A.N.

Sorry this took so long I've actually had it written for more than a month but am currently in the process of finding a Beta, I have been sending it to my sister or another friend in the hopes of having my work edited.. However both of them seem to keep forgetting I sent it to them. So here it is in all its unedited glory. For those of you who are easily offended by spelling and grammer problems… I don't apologize, I'm dyslexic. Let me know if anyone has a beta recommendation as there are a lot of Beta profiles to read through in an attempt to find a good one.

((({ })))

A tall slender woman, fine of bone and fair of complexion entered the elegantly opulent room with unearthly grace. Her tresses swept across her back like a waterfall of purest ice. Forest green eyes alighted on the room's only furnishing – a loom that wove itself, producing the most exquisite of tapestries. A strange combining of yarn caught her attention, one bright strand of shining blue had somehow become caught upon a strand of finest, glowing amber. For a moment she froze in shock, before rushing to the loom, skirts gathered in one hand. This was a problem she would have to correct and correct fast.

She drew up short noting with visible relief that the two threads were only touching and not knotted or worse –felted- together. Inspecting the intricate weaving with a deft hand she pinched the bridge of her nose in aggravation and wondered how to undo the problem without unwinding the tapestry. To do so would be the greatest of taboos, but she could see no other recourse.

Perhaps if I ensure the yarn is given more space…

Blue and amber yarn balls burst into the air. A black, 50 pound scimitar toothed, cat leaping straight up after them, one paw extended claws out stretched. The balls flew across the room and collided with the far wall. Lose yarn trailing and tangling in their wake. The cat twisted in midair, powerful hindquarters bunching beneath its lithe body, it sprang off of the wall and batted the yarn out of the air. Pouncing atop them it pinned them to the ground like an ungainly bicolored bird, rumbling a deep throaty purr as it kneaded the wool with long curved claws. Turning its head it gazed up at her out of to intelligent eyes, grinned and vanished into the shadows.

Only the two balls of misplaced, disheveled yarn remained in mute testament to the animal's existence. With a sigh she bent to inspect the wool. Shock and mild horror filled her as she took in the full extent of the damage. The yarn was knotted together in places, but that was easily rectified.

No the problem was in the yarn itself. The two strands had become loosely felted together. Even if she could rework the tapestry, and untangle the mess of the yarn the two strands would always be tainted. She'd never be able to completely remove all traces of one from the other.

Not without re-carding and re-spinning the yarn. Unadvisable and forbidden.

Muttering under her breath about "damn medaling cats" and "The Deep Magic" she set about salvaging the yarn.

((({ })))

Sweat rolled down Vanyel's back as he sat in a once familiar pose on the floor of Starwind's workroom. Ignoring the pain in his knees and thighs, he focused every ounce of his energy into the very real problem of controlling the small palm sized ball of mage fire, hovering above the small inch high wax candle in front of him. Try as he might, he couldn't seem to make the flame any smaller. He alternated between abject humiliation at his own magical impotency and mild aggravation at the decidedly strange feeling of having someone actively evaluating not only what he was doing, but his magical reserves in minute detail.

The experience was downright painful in its intimacy.

Still, he needed to figure out what was wrong with his magic and regain his fragmented control. A strange thought when one considered the fact that he'd been perfectly capable of throwing Starwind and Moondance across the room just two weeks ago, when he'd mistook them for a threat.

In all honesty he was astounded by the amount of information Moondance and Starwind had been able to glean in the short time they'd spent healing him. He was also grateful to have someone human shaped, with whom he could discuss the strange situation he'd found himself in. He was thankful for the ability to converse with them candidly. Otherwise, he had no idea how he would have approached this – rather – unforeseen issue. For all Yfandes was brilliant, she lacked the fundamental understanding of magic a mage gifted person would have possessed, having never possessed it herself. As such, there was little she could do to help him regain his tenuous control.

