Tesra found N’lahr at a second-floor window, looking down onto the courtyard where two lines of squires traded practice thrusts as a curly-haired sixth ranker paced among them offering advice and encouragement.
She knew they couldn’t hope to counter anything a goddess could throw, and guessed other reasons for their preparation. The sixth ranker probably needed to keep them busy. And he might also have meant to demonstrate to any onlookers his force was capable.
Tesra had no doubts. A handful of Cerai’s troops watched from the side with great interest, and so did a pair of Naor she suspected had been assigned to monitor them.
The rest of the Naor worked on catapults outside the fortress. The aspirants, along with M’vai, had departed with Cerai, who carried the shaping staff.
Tesra had witnessed her repair of the battlement, and even had the chance to use the amazing artifact. Cerai had claimed the tool purified things, but that wasn’t quite accurate. With the staff, and a hearthstone, you had only to direct the energy into what you envisioned and it came to pass, and thus the ruined battlement had swiftly been rebuilt, so smoothly that the repair could not be distinguished from the original.
Tesra had initially ridden off with them to strengthen the borders, but M’vai had grown more and more anxious about N’lahr and an exasperated Cerai had finally sent Tesra back to check on him, almost cruelly suggesting M’vai attend to the renovations in her place.
After Tesra had greeted him, N’lahr simply said: “I’m feeling about the same. How do I look?”
Some five hours had passed since Cerai had performed a second examination of him, and Tesra saw that his extra white matrices were intertwined more thoroughly with the gold threads of his life force.
“Bad?” he asked.
Her concern must have shown on her face. “They’re getting worse.”
“I see.” N’lahr looked out at the Naor. “How long do you think I have, Tesra?”
“I’m no healer.”
“I don’t think that matters. You’re a mage. You can tell how quickly the problem is growing.”
She hated to think what that might mean, and hated to tell him. “But I don’t know how much more your body can endure before you’re so badly hurt that you’re…”
“Fully incapacitated?”
“Yes. And I don’t know how much faster it’s going to get.”
Somehow, he remained calm. “Just tell me how much it’s changed in the last hours.”
“The change isn’t large. But if it continues at this rate I think you may be in danger as early as tomorrow. I wish there was something more I could do, for you, or for all of us.” Her hands tightened on the stone windowsill. She glanced over her shoulder at the open door behind them, then to either side, then spoke quietly. “I’m working my way into Cerai’s trust.”
“That’s a dangerous game,” he replied softly, without looking at her. “She’s very perceptive.”
“She thrives on the attention,” Tesra said. “It leaves an opening.”
He looked at her shrewdly. Tesra had the sense his own estimation of her had risen.
“Nevertheless. Act with care.”
Tesra spoke rapidly, but softly. “She means to make herself and a few chosen servants virtual gods. She’s structured the energy matrices here to funnel that power so that when she destroys the Goddess her energy will be controlled, just as she needs. Stored, so she can tap it whenever she wants. And she herself may be very hard to take down.”
He accepted this information with a single nod.
“You know,” she said, astonished. How could he? But then she remembered how she herself had begun to sense the way power flowed in Cerai’s realm. Thelar or M’vai might have studied and deduced something odd about it, and told him.
“What are you going to do?” Tesra asked.
“Let’s just say that I am preparing to meet these challenges.”
Tesra translated that to mean he had some kind of plan, but wasn’t willing to share it, probably because he didn’t trust her.
And then he offered one of his rare smiles. “It’s brave of you,” he said. “But I want you to understand that she’ll be vicious if crossed. More vicious than you may know.”
She looked out at the squires. “I swore I’d start making my own, better choices. And after failing so badly, I owe it to everyone else to take some risks, if there’s a chance it will help.”
He put a hand to her upper arm. “You give me hope.” He turned. “I’ve something to see to. Thank you.” He left her.
Tesra gave him his privacy rather than following his every move, and watched as the sun dropped behind the outer wall. She debated with herself about how deeply to play along with Cerai’s aims. Was it even useful to do so, if N’lahr had deduced her plans?
Yes, she decided, because with Cerai’s confidence, she’d understand those plans in greater detail.
Alerted by another of the poorly rendered horn calls, Tesra headed quickly to the outer wall, in time to see Cerai ride back with the rest of the mages. Most sagged in their saddles.
They’d worked a final change upon their return: both roads the Goddess had left behind had vanished utterly. Where white stone had stretched away, grass flourished once more.
But what difference could that make, in the long run, if the Goddess had effected those changes in moments without any obvious effort, and correcting it had exhausted every one of these mages?
Tesra took the stairs down to meet them. Cerai was already out of saddle and talking earnestly with N’lahr and two of her soldiers, one of whom held her horse.
As the aspirants swung stiffly out of the saddles, M’vai exhorted them to eat, then to get right to sleep. “Tired spell casters make mistakes,” she reminded them.
The two women and one man filed past Tesra with brief nods of greeting, trailing the smell of horse and their own sweat. M’vai stopped before Tesra and pushed slick hair from her forehead. “I just caught a look at N’lahr. He’s worse.”
“I don’t think he’s going to be safe much longer. How did the repairs go?”
M’vai’s mouth twitched. She looked at Tesra as if doubting her for a moment. “The realm’s been strengthened. Aren’t you worried about the commander?”
“Of course I am.”
M’vai looked over her shoulder toward Cerai and N’lahr, then turned back to Tesra, peering closely at her. “Come with me,” she said.
