Karux sat on his cushion until his butt ached and his lower back began to hurt. He had spent hours focused on the world of shapes, his students fruitlessly whispering the name of fire, trying to call to themselves the elements of change. The elements swirled about them, drawn to the flame of their lamps, colliding with the oil in the wicks and the air, breaking the oil down into its simplest elements. The whole process was so obvious that he grew frustrated when they continually failed to see it.

Of the three, Netac had the sharpest mind, quickly grasping the concepts he taught them. But that questioning mind was also his weakness, constantly undermining his progress with doubts that bordered on paranoia.

Harkin was his mirrored opposite. He also had a sharp, though completely undisciplined, mind. He would often fail to grasp even basic concepts, then make sudden intuitive leaps that demonstrated a profound understanding of that force Karux called karis. More than once, he had forced Karux to rethink his conceptions of his own craft.

Harkin had come the closest to successfully controlling karis. He'd made the lamp flame flare up, die down, and once—when Karux thought him ready—he nearly lit a cold dead lamp. But Harkin couldn't seem to do the same thing twice.

Corha was his most consistent performer. She frequently gathered to herself karis of the type she wanted, but at the moment when success seemed most inevitable, everything fell apart.

Karux glanced at Garanth sulking by the wall. The symbols Karux thought of as stone or land or manifestation, swarmed about him waiting to be used. He had no doubt that if Garanth were to awaken to them, he would prove the most powerful of them all, not because of any innate ability of his to summon the elements, but because of the elements desire to be used by him.

Karux heard voices coming from the hallway.

"Is he here?"

"He's teaching his students right now."

"I must speak with him."

"He doesn't wish to be disturbed."

For a moment, Karux feared Eiraena had decided to become difficult and that the women watching her could no longer handle her. He cast his awareness through the schemas that defined the stone walls and corridors of Har-Tor and found the chamber where a group of women sat spinning and weaving. They had apparently given up trying to teach Eiraena their arts. Eiraena sat on the floor in the corner muttering to herself, weaving potential realities in the karis around them. The women were oblivious to the strange manner in which Eiraena imitated them. Karux hoped she did not collapse the schema she had fashioned. He could tell she was only focused on the color and patterns of the elements. There was no telling what havoc the schema would cause if she activated it.

Karux shifted his focus back to the world of light and shadow just as Nesim and Tac'ha, two of Har-Tor's elders of the council, barged into the room. "Why are you disturbing my students?"

On cue each apprentice looked up, casting glances at the pair of old men standing in the entryway.

"Continue your study!" Karux snapped.

His students returned to staring at their flames.

"Our apologies, Oracle...." Nesim tugged at Tac'ha's sleeve.

Tac'ha shrugged him off. "You have much neglected your duties, Oracle."

Karux leaned back and stretched out one leg to get the blood flowing again. "And which of my countless duties would that be?"

"Your duty to advise and consult with the council of elders. We hold a full meeting every sennight, yet we are fortunate to see you even once a maht."

"Having difficulty sorting out the squabbling families and who gets to live in which chambers? Or is it the rubbish removal? Has storage space run out because people keep claiming rooms for different purposes without telling you?"

An apologetic smile slid across Nesim's round face, never quite reaching his eyes. "No one is suggesting that you do not do your part, that you enjoy the food we gather while playing with your children and let others perform the dirty, difficult and disrespectful tasks of managing a small city..."

"Just what are you accusing me of then?"

"Only of denying us the wisdom we need to accomplish our tasks."

Tac'ha gave Nesim a sideling glance; his pursed mouth suggested he'd tasted something sour.

Karux turned his attention to Tac'ha. The wiry old man reminded him of Tragophan who had led a train of survivors out of the northern valley when the angorym had attacked. That elder had been obstinate and bluntly honest. He'd also, over time, become one of Karux's most faithful supporters. Already old some fifteen years ago when the attack occurred, the ancient Tragophan still sat on the council of elders, though he spent most of his time sleeping.

"What has happened that you suddenly require my presence?" Karux asked Tac'ha.

"We have heard the latest batch of recruits are returning from the north and will be here tomorrow. The council wishes to discuss your plans for them."

"Very well." Karux picked up his staff and used it to lever himself onto his feet. He glared around at his students who had stopped to watch him. "You continue to study. I want you igniting and putting out those lamps by the time I get back. And you—" He jabbed a finger at Garanth. "You might as well come with me. I don't want you disturbing the others."

