He staggered out of the tiny room, carefully closing the door behind him, and made his unsteady way into the kitchen, bypassing the Great Hall entirely. He wanted to lie down, very badly. This was not the first time he'd queried a heart-stone, but it was the first time one had responded with such a flood of facts and memories. The heart-stones he'd merged with had been slow, old, and so peaceful that the answer you wanted might take candlemarks to drift within grasping. By contrast, this one practically flung responses at you before you finished the question.
He made the kitchen easily enough, and spent some time sticking up new candles and lighting them before wobbling back to his bed and falling facedown into the blankets.
He must have slept, because the next thing he knew, the others were clattering about the kitchen, there was a smell of frying bacon, and his stomach was declaring war on his backbone.
He rolled over on his back, stiffly, painfully, and Savil immediately knelt at his side and peered into his eyes. "You were in shock-sleep," she said. "We couldn't wake you. I hope to hell you got something worth it."
He took a deep breath, and discovered that his ribcage was sore, that all his muscles ached. He must have held them tensed for hours. He nodded. "Answers," he said-croaked, rather. "I got answers. I got answers. Savil, that's a heart-stone in there. And it's awake!"
Her mouth had dropped open the moment he'd said the words "heart-stone." She shut it again with a snap. "Eat first, and get something to drink. Then tell us."
He sat up slowly, more than ever grateful for all the soft comforters to cushion his aching body from the stone floor of the kitchen. There was a fire in the hearth, and the other three seemed warm, but he was cold - cold.
Jervis shoved a plate into his hand, Tashir a cup of tea into the other. Savil and Jervis then pretended to deal with the remnants of their dinners. Tashir made no such pretense, hovering at Vanyel's side and watching every mouthful he took with impatience.
It was a little embarrassing, but Vanyel could not find it in his heart to blame him.
When he put down the empty plate, the other two gave up all pretensions and hovered around him.
"I'll try to make this short," he said, feeling a little awkward with all their attention so fixed on him. "This palace is situated on top of a place where several lines of magical energy meet and collect - we call that a 'node.' Nodes - the very powerful ones, that is - frequently aren't natural. They can be created artificially by a particular group of Adepts called the Tayledras - the 'Hawkbrothers.' " At Jervis' and Tashir's look of blank nonrecognition, he added, "They live in the Pelagirs. Most people have never heard of them. Fewer still will ever see them. Savil and I are among the few."
Savil nodded. "They're very secretive, and for a good reason. They do - almost as naturally as breathing - something damned few other mages are even capable of imagining. They manipulate the energy fields of the world around us."
Vanyel interrupted her gently. "They do two things, really; they drain magic left from the old wars away from lands that ordinary people are moving into, and they use that magic both to Heal those lands and to create sanctuaries for magical creatures that are displaced by the folk moving in. When they settle in a place, they generally create a node under it to use. When they leave that place they always - or so I always thought - deactivate and drain the node, and reroute the power-lines running to it."
"That's what Starwind always told me," Savil agreed, shifting her position so that she rested her chin on her knees.
"Well, they didn't this time," Vanyel replied. "The node is still fully active, and the heart-stone that is the physical link to it is still alive. That's what that pillar is, Tashir, the heart-stone. And that brings me to why.”
He licked his lips and closed his eyes for just a moment, to center himself. "Some time when people first moved into this area, Tashir, one of the Tayledras remained behind, and selected your remote forefather to be the hereditary guardian of the heart-stone. He charged him to keep it safe, and to see that no one in Lineas ever dabbled in magic. That charge has been passed down to everyone with the blood of the Remoerdis Family - because that blood carries Mage-potential with it, and because that very wise ancestor of yours saw no reason to limit the guardianship to a favored few. The more guardians, he thought, the safer - and I think he was right. After all, this has gone on for generations without any inkling of the power here leaking outside of Lineas. That's the meaning of those rings everyone - except you and your mother - wore. They link the wearer to the heart-stone and the guardianship, and the spell that binds wearer to ring and to the guardianship allows the stone to act upon the wearer to keep them safe, and to safeguard itself. I actually saw that last in action - your mother's maid Reta was moved by the heart-stone to tell me some of what I needed to know. It was quite uncanny; she acted for all the world as if someone had put a second-stage Truth Spell on her. Back to the subject. You didn't get one, and weren't sealed to the stone, because your father didn't believe you were of his blood. To settle that question, the stone says otherwise. The stone recognized you as being of the blood the moment you entered the room. You are the true-born son of Deveran Remoerdis of Lineas. And if your father had ever conquered his own doubts and suspicions, and allowed you into the room, even as an infant, he would have known that, too."
Tashir hung his head, and Vanyel could see his shoulders shaking. He laid his hand on top of one of the youngster's, and Jervis put his arm around the young man's shoulders for a moment.
"Now - the reason why the node was left active; there's an instability underneath Lineas; right underneath Highjorune. The node is literally holding it together. If it were to be disturbed, especially if it were to be drained, as a careless or ignorant mage might manage, Highjorune would certainly be destroyed by a terrible earthquake, and quite probably all of Lineas, a good section of Baires, and even some of Valdemar. That is why the people of Lineas have been trained to shun and discourage mages. That is what your people have held in trust for centuries - and I think that the power of the node is also why the Mavelans want Lineas. Unfortunately, I suspect they see only the powerful node, and have made no effort at discovering why it is there."
"I doubt they'd care," Savil said dryly.
"I wish I knew differently." He put down his mug, and rested his forehead on his own knees. "Gods," he said, his voice muffled. "Well, we have part of the puzzle."
He felt a hand on his shoulder; Savil's. “Tired, ke'chara?” she asked.
"Not tired, precisely," he replied, raising his head and smiling into her eyes. "Just a little - divided. You know what querying a heart-stone is like; you become part of it. It's hard being a rock; they have such a strange sense of time - and priorities." He shook off his feeling of disorientation and patted her hand. "No matter, now that I've got that solved, I can help you with that trap-spell. If you can get me safely inside it, I think I can unravel the components enough to tell what triggers it and what it acts on."