‘No one has made any enquiries after the dead Soluran. Mentor Garewin suggests we surrender his body to the Elected. Then he will be buried at the edge of the city’s burning grounds with his death proclaimed at noon in the principal squares for three successive days.’
Mentor Garewin had explained to Jilseth that this was entirely customary for foreigners who died in the city, whose arcane rites insisted on interment, or for those whose families would have long leagues to travel before they could commit their loved ones to the cleansing release of fire.
‘The mentors think that might prompt someone to claim his body.’ Too late Jilseth realised how waspish she sounded.
Planir raised an eyebrow. ‘Whereas you think they’re hoping to catch a floating moon in a net?’
Jilseth shrugged. ‘No mentors in any of Col’s Schools of Rhetoric, Music or History have been approached by a Soluran adept since the turn of the season, still less by anyone sworn to the three Houses conspiring against us.’
She had had such high hopes initially. Within a few days Col’s scholars had identified the symbols which Jilseth had flung on the table before them. The insignia denoted the House of Sacred Serenity in Trudenar, the House of Tranquil Seclusion in Megrilar and the House of Reflective Repose in Safornar. Whatever Mentor Garewin’s scruples, Guinalle had been willing to search the thoughts of any of their adepts found within the city. The Prefects were still looking.
‘Three Houses of Artifice are conspiring with five Orders of Wizardry across seven Soluran provinces.’ Jilseth’s frustration got the better of her. ‘Have you raised this with Solura’s King? With his sworn mages?’
‘I hope we can resolve this without compelling King Solquen’s intervention, not least because that will inevitably see the Tormalin Emperor involving himself in our affairs.’ Planir leaned back against the settle’s high cushioned back.
‘Why do you suppose I asked you to stay in Col? When we both know that any mage here in Hadrumal could have scried over the docks and told me what you were seeing; the Jagai zamorin paying his hirelings to embark on their voyage before measuring their progress at dawn and dusk.’
‘I assume you have your reasons, Archmage.’ Jilseth had been telling herself that day after day and every time convincing herself had required more effort.
‘So I have.’ The Archmage nodded. ‘Just as I had good reason for telling Merenel to remain in Kellarin with Allin Mere and the settlers’ mages, and for sending Tornauld to the Carifate to join Velindre and Mellitha as they negotiate with those Lescari keen to establish their own trading harbours. I’ve just sent Nolyen to offer his services to Lord Licanin in Caladhria, should some Archipelagan warlord approach him with a view to cleansing his own treasury of unsuspected magic.’
Jilseth looked at him, baffled. ‘Archmage?’
‘Lady Zurenne hasn’t been sitting idle, though I don’t imagine she realises how useful her new boldness has been for my own purposes.’ Planir grinned before looking more serious.
‘Flood Mistress Troanna tells me that the Solurans are constantly scrying upon us,’ he told Jilseth, ‘doubtless in hopes of learning something which they can use to force us to yield to their wishes. Naturally we can foil such intrusions but doing so entirely would leave their wizards idle and frustrated, sure to provoke them into devising some other nuisance to plague us.
‘Consequently we have allowed them pierce this island’s veiling spells from time to time. Troanna is particularly skilled in letting them believe they have done so undetected, thanks to their own subtle magecraft. All they see is fractious mages getting ever more enmeshed in fruitless attempts to divine ensorcelled artefacts’ secrets. So they have gone scrying after you and my other confidants, now scattered far and wide, and we can hope that what they are seeing is baffling them completely.’
He raised an apologetic hand. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. With Soluran adepts also ranged against us, I believe there is every chance that they have been using aetheric magic to eavesdrop unbidden on our people’s thoughts.’
‘Of course, Archmage.’ Jilseth felt humiliated. She should have trusted Planir. More than that, she should have worked out his reasoning for herself. She frowned.
‘Any Artificer reading my thoughts will know that Aritane has gone with Corrain to ask for the sheltya’s assistance. Is that another such diversion?’
‘Not at all,’ Planir assured her. ‘I had very much hoped that dread of sheltya displeasure would dissuade these three Houses from working with these wizards.’
