Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) Page 3

  ‘You should learn your way round these ginnels.’ He left the alley for a narrower path dividing the back yards of two long terraces. ‘Here and in Ferl, Trebin, Tresia and Adrulle. You must be able to find your way around any such town blindfold before the parliament returns.’

  As they emerged on to a cobbled street, Corrain watched to see how long it took Reven to recognise their surroundings. Good. The first thing the boy looked for was a tavern. As soon as he found the Elm Tree, recognition gleamed in his eyes.

  ‘Where are we headed?’ Reven asked.

  ‘Talagrin’s shrine.’ Corrain crossed the broad thoroughfare and took another alleyway to reach a square of worn turf with a circular building in its centre.

  The door stood half open to reveal the glow of candles within the windowless gloom. Hilts of broken daggers were nailed around the entrance and to the door itself, inside and out. Chipped enamel pommels, fraying wire bindings on hilts and fractured steel blades turned the portal into a sharp-toothed maw.

  ‘My lord?’ Reven was understandably bemused. The god of the hunt’s season was For-Autumn, with his rites celebrated at the turn from Aft-Summer.

  ‘Wait here.’ Corrain entered the shrine and closed the door behind him. Today the lad could learn that even a trusted sergeant didn’t know all a baron’s business.

  He looked up at the god’s statue. Talagrin stared blindly ahead, his marble eyes blank. With Duryea so close to Caladhria’s border with Ensaimin, Corrain guessed at some Forest blood in this particular sculptor’s veins. The bow-wielding, pelt-draped effigy could have stepped out of the tales which Kusint told, of the god of wild places whom his mother’s folk worshipped as one of their own.

  Corrain had been raised to call Talagrin the swordsman’s god. The little statue in Halferan’s manor shrine carried a sword and wore a chainmail hauberk in the same style as every baron and the men who rode behind him. That statue had been smashed along with the others when the corsairs had despoiled the shrine.

  Once Corrain had done what he intended today, he was done with all the gods, however they were carved. He no longer believed in any of them. Why should he, when they had so completely failed him and his fellow guardsmen when the corsairs had enslaved them and murdered their lord?

  ‘I swore an oath,’ Corrain drew the dagger from his belt, ‘that I would see Hosh brought safely home. That I would see Halferan saved from those accursed raiders. That I would do it all myself without any god’s aid, for my dead lord’s sake.’

  Turning his head, he drew the long braid of his uncut hair free from his cloak’s collar. Pulling it hard and taut, he severed it with a swift stroke of the razor-sharp dagger.

  ‘So much for my ambitions. I was a fool to meddle with magic. But Hosh is home and the barony is safe—’

  About to throw the fraying braid at the statue’s feet, Corrain halted. ‘Maybe I should give this to Drianon. How does it feel for a warrior god to be outdone by a goddess armed with a broom? She’s done more to save Halferan than you.’

  He remembered the night when he had cut Ilysh’s ribbon-bedecked wedding plait, to lay it before the divine guardian of hearth and home, yielding to Zurenne’s desperate plea for the fiction of legal protection for her children.

  So much for his oath to save his dead lord’s family by cutting down their enemies with his mighty sword. Who was he to mock even this lifeless statue of an imaginary god? Who was he to boast of his heroism?

  Corrain had sworn to avenge his dead lord but Hosh had slain Lord Halferan’s murderer. Alone, unarmed, suffering from unhealed wounds, the boy had survived in the corsair lair after Corrain and Kusint had escaped. More incredible still, he had escaped the slaughter when that cursed Mandarkin mage had held the whole island in magical thrall.

  Corrain dropped the severed hair to the earthen floor and drove the dagger deep into the wooden pillar closest to hand. Now he turned his attention to his manacled wrist. Plenty of the parliament’s barons had sneaked covert glances at the slave iron he still wore, trailing its short length of broken chain. He’d wager that none of them had noticed that the manacle’s iron ring was now secured with a discreet twist of wire.