Starwind had taken up his role as teacher once again, although neither of them had really expected he'd need the basic training. In fact, Van had had the proverbial list of subjects he'd wished to expand upon. He knew how to touch a Heartstone, how to move one, and how to create one – even if he had figured that last one out by accident when he'd set the original web spell. But there were still so many things he needed to figure out, if he was to have any hope of completing the monumental task ahead of him.

The task was straightforward, he needed to do exactly what he'd done in the original timeline, just with the added complication of doing it in such a manner that the magical protections he devised survived the cataclysm that would come in roughly five centuries, and somehow ensure that magic never went dormant in Valdemar. All while ensuring that Valdemar itself developed mind-magic to the same near scientific finesse that had been obtained in the original magicless timeline.

Just a simple straightforward task. He thought derisively. How in the nine hells am I supposed to ensure that my people don't fall to this new mage war, while at the same time ensuring that they don't become so dependent on magic that they fall to the damn Mage Storms. True he'd been able to devote a ridiculous amount of time to trial and error based exploration of magic during his extended stint as a disembodied spirit. However, just because he'd discovered how to do many things thought magically impossible due to conventional thinking, it did not follow that they would be useful in this new existence. They might be useful to the Herald-Mage, but what of his other tasks?

That's only one part of this impossible task. How do I save the Herald-Mages without forcing Leareth's hand? We need those Herald-Mages to even have a chance at altering our fate. But by the same token it was the extended absence of magic that allowed Valdemar to develop in such a way that enabled the survival of the Mage Storms. Lord Dark and Lady bright, why me? There are just too many variables. To many ways I can fail before I even start…

Am I brooding again?

Probably.

He considered the facts, while staring at the damned mage fire in front of him. He did not think he could do this on his own. The light cast by the palm sized flame flickered, illuminating the new and rather prominent scars that bisected his forearms. Odd, that I'd bare that kind of scar in both lifetimes. Though the causes are – quite – different.

He'd gotten the story out of a somewhat reluctant Yfandes, shortly after he'd awoken. He'd been lucky in his first lifetime. He hadn't known the correct way to slit his wrists when he'd sought to atone for the mistakes that had led to his beloved's death. He'd gotten even luckier in this life. Tylendel had known the right way when he'd attempted to make murder look like suicide. His power flared in response to his rising emotions. The Mage flame, which should have remained stable without him having to devote any attention to it beyond the initial casting, flared up in response. Rising to become a bright pillar of fire, obliterating the poor wax candle in the process. Startled he …squawked, and turned his attention to forcing down the magic. Banishing the flame with an effort of will that left him in physical distress, and still the power pulsed, roiled and crashed against the breakwaters of his will, like a tempest tossed sea.

Gasping for breath, in a manner that mirrored his struggle for control, he leaned forward over his knees and fought down both magic and nausea. If he didn't control the power it would control him. Panic he hadn't felt since his earliest days as a mage coursed through him as his power escaped his grasp and threatened to run rampant. Power crackled around him, given shape, but not –quite- form by his panic, and he fought harder, despair rising in his gut at the knowledge that he could not control what he'd accidentally conjured. Power lanced from Yfandes to him and back again in one short sharp arch, before dissipating again as the Companion helped him to bleed off the excess power.

Humiliation flooded him.

Stupid Herald, that's the twenty-third candle this morning.

He felt himself starting to relax at the soft wave of love and reassurance that washed down his link to Yfandes. He winced as a lock of silver streaked hair fell into his eyes – at this rate he was going to be white haired before he even left the Vale. Then again that could be a good thing, his hair had been heavily streaked long before he'd called down Final-strike on Leareth. He'd had five centuries to grow accustomed to mage-bleached hair. So, the raven locks had been a shock once he'd gotten over the restrictions that came with being embodied once again.

At least I might get a little more respect when we return to Valdemar then I did the last time.

"I believe I have come to understand the problem," Moondance's gentle tone raised the hairs on the back of his neck. "The problem cannot be corrected, but given time it can be worked around. Are you ready to hear the hand fate has dealt you, young Vanyel?"

