No True Way (11 page)

Her father and the two scouts seemed to take no note of the strangeness she felt, nor did their bondbirds or their own
dyheli
seem affected. Was it only she who was bothered, and Kir and her
dyheli
were simply responding to her irritation?

Once their party passed through the Veil, Stardance barely managed to stifle her sigh. The pressure of
wrongness
greatly diminished, although she could still feel an echo of it. Whatever was happening, it was beyond the Veil, not within it, and relief flooded through her. Everyone knew about what k'Sheyna had faced before the Mage Storms, when their Heartstone had been manipulated by an Adept and had gone rogue. Even with the far more limited power that would have gathered in the k'Lissa Heartstone, Stardance knew she had neither the skill nor the strength to face such a disaster.

*   *   *

After a brief welcome from the Elders and Council of k'Lissa, a
hertasi
guided Stardance to one of the guest
ekeles
, where she began to unpack her gear and settle in. She would meet Deermoon and his apprentices in the morning, and she decided that then would be soon enough to explore the strange feeling in the earth. Opening one of the packs, her hand brushed the cloth-wrapped box from Nightblade, and she paused, then pulled it out.

Her actual birth date had passed while they had been traveling, and she had been secretly glad that her father made no mention of it. It didn't feel right to her to distinguish the day when she was away from k'Veyas, away from the friends who should have been with her. Although the Tayledras marked adulthood by one's developing skills and responsibilities, the Clans took every possible occasion for merriment, and the eighteenth year was sometimes celebrated on its own.

Curling up on the low couch below one of the windows, Stardance untied the leather strips and loosened the cloth wrapping. The slender box was intricately carved with flowing knots and spirals entwined with
leaves, and she took a moment to admire the craftsmanship before opening the lid.

Nestled in a carefully shaped pad was a delicate spindle, exactly the size she preferred to use, and she lifted it out. Only then did she see what was embedded in the weighted whorl near the top of the shaft, and tears sprang to her eyes. The last time she had seen the cracked amber disc, it had still been knotted on the leather cord that Triska had always worn. A pale and grieving Winternight had shown it to her after the last Mage Storm, the one that had caught Triska in a Change Circle and led to her death. The spindle was clearly the work of one of the
hertasi
artisans, so Nightblade must have asked them to incorporate the pendant. She assumed that Kikara, Triska's eldest, would have kept it—and had been willing to part with it.

Turning the spindle in her hands, she saw that the hook at the top of the shaft linked into what looked like a jumble of loops of twisted silver. When she held it up, she saw that it was a chain with a post and loop from which the spindle could hang. Hooked in that loop, the spindle would spin freely, without a cord twisting or knotting up on itself.

Stardance smiled, fond warmth at his thoughtfulness filling her like an embrace from within. Although she didn't need to, she liked to use a spindle when working with the earth energies. It acted as a focus, making it easier for her to blend the threads of magic into a strong line, but she would frequently need to interrupt her work to untwist the physical spindle from whatever cord she was using to hold it. Nightblade, who often assigned himself as her guard when she worked outside the Vale, must have noticed her irritation and worked out this clever
solution. With the linked chain, she could start the spindle twirling and work with the magic without pausing. A subtle question nagged at the back of her mind, a flash of memory of the expression in Nightblade's dark eyes when he had pressed the box into her hands, but she couldn't connect the thoughts. Replacing the spindle back in the box, she set it on the center of the table and returned to her unpacking.

*   *   *

The
hertasi
guided Stardance to the stone workrooms where Deermoon and his apprentices had gathered. Entering the outer chamber, she eyed them in turn as they studied her. Silverheart had indicated that Deermoon was only a few years older than she, but his appearance was that of a much older man. Thin and worn, he seemed even more frail than Winternight, the most senior Mage and Elder of k'Veyas. His students, on the other hand, were quite a bit younger than Stardance, and they shifted in their seats as she took the open seat beside Deermoon.

