Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (43 page)

‘Most find that the first of many salutary lessons here,’ Guinalle remarked as she tended to her pottage.

Jilseth turned her attention to Mentor Micaran. ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Fully restored, thank you.’ His colour was indeed far healthier. He raised a glazed earthenware beaker. ‘Have you encountered this remarkable black tisane?’

‘I have.’ Planir had served it to her after an exhausting night scrying on the Archipelagans’ first attempt to attack the renegade Mandarkin mage on the corsair isle. The Aldabreshi might loathe wizardry but they didn’t lack courage when it threatened them.

Jilseth wondered how much the Archmage was relying on the bitter black brew in lieu of sleep as he tackled his myriad concerns. She took a stool beside the Col adept, leaving Usara to sit beside his wife.

‘I will brew a fresh jugful.’ Guinalle moved a kettle from the back of the range to a grill over smouldering coals.

‘May I ask what you intend to do with the Archipelagan artefacts?’ Micaran asked the Tormalin noblewoman. ‘Surely if they are wizard-crafted items, you cannot fathom their secrets through aetheric means?’

‘I cannot penetrate their mysteries with Artifice,’ Guinalle agreed as she sat down, ‘but I can use the spells instilled within them just as their maker intended, like any other mundane born. Then I can use my own enchantments to convey every sensation, every unexpected tie to some magical element, to my husband.’

Usara laid his freckled hand over hers on the table top. ‘No description, however detailed, can possibly equal the understanding which Artifice conveys.’

‘This is an endeavour requiring absolute trust and the closest of bonds between mage and adept,’ Guinalle warned.

Jilseth caught Micaran’s uncertain glance in her direction. She didn’t need Artifice to see that he was no more prepared to attempt such a thing than she was. That was a relief.

‘What have you learned from such insights?’ she asked Usara. ‘What are you hoping to learn?’

‘First and foremost, how to unmake such things,’ he said bluntly.

‘You don’t agree that the mundane born would find magic less daunting if they had the limited experience of wizardry that these artefacts can confer?’ Jilseth might not agree with Kalion’s wish to make such gifts to noble or powerful men on the mainland, but she was obscurely disappointed to find this unconventional mage sharing Troanna’s prejudices.

‘That’s certainly possible.’ Usara rose to tend the singing kettle. ‘But those of Solura’s Orders who have threatened Planir in hopes of getting hold of these artefacts may pause for further thought if we can destroy what they covet.’

‘Unless such a demonstration provokes them into still more reckless action.’ Guinalle fetched two more earthenware beakers glazed like the one Micaran cupped in his strong hands. Usara poured boiling water into a tall jug of similar design.

‘How are your attempts progressing?’ Despite herself, Jilseth was curious.

Usara grimaced. ‘They’re not, but hopefully we’ll understand more of such magecraft now that we have a wider range of artefacts to study.’

‘Where do you feel your knowledge is lacking?’ Jilseth wondered if Hadrumal’s wizards might be better advised to broaden their own focus, exchanging artefacts as well as members of each nexus, rather than continuing to hammer on the same locked door.

‘You’d be better off asking Shiv,’ Usara apologised as he brought the jug of tisane to the table. ‘He has been drawing our notes together as well as working with his own beloved’s insights.’

‘Pered is one of my most apt pupils in Artifice,’ Guinalle added, ‘and his own skills as an artist mean he sees the colours of wizardry within these artefacts with remarkable clarity.’

Now Jilseth was tempted to wish that she might share in such study. Though she still couldn’t help wondering if Suthyfer’s mages would be able to offer anything of immediate use to the Archmage with Hadrumal beset by so many pressing problems.

She looked around as the kitchen door opened. Had Planir returned?

A woman of Jilseth’s own height entered, her blonde braids pale in the gloom. She held a small child’s hand. The red-headed lad pulled free to run to Usara, scrambling onto the wizard’s lap. ‘Papa—’

‘A moment, Darni,’ he chided. ‘We have guests.’

‘Say good day to Madam Jilseth and Mentor Micaran.’ Guinalle moved the hot jug of steeping tisane well beyond the child’s reach.

‘Good day, Madam Mage and Master Mentor.’ The child obeyed with more composure than Jilseth expected. Then again, she seldom had anything to do with children. Those wizards who chose to marry in Hadrumal invariably raised their families well away from the scholarly halls. She guessed that Usara’s son was a couple of years younger than Esnina of Halferan but she couldn’t be certain.

Guinalle introduced the newcomer with unexpected formality. ‘Mentor Micaran, Madam Jilseth, may I make known to you Aritane, formerly of the
sheltya.
’

‘Good day to you.’ Jilseth had already guessed that this must be the woman whom Nolyen had once told her about; an aetheric adept of the Mountain race. Her twilight blue eyes and corn-coloured hair reminded Jilseth of two Mountain Men she had previously encountered. She had the same sensuous full lips and sharp cheekbones though Sorgrad and his brother had obstinately firm jaws, unlike Aritane’s narrow face.

Consulting her must be Micaran’s business in Suthyfer. How would he fare? Jilseth wondered if this Mountain woman would prove as devious and self-willed as those infernal brothers, though she must have learned more self-discipline to master Artifice’s mysteries.

