"How soon do you want to try protecting all of Hardorn?" Father Janas asked him gently.
"Now," he said decisively. "We have until late tonight before the next Storm comes in, and I don't want to be able to sit and brood on this."
Solaris sat straight up and looked him in the eyes. "Tremane Gyfarr Pendleson of Lynnai, don't you dare sit there and pretend to be a martyr! What you are about to endure, I will also have to, and Prince Daren of Valdemar, and Faramentha of Rethwellan, and whoever it is in Iftel—"
"Vykaendys-First Bryron Hess," Tashiketh said helpfully.
"The Son of the Sun in Iftel, and a half-dozen Hawkbrothers and at least one Shin'a'in," Solaris concluded.
:Not to mention as many other leaders we can reach as we think will have lands in jeopardy,: Hansa added helpfully. :There will be a great many leaders with dreadful headaches before this is all over.:
"Exactly! You will not be alone in this, and although you may feel fear because of the justifiable guilt you bear for your other actions in the past, I can assure you that the land will not let you die!" She rose to her feet, full of anger and some other emotion that Elspeth could not put a name to. "If you are afraid, then be a man and admit it, and let us help you through it! You should know that if you are too afraid, the land will resist what we are about to do. We may not be able to overcome that resistance, for the land takes its cues from you."
:That's Solaris talking, but it's also something else,: Darkwind said, in Mindspeech tightly focused and tense. :I wonder if Tremane realizes it?:
:Vkandis?: Elspeth asked, but even as she said it, she knew that it was the wrong answer.
:Since when does a male use all of someone's names to scold him?: Darkwind asked, a little of the tension ebbing. :No, Solaris is acting as a Mouth for a different power, and I suspect that if you asked Father Janas, he'd be very familiar with it. Probably her annoyance with Tremane and her familiarity with being a Mouth opened her up to acting as an inadvertent channel for it.:
Elspeth sent silent agreement, after casting a quick glance at the priest, who was watching the little scene with a faint smile on his lips. Darkwind was right. Only a woman—a mother—would scold someone using every one of his names. And wasn't the earth often referred to as Mother? Looked at in that light, there were some subtle physical changes in Solaris that gave more clues. For one thing, she looked more—feminine—than Elspeth had ever seen her.
The scolding did what it was supposed to do, which was annoy him enough to make him willing to admit to a weakness; and in a way Elspeth could feel very sorry for poor Tremane, who hadn't asked for any of this, and had borne up very well under it all. He stiffened his back, looked up into Solaris' eyes, and said, with quiet dignity, "You are right, Solaris. I am terrified. I am accustomed to using power, not having it use me, and the prospect of giving up control over myself to anything gives me the horrors. Doing it with the lives of thousands of innocents in the balance is terrible beyond my ability to articulate."
Whatever had Solaris let her go, and the anger faded as she sat down. "It isn't so bad, being used by this kind of power," she said softly. "You will be exhausted when it is over; perhaps a little ill, though I don't think it will be very bad. I think the power will use you gently, if you don't resist it. Sometimes giving up control in a greater cause is the noblest thing one can do in one's life." She hesitated a moment longer, then it looked as if some wall inside her gave way. Her expression changed completely. "Perhaps you are rightfully afraid that some of us, who have grievances with you, may not protect you with a whole heart. You would have been correct in fearing that not very long ago; I might not have moved to help you if I saw that you were in danger." She took a deep breath and plunged on. "That is no longer true; I forgive you, Tremane of Hardorn, and if it is any more comfort to you, young Karal, who has greater cause to hate you than I, forgave you before I did. The man who loosed the assassin that murdered our friend was an Imperial Commander, subject to the orders and whims of an Emperor with no morals and no scruples, and you are no longer that man." Now she looked shamefaced for a moment. "The Sunlord himself told me that I must forgive you if we were to succeed, but until this moment, I could not."
Tremane looked at her with astonishment, and offered her his hand; she took it in a firm handclasp that said far more than words could have. "Thank you for that; I know what it cost you," was all he said.
Then he released her hand and looked at the others. "Well? Shall we begin?"
As far as Elspeth was concerned, there was very little for her to see or do, other than to feed mage-power to Darkwind, who in his turn did things with it that she could neither see nor follow, although she knew in theory what he was doing. She was what they all called the "anchor" and she brought in the power, directed, and refined it. Tremane searched for the node, and "held" them all there when he found one. Darkwind built the node into a matrix that would permit a single spell to be linked into it. Father Janas constructed the controlling spell that triggered the main spell, using the loss of a shield as the guide for activation. Solaris built the main spell, which created the nine nested shields using power from the node, and Darkwind linked it in. Then, once that node "disappeared" because it was now shielded, Tremane moved their viewpoint on to the next node. In the end, by the time they were done, Tremane was so completely exhausted that he could not even move, but as Solaris had promised, he was neither ill nor in pain. They had worked through him to reach every node in Hardorn and replicate the same shields and spells they had tried on the first node. This was the only way they could have reached all of the nodes without going to them physically; in a sense, since Tremane was bound to all of Hardorn in a very physical fashion because of the blood and soil he had ingested, they actually were working there physically.
They completed their work just as the next Storm came through, and had the satisfaction of seeing their work hold. And Tremane got a small reward out of it after all; since the nodes were no longer being battered by the energies of the Storm, he was suffering only about half of the physical effects he had been enduring with every Storm-wave. This made him feel half again better.
"That in and of itself made this all worth while," he said weakly, but with a smile, and then they sent him off to bed.
"He feels as though he will sleep for a week, but it won't be more than a day or so," Father Janas said with weary satisfaction. "He'll be back on his feet and hard at work shortly. Now do you need anything to alert the peoples in your homes?"
"I will send two of my fastest flyers—mages both—back with the exact instructions in the morning," Tashiketh rumbled, his eyes alight with pleasure at their success. "And if you will permit me, Most Holy, more will convey you and Hansa back to your own land to save you as much time as possible; as many of your escort as care to remain here can, I suppose, and the rest can follow you at their own pace."
Solaris gave him a puzzled look. "I would appreciate it no end, but how do you intend to do this?" she asked. "I assume you mean me to fly with them, but I can't imagine how that could work properly."