It’s only a storm, he told himself. Wind and water, nothing more.
What if it were more? What if these winds and these clouds—Aldaran winds, Aldaran clouds—remembered? Remembered the young girl who had summoned lightning, bolt after great blue-white bolt? Remembered smashing into the human forces besieging Aldaran?
There, below—
He blinked, for a terrifying moment unsure if what he saw were real or some image from a generation ago. Masses of men, moving slowly but inexorably forward, crowding together as the passage through the valley narrowed.
This was now, and he was really seeing the Scathfell army. He hung in the air between the black-bellied clouds and the land. The army below showed no sign of slowing. If anything, the gathering storm hastened their pace.
Thunder crackled, all but deafening him. Ice-edged wind rushed around him. He tipped the glider and this time it answered him, allowing him to drop slightly. Lightning hovered at the edges of his senses. Metallic saliva filled his mouth. He could almost taste burned flesh. Power gathered around him. It filled him with longing.
All it would take was a breath, a thought.
With an effort, he pulled his mind free of the lightning’s seductive lure. It felt like tearing out part of himself, part of his Gift. His body shuddered, and he almost lost control of the glider.
Winds swirled, catching him, tossing him upward, toward the heart of the storm. Whiteness blotted out sky and land, and icy wetness drenched his skin. The metal clips at the tips of the glider’s wings gleamed as if, against all reason, they had been ignited. Electrical tension bathed him. One wrong movement, one momentary lapse in concentration would send the immense power of lightning through his own body. He saw it now, saw that the only way to survive was to discharge the potential. There, into the heart of the army. The storm had built to such a peak of tension that it was inevitable. Through him or around him, lightning poised to strike.
Edric reached for the power within him, the Gift he knew as intimately as the darkness behind his eyes. For long years in a Tower he had trained in its use. In its mastery. Now he reached for that hard-won discipline. His thoughts lifted free of the tumult around him. He steadied himself and focused through his starstone. As the matrix gem amplified his natural talent, the inside of his skull filled with blue luminescence, too bright for his human eyes to bear. He gathered it up, shaped it into a net of mental energy, and cast it outward.
The net looped neatly around the center of the storm, which was not a physical place but a nexus of power. He thought he heard a girl’s voice in the tumult—laughing, singing, he could not tell. Then it was gone, and only the rush and roar of the natural winds remained.
The lightning yearned for the land, as the land yearned for the sky. The land reached up, but Edric was ready, and a fractional instant later, he clamped his psychic grip on the potential force in the clouds—and twisted—
What happened next was akin to trying to cup water with his fingers spread. The storm could not be contained, only deflected. The laran net held just long enough for him to hurl the incandescent center of the lightning obliquely away from its course.
Brightness, caustic and blinding, flared around him, yet did not touch him. It slid past him, draining away toward the slope on the far side of the army.
This particular lightning strike might be diverted, but the momentum of the oncoming storm could not be so easily thrust aside. It contained not one but a multitude of such bolts. They were like a cresting wave about to break.
Winds sped past Edric with such force, they sent the glider tipping erratically. Thunder, felt as much as heard, rattled through his body. With another flash and a sound like the cracking of a whip, almost at the same time, the clouds released their burden of water. It came as a deluge, without any preliminary sprinkles. Torrents of near-freezing water turning the air a wall of gray.
Lashing, half-frozen rain and violent downdrafts slammed into the glider. The wings tilted ominously, first this way and then that. It was all Edric could do not to spin out of control. He was still high enough that under other conditions, he might recover, but these winds were too strong.
His breath rasped in his lungs. Bone-deep chill combined with the exertion of his laran. Hail pelted him as the cloud sucked colder air from above. He could not tell if he was shivering or if the glider quivered under the impact of the winds. His hands went numb in their gloves. In a matter of seconds, the leather wings and his clothing were drenched.
The storm was moving very fast. There was no time to think or plan, and he was almost above the vanguard of the army. If he could not find a way out of this current, he would be forced to land. He could see the soldiers under their cloaks as they rushed ahead in an attempt to outrun the worst of the storm. Here and there, a face turned up toward him, close enough to recognize mouths open in alarm, and then hands gesturing. A mounted officer spurred his horse forward. Even through the rain, Edric glimpsed the muted gleam of wet steel.
Lord of Light, let me not fall! For if he did, this army would overcome Aldaran’s defenses and swarm over the walls, killing or taking prisoner everyone it encountered.
As if in answer to his prayer, a rising current lifted the glider. The craft teetered, shedding water, and the soaked wood groaned. Edric used his matrix stone to strengthen the struts. The storm fought him, reluctant to release him from its grasp.
Before his eyes, brightness flashed, jagged branching trees that reduced flesh to ashes, fractured stone, and laid waste the earth. But it was only an illusion, the fate he had long feared. He had learned, hard and painfully, to give such things no place in his mind.
The lightning disappeared as quickly as it had come.
By the time Edric reached Aldaran, he had passed beyond exhaustion. He could no longer feel his hands or feet. It was all he could do to maintain his tattered concentration on his matrix and trust instinct to guide him home. Winds, frigid with altitude and the lingering hold of winter, sliced through his sodden clothing and deep into his marrow. Ice turned the leather wings slick and brittle.
