Sannin gazed at him. “It’s not for me to approve or disapprove.” She kissed his cheek with comradely affection before standing up. “And I gave up pointing out the pitfalls in your chosen path when we were apprentices. Just be careful.”
“I’m touched by your concern.” Planir grinned. “But what’s life without a little risk?”
“Safer. I’m rather more concerned about Larissa,” chided Sannin. “You’ve the hide of the village bull and the stones to go with it but she’s barely out of her first pupillage. I know she has a double affinity and plenty of intelligence to go with it but she’s not as strong as she’d like you to think. She always feels she has to match your measure as well as prove herself to everyone else twice over, just because you favour her. I’ve seen her overplaying her hand more than once — not that she’s the first to do that of course.” Sannin shook her head with rueful amusement. “I’m glad she’s got Usara to rein her in before she comes to grief. Now I’d better get back and see if any of my apprentices have set themselves alight.” She left without a backward glance, pulling the door closed, full skirts swishing on the wooden floor.
Planir sat for a moment before searching beneath his pillows. Tucked in the corner where the yellow silk curtains were tied to the posts, he found a gauzy gossamer wrap embroidered with frivolous blue flowers. He held the delicate cloth to his face and breathed deeply, eyes closed with longing. When he lowered his cupped hands, mischievous determination brightened his fond smile.
Moving to the window he raised the hand bearing the Archmage’s great ring. The central diamond caught the strong sunlight and broke it into myriad rainbow shards trapped within the facets. Taking the battered silver circle from his next finger, Planir slid it carefully on beside the insignia of his office. The Archmage’s grey eyes narrowed and new light glowed softly in the gems surrounding the diamond. Clear amber light strengthened opposite mysterious emerald radiance and the ruby glowed with increasing warmth opposite the sapphire’s cold blue. Planir’s face might have been carved from marble as he bent all his concentration on the luminous gems now outshining the very sunlight. The diamond burned ever brighter, drawing colour from the other gems, brilliance fringed with fleeting rainbows. The old silver ring was lost in the blinding light until the magic suddenly flashed into nothingness, leaving Planir gasping, sweat beading his forehead.
He winced as he carefully removed the silver ring, a raw, blistered weal now circling his finger. Shaking, the Archmage studied his handiwork. The once dull and scuffed ring was bright and untarnished, unmarred by any scratch or blemish. It glowed with a rich silver sheen softened with just the faintest hint of gold. Planir left his bedchamber, waving a hand and locks on both doors out on to the corridor snicked softly secure.
Planir slipped the silver ring on his forefinger as he collected a candle from the mantel and took up the mirror and candlestick from the window seat. He winced as snapping his fingertips for a flame pulled painfully at his blisters but the candle burned fiercely all the same. The spreading light shone brilliant in the steel and Planir laid his hands either side of the dark wood frame, concentrating until the spell shrank to little more than a thumbnail disc of vivid brightness.
“Larissa?” whispered Planir. “Dear heart?”
“Archmage?” Her startled voice rang through the spell.
“Just listen.” He bent close to the mirror. “Ilkehan is dead. They killed him and cut up his body so D’Alsennin should be able to attack the pirates without fear of Artifice inside a day.”
“I’ll bespeak ’Sar,” Larissa began.
“No,” Planir interrupted. “Not until I know it’s safe. Some enchanter may still find a scrap of power somewhere and try to make trouble. Just wait—and I have something for you, to help you when it comes to the fight—”
Frowning, the wizard caught his breath. Then he gasped in sudden shock. He flung the mirror from him, knocking the candle aside, hot wax spattering his hand. The Archmage was oblivious to the searing pain, reeling back senseless in the window seat, a trickle of blood oozing from one nostril. But the silver ring was gone from his finger, leaving only the blistered scar of the burn.
Suthyfer, Sentry Island,
10th of For-Summer
Usara, wake up!”
The urgent voice roused the mage. “Guinalle?” He sat bolt upright, then cursed as he slid off the makeshift bed a sailor had lashed together. He hit the ground with a thump that jarred his spine.
“No, it’s me, Larissa.”
