Where I must take up my proper responsibilities once again.
'We're at the southernmost point of the main mass of land.' Velindre's expression grew distant, almost dreamy. 'Water that has circled the whole compass of the ocean collides as one current brings heat down from the central seas and another brings a cold surge up from the far south. The winds meet here, too. Some have travelled with the currents; others are rising from the land here and mingling with them, fighting against them.'
'Each current carries earth run off from rivers in distant lands, as well as all manner of sea creatures—' Naldeth broke off and narrowed his eyes. 'There are definitely fire mountains inland, and hot springs.'
'You're still certain this is just one island?' Kheda interrupted.
Naldeth nodded unhesitatingly. 'One island, several hundred leagues long and a hundred wide at its broadest, near enough. Where the raw elements of earth and
fire are remarkably closely interwoven,' he continued thoughtfully.
'There are powerful currents and seasonal wind patterns back in the Archipelago.' Risala looked from the tall, slender magewoman to the stockier younger wizard. 'As well as fire mountains that have blown half an island into clouds of burning dust before now. We're not plagued with dragons. Why should we expect more of them here?'
'Because dragons are creatures born of pure elemental magic. Those Aldabreshin places you talk of are still vibrant with elemental power,' Velindre added neutrally, 'as you would know if Archipelagan custom didn't condemn all mageborn to an undeserved death. The correct question is why don't they draw dragons to them as a matter of course. Well, now we have the answer.'
'Would you care to share it with us?' Kheda asked with some rancour.
'If the magic Velindre's using now is a whisper, those natural focuses of magic in the Archipelago would be a raucous shout.' Naldeth was looking up at the barren cliff tops. 'But the intensity of elemental entanglement here is still a cacophony that would drown them both out. I'm surprised we've only seen one dragon drawn here.'
'So far,' Kheda said dubiously.
'Don't tempt the future.' Risala looked up at the empty skies before continuing to survey the inhospitable shore.
'These wild men lure dragons with prisoners as ready meat, don't they?' Naldeth queried, a trifle callously. 'It can't be any too easy to get a water dragon's attention, if it spends all its time out at sea.'
Kheda glowered at the unrelieved intransigence of the fractured cliffs. 'Does this commotion in the elements you're talking about mean you won't know if any savage mages are working their spells?'
'That's an interesting question.' Velindre nodded. 'We shall have to wait and see.'
'You said their magic is remarkably unsubtle.' Naldeth looked at her. 'And almost solely woven from the element of their affinity. Surely we'll be able to feel that?' He looked at Risala and grinned. 'Like a spider feeling something blundering into its web.'
'Let's hope so,' Velindre said dryly.
'There may be nothing for you to feel.' Kheda looked at the frothing white water beyond the blunt end of the headland. 'Perhaps all the savage mages died in Chazen or on that drowned isle.'
'I wouldn't count on it,' the younger mage scoffed.
'As I said, that's the southernmost tip of the island.' Velindre raised her hand and the Zaise idled in the sparkling waters, scorning the insistent winds. 'So, are we turning around to sail back up the eastern face or do we see what lies on the western shore?'
'All we've seen on the eastern side has been destruction wrought by the waves thrown up by that outlying island erupting.' Kheda slipped his arm around Risala's shoulders and held her close. 'If there are people living anywhere here, I imagine they'll be on the far side.'
'Are we going to sail around this whole island?' Risala looked up at the barren crag looming above the mastheads. 'How big did you say it was, Naldeth?'
'Big enough for you to make an epic poem out of such a voyage.' He grinned at her.
'It's not a voyage we could hope to make this side of the rains arriving back home,' Kheda said firmly. 'We'll go on just far enough to see if there are any wild men still living here and then you can use your magic to send me and Risala back to Chazen, back to the burned isle so we can recover the Reteul. You two can stay here to try to pursue dragons without getting eaten if you choose.'
'As you command, my lord.' Velindre smiled so serenely that Kheda was instantly suspicious.
