Corrain had no answer for that, so he hefted Jilseth more securely onto his shoulder, turned around and left the cavern.
The old man had indicated that he should follow his sword hand. Surely there was no reason for him to lie. Corrain walked steadily onwards, refusing to consider any possibility that he might be heading deeper into this barren labyrinth.
Soon fluttering torch flames and a steadily growing draft of fresh air rewarded him. Rounding two more turns, he saw a jagged cave mouth framing pale blue sky.
Dawn or dusk? Corrain realised he had no idea. Emerging into the thin sunshine, he drew a deep breath of shuddering relief. In the next moment, he shivered uncontrollably. Hastily laying Jilseth down on the dull turf, he buttoned his jerkin and looked around.
They were indeed on a mountainside and nowhere that he recognised. Granted, Corrain knew nothing of the White River’s valley above Wrede but the vista ahead looked very different from anything he’d seen on his hike with Aritane. Here the land fell away towards endless trees reaching to the horizon. Where had these sheltya taken him?
Could this be the upper region of the Great Forest, on the far side of the broad gap in the mountains where the town of Grynth guarded against any incursions from the Mountain Men living above that region of broken fells and lakes? Corrain had no idea.
First things first and one thing at a time. That’s what Fitrel had taught him. Was it morning or evening? That would determine how far he could travel. Once Jilseth recovered her wits, he could hope that her wizardry would carry them to Halferan or more likely to Hadrumal. Meantime, he was certain that the magewoman would want to get as many leagues as possible away from these cursed sheltya.
Corrain frowned. It made no sense for the sun to be there.
‘You stand on the northward face of the Gidestan peaks,’ the old man said placidly.
He turned to see the old sheltya in the cave entrance with a blanket-wrapped bundle at his feet. Though neither hilt nor scabbard was visible, the solid length thrust through the middle must surely be his sword. That was a relief, even if he only used it to split firewood.
Corrain contemplated the peak rising up beyond the old sheltya. It was easily the height of any of those which he had seen walking with Aritane. Though this mountain stood alone; an outlier separated from the saw-edged range further south by some land he couldn’t see.
Whether that rocky shoulder beyond the cave mouth hid a gentle slope down to an accommodating plain or some precipitous drop into murderous ravines made no difference. Corrain couldn’t see any hint of a pass through those deadly heights beyond.
‘Which is closer? The break in the mountains above Inglis or the Ensaimin lake lands?’ He might at least have a direction to walk in while he waited for Jilseth to recover.
‘Ushal Tena, the route to Inglis, is two hundred or so leagues eastward. Sekmor Tena, the route to the lakes, is perhaps three hundred leagues westward.’
The old man smiled, though not with the malicious satisfaction Corrain would have expected from his shaven-headed colleagues. The old man seemed pleased, like some kindly grandsire.
‘There is a pass closer but you should not risk it at this season, not with such scant gear. It is for summer travel only. Winter chokes it with snow.’
‘Good to know.’ Corrain wondered how best to carry that bundle as well as Jilseth.
The old man angled his head. ‘What do you know of Gidesta?’
‘Nothing,’ Corrain said curtly. ‘As you surely know since you’ve emptied out my mind as thoroughly as a drunkard’s purse.’
‘A worthy thrust, swordsman.’ The old man was amiably amused. ‘Forgive me; it is our custom to teach the young through asking questions. The first step to knowledge is acknowledging ignorance.’
Corrain had no interest in debating scholarly philosophies with the day already half gone. He decided his best approach was to sling Jilseth over his shoulder and then bend his knees little by little until he could pick up the bundle with his free hand.
He scooped up the magewoman and settled her securely before advancing towards the cave mouth and gingerly lowering himself.
‘I will walk with you.’ The old man picked up the rope-swathed blanket. ‘This way.’
He followed a dusty scrape in the frost-bleached turf. ‘If you were to head north, you would find any number of streams cutting through those trees.’ He nodded towards the boundless wilderness. ‘They gather into lakes and rivers cutting through marsh and frozen wastes to join the mightiest of all rivers heading eastwards to the ocean. I do not even know if that river has a name in your tongue.’
