Bay withheld comment. A formal Council when they were not involved in the problems of some town or village away from the Glade was exceedingly rare. There had been one after the death of Auroreus, when Silvas became master of the Seven Towers. There had not been another until Prince Richard took the Cross and called for men to join the Second Crusade, and Silvas had debated answering the call. Those had been the only two instances in all of the centuries that Silvas had ruled the Seven Towers.
You speak of a Wizard's Council. But what of a Council of gods? Maria asked as they rode back toward the Glade.
Silvas turned to her and smiled. "It will be interesting to note any differences."
Bosc was, as usual, waiting in the bailey for the horses when Silvas and Maria returned to the Seven Towers.
"We won't wait for night, Bay," Silvas said as he dismounted. "Bosc, Maria and I are going to summon a Council, within the hour. I'll come for you as always. Sleep is no longer necessary." He had not sought that information. It was simply there, in his mind when it was needed.
Bosc looked startled, but quickly recovered. "Aye, lord. Whene'er you call."
"Fine. Do you know where Braf is? I'll want to speak with him before the Council."
"I'll find him for you, lord," Bosc said.
"Wait, never mind. I'll see to it," Silvas replied. He called Braf's name in his thoughts. Come to me in the library. He felt Braf's instant reply, and the surprise that accompanied it.
"We should have something to eat before the Council," Maria said as she and Silvas entered the keep. Satin and Velvet were waiting for them.
"I'm sure Koshka has something waiting for us." Silvas reached down to pet the cats. "We have work to do in a while, kittens." They angled their ears toward him and settled down quickly. Work always came before play.
"In the small sitting room," Maria said after probing outward to find where Koshka had their food. "Do you want it in the library instead?"
"No. We'll go to the library first to speak with Braf. Then we'll have time for our light repast before the Council."
Braf Goleg caught up with Silvas and Maria before they reached the library in the tower.
"What is it, lord? Something about the veil that hangs over us?"
"Bide a moment, Braf," Silvas said. "It will wait until we're comfortable."
In the library, Silvas and Maria sat on chairs close to each other and relaxed. At Silvas's insistence, Braf squatted near them. He was much more comfortable squatting than he ever could have been in a chair. Chairs were alien to gurnetz anatomy.
"What is it, lord?" Braf asked again.
"I have a request to make of you," Silvas said.
"Whatever you want of me, lord. You know that."
"Answer not before you know what I ask," Silvas said. "This is no command, nor anything to volunteer for without careful reflection. I will ask more of you now than I ever have before, friend Braf."
Braf hesitated for an instant before he nodded, but Silvas and Maria both felt the apprehension that flashed through the gurnetz's mind. "Ask what you will, lord." Braf's voice was softer than Maria had yet heard him speak.
"I ask you to be a permanent counselor to Maria and me, a member of my Wizard's Council," Silvas said.
"As Bay and Bosc are, lord?"
"Yes. You know the implications?"
"Mayhap, lord, but perhaps you should spell them out so I make no mistake?"
"Of course. There is power in this, Braf, but the responsibilities, and the price, are considerable. Bay and Bosc have been my counselors for hundreds of years, since the death of Auroreus. Barring disaster, they will continue to be my counselors for as long as I live and hold power."
Silvas paused then, watching Braf's eyes closely, giving the warrior time to consider the implications of what he had said. Wizards were not immortal, though their lives might be prolonged far beyond the span of Methuselah if they had been favored by one of the gods. But gods…
"And generations of my children, and their children, will age and die while I go on as I am?"
Silvas nodded slowly. "It's a heavy price, Braf, too heavy for many. I will not gloss over that. In time, it must lead to a separation, however hard you struggle against it. Your family will grow more and more distant until they scarcely recall that you are their ancestor. And there can be greater danger in Council than you have ever known defending the walls of the Seven Towers. I would welcome you warmly as a counselor, but I don't demand it. This must be your own free choice. I can't in good faith even counsel you to accept. There is no disgrace if you decline this burden. I'll not think less of you. Think carefully before you answer."
Braf rested his forearms on his legs and looked at the floor between his feet for a moment. Then he stood and paced across the library and returned to his previous spot, his eyes still on the floor. He turned toward Silvas then, but he was slow to raise his eyes.
"Lord, I've been your servant since I was a pup. I know no other life. I ask nothing else. If you want me as your counselor, I can only accept and thank you humbly for the honor."
Silvas stared into Braf's eyes for a long moment before he nodded. "I thought such would be your answer. I honor your courage, as I always have. See to the disposition of your guards. I will summon a Council shortly. I'll come for you when the time is right. There, in Council, I'll ask you again for your decision. Nothing is final until that time. Think carefully over what you have agreed to. There will be no shame if you change your mind. A decision like this requires every opportunity for reflection."