They sailed around the broken rocks beneath the headland with emerald magelight frothing around the Zaise9s hull. It didn't draw the water dragon back, to Kheda's relief. The western shore was as rocky as the eastern face and Kheda began to wonder if the seas lapped at continuous inaccessible cliffs all around this massive isle. The two wizards stood silent, absorbed in some uncanny communion with seas, skies and coastline. Noon came and went and Kheda and Risala shared a scant meal of wind-dried fish and plain water. Both mages simply waved away any offer of food.
Kheda periodically shifted his gaze from the cliffs to the seas ahead in an attempt to stave off insidious if inappropriate boredom. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, to be sure what he was seeing was real. It was still there: a red stain drifting through the clouded channel like a trace of blood. It thickened, drawing dark lines in the greenish waters that surged around the brown smudges of the corals just beneath the surface. Ashore, the ramparts of banded sandy rock finally gave way to crumbling cliffs of dark mud and russet clay, topped with a parched suggestion of yellowed vegetation. Out to sea, the reefs curled away to vanish beneath the waves and the seas turned to a colour somewhere between ochre and crimson.
Velindre shivered involuntarily and startled them all by inadvertently pulling so hard on one steering oar that the Zaise lurched sideways. 'There's a river mouth,' she explained. 'An eddy where the salt water meets the sweet surprised me.'
Scant moments later, the coastline took a sharp turn away from them, subsiding into mud flats and sandbanks. A silt-laden river oozed sluggishly into the sea through countless channels. Sere grasses clung insecurely to
patches of dry ground on the larger hummocks, sown by seeds blown from the parched scrub lining the true river banks far away in the distance. Further inland, a line of darker green promised more substantial vegetation. Beyond that, the land rose in a sweep of dun rock streaked with countless mossy, leafy hues, finally dissolving into a blur ultimately topped with the clouds that clung to awesome mountainous heights deep inland.
'Is this navigable?' Kheda asked.
'Just about.' Velindre's hazel eyes were bright with anticipation.
'If we can get even a little way inland, I can try to understand the rocks and the fires underlying this place.' Naldeth's equally unnerving eagerness made him look more boyish than ever.
'Any people living here will be near the river.' Risala didn't share the wizards' enthusiasm.
'Where there's water and food and fuel,' agreed Kheda, unwelcome tension crawling up his spine.
'Velindre, what can you do to hide us?' Risala asked. 'Without alerting any wild wizard hereabouts,' she added tersely.
Kheda didn't speak, straining his eyes as he searched for any sign of movement ashore beyond the wind stirring the vegetation.
If we do run into something we dare not tackle, the wizards' magic can carry us all the way back to the Archipelago. That's what they 've promised time and again. Which would mean this whole voyage and all my lies and contrivances to make it will have been utterly in vain. Would that be best, just to go home and put all this behind me?
Velindre glanced at Naldeth. 'Can you draw the haze rising off the land out across the water?'
'I'll make us no more than a reflection of mudflats distorted by the light,' the youthful mage promised.
Velindre gestured at the masts and the white canvas flapped and cracked and furled itself to leave only the aft-mast rigged with half its sail. The steady wind coming off the ocean pushed the Zaise steadily up the river, scornin
g the feeble current.
Leaving the braided rivulets and sand bars to the white-crested waves rushing in from the open water, the river gradually collected itself into a broad, curling channel. Mudflats sprawled on either side between the red-stained water and the grass-topped sandy banks some way in the distance. Low islands broke through the flow in the bends on either side, crowned with tangled greenery and crowded with ungainly brown birds chattering peaceably among themselves and preening their ragged feathers with heavy black bills.
If there's nothing to disturb them, does that mean there's nothing to threaten us? But if we scare the birds up, who or what will see them take flight?
'Kheda, over there!' Risala was keeping a lookout on the other side of the stern platform.
Naldeth leaned over the rail, intent on whatever it was. 'I see it.'
'What is it?' Kheda staggered as the Zaise scraped on a hidden sand bar and the deck rocked violently.
The wash from the Zaise's hull slopped over the slick mud. The brown birds closest at hand erupted into the air in a raucous cacophony of hoarse squawking and rattling wings.