Corrain concentrated on his footing as the path grew steeper. A broken leg or even a sprained ankle could be the death of him and Jilseth.
‘We are wise to be content with our land,’ the old man continued, reflective. ‘Once, long ages ago, there were those who would have used true magic, which you call Artifice, to make that vast plain lush and fertile instead of sodden and sour. Their price was having all others agree to bow their heads and yield to their rule.’
The old man halted, forcing Corrain to stop as well.
‘If the people ever tired of that rule, if it turned to tyranny, there could be no undoing that bargain. Not without annulling enchantments which their children’s lives relied on. Moreover such disruption coursing through the aether would have unleashed unexpected destruction on every adept beyond the mountains, just as sustaining such selfish magic would have deprived them of all but the most basic enchantments to heal and help their own people.’
The old looked around, his faded eyes reflective.
‘Only sheltya could stop this madness and so we did. Our many-times grandfathers and foremothers gathered in this solitary place to oppose those who were so arrogant in their magic. In your tongue, this mountain would be called the Peak of Defiance. Our price was committing sheltya to vows forbidding the use of true magic to secure personal power or kinsfolk’s gain. To guard and guide our own people in perpetuity while guarding ourselves against any urge to interfere in affairs beyond our mountains.’
Corrain held out his empty hand for the bundle, his other arm tight around Jilseth’s thighs to stop her sliding off his shoulder. ‘I have heard Caladhria’s barons’ arguments in favour of minding their own mutton. Such high-minded principles left my home undefended and innocent people murdered or enslaved. But you know that full well.’
‘I know that your efforts only led to still more upheaval.’ The aged sheltya made no effort to hand over the vital gear. He pointed instead to a long slope covered with frost shattered rocks. ‘You are like a man running for his life across such a scree hoping to escape the calamity which you caused with your own incautious scrambling.’
‘What’s the alternative?’ Corrain challenged him. ‘Lie down to be crushed? Besides, the safest-looking ground can shift beneath your feet despite your best efforts to find a solid path. I may not know mountains but I know marshes. I also know to make the most of the daylight so I’ll be on my way.’
‘True.’ The old man smiled amiably. ‘May I heal your friend’s hand before you leave?’
Corrain considered the offer. Doubtless Jilseth would prefer to answer for herself but if they were out in these woods for a few days, such deep wounds could get infected, even in the depths of winter. Without anyone but him to help her, she might lose her arm entirely and this old man seemed more agreeable than any other Mountain Artificer.
‘Please,’ he said cautiously. ‘Thank you.’
The old man moved to his side and Corrain guessed that he was taking Jilseth’s hand. With her head and arms dangling down his back, he couldn’t really tell.
The old man murmured softly before returning to the Tormalin tongue. ‘There will be scars. This a wizard-wrought wound and that is the antithesis of my own magic.’
Corrain wasn’t sure what that meant so settled for asking a question of his own. He shuffled around in order to look the old man in the eye.
‘What would you have done with me if the magewoman hadn’t come? If no one had come in search of me?’
The old sheltya smiled. ‘She did come so we will never know. May I heal you before you leave?’
‘I have no injuries to speak of.’ Corrain’s torn fingernails and other grazes were scabbed and dry.
The old man looked quizzically at him. ‘I have seen your nightmares. Would you like to be free of such shame and sorrow? Sheltya can heal the mind as well as the body.’
Corrain stared at him. All he could think of was Aritane’s vacant eyes, her mind emptied of every memory of her years beyond these mountains. What had these merciless adepts done to her?
‘That is not for you to know. Her journey is her own.’ The old man sighed. ‘It was her own choice, to be freed of her burdens of guilt and regret.’
‘Is that what happened to her brother?’ Corrain wondered.
‘That is not for you to know.’ The old man’s face hardened. ‘You are not kin by blood or marriage.’