M’vai hurried inside, walking farther from the mess hall, no matter the entrancing aroma of fresh baked bread. It was one of the few foodstuffs Cerai’s kitchen staff had really mastered.
Soon they were standing in one of the strange storerooms arranged with thousands of creatures held in magical suspension, this one featuring creatures from Kanesh. M’vai stepped into the shadow of one of the great predators of the plains, the terrible birds known as ax-beaks. Tesra had never seen a living one in Kanesh, but knew the cunning flightless birds were capable of great speed and could outrun horses for brief periods.
M’vai barely gave the monster a second glance. “N’lahr’s going to die, soon. And regardless of what you think, you have to know that he’s a good leader, and that our people are stronger with him.”
“Of course I know that. What did you think—”
M’vai cut her off. “We have to try to save him. He didn’t talk to Thelar much about his condition, Goddess knows–” M’vai paused to curse. “Why do I still say ‘Goddess’? What I mean to say is, who knows why. Probably because Thelar’s mission was more important to N’lahr’s plans than his own welfare. But I think I should try to reach out to Thelar, to see if he can help. He’s the best theoretician we have left.”
“You’re talking about a sending? That’s incredibly dangerous.”
“And you don’t think it’s dangerous trusting N’lahr’s health to Cerai?”
“That’s different!”
M’vai sighed so loudly Tesra knew a flutter of anger. “You think she’ll help him? She lied to the queen and all of us. For years. She brought us only a few hearthstones at a time, checked in to get any important information, then kept all the others she was collecting for herself. She’s a practiced liar.”
“I’m not stupid,” Tesra said.
“Then you agree? We need to act fast to save him. Thelar is the best magical resource we have.”
“I want to help the commander. But I don’t think this is smart.”
The younger woman scowled. “She’s grooming you, you know. Just like Synahla groomed us.”
“I know—”
“We were working for traitors. Do you want to work for another?”
Tesra shook her head. “I’m on your side. I swear this is so.”
“Then help me.” M’vai looked up at the looming ax-beak, poised as though he were ready to rend them. She walked through a careful arrangement of waterfowl, and Tesra reluctantly followed. They knelt together at a back wall, and M’vai removed a hearthstone from a side pouch. Tesra swallowed her surprise. In the dying light, Tesra decided it was likely a white or pale yellow in color.
“Where did you get that?”
“Cerai gave it to me. She wants us all to be attuned to a specific stone.” M’vai snorted. “She wants her tools to be as useful as possible to her. Meaning we’re the tools.”
Tesra said nothing to that.
“I’m going to focus myself with the stone. You anchor to it lightly and help me watch for dangers. Warn me if I’m too deep in or too far away.”
“All right. But isn’t this going to be more risky if the Goddess is, well, conscious now?”
“Yes,” M’vai said testily. “But you just have to focus on drawing power from the upper layers. I did it while we were making repairs.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“It won’t be.”
“I’m just—. Be careful. Do you have to argue about everything?”
“Sorry,” M’vai said gruffly. She placed her hands on the hearthstone, and Tesra was reminded of a final objection.
“Didn’t you just tell the others that a tired mage was one who made mistakes?”
“This can’t wait, Tesra. I’m going to show Thelar my memory of what I saw within N’lahr, and get his feedback. If we wait until I’m feeling ‘rested’ it may be too late.”
Tesra kept further reservations to herself, and slipped into the inner world at the same time as her friend. A moment later, both women were connected to the hearthstone. The energy washed over Tesra, who smiled at the familiar rush.
M’vai rooted her threads to the stone and launched her spirit from her seated body. She soared away, leaving a powerful line of energy trailing after.
With her view devoted to the inner world, Tesra took in the nearby environment, seeing evidence of what she already knew, for the perfect statues standing all about her were living beings held in stasis. Their life force still shone, but did not shift.
Something stirred deep within the hearthstone. It glowed fiercely, like a miniature star. It felt as though she had walked out of a dark tunnel to find an entire stadium glaring at her.
“M’vai!” She shouted the name both in the real world and through the ether, reaching with her threads to tug at her friend’s line at the same moment she shook the redhead’s shoulder.
Thankfully, she witnessed M’vai’s sinking into her body, though her threads were still tangled with the stone. “Did you find Thelar?” Tesra asked.
“No,” M’vai said, laughing with alarming pleasure. “But I found beauty! She’s found more and more and her power grows and she knows the way and she is the truth and the end to all and the way and the road and the light—”
Tesra had dropped her view of the inner world. The hearthstone beside her friend burned with inner fire. “Get out! Shut it down!”
M’vai rocked back against the wall, shaking.
Tesra gulped and reached for the stone, fighting to find her own courage as she struggled to close it.
But doing so was like reaching into a burning oven. “Get your threads clear!” she shouted. Lethargically, M’vai extricated herself, and Tesra worked to untangle her own spirit even as she felt the brilliance and the mastery and the perfection and the beauty—
And then M’vai was free and Tesra shut the stone and sat back, gasping. The stone pulsed still with faint light.
Her friend sank to the floor, her mouth still moving. Tesra bent to hear her.
“So beautiful.” M’vai’s smile widened, and her face shone in ecstasy.
For a moment longer she remained a whole, healthy young woman, and then she was nothing more than a rain of white ash that fell into the outline of a body.
Tesra had stopped screaming when N’lahr and Cerai found her a few minutes later, but her mouth still hung open in horror.