"I have some seeds at Castle DiThon," said Bram. "If they aren't enough, I'll buy or beg what I can from villages that weren't affected by the plague."
The king's snow-white head shook imperceptibly. "I hope that will be enough, for we tuatha can only augment what exists. If little or nothing exists to embellish, then we are forced to move on to survive."
"And if you move on," prompted Guerrand, catching the king's direction at last, "then Thonvil, in its already fragile state, will very likely perish."
The king snapped his thick fingers. "Exactly."
"So what are you telling us to do?" asked Bram.
"Humans are not subject to my rulership," the king reminded him placidly. "I'm merely suggesting options. If you care about the survival of the village or the presence of the tuatha, then you must work immediately to restore the lands."
"You know, of course," began Bram, "that I've been trying to do just that for many years. The tuatha have been helping me."
"That might have been enough," conceded the tuatha king, "if not for this plague. However, time is critical now. The village will survive only if someone provides direction and leadership that has long been lacking here."
Bram fidgeted. "Thonvil already has a lord in my father."
"Yes, I know." The pause that followed spoke volumes about the king's opinion of Cormac DiThon. "A little more than two of your decades ago, I predicted this decline and took what steps I could to stave it off. We increased intervention in your fields and homes," the king continued. "I daresay our efforts made the difference, in the last decade, between eating and not for many of your villagers. I know it did for us tuatha."
"You're suggesting I seize my father's authority," said Bram.
Guerrand had no love for Cormac. There was no doubt his brother should have relinquished his authority to Bram years ago. "Haven't you all but done that anyway?" he asked his nephew.
"I had hoped to spare my father some measure of dignity," conceded Bram, "though he has done nothing
toward that himself."
"We," said the king, speaking royally, "have taken other, more severe, measures to prevent Thonvil from perishing." His intense blue eyes held Guerrand's meaningfully before settling upon Bram. "But they have yet to yield fruit. I am not without hope; however, I don't think Thonvil can wait."
Guerrand felt a precognitive shiver run through his body.
"Let us assume, for the sake of argument," said Bram, "that I'm willing to oust my lord and father. Just how am I supposed to lead the people to salvation?"
"You are a human of high intellect and moral character," the king remarked, "not unlike the previous lord, Rejik DiThon. He was a strong and virtuous leader."
"I was very young when my grandfather died," reflected Bram. "I'm afraid I remember precious little about him, and certainly not enough to emulate his behavior."
"But your uncle does." Though his words were directed at Bram, the king's frosty eyes held Guerrand's. "Can you envision what your father could have accomplished during his reign if he'd had an able mage at his side?"
The question strummed a sharp memory chord, and Guerrand nodded vaguely. Even his small magics had brought new life to the small village of Harrowdown- on-the-Schallsea.
"Then imagine how Bram's compassionate rule and your magic could restore this land," prompted the long.
Guerrand recalled, too well, a discussion with Cormac on the very subject. He'd tried to convince his brother to conquer his fear of magic and see the good it could do in Thonvil. But, of course, Cormac had flatly refused to consider that magic was anything but evil.
Ox Oedusa plague
Guerrand thought it ironic that, ten years later, he was being given the chance to prove he'd been right.
King Weador watched the play of emotions across the mage's face. "You will have a wise advisor and powerful magical ally in your uncle," the king said confidently to Bram.
Guerrand came back from his thoughts and held his palms up. "Slow down, there. I already have a job."
The king's white eyebrows turned down. "Ah, yes. Bastion."
"You know of it?"
"That question indicates an inadequate understanding of tuatha dundarael," King Weador observed. "Remember, we made it possible for Bram to reach Wayreth in a matter of moments, instead of a fortnight. There is almost no corner of the cosmos our faerie roads do not reach. In fact, there is very little in the magical world of which I am not at least peripherally aware."
Weador's intense blue eyes abruptly penetrated Guerrand's in a most disconcerting way The king said nothing at first. Instead, he reached out a stubby, be- ringed hand to the front of Guerrand's robe and brushed away the sooty black smudges there. All but one magically disappeared under the king's fingers. Expression grave, Weador gave that side of the robe a tug so that Guerrand could better see the mark.
Perplexed into silence, Guerrand squinted down his chin to regard the dark smudge that so interested King Weador. On closer inspection, the soot appeared to have a pattern, like the whorls and lines of a thumbprint. A black thumbprint.
Guerrand's head jerked up, and his eyes met Weador's knowing gaze. He gasped as the memory of who had last touched the front of his robe sprang to mind: Nuitari.
"It's a thumbprint. So what? What does it mean?" demanded Bram.
"I have sensed you were in grave danger from the moment we met," King Weador admitted to Guerrand, ignoring Bram's question. "But that feeling intensified when we spoke of Bastion." The king's eyes commanded Guerrand's in a manner the mage couldn't resist. "Beware there, Guerrand DiThon."
That said, the king of the tuatha pushed himself up from his toadstool throne. "Our business is concluded." Before their eyes, the white-haired tuatha king and his silent minions faded from view like a bittersweet dream upon waking.
And, like a dream, Guerrand could not call Weador back for questions.
Chapter Seventeen
I’ve got to get to Bastion." Guerrand declared, his voice breathy with anxiety. He fished around in the pouch whose strap still crisscrossed his chest.
Bram grabbed his arm. "Stop and think, Rand," he pleaded. "Weador said there was danger for you there. What better reason do you need to stay here in Thonvil?"
Guerrand stopped rummaging briefly to gape in disbelief at his nephew. "You can't mean that-you're no more a coward than I am, Bram. Bastion is my responsibility."
Bram rubbed his face. "No, I didn't mean that. I'm just worried, is all. I haven't gone through all this to lose you to some threat I don't even understand."
Frowning his preoccupation, Guerrand didn't hear Bram. His fingertips at last met with the object he sought. "Got it!" he cried, holding the fragment of magical mirror aloft.
Bram looked at the shard in that accepting way he'd come to view strange things of magic, took a deep breath, and stood up straight. "Well, then, let's get going."
Guerrand lowered the mirror slowly. "You can't come with me, Bram."
"Why not?"
"I'll list some of the countless reasons, in no particular order," Guerrand said. "Bastion is my responsibility, not yours. You haven't permission to return there. You're needed here to begin bringing Thonvil back to life."
'That can wait one day," Bram countered.
"Can it?" Guerrand's tone suggested he thought otherwise. "Besides," he added, "you have to stay here and keep my mirror safe."
Bram looked perplexed.
"I can't teleport between planes," Guerrand explained. "Instead, I'm going to step into this magical mirror and exit through one in the red wing of Bastion. But that means I have to leave the mirror behind. Although only someone who has seen the inside of Bastion could use it to follow me there, it's still too powerful a device to let fall into the wrong hands."