If Corrain hadn’t had Jilseth’s weight bearing down on one shoulder, he would have shrugged, dismissive. He settled for holding his hand out. ‘If this is as far as you’re coming, I’ll take our gear.’
The old man handed over the bundle. ‘I am Cullam. When you feel that you deserve such healing, tell Lady Guinalle my name. She will not be able to find Aritane’s thoughts but I will hear her if she seeks her lost friend. Meantime, you could talk to Hosh. He has wisdom born of humility.’
Before Corrain could ask what he meant by that, the aged sheltya vanished.
Corrain drew another deep breath and tried to decide if he was more relieved or more anxious. Resisting a powerful urge to try shaking Jilseth awake, he continued picking his way down the desolate slope towards the uncertain shelter of the closest coppices.
He would head westward, skirting the edge of those sparse woodlands until he must use the last of the daylight to make some sort of camp. If Jilseth hadn’t woken by then. If he hadn’t walked far enough to escape whatever Artifice was stopping Hadrumal’s wizards or Suthyfer’s adepts from finding them. If no one was looking for him, Corrain was sure they must be searching for the magewoman.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Gidesta
14th of For-Spring
JILSETH OPENED HER eyes to darkness. She was still trapped underground. Had the treacherous sheltya confined her in the same cavern as Corrain? But they had seen her use wizardry to escape. Had they woven an enchantment to bar her from her affinity? Was this some aetheric prison akin to Micaran’s library?
These thoughts coursed through her mind in the blink of an eye. Before paralysing dread could follow, her wizardry sensed cold earth beneath the blanket where she lay. She heard the rustle of the chill wind among the dull brown leaves still clinging to the wintry twigs. A small pond close by was covered with a thick layer of ice and the barest spark of elemental fire sustained the frogs and many-legged creatures buried deep in the mud to wait out the deathly cold.
Now she could see the Greater Moon high above the trees, a day past the full, while the Lesser’s quarter gleamed beyond a scatter of stars. Jilseth drew a shuddering breath at this reprieve and thrust out a hand to raise herself up. Too late she remembered her burns.
In the next instant, she realised that her hand was healed. Long healed. Frantic, she sat up and traced the numb, puckered scars with her fingers. How long had she been held captive if the moons had traced their different paths around the heavens to return to the same places where she’d last seen them in Col?
She tried desperately to bring the pages of an almanac to mind. Such concentration was impossible. What disasters had overtaken Hadrumal since she had so miserably failed the Archmage?
‘You’re awake?’
She heard Corrain’s voice and she sensed his body’s warmth, feeling the subtle resonance of his approaching footsteps as well as the shift in the breeze circling this dry hollow.
‘What day is it?’ Jilseth would have got to her feet but she was so vilely light-headed that she stayed huddled on the blanket. She ached in every limb and not just from the penetrating cold. ‘Where are we?’
‘It’s the evening of the same day when you came to find me and we’re barely a couple of leagues from the sheltya mountain.’
‘The same day?’ She stared at him, disbelieving.
He dropped an armful of firewood in a hole dug in the turf and neatly ringed with stones. ‘You lose all sense of time while they’re turning your mind inside out.’
Jilseth shook her head stubbornly, holding up her hand. ‘No—’
‘That healing was a parting gift from the old man. That’s all we’re leaving with, beyond blankets, my sword and belt-knife and the remnants of the food and overnighting gear which Aritane and I carried,’ Corrain said grimly. ‘We’re beyond the north slope of the Gidestan mountains, so if you can’t use your magic to help us, it’ll be midsummer before we get home.’
‘There’s no fear of that.’ Though Jilseth found the thought of returning to Hadrumal, to tell Planir that these sheltya would not help them, truly appalling.
Was there any possibility that Lady Guinalle’s ancient Artifice and Col’s half-trained adepts could stave off the disaster threatening wizardry?
‘We have no time to waste.’ She tried to stand up but dizziness overwhelmed her.
Corrain caught her elbow to steady her, offering rough comfort. ‘It will be a day or so before you’re fully yourself.’
