Northern Storm ac-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  ‘And given that no wizard in his right mind travels in the Archipelago, there’s no telling how far north this unnamed, untamed magic will come.’ Mellitha pursued Velindre’s predicament inexorably. ‘How much blood do you want on your conscience? How exactly are you going to explain keeping such a secret from Hadrumal? I take it Dev hasn’t told anyone of his little adventures?’

  ‘I don’t imagine so.’ Velindre sighed. ‘So that’s what I’ve been doing—trying to learn more about dragons, to find some alternative. I haven’t found one yet.’

  ‘Some other means of killing one or driving it off?’ Mellitha frowned.

  Velindre nodded. ‘Or some way of finding the wizard who summoned it and killing him. Saedrin save me if the Council ever finds out about that.’

  ‘You say a dragon summoned through Otrick and Azazir’s spell is a creature of pure element? No-’ Mellitha raised a hand and her emerald rings sparkled in the sun ‘-I don’t want to know how. I don’t need to know. Perhaps there’s another alternative. Give me a moment to think’

  Velindre sat looking out of the window. The children in the square below played their blithe games, shouting and laughing, and the clouds tracked across the sky. The five chimes of noon sounded across the city and their echoes died away.

  ‘You said the dragon is pure element shaped and bound with magecraft?’ Mellitha said after some considerable while. Velindre nodded.

  ‘Do you suppose it might be possible to undo that binding?’ the older magewoman suggested slowly. ‘Or to introduce some other element into it, to somehow contaminate the wizardry within it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Velindre looked at her, mouth half-open. She rubbed her forehead with the back of one hand. ‘It might be possible.’

  Mellitha smiled. ‘It’s all very well shutting yourself away to beat your brains out against a problem but it’s often said that a problem shared is a problem halved, even if you share it with an old wife like me.’

  ‘It would be nigh on impossible to undo your own creation once the simulacrum is made,’ Velindre said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know if I could do that to another mage’s dragon.’

  ‘Do you suppose it would improve matters if that dragon had been made by a wizard attuned to the same element as yourself?’ Mellitha asked. ‘Or as Dev—you said he was looking to fight fire with fire.’

  ‘That’s certainly something to consider,’ mused Velindre, but how would he introduce another element? Would it have to be antithetical? Or perhaps we could do it between us—air and fire are sympathetic elements.’

  ‘This looks like one of those possible answers that brings a handful of new and harder questions along with it,’ said Mellitha ruefully. ‘Loath as I am to say it, you’re more likely to find the answers in Hadrumal than Relshaz. Hearth Master Kalion is a pompous fat fool in many ways, but he’d certainly be someone who could advise you. Or your father, though I imagine he’d be too busy telling you he told you not to visit Azazir in the first instance.’ She smiled as Velindre looked sharply at her. ‘I’ve been a daughter as well as a mother, my dear.’

  Velindre stared out of the window again. ‘I’ve been wondering if the wisest course might just be to lock what I’ve learned in the darkest recesses of my memory. The collective wisdom of the Council seems to be that such dangerous knowledge should be lost. It would have been washed from the annals of wizardry whenever Azazir finally achieves the ultimate dissolution he seems intent upon.’

  ‘Lost knowledge has an inconvenient way of reappearing,’ Mellitha said briefly. ‘And keeping your own counsel on this won’t help Dev, will it?’

  Velindre sighed.

  ‘I’m son-y, my dear, but I have other appointments.’ Mellitha stood up, gathering her wrap and fan. ‘Come and see me if there’s anything more I can do. Come and see me anyway. I meant what I said about the wider world offering far more than the narrow halls of Hadrumal.’ She favoured Velindre with a sunny smile before bustling out of the room and away down the stairs.

  Velindre stood up with sudden decisiveness and crossed to the door of her bedchamber in a few quick strides. Taking the shawl off the mirror, she set a beeswax candle in a single silver stick before it and lit the wick with a snap of her fingers. Deftly, she wove the bright circle of bespeaking and then frowned. The mirror stayed obstinately empty. She snuffed the candle and tried again. She had no better success. The crease between her blonde brows deepening, she crossed to the marble-topped washstand and, lifting out the floral ceramic ewer, passed her hand over the broad, shallow bowl. Moisture slowly coalesced out of the air until a small puddle had gathered in the bottom. She passed her hand over the bowl again and the water glowed green. But there was still no image riding on the iridescent surface.

