“That’s where my note to myself comes in,” he told her. “See, the Bower acts as a focusing effect for the untamed energies of the Fountain-rifts in each locus tree. You call yourself the Guardian of the Grove . . . but according to what Teral remembers of what his Guide Alaya said about her Guide’s Guide, who served the Witch Guardian, you’re not actually in control of any of the rifts, because you’re not attuned to them. You access all the energy from here in the Bower, and only collect it at each locus tree.”
Saleria blinked a couple times, distracted by trying to figure out the relationship string he used. She figured it out after a few seconds by placing Teral as Aradin’s “father” and Teral’s own Guide when he was a living Host as Aradin’s “grandmother” . . . which placed the Guide’s Guide as Aradin’s great-great-grandparent. Then the rest of what he had said caught up with her. “I’m . . . what? Not in control?”
“You’re not attuned. You cannot tap into it directly,” Aradin explained to her. “The Bower is attuned to all three rifts, and you are attuned to the Bower, but not to any of the rifts. Unfortunately, while the magic from any one locus tree rift could be handled by a reasonably strong mage such as one of the three of us, all three at once would be too strong for any single mage I personally know of, and would be a challenge even for our greatest Witch pairing.”
“So what’s the point?” Saleria asked him. “If I am attuned to the Bower, why should I worry about the locus rifts?”
“Control. Direct control of the energies, and their overflow spill. See, all these limbs and tree roots converge to form the Bower, yes? But they’re not the whole of each locus tree. These branches and roots are end-points that build up in energies,” Aradin showed her, tapping the crystal map, which started lighting up at key points around the Grove. “Much of it flows back toward the trunk and either spills into the hollow where the rift is, requiring it to be collected, or it gets siphoned into the Bower, where it collects and condenses as sap.
“But some of it pushes through the bark and the leaves, causing local eddies in the overall wave of energy. Possibly through some damage to the tree, leaking magic as a wound would leak blood, or leaking sap, or both sap and magic, since it does get converted.”
“I see—that is where the mutations take place, in the convergence of the greater wave and the little eddies. A drop of magic-imbued sap lands on a foraging insect, which eats a plant soaked in ground-sap, and the next thing you know, we have a crossover between a buttercup flower and a stag beetle, yes?” she asked.
Aradin nodded. “Add in the wave being at its crest, or perhaps at its trough in certain circumstances, and you have just enough energy to push a mutation. Particularly if the affected target gets hit more than once over the span of a week or so. But we can take control of these energies—if we take control of the rifts.”
“‘We’?” Saleria asked, lifting her brows. She wished she could arch just one to convey her skepticism, but that was the best she could do. “Aren’t you geased by your oathbinding not to take over the energies of the Grove?”
“Teral and I did not swear that in our oath,” Aradin reminded her. “We are oathbound not to steal the energies of the Grove, but doing so with your permission as Keeper is not stealing them.”
He had her there. Choosing to be amused by his law-sayer’s cleverness rather than annoyed, she shook it off. “Right, then. I always wondered why I couldn’t do much more than I’ve already been doing—and not just because of my busy schedule. I’ve sometimes had a little free time to experiment, but I never made any progress on improving things.”
“Yes . . . The drawback to the Bower’s design is that it is easy to attune to, easy enough that even a medium-powered mage could tap into some of its energies,” Aradin warned her. “If I’ve configured these power flow spells right, the lower-strength the mage and the less energy they tap into, the more of the concentrated sap will be produced. The stronger the mage, the more energy is used, the less the sap flows.
“If you can attune to at least one of the rifts, that will reduce the sap-flow. If I can attune as well, that will reduce it significantly, since between your prayers here in the Bower and our efforts to restore the Grove, we should be able to use up most of what the three rifts produce . . . and if Teral can attune separately to the third one, then we will be able to not only control the excess energies, we will be able to burn off the sap saturating the ground, restore the Grove section by section, and craft Permanent magics to continue to harvest and use up the energies spilling into the aether.”