Solaris. What was she doing, back home in Karse? Was she holding onto her leadership with the same firmness as before? Surely Vkandis Sunlord will keep Karse safe, no matter what, he told himself, and felt a twinge of guilt for such an unworthy thought. He was supposed to be thinking on a wider stage than just Karse; it was the welfare of the Alliance that was as important as Karse's welfare.
But Karse was where his interests lay, and it was Karse's interests he was representing. So was it so bad that he took comfort in the fact that Vkandis held His hand over His chosen land?
As a priest, he must believe that, anyway. To doubt was to doubt the word and the promises of Vkandis....
Except that He has said in His Writ that we must rely on the intelligence and wit that He gave us, that He protects us only in extremis. What if there is a solution here and we simply fail to reach it because we do not try hard enough? Would He still protect us then?
He felt his face grow cold and pale.
The uncertainty of it all was terrifying.
Oh, glory—what was happening to him? Now was he beginning to doubt even his own God?
What could he do, anyway? He was no mage; he knew next to nothing about magic or mathematics. He could only place his trust in others, in the hands and minds of those who did understand all of this. Elspeth and Darkwind, the gryphons, Firesong and An'desha, the mages of Rethwellan recruited by Kerowyn, the fledgling Herald-Mages of Valdemar trained by all of the others, the Priest-Mages of Karse; these were the folk that needed the help and guidance of Vkandis in their endeavor—and any other deity who happened to be interested. Perhaps the best thing he could do now was to pray. At least he understood how to do that.
Right now, he was just very, very tired... and very homesick. I would much rather be the secretary to anyone, even one of those rigid old sticks who disliked Ulrich and Solaris, than be the envoy myself. It's not that I don't want the responsibility—it's that I can't get the authority to take care of the responsibility.
So today, rather than try to make anyone listen to him, he just took notes whenever he caught something he understood. If I have a point I want raised, I'll write it down give it to Elspeth or Darkwind later, he decided. That's doing my duty by the Alliance as a whole, even if it isn't accomplishing anything for Karse.
Right now, that was the only solution he could think of.
Three
An'desha dropped another pebble into the water-table, and watched the resulting waves break up and disperse on the model. The elegant concentric rings quickly turned into a chaos of wavelets and counter wavelets amid the barriers placed there, and he shook his head in despair. He'd been told about this, but he hadn't believed it until this moment. "This is too complicated even to see, much less measure and analyze," he said bitterly. "And this is only a model. The reality is a hundred times worse!"
Master Levy gave him a sidelong, sardonic glance of approval. "For an unlettered barbarian who believes in curses and spell casting you show a surprising grasp of logic," he said dryly. "And a remarkable understanding of the difficulties of measurement and analysis in a moving system."
An'desha was not about to be goaded. "For a hard-headed statue who only believes in what he can see, weigh, and measure, you show a surprising flexibility," he countered. "And besides, you know very well that I read, speak, and write more languages than you, so although I am a barbarian, I am hardly unlettered. Now, shall we dispense with the insulting small talk and get on with this?"
But Master Levy only sighed with frustration. "At the moment," he admitted, "small talk is all I have to offer. I am venting my frustration in sarcasm. You are correct, the reality is too complex to calculate. I haven't been able to derive any kind of formula, and if I cannot, I doubt that anyone else would be able to."
Unconscious or conscious arrogance that last might be; nevertheless, Master Levy was right.
"There must be a predictable mathematical progression in there somewhere," An'desha muttered, staring at the table and the last of the fading ripples. "The result is geometric, so there must be a way to derive the formula."
"I thought you mages were all certain that magic was entirely intuitive," Master Levy said with amusement. "I confess that I was hoping by bringing you here and showing you the demonstration you might be able to intuit the formula. As one of our youngsters pointed out, intuition is a valuable tool, since it merely consists of being able to put together facts so quickly that the progression from premise to conclusion is no longer obvious."
"Firesong is the only one of us with that particular affliction," An'desha replied absently. "The rest of us are rather fond of logic. Though it is beginning to look as if his way of doing things may be the only answer right now."
In truth, the reason he was here instead of at the ekele was that Firesong had not been able to "intuit" an answer either, and was rather short-tempered as a result. Things were already strained between them as it was, and on the whole, An'desha thought that his absence would be more valuable than his presence. Let Firesong rave at the plants in his frustration.
Ever since he and Karal had returned from their journey to the Iftel/Valdemar border, there had been stress in his relationship with Firesong. It was not, as he had first feared, that Firesong was jealous of Karal—or at least, he did not consider Karal to be a romantic rival. Which was just as well; it was rather difficult to prove such a nebulous negative as "Karal is my best friend, but I am not in the least attracted to him." If Firesong couldn't figure that out, he was less observant and less intelligent than An'desha had given him credit for.
It had taken An'desha this long to divine precisely what the problem really was between them, and it turned out to be something rather disconcerting. Something he knew he wasn't going to be able to remedy, in fact.
Firesong did not seem to know how to deal with the "new" An'desha, an An'desha who was growing less dependent upon him with every passing day.
An'desha gazed down into the water-table as if the answer to his problem with Firesong lay there, as well as the answer to the question of what to do when the breakwater failed.
He doesn't seem to understand that just because he saved my life, and helped me when I was so confused that I didn't know how to cope with the smallest details, that doesn't make us automatically lifebonded. It doesn't even make us automatically best friends. I love him, and I owe him a great deal—but I do not owe him my total devotion for the rest of my life. No one "owes" that to anyone.
They had become lovers out of mutual attraction and An'desha's helpless dependence on someone, anyone, who might give him the support and security he desperately craved. And to his credit, Firesong had been very well aware that such dependence was unhealthy and infantile; he had done his best to wean An'desha away from that clutching dependence and to help him grow a real spine of his own.