The Grove(99)
“He’s so handsome . . . but it’s so weird, that he’s technically dead,” Nannan confessed. She flipped a hand and shook her head. “I’m not sure I could stand getting involved with him, when he’s also . . .”
“Also what? Also Aradin? Also dead? Also not . . .” She cut herself off before she could say, Also not interested in you? It would not have been kind, however true, as far as she knew. Saleria shook it off. “You know, you can look at him all you like, and become friends with him—with Teral—but try to understand that in doing so, you must accept and become friends with Aradin, too . . . because wherever Teral goes, whatever Teral does or sees, Aradin is right there watching it all. I suggest you start trying to be friends with both sides of the Darkhanan, since he is going to be here for quite some time, praise Kata and Jinga . . . and Darkhan and Dark Ana.”
“I do realize that, now,” Nannan grumbled. “I’m not happy, but I realize it.” She fluttered her hands at Saleria. “Off to breakfast with you before your scribe eats it all—I’ll bring you some freshly grilled egg-toast, if nothing else.”
“Thank you, Nannan,” Saleria told her, heading for the dining room.
* * *
Aradin had forgotten about his note to himself from the previous night. It was a good thing he had written it down, too. Expanding the crystal tablet until it was the size of a large chalkboard—almost as big as the bed they had slept in together—he showed Saleria what his samplings of the aether and the plants of the Grove had revealed to him yesterday. With the additional samples taken during his morning walk, three patterns emerged clearly, one per locus tree.
“As you can see here, the energies build up and ripple around the triangle—you always drain the north locus tree, the east one, and the south one in that order, right? So the energy always has a dip in it that is traveling sunwise around the garden . . . and that means the energy always has a peak as well, just before you drain one of its contributors,” he explained.
“Just one problem with that. The direction you’re gesturing is counter-sunwise,” Saleria said, tapping the sketched map of the Grove with its three giant trees coming together in the Bower at the center, and line-sketches for the paths and other major terrain features. “The sun actually travels the other way across the northern part of the sky. You tell me it moves sunwise, and I think it’ll move like this, not that.”
Aradin frowned at her as she demonstrated, frowned at the tablet map, then squinted up at the sky. He sighed roughly. “Well, forgive me for being born north of the Sun’s Belt, where the sun travels across the south half of the sky. Clocks were invented in ancient Aiar, and they all go around the same way wherever you are in the world, so we’ll call it clockwise, yes?”
“Thank you,” she allowed. “That’ll be far less confusing for me to remember. So this wave of magical energy traveling clockwise through the Grove, that’s what’s causing the mutations?”
“Some of it, yes. Some of it comes from the sap saturating the ground. Now, the good news is, I think we can tap into the magical sap, transmute and cleanse it alchemically, and burn it off. It does require the construction of Permanent magics, but we can at least get started with some temporary usage—you always have prayer petitions for rain or drought or such, right?”
“Yes, but those come in cycles that are unpredictable,” she told him. Saleria gestured at the mossy spot where she usually prayed, in the center of the Bower. “If we build a Permanent magic, it will constantly be raining in the deserts of northern Katan, and dry as dust along the southwestern hills.”
“You’re thinking of a Katani faucet, which is plugged by a cork. Unplug it, and you cannot control the flow of water through the pipe,” Aradin said. “I’m thinking of a spell-controlled lever that opens and shuts from a trickle to a gush and back, depending upon the incoming need. We could use spells to control which regions get what they need in what quantity needed, based on the number of petitions for that area. That’s a long-term plan of course, but for now . . . maybe just build a radiant crystal to bless the land of Katan with good health? Teral tells me that’s a common use of Fountain energies, and it’s quite clear the Grove’s foliage is quite healthy and abundant. Warped, but abundant.”
“Well, I certainly don’t want to go warping the farmlands around Groveham, let alone the rest of the nation,” Saleria stated, hands going to her hips. She flipped one at the tablet map. “If I wanted that, I’d not renew the wards on the Grove walls each night. How can we stop that effect from happening?”