Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) (50 page)

Trydek’s Hall, Hadrumal

31st of For-Autumn

‘W
E MUST ASK
Velindre what those islanders will make of that serpent’s appearance,’ Planir remarked, ‘especially under these stars.’

‘That attack didn’t take him unawares. He must have been watching and waiting.’ Bitter with chagrin, Jilseth removed one hand from the side of the scrying bowl set between them on the table in Planir’s study.

She reached for her tisane glass and took a sip. The ginger and lemon infusion was cold but she didn’t care. She didn’t bother warming it with a touch of magic. After such exhausting wizardry, the last thing she needed was the glass shattering in her hand through some momentary lapse.

‘So much for Ely and Galen assuring us that our friend was settling down for the night,’ Planir said thoughtfully.

‘They could only tell us what they saw.’ Jilseth felt compelled to offer that in their defence.

As midnight had approached, Ely had come up the steps from the sitting room to detail the Mandarkin renegade’s familiar routine of gorging and drinking. She and Galen had surveyed the other pavilions to see the coerced mageborn similarly making ready for bed. Planir had agreed that there was nothing to be gained by spending their dwindling stock of bitumen on watching people sleep. So had Nolyen and Cloud Master Rafrid who’d kept watch all through the previous day, discussing their observations and theories with Planir and Jilseth at the time.

Jilseth had wondered if it was really worth her rising a full chime before dawn to join the Archmage in resuming this vigil. So much for those doubts. Had Planir had some inkling of what was in the wind, when he had insisted on their early start? She searched his face for some clue but found nothing.

Planir looked up from the bowl. ‘Should we suppose that he knew he was being observed? That he sought to trick us into looking elsewhere by lulling our suspicions?’

Jilseth frowned. ‘None of us have felt any brush of his magic against our scrying.’

‘Can we be certain we would know it if we had?’ Planir countered. ‘We are so unfamiliar with Mandarkin spells.’

Jilseth had no answer to that. She gazed down at the scrying bowl where the renegade and his apprentices were still watching the sea serpent. ‘He’s not watching the attackers now.’

‘Why should he?’ Planir gestured and the vision in the scrying bowl slid with dizzying speed across the distant island.

Jilseth watched the frantic men scrambling through the scrub beyond the bloodstained hollow with the ring of stones. Where thorns ripped their clothing, their skin showed deathly pale amid the shadows beneath the dark trees.

These were mainland slaves, such as the men whom she and Nolyen had seen loaded aboard ship in Relshaz. Mellitha continued to report that men of fighting age, regardless of any lack of proven skills with bow or blade, were being purchased in unprecedented numbers from the city’s slave traders.

Now the survivors of that magewrought massacre fled in terror. They were casting aside their unfamiliar armour, too frantic to cut their path clear with the swords they had surely never expected to be given by their new masters.

‘What do you suppose they were promised for killing the mage?’ She took another sip of cold tisane to quell her queasy apprehension. ‘How is their failure likely to be punished?’

‘I have no idea.’ Planir slowly shook his head. ‘But whatever they fear might happen, they’re far more terrified of staying ashore.’

The first of the slaves, those who had been the last to disembark, were already stumbling back onto the beach strewn with the bones of the dead corsairs trapped by the Mandarkin mage’s arrival. Those skeletons had been picked clean by the crabs and the seabirds.

‘He’s made no effort to sink these ships,’ Jilseth contemplated the swift galleys with their sterns turned to face the beach.

None had thrown down an anchor, held in place instead by gently feathering oars. She could see their crews rushing back and forth, horrified by the bloodied slaves’ return and still more terrified of what might be following the fugitives. One galley was already rowing away, abandoning the frantic men splashing into the shallows.

‘He wants them carrying word of his power and those mages now backing him to spread as far and wide as possible,’ Planir observed.

‘And they’ll spread word of exactly how destructive unbridled wizardry can be.’ Jilseth wondered how long it would take for such stories to get back to the mainland. How exaggerated would those tales become? Or would the simple truth suffice to poison the atmosphere in Relshaz against the mageborn further?

The first stirring breeze of the day plucked at the galley’s masthead pennants, proclaiming this unlikely alliance of northern Archipelagan warlords: Khusro, Jagai, Esul and even Nahik whose spineless ruler Jarir had turned a blind eye to the corsairs for so long.

Jilseth cupped both of her own hands around the scrying bowl again, seeking to shift the spell back across the island to see what the Mandarkin mage was doing now. Emerald magelight flared as Planir’s magic confounded her own. She looked up with a puzzled frown.

‘I want to see where these galleys go,’ the Archmage explained. ‘To see if they scatter or if whatever treaty these warlords have made with each other holds in the face of this disaster.’

Jilseth nodded her understanding. She and Planir had watched the laden galleys trace their final path to this island far from the usual sea lanes. There could be no clearer evidence of the warlords’ alliance. It was unheard of for an Aldabreshin ruler to allow a rival’s ships and mariners to see the jealously guarded routes and vital shortcuts through backwaters so vital for a domain’s defence.

The triremes had led the way from Jagai Kalu’s home island, their stern lanterns showing the following vessels how to pick a route southward through the reefs hidden beneath the dark waters. More ships had joined the fleet as their path curved westward through Nahik waters and as they approached the corsairs’ erstwhile anchorage, their numbers were swelled further by vessels flying Khusro Rina’s standard.

Three vessels had strayed too far from the choppy wake of the ship ahead to founder on an unsuspected reef. There could be no greater proof of the warlords’ desperate urgency to rid the Archipelago of the Mandarkin wizard. They had all commanded their ship masters to risk the hazards of night rowing through unknown waters in uncertain light. If the Greater Moon was only two days past its full, the Lesser was the merest fleeting suggestion of an iridescent arc.