Sweating and shivering, Edric brought the glider down on the slope leading to the main gates of the castle. Trailing the glider behind him, he flexed his knees to absorb the impact, as he had been taught. His knees gave way under him. He lost his balance, but somehow he managed to free himself from the glider before tumbling gracelessly to the ground. Two guardsmen raced toward him, concern in their faces. He tried to wave them off and clamber to his feet, but his muscles were as responsive as frozen clay. When he tried to talk, to tell them that he must speak with Roderic, all that came out of his mouth were incoherent moans. The guardsmen carried him into the sheltered courtyard and then into the castle.
He floated in and out of strange dream-like states; once or twice, his eyes tried to focus on the interior of a room. It was not his, but that was as far as his thinking mind would take him. Then he drifted through a sea of blue light and was tossed in a storm, its clouds, rain, and waves of coruscating brightness, as if lightning played across the interior of his skull. Finally the world became solid enough for him to comprehend that he was lying on a padded bench in the familiar tower room. His mother must have had him brought to her so she could perform laran healing undisturbed. Three or four feather comforters swathed him from the chin down. In the distance, thunder muttered.
“You’re awake,” Lady Renata said, although whether she was sitting beside him or in Temora by the sea, he could not be sure.
Edric licked his lips and found them dry, but encountered a familiar taste that often lingered after he’d received a laran healing. He had no memory of how he’d got up here, but he did remember the storm. And being so cold that he stopped feeling the chill.
“I nearly killed myself, didn’t I?” It was a good thing she didn’t know about the lightning. “But I made it, and I have news about Scathfell—”
; Renata waved him to silence. “I’m not your Keeper. If I were, I’d have a thing or two to say to you about flying off into a thunderstorm—”
“It came up suddenly,” he protested, but weakly.
“—but since I’m your mother, I have a different thing or two to say to you—”
“—about flying off into a thunderstorm.”
“Your life is not your own, you know. You came dangerously close to overloading your energon channels. Not to mention exhausting yourself from exposure.”
He wiggled the fingers that had gone numb. They felt fine, as did his toes and the tip of his nose. “I suppose I have you to thank for not losing a few appendages to frostbite.”
“I did what I could. You’ll need to rest, or your body will give you no choice.”
Closing his eyes and snuggling deeper into the cocoon of bedding sounded like a wonderful idea. For just a while. “Kyria, she knows I’m all right?”
“She knows you made it back, and she would not have left your side if I had not insisted.” Renata paused, focus turning inward for a moment. “I’ve nowhere near the strength I once had, but even then, I could not have worked a laran healing with someone so distraught and so closely bound to you in the same room.”
Kyria would have been furious at being ejected. Best to get the essential business over with so he could reassure her before he passed into a stupor. With aching joints and strained muscles, Edric groaned and managed to sit up. The effort left him breathing hard. “I must speak with Roderic as soon as possible.”
“Yes, I expected as much. You kept mumbling about telling him what you’d found. I’ve set up the office as your war room. If you can make it that far on your own, I’ll arrange to have everything you need made ready. If not, I can have you carried down.” She made no mention of allowing Roderic to invade her tower working space.
Quickly, Edric assessed the remnants of his energy and judged that he had enough to clamber down the stairs as far as the office. He managed, slowly and with many pauses to catch his breath, to pull on woolen leggings, then loose trousers and a winter weight linex shirt, soft with wear. Just as he was fumbling with the laces of a quilted vest, the door burst open and Kyria rushed into the room. Her face was red and she was out of breath. Plainly, she’d run all the way up the tower stairs. Knowing her, she’d probably taken them two at a time.
She paused, chest heaving. “You impossible man—what did you think you were doing?”
Laughter bubbled up in him, for this was so exactly like Kyria. “You have every right to chastise me,” he admitted. “The sky didn’t look so bad when I left, or I might not—no, I won’t lie to you. I would have gone anyway. We are on the brink of war, my love, and that means ordinary precautions must give way to the necessities of survival.”
But if you had been killed . . . Kyria bit her lip and looked away. She rubbed her arms, hugging them to her body, as if she too had taken a chill. It was a risk you had to take.
What had he done to deserve such a wife?
Her poise collapsed, and she threw herself down beside him and wrapped him in her arms. He felt how hard she was trying to not cry.
“It was worth the risk,” he said.
“It was?” She drew back and gazed into his face. Her cheeks had gone blotchy.
“Indeed, for now I know where Scathfell’s forces are, and I was able to delay them, if only for a little.”
“I suppose those are good things.”
“Those are necessary things.”
“I saw you when Andres and Tirone carried you in. You were practically encased in ice! And babbling away, making no sense. I’m afraid I made rather a scene, but Lady Renata took everyone in hand. Poor Alayna turned white when she saw you. I suppose she was remembering how chilled she got on the journey from Rockraven, or maybe she blames herself or— Oh, dear! Now I’m the one who’s babbling, aren’t I?”
