Kaern said, “Those that remained were all destroyed.”
I smiled at that, nodding enthusiastically. I assumed they thought to reassure me. I wished they would get to the heart of the matter.
“But,” said Trethyn, “the Sky Lords play a different game these days.”
He reached for the decanter, filling his cup. Kaern sat silent, staring darkly at the sunlit rectangle of the window.
I was chafed. I prompted him: “A different game?”
He ducked his head once and said, “Yes. They’ve a new tactic, it seems.”
He fell silent again. I looked from him to Kaern, willing them to loose their tight westcoaster tongues. It seemed a long time before he continued. I was tempted to shake the words from him.
At last he said, “They employ smaller vessels. Skyboats a fraction the size of their usual craft.”
I could contain my impatience no longer. I said, “Surely then they’re a lesser threat. Save they bring the Kho’rabi knights in numbers, how can they hope to conquer us?”
It was Kaern who answered. I think my tone or my expression roused him from his silence, but still he spoke obliquely. He said, “Was it not the belief of both your College and Trethyn’s that the attacks of these past years were in the nature of scouting missions?”
There was a new-and somewhat unexpected-authority in his voice: I nodded and answered him, “Yes. We suspected they sought to test our defenses. We thought they must probe, readying for the Great Coming.”
The aeldor snorted bitter laughter. He looked no longer out the window but directly into my eyes as he said, “I’ve some training in the art of warfare, and I’d not send centuries of men out scouting. That’s a task for a few, light-mounted to travel fast, unnoticed.”
I began to see it. I said, “Small airboats …”
Kaern nodded agreement. “Small and swift; enough they are able, often as not, to slip unharmed past the Sentinels.”
“And return word of what they find?” I gasped. “We’d suspected they’d found such magic as to send word back.”
Now it was my turn to fall silent as Trethyn said, “Worse. They’d found those magicks, yes. But none too reliable over such distances; also, we’d found the way to block their messages, to disrupt them.”
“Then how,” I asked carefully, aware that my voice came hollow with dread, “is this worse?”
The sorcerer ran nails that I noticed for the first time were chewed down and grimed with dirt through his beard before he answered. Then: “They’ve found the means to entirely control the elementals. Thus to overcome the Worldwinds.”
I gaped, horrified. Into my mind came a precise memory of those half-seen creatures I had observed sporting about the Sky Lords’ vessels. I had thought then that they propelled the airboats, that their fundamental power was bound to the Aim’s cause. I had never suspected, never anticipated, they might overcome the Worldwinds. None had. Forgetting all protocol, ignoring all courtesy, I motioned for the sorcerer to continue.
If he noticed my imperious gesture, he paid it no heed. He said, “These smaller boats are able to come and return at will.”
This was alarming news. “And the Sentinels?” I cried. “The Sorcerous College? Can they not halt these boats? Not destroy them?”
“Some few,” he replied. “Not enough. The road our magic took is different-we Dhar have never attempted to control the elemental spirits.”
An old memory, tucked away in one of those compartments dead Mairtus had spoken of, sprang into my mind. I said, “We once mastered the dragons.”
“Once, yes,” said Trethyn. “But the dragons were creatures of flesh and blood, and thus the Dragonmasters were able to attune their minds to the creatures’. The spirits of the air are different-we’ve no control of them.”
“Why speak of dragons?” Kaern asked. “The dragons are dead, and the Dragonmasters with them. This danger belongs to this day, and to our tomorrows.”
Trethyn grunted his agreement. I shrugged: they were right. What use to think of dragons now, here? I said, “Does Durbrecht anticipate invasion then?”
The sorcerer turned his face to the aeldor. Kaern said formally, as if by rote, “The Lord Protector Gahan bids us stand ready. We cannot know how strong this new magic waxes, but do they learn to harness the spirits in numbers …” He paused, his eyes closing a moment, as if what he told me sat heavy on his tongue and he had rather not say it. “It is thought the Sky Lords shall attack this year or next.”
Trethyn said, “The Sorcerous College believes it will be next year at the earliest.”
I said, “But if they are able to ignore the Worldwinds … If they can evade the magic of the Sentinels-”
He silenced me with a raised hand. “As yet-so we believe-this newfound power over the elementals is not strong enough they can harness the spirits in sufficient numbers to their larger vessels. At least, not in such numbers as to make invasion feasible.”
“Yet,” said Kaern. His voice was as bleak as his face.
I said, “Then we’ve a year to ready for war. Shall you sorcerers not find a means to defeat even the elementals?”
Trethyn shook his head. Amidst the gray and black of his beard, I saw stained teeth bared in a sour grin. He said, “Within a year? No. It’s our belief the Sky Lords have spent decades-perhaps centuries-finding the gramaryes of binding. Have you any idea what such magic entails?”
I shook my head. I felt dulled; helpless. I thought abruptly of Rwyan. I heard Trethyn saying, “… inconceivable power. We’d need revise all our thinking, all we’ve learned.”
I nodded. It seemed the skin was drawn taut over the bones of my face. My mouth was dry: I filled my empty cup and drank deep.
In the wine I found a straw of hope and snatched it. I said, “It would not be the first Coming. We’ve defeated the Sky Lords before. Shall this be so different?”
Trethyn took the straw from me and broke it. “Mightily different,” he said. “Before, they traveled on the whim of the Worldwinds. Oh, they harnessed the spirits of the air to aid them, but not even with that assistance could they entirely defy the winds. Did your College not teach you that?”
There was such asperity in his voice as to offend, had I not recognized it was fear that honed the edge. I nodded and said, “Yes, I was taught that.”
And I was: the Comings followed the cycles of the Worldwinds, and that gusting was capricious. Not all the Sky Lords’ dread craft reached our shores-many soared too high, to drift on across the western ocean into oblivion, more were brought down by the Sentinels. Sufficient grounded as to be a blight, to render the Sky Lords a terror, and the Kho’rabi warriors were creatures out of nightmare-but never enough of them to accomplish their dream of conquest. And we Dhar had, each time, that cycle of recuperation, of preparation: when the Worldwinds turned again, we were always ready. Now, did the Ahn wizards obtain such power over the elementals as to come and go at will, they could deliver the Kho’rabi at any time, and their airboats return to their far-off land to bring more against us. More and more and more, until-I endeavored to deny the thought, but could not-until they conquered us. I shuddered and said softly, “I see it.”
“It is not a pleasant vision,” said Trethyn, no louder.
“This is not,” Kaern said, “a thing to voice abroad. The God willing, we’ll not see these new airboats so far west. Until the time comes, the common folk are not to know.”
“Shall you not prepare?” I asked: the aeldor was not alone in owning some knowledge of strategy. “How shall you hide it, must you raise levies?”
He grunted acceptance of my judgment and said, “We aeldors enlarge our warbands and commission ships. Yes-we prepare. But until we are sure, I’d not see panic spread.”
To this Trethyn added, “There are already refugees come west to escape the attacks of yesteryear. Should such news become common parlance, likely the cities and the east would be deserted.”
“And your resources be strained,” I said. Then: “You expect the fighting to be in the east.”
“And the cities,” said Kaern. “Do the Sky Lords fight a sensible war, they’ll seek to overcome three centers first-the Sentinels, Durbrecht, and Kherbryn. Take those, and Dharbek fights in disarray.”
Rwyan! The cold fingers I had felt on entering this room became claws, scoring my soul. I could only duck my head, horrified. I was helpless. I could do nothing, save hope; or pray to a God I was no longer sure existed.
“This goes no farther,” said the aeldor, formal again. “It is deemed necessary to inform you Storymen, but none others.”
“No,” I said. “My word on it.”