“What is it that ails the earth here? How long has it been this way?” Stardance's question was blunt, and Deermoon let out a raspy chuckle, his hands twisting stiffly on the end of his walking stick.

“You are Silverheart's pupil, that is certain. She never used two words when one would do.” He coughed, and Stardance's own Healing Gift recognized what the k'Lissa Healers had seen. His body did not seem truly ill but was suffering a deep exhaustion. Small wonder, then, that the Healers had been unable to provide more than temporary aid.

“We don't know either answer,” he replied at last. “At some time in the last year or two, my work became more and more tiring, and I could not hold my focus for as
long as I used to. I thought little of it when I noticed it, for I am no longer young. Instead, I concentrated on finding and training any Healing-talented Mages among k'Lissa. As I taught more, I went beyond the Veil to work less. When I did, I found it even more fatiguing, but again, did not think it unusual.”

He paused, then shook his head. “It was always so easy to explain away the exhaustion as overwork, as distraction, as something simple. But now I've noticed that, in this last six-month, my students are tiring rapidly, and that their focus and control is less than it used to be. That was the first time I thought there might be something else behind this. With even the apprentices affected, the Healing work of the Tayledras is all but halted. Until we find what is causing this, we can make but little progress. K'Veyas is one of the closest Vales to us, and I know Silverheart better than the senior Healer-Mages of the others. It was logical to call upon her for aid, and Firewind supported the idea in the Council. Some wanted to go to k'Onsoya as well, but Firewind left first, as soon as there were signs of spring. When the weather turned so fierce, the Council decided to wait on his return. Now that you are here . . .” He shrugged. “The Council will likely wait to see if you are able to assist us before they ask for any other help.”

Deermoon's mention that the apprentices had been weakened caught Stardance's attention. “Have any of the other Mages been affected, those who are not Healing-Mages, especially those who support your work? Even here in the Vale, I can feel the undertone of whatever it is, although the Veil mutes it. Though they do not draw on the Heartstone as once they did, do they notice the change? Or did it happen too gradually?”

Deermoon shook his head. “K'Lissa has never been noted for its great Mages—we mostly have skilled Masters. Your father is one of our few Adepts, and he has said nothing. Our Mages are very capable, but not sensitive to this subtle degree, which is partly why they are limited in reorganizing the threads of magic. Whatever this is, it has its greatest effect at the lowest level of the earth energies, and the dissolving of the great magics after the Mage Storms made this smaller change even less noticeable.”

Stardance frowned at the mention of the storms. “Is it possible that this is something from the Mage-Storms themselves?”

Deermoon shook his head again, so firmly the feathers in his white braids fluttered. “I shouldn't think so. Why would something like this only appear now, years later, when all the other effects were so immediate? And would not other Clans or Outlander Mages be noticing this, if it were a broad effect of the Storms?”

Stardance sought other possibilities. “Might there be another Mage who is drawing on the lines of power, some sort of invader?” She would think the odds would be against something like that happening in k'Lissa, since k'Onsoya or even k'Veyas were closer to the edges of the Tayledras territories, but it was something to be considered.

“That is the most likely answer and what I suspect,” Deermoon replied. “Such a Mage would have had to pass one of the other Vales unnoticed, but it is not impossible.”

Stardance frowned, green eyes narrowing as she sorted through her options. “So. I will take some time to observe, first. Since I am newly come here, I should be less affected by this, and might be able to see what has gone wrong more readily. Until we can determine what
is happening, and stop it if we can, I will not attempt to do anything with the earth energies. The last thing your Clan needs is another ill and exhausted Healing-Mage.”
I think I'm in over my head
, she thought, her stomach knotting.
An Outland Mage capable of disturbing the earth energy around a Vale? Does Deermoon truly realize how serious this could be? Did Silverheart suspect it? Do they really expect an apprentice, a Journeyman, to be able to fix whatever has gone wrong here?

