Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) (52 page)

Planir stirred in his seat and all faces turned towards him. Jilseth wondered what he might say to prompt those other Council members who were always so easily inclined to pursue debates along unexpected tangents. She had seen how skilfully and indeed how often the Archmage used the gathering’s predilections for his own purposes. Instead, he surprised her.

‘When considering such serious abuses of magic, I consider arguments based on ‘might’ and ‘likely’ as perilous a foundation for firm conclusions as shifting sand beneath a building.’ The Archmage inclined his head in a polite half-bow to Rafrid, Herion and Nolyen before gesturing to the central dais.

The shining pane of reflected scrying reappeared to show the entire room the appalling death by untamed fire affinity that Jilseth had witnessed earlier. A murmur ran around the chamber, all the mages aghast.

Planir swept that horror aside only to show the assembled wizards the second mageborn to die on that island; the emaciated man with the air affinity who had so utterly exhausted himself that he could no longer breathe unaided.

Jilseth laced her hands tight together in her lap. It was all too stark a reminder of the fate which she had so nearly suffered when she had thrown all her magic into Halferan Manor’s defence. It was little comfort to see ashen faces around the circle of the chamber walls betraying those wizards who recalled a similar experience.

Planir drew his hand back and the nightmare vision vanished.

‘However this Mandarkin is drawing affinity out of these unfortunates,’ he observed with distant compassion, ‘he’s not teaching them how to protect themselves from their own magic.’

Rafrid shook his grizzled head. ‘How long do you suppose it will be before they are all dead?’

‘Not soon enough to stop this Mandarkin using them for his own foul purposes,’ Troanna insisted coldly. ‘Archmage, you have a sworn duty to curb the abuse of magecraft!’

Her challenge echoed back from the highest recesses of the fan-vaulted roof.

Planir answered with a measured nod. ‘It is indeed the obligation of my office to curb excesses perpetrated through wizardry here in Hadrumal and across those lands that once encompassed the Tormalin Empire.’

He looked at the emptiness above the dais and then at Troanna. ‘I have no such authority to act anywhere in the Archipelago. No Aldabreshin warlord will ever acknowledge my writ.’

‘But what of those warlords?’ Kalion gestured aimlessly, frustrated. ‘Do you think that they will stand idly by while this villain does whatever he pleases with his own wizardry and with that of these mageborn he has coerced?’

‘Not at all,’ Planir assured him. ‘So why should Hadrumal risk incurring Aldabreshin enmity through some high-handed intervention when there’s every chance that the neighbouring warlords will rethink their strategy, renew their attack with yet more men and ships and rid us all of this pestilential Mandarkin? He is only one mage and for all that he may have a boatload of artefacts to draw on or these underlings’ own affinities to plunder, his strength is not inexhaustible. On the other side of those particular scales, Archipelagan willingness to send newly bought slaves to their death would seem to be limitless.’

The Archmage’s calm words chilled Jilseth more thoroughly than anything Troanna had said.

‘You speak of likelihood, Archmage, when you yourself have told us that is no foundation for action.’ The Flood Mistress flung Planir’s words back at him. ‘We can make certain that this menace is dealt with before this day is out. There are fire islands sufficiently close at hand for a mastercrafted nexus to provoke an eruption or an earthquake. There would be no reason for any Aldabreshi to suspect that Hadrumal had a hand in contriving such a disaster. They will doubtless consider natural justice struck that island, according to their own philosophies, if they ever summon up the courage to return.’

The Flood Mistress didn’t bother hiding her contempt for such cowardice.

‘No,’ Planir said flatly. ‘Such a hasty strategy served neither our own ends in the longer term nor the innocents of the Ice Islands. We will not repeat that error.’

Troanna opened her mouth, about to refute this. Instead, she pressed her lips into a thin line, her eyes narrowing unpleasantly.

Jilseth could see the Council members were divided between those who knew exactly what the Element Mistress and the Archmage were referring to and those, like herself, who didn’t. She made a mental note to ask Sannin for an explanation at the earliest opportunity. She also wondered why the elegant magewoman looked torn between supporting Planir and reluctantly agreeing with Troanna.