Edric did not trust himself to stay upright if he tried to kiss her, so he lifted one of her hands to his lips. “You have every cause, so I forgive you. But only if you help me with these gods-forsaken laces. I must meet with Roderic and Francisco while I still have the strength.”
“Whoever designed this garment clearly had no idea its wearers would be half-frozen. Or maybe thought they would all have body-servants—or wives—to help them.” With a few deft motions, Kyria adjusted the laces. “There! That’s better.”
By the time Edric had finished dressing, the process made speedier by Kyria’s assistance, he felt steadier. This clarity of mind was temporary, however. He had a little time, riding on the healing and the hot food he hoped would be waiting for him, before his energy gave out. His body needed to restore itself, one way or another. If he did not rest—meaning deep, unbroken sleep, not merely sitting quietly—his body would take what it needed. He would rather be in his own bed when he collapsed.
A short time later, Edric sat in his place before a fire in the new war room, where maps had been unrolled on the desk. On the side table, Renata had set out an array of restorative foods, typical of those consumed after a night’s matrix work in a Tower, and hot drinks, none of them alcoholic. Roderic sat across the table, flanked by a couple of officers. Francisco stood a pace or two behind Roderic, looking grim.
Edric sipped the near-scalding jaco and went over his tale again. The rain would slow the army, but not deter them. “I might have bought us a few days with the storm,” he concluded, “but before this tenday is out, he will be upon us.”
Roderic knew the country well and asked questions about the exact location of the army.
“I remember the place where the road narrowed,” Francisco said, pointing to the map. “When Lady Alayna and I passed it, I considered the potential of an ambush.”
Ambush. Edric remembered how he had directed the lightning to the rock face above the stream, cutting off pursuit by the Sain Erach bandits. He tried to envision the hillsides around the road on which Scathfell’s forces were advancing. Was it possible to shear off enough rock to block their passage? Or delay them even more?
Distant lightning hummed along his nerves, and in his mind, a high wild voice shrilled.
If only I had . . .
“I do not think we can send sufficient men to be effective,” Roderic was saying, “even if we could spare them from the castle defense.”
“Especially if we must face them from more than one direction,” Francisco commented.
“I concur,” Edric said. His eyesight turned bleary and he was having difficulty keeping track of the conversation.
“Vai dom, I fear we have overtaxed you,” Roderic said, straightening up from where he had bent over the map. “We still have time before Lord Scathfell arrives, and with Captain Francisco’s counsel, we will put it to good use. Rest now, and let us do our work.”
Meaning, Edric supposed, that he should not add to their burden with an exhausted, babbly lord. He gathered his legs under him. Somewhat to his surprise, he was able to stand. With a word or two of parting encouragement, he made it to his own bedchamber, where Kyria waited to tuck him under the comforters.
He dreamed of flying, suspended between the heavens and the earth. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to stretch out his arms and catch the rising air currents. The winds were bracingly fresh but not uncomfortable, no matter how high he went. Gradually he became aware of wispy clouds that thickened as they piled into gleaming heaps. Without conscious thought, he headed toward them.
Mists engulfed him, at first warm and soothing, then turning cool and colder. The air pressed against him like tides of ice. Each new wave sapped the heat from his body until he went numb and no longer cared.
A voice reached him, not the one singing behind the clouds but one he should know. “He’s burning up.”
Cool fingers touched his face. “I feared as much.”
All he
wanted was to rest in the gently rolling clouds. But he was cold, so cold.
“—if we cannot reach him—”
Flashes of light illuminated the mist in which he floated. At first they were faint, as if diffused through many layers. They could have arisen from the reflectivity of the clouds. But they came again—a flash and then a pause, then another flash, brighter this time and drawing ever closer. The storm was searching for him.
Why not let it come to him? The pattern of ever more rapid flashes was hypnotic, soothing. Something in him called out to the lights . . . needed them.
Then, in the mysterious way of dreams, the cloud layer beneath him thinned into perfect clearness. He saw, spread out on the landscape beneath him, a multitude of shambling forms. Even from this height, he could make out individual creatures, misshapen and menacing. Not men and horses but monsters bent on abominable deeds. Crawling, slithering, slithering ever close to his home. His family. His mother, his wife, his sons whom he loved more than his own life.
Fear chilled him, even more than the mists had, quickly giving way to outrage. How dare they threaten him and his? Evil, vile, loathsome—he would stop them.
Lightning answered his flash of anger.
He would smash them.
A girl’s voice, laughing and shrieking, near hysteria—
He would blast them.
—past hysteria, into a realm of raw energy—
The firmament exploded into cascades of searing light.
Above him, the storm rumbled. Another flash illuminated the scene below, to be answered an instant later with a deafening whipcrack. Power gathered, more than enough to rout the enemy. Kill and maim and burn them.
Use me . . . whispered through his mind. He shivered and burned and reached—
And sent the next bolt into the thickest part of the army. It branched and then branched again, until a hundred incandescent tendrils rained down on men and beasts. Great sizzling streams of force shot down, striking again and again. Each one left earth blackened and churned, and shriveled husks that were once living men.