<====|==|====>

The council chamber was a big sphere. It had been excavated to look like a natural stoma in whose lower half a series of steps had been carved. A platform, another series of steps, rose up from the center so that its top was near the sphere's equator. On that top, nine huge chairs had been chiseled out of the rock, facing each other in a circle. All of them were occupied by old men.

A wooden bridge had been added at some point to allow the elders to more easily reach the platform while everyone else was forced to climb up and down stairs. A score or more people already sat scattered on the risers lining the sphere which could easily hold several hundred. Karux and Garanth entered and sat near the top.

Nesim watched them enter from his chair on the platform. He stared after them as if expecting them to approach, then leaned over and tugged on Onsha's sleeve and whispered in his ear. Onsha, the leader of the elders, glanced in their direction and began singing a hymn of thanksgiving. The chatter died down as the other elders and their assistants joined in the singing. When they finished, Onsha gestured to a man standing at his side who slammed the end of a wooden pole into the stone three times.

"I hereby call this council of the elders of Har-Tor into order."

Karux leaned toward Garanth. "I think they've been too much around the dwerka. They've started imitating their rituals."

"History-keeper," Onsha continued, "please remind us of what we had last discussed."

A younger man, evidently chosen for his memory, rose from a smaller wooden chair. A dozen or so of the things, scattered among the immovable stone chairs, had been brought in for the lesser elders and other functionaries. "When last the council met," the history-keeper began, his thin voice getting lost in its own echoes, "Corless had asked us to consider the possibility of asking the dwerka to excavate some additional space for storage..."

Karux leaned his head back against the wall, suddenly realizing how tired he was. At the moment he wanted nothing more than a very long nap. He only closed his eyes a moment, but when he opened them, he found himself standing atop a building of stone steps built in a blasphemous imitation of the sacred mountain.

Overhead, an angry swirl of gray clouds covered the sky, blocking any view of Archetor, the real sacred mountain to the east. Below him stretched the city of Nur, its streets littered with the dead who had once followed Amantis.

It was an image that had haunted him throughout his childhood. The horror of death and destruction had nearly driven him mad. A feeble breeze rose up with a cold bite. Karux pulled his robe tighter and folded his arms around himself. Instead of horror, the scene only brought feelings of loss, regret and a certain sense of numb despair.

Karux looked down at his feet. He had collapsed this building! He had buried his love, Garanth's mother, inside and pulled down its support pillars. He had forced Amantis' tireavs to cover it in endless buckets of dirt and planted an ironwood tree at its top.

This wasn't a vision of the future. This was the past. Why was he here?

Karux felt a subtle change in the atmosphere and the attention of a new presence. He looked up as a ray of light pierced the dark clouds, gliding down like a bird. The rippling wave of white flame grew larger as it neared, pausing overhead as blinding radiance flared out like a bird spreading its wings as it lands.

Two eyes shone on him, framed in beautiful, long, black lashes. Karux saw himself reflected in silvery irises surrounding pupils of an infinite blackness which threatened to swallow him whole. A soft woman's voice whispered in his head. "Karux—"

"Karux!"

Karux jerked awake and found himself in the council chamber.

Garanth leaned over and muttered. "They want to ask you a question."

Karux found his staff and pushed himself to his feet.

"Karux? Can you hear me?" Tac'ha leaned over the edge of the platform as if that extra few inches would help carry his words across the gap from the platform to the top seats at the back of the room.

"Yes." Karux groaned and began the long awkward climb down the stairs of benches, dragging his bad leg.

"You don't need to come all the way up," Onsha assured him. "We would just like to know what you plan to do with the returning warriors."

Karux refused to answer. They had dragged him down there; he was going to make them wait until he made it all the way. He climbed laboriously down to the bottom of the room, then up to the platform.

"You could just tell us."

Karux rose, gasping, over the platform's top and leaned on his staff, glowering down at them. "You know my policies for training the tireavs. They haven't changed. Why do you ask?

"We're concerned about the expense. It takes...how much food?" Onsha gestured to another functionary.

"One vadh per person per sennight," the functionary said.

"That's about four hundred vadh of grain a maht for the entire tireav," the Onsha concluded.

Karux shrugged. "Is that a problem?"

