Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (41 page)

Jilseth surveyed their surroundings, trying to ignore the vile absence numbing her wizardly senses. She had to agree that this library was perfectly suited to wizardly study. If she were ever to be Mistress of a newly founded Hall, she could commission just such a building.

‘Good.’ Micaran smiled. ‘Now let’s proceed before Planir tries shaking one of us back to awareness? He’s as impatient as he is curious about Artifice.’

Jilseth turned back to Micaran. ‘What manner of place do you find in Planir’s thoughts?’

The adept didn’t answer, looking instead at the far wall. Jilseth recoiled as a mounted man rode straight through the window’s leaded glass and stone mullions, like some hunting shade in a tale of the Eldritch Kin.

But the wall wasn’t truly there. Nothing here was real. Everything shimmered again.

‘Please look at what I’m showing you.’ Mentor Micaran gazed intently at the mounted man. ‘The Archmage wishes you to know this man’s face.’

Jilseth did her best to ignore the fact that the rider and his mount were now advancing through the book cases with no more concern than a horseman forcing a path through tall grass.

That became easier the more she concentrated on his face. The stranger’s countenance was unremarkable, though she found she was curiously certain that she would be able to pick him out in a crowded marketplace any number of years from now.

Resisting the crawling dread now filling the void left by her absent wizard senses was becoming ever more difficult though.

‘Madam Jilseth?’ Micaran was behind her.

Turning, she saw him standing beside another man with sandy brown hair and hazel eyes. This new stranger sat at his ease in a leather upholstered chair which certainly hadn’t been there before. The prosperous man had a glass of wine in his hand and his mouth moved as silently as a festival marionette. Was he talking to someone unseen?

‘Thank you.’

As Micaran spoke, the library vanished and Jilseth found herself sitting beside the Archmage’s fireplace. She seized on the elemental fire burning within the hearth, on the air swirling around the tower, moist with water drawn from the surrounding seas. Her affinity took hold of the ancient stones, rooting her in the present through their aeons of existence. She extended her wizard senses down through the tower’s foundations and deep into the bedrock.

‘Well?’ Planir leaned forward, his eyes intent.

‘That was—’ Jilseth shuddered convulsively ‘—horrible.’

‘I know,’ Planir assured her, ‘but you have passed a test which too many mages fail.’

‘A test?’ Jilseth stared at him. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘My apologies.’ The Archmage’s eyes were opaque. ‘If you knew, it couldn’t be a fair outcome.’

‘Have you ever seen the man on horseback?’

As Micaran released his hold Jilseth curbed an impulse to wipe her palm on her skirt. The adept’s hands hadn’t been in the least sweaty but she still felt an urge to cleanse herself of his touch.

If only she could wipe away her revulsion at being deprived of her elemental senses. As she thrust that repellent memory away, resentment surged up instead. How dare he intrude so completely into her thoughts that he could weave such illusions from hopes and dreams that she wasn’t even conscious of herself?

‘I don’t know either man, Archmage.’ She couldn’t bring herself to look at Micaran for fear of berating him with undeserved hatred. He had only done Planir’s bidding. She drew on all her wizardly training to get her emotions under control. ‘Who was that second stranger?’

‘The Soluran stirring up discontent in Col.’ Planir leaned back in his seat. ‘It may well prove useful if you can recognise him.’

‘What do you want me to do? To help Corrain, that’s to say, Baron Halferan?’ Jilseth corrected herself hastily.

The Archmage shook his head. ‘We’ll take your spoils from Halferan to Suthyfer first, along with Mentor Micaran.’ He acknowledged the scholarly adept with a courteous nod. ‘Once his business there is concluded, please use your wizardry to return him home.’

‘Suthyfer?’ Jilseth hadn’t expected that. ‘Isn’t Merenel already there?’

Planir nodded. ‘She’s also been shown how easily a skilled adept can invade a mage’s mind. So she’s been working with Suthyfer’s Artificers, exploring why wizards are so vulnerable with their thoughts focused on elemental matters. As we of Hadrumal have learned to our cost, that can be the death of us even more swiftly than an adept’s malice can overwhelm the mundane born.’

Planir’s face hardened momentarily and Jilseth had to force herself not to look upwards, remembering the funeral urn in the Archmage’s study.

It wasn’t only Larissa who had died; Planir’s beloved and a talented magewoman who would surely have earned high rank in Hadrumal in her own right. Jilseth had made her own discreet enquiries since Nolyen had told of the struggle some years before, between Hadrumal’s wizards and unknown adepts from ocean islands even more remote than Suthyfer. She had been appalled to learn that little-known misadventure had seen the death of a handful of notable wizards including the redoubtable Otrick, Cloud Master before Rafrid and, it was rumoured, once Velindre’s lover.

She wanted to steal a glance at Micaran. Did the scholarly adept know of these Elietimm who had challenged the Archmage? Barely any of Hadrumal’s mages outside the Council were even aware of their islands in the icy northern waters, inhabited by this race akin to the Mountain Men and willing to use their knowledge of Artifice wholly without scruple, according to the whispers which Jilseth had heard behind cautious hands in the corners of Hadrumal’s wine shops.

