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rejection, Taen shivered and woke in the dell on the Isle of
Vaere. Sheltered once more within the grove, she huddled with her arms
clenched around her knees. The place seemed less than secure. Taen glanced
about her with dream-haunted eyes. Although the link with
Emien stood severed, she sensed the resonant echo of her brother's screams as
he woke from nightmare on the silken coverlet of his bed in Kisburn's palace.
Never in Taen's darkest imagination had she guessed her brother might stand in
such peril, even when fear and anger had sometimes made him cruel. Troubled,
she hesitated to con-fide her findings to the
Vaere. Though quick in his perceptions, Tamlin could often be dispassionate
concerning events beyond his island sanctuary. If Emien was to be helped, he
would require the care and the compassion of one who understood his difficult
nature; one who knew, as his family did, that he had never been able to
forgive himself the error which tangled the net and began the inexorable
string of circumstances which resulted in his father's death.
Alone with her dilemma and confined to the Isle of the Vaere, Taen knew only
one on all of Keithland capable enough to restore her brother's trust. Without
pausing to ask Tamlin's permission, she gathered the battered remains of her
dream-sense around her, and launched her awareness in search of Anskiere of
Elrinfaer.
Fragile as fine silk thread, her probe unreeled across the void. Though the
Stormwarden's mind had largely stayed closed to her, Taen recalled every
nuance of his presence. She searched for the constant rhythm of surf against
the beaches of home; the wild, keening song of the first north wind of autumn,
and the sure power of the solstice tides; Anskiere was all that and more,
changeless as the renewal discovered each year in the gentle showers of
spring. Confident the Stormwarden would recognize her, Taen strengthened her
sending and presently located a thin glimmer of daylight. Hurrying now, eager
to reach her goal, Taen rushed through the gap, into a reality far distant.
She was greeted first by the solid boom of breakers and the sigh of breezes
combing windswept heights.
A moment later, the darkness parted around her, and her dream-sense ached in
the glare of sunlight thrown off the sheer, impenetrable heights of the same
ice cliffs she had encountered in Emien's dream.
The sight dismayed her. Pierced by the plaintive cries of the gulls, Taen felt
daunted by unanswerable sorrow. She surveyed that desolate vista, unwilling to
believe her search would end here, in a place of deserted wilds. With the care
Tamlin had taught her, Taen focused her dream-sense and sounded the place for
traces of life, or any clue which might reveal the Storm-warden's presence.
Almost at once the resonance of Anskiere's power surged through the gate she
had opened in her mind.
Constant and strong as storm tide, the warding forces he had set forth in that
place sang across the channels of Taen's sensitivity. Reassured of his
presence, the girl gathered herself and turned her dream-reader's skills to
tap the ward's source.
Darkness met her, deep and vast as night, and seemingly solid as a wall. Taen
gasped, unable to orient herself. She delved deeper, sought to thrust the
suffocating blackness aside and reach the Stormwarden's awareness. But her
meager skills would not answer in that place; the shadow refused to part.
Tossed about like a moth in a downdraft, Taen floundered and struggled to
reorient. But the wards restricted her, making progress impossible.
Taen persisted. Cold savaged her flesh, cut deep into her bones until it
seemed her very thoughts would freeze in place.
Her dream-sense labored, suddenly burdened by an overwhelm-ing weight of earth
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and ice overhead.
Taen persevered, striving to fathom the hidden center of the wardspell, but it
was not Anskiere she found. High and thin with distance, she caught the
whistling echo of a cry. Strange creatures lay imprisoned beneath. The eerie
harmonics of their wailing chilled Taen even more than the terrible cold, for
the sound touched her dream-sense with a feeling of lust and killing beyond
the capacity of violence to assuage. Held fast by Anskiere's wardenship, the
creatures she sensed could not win through to freedom;
but here, at the vortex of his powers, where she should have en-countered the
Stormwarden's living presence, Taen found si-lence and frost and the
impenetrable stillness of ages.
Discouraged at last she withdrew, returned to awareness of her own body. But
the grove of the Vaere seemed strangely comfortless after her sojourn, its
unbreakable quiet a constraint upon her ears. Grieved for the fate of her
brother and distressed by the loss and the loneliness created by the
Stormwarden's absence, Taen bent her head and wept. With her face buried
within her crossed arms and her shoulders shaking with misery, she did not
notice the thin chime of bells as Tamlin appeared at her side.
He seated himself on the rock by her feet, his forehead creased by a frown. "I
warned there might be risks, child." He paused to puff on his pipe. Blue smoke
rose and braided on the air currents around his hair, untouched by any hint of
a breeze. "Now, why not tell me what troubles you so."
Taen lifted her head, embarrassed by the tears on her cheeks. She dried her
face with her sleeve while
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