“ ’Sar?” Hearing voices, Halice came towards the frond-covered canopies she’d ordered built to shade each bed from rain in the night and the earliest light of morning. “I thought I told you to get some rest.”
“What in the name of all that’s holy are you playing at?” Usara stared at the brilliant swirl of blue-white light.
“Ilkehan’s dead,” declared the unseen mage-girl, voice high with exultation.
“How do you know?” demanded Halice. The mercenary didn’t bother looking towards the magical link, catching up a leather map case from her blankets instead.
“Planir told me.”
Before Usara could wonder at the self-conscious note in Larissa’s voice, Temar came running up from the beach, the young Sieur’s questions stumbling over Halice’s.
“What is it?”
“When did he die?”
“Planir just bespoke me.” Usara thought he heard that bashfulness again.
“What about Livak?” Halice scowled at the blinding radiance, a parchment in her hand. “Where is she?”
“And Ryshad?” Temar took his sword belt from the stripped sapling that propped up his shelter, and buckled it on. “Have they returned to Hadrumal or are they coming here?”
“All Planir told me is Ilkehan’s dead,” Larissa said, defensive.
“But Muredarch’s enchanters aren’t,” Usara remembered hastily. “We must keep this short.”
“So Planir says we’re ready to go? Did he say anything else?” Halice walked to the cook fire by the original pirates’ hut.
“Not of significance.” That hint of coyness in Larissa’s denial teased Usara again but such curiosity fled at the racket Halice was making with a long metal spoon against the iron cook pot. She bellowed an amicable warning. “Stir yourselves or I’ll stir you with this! I want every man ready to go.”
“We’ll bespeak you when we’ve decided our next move.” Usara addressed the shimmering coil of magic and Larissa’s spell spiralled in on itself, vanishing into nothingness.
Allin had come out of the cabin and stared at the empty air. “When did she learn to do that?” The mage-girl spoke to herself as much as to anyone else.
Usara was sitting on his blankets pulling on his boots but paused to consider this question. “That was one of Otrick’s favourite workings. Was she ever his apprentice?”
“If Ilkehan’s dead, why didn’t we hear about it from Livak?” Halice picked up a kettle and stuck fingers in her mouth to summon a nearby sailor with an ear-splitting whistle.
“Perhaps Shiv’s incapacitated somehow,” said Usara thoughtfully.
“Can’t Sorgrad bespeak you?” queried Halice as she handed over the kettle. “Get that filled.”
Usara shook his head. “He’s not got that skill perfected as yet.”
“If Shiv’s hurt, I want to know what’s been going on,” said Halice grimly.
“You and me both,” muttered Pered. The artist stood behind Allin, matching the edges of a sheaf of drawings with concentrated precision.
“That’s not important—I’m sorry, of course it’s important but—” Temar tried to convey apology with a quick look at Pered before turning to Halice. “If Ilkehan’s dead, we must attack, while the pirates’ enchanters are still shocked by their master’s death.”
“I’m sure Shiv’s all right.” Allin gave Pered a reassuring smile and Temar wondered how he could ever have thought her plain.
“The news might hav
e Muredarch off balance as well,” Usara remarked thoughtfully.
Halice nodded slowly. “As long as we’re certain those enchanters are clear off the board and back in the box.”
Allin moved to stir the slumbering cook fire to a cheerful blaze. “Planir wouldn’t have told Larissa to tell us if there was any danger.”
“Larissa’s the last person in Hadrumal he’d risk,” agreed Usara with a pang at the truth of his own words.
“Guinalle can tell us how Muredarch’s Elietimm stand.” Temar waved a hand at the shuttered wooden hut.
“She got less sleep last night than I did.” Usara realised he had spoken more sharply than he’d intended when he saw Temar’s indignation. He managed a milder tone. “Nursing Naldeth has been tiring. How much are you asking of her?”
“It’s simple enough.” Temar’s open face betrayed his chagrin. “If I were but a little more adept, I could do it myself
“I’ll make her a nice tisane.” Allin rose, brushing sand and ashes from her skirts, and rummaged in a small coffer holding Pered’s treasured spice jars. “You can take it to her, ’Sar.”