‘You had hoped so.’ Jilseth echoed his words with a sinking feeling. ‘Is Lady Guinalle still unable to find Aritane?’
Planir shook his head. ‘Guinalle believes that Artifice is concealing Aritane from aetheric attempts to reach her, and from Usara’s scrying besides.’
‘Artifice can foil elemental magic?’ Jilseth was dismayed.
‘So it would seem,’ Planir confirmed, ‘some spells at least, when the adept is sufficiently proficient. But if the sheltya are not interested in helping us, we have other strings to our bow. I brought you here to see the results of some particular endeavours which we’ve been concealing from Soluran scrying.’
The Archmage gestured towards the open door. Jilseth could already hear footsteps on the staircase and Ely appeared carrying a broad scrying bowl. The Flood Mistress followed her.
‘Madam Mage.’ Jilseth tried to hide her astonishment. Troanna customarily dressed as comfortably and practically as any other grandmother on Hadrumal’s high road. Today she wore a sea green velvet gown beneath a high collared mossy cloak with emeralds glinting amid swirls of gold embroidery.
‘Jilseth?’ Troanna looked momentarily surprised before turning her attention to the table. ‘Ely, fill that if you please.’
‘Flood Mistress.’ Ely set the bowl down with a thud on the polished wood, prompting an indignant ringing from the silver.
Jilseth took a step forward to offer some help. Ely’s face was so ominously pale that she honestly feared the slender magewoman might faint.
Troanna glanced at Planir. ‘Three are spying on us at present, from Detich, Noerut and Ancorr.’
‘That will suffice.’ The Archmage turned to the door. ‘Rafrid, I appreciate your promptness, and Canfor, good day to you.’
‘Archmage.’
Jilseth was startled to see Canfor’s face was deeply lined with exhaustion, his eyes darkly shadowed. Anyone would be forgiven for mistaking the prematurely white-haired mage for one of his own father’s generation.
Rafrid couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a fearsomely powerful wizard. The Cloud Master had forsaken his usual modest garb for breeches and doublet in azure broadcloth beneath a cobalt blue cloak. Silver thread traced lightning bolts from collar to hem and a heavy silver chain linked the great faceted sapphires of the clasp.
‘Kalion and Sannin are on their way up.’ Rafrid nodded a general greeting to everyone in the room. ‘Good morning.’
The Hearth Master’s heavy footfalls drowned out the sounds from the scrying bowl as Ely’s magecraft filled it with water. As Kalion appeared, jowls sagging, Jilseth was relieved to see that Sannin looked fresh-faced and more than that, eagerly intent.
‘Are you ready?’ the Hearth Master asked Planir grimly.
Even for a wizard who customarily dressed with calculated ostentation, Kalion’s appearance was dramatic. His robe of scarlet velvet was hemmed with flames worked in gold thread while his crimson cloak was secured on each shoulder of his flowing robe with twin brooches wrought like gold fire baskets filled with ruby coals.
‘If you please.’ Planir’s gesture directed them to the table while he picked up the cloak draped over his settle. The high collar was ornamented with bold devices wrought of fine wire. As he raised his hand to take something from the mantelshelf, the metal shimmered and shifted in the light such that Jilseth couldn’t tell if it was silver, gold or bronze.
She couldn’t ever recall seeing t
he Archmage dressed in such a forbidding garment. The stiff dark cloth framing his face transformed him into an unknowable, unapproachable figure.
Planir’s next words doubled her unease. ‘Before we begin, Jilseth, you must be ready to join in a nexus with Ely, Canfor and Sannin. You must submit your magic to Sannin’s commands without question or reservation. I will be working largely untried magecraft and if something goes awry, she must contain any uncontrolled wizardry—’
‘Archmage—’ Ely began desperately.
‘You can do this. You helped to confine the Mandarkin Anskal’s apprentices.’ Planir was as kindly as he was implacable. ‘More than that, you are one of the few mages whose affinity was enhanced through union with the quintessential nexus.’
‘There’s no other water mage who can take your place.’ Canfor glowered.
Jilseth wondered if he was regretting his jealousy of mages whom he believed were learning wizardly secrets denied to him. Be careful what you wish for, lest you get it. She should have remembered such age-old wisdom herself, pacing her room in Col, burning with frustration.