"I will think on't, lord," Braf said, still subdued. "But I have taken my decision." He turned and left the library, his eyes still downcast.
"A hard decision for anyone," Maria whispered.
"I know." Silvas stood and reached for Maria's hand. When she stood, they embraced, briefly. "I feel for him. Braf takes such delight in his children."
"He will stand by his decision," Maria said.
"Yes, but there will be times when he doubts the wisdom of that choice. It took many tens of years for Bosc to fully accept it."
"And Bay?"
Silvas shook his head. "Bay is unique. There is no other like him in all the worlds I've seen. There have been times when I've almost felt as if I were his counselor."
– |Koshka had provided much more than a light snack for Silvas and Maria. There was almost a full meal waiting in the small sitting room-meat and cheese, bread and green onions, and ale, rather than wine. The last amused Silvas.
"He must think we have heavy work, indeed, ahead of us," he said after allowing himself a full laugh. "Or great thirst after our riding."
Maria took a long drink of the ale before she replied. "A good choice, perhaps. I am quite thirsty."
They ate quickly, unsuspected hunger pushing aside any delicacy of etiquette.
"Even if we no longer have real need of food, our state has certainly not robbed me of the desire," Maria said. "I have more appetite than I ever had before."
"Nor have I lost the craving for good food," Silvas agreed. They both laughed.
"Laughter," Silvas said then. He raised a hand, one finger pointed up. "It comes easily to us, even with the veil over our valley."
"As if there truly is no danger to it?" Maria asked.
Or danger blocked so completely from our view that we can't even see it, Silvas replied.
The rest of the meal was subdued.
"An hour and a bit more has passed," Silvas said eventually. "The others will be looking for me. For us."
With work about to begin, their minds were once more as one, attuned perfectly. They rose from the table together and climbed the stairs into the tower, going to the workroom above the library. This time, Silvas carried his wizard's staff, a thick quarterstaff tipped with silver on one end and iron on the other. Satin and Velvet accompanied them, and went directly to their protected circles along the perimeter of the workroom.
Maria went into the center of the pentagram with Silvas. They stood back to back, touching. When Silvas spoke the initial spells of defense and activation, Maria spoke in perfect unison. The two of them moved as if they were physically one, turning to the points and sides of the pentagram for each stanza of the preparatory spells, and when they sat, still back to back, the movement was identical. Seated cross-legged in the central pentagon of the display, they spoke the spells of separation as one. Both rose from their physical bodies in perfect Doppelgangers.
Maria looked down at the physical body she had left behind. She could see her mouth still speaking the words of the final spell. This was a first for her, and Silvas gave her a moment to satisfy her curiosity. They then held hands as they walked out of the pentagram and through the wall in their spirit bodies.
Bay was in his stall, sitting with his legs folded under him. Bosc was reclining on a bale of hay at the side of the stall. Unlike normal horses, Bay could be trusted not to gorge himself on any fodder left within reach. Silvas and Maria extended their free hands toward Bay, and he stood in the spirit and walked off through the wall, leaving his physical body behind. Then they gestured to Bosc, and he also rose out of his body to follow Bay.
Silvas and Maria went through the wall in another direction and came upon Braf Goleg in an upper room of one of the corner towers. There was no lapse of time in the passage. They had gone directly from workroom to stall as if they had been separated by only one wall. They passed from stall to tower the same way. Braf saw them come in through the wall, and he was obviously startled that he could see straight through them.
"Lie down and close your eyes," Silvas instructed. Braf quickly complied. "Breathe easily, as if preparing for sleep."
Silvas hesitated for only a moment before he continued. "Now stand up."
Braf stood up, coming out of his body.
"Look down at yourself," Silvas said. "Don't be alarmed. This is normal for a Council."
Braf looked closely at his physical body, noting that the chest still rose and fell in normal respiration. After a moment, he turned away from his resting body and looked to Silvas.
"I am ready, lord."
"Go through that wall to the others. We'll be right behind you."
– |The Council met in a place that had no true physical existence. It appeared to be a room, but it was too vaguely drawn to belong in the world of material being. The boundaries where ceiling, floor, and walls met were unclear, merging into each other in a way that made the junctions impossible to define with any great precision. The room was lit by an equally undefined light, showing neither source nor shadow. In the center of the room there was a round wooden table. Three chairs faced it, all on one semicircle. Silvas sat in the middle chair. Maria sat at his right, and Bosc at his left, equally spaced. Bay and Braf Goleg stood on the other side of the table. Even in the spirit, Braf would have found a chair uncomfortable. In the Council chamber, Bay did not seem so overwhelmingly large. Bosc and Braf seemed more of a height with the humans.
There was an almost palpable serenity to the room. Neither Bay nor Bosc showed any curiosity over the fact that Braf stood in Council with them.