“Of course.” Usara hoped he didn’t look as self-conscious as he felt when Allin gave him an encouraging smile.
“Let’s assume Ilkehan’s death has drawn Muredarch’s enchanters’ teeth.” Temar squared up to Halice. “We have to decide exactly how to attack. We’ve spent long enough discussing the options.”
Halice spared a glance for Pered. “If Livak and Shiv are in trouble, our attack should distract whoever’s chasing them, Saedrin willing,”
“As soon as we’ve seen these pirates to Poldrion’s ferry, we can rescue them.” Allin looked hopefully from Halice to Temar.
Halice was frowning, one foot tapping in thought. “The question we must decide is how best to use Darni and Larissa. He’s got the better part of a troop with him and we could certainly use a second attack.”
Temar braced himself. “I still don’t think we can rely on Darni. We’ve no notion of how many wounded he suffered or how far afield he’s fled to evade pursuit.”
“Let me help you, Allin.” Usara went to find the horn cups. He didn’t want to get involved in that argument again.
Halice’s expression deepened to a scowl. “It’ll take too cursed long to send a boatful of men all the way round to come up the strait from the south.”
“Those two pirate ships we burned all but block the channel anyway,” Usara pointed out. “A two-handed attack is all very well but we’d gain nothing by splitting our forces and letting Muredarch take on each half as he pleases.
“Guinalle could call up the Eryngo with Artifice, or I could,” Temar amended hastily as he caught Usara’s look of rebuke.
“We want every ship holding the blockade.” Halice shook her head. “We won’t net all the rats but I’ll be cursed if I’ll let them scurry back to Kalaven to plague us in some other season. Send them orders with your Artifice by all means; just to sink any boat that they see.”
“We don’t want them fetching up on Kellarin’s shores either.” Allin was tying up scraps of muslin filled with miserly spoonfuls of herbs.
“Indeed not.” Temar folded his arms in unconscious imitation of Halice, jaw set. “So we hit the landing as hard as we can in the first assault. That means you need every man who can hold a sword. I’m coming too.”
“Of course you are.” The mercenary’s smile was as fierce as it was unexpected. “This is your first real fight for your colony. You’ll be seen to be leading it, if I have to be standing behind you with a cattle prod.”
Allin’s kettle stopped in mid-pour, the wizard looking concerned. “Couldn’t you attack at night again? Wouldn’t you all be safer?”
“We won’t get away with that trick twice. If Muredarch isn’t setting double sentries at sunset, I’m the Elected of Col.” Halice’s words were more explanation than rebuke. Temar was glad to see it, though for a fleeting instant he did think it might make a pleasant change if Halice showed him the same forbearance.
“Besides, a raid at night’s one thing; a full assault is a whole different hand of runes,” the mercenary continued. “We need to see what everyone’s doing and when those pirates break, we want to know where they run. We’d lose them inside ten strides in those woods in the dark. The whole fight would end up as confused as two cats scrapping in a sack.”
“I can’t see us being able to use the archers as effectively as last time.” Usara took a steaming tisane, brow wrinkled in thought.
“No,” agreed Halice, taking a cup from Allin with a nod of thanks. “They’ve precious few arrows left, which is another reason we need Darni. ’Sar, when you bespeak Larissa, tell her we want whoever can still walk and wave a stick creating a diversion. If we can split the pirates even just a little, we can drive in a wedge.”
Allin set down her kettle. “Plenty of the captives we rescued will want to come. They’ve been saying as much.”
“They’re still too weak, however strong their hatred.” Temar’s grimace acknowledged that unwelcome truth. “Naldeth was half dead even before those swine threw him to the sharks.”
“A few days’ rest and food won’t give them the stamina for a real fight.” Halice turned to the open beach. “Banner sergeants to me!” she bellowed. “Let’s set about making a proper plan, shall we?” She took another swallow of tisane, grimacing at the heat, before throwing the sodden muslin lump into the fire where it hissed and smouldered. She poured the dregs to dampen the soil and picked up a stick to scrape an outline on the ground.
“Let me do that,” offered Pered but, as he spoke, the earth began to writhe beneath Halice’s twig, shaping itself into a representation of the pirates’ landing blurred by a misty ochre haze.