Van suppressed the urge to groan. "I am," He replied.

"How long has it been since the Goddess brought you back?"

"Only a few weeks," He replied bemused.

"And before that, how long had you lived?" Moondance enquired.

Vanyel raised one sculpted eyebrow, and reminded himself that both Moondance and Starwind had a tendency to answer questions with questions in an effort to lead him forward on the path to discovering the answers for himself. As a boy of fifteen, he'd found the practice galling in the extreme. For that matter he didn't find it particularly pleasant now. "Less than half a century, if you count only the years as a caporal being, more than five if one does not limit their definition of a lifetime to years spent in a living body."

Moondance nodded, "That would make you more familiar with the art of magic without the limitations of your physical body."

Van considered that. It was true that he had become accustom to the magical freedom that came without having to worry about physically burning out his body. "True, however that shouldn't change my control."

"During your time as a border guardian, did your magical reserves replenish as they had when you were alive?"

"Yes," he answered automatically, thinking about the day he'd kidnapped a pair of Companions, five people, four Gryphons, a Dyheli and a Kyree. Transporting them from Tayledras lands to the far west of Valdemar, to the magically shielded heart of Sorrows in the far north – a distance greater then Valdemar from one end to the next. He'd been exhausted afterwards and had experienced difficulty maintaining a visible form for the better part of a day afterwards.

Moondance raised an eyebrow. "Are you –quite – sure?" he enquired. "Did you need to replenish your reserves often or did the lay lines feed the magic back into you quicker than before?"

Vanyel considered the question, and blanched when he realized that it had taken him a mere two days to recover after he'd stolen Firesong's gate and redirected its terminus. when he'd kidnapped his many times great granddaughter and her companions, it had taken a mere two days for him to recover. It had taken him a mere two days to recover from stealing another mage's gate and completely redirecting its terminus. Just two days' time and he'd been at full strength, with the magical energies and reserves required to then gate a relatively large party into the Ashkevron stronghold. Come to think of it he hadn't rested between casting the gate spell and bringing down the series of spells protecting Valdemar from magic within her borders. Despite his initial warnings to Elspeth, he'd required less than a week to regain enough strength to begin interfering with Ancar's forces in Valdemar. True, he'd taken it easy for a week afterwards –

But that had been more to appease Stefen, then from actual need.

No reason to bother the birds after all.

Startled by that revelation he turned his attention down and inward, in an attempt to take a look at his own magical aura and reserves. Taking care to envision magic as water as he had been taught, in that long ago here and now.

What he saw shocked him and he came up with a rush like a startled fish.

Rather than a pool of energy he had a rushing river of power. It flowed into him became a part of him and flowed back out into the lines of power he'd somehow inadvertently become a part of. He did not know how to handle this development. A person's magical reserve was rather like a small pond, a mage automatically siphoned a small portion of the magic around them into this pond, making the energy their own before using it.

He didn't know what to think, he had no personal pool, and instead he was simply attached to the nearest lay line at its widest accessible point. He got the impression that the only reason he wasn't tied into the nearest node was because he wasn't keyed to them yet. What would happen if I just connected to one or worse, what if I just accidently connected myself to the Heartstone? The thought made him shiver.

This is bad

This is very bad.

Panic took him by the scruff of the neck and shook him like a dog with a rabbit. His breath came in sharp gasps, as he tried to wrap his head around the issue.

:I am here, my Chosen,: Yfandes said into his mind, her voice full of gentle concern. He reached for her like a drowning man after a rope, and felt her enfold him in love, warmth and reassurance.

He calmed in the safety of her ethereal embrace and set about examining his situation with a sharp analytical mind. : Have you ever seen anything like this Fandes?: he enquired after a moment's reflection on the problem.

: Not in a mage Chosen, and I fear that having never been a mage myself I know less of magic then you yourself do.:

: But you have seen it before?: He prompted.