Kalion forced himself to his feet. Though his jowls were sagging with weariness, his eyes were bleakly unyielding. ‘Then let us consider burning that single island back to the bedrock, Archmage. After all, that’s doubtless what the Archipelagan warlords will do next, with their triremes bringing catapults and barrels of sticky fire to set a blaze ashore without anyone having to land.’

‘You intend killing all these unfortunates who’ve been coerced by the Mandarkin?’ Planir queried. ‘You would have to, after all, to make certain that there are no witnesses. Will you do that directly or merely hope that they perish in the flames? I wouldn’t be too sure of that. At very least, some mageborn instinct could safeguard those born to a fire affinity, though of course you would know better than me on that score.’

The Archmage’s voice hardened. ‘You argue that I should abandon my duty to nurture and defend the mageborn? When that’s as much a sworn obligation of my office, laid down by Trydek himself?’

As the Archmage raised his hand, the great diamond of his ring glowed with rainbow magelight. The cold white light in the roof above struck still more vivid hues from the four gems set around it.

‘If you insist that I have the authority to act to curb renegade magic in the Archipelago, then the reverse of that rune means I have an equal duty to protect any mageborn found in those islands. Those mageborn in particular.’ Planir’s tone hardened. ‘These unfortunates who if they can be freed from this Mandarkin’s tyranny are surely no more of a menace than any other newly-apprenticed mageborn in Hadrumal.’

‘Those mainland mageborn who are sent to us after setting a chimney alight in some fit of adolescent temper or because they have stirred lurking heat deep within a granary into deadly flames?’ Troanna demanded. ‘Who have shattered windows with a sudden frost in midsummer or with a dust storm on a calm day, or brought a millstream into unforeseen spate to shatter waterwheel, gearing and millstones, leaving an entire district to grind their daily corn in pauper’s querns? Sent here precisely because they are such a menace to the mundane?’

‘You cannot buy your bun and still pocket your penny, Archmage,’ Kalion said crossly. ‘You refuse to attack these mageborn directly yet you are content to see the warlords slaughter them. How are you defending the oaths of your office then?’

‘I said I was content to see the Archipelagans rid us all of the Mandarkin,’ Planir reminded the Hearth Master with cold precision.

‘These mageborn can hardly be considered as guilty as the Mandarkin,’ Rafrid interrupted. ‘They have been coerced. Those of us already in the Archmage’s confidence have all seen this for ourselves,’ he assured the gathering.

Jilseth saw that revelation prompt an unwelcome variety of expressions. Rather too many of the Council members looked affronted that the number of those evidently already well aware of this crisis didn’t include them.

‘Then let us bring these unfortunates here.’ Kalion threw up his hands, exasperated. ‘I take it that’s what you intend, Planir. By all means, let us train them properly.’

‘How would you propose to keep that a secret?’ Planir nodded towards the sealed door and to the high road beyond Trydek’s Hall. ‘From the wine shop gossips? From the wharf rats in Relshaz or Col when the ships which bring us mainland cargoes return to their home harbours? The Aldabreshi will learn of it, sooner or later,’ he assured the assembled wizards. ‘How do you think the warlords will react to news of us abducting their slaves and vassals?’

‘These mageborn are all corsairs,’ Kalion said hotly. ‘As guilty of attacking the Archipelagans as they are of murdering the mainlanders.’

‘Then Aldabreshin justice has a claim on them,’ Planir replied, ‘along with the Caladhrian parliament and the Magistracy of Relshaz and the Elected of Col. Do you imagine any of those will look kindly on Hadrumal usurping their authority?’

‘The first pebble lobbed into these waters was Minelas’s betrayal of Baron Halferan,’ Troanna spat. ‘All that has followed stemmed from that first treason against Hadrumal. That gives you all the authority you might require, Archmage!’

‘Do you think that the Elders of the Order of Fornet will agree?’ Planir wondered. ‘Or those of any other Soluran Order of wizardry? Do we believe that we’re the only ones scrying after this Mandarkin?

‘I very much doubt that,’ he continued thoughtfully, ‘just as I have no doubt that the Mandarkin lord to whom this renegade was once sworn seeks to track him down by some magical means, if he hasn’t already done so.’