“Then let me do that instead.” Pered took one of the cups Allin was still holding and knocked on the door of the hut.
“Enter.” Guinalle’s voice was soft and she warned the artist with a finger to her lips. Men snored and shifted on their pallets and the air was rank with the scents of sleep, sweat and injury.
Pered handed her the cup. “I thought you were supposed to be resting.”
“With Halice shouting fit to be heard in the Otherworld?” She looked quizzically at him. “What’s the news?” She stood in the doorway and looked at Halice, Temar and Usara, dun, black and balding heads bent close together while Allin set about the more prosaic necessity of chopping meat from the island’s scurrying rodents to add to the hulled wheat she’d set soaking earlier.
“Planir tells us Ilkehan’s dead,” Pered explained.
“Wizards.” Guinalle clicked her tongue with irritation. “They couldn’t wait for me to make sure their path was clear?”
“No one wants to overtax your skills,” said Pered diplomatically. “Everyone’s aware how much your duties ask of you.”
Guinalle smiled into her cup of aromatic tisane. “Shiv’s a lucky man.”
Pered’s smile couldn’t rise above the apprehension plainly weighing heavily upon him. “We don’t know exactly what’s happened in the Ice Islands.”
“So Temar wants me to find out.” Guinalle reached for his blunt and ink-stained hand. “Let us see together.” She drew him into the frowsty gloom and set her cup down on a cluttered board resting on two trestles. “With a love such as you share to guide me, I could find Shiv in the Wildlands beyond Solura.” She murmured a soft incantation.
As a sudden vision of Shiv crouching in a thorn bush surprised her, Pered’s fingers tightened on her own. “He’s hiding? Are they in danger?” She felt unimaginable pain edge the artist’s unspoken thought. “Something’s wrong.”
“It’s all right.” Guinalle spoke directly to his common sense to answer the fears of his imagination. “Whatever they’ve been doing, it’s worn him out but rest will restore him. He seems well content with his work.”
“Where is he?” Pered wondered without speaking and the thought rang in the silence they shared within the boun
ds of enchantment.
“I cannot tell.” Guinalle shook her head. “But he feels safe.”
Pered understood her double meaning without need for explanation. Shiv believed himself to be safe and Guinalle sensed no immediate peril threatening him. “Are they all safe? Livak? Ryshad?”
“As far as I can tell.” Guinalle frowned; it was always so hard to read a mage’s thoughts unless they were actively working their own magic. She might be less confused about Usara if she could sense a little more of what he truly felt for her. Then she might not have to rely on someone like Pered to anchor her with his commitments and affections. She hastily set that irrelevance aside before Pered could pick it up and then a flood of images assailed her.
A grief-stricken woman hid hysterical tears behind bloodstained hands and long, tangled hair. Her wild emotions struck Guinalle like a slap in the face. Horror at the death of her protector was twisted by guilty relief that her life would no longer be a nerve-wracking dance around his whims and cruelty. A new brutal truth assailed that scant comfort. Without Ilkehan, who might claim her? If she avoided enslavement or concubinage, how would she eat?
Ruthless, Guinalle broke free of the woman’s incoherent thoughts, pulling Pered with her. Noiseless voices and half-glimpsed faces came and went. What manner of Artifice did these Elietimm learn, if they had so little discipline, so little self-control? Theirs was a brutal, caustic art, shocking reactions from people and using such self-betrayal to another’s undoing.
As unrestrained Artifice carried emotions hither and thither, Guinalle saw a balding man with solid, wind-scoured features determined to defend his land and people from whatever might follow from Ilkehan’s long-hoped-for death. A younger man saw his flank exposed by the loss of his ally. The image in his mind’s eye of an undefended keep on an exposed sandbar shifted into a more immediate terror of his own nakedness beneath a descending blade. Vivid imagination saw shining steel cut into white and trembling skin, blood scarlet on the silver blade, flesh and sinew parting. Fear liquefied his belly as he realised no one would care that he had yielded to Ilkehan only to save himself. Guinalle was startled to feel her own bowels gripe in sympathy.
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