He sensed her disquiet through the link that sang between them. : In a sense.: She reminded after a silence that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. : The only time I've seen something like it was the Cat.:

He groaned at the reminder of the aggravating creature that had decided to make a mess of his peaceful afterlife. He spoke with Yfandes at length about what she'd seen both in him and in their feline stocker, trying to determine the exact point when his gift began to shift from what was – relatively – normal into something else. After a while he turned his attention back to the only other living creature in the workroom with him. Moondance sat before him the very image of statuesque serenity.

"Yfandes says that the issue I appear to be having developed slowly over the course of time, while we existed without physical forms." He informed the Healing adapt after he was sure he understood everything. "Apparently I failed to notice the difference due to the time involved in the transition and the fact that I had no physical body to interfere with how I channeled magic." He sighed and added, "That and I wasn't trapped in the body of an emotionally overwrought teenager." In a self-depreciating and derisive mutter.

Moondance chuckled, "be that as it may, my young friend. You will find balance and control again, you have no choice."

Vanyel inclined his head in acknowledgement of that simple truth. A mage's control was dependent in some sense upon their emotional state. He was powerful enough not to be dependent upon rituals, cantrips, runes, words or even hand movements to dictate his spells. A mage in duress, however, tended to suffer from a profound lack of finesse.

At least I don't have to worry about misspeaking a spell and ending up covered in fur or something equally humiliating.

"How long did you serve K'Valdemar as a border guard?" Moondance enquired.

"Several centuries," Vanyel replied with a slight sigh, elaborating when Moondance arched a sculpted brow. "More than five hundred years, less than six, I believe. Time ceases to be relevant given enough of it."

"Yes, I imagine it would," Moondance replied, a slight smile tugging at his lips. "Moving on from the relevancies of time to a non-corporeal, immortal entity. Is it safe to presume that over the course of a great amount of time, your energies began to ebb and flow with the natural rhythms of the land? That in essence you ceased to be recognized as an alien presence and were instead simply a part of the forest itself?"

Vanyel considered that question and contemplated an odd memory from his time as the Northern border guard. A calf sized catlike being, with brick red mask and points had appeared in his domain, and departed with Stef's old lute. The Fire Cat, Altra, if he remembered correctly had taken the time battered instrument out past the south western border and into the heart of the planes. The act had allowed Vanyel to manifest himself in that faraway land. He could manifest himself anywhere a bit of his wood existed, because the forest was in a sense his physical being. They had chosen the lute to make it easier for them to determine their manifestation point. It wouldn't do to appear by some poor farmer's hearth and frighten the liver out of them. Over time a lot of the Wood had made its way into the world, but there was only one lute that was so strongly connected to the forest.

"Then the situation is as I suspected. It is not one I have seen before, and unless it is a truly recent development, I fear there is nothing to be done to reverse it. You must simply learn to adapt." Moondance paused, when he groaned and continued only when he was sure Vanyel was listening. "Magic as you know is not constrained to the here and now, nor does it exist within the confines of either intuitive art or mathematical constraints. Rather it is dependent upon will, intent and understanding. An adapt with a strict set of rules is as effective or less than a hedge-wizard with no idea as to restrictions and an ample imagination. You have however unknowingly defied, one of the few things every mage has held to be true. You have touched the Deep Magic and lived to tell of it. Though you have not emerged unscathed."

"Deep's Magic?" Vanyel enquired, suppressing the urge to whine at the utter unfairness of his life like the hormonal teenager he currently was.

"I am not surprised you have not heard of it," Moondance replied. "Magic flows through lay lines like water through rivers, creating a network of power, strengthening and collecting at the various nodes, flowing out of this world and into the Empyreal planes before coming back again. This you know well enough to teach, however, it must first be claimed once again by the earth before it can flow into everything that makes up our world. This is the Deep Magic, it is the headwaters from which every lay line and node is fed. Without it… well the results of the magic flowing freely between the worlds would be catastrophic. Something akin to taking all the power of a raging tsunami and containing it within a steep narrow gorge."