  No one, Corrain included, could possibly have imagined how long it would take him to pick that cursed Archipelagan lock. At least he’d had plenty of time, sitting alone at night in his truckle bed set up in the baronial tower’s muniment room. When the time came to give Ilysh’s hand to a worthy suitor, plenty of Halferan servants would be able to swear that the two of them had never shared a bedchamber. Meantime, no one would be able to sneak up the tower’s stairs without Corrain knowing.

  ‘Have this as well and much good it may do you.’

  Corrain dropped the unlocked manacle beside his discarded hair. Let that baffle the shrine’s priest or whoever else might find it. Perhaps someone would recognise it for the low-born Lord Halferan’s slave-iron and go running to some other baron.

  Good luck to them and he hoped that they would ask for its weight in silver before handing the cursed thing over. Who ever bought it would get no joy of their purchase. He wouldn’t answer any of their questions. This was between Corrain and his dead lord.

  Now his honour was satisfied. He had made good on his oath to lay these tokens before Talagrin when Hosh and Halferan were safe and he’d done so far from home, to avoid sullying the manor’s shrine at this turn of a new year with these reminders of past sorrows and tribulation. Now it was time to make a fresh start without gods or wizards or any such fetters.

  Corrain turned his back on the god and opened the shrine’s door.

  ‘Cap—’ Reven’s eyes widened to see Corrain’s hair cut short above his cloak collar. His gaze dropped instantly to fasten on the older man’s wrist, the scars where the manacle had galled him now plain for all to see. ‘My lord?’

  Corrain wasn’t about to answer his sergeant’s questions either. The only person with any right to ask him what he had done was Hosh, though Corrain still shrank from the prospect of explaining his follies and failures to the inexplicably trusting youth. One day, perhaps. Many years from now.

  ‘Do you think that the Elm Tree will serve us a decent mug of ale and a bowl of stew before the parliament begins its debate?’

  ‘Perhaps, my lord,’ Reven said uncertainly.

  Corrain left the shrine door ajar as they had found it and headed towards the jovial noises of the street. It wasn’t only his head and his hand which felt lighter, relieved of those burdens of his oath and his servitude.

  He was done with the gods and goddesses and their deceits and uncertainties. Now it only remained for him to cut Halferan’s last ties to wizardry and be free from the perils of consorting with mages.

  More than that, for his dead lord’s sake and with the help of Baron Saldiray and Baron Taine, he’d see all of Caladhria guarded against Hadrumal’s influence before this midwinter parliament dissolved.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The residence of Mellitha Esterlin, Relshaz

  Winter Solstice Festival, 3rd Day

  In the 10th Year of Tadriol the Provident of Tormalin

  THE ARM-RING LAY in the centre of the rosewood table. A gaudy ornament, it showed its age in its florid styling as well through evidence of hard wear. Several of the rock crystals studding the circle were chipped and the inner surface had lost its gilding, the silver dull with scratches.

  ‘What did the boy Hosh say to you about his experience of its ensorcellement? His exact words if you please, Velindre.’ The oldest of the four wizards seated around the table looked intently at the tall, blonde magewoman sat opposite.

  ‘Forgive me, Madam Mellitha, but what is the point of this?’ the youngest of the four asked curtly. ‘We have been striving all afternoon with nothing to show for our efforts.’

  ‘Merenel?’ Jilseth looked at her friend with concern. She could feel the warmth of Merenel’s fire magic fading from the arm-ring.

  The nexus which the four magewomen had wrou
ght, in hopes of penetrating the silver gilt ornament’s secrets, was already unravelling. Jilseth would never have imagined such a thing when she and Merenel had perfected their skills with Tornauld and Nolyen, the two other wizards handpicked by the Archmage to learn quintessential magic’s secrets alongside them.

  It was all the more puzzling since Merenel’s ability to work individual fire spells seemed largely unaffected although her skills with quadrate magic, combining all four of the wizardly elements, had become markedly erratic.

  ‘We know that this trinket bestows a stoneskin spell on whoever wears it. Granted, that’s no trivial wizardry but any of us could work it if we wished.’ Merenel ran a hand through her curling black hair. The Tormalin magewoman’s olive complexion was sallow with exhaustion and her shoulders sagged beneath her long-sleeved crimson jerkin.