  Where was Dev? Too far away, in a place so entirely unknown to her? It wasn’t as if she had any possession of his to focus her spell. Or was he hiding, as she had been, in case she betray him with such magic? Velindre hurriedly banished the spell. She had no wish to condemn Dev to the agonising death the Aldabreshi reserved for wizards. And the more she thought about it, the more foolish her own plan of travelling south began to seem, risking such a fate herself. But she had better let him know that she was almost certainly returning to Hadrumal.

  She walked slowly back into the sitting room and picked up the almanac, her lips moving unconsciously as she calculated the days since she had last spoken to Dev. Would that ship he had promised her be waiting in the docks, ready to carry her away? The Aldabreshi had their own ways of sending messages among themselves, with their ciphers and puzzles to hide their meanings. If the ship was there, this warlord’s envoy would surely have some means of getting word to Dev.

  Velindre left the room and the door locked itself with a soft click as her purposeful steps faded away down the stairs. She didn’t pause as the door to the widow’s sitting room opened. ‘I’m going out. I may be some while.’

  She pushed the outer door open and walked rapidly down the house’s steps. Her pace didn’t slow until she left the guarded privacy of the square for the bustling thoroughfares beyond. There were more people clogging up the streets and alleys in Relshaz every time she visited,

  Velindre thought with irritation. But this busy commercial street was by far her quickest route to the docks.

  Women were slowly perusing the displays laid out on drapers’ counters and ribbon sellers’ doorposts. Those hunying with more purpose jostled the magewoman on their way to appointments with the dressmakers and milliners whose workshop windows opened above the shop fronts. Some of the women walked in two and threes, hearts close together, arms linked as they sought to cany on a conversation. Others barked orders to the maids or menservants at their heels laden with packages or bolts of cloth. Merchants’ inducements, hawkers’ blandishments and the rising notes of intense haggling added to the hubbub.

  ‘Something for that lovely fair skin of yours, my lady?’ An importunate pedlar darted in front of her, thrusting forward a wooden tray, leather strap looped around his neck. ‘Well into spring now, madam. You don’t want that delicate complexion spoiling in the sun. I’ve calomel powder here—’

  Velindre would have stepped around him but the flagway was too crowded. ‘Get out of my way,’ she said coldly.

  The pedlar’s cheeky grin widened now that she had been forced to acknowledge him. ‘Such gorgeous golden hair you have, my lady. Northern blood makes for such beauties—’

  ‘My forebears may have had northern blood, I neither know nor care.’ Velindre fixed him with a forbidding glare. ‘I am from Hadrumal and if you don’t let me pass, I’ll curdle every jar of unguent and snake oil that you possess.’

  Mouth slack with shock, the pedlar pressed himself back against a sweetmeat seller’s handcart. Velindre pushed past to leave the two men arguing as the throng closed behind her. Seeing several women with entourages of maids and children pausing for mutual consultation and effectively blocking the flagway ahead, Velindre glanced at an
urchin clutching a broom and ready to sweep a crossing in exchange for some copper. She reconsidered as a heavy dray rumbled past, barrels clunking together as the horses checked, their path obstructed by a carriage slowing to find an indistinct side alley. It would be quicker to force a path between the indignant women than to wait for a gap in the traffic.

  She pressed on until she had left the thriving mercantile heart of Relshaz. Now she had reached a quieter quarter where windowless warehouses rose high on each side of the narrow lanes. Waggoners bringing their creaking carts to be emptied or lashing their reluctant horses to pull a new load slowed to look at the unaccompanied magewoman with open curiosity. ‘What are you looking for, blondie?”Are you lost? I’ll trade you a ride for a ride, sweetheart.’

