The Gambler's Fortune (Einarinn 3) (35 page)

“Planir?” A voice came thinly from the center of the shining disc.

“Usara, good to hear you.” Planir snapped his fingers and the candle sprang into life with a spit of scarlet magic, the flame turning yellow in an instant, rising up tall and steady despite the open window. “Link hands, Shiv,” commanded the Archmage curtly. “Larissa’s too new at this to do it without.”

The girl jumped a little as the two men gripped her hands and a desperate frown of concentration furrowed her brow. The metal of the mirror began to glow with an inner light of its own, scarlet, azure, amber and aquamarine rising and fading, coiling around each other, finally merging into a diamond radiance that reached out to draw the glowing disc into itself, a golden brilliance burning for an instant before fading into the mirror. A nimbus of coppery magic now fringed the metal and Planir turned it so that the three could all see the image within it. “Good,” he said with satisfaction, dropping Larissa’s hand, the last remnants of magelight fading unheeded from his fingers.

“Have you anything to tell me about these Sheltya?” demanded Usara without ceremony, his voice sounding unnaturally high and tinny. The mirror showed him sitting on a plainly made bed in a small plastered room. The whole image was overlaid with an amber tint that subtly changed hue as circles of power spread from the center of the magic.

“Nothing of any real use or substance, I’m afraid,” Planir spoke frankly to the mirror. “Casuel has been able to find nothing in the Tormalin archives and all that the scholars of Vanam or Col can offer are half-remembered snatches of Mountain sagas.”

“Most of the references give no clue as to their role.” Larissa was rubbing at her fingers, deeply scored by the bite of the Archmage’s ring. “A few seem to suggest they are arbiters or lawgivers.” She looked at Planir for confirmation.

Shiv leaned back in his chair, mouth thinning as he sat in silence.

“What have these Mountain Men you’re traveling with been able to tell you?” asked Planir.

“That it’s best to let the Sheltya explain themselves.” Exasperation was giving Usara’s words an increasingly sharp edge.

Curiosity knotted Shiv’s brows. “And Livak’s accepting that?”

“For the present,” said Usara tightly, “because pressing the point would mean she’d have to back me against her friends.”

“But you said the sagas do suggest they have aetheric lore, now you’ve had them translated.” Larissa won a smile from the Archmage for that encouragement.

“Their so-called wonders could still all turn out to be mere accident of nature and timing.” The little image in the mirror grimaced.

“Whereabouts are you now, ’Sar?” Planir interrupted.

“The lower reaches of what they call the Pasfall Valley,” the mage replied. “Where the river runs through the hills, rather than out on the plain.”

“There will be men and women of part Mountain blood in the villages, won’t there?” Shiv looked thoughtful.

“Those whose parents married out, like in Gidesta? Could you ask them the significance of these Sheltya?”

“I’ve already tried,” answered Usara with a shake of his head. “Either they genuinely don’t know or they’re just not telling.”

Planir, Shiv and Larissa shared a look made up in equal measure of dashed expectation and impatience. A silence fell as all four mages looked down at their hands, faces united in disappointment for all the countless leagues separating them.

“Perhaps the Solurans might know more.” Shiv rubbed his upper arm. “We know their healers are very effective, and by every indication their cures are wrought by Artifice. I’d be a hand short of tying my own laces if they hadn’t worked for me.”

“Don’t let this business sidetrack you from your other errands, ’Sar.” Planir looked faintly concerned. “Keep track of the season.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” Usara smiled wanly. “I think I can spare the time to amuse myself with a trip to take the Mountain air.”

“You certainly look somewhat overtired.” Planir looked at the image critically. “Go on your rest cure and let us beat our heads against the walls for a while. We’d better break this link before you exhaust yourself any further.”

“The nexus is supporting me,” insisted Usara. “It’s just rather early in the day here and we were traveling until late yesterday. Has anyone bespoken Naldeth recently?”

Larissa nodded absently. “I was talking to him a few nights ago. Everything seems fine in Kellarin.”

“And Guinalle?” persisted Usara.

“She said to pass on her regards, last time I was bespeaking Nal.” Shiv looked up from his thoughts a little guiltily.

Usara’s smile was plain in the image before them. Larissa looked from Planir to Shiv, a faint question in her face as the two other mages shared a conspiratorial look.

