Free Fionavar 1 by The Summer Tree Page B

spoken.
    Ailell's expression, though, was mild, even compassionate. "I thought you might," he said. "I'm not sure why, but I thought you might."
    Paul lowered his face to the deep wine goblet and took a long drink. "My lord," he said, to break the ensuing stillness with a new subject, any new subject, "why did the Priestess say that Loren should have asked her before bringing us? What does-"
    "She was wrong about that, and I will send to tell her so. Not that Jaelle is likely to listen."
    Ailell's expression was rueful. "She loves to make trouble, to stir up tensions she might find ways to exploit. Jaelle is ambitious beyond belief, and she seeks a return to the old ways of the Goddess
    ruling through her High Priestess, which is how it was before Iorweth came from oversea. There is a good deal of ambition in my court, there often is around the throne of an aging king, but hers runs deeper than any."
    Paul nodded. "Your son said something like that last night."
    "What? Diarmuid did?" Ailell gave a laugh that was actually evocative of the Prince. "I'm surprised he sobered up long enough to think so clearly."
    Paul's mouth twitched. "Actually, he wasn't sober, but he seemed to think pretty clearly anyhow."
    The King gestured dismissively. "He is charming sometimes." After a pause he tugged at his beard and asked, "I'm sorry, what were we speaking of?"
    "Jaelle," Paul said. "What she said this morning."
    "Yes, yes, of course. Once her words would have been true, but not for a long time now. In the days when the wild magic could only be reached underground, and usually only with blood, the power needed for a crossing would be drained from the very heart of the earth, and that has always been the province of the Mother. So in those days it was true that such an expenditure of earthroot, of avarlith, could only be made through intercession of the High Priestess with the Goddess. Now, though, for long years now, since Amairgen learned the skylore and founded the Council of the
    Mages, the power drain in their magic runs only through the mage's source, and the avarlith is not touched."
    "I don't understand. What power drain?"
    "I go too quickly. It is hard to remember that you are from another world. Listen, then. If a mage were to use his magic to start a fire in that hearth, it would require power to do it. Once all our magic belonged to the Goddess and that power was tapped straight from the earthroot; and being both drained and expended in Fionavar, the power would find its way back to the earth-it would never diminish. But in a crossing the power is used in another world-"
    "So you lose it!"
    "Exactly. Or so it was once. But since Amairgen freed the mages from the Mother, the power Page 31

    will be drained from the source only, and he rebuilds it in himself over time."
    "He?"
    "Or she, of course."
    "But . . . you mean each mage has . . . ?"
    "Yes, of course. Each is bonded to a source, as Loren is to Matt, or Metran to Denbarra. That is the anchoring law of the skylore. The mage can do no more than his source can sustain, and this bond is for life. Whatever a mage does, someone else pays the price."
    And so much came clear then. Paul remembered Matt Sören trembling as they came through the crossing. He remembered Loren's sharp concern for the Dwarf, and then, seeing more clearly still, the dim torches on the walls of that first room, the torches frail Metran had so easily gestured to brightness, while Loren had refrained to let his source recover. Paul felt his mind stretch away from self-absorption, stiffly, as if muscles had been too long unused.
    "How?" he asked. "How are they bound to each other?"
    "Mage and source? There are a great many laws, and long training to be endured. In the end, if there is still willingness, they may bind with the ritual, though it is not a thing to be done lightly.
    There are only three left in Fionavar. Denbarra is sister-son to Metran, Teyrnon's source is Barak, his closest friend as a child.