The ground shook, roaring; he saw dust swirl up on all sides.
"Stop!" he cried.
It stopped.
Earthquakes frightened him. The uneasy movement of that most immovable of things upset his view of the way the world should be. Such displays undoubtedly consumed vast amounts of the sword's energy, but he could not bear to continue.
Storms, however, were something he was accustomed to.
He looked at the gem. It was glowing brightly, vividly red.
It could not be limitless, he told himself. It must exhaust itself eventually.
With that thought in his mind, he raised the sword above his head and summoned the storm to him.
The light of the jewel bathed him in crimson, and the blade glowed brilliantly white as the storm broke about him with preternatural fury. A bolt of lightning burned through the air over his head and shattered against the sword, bathing him in a shower of immense blue-white sparks, but he felt nothing but a slight warmth and a mounting joy in the power he wielded.
Another bolt followed the first, though Garth knew that was not natural; and then a third came. He was washed in white fire, and the ground at his feet was burned black.
Lightning continued to pour down upon him while cold rain beat against the plain around him. He stayed dry in the heart of the storm, for the lightning and the heat of the sword boiled away the rain before it could touch him, encircling him in steam and mist.
He discovered that he could steer the lightning away from him and direct it where he chose by pointing with the sword, as he had spread flame in Skelleth. He drew the sword's heat into him and thrust it upward, and the rain turned warm around him; then he sucked it back down and away, and the rain became first sleet, and then hail-though the frozen drops were smaller than natural hailstones.
He called aloud another strange name, "Kewerro!" The wind howled down out of the north, and the storm became a snowstorm, then a raging blizzard.
He was drunk and staggering with the power of the sword, and still the gem glowed as brightly as ever, the blade as gleaming white as the moon.
He sent the snow away again, turning the north wind back, and allowed the south wind to bring rain in its place. The sky was black, the sun buried in thunderheads; only lightning and the light of the sword lessened the gloom.
He drew the storm around him, whipped it into a howling maelstrom, and forced its winds to whirl faster, until his cloak was flapping with a sound like the breaking of stone; still the gem remained undimmed. Maintaining the roaring hurricane, he moved the earth as well, rippling it around him like a lake in a breeze. He pulled the rain from the sky in sheets, in streams, and pounded lightning on the shifting ground, surrounding himself in a halo of crawling electric fire.
Finally, he could stand no more; he fell to his knees. The earth stilled. One hand fell from the sword's hilt; the lightning stopped, and the wind dropped. In the sudden silence after the final thunderclap, he closed his eyes and heard the beating of the rain soften to a gentle patter.
He opened his eyes and looked hopelessly at the sword. His fingers adhered to the hilt as firmly as ever.
The gem glowed fiery red, and he thought he heard mocking laughter, his own voice laughing at his despair.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The twenty-first councilor and Derelind's report from Mormoreth arrived almost simultaneously.
It was the Seer of Weideth, uncomfortable on a borrowed horse, who completed the Council's quorum; he arrived late in the evening while a light, chilling drizzle blew down out of the north, and his calls to the castle's gatekeeper went unheeded for fully fifteen minutes, unheard over the hiss of the rain and the mutter of the wind. There was only a single guard posted at the gate after dark and he was huddled well away from the window, drawing what warmth he could from his shuttered lantern and a skin of cheap red wine; finally, though, he heard something worth checking on and peered down to discover the Seer, shivering at the gate, wrapped in an immense gray cloak.
The gatekeeper was an honest man and not inconsiderate; he hurried to his winch and called down an apology as he cranked open the portcullis. That done, he rushed down the tower steps, stumbling in the dark and very nearly sending himself falling headfirst, and opened the Lesser Portal. In daylight there would have been two other guards to share the task.
"My lord, I am very sorry, truly I am! I had not thought any would be out in such dreary weather!"
The Seer nodded, but did not manage to say anything. His home village was kept perpetually warm and dry by the heat of the neighboring volcanoes, and he was not accustomed to the damp chill of autumn rains.
"I should have known better, though, with all of you folk arriving for these past several days; I don't suppose you're the last, either. I guess the rain caught you already on the road, and you didn't wish to waste money on an inn with the castle so close; I'd do the same myself. It's damnably strange weather for this early in the year, too, my lord-far colder than any year in my memory."
The Seer looked at the gatekeeper and realized that he was a very lonely man, spending his nights sitting alone at the gate. He was unmarried, with no children, and his most recent woman had left him a few days earlier.
That was not his business, the Seer told himself. His gift sometimes told him more than he wanted to know-and then other times it wouldn't tell him anything. He wished it were more reliable. He didn't particularly care if he were ever a great prophet, but it would be pleasant, he mused, at least to be a competent one, rather than having erratic flashes of insight and foreknowledge.
It was the guard's loneliness, combined with his genuine contrition, that had brought on his little speech. He would go on talking until he got an answer.
"Oh, I'm all right," the Seer managed. "You mustn't trouble yourself."
"That's kind of you, my lord. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Where can I put my horse?"
The gatekeeper replied with directions to the stable, instructions on whom to rouse and how, and warnings against trusting the worthless grooms.
"Thank you," the Seer replied. He rode on as directed, before the man could begin another speech.
At the stable, he obtained directions to a hall where he might find someone who would know where he was supposed to be; following them, he got lost briefly in the maze of stone corridors. Eventually, though, by asking whomever he chanced to meet, he found his way to the upper gallery where the Council was gathering.
Chalkara noticed him as he reached the top of the stairs and recognized him immediately from his sending. "Greetings, O Seer," she said. "I hadn't known you were here. When did you arrive?"
The Seer held out a flap of his cloak so that she could see that it was still wet and answered, "Just now. What's going on?"
A stranger in a gaudy robe of purple velvet pushed past him and entered the gallery as Chalkara answered, "It's rather complicated to explain, and the meeting is about to start. Why don't you just come in, sit down, and warm up? If you have any questions, ask them as they come up."
Confused, the Seer let Chalkara shove him through the door. There were chairs inside, arranged around a row of three long tables; he was tired, and sank into one gratefully.
The room was lighted by several dozen candles in hanging chandeliers and standing candelabra, and a dozen or so men and women were already seated around the tables. Others were arriving as he took this in. Shandiph was seated at the head of the table he had chosen; none of the others were immediately recognizable. There was a tiny old woman seated at Shandiph's right.
A stout man not quite into middle age seated himself at the Seer's right and remarked without preamble, "You're wet."