“I have other calls on my time, ’Sar,” Planir said abruptly. “We’ll speak again in five days, at noon by your reckoning, all right?”

Usara nodded, the reflection in the mirror fading rapidly as the magic unraveled, leaving the metal surface gleaming dully in the sunlit room.

“What’s between Usara and Guinalle?” demanded Larissa.

“Could be something, could be nothing,” Shiv said a little enigmatically. “I rather think he’s like to make it something, but she’s a lady who takes her responsibilities seriously.”

“That he be the one to find a key to unlock the mysteries of Artifice is important to Usara in more ways than the obvious,” agreed Planir. The Archmage’s eyes slid over to Larissa and warmed. “Don’t let me keep you, Shiv.” The dismissal was unmistakable.

“I’d like to discuss this further.” Shiv looked a little put out.

Planir rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Later.” His eyes stayed with Larissa and a faint smile hovered around his lips.

Shiv hesitated on the threshold. “Larissa?”

“I’ll be along in a moment or so.” She lifted her chin but a faint blush colored her cheeks. “Don’t let me keep you.”

Shiv arched a sardonic eyebrow at Planir but the Archmage’s face held impassive so the younger wizard left to walk noisily down the stairs. Shiv paused for a moment as he heard the lock secure itself behind him and his expression hardened. Emerging from the darkness of the stairwell, he blinked in the bright sunlight of the courtyard.

“Good afternoon,” a passing apprentice called out, crossing the well-worn flagstones from the arch of the gateway to one of the numerous doorways flanking the quadrangle. Shiv nodded an acknowledgment and took an apparently idle seat on the rim of the little fountain playing a cheerful pattern of air and water in the center of the court. He glanced around, as if waiting for someone, checking the position of the sun and looking toward the great bell tower that dominated the four courtyards that made up this Hall of wizardry. A maid went past with arms full of linen for the laundry.

Shiv dabbled a hand in the fountain’s spray and studied the basin intently. A shimmering image lay on the surface of the water. Planir was embracing Larissa, lips locked in a passionate kiss. The Archmage’s fingers deftly unfastened the buttons down the back of her dress. She released him for a moment to push the gown off her hips, dropping the garment disregarded on the floor. Planir’s hand around her waist drew her close, the other unlacing the top of her shift. Shiv could see little blue flowers embroidered on cotton so fine the rosy nipple showed hard and dark beneath it. The Archmage pulled away to strip off his own shirt and a certain regret mingled with the irritation on Shiv’s face as he gazed down into the water. Larissa caught up the hem of her shift, revealing lacy garters, and Planir unbuckled his belt.

“Halcarion’s tits, what is he thinking of?” Shiv shattered the image with an angry sweep of his hand, myriad glittering fragments dissolving beneath the patter of the fountain. “Other calls on your time, O revered Archmage? Yes, and we’ve all heard just what those might be.” He stamped out through the archway into the busy high road of Hadrumal.

Othilsoke,

3rd of For-Summer

“Keis!” Jeirran’s hail was blown away unheeded as he picked his way over tussocks of coarse grass. He left the track worn between the meager, wind-stunted bushes crouching among the rocks and entered a narrow gorge cutting in the broad sweep of the valley side. The breeze was baffled but the noise of metal on rock rang loud in the confined space. Jeirran stood and watched. Teiriol raised a pick high over his head, and then plunged it into the rocky soil with an explosive shout, ripping it back. He was at the uppermost narrow of the defile, digging waist deep below an outcrop of stark gray rock. A second man was shoveling the rubble with its blue-green streaks into a stream channeled on one side. A third raked and stirred, peering through water clouded with sand and soil. At his nod, another man shoveled stone into a long wooden trough where Keisyl was wet to his elbows, sorting through rocky fragments washed a second time in water brought down in a series of wooden pipes. All were dirty, sweating and grim-faced with concentration.

“Keisyl!” Jeirran picked his way uphill over the cording of rock and mud that marked the annual progression of the digging up the little cutting.

“What do you want?” Keisyl’s displeasure was uncompromising. He dumped a handful of tinstone in a sack and knuckled the small of his back. Swinging a dripping shovelful around to the pile of debris behind him, he splashed Jeirran’s polished boots.

“I brought some baking from my wife.” Jeirran opened the lid of his basket, unfolding the layers of cloth within, thick wool surrounding snowy linen.

“Food,” Keisyl bellowed, hands cupped around his mouth.

