Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [120]
And vanished.
Karal collapsed back against the pillows, not sure whether he should be elated or frightened out of his wits. He settled for a mixture of the two, with a healthy dose of panic.
Oh, Bright Flames, the last thing I need is the personal attentions of the Sunlord in my life! And a Firecat! The Cats get into everything and anything—what if Vkandis finds out about all the strange things I’ve been learning here? What if He finds out about what goes on at the Compass Rose?
Wait a moment. Vkandis was a god, all-knowing, all-powerful. How could He not know what Karal had been getting into?
Altra said I was doing the right things—so—
A visitation from an avatar, warning that the situation was unstable and about to become perilous, a hundred strange and possibly blasphemous things to think about that he’d heard last night—
—a powerful mage who was frightened of his own memories, unsure of himself—and called him “friend”—
—and a young woman, bright, intelligent, and competent, and disturbingly attractive—
—my head hurts.
All this before breakfast.
If I go back to sleep, will all this go away? No, probably not. He might as well get up and deal with it, then. It certainly wasn’t going to get any better. I just hope, he thought glumly, as he climbed out of his bed and started looking for a clean set of clothing, that it doesn’t get worse.
Tremane
Twelve
Belief, however, is a fragile thing, when coupled with shock. By lunchtime, he had a hard time convincing himself that he had actually seen the Firecat; in the face of all of his everyday work and lessoning, the whole incident seemed more like something brought on by a little too much imagination—and ale—than anything real. Besides, it made no sense! After all, why would a Firecat come to him? How could he possibly be central to anything? Now—Ulrich, or even that Herald Talia, that he could believe, but there was no reason to even dream he’d get the attentions of a Firecat. He was nothing more important than a secretary; a good one, but no more than that. Oh, there was that mysterious business that Ulrich sometimes alluded to, that he was a “channel,” which was presumably rare, but nothing ever seemed to come of it, and he doubted that anything would.
After a good, solid lunch of perfectly ordinary food, and when no further manifestations of the Sunlord’s regard appeared in his path, he had just about put it all down to an extraordinarily vivid dream just before waking. When he returned to his room to change after his lesson and ride with Alberich, he had second and third thoughts. There were no celestial cat hairs on his bedspread, no glowing paw prints on the wooden floor of his room. There had never been a Firecat; it was all the fault of reading those notebooks. He’d had a vivid dream, then let his imagination take over, that was all.
Comforted by those thoughts, he headed for An‘desha’s home (his ekele, he reminded himself; An’desha was teaching him Tayledras to go along with his Valdemaran), with nothing more on his mind than gratitude for the lovely, fair day. Too many times of late he’d had to make his way across Companion’s Field through drizzle, or worse, a downpour, just to visit his friend. Today, he might even be able to persuade An’desha to take their discussion outside. The young mage spent far too much time cooped up inside.
He was planning just where he would like to go, when he noticed that the Companions were not ignoring his presence the way they usually did. In fact, they were moving in on him from all directions, with a cheerful pur-posefulness to their steps. Some of them even seemed to be trying to block his path in a nonthreatening way. He stopped right where he was, and they continued to move toward him—but still not with any threat that he could detect. Rather, he got the impression of welcome, as if they had suddenly decided to play the gracious hosts.
This was decidedly strange behavior, even if he knew they weren’t horses!
But before he could say anything to them—though he wasn’t sure what