials. There were only two exceptions; the huge windows, and the
hot pools. The windows were not the tiny, many-paned things with their thick, bubbly
glass, that An’desha had seen in all of the Palace buildings, which would not have
done at all for the purpose. These eight windows, two to each side of the room, went
from floor to ceiling in a single flawless triangular piece. Each had been made
magically by Firesong, of the same substance used by the Hawkbrothers for the
windows in their tree-perching ekeles. He had also created a magical source for the
hot water for the pools. The rest, this garden that bloomed in the dead of winter, and
the pseudo-ekele above it, was all built by ordinary folk, mainly due to Firesong
taking shameless advantage of the Queen of Valdemar’s gratitude and generosity.
Firesong felt that if he must remain here as the Tayledras envoy to primitive
Valdemar, then by the Goddess, he would have the civilized amenities of a Vale!
Valdemar. An’desha had never heard of this land until a year ago. As a child and
even a young man among the Clans, he had not heard of much beyond the Walls -
indeed, the only places beyond the Walls he had learned of as a youngster were the
Pelagiris Forest and the trade-city of Kata’shin’a’in. The Shin’a’in as a general rule
cared very little for the world beyond the Plains; only Tale’sedrin of all the Clans had
any measure of Outland and outClan blood.
In some Clans - such as An’desha’s - such foreign breeding was occasionally
considered a minor disgrace - not a disgrace for the child, but for the Shin’a’in parent.
“Could he not draw to him a single woman of the Plains?” would come the whispers,
or “Was she so unpleasant that no Shin’a’in man cared to partner her?” So it had
been for An’desha, child of such an alliance - and perhaps that was why his own Clan
had never so much as mentioned the lands outside the Dhorisha Plains. Perhaps
they had feared that talking about the lands Outside would excite an un-Shin’a’in
wanderlust in him, a yearning for far places and strange climes.
Well, I found both - without really wanting either.
The blood-path Adept who had flamboyantly named himself Mornelithe
Falconsbane had never heard of Valdemar, either, until the two white-clad strangers
from that land had come into the territory of Clan k’Sheyna of the Hawkbrothers.
An’desha had been a silent, frightened passenger in his own body, which
Falconsbane had usurped by magic and trickery. With the Adept possessing him, he
had learned just who those strangers were and something of their land. He’d had no
choice in the matter, since he was a hidden fugitive within the body that Falconsbane
had stolen years ago.
He should have died; that was what always happened before, when Falconsbane
took a body. But he hadn’t; perhaps the reason was that he had fled, rather than
trying to resist the interloper.
A prisoner in my own body. . . . He closed his eyes and sank a measure deeper
into the hot water. So odd .... the memories of those years of hiding, when he had no
control over the actions of his own body, seemed more solid and real than this
moment, when the body he had been born into was once again his.
An’desha’s had been only the last in a long series of bodies Falconsbane had
appropriated as his own. All that was required, or so it seemed, was for the victim to
be gifted with mage ability and to have been a descendant of a mage called Ma’ar. If
those remote memories were to be trusted, Ma’ar had lost his first life - or body,
depending on your point of view - in the Mage Wars of so long ago it made An’desha
dizzy to think about the passage of years between that moment and this.
He slipped down to his chin into the hot water, and closed his eyes tighter, letting
the steam rise around his face. His face now, and not the half-feline face of
Mornelithe Falconsbane. His own body, too, for the most part, though it was more
muscular now than it had been when Falconsbane helped himself to it and tried to
destroy the original owner. Falconsbane had made a hobby of body sculpting, trying
out changes on his daughter before adopting them himself. He had indulged in some
extensive modifications to An’desha’s body, changes An’desha had been certain he
would have to endure even after Falconsbane had been driven out and destroyed.
But his own actions, risking real soul-death to rid the world of Falconsbane, had
earned him more than just his freedom. Not only had he regained his body, most of
the modifications had vanished when the Avatars of the Goddess “cured” him of what
had been done to him.
There were only two things they could not give him again; the original colors of his
hair and eyes. His hair was a pure, snowy white now, and his eyes a pale silver, both
bleached forever by the magic energies that Falconsbane had sent coursing through
this body, time and time again. So now, when An’desha gazed into a mirror, it always
took a moment to recognize the reflection as his own.
At least I see the face of a half-familiar stranger, and not that of a beast. However
handsome that beast had made himself.
The hot water forced his muscles to relax some, but he feared he would have to
resort to stronger measures to release all the tension.
This place is so strange. . . . Let Firesong wallow in being the exotic and sought-
after alien; An’desha was not comfortable here. The only people he really knew were
Nyara, the mage-sword Need, and Firesong, the Tayledras Adept. Of the three, the
only one he spent any time at all with was Firesong. Nyara was very preoccupied
with her mate, the Herald called Skif - and at any rate, it was hard to face her,
knowing she was the offspring of his body when Falconsbane had worn it, knowing
what his body had done to hers. Now that the crisis was over, Nyara seemed to feel
the same way; although she was never unkind, she often seemed uncomfortable
around him.
As for the ancient mage-sword that housed the spirit of an irreverent and crotchety
sorceress, the entity called Need had her nonexistent hands full. She was engrossed
in training Nyara, helping her adjust to this new land. Need was quite used to
adjusting to new situations; she had been doing so for many centuries; in this, he had
nothing in common with her.
摘要：

StormWarningMercedesLackeyMageStorms01EmperorCharlisssatupontheIronThrone,boweddownneitherbythevisibleweightofhisyearsnortheinvisibleweightofhispower.HeboreneithertheheavyWolfCrownonhishead,northeequallyburdensomerobesofstateacrosshisshoulders,thoughbothlaynearby,onanornatelytrimmedmarblebenchbeside...

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