  ‘Stoneskin isn’t the only enchantment instilled into the thing,’ Velindre observed. ‘No mundane born who wears it can remove it. Doing so requires a mage’s touch and I would very much like to understand that spellcrafting.’

  ‘I wish to understand how an inanimate object can still confer such benefits when the mage who first wove that wizardry is ten generations dead,’ Mellitha added.

  ‘Then I suggest that you find another mage to make up your nexus.’ The Tormalin wizard stood up and left the elegant sitting room. As she slammed the door to relieve her frustration, the angry draught stirred the long velvet curtains shielding the tall windows.

  Hearing the clack of Merenel’s boot heels retreating down the marble floored hallway, Jilseth wondered if she should go after her. She knew something of such distress; of being suddenly unable to rely on the magic which one had so carefully nurtured and studied ever since that first manifestation of one’s affinity, thrilling and terrifying in equal measure.

  Though their situations weren’t wholly the same. In that last desperate defence of Halferan Manor as the corsairs attacked, Jilseth had feared for her own life as much as anyone else. She had willingly poured her strength of mind and body into her innate link with the elemental earth, to harness the complex spells which Hadrumal’s great mages had devised.

  Merenel had been given no such choice. She had been swept up in the Archmage’s magic, unable to resist as Planir had woven fifteen other wizards’ power together to secure the destruction of the corsairs’ lair. Ever since, it seemed that the Tormalin magewoman’s intuitive grasp of quintessential magic’s complexities had deserted her.

  Quintessential magic could only be wielded by four mages working together to double and redouble their united strength in a nexus of sorcery uniting their affinities with air, earth, fire and water. Its secrets were among Hadrumal’s most closely guarded lore.

  Ever since that catastrophic night, Jilseth found herself wondering what other secrets were hidden in books and scrolls held in the wizard isle’s tallest towers? Had the Masters and Mistress of the elements known that Planir could unite four separate quartets of wizards into one still greater nexus? Did they understand how he had been able to control that immense magic, an order of magnitude stronger than the quintessential magecraft which Jilseth had always been told was the summit of Hadrumal’s wizardry?

  It had been the only way to defeat the murderous magic wielded against them by the renegade Mandarkin mage who had sought to claim the corsairs’ island and to enslave hitherto-unsuspected Aldabreshi mageborn for his own vicious purposes. So the Archmage had explained, offering his regrets but no apology to those who had suffered as badly as Merenel.

  ‘I don’t believe that the problem is with our nexus.’ Mellitha studied the silver-gilt arm-ring.

  ‘What nexus?’ Velindre retorted. ‘We cannot—’

  Mellitha looked across the table. ‘We know that a precise combination of all four elements must have ensorcelled the thing. I am beginning to suspect that this particular blending has also been crafted to disrupt any subsequent union of wizardry which might seek to nullify the spells within it.’

  Jilseth decided she could leave Merenel’s temper to cool while she learned what she could from these far more experienced wizards. There were few to rival either magewoman, even in Hadrumal. Velindre had been widely expected to rise to the rank of Cloud Mistress not so long ago. All the wine shop sages agreed that Mellitha could become Flood Mistress whenever she chose to challenge Troanna, even after her decades away from the wizard isle.

  Perhaps Merenel felt even more out of place than Jilseth sometimes did, caught between these two who could boast elemental understanding and expertise so vastly outstripping her own.

  Then she realised that Velindre was looking at her intently, a frown of concentration sharpening the woman’s angular features.

  ‘The underlying sorcery is tied to the metal and the crystals, making this inherently an earth-magic artefact. You should focus your affinity on it alone while we three ward you and the piece alike from other elemental influences.’ Velindre glanced towards the closed door, her lips thinning with irritation. ‘If we can persuade Merenel to rejoin us.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Jilseth temporised.