  ‘What’s a handsome piece like you doing in these parts?’ Velindre ignored honest concern and ribald jocularity alike. Taking a cross street and then cutting through a short entry, she emerged on to a broad dockside solidly built of pale stone. There were precious few Relshazri to be seen here. The storehouses were guarded by dark-skinned men in gleaming mail, expressionless behind their all-concealing beards. Each one carried more swords and daggers at his brass-studded belt than he had hands to use. Shutters above stood wide open, women in flowing gowns of brilliant silks sitting on the shallow windowsills. They sipped from sparkling glass goblets as they looked down at dutiful slaves carrying bales of linen cloth and nameless barrels. Their laughter rang out across the unintelligible harshness of orders and rebukes shouted hither and thither.

  Velindre looked at the great swollen-bellied galleys bobbing gently, safe within the embrace of the massive breakwaters that reached far out into the open waters of the gulf. She had always known that all the goods of these civilised countries were brought down to Relshaz by the rivers and roads that threaded through the vast hinterland. It was another thing entirely to see the countless quantities of cargo waiting to be taken aboard the ships. She had never seen any need to visit the docks when she’d been in Relshaz before. She had never caught more than a glimpse of the Aldabreshi who set aside their lethal quarrels and fragmented alliances alike for the opportunity of trading the goods of the Archipelago for the mainland’s bounty. It was a trifle unnerving to see armoured slaves carrying iron-bound chests behind Aldabreshin men on their way to repay some Relshazri merchant’s generosity. Masters and slaves alike wore vivid jewels set in gold and silver around their necks and wrists in ostentatious token of the rewards of such trade.

  One such Aldabreshin merchant paused to stare openly at Velindre, with her golden hair and pale, unpainted face. Her plain-cut lavender gown was certainly unlike the calculatedly seductive dresses of the decorated Arch-ipelagan women. The tnagewoman ignored him, walking along the dock for a better view of the lean, predatory triremes tied up further around the sweep of the seawall. Dev had said it would be a fast trireme from the Chazen domain. Perhaps Mellitha could help her identify it discreetly.

  A hand caught her arm just above the elbow. ‘You would be Velindre,’ a soft female voice said in fluent if strongly accented Tormalin.

  Velindre found a thin-faced Aldabreshin girl half her age at her side, her head barely reaching the wizard’s shoulder. She wore a plain straight dress of cotton as blue as her piercing eyes. Her straight black hair barely brushed her shoulders, unlike the flowing tresses of the other women on the quayside.

  ‘I saw you, with Dev’s warlord.’ Velindre tried to free her arm but the girl was stronger than she looked. Her bony fingers held firm, unyielding.

  ‘My name is Risala.’ She retreated, pulling Velindre with her. ‘Over there.’ Now the girl was pushing her forward, towards a dark doorway.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Velindre stood firm, catching up a passing breeze to bolster her resistance. She saw that a crescent dagger had appeared in the girl’s hand. ‘You’: threatening me? Have you any idea what I could do to you?’

  ‘I’m protecting you,’ the girl retorted. ‘Or at least I’ll try to, till both of us are cut to pieces. Work any magic on this wharf and there will be bloodshed. Do you know nothing about the Archipelago?’

  ‘We’re not in the Archipelago.’ Velindre wrenched her arm free. ‘This is Relshaz.’

  Do you think the Relshazri will deny themselves Aldabreshin gems and hardwoods and all the infinite craftsmanship of a myriad domains because some swordsman couldn’t restrain his revulsion at seeing a wizard threatening our ships with sorcery?’ asked Risala sarcastically. She looked warily around. ‘Come. We need to talk before you join the ship.’

  Velindre narrowed her eyes. ‘We need to talk about whether or not I’m joining your ship.’

  Risala opened her mouth on a question before changing her mind and urging Velindre towards the dark doorway once more.

  The wizard yielded and curbed a rebellious impulse to flood the shadowy room with magelight as she entered. ‘What is this place?’ she asked instead.

  Risala replaced her dagger in the sheath hanging beside a small purse on her plaited lizardskin belt. She fumbled for a spark-maker in the leather bag and lit the wick of a shallow cup-shaped lamp. The soft golden light revealed a cloth-covered table set with a fine Aldabreshin ewer and goblets in beaten bronze. ‘Please, sit down.’ She gestured towards a low stool before crossing the darkness to lock the door behind them. ‘This is a warehouse belonging to an ally of my master. He knew it would be empty, so he is allowing us to use it.’