Vanyel shuddered, he could well imagine the devastation that would befall any living creature if that were to happen. He listened to Moondance with rapt attention as the other Mage continued his explanation. "You spent so long as a disembodied spirit that you became a part of it, and it a part of you until the forest itself became your physical form and you ceased to be a mage as we know them. Instead you became a small Lay Line, magic flows into you, becomes a part of you and flows on, rather than pooling. Since magic does not follow the constraints of time as we do, Magic still recognizes you as a part of itself. You must learn to dam that river, lest you fling magic around without intending to. Like an apprentice with a node, you cannot use the Deep Magic even if you can sense it."

Vanyel nodded. "I shall work on regaining control then. The last thing I need is to start sprouting a carpet of flowers or something equally inconvenient."

"A further word of caution," Moondance advised. "Because of how you're reserves currently flow, and as a result of how I suspect you initially became a forest Guardian, you will have to take precautions that you do not call down final strike without intending to do so."

Vanyel blanched, then swore colorfully. "Beyond focusing on control exercises, for the time being is there anything else you can suggest?"

"No, however, I do have a bit of good news for you. To a mage not actively looking at your gift in minute detail, you appear as everyone else. You draw from the nearest lines of power, keyed or not, yet no one has noted a strange mage connected to the lines of power held by this Vale."

Van felt his body relax a fraction, At least I don't have to worry about this giving me away if I'm pretending to be someone else, or just trying to go unnoticed. That could have caused serious problems. He nodded, thanked Moondance for his help and settled back into the familiar pose, he'd been taught back when he really had been fifteen. Clearing his mind, he allowed his body to slip into the odd mixture of relaxation and tense concentration that all hawkbrother mages were taught. It was not hard, but the balance was delicate. To relaxed and you'd end up taking a nap, too much concentration and one would never achieve the state they needed. He needed to stay just this side of a true mage trance.

((({ })))

A small, lime-washed white, thatch-roofed croft that stood where no croft had existed before. Straddling the border of two ancient kingdoms that had once been part of a log ago prophesy. Four people sat before the hearth, backs to a door left carelessly ajar. The first, an unremarkable woman of indeterminate age sat furthest from the fire. Her graying hair pulled back and pinned to her head in a manor curiously careless and sever. Blue, time faded eyes, focused upon the work of strong, delicate hands, as she sat working the shuttle back and forth, to and fro, feeding dull colorless wool into vibrant tapestry, each strand taking on a hue as she carried the shuttle through the loom.

A balding old man, sat upon the cushion closest to the fire. His, aged, weather beaten face, a study of lines and deep wrinkles. It's resemblance to a time worn old map was so strong, one had to resist the urge to gaze upon it in search of familiar landmarks. His white hair stood out against the darker colors of his rough homespun woolen clothing, a common, old but well cared for tunic, belted over his trews. The bottom half of his right pant leg knotted below the stump of his knee with careful precision. A second smaller cushion supported his knee. Aged hands cupped an earthenware mug, as gentle eyes gazed upon the hearth's dancing flames with quiet intensity. Not far from him two younger men sat heads bent to their own tasks.

The older, a man who could only be described as brown, for everything about him from his hair, to his eyes, to his clothing were all degrees of peat brown. As if he'd been masterfully crafted of the woods and forest. With a sigh he set aside the old weathered crutch he'd been maintaining and set about honing the edge of his well-made long knife. The younger, a man scarcely out of his own boyhood, grown tall, muscular and lithe, sat cross-legged upon an old bear pelt on the floor in front of the fire. Long fingered, slim hands coaxed a great cat out of a block of wood, wielding the tip of his long knife with a deftness that spoke of long practice. Long black hair tied out of his face with a leather strap, and feral yellow eyes focused upon his delicate work.

Outside, slinking through the tall, scrubby grass, a large predatory cat made its way through the driving wind and rain headed for the croft's one door on silent paws.