Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [156]
“She would,” Karal said dryly. “I have the impression that Master Tam would never take an indirect route when there was a direct one available.” Other students drifted along behind them, talking quietly to one another, voices murmuring across the otherwise silent street.
“She does tend to bludgeon things,” Natoli replied, but smiled. “Father was just pleased that I’d found my avocation; he granted his leave, and I’ve been studying with Master Tam ever since.”
“At least you had some choice in the matter,” Karal replied, with some envy. “I was quite literally kidnapped by the Priests.” He went on to describe his own childhood, while An’desha and Natoli both listened with interest.
“Odd that of the three of us, I am the one who had the most normal childhood,” An’desha mused. “How very strange.”
“Well, you made up for it.” Karal slapped him lightly on the back. “Never mind; I’ve figured out that anyone who is more intelligent than the people around him has troubles as a child. The important thing is not to dwell on those troubles and make them into all you are. You should do what you can with what parts of your life you have personal control over!”
“That makes good sense,” Natoli applauded, and changed the subject. “I wonder what late night food we can gain personal control over?”
Several days passed, with Karal serving double duty: to the mages and with the engineers. As the days went by, the engineers collected more and more information and added it all to their charts, tables, and maps. Florian passed on a great deal more of what Master Tam referred to as “data” from other Companions out in the field with their Heralds—all of it was pertinent, and most of it was much more accurate than the information coming from humans. After the third day of this, Karal paused in the midst of his copying, struck by the fear that all this might not be the sort of thing Vkandis would approve of his acolyte doing. After all, he hadn’t seen Altra in days. Was the Sunlord annoyed with him?
At that very moment, Altra wandered through the room, tail waving like a banner in a light breeze.
Karal froze, and not just because Altra had appeared the moment Karal thought of him, but because it was here, in the middle of a crowd of—well—unbelievers. What were they going to think? Altra wasn’t exactly inconspicuous !
But the others did nothing unusual. The other students and teachers saw him—they avoided trampling him when he was in their path—but they didn’t seem to see anything odd about him. He jumped up onto one or two tables and surveyed the figuring and charting going on with aloof interest, and none of them stared at him. He might very well have been a perfectly ordinary tavern cat.
Considering that he was four or five times larger than any domestic housecat that Karal had ever seen, that was certainly strange!
But Altra eventually made his way to the back of the room where Karal sat staring at him, and gave Karal an approving wink.
:They see only what they are expecting to see,: the Firecat said cryptically. :I have more information for you. The same patterns are in Karse and southward. Tell the others. You’ll get the maps and so forth that Solaris has sent you in a few days.:
And with that, Altra strolled underneath a table, and did not come out on the other side. Karal sat there with his pen still in his fingers for a long time.
Well—at least he approves, Karal thought, dazedly. That was, after all, one less worry.
But given his current luck, with every worry that he lost, four more rose to take its place.
A day later—and the half-expected second wave swamped them. It came exactly one day short of a fortnight, and at very nearly the same time of day as the first one.
This time the areas of disturbance were not as obvious until a few days had passed, and someone noticed that there were