‘Hadrumal can survive my loss if this wizardry escapes me,’ Planir continued calmly. ‘Then it will be up to you and the halls to defend this island, if the Solurans can somehow make good on their threats of attacking us by means of this Jagai fleet and its mercenaries.’
‘We understand, Archmage,’ Sannin said, resolute.
‘Flood Mistress,’ Planir invited.
Troanna smiled with such malicious anticipation that Jilseth could have believed ice-born magecraft had sent that sudden shiver down her spine.
The Flood Mistress focused her attention on the silver bowl. The water glowed with bright emerald magelight, though this was no steady green glow but a riot of shifting flares and flashes.
Jilseth felt elemental water magic being drawn into the room from some unimaginable distance. More than that, it wasn’t summoned here in service of Troanna’s wizardry but compelled by the Flood Mistress’s spell. The bowl blazed. Desperate shafts of green magelight erupted to writhe and dissolve into showers of emerald sparks.
Troanna’s smile didn’t falter as she stared at the bowl. The emerald wizardry hardened. Solid radiance lay across the bowl like a layer of ensorcelled ice.
‘I have captured their scrying,’ the Flood Mistress said with vindictive satisfaction.
‘Rafrid?’ Planir nodded at the grizzled wizard.
The Cloud Master cracked his knuckles one by one, looking intently at Troanna’s spell imprisoning the Soluran wizards’ impertinent spying.
Azure magelight glowed deep within the frozen green. The turquoise shimmer spread and Jilseth felt elemental air force its way into the subjugated magecraft. The unmistakable resonance of a clairaudience spell thrummed against her wizard senses, the invisible threads of sorcery extending far beyond this tower room. Now she truly understood the pre-eminence of Rafrid’s mastery. His spell was cleaving through the winds which buffeted waves and land alike to fly, true as an arrow, across five hundred leagues and more.
This spell was compelling the Soluran mages to hear what happened in Hadrumal, just as Troanna’s mirrored scrying now forced them to see it. Faint tremors struck Jilseth’s affinity as those distant wizards fought in vain to free themselves.
‘Hearth Master.’ Planir remained by the mantelshelf as Kalion spread his hands.
The fire mage’s plump lips thinned, his eyes narrowing, as he applied himself to this unprecedented working. At first, Jilseth could barely sense the subtle breath of fire circling the frozen and interwoven scrying and clairaudience spells. It was easier to feel the rigid boundary which the Hearth Master created to circumscribe the fickle, evanescent element.
As his spell strengthened, Jilseth recognised a bespeaking, a comparatively simple working. So the Archmage had a message for the Solurans beyond challenging those vainglorious wizards with this display of equally pretentious garb.
Bespeaking might be a straightforward spell but matching this magecraft to the first two spells was demanding all Kalion’s expertise. This wizardry must follow the same elemental conduit to those distant towers but if even this modest fire magic was to brush against Rafrid or Troanna’s wizardry, then everything would be undone. Jilseth had no doubt that more was at stake than humiliation for Hadrumal.
‘Are we ready?’ Planir drew on a pair of grey gloves, ornamented and armoured with black leather reinforced with that same eerily ambiguous metal.
‘We are.’ Troanna confirmed.
As the two Element Masters echoed her, Planir took something from the high shelf above the fire place and looked at the four mages as yet unengaged in wizardry.
Sannin cleared her throat. ‘We are ready, Archmage.’
Jilseth tried to echo her but could only utter a hoarse whisper. Canfor’s assent was barely any louder and Ely simply nodded, mute, her eyes white-rimmed.
Planir came over to the table and extended his hand above the silver bowl. The swirling circle of elemental fire a finger’s width above the frozen scrying glowed brightly as he used the bespeaking spell.
‘You will recognise this ring,’ he said conversationally. ‘It has a climbing spell imbued within it. You or your fellow conspirators were scrying when I demonstrated to my colleagues how impossible it is to destroy such an ensorcelled trinket with even the most intense focus of any single element. I’m sure that you found that reassuring. Watch closely and think again.’