Why else had Planir been so willing to allow Col and Vanam’s scholars to explore the remnants of Imperial Artifice, pieced together from sources as disparate as folk songs and noble family archives? Why had the Archmage defied those Council members who so disparaged Artifice, insisting on allowing Usara, Shivvalan and the other mages interested in learning more of aetheric magic to establish their own hall on those mid-ocean islands? The Archmage wanted to understand the threat facing Hadrumal.

‘Do Suthyfer’s adepts have some insight to offer the mageborn, into warding our thoughts against such intrusion?’

‘Insights, yes,’ Planir agreed. ‘Warding is proving considerably more complicated.’

Once again, Jilseth saw unexpected weariness on the Archmage’s face. Before she could choose which of a handful of questions to ask, the sitting room vanished in a flash of blinding light.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
T
WO

The Island Hall, Suthyfer

32nd of Aft-Winter

E
VEN BEFORE THE
Archmage’s spell released her, Jilseth’s affinity told her that this translocation had carried her further than ever before. Her wizard senses reeled after crossing such a vast expanse of wind-tossed water. Then she felt solid ground beneath her feet and her wizardry reached deep into the rock below. She knew precisely how far she was from home.

The furthest Jilseth had travelled by means of her own magic had been to Inglis on the Gidestan ocean coast. This was the usual test to prove a would-be mage’s skills in the final days of apprenticeship. Planir’s wizardry had just taken the three of them half as far again.

A thousand leagues? That was her best guess and Jilseth seldom erred by more than one league in a hundred. She looked up at the ragged clouds scudding across the rain-washed sky and saw that they had travelled far enough east to outstrip the sunset.

On dry land this island would have been a mountain to fascinate wizards with earth and air affinities alike, with its peak soaring so high into the sky. Here in mid-ocean Jilseth could feel the plunging depths surrounding her as well as the fierce ocean currents surging through the channels between this island and its neighbours. A trailing line of such mountains had surged up from the ocean floor aeons before the molten rock’s fires had been quenched in time out of mind.

As Planir’s magic faded, Jilseth reached further through the turbulent ocean to realise that a great sweep of land lay somewhere to the east, far closer than Tormalin’s ocean coast in the west. That must be the unknown expanse of Kellarin.

The Archmage grabbed her arm and pulled her sideways to save her skirts. Mentor Micaran collapsed onto his hands and knees to vomit copiously and helplessly onto the flagstones.

‘Archmage?’ Startled, Jilseth looked at Planir.

‘The further our magic carries an Artificer, the worse their stomachs rebel,’ he explained wryly. ‘Those of a religious persuasion accuse Raeponin of a cruel sense of humour.’

Jilseth wasn’t about to admit her own first mean-spirited thoughts. It was some comfort to see that adepts had their own vulnerabilities, after Micaran had so easily invaded her mind.

Rather than humiliate the stricken scholar by staring at his distress, she looked around. They had arrived beside a tall, high-windowed building of dark grey masonry rising to a shallow pitched roof of close fitted stone slates. It overlooked a gentle grass slope dotted with scrubby bushes and pocked with earthen scrapes suggesting burrowing animals.

There was no sign of anyone opening the door. From the savoury scents drifting from the high windows, Jilseth guessed at a kitchen within. Grease-flecked water filled the stone-lined gully running alongside this hardstanding to drain into a pit of gravel.

‘Is this where you routinely arrive? Should I commit this place to memory?’

The Archmage summoned a surge of water to wash the consequences of Micaran’s misery into the soakaway. ‘If you are bringing an adept with you.’

‘One moment.’ Micaran managed to raise a hand as he took a shaky breath.

‘Good afternoon, Archmage.’

A man and a woman appeared around the corner of the building. Both were within a handful of years of Jilseth’s own age; the man older, the woman younger. Both were clothed in current Tormalin fashion, though in the broadcloth jerkin and breeches and calf-length gown of the merchant classes rather than nobility’s full-skirted silks and frothing lace.

The man was lean-faced with a wiry build, with a fine sheen of sandy bristles on his head suggesting that he anticipated the untimely loss of his hair with a purposeful razor. His companion barely topped his shoulder, even allowing for the nut-brown braids coiled tidily on her head.

Jilseth noted the calm determination in her dark brown eyes. She had often seen such purpose in those who lacked the height to impose their will on others.

‘Usara, Guinalle, may I introduce Jilseth, a mage of my own discipline, and Mentor Micaran, an adept from Col’s university.’

‘Master Usara.’ Jilseth was taken aback by such informality. Many in Hadrumal’s Council still hoped to see Usara acclaimed as Stone Master and his wife was a Tormalin noblewoman whose family had held the Imperial throne in antiquity. ‘Lady Tor Priminale.’

‘You are most welcome, Madam Mage.’ Though Guinalle barely spared Jilseth and the Archipelagan coffer a glance as she went to help Micaran to his feet.

‘My thanks.’ Despite his greater height, the ashen-faced mentor leaned heavily on her. Fortunately the Tormalin woman was no frail reed.

‘I have a restorative tisane brewing.’ Guinalle ushered Micaran away.

‘So what have you brought us?’ Usara looked at the Archipelagan chest with keen interest.