“Shut off the leat!” An answering wave beyond a rise in the ground was followed by the rattle of a sluice and the stream slowed to a trickle barely deep enough to dampen Teiriol’s mud-caked boots.

“It’s Theilyn should be ferrying the food. You should be working here,” Keisyl growled. “That would be one less share in the season leaving the soke.”

“It was your mother made the deal to bring in her kin,” Jeirran said curtly. He beckoned to the hastening diggers with a smile.

“If we hadn’t wasted so much time on your idiotic schemes, she’d have had no call to do so.” Keisyl bit crossly into a pasty.

Jeirran peered critically up the pitted and ravaged hillside. “This cut is just about worked out. You and Teir between you would have cleared it by the last half of summer. The stupid crone has given away half the paltry pickings.”

“She wanted this working finished before we started a deep mine,” hissed Keisyl. “The shaft paid for with the riches you were going to bring back from Selerima?”

“The old busybody had no business making any deal for labor.” Jeirran was intent on his own grievance. “That should have been Eirys’ decision.”

“Eirys wasn’t here, was she?” Keisyl’s sarcasm was unmuted by his mouthful. “You insisted on dragging her all that way and she hasn’t even got a belly on her to show for it.”

“Is everything all right?” Teiriol was the first to reach them, looking uncertainly between Jeirran’s appearance of good humor and his brother’s scowl.

“The women have been baking.” Jeirran gave the basket over into eager, dirt-speckled hands. “My wife said you deserved better than waxed cheese and twice-cooked bread. Caw, Fytch, Cailean, good to see you.”

“How do, Jeirran.” The rake man, wet to mid-thigh, nodded a greeting. “You look mighty prosperous for a man who wasted half his season being gulled by the lowlanders.”

Jeirran shot a hard look at Teiriol, who returned it with a defiant shrug. “Cailean asked. I wasn’t about to lie to him.”

Jeirran forced a smile. “We made a profit over what we’d have got in the valley bottom but I’ll admit it wasn’t as handsome as I’d been led to hope.”

Keisyl’s contemptuous bark of laughter was lost in a racking cough as a crumb caught at the back of his throat.

“Well, at least you tried, didn’t you?” The one who’d been filling Keisyl’s sorting trough looked around uncertainly. “Can’t hardly blame you if the lowlanders all turned out dishonest dogs, can we?”

Jeirran passed the man a folded pastry with a rich golden glaze. “I thought I could find a fair deal, Fytch, but in the end we were little better than robbed and that’s the truth of it.”

“All thieves, lowlanders,” grunted the man who’d been tending the sluice at the upper level. “We should keep to our own.”

“We may want no dealings with them, but they’re determined to have dealings with us.” Jeirran shook his head. “Did you hear about the Teyvasoke?”

All the men nodded grimly. Teiriol’s workmate took a second pastry. “Breed like rats in a midden, don’t they?”

“I’ve a cousin with kin the far side of the Gap,” volunteered Cailean. “He was saying that when they had to fight for their diggings, they’d lost before a sword was swung. Every one lowlander they sent back bleeding to his mother whistled ten more up and ready inside a day and a half. There’s no use you looking at me like that, Elzer, it’s the truth. Why do you think Kernial and his sons came west to herd goats for the summer, begging work from any fess that they can?”

“That’s no work for a man in his prime,” growled Elzer in disgust. “Kernial’s a waterman nearly as good as me, knows streams and flow better than any mother-poxed lowlander, deep mines as well as surface work.”

“The problem is we’re so spread out,” mused Jeirran. “By the time a messenger bird has flown from one fess to another, the damage is done and the ruffians fled.”

“There’s no helping that in this country,” shrugged Fytch.

“Every soke keeps to its own,” stated Elzer firmly. “That’s the way it’s been from generations back.”

“Generations back didn’t have greedy lowlanders carving up their land like mutton,” retorted Jeirran. “Generations back, Sheltya kept the sokes in touch with each other, passed on news for ordinary folk, didn’t just keep their powers for themselves.”

A wary stillness touched the other men sitting on the heaps of broken stone.

“Just think about the old tales,” Jeirran continued. “Kell the Weaver wouldn’t have stood for lowlanders cutting his snares and stealing his pelts! No more than Morn stood by while thieves drove Isarel’s daughters off their land. True magic defended the sokes in those days.”