"That is a tremendous cost to only then send the tireavs up north to fight angorym for the dwerka," one irritated elder cut in.

"Would you begrudge payment to the smith who sharpens your knife or sickle? Why do you begrudge the dwerka the use of our spearmen? They feed them, provide for them and train them all at their expense while they're away. We can teach them how to hold a spear and which end to thrust with, but the only way to learn how to fight is to fight."

The irritated elder sat back in his chair and gave the others a disgruntled look.

Nesim broke the following silence. "The latest tireav will soon return from fighting up north. If I may ask, what do you intend to do with them?"

"They will be released, as always, to go home and help with the harvests."

"So after all that time and expense, you will let them go and train more to replace them?"

Karux smiled. He understood the nature of Nesim's—and presumably the others'—complaint. "Yes, and I even let them keep their weapons when they leave."

Nesim took a step back in mock surprise. "Why we must have purchased a fortune in bronze spear-points alone. Is it wise to be throwing them away?"

Karux chuckled. "A warrior who has shed blood knows his weapon is all that stands between himself, his family and death. He would never throw it away."

"And you trust them not to sell their weapons?"

"They will only rise as high as our expectations for them. Besides, they know they will be held responsible by the ultimate judge should they and their spears be needed and they are not available."

"Held responsible?" Tac'ha asked. "In what way?"

"They'll die and their families with them."

The elders gave each other uncomfortable looks. "I think he is exaggerating," Onsha said.

"Not at all. I think you do not appreciate the threat we face." Karux paused to glare each elder in the eye. "When the enemy comes, his spears will fill the valley; his campfires will outnumber the stars in the sky. He will lay down a mountain of corpses up the slopes of Har-Tor and climb over his own dead to break inside.

"When the enemy comes, every man who can stand and hold a spear must fight. Even then, I don't know if we can stop them."

"You make the enemy sound more like a natural disaster than a living foe," Tac'ha grumbled.

"They will be just as unforgiving."

"I wonder if you can tell us when the enemy will come?" Nesim asked.

"No. I fear not."

"So you don't know how much time we have to prepare."

"No."

Nesim grimaced. "That is unfortunate. You see we cannot put our lives on hold. If we do not plant and harvest, we may starve to death before the enemy even approaches."

"What are you trying to say?"

"The community has many needs that have gone unmet. It is the opinion of the council that we should divert some of the food the farmers send us to meet those needs."

"Yes, that is unfortunate." Karux smiled. "You see all that food belongs to me."

"What?" The elders erupted in angry muttering. One leaped out of his chair. "You can't mean that!"

"But I do."

"That food was for the good of the community!"

"Only because I said so."

"But we have agreements with the farmers!"

"And what is that agreement?" Karux asked.

"Why for them to provide us men for training and food for supplying them and us in exchange for our protecting their koria."

"And providing them a second harvest," Karux added, noting that they seemed to have forgotten the most important part. "And they are only required to give us half of that second harvest."

"But they give us a quarter of both harvests," Onsha said.

"Only because you became so impatient waiting for the second harvest. And, might I add, that second harvest is only possible due to my craft." Karux paused a moment to let them think about that. "What do you think would happen to the agreement if I failed to provide that second harvest? What would happen to this community?"

"If I didn't know better," Nesim suggested, "I'd think you were threatening this community."

"No. You are threatening, this community, by leaving it unprepared for the approaching danger!" Karux slammed the end of his staff into the floor; its wooden crack echoed throughout the chamber.

"Has the angorym attack been so long in the past that you've already forgotten it? Forgotten how I tried to warn the villages of the north? How many died because they failed to heed my words? And later, when the oracle of the south sent his tireavs to capture the food and enslave the people of our koria, who started the tireavs and trained and led them to stop him? Why do you now wish to make the same mistakes the dead made? How dare you accuse me of threatening this community when you are preventing me from saving it?"

Onsha cleared his throat. "No one is threatening anyone. We are merely discussing priorities and how they may be met."

"That is your concern, not mine. If you see a need, then put your hands to work and meet it. As for the tireavs and the food coming in from the farmers, I shall set those priorities."

Karux whirled and strode back to the stairs. He thumped his staff angrily down each step as he descended, though he was forced to slow his pace to accommodate his bad leg. He wasn't sure if the elders understood the significance of his comment that he alone would set the tireavs priorities.

That, however, was a threat.