  ‘Your master? ‘Velindre sat down warily. ‘You’re Chazen Kheda’s slave?’

  Risala’s laugh surprised her. ‘Slave? No, I’m a free islander and not even Chazen born.’

  ‘But he’s your master nevertheless?’ Velindre looked around the blackness of the windowless, cavernous room. ‘Calling yourself “free” sounds like making a distinction without a difference.’

  Risala poured pale golden liquid from the ewer. ‘I thought it was all agreed that you would join us.’

  ‘I need to speak with Dev before I go aboard your ship.’ Velindre sipped from her goblet to cover her hesitation. ‘Things have turned out to be a little more complicated than I expected.’ She wiped a drop of the sweet wine from the corner of her mouth.

  ‘You do know how to defeat the dragon?’ Risala demanded.

  ‘Yes,’ said Velindre slowly, but I need to know more before I agree to try, or even agree to share that knowledge. These are things I must discuss with Dev.’

  ‘What things?’ Risala held the ewer tightly between her hands.

  ‘Mage concerns,’ responded Velindre composedly. ‘I have been trying to reach Dev but he seems unwilling or unable to respond to my spells.’ She ignored an uneasy spasm in her belly at the latter notion. ‘I don’t suppose you want me to work the necessary magic here, so I shall return to my lodging and try again. You can wait here, I take it, for a day or so? I’ll let you know where we go from here, both of us, as soon as I have an answer from Dev.’ She drained her goblet to avoid looking at the Aldabreshin girl.

  Risala topped up the magewoman’s drink before she could refuse. ‘You’re going back on your word?’

  ‘It is more complicated than you imagine.’ Velindre found that her throat was dry in the dead, dusty air of the storehouse. That was peculiar—everyone knew Aldabreshin wine was too weak to intoxicate but she would have imagined it would quench a thirst.

  ‘You do know how to defeat the dragon?’ Risala repeated her question.

  ‘I’ve discovered a great many things about dragons, which Dev almost certainly does not know.’ Velindre stopped short before continuing, ‘I need to discuss these matters with Dev before we can decide our best course of action.’

  ‘I thought we were agreed on the only course of action that matters.’ The girl set her own goblet down beside a twist of oiled silk and turned a silver and emerald ring around her finger. ‘We must rid Chazen of the dragon.’

  ‘That may be easier said than done—’ Velindre broke off as a wave of dizziness swept over he
r. ‘You don’t understand ...’ Further words clogged in her throat, her tongue thick and awkward. Darkness rushed in from every side, closing around the little lamp’s flame. Velindre stared at the golden point of light, her jaw slack. She didn’t even feel the spittle sliding down her nerveless face as she fell sideways off the stool and the blackness claimed her. The last thing she heard was the treacherous Risala shouting something in incomprehensible Aldabreshin.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It’s coming.’ Kheda watched the fire shrink in on itself in defiance of every natural pattern.

  It narrowed and then doubled in height. The solid wall of flame advanced. Trees were silhouetted against it, lilla, tandra and ironwood. Their leaves and branches flared to ash, their blistered trunks vanishing in the scarlet blaze.

  Dev glanced over his shoulder to see where they were retreating before returning his sickened gaze to the pursuing fire. ‘It wants me dead,’ he muttered. ‘It looked me in the eye.’

  Kheda flicked his gaze up to see the dragon sweeping this way and that across the sky, studying the forest ahead of its fiery barrier. While it’s trying to kill you, it’s not killing anyone else.’ He sucked at a hand scratched by a stray tendril of thorny striol. ‘All we need is to keep one step ahead of it until we know how to kill it.’

  We cannot return to any residence, or risk any ship, if your very presence is going to bring down disaster on us. It may not be following your magic, barbarian, but it’s still got your scent somehow. Seventeen days, we’ve managed to evade it so far. How much longer will we be able to, now it’s started burning the forest that covers us?

  ‘My lord!’ A swordsman appeared at the edge of a gully cut deep into the forest floor. ‘This way!’