‘Do you suppose they will be allowed back on board, now that they have been attacked by magic?’

Watching the ship masters on the remaining galley’s stern platforms, she stretched to ease the stiffness of long concentration in her back and shoulders. Slaves were standing in the shallows, their weaponless hands raised in appeal rather than reaching for the wooden ladders to scramble aboard. The reason for that was easily seen. The waiting ship masters were all flanked by archers.

Before Planir could reply a fiery circle appeared in the empty air above the scrying bowl.

‘
Archmage?
’

‘Flood Mistress,’ Planir acknowledged the bespeaking spell courteously.

‘
We must lay all this before the Council. They will agree that we must curb this menace at once.
’

‘What menace?’ Planir enquired mildly.

Jilseth could only see the reverse of the spell, a shimmering haze bounded by swirling crimson. She didn’t need to see Troanna’s face. She could hear the ragged weariness in the magewoman’s words.

‘
Do not play the fool, Archmage, nor play me for one.
’

Jilseth guessed that Troanna had been up before dawn, perhaps all night, scrying as Planir had done.

Who had been supporting the Flood Mistress? Canfor? Jilseth wondered how many other mages across Hadrumal’s halls were sitting over silver bowls of ensorcelled water, trying to fathom the mystery of the Archmage’s latest interest in affairs beyond their island’s shores.

Not that they could have succeeded, even if they had guessed at some upheaval involving the corsairs and the Archipelago. Not without some bitumen and the magecrafting vital for using it.

She stiffened. Where had the Flood Mistress obtained some of their limited supply?

‘Troanna, I have the greatest respect—’

The bespeaking spell blinked and died. A bell’s sonorous toll echoed across the city.

Planir looked at the morning still so pale though the windows. ‘It seems that the Flood Mistress has as little respect for Council members’ sleep as she does for her Archmage,’ he said lightly.

The bell tolled again. Jilseth could only imagine the scene in tower bedchambers across the city. The ancient, quintessential enchantments which Trydek, first Archmage, had instilled in that bell meant that no Council member could ever sleep through its summons.

She tried to think who among the Council members was currently away from Hadrumal. Those same enchantments would be startling them, however far away they might be. Distance was no object to a mage after all and the honour of a seat on the Council was balanced by the obligations that such rank laid upon those wizards. The foremost was to assemble whenever they were summoned. To safeguard this island with their wisdom and vigilance.

Though the Council had agreed in recent generations that members were allowed to send proxies. Jilseth tried to think who else might arrive in the chamber on that basis and what influence their presence might have on the subsequent debate.

No, it was no good. She was too woolly headed with weariness to tally up Planir’s likely supporters and detractors. Besides, she had no clear idea what the Archmage would say.

What course of action might Troanna propose, come to that, demanding the Council’s endorsement? Jilseth had heard the implacable anger in the Flood Mistress’s words.

She also wondered what Troanna had seen while she had been scrying. If the Flood Mistress had been keeping watch on the Mandarkin mage when Planir was not, perhaps she had seen something which the Archmage had missed. Something vital? Would Troanna share it, for the greater good of Hadrumal? Or seek some personal advantage at the Archmage’s expense?

The Council bell repeated its insistent summons and startled her out of such thoughts. Jilseth headed for the study door.

‘One moment.’ Planir had crossed over to the fireplace.

A snap of his long fingers kindled scarlet flames beneath the kettle. The water started seething barely a moment later. The Archmage assembled two fresh tisane glasses, filling their pierced silver balls with herbs for steeping from several jars along the mantel shelf.

‘Here.’ He raised the lid on a covered dish and tossed something to Jilseth.

She found herself catching a honey cake.

Planir smiled through the tiredness deepening the fine wrinkles around his eyes. ‘There are plenty of mages who have much further to walk than we do. So we can take a few moments to restore ourselves.’ His smile faded. ‘I suspect that we’ll need all our wits about us.’

‘What do you think Troanna will say?’

Jilseth couldn’t help asking, though she found she wasn’t surprised to see Planir shake his head.

‘We’ll know soon enough and there’s nothing to be gained by going looking for trouble.’

He poured boiling water and handed her the tisane glass. The steaming liquid was dark and oily with an unfamiliar scent. Jilseth couldn’t help looking at the Archmage, a question in her eyes.

He grinned, sipped his own drink and grimaced before replying.

‘It’s said that the Mountain Men thrash themselves with holly leaves before going into battle, to make sure that they are alert. Aritane, the
sheltya
woman in Suthyfer, has told Usara in no uncertain terms that this is yet more lowlander nonsense. The truth is there are varieties of holly whose leaves and twigs make this particular tisane which is remarkably effective in repelling tiredness. But you will want to eat that honey cake,’ he added.

Jilseth took a cautious sip and found out why. Bitterness puckered her lips before the hot liquid had reached her throat. She took a hasty bite of the sweet pastry and contemplated the glass with misgiving.

Planir had already drained more than half of his own drink. He crammed a second cake into his mouth, urging her on with an impatient hand.

Jilseth forced herself to drink the tisane. After the initial shock, the taste wasn’t so revolting, if only something could be done about that jarring bitterness. She ate the rest of her cake, remembering her mother promising a spoonful of honey to follow childhood doses of physic.

Planir shucked off his shabby faded doublet and took an elegant sleeved jerkin from the hook on the back of the study door.

‘Ready?’ He shrugged himself into the black garment.

Jilseth nodded. ‘Archmage.’

She smoothed her grey wool gown and reassured herself that the forgiving cloth would see the worst creases fall away as they walked to the Council chamber.

Whatever was in that tisane was already proving itself. She could feel the liquid’s warmth washing away the tiredness weighing her down.