*   *   *

Stardance began her study of the earth energy around k'Lissa from the carefully shielded Workroom. Sitting near the Heartstone, feeling its faint pulse of warmth, she sifted through the web of lines feeding it; a Journeyman could See the lines, even if she could not safely use them. Within the Veil, all was in order, but when her focus reached the border of the Veil, she detected a subtle shift, a fraying of the lines. In her own work, she would say that the lines had not been twisted securely enough and what held them together was beginning to loosen, but Deermoon's craft was different. Instead of the spun threads of magic that she produced, his lines had a sense of water to them. He created channels like riverbeds that led the droplets of energy into larger and larger rivulets.

The rippling of the magic outside of those courses seemed to be the strongest at the southern boundary of the Veil, so she left the Workroom. A
hertasi
appeared from the foliage beside her, and she asked him to guide her to that area. Kir flapped and soared overhead as they walked, familiar with her mistress' routines, even in this strange place. When Stardance found a sheltered seat just within the Veil, the falcon came to a nearby roost to wait, and the
hertasi
disappeared back down the path.

When she sank into Trance and opened herself to the earth, Stardance was glad she was still within the borders of the shielding Veil, for the strange blurring of the energy unsettled her. This close to it, she didn't have to strain her Mage Sense and could focus instead on the feel of the power. The hazy mist of magic seemed somehow confused, as though it wanted to flow to the Heartstone in the channels that Deermoon had so carefully crafted, but the stream of power wavered with another pull, like a lodestone from beyond the Veil.

It was this pull that Stardance now attempted to track, although she couldn't sense it directly herself. It was like chasing the wind without actually feeling it, knowing where it had been only by the movement of the leaves. She let her awareness drift, seeking the place where the power was most disordered and following that disorder farther into deeper unease and chaos, until she felt that she had placed it. To mark the spot, she let a tiny bit of her personal energy sink into the earth, trailing a spidersilk-fine strand of Power behind it, linked to her as she emerged from her Trance.

She stood and stretched, then moved back down the path toward the center of the Vale. Amberlight, the senior Elder of k'Lissa, had suggested she seek out Sunsong when she needed to go beyond the Veil. The scout could guide her through the physical surroundings of the k'Lissa territory while she followed that silvery thread. That bit of her personal magic was how they could find what was at the center of that muddle of energy—or find out if she needed to go still farther.

*   *   *

Only effort of will kept the contents of Stardance's stomach in their proper place. Now that she faced what was
producing it, the
wrong
was so intense that she could barely keep her composure to study it.

:It feels like Blood Magic.:

Her eyes flicked over to the tree next to the one that concealed her. She could not see Sunsong's blond head, but she knew he was there. It was a good thing he had been chosen to assist her, because he could project Mindspeech to those who were not similarly Gifted, and she had practiced “thinking” back to him as they had moved through the trees toward the rocky outcropping on the southern edge of k'Lissa's cleared territory. They had started on the paths, but some instinct had led them to go up to the trees, “walking” from branch to branch.

:You know it?:
She wasn't sure she wanted to know how.

:After the Storms, a scouting party came upon a lost and desperate Rethwellan Mage who had turned to it. I'm not that Gifted, but even I could feel the pain, the nasty stench to the Power she'd raised, when we interrupted her.:
He didn't elaborate, and she didn't ask further, turning her attention back to the creature in front of the cave.

In appearance, it looked like a small basilisk with shimmering dark gray scales, all lizardlike torpor, but leaner, with longer legs. It seemed to be sunning itself, basking in the late spring sun, but something about it gave Stardance pause. This was no mere nap, and she made sure her shields were securely layered and doubled before shifting her vision to See the earth energies around them.

The nausea swelled again as she did so, and she pressed her forehead against the tree's cool bark to calm herself. With deep breaths, she steadied until she could concentrate on the nebulous wisps of life energy around
her. Those tiny tendrils should have been gathering into droplets of power and feeding the intricate web of ley-lines, the foundation worked by Deermoon and his apprentices.