Planir tossed the ring up into the air. He didn’t catch it as it fell towards the scrying. Instead he cupped his hands, the width of the bowl apart. Coruscating quintessential magelight crackled from his fingertips, as brilliant as diamond struck by sunlight and glittering with every colour of the rainbow on the very edge of seeing.
A sphere of quintessential magic captured the tumbling ring. Darkness filled the globe, hiding the ring from view. Quintessential magic continued to stream from Planir’s fingertips into the sphere. Bright tendrils escaped it, edged with violet radiance which Jilseth had never seen in any magecraft.
As this eerie magelight touched the tower room’s floor, the windows or the table, that unknown wizardry dissipated to surrender its magical potential to the natural blend of the elements surrounding them.
In this instant before each tendril vanished, the sensations were intoxicating. Jilseth’s affinity told her that she could unmake Hadrumal itself, unaided and as easily as the Archmage’s nexus had destroyed the corsair isle, if she dared to command such power.
Except she had no doubt that any attempt to harness such catastrophic magic would destroy her utterly. Canfor took a hasty sidestep to avoid one of the crackling violet tendrils and Jilseth didn’t blame him. She had no wish to risk the dire consequences of such a touch.
All Planir’s attention was focused on the sphere of black shadow rimmed with diamond brilliance. Somewhere deep inside, Jilseth could sense an elemental cataclysm unfolding. Her wizardly senses ached with the recollection of the Mandarkin Anskal’s death. He had been ripped so utterly asunder, body, blood and bones, that not even dust remained, when his uncontrolled affinity had been unleashed within the adamantine prison which Hadrumal’s Masters and Mistress of Element had crafted from their united elemental might.
White-hot light glowed in the heart of the black sphere. Now Jilseth could see the ring caught within the annihilating spell. The radiance was so bright that it was painful to behold but she couldn’t look away.
Black smoke escaped the spell; a single wisp but soon thickening, as opaque as ink. Drifting up to the ceiling, it spread across the full width of the room without ever seeming to thin. Jilseth shivered as she felt the excess of elemental magic which had so thrilled her being sucked into the obliterating darkness.
‘Sannin?’ Canfor was ashen with apprehension but Jilseth saw that he wasn’t looking at the ominous darkness spreading above them. He had seen flakes of shattered stone falling from the sphere in a cascade of that violet magelight.
Jilseth answered him. ‘No, that’s devoid of wizardry.’
Whatever else was happening she could sense these broken fragments were no more than common shale. The frail stone crumbled further as it fell. Before the smallest speck could have struck the frozen scrying, the once-ensorcelled ring was reduced to motes smaller than any eye could see. Smaller than even the most precisely crafted Aldabreshin lens could ever find.
‘Your attention, please!’ Sannin said sharply.
Jilseth felt the magewoman reaching out with her fire affinity to determine how much wizardry she could command without risking the slightest intermingling with the spells woven around the scrying or, more perilous still, any chance of intersection with the elemental oblivion looming overhead.
She saw sweat matting the Archmage’s cropped steel-grey hair. His face glistened in the eerie magelight and a vein in his forehead pulsed. Effort deepened the creases around his eyes and moisture beaded his lashes as his face contorted.
The darkness swirling around the ceiling began to glitter, speckled with all the colours of the elements. The annihilating wizardry which had nullified the magic instilled in the ensorcelled ring now sought to consume any other element which impinged on its shadowy boundaries.
Jilseth established an elemental union with Trydek’s tower, ready to draw on the strength of its stones and the foundations reaching down into Hadrumal’s bedrock. She could sense Canfor summoning storm clouds from leagues around. Ely had the greatest challenge to surmount; linking her affinity with the waters lapping the wizard isle’s shores. Jilseth was both astonished and relieved to feel how swiftly the pale magewoman did so.
The glittering menace subsided. The darkness swirled, plain black with no hint of magelight. As the shadow thinned to grey Jilseth sensed the elemental ebb and flow within and beyond Trydek’s tower returning to a natural balance. Nothing now escaped the sphere hovering between Planir’s hands; neither the ominous magic nor the remnants of crushed shale.
Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) Page 43