It was a good thing, too; the mirror thumped and tumbled three times in the transition. Even with Guardian Kerric’s promises that it was nigh indestructible, her heart still missed a few beats in the mental scramble to soften the blows. A bright swirl of light opened up over her head, and the mirror descended, slowing as her magic shifted with a murmur into a netlike shape. The scroll wasn’t quite so worrisome; it did bang about a bit as well, but it arrived intact, landing in a second, smaller weaving.
She did heed the instinct to check them for possible magical traps, but the scroll was simply a scroll, and the mirror was exactly what it was supposed to be: polished, silvered glass in a metal frame, both carefully enchanted for transmitting visual and audible scryings in both directions upon command, and only upon command, but otherwise unsuitable for use as a mirror-Gate or a spying device. There were too many subtle flaws in the glass, physically preventing such a use; plus the spells involved against scrycasting and anti-scrying were far more refined than what she had seen before. But not to the point of being completely unfamiliar.
Since she didn’t exactly have a place to set the mirror, she leaned it against a mossy boulder, tucked the scroll into her belt, and approached the northeast communications pool. Swirling the mist up out of the surface, she attempted to contact the Tower. “Guardian Kerric, are you there?”
It took him a long moment to answer. “Yes, I’m here; sorry, several conversations at once. Did you get the mirror and the scroll?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
“. . . And have you enchanted it yet with the spell to connect it to the Fountainways?” he prompted her.
“Oh. Right. I’ll, um, be back shortly.” Grateful he couldn’t see her blush, Saleria canceled the mist-spell and went looking for the scroll over by the mirror. It took her a few moments to realize it was tucked into her belt. Blushing harder, grateful no one could see her acting like a fool, she pulled it out and worked loose the red ribbon binding the spindles together.
The instructions were thankfully written in Katani, though the script was a bit archaic in style. Puzzling through them took her several minutes, and practicing the spell—without magic empowering it—took long enough to be aware of just how golden-red the sunlight had turned. A glance to the west showed the sun just beginning to touch the top of the Grove wall, which meant sunset was a very short time away indeed.
As much as she wanted to run through the complex mix of verbal and gestural components a few more times to be sure of the images meant to be held in her thoughts while shaping the energies at hand, she didn’t have much time left. Drawing a deep breath, she squared her shoulders, rested the unrolled scroll on the boulder, and started chanting, fingers, wrists, and elbows moving in graceful, precise angles, helping her to shape the intent of her magic with body as well as mind.
The glass of the mirror flared when she released the last bit of magic, fingers flicking upward. The light slowly faded, turning the surface a soothing shade of sky-blue. A few seconds later, the mirror chimed and the blue started to pulse and ripple in shades both lighter and darker. It was, Saleria realized, very much like the “hold” pattern used by the Council of Mages on the few occasions she had needed to contact them.
The last time she had seen it had been while waiting to speak with Councillor Thannig, in charge of the Department of Prophecies. Stooping, she tapped the mirror and stated her activation word, pushing a bit of will and magic behind it. “Baol.”
The blue field shifted immediately to an image of a curly-haired man in a brown tunic that fastened down the middle of his chest with odd, ribbon-knotted buttons. Behind him, she could see a book-lined wall, but the lighting that fell on his face didn’t quite match the lighting on the books. Some sort of privacy illusion masking the real background, she realized. Like the blue backgrounds some of the Councillors use.
“Greetings! You must be Guardian Saleria,” the man on the other end stated, flashing her a brief smile. It lit up his gray eyes, giving him a charming air. His voice, no longer distorted by the echoing effects of the Fountainways, was as familiar as his face was not.
“And you are Guardian Kerric,” she guessed, and received a nod in return.
“Correct.” Again, he smiled, then sighed and rolled his eyes a little. “If you will kindly wait a few moments, I’m still trying to get Guardian Koro through the steps of connecting his mirror to the Fountainways. There is a privacy screening spell imbued in the mirror that blanks out anything beyond four yards—roughly two body-lengths—from the surface of the mirror. You can choose a plain blue background, a library like mine, or from among a few other choices, though it’s currently set to blue if you don’t want to do anything.