"I have invited Braf Goleg to become a permanent member of this Council," Silvas announced. "You know of his faithful service as commander of our guard, and of his ancestors for untold generations. He has the mind and the heart to be part of this Council.
"Braf Goleg, I ask you again, with all of the cautions I spoke of earlier: Will you accept this responsibility?"
"I will, lord," Braf said.
"Do you accept it freely, knowing the dangers and cost?"
"I do, lord."
Silvas lifted his hands as if in priestly benediction. A rainbow of lights arced between his hands, then vectored across the table to surround the gurnetz, settling into the body of his spirit and making it appear-momentarily-almost solid. When the rainbow faded, Braf's form returned to the same near transparency as the others.
"You are now one of us, Braf. It has been many long years, centuries, since we have welcomed someone new to our numbers. The last was Carillia." Mentioning her name now, in Council, brought an unexpected pain to Silvas. He paused, willing his heart to remain calm, pushing aside the insistent memories of Carillia that flooded his mind.
"Maria is here now, not in Carillia's place, but because she shares the final gift of Carillia with me. She is me and I am her, in a way that none of us have ever known. We welcome you, Braf Goleg, and we thank you, with all that we are and have."
"I am yours to command, lord," Braf replied.
"We have much to consider," Silvas said, taking a slow look around the table. "Since the last time we met in Council, the Battle for Mecq has been concluded, Carillia has died, Maria and I have inherited her final gift, my old bonding to the Unseen Lord of the White Brotherhood-and my long missions in his behalf-are ended, we've been to the Shining City of the gods, and the valley of the Seven Towers has been somehow quarantined. The villagers cannot leave the valley. Outsiders not only can't come into the valley, they can no longer even see it from beyond. I've felt no immediate threat from this barricade, but it is certainly an inconvenience to our people. It was probably intended as an insult to us. Unfortunately, even an insult can be dangerous among those with whom Maria and I must, to some extent, deal-the few who have the power to erect such a barricade. An insult not adequately countered is considered a sign of weakness to these gods, an invitation to further action. On a broader scale, there is the new state of our world to consider, the way that Britain and Ireland have apparently been sundered from Europe and turned about. Is there danger in this?"
As he talked, Silvas noticed differences between this Council and all of the sessions that had come before, when he was merely a wizard-potent. His words now served merely as introduction, or index, to each topic. Pictures seemed to float in the room as illustrations, as necessary, and more information touched each of the minds at the table with him. Communication was more complete, less subject to misinterpretation. Council had never been so inclusive before, not even when Carillia had spoken. Carillia had masked her divinity until the morning of her death. Silvas and Maria wore their new divinity openly.
"I am a newcomer to this Council," Maria said when Silvas finished speaking. "But I will not speak as you might expect a newcomer to. All of Silvas's past is open to me. We are one as much as we are two. I experience his memories as clearly as he can, and he experiences mine. But I do bring a new point of view. Aside from this shared past, I have my own past, my own outlooks. My body may be young. My spirit no longer is.
"All of us here have been to the land of the gods and had some chance to see how the old gods live, and how they feel about us. They are all our enemies, whether through active hate or idle bitterness. Even Mikel, the Unseen Lord of the White Brotherhood, can never be trusted fully. He is no longer master here, and he is no sure ally. At best, we may hope for-but never depend on-his neutrality. We must look to our own defenses, with no more than our own resources, now and most likely forever.
"The forced seclusion of this valley is perhaps our most pressing problem. On this we need advice and more information. It's something to be studied at length and depth.
"This other change, the physical rearrangement of Britain and Ireland, puzzles me as well. I see neither advantage nor danger, no reason at all for it. I think it would be well if we all gazed upon the changes directly."
No further words were necessary. There was no need for magical incantation. Linked together, the minds of Silvas and Maria soared from the ethereal room of the Council, taking the consciousnesses of the others with them, separate yet together, linked in Council almost as fully as Silvas and Maria were linked even outside it. There was a quick ascent into the sky, a heady sensation even for Silvas, who had felt similar ascents before. The five of them looked down on the world from the heavens, a circle of invisible faces, high enough to clearly see the new islands and the continent they had been split free of. They saw the new water flowing through the gaps, the English Channel and the Irish Sea. Silvas pointed out cities and landmarks to orient the others. Then they all looked more closely at the places where the land had been fractured. Finally, they looked for the valley of the Seven Towers.
But the valley was not there. The Pennines themselves had changed. The mountains at either side of the valley had, as far as Silvas and the others could see, moved together into a thicker ridge, completely obliterating any trace of the valley. The roads moved around it. The land itself seemed to hold no memory that the valley of the Seven Towers had ever existed.
Then everyone found their awareness back in their spirit bodies around the Council table.