‘If Mandarkin wizardry was capable of dealing with him, we would already have seen it,’ Troanna asserted.

‘Unless whoever is scrying on him from afar has chosen to wait and see,’ Rafrid said suddenly. ‘To see what becomes of him. To see what becomes of this collection of artefacts which he has amassed,’ he added with growing concern.

‘The Soluran Orders will not stand for seeing those fall into Mandarkin hands. And whatever lore may be gleaned from the things will be lost to us if any other wizardly tradition seizes them.’ It was hard to tell which prospect alarmed Kalion more. ‘Archmage, we must act!’

‘We will act when I decide the time is right,’ Planir said sternly. ‘In the meantime, let us see how the Mandarkin mage handles his surviving apprentices.’

The Archmage gestured towards the emptiness above the central dais with a wry smile. ‘I’ll wager good gold that we see he is as capable of quelling unruly magic as any of our pupil masters and mistresses.’

No one else in the circular chamber seemed remotely amused.

Planir shrugged. ‘Then make your feelings known.’

A flick of his wrist sent a beam of amber magelight soaring up to the white sphere floating high in the vaulted roof. The Archmage’s wizardry turned the light filling the chamber to soft gold. Rafrid, Sannin and a handful of other mages added their own colours to brighten the rippling brilliance.

Just as swiftly, Troanna flung a shaft of mossy darkness upwards, dimming the sphere with her disapproval. Canfor’s indigo endorsement of her action was followed more slowly by Kalion’s maroon rejection of Planir’s proposal. Other mages proved similarly unconvinced by the Archmage’s reasoning. Their verdicts dulled the magelit sphere with a tangle of rainbow shadows.

Jilseth added her own magelight to the next surge of wizardry, bright as brimstone. Cyan, rose and palest jade coloured declarations of support for Planir. The beams of radiance writhed and shifted amid the ochre and cobalt wizardry of those equally fervent in their opposition.

She set her jaw as she poured all her conviction that the Archmage’s strategy was correct into the light soaring upwards from her outstretched palm. The mundane magistracies and assemblies of the mainlanders were welcome to make their decisions on a simple show of hands or some tally of tokens dropped into empty barrels. Trydek and the first Element Masters and Mistresses had ensured that the wizards of Hadrumal had the means to gauge the strength of feeling behind every vote.

Sweat beaded Jilseth’s lip. Her magelight shivered as her affinity vacillated between ominous weakness and the terrifying possibility of wild magic escaping her control once again. She gritted her teeth as she bound her affinity with iron determination neither to abandon Planir’s cause nor to disgrace him with some undisciplined outburst.

If such a thing was possible in this chamber warded with ancient spells to prevent any wizards’ quarrel being settled by direct assault, magical or physical. All of Hadrumal’s current residents might agree that tales of battling mages belonged to those long-lost days before Trydek and his followers had settled this island but no Archmage had ever seen fit to unpick those particular sorceries.

Sorceries which would doubtless be as effective in quelling unbidden rampaging magic as they would be in stifling malicious intent. With that realisation soothing her fears, Jilseth found her affinity strengthening. Her magelight brightened.

Just as well, she realised, and just in time. The great chamber was dimming almost to twilight as the magelit sphere was veiled by the strength of the opposition to Planir’s proposed plan of action, or rather, inaction.

Jilseth wished she could see who was supporting the Archmage and who did not but she dared not spare the merest flicker of concentration from the gleaming sphere up above. The silence in the council chamber was broken only by the rustling as wizards here and there shifted in their seats and by the increasingly harsh sound of breathing.

Someone on the far side of the circle let slip a wordless snarl compounded of disgust and exhaustion. A rising spiral the colour of clotted blood vanished to leave a shaft of magelight tinged with leaf-green soaring upwards unopposed.

A single slipping pebble can start a landslide. Every earth mage knew that. Jilseth was intensely relieved to see that first breach in Troanna’s support was followed by other wizards abandoning their opposition to Planir’s authority. Though she noted uneasily that the remaining magelight, from all those endorsing the Archmage’s strategy, shone nowhere near as brightly as the floating sphere had done before the vote.