‘Madam.’ Micaran rose to offer the Mountain woman his hand. ‘I am honoured.’

‘Thank you for answering our summons so promptly,’ Guinalle said with more deference that Jilseth had seen her show to anyone else including Archmage Planir. ‘We expected you after dinner. Please, will you eat with us?’

‘I felt the strength of your concerns warranted immediate answers.’ Aritane regarded the Col mentor with a sardonic eye before taking a seat at the table. ‘You are seeking some stranger whose Artifice is foiling your own questing enchantments, I believe?’

Her Tormalin was entirely fluent though strongly accented with something akin to the harshness which Jilseth had encountered in wizards from northernmost Ensaimin.

‘What enchantments have you woven so far?’ Guinalle asked Micaran as she poured fresh beakers of the darkly glistening tisane.

‘Would you like some honey?’ Usara asked Jilseth.

‘I will, thank you.’ Jilseth remembered how bitter she had found this particular brew. She also recalled Planir explaining that Aritane had found the holly trees needed to make this Mountain infusion in Kellarin after the
sheltya
woman had been exiled from her homeland for some unspecified crime.

The child Darni was already hurrying to a cupboard, returning with a wooden canister holding a ceramic jar and a dipper.

‘I take it dinner will be somewhat delayed?’ Usara asked his wife with a wry grin.

She answered him with a smile. ‘It’s pottage and bread. It can wait.’

‘I suggest we leave them to it.’ Usara held two tisane beakers steady so that the child could drizzle honey into each one. ‘Let’s go and open that chest before we eat.’

‘As you wish,’ Jilseth rose and followed as the mage unhooked a candle lantern from the doorpost and lit the wick with a whisper of fire.

Outside, dusk was deepening and clouds obscured the quartered moons. As they walked across the gravelled yard, lamplight in the kitchen windows was the only sign of life as far as Jilseth could see. She lifted the cup to her lips, grateful for the black tisane’s warmth. Honey definitely soothed its bite and as she sipped her weariness begin to recede.

‘Darni, go and open the doors.’ Usara handed the child the candle lantern and watched his son scamper across the gravel before glancing at Jilseth. ‘If Aritane is sufficiently concerned to want to talk to Micaran immediately, it’s best to accommodate her. Even in exile she holds true to her
sheltya
oaths and most of those revolve around keeping their lore a closely guarded secret. When she chooses to talk, Guinalle has always learned something new and valuable and Aritane will assuredly talk more freely if only aetheric adepts are present.’

‘I understand,’ Jilseth assured him.

She did, and moreover, she wasn’t particularly interested in sitting and listening to the adepts’ discussion. Anything she learned of Artifice could only ever be theoretical knowledge. She would much rather survey the Khusro artefacts alongside Usara and see if he could offer any insight or observation which might have evaded Hadrumal’s mages.

If the opportunity presented itself, she might ask what he had discovered about drawing on another wizard’s mage strength. That was a skill she would never learn in Hadrumal.

First though, she remembered her other responsibilities. If Planir was moving so many people about like pieces on a game board, she should play her part, even if she couldn’t see his strategy.

‘Do you have a bowl I can use for scrying?’

Until Mentor Micaran was ready to return to Col, she should make sure that all was well in Halferan and that Baron Corrain wasn’t doing anything ill-advised in Col. The Caladhrian’s rashness in single-minded pursuit of his goals had been the cause of so many of Hadrumal’s current difficulties. No manner of magic seemed able to counter that.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
T
HREE

The Red Library Square, Col

33rd of Aft-Winter

T
HE
C
ARILLON
T
OWER’S
musical notes heralded the day’s second chime. Corrain pushed Hosh up the Red Library’s steps. ‘Master Garewin’s waiting.’

‘Shouldn’t I help you today?’ Hosh looked apprehensively at Corrain.

Too late, Corrain realised that he shouldn’t have poured out his frustrations the night before, along with one too many glasses of white brandy. But by all that was sacred and profane, he had spent a wearisome and exasperating day learning the same limited information over and over again.

That Soluran assuredly had no interest in honest scholarship. The man had met with more of the university’s mentors, in twos and threes, outside three further libraries, Revesk’s, Manser’s and the Pawnbrokers’. Each time he had taken his new friends to a tavern close by.

Again, Corrain didn’t risk following them inside, retracing his steps later in the day after the Soluran had returned to the inn where Estry had finally discovered he was lodging.

The first time Corrain fell into casual conversation with a merchant well satisfied after sharing a bottle of wine with a trading partner as the city slowed from its daily bustle. The second time he had no such luck. At the third hostelry, he’d been able to accost a student reeling amiably out into the street, on his way to meet more diligent scholars released from the libraries by the day’s last chime. Both merchant and errant pupil had told the same tale.

But Corrain still didn’t know what the Soluran hoped to achieve by badmouthing wizardry the length and breadth of Col. Perhaps Micaran would have learned something by now, gleaned from those scholars whom Corrain had already told him about. If the adept hadn’t, Corrain had a handful of new names to tell him and perhaps there might be some significance to those particular libraries.