‘Thank you,’ Jilseth said shortly.
She was selfishly thankful to know that he had been subjected to the same aetheric intrusion. It was still more of a relief to see that he was as unwilling to discuss whatever he had endured as she was to revisit her own experiences. Doubtless wizards in Hadrumal would ask her thoughtlessly curious questions but Jilseth had no intention of answering, even if she could.
Whatever had happened since she had come north was a pain-filled blur of confused recollection seemingly drawn from scattered remembrance of her earliest childhood through to the crystal-clear memory of Planir destroying the ensorcelled ring. Trying to focus her thoughts on anything beyond that prompted renewed fear that she would faint, this time with an ominous threat of nausea.
Jilseth thrust the swirling confusion away, concentrating instead on the rich, moist earth beneath her feet. The sense of the vast mountain range so close by swiftly steadied her, in body and affinity alike. She turned to the south.
‘We must go.’
She reached for the highest peaks and searched beneath the snows for those knife-edged ridges where the spring sunshine would soon divide the melt-waters. Trickles would join rivulets and they would mingle in foaming cascades tumbling down these mountainsides to join the streams cutting northwards through the wasteland, to blend with a formidable river running to the ocean.
Jilseth followed the waters on the far side of that high divide. Myriad shallow scores undulated across the hard rock. They deepened to carve grooves beneath the ice, guiding the waters ever downward. Some torrents travelled safely through gorges and ravines, others tumbled over abrupt cliffs. By whatever route, brooks and rills found their way to more forgiving slopes dotted with scrub and brush. Soon spindly trees secured a foothold in sheltered gullies. Before long, taller thickets gathered together in broad swathes of woodland. The first hints of axe and fire marked the presence of hunters and trappers.
There was no time to be seduced by the tantalizing traces of ores and rare earths. Jilseth followed the waters to the sea and traced the currents southward. The rock deep beneath the seabed grew ever more familiar, bolstering her confidence even as her misgivings grew over Hadrumal’s fate.
Whatever had happened, there was nothing to be gained by delay. She reached for Corrain’s hand and white magelight enveloped them.
Before the magic faded, cacophony surrounded them. Doors to wizardly apartments stood ajar, arguing voices within. Magelight made a lan
tern of the tall windows of Trydek’s hall. She looked up to the Archmage’s sitting room to see those shutters closed tight, no hint of lamp or candle within.
Corrain angrily shook his arm free. ‘You didn’t give me a chance to fetch my sword!’
‘You hardly need it here,’ she protested.
‘No?’ he retorted. ‘With Aldabreshin galleys full of mercenaries hull down on the horizon? Where is Hadrumal’s armoury?’
Jilseth had no answer to that so she moved to intercept a hurrying apprentice. ‘Where is the Archmage?’
He looked at her as though that was the most foolish question asked on this island since Trydek had built that tower looming darkly over them. ‘In the Council Chamber.’
Had the island’s most eminent mages been closeted in there all day? What had the prentice and pupil wizards made of that? Had the halls’ elders and teachers kept order or had they been too distracted and dismayed by the island’s defences’ undoing? How many had fought to repair those protections only to suffer aetheric assault?
What fervid speculation was sweeping through the high road’s wine shops, drapers and bookbinders to unnerve the island’s mundane populace? What of the merchants and artisans in the outlying quarters? Had anyone warned them to gather their families, taking only what they could carry before heading inland to beg sanctuary among the island’s villages and farms? How long would that save them once the mercenaries and Archipelagans swarmed ashore? Jilseth didn’t bother asking this shivering apprentice any such unanswerable questions.
‘Thank you. Corrain—?’
‘Lead the way.’
She cut across the courtyard and through the alley leading to the square around the ancient chamber. She only wondered how they might gain entrance as she approached the open archway at the foot of the barrel-vaulted staircase.
‘We have to wait until Planir emerges,’ she realised aloud. ‘The Council will have warded the chamber’s door against intrusion.’
Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) Page 46