Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [106]
It had occurred to him that under those circumstances, Firesong was very likely to come to the erroneous conclusion that his friendship with Karal was based on physical attraction, not mental attraction, and that it might go beyond mere “friendship” before too long.
No, it would be a good thing to keep his meetings with Karal between the two of them—unless Karal brought his master, Lord Priest Ulrich, along. Then it should be safe enough to reveal.
The oddest thing is, he’d never make the same assumption if my friend was female, and it would be far more likely that I’d—ah—get involved with a female than with another man.
“Any more of those premonitions of doom?” Firesong asked, a little teasingly. “They might be useful, actually; it seems that the mages in the Empire—”
Premonitions of doom—
An‘desha gasped, as the ground seemed to drop out from underneath him, and Firesong’s voice faded into a roar that filled his ears. He clutched at the rock he was sitting on, but his fingers didn’t work. Darkness assaulted him—then blinding light. Then darkness again, filled with the twisting snakes of red An’desha always saw after a bright light. He tried to scream and couldn’t. He couldn’t even feel his jaws opening.
Then light, striking him in concentric circles. It was almost as if something had picked him up and was shaking him, waving him as a maiden might wave a scarf in the Rainbird Dance. And everywhere, everywhere, was terrible fear, filling him with icy paralysis. Then the darkness again, and then less light than before, then darkness.
Then it was over, as swiftly and without warning as it had begun. He found himself falling backward, still on his stone, Firesong clutching his shoulders and staring into his eyes, while his hands held to the rock underneath him, spasmed into rigidity.
“What—?” he choked out.
“You were in a trance,” Firesong said, testing An’-desha’s forehead with the back of his hand for fever. “You cried out once, and grabbed for the stone—I saw how your eyes looked, and sensed power about you, and knew you were in a trance. You looked terrified.”
“I was. Am.” An’desha gulped. “It was terrible, horrible, yet there was nothing that I can describe. Light and dark in waves, disorientation.”
Firesong looked into his eyes and frowned. “It happened when I asked if you were still troubled by premonitions. This seems too well-timed a response to be simple coincidence.”
Numbly, An’desha nodded. If anything, his sense of dread, his tension, had increased now.
“Listen, and I will tell you what was related at the Council,” Firesong said at last. “Mornelithe Falconsbane was not given to prescience—but you are not he, and there is no reason why you should not have that Gift. For that matter, She might well have granted it to you; as we were reminded at the Council, there are more hands than the merely human working in this stewpot now.”
I wouldn’t be too sure that I am not Falconsbane,
An’desha thought bleakly, but he listened quietly while Firesong recited what had transpired at the meeting.
“Did anything I spoke of wake a resonance with you?” he asked, when he was done. An’desha had to shake his head.
“Nothing,” he said sadly. “You might as well have been telling me facts concerning cattle or sheep. It meant nothing.”
Firesong tugged at a lock of silver hair, frowning. “I am at a loss,” he said finally. “It would seem to me that our great enemy is at hand—that the Empire and all the Empire’s mages should be the source of your fears, and yet—”
“It is not the Empire, peacock!” An’desha retorted, losing his temper. “I have been trying to tell you that! It is something else, something we have not even dreamed of! And I think—” he gulped and felt his skin turn cold and clammy as he voiced what he feared he must do, “—I think there is some key