SIX
Breathless from her run, Saleria dropped to her knees by the northeastern of the copper-hued pools, set her Keeper’s staff onto the moss next to it, and swirled her hand over the rippling liquid. A column of mist rose up, pulsing with energies. She touched it with one finger. “This is Guardian Saleria. Who is this?”
“Guardian Kerric, of the Tower. I need to ask a huge favor of you, Guardian of the Grove.”
It sounded like Kerric, but he sounded . . . stressed. Unhappy. Frowning, Saleria asked, “What’s the favor?”
“I have a problem which I need to show you, along with several other Guardians, because it is both alarming and frustrating me to no end. I’m sending you a mirror and a scroll with instructions on how to link it to the Fountainways for communications—I pledge to you, as a fellow Guardian, these are mirrors set to receive and send images and sounds only, no spells or methods of controlling anything you guard.”
“Alarming?” she repeated, seizing on that word out of all the rest. She didn’t like the sound of that.
“Remember that discussion we had a few months back, when I mentioned an invasion by the Netherhells?” he asked.
“Yes, I remember it,” Saleria said, trying to remember exactly what he had said back then.
“Well, it’s back, it’s fluctuating, it’s affecting several points around the world, and I cannot pinpoint what causes it nor what stops it because I am not there, in the regions being affected. But you and the other Guardians are there. And while I can talk your ears off about what I’ve been seeing in my scrying mirrors, it’s never going to be as effective as showing you the images I’ve been recording. So may I please have your permission to link you to the Tower’s scrycasting network? I promise that in several hundred years, the Tower has never once used its mirrors to subvert other mages’ homes, energies, or territories.”
“You sound like you’ve been reciting those words a little too much,” Saleria observed, hearing the weariness in his voice.
“I have. I finally convinced Guardians Tipa’thia and Dominor to join the network. I’ve also got the Guardian of Althinac, and the Guardian of the Vortex . . . Would you please join us in a conference scrycast, Guardian Saleria? The more strong mages we have working on this, the more likely we are to find a solution, because Guardians are the last sort of people to help cause a demonic invasion, which means we’re first and foremost in the responsibility of stopping one. We certainly have the power for it, once we find it.”
She knew what her duty was—to keep the Grove safe and pure from outsiders—and her duty spoke in that same nasal voice as a certain superior, assistant-denying priestess in her life. Paired with her nightmare of demonic bushes and beasts, the combination sent a prickle of warning up her spine. Scrubbing at the nape of her neck, Saleria thought carefully about it.
She didn’t hesitate long. Something about Aradin’s presence had awakened a streak of rebelliousness in the priestess. Bollocks to that. I’m going to trust Aradin Teral—I am trusting him . . . er, them—and I am going to trust Guardian Kerric, and the rest. This is my Grove to tend and keep, with all the powers and responsibilities that entails . . . and I am sick and tired of obeying rules and orders which mismanage this place, and all the true responsibilities I have regarding the powers I Keep.
“Send your scroll and mirror—ah, wait, is the mirror delicate, or can it be left outside?” she asked, aware of the scant shelter given by the lacework tangle of the Bower dome.
“They’re enspelled to be nigh indestructible in most circumstances. Certainly you can’t crack the frame while they’re being used as a mirror-Gate, because they cannot be used as a mirror-Gate. Unless you deliberately throw it back into the heat of a glass forge, it should be fine, rain, snow, or sun.”
“Then send it through,” Saleria told him. “I’ll get ready to catch it and the scroll.”
“Thank you.”
Rising, she braced herself, closed her eyes, and reached into the energies woven into the roof of the Bower dome. Sending and receiving things via the riftways was not quite as smooth as what she had heard from the other Guardians regarding their Fountainways. For one, it was often pure luck as to which rift an object might come from. For another, she was here, not beneath the base of any of the three locus trees.
Still, however incomplete the design of the post-Shattering Grove seemed to be, the riftways had been rerouted to come here. It was the conversion from magical tunnel to enspelled root-based tunnel, to the air over her head that was rough. Sinking mental fingers into the network, she shaped her magic into a cushioned lining for the passages.