"People have no memories of the way things used to be," Bay announced. "To all mortal knowledge outside our valley, it has always been thus. Britain and Ireland have always been islands, never joined to Europe. Even the histories kept by the monks of the White Brotherhood and other churchly orders now differ from our memories. Lives were lost in the sundering, but those with memories of the dead now believe that they died in other fashion. Some of those who died are no longer known to have ever lived. I see no practical reason for the sundering. It may have been no more than a chance byproduct of the battle fought among the gods, or an action calculated for no more than immediate effect during that battle.
"The veil over our valley is much more important. I see not who placed it, or why, but I sense that it is a test, and the way we meet this test may well determine what befalls us next."
Bosc spoke next. In Council, his voice was more assured, less servile, than outside. He spoke as a full counselor of long experience.
"The earth's wounds have scarred over, as they always do. She no longer feels the pain of the sundering. She will endure this wound as she has endured many others, some many times greater."
"I am not yet fully certain of my responsibilities here," Braf said when the others looked his way. "I hope that you will help me to learn them. I cannot speak of these changes to earth. They are beyond my ken. As to the veil that hangs over the Seven Towers, if you wish it broken, I will take my lads and try to do that, but I sense that it may not be possible for physical warriors alone, and that is all I know. But I saw much on our sad trek to the land of the gods. There were many soldiers there. If they considered us at all, it was not as possible enemies on a field of battle, but as possible nuisances who might need crushing as we might swat at flies disturbing us at table. While these armies of the gods may indeed be so powerful that they don't consider the possibility that we may have stings, that confidence may also be misplaced. Every warrior knows the advantage of having an enemy so thoroughly underestimate him."
Braf lowered his eyes when he finished speaking, as if in apology for daring to offer his opinions.
"You are correct, Braf," Silvas said. "Having an opponent misjudge you, in either direction, can offset many disadvantages. But, in turn, we dare not make equally erroneous judgments of them. You are also correct in saying that the veil will not yield to merely physical force, yet I would have you dispatch patrols to test every pace of the barrier, all of the way around our valley, to see if there are any gaps, any places where they can break through with merely physical force. Send two patrols, perhaps, one in each direction. It will take two or three days, no doubt, for them, to meet at the far end of the valley. Have them provisioned against that. And send riders with each patrol to carry news back to the Seven Towers of anything unusual they encounter."
"Aye, lord. I'll see to't instantly-when I can," Braf added after a quick look around him.
"Shortly, Braf," Silvas said. "Maria and I will also continue our investigations. We will most likely need to speak with Mikel again. Though he may bear us no goodwill, he remains our most likely source of information among the elder gods. Bay, any facts you might find for us would also be welcome."
"As always, I will do what I may," Bay said.
"And I," Bosc added. "I will see what Mother Earth will say to me."
"Before we terminate this Council," Bay said, "I have one suggestion to offer. While Girabelle served Maria nicely during our excursion to the land of the gods, she does need a more fitting mount, a horse of stature and stamina not unlike my own. Our attempts to pierce the veil around this valley are testimony to that need."
"You know where we may find such a horse?" Silvas asked.
"There is no such animal in English, perhaps not in all of the mortal worlds, but gathered in Council, we may be able to find and procure such a horse."
"A horse as gifted as you?" Silvas asked.
Bay snorted. "There is no such horse as that. But one at least to equal any we saw in the land of the gods."
"I am satisfied with Girabelle," Maria said. "But if you truly feel I need something more, and that we can get it, I am agreeable."
"Have you a particular horse in mind?" Silvas asked.
"No, but I believe I know where we may find what we seek," Bay said. "If you will all channel power through me, I may be able to focus properly."
"How?" Braf asked.
"Merely stare at Bay and concentrate all of your awareness on him," Maria said softly.
Silvas and Maria provided most of the raw power. All of the members of the Council found themselves looking through Bay's eyes. They seemed to speed low over a land that alternated between lush pastures and tall stands of forest. A herd of horses galloped ahead of them, then turned to the right and ran on, fleeing as if they could see the eyes that were chasing them.
There, to the right, in front of the herd, Bay's voice said within the minds of his companions. The white mare.
Everyone focused on that one horse. Even among this herd, the white mare seemed large, magnificent, perhaps even larger than the palomino stallion that brought up the rear. The visual chase grew closer. After several minutes, the white mare veered off from the rest of the herd, as if she had discovered that there was a pursuit under way, and that she was the quarry.
When the white mare was well away from any of the other horses, Bay said, "Now!" very loudly, and for a moment the mare seemed to be galloping in a void, neighing wildly in sudden terror.
Then Bay was galloping at her side while the others continued to watch. Bay got half a length in front of the other horse, but so close that their flanks touched. He turned the mare to the left, tightening the radius of her turn, putting his head out in front of her, slowing her, doing what he could to soothe her.
"We need to end this Council now," Bay said, "Bosc, Camiss will need both of us to calm her."
Silvas spoke the words to close the Council, and it was ended.