Does that serve me right, for tempting the future?
Kheda dismissed such foolishness. 'Risala, what is it?'
She pointed. 'Over there, by that dead tree.'
A mighty bole was half-buried in the mud where some flood had wedged it into the inadequate gap between two sandbanks. Velindre eased the Zaise closer with a deft ' hand on the intricate ropes governing the half-sail. The '
enormous trunk was damp and split, a twisted tangle of dry, grey roots reaching back upstream.
Naldeth studied the indistinct grey-green cloaking the distant heights inland. 'There must be sizeable forests somewhere.'
'Where the savages fell trees for their boats,' Kheda said grimly.
They could all see two hollowed-out, pointed logs wedged in among the splintered roots, half-hidden in a wash of mud. Some of the brown birds settled on the sandbank again, rattling their black bills as they jostled each other.
'They used fire to char out the middle.' Naldeth was leaning over the rail to look more closely at the log boats.
'Magical or natural?' Velindre asked instantly.
'Natural.' Naldeth sounded a trifle disappointed.
Kheda could see black burn marks that had obstinately resisted the river's scouring. 'Was there any trace of fire on that log boat we found on the drowned isle?'
'None.' Naldeth was certain.
Kheda looked inland as the Zaise drifted past a broad curve of bank and a new vista opened up. 'If they were made differently, were they made by different people?'
'Naldeth, is that smoke?' Risala asked abruptly.
Kheda located the faint grey smear crossing the darkness of the distant trees as the young wizard straightened up and looked inland.
'You've got good eyes.' Naldeth frowned. 'Yes, it's fire, natural fire. The grass is burning.'
'What starts a grass fire under a blue sky without a cloud to be seen?' Risala wondered aloud. 'It has to be wild men.'
Kheda took a resolute breath. 'I had better go ashore and see what I can find out.'
'Let me scry—' Velindre hesitated.
'If there's anyone mageborn out there, they'll be on us in a trice,' Naldeth objected. He turned to Kheda. 'I'll come with you.'
'No.' Kheda pulled his tunic over his head before stripping off his trousers. He wound them deftly into a loincloth, leaving his long legs bare, his skin dark against the pale cotton. 'I can look like them, from a distance at least. You can't.'
Not with your pale barbarian skin, even if you had both of your legs intact.
'I can.' Risala pulled her red tunic off over her head, blue gaze defiant as she emerged, her black hair tousled.
'Four eyes are better than two,' Velindre agreed. 'We'll sit tight and feel for any tremors in the elements that might betray some mage ashore to us, won't we, Naldeth?'
'Yes, of course.' The young wizard swallowed and looked away from Risala's bared breasts.
Velindre was scanning the unhelpfully low-lying mudflats and sandbanks. 'We'll go just a little further upstream.' She pointed towards a sizeable sandbank huddled in the crook of a sharp meander. 'If you can't see us, you can see that.'
Dragging his gaze from Risala again as she wound her own trousers round her hips, the young mage addressed Kheda. 'What do you intend doing if you trip over some wild wizard and he throws a handful of fire at you?'
'I don't intend getting close enough to trip over anyone.' Kheda slid down the ladder to the main deck and laid his hand on the door to the stern cabin. 'And their mages have always worn paint or feathers or some such. As soon as we catch sight of anything like that, we'll be on our way back.'
'Do you have your star circle?' Velindre pulled a small brass sun column from her pocket, flicked up the ivory vane and turned it to the brilliant sun. The shadow fell
just short of one of the incised curves swooping down around the stem of the instrument. 'If you're not back by the next arc, I'll scry for you and if necessary I'll fetch you back here with magic' She grinned at Kheda. 'If that brings some wild wizard or dragon down on us, then we'll just have to scurry back to Chazen or Hadrumal.'
'Are you taking a sword?' Risala was tucking her sheathed dagger securely into her improvised loincloth. 'And I'll want a hacking blade for anything we might trip over in that grass.'
