Ulrich had looked momentarily startled, then had given Karal a long, hard look. Karal had done his best to wear an expression of bland implacability.
I won't go away, sir, he'd thought hard at Ulrich. He'd never known whether or not his master could read thoughts as he had often suspected, but if Ulrich could, he was certainly getting an "earful" now. Whatever it takes to persuade you to get some rest, I'm going to do it, even if I have to fabricate emergencies, even if I have to recruit Altra. Though how he was going to persuade the Firecat to go along with the scheme, he hadn't had a clue at the time.
He still didn't know if Ulrich could read thoughts, but his mentor had risen with thanks for the "reminder," and had excused himself from the meetings whenever Karal appeared after that, and all without a contradictory word thereafter.
Still, if Karal felt as if he was constantly on the verge of exhaustion, how must Ulrich feel?
He knew what was driving them all; he felt it himself. Beneath it all, underscoring every waking moment, was the sense of urgency. Hurry, hurry, hurry, whispered a tiny voice. Don't waste any time. You don't have time to waste. Find the answer; find it now, before it's too late.
Some time, soon, too soon, scant months from now, it would be too late. The real storm would break over their heads, and Valdemar was closer to the center of one of the two places in peril than any other land and people—
Except for the Shin'a'in.
And except for the small group of Kaled'a'in that had made their new home on the very edge of the Plain. Those were the gryphons' people, and although Treyvan and Hydona said nothing about it, Karal knew that they were as grimly worried about their little group as the Shin'a'in ambassador was worried about her own people.
There was an option that no one liked, but which would at least save the lives of those in peril. Before the Storm actually hit, the people themselves could move. It wouldn't be easy, though; by then, disruption-waves would be arriving daily, making it impossible to set up Gates. They would all have to move the hard way; overland, by foot and horse, and even the Kaled'a'in "floating barges" would be useless unless the mages spent all their time and energy in holding shields against the disruption.
By then, though, the lands around the area would be the next thing to uninhabitable. There would be no possibility of anyone leading a normal life, not when your crop plants were suddenly warping into things that could kill you with flung thorns or poison, and the beasts of your fields had turned into rabid killers.
Karal had the latest maps spread out on the table in front of the fireplace and was studying them while he waited for Ulrich to return for lunch. These were the maps predicting the areas of effect from the next disruption-wave. It would come exactly one and one-half days short of a fortnight, and the circles of "change" would be twenty hands across—enough that now a large animal could conceivably be caught inside one.
A Shin'a'in horse, for instance. Or a Valdemaran bull.
Or a wild deer; it didn't matter. The "rabbit" had nearly taken off someone's hand; anything larger would be deadly to whatever was within its range of movement.
Karal shivered at the thought. With luck, and the help of all the Heralds out on circuit, they could warn people to keep their livestock at home that day, or confine them away from danger zones. That was in Valdemar, and it still left the possibility that some large game animal would be caught in a change. Altra had taken a copy of the map this morning as soon as he had made one, and had vanished with it; evidently now the Firecat had no problems acting as a messenger to Solaris. That took care of Karse—again, except for wild animals, and they would just have to chance that.
Presumably Firesong could send the information to the Hawkbrothers by magic—and they in turn would pass it to the Kaled'a'in and the Shin'a'in.
Prince Daren had sent a Herald off last night to Rethwellan, but there were no Priests or Heralds in Rethwellan to distribute the warning. There were none in Hardorn either, nor in the icy wilderness up above the Forest of Sorrows, nor in Iftel. There was no way to tell anyone farther south than Rethwellan, except if the Shin'a'in got around to it, nor were there any ways to distribute warnings there. Their only hope was that the wave centering on Evendim would be so weak by the time it got that far, that the combined effect with the one centered on the Plain would be negligible.
It wouldn't remain that way for long, though. Sooner or later the waves would be strong enough that the warping effect would be felt even farther away than Ceejay, and at that point, the waves would be coming more often, too.
Somehow, someone had to spread the word. Somehow, they had to find the answer to stopping this thing.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, before it's too late....
Nothing could be done about the Pelagirs or the northern mountains. What would happen when the beasts that were already strange and deadly, out in the Uncleansed Lands, encountered these warping forces a second time? One wag of a student had suggested that they might just go back to being rabbits, mice and tree-hares. That was an amusing thought, but unlikely.
And what about the Empire? There was still an army out there. What if whoever was in command decided that Valdemar, Karse, or both were the cause of all this? They had command of far more magic than either land did, and an unlimited supply of troops, or so it seemed. What if they decided this was an attack, and decided that it was worth carrying the battle to the enemy?
As if that thought had been a cue, the door opened, and Ulrich stepped in.
The sound of his limping footstep made Karal turn, with a frown of worry on his face. Ulrich should not be limping, not unless he was so exhausted that even walking was an effort.
His frown deepened when he saw the pale, translucent skin above Ulrich's beard, and the dark circles beneath his eyes.
"You've been overworking again," he accused.
"I've been undersleeping," Ulrich corrected. "I had troubling dreams last night, and this morning I urged that our work consist of sending out warnings, maps, and the formulae to calculate the schedules, not only to the Tayledras, Shin'a'in shaman, and Kaled'a'in, but to every mage-school any of us knew of. It occurred to me that in the schools there is always someone teaching or practicing a scrying spell, and we needed only to "interrupt" what was already in place. The Blue Mountain and White Winds mages were particularly helpful there." He smiled wanly. "We covered quite a bit of ground, so to speak."
"That's all very well and good, but—" Karal stopped himself in midscold, shaking his head at himself. "I'm sorry. I sound like your mother, or at least a nagging son, and I'm only your protege and secretary. Forgive me, Master Ulrich."