'Naturally.' Kheda opened the door to the stern cabin. By the time he had gone down to the stern hold and retrieved a scabbarded sword as well as a wide-ended hacking blade and a brass water flask with a braided strap, Velindre had guided the Zaise into the narrow channel pinched between the main river and a long, low island strewn with flood-tumbled boulders.
Risala was on the main deck, leaning over the rail to look at the mud below the sharply undercut bank. 'How solid do you suppose that is?'
Kheda allowed himself a moment to admire the smooth brown curve of her naked back before looking up at Naldeth on the stern platform. 'I take it you'll pull us out if we sink?'
'I should be able to do that without magic' The young mage waved a coil of rope.
'I'll go first.' Kheda swung his legs over the Zaise 's rail and pushed himself off the ship's side as hard as he could. He landed where silty water lapped the mud bank and his feet sank a little. The river water was cool around his feet, though it had an unsavoury stagnant smell.
'I think it'll hold us.' Risala jumped and Kheda caught her shoulders to steady her as she landed.
'You don't have to come with me,' he said quietly. 'You could stay safe on the ship.'
'Where's safe, out here?' She gripped the long handle of the hacking blade in its sewn-leather sleeve. 'I'll be safer with you if some wild wizard or dragon comes looking for them.' She jerked her head back at the Zaise.
'True enough.' Kheda found he could barely see the ship through the shimmering distortions Naldeth's magic was wrapping around it. Trying made him feel nauseous, so he turned his back on the disquieting sight. 'Let's get to solid ground.'
He picked his way carefully to the grassy bank, testing each step on the mud. Risala walked carefully in his footprints. He felt thirsty but realised that was only apprehension drying his mouth. Chest-high, the lip of the bank was sharply undercut and the edge crumbled as Kheda tried to pull himself up onto solid ground.
'Here.' Risala braced herself on one knee and offered her cupped hands as a step. With that slight advantage, Kheda managed to haul himself properly ashore. Kneeling, he turned to reach a hand down to pull Risala up. The two of them crouched in the colourless dry grass as something not too far away fled with a rushing rustle.
'Where's that fire?' Kheda stood cautiously upright and looked for the smudge of smoke in the distance. It was thicker now, rising from several points to mingle in a pale-grey line tattered by the breeze coming in off the sea.
'It's heading away from us,' Risala observed.
'Then let's catch up a little,' Kh
eda said resolutely.
He used his scabbarded sword to push aside the chest-high grasses. Growing in thick clumps, their stems were green at the base but soon bleached to creamy yellow by the merciless sun. The dry blades were coarse and sharp-edged, not quite drawing blood but leaving his bare legs sore all the same. There was seldom room enough between the clumps to take a step without wiry tendrils poking
painfully into his feet. Risala tucked herself close in behind him, intermittently biting back a mutter of discomfort. Trying to keep the line of rising smoke in sight, Kheda tripped as he found a narrow path worn through the dense grasses. Risala stumbled into him and he caught her arm with his free hand.
'What do you suppose made this?' She looked towards the smoke and then back towards the river where the Zaise should be.
'Men or animals.' Kheda gauged the line that the path took inland across the floodplain. 'If we follow this and then cut across the grass when we get closer to those fires, we can lose ourselves in the shadows of the trees.' He couldn't help glancing back towards the river but could see nothing beyond a punishing glare on the water.
They could move more quickly on this clearer path, narrow though it was. It crisscrossed other equally thin paths worn through the thick grasses. Sweating freely now, Kheda took a drink from the water flask and passed it to Risala. She gratefully took a mouthful and handed it back. Soon he could smell the burning as well as see the smoke and slowed, half-crouching so that the frayed tips of the grasses swayed above his head.
'What can you see?' Risala was looking to either side and back down the path lest anything was watching them.
'Savages,' Kheda said, resigned.
Two lines of dark-skinned men were working together, either naked or clad in scant leather loincloths. They were walking behind the slowly advancing fires, flailing bundles of twigs to make sure the fire didn't run riot instead of following the paths they desired for it. Men with clubs and spears were further away, spread out in the sallow unburned grasses. Their raised weapons were black outlines against the grey-white smoke as they searched the ground for prey fleeing the flames.
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