  ‘Let Merenel rest for the moment.’ Mellitha rose, gracious despite her comfortable curves and the years threading silver through her chestnut hair. Her costly green silk gown rustled as she picked up the silver-gilt arm-ring and carried it away to a side table. She returned with a shallow silver bowl and a finger-long purple glass vial.

  Resuming her seat, she rested her fingertips on the bowl’s rim. Beads of water swelled in the base, wrung from the empty air to swiftly fill the bowl. Mellitha let a single drop of blended oils fall from the little vial. Emerald magelight suffused the water and then the spell called up a vision of some featureless sea.

  ‘We’re already losing the daylight.’ Velindre shook out the loose sleeves of her azure tunic, cut in the flowing Aldabreshin style so common in this port city, and cupped the bowl with her long-fingered hands. The sun’s afterglow gilded white-tipped wavelets two hundred leagues and more away. The Archipelago’s more swiftly falling night would soon shroud those southerly seas.

  Aquamarine mist thickened over the remote waters and foaming crests surged across the bowl to vanish into the scrying spell’s emerald rim.

  Velindre withdrew her hands, sitting back. ‘Nothing has changed as far as I can see.’

  ‘Jilseth?’ The green magelight striking upwards deepened the fine wrinkles around Mellitha’s grey eyes.

  Jilseth focused her concentration on the scrying and then reached through the ensorcelled water to assess the swirling confusion of the elements in those distant seas where the corsair island had been.

  As she touched the bowl, her innate tie to all things born of the earth recognised the essence of elemental silver. Its touch soothed and strengthened her wizard senses. It seemed absurd to recall that not so long ago she had feared that her affinity was crippled beyond recovery. Now she must concentrate on curbing powers awakened by the shock of being caught up in Planir’s assault on the Mandarkin mage. Where Merenel’s wizardry had been thrown into confusion, Jilseth had discovered myriad unsuspected facets of her affinity to explore.

  Infinitely careful, she threaded her wizardry through Mellitha’s scrying and sought any sorcery swirling through those remote waters scanned by the scrying spell. Tangled amber magelight surfaced briefly amid the roiling waves. The amber skein unravelled and sank away.

  ‘Is that something new?’ Velindre leaned forward.

  Jilseth shook her head. ‘Nothing prompted by wizardry. Just currents of molten rock shifting beneath the seabed.’

  The sweetness of the oils blended with the scrying perfumed the room as though the bowlful of water was being warmed by that distant heat under the southern sea. Mellitha’s spell didn’t falter, unruffled by the elemental fire’s antipathy to her water affinity. Jilseth marvelled, not for the first time, at the serene magewoman’s skills.

  Velindre contemplated the shadowy vision, her eyes hooded. ‘Elemental uphea
val still lingers even after a full quarter of the year.’

  Jilseth was still waiting for the right time to ask these eminent magewomen what they thought of Planir’s actions. Had they agreed when the Archmage and Stone Master of Hadrumal had declared the Mandarkin mage guilty of the most heinous crimes against wizardry? Had they concurred when the Element Masters of Cloud and Hearth and the Mistress of the Flood had agreed that Anskal’s abuses of those mageborn whom he had enslaved mandated his death?

  Had anyone foreseen the consequences when Planir had woven his first nexus with Rafrid, Kalion and Troanna? Did even the most revered among Hadrumal’s Council know how mercilessly the Mandarkin Anskal would be confined by their quintessential magic? That his belligerent magecraft would merely rebound from that implacably constricting barrier? That his struggles to escape this incarceration would only hasten the moment when his control over his innate affinity failed? That his unbridled wizardry would be lethally destructive trapped within the adamant prison woven by the Archmage’s nexus?

  Jilseth longed to ask Planir when he had realised that even this initial union of Hadrumal’s greatest wizards wasn’t going to suffice. That the Mandarkin was calling on some vile unknown sorcery; a spell to suck all elemental strength from those enslaved mageborn, to add their power to his own, not caring that he would kill them.

  When had Planir decided to abandon Hadrumal’s original hope of rescuing at least some of those mageborn captives by confining their wizardry in less lethal fashion until they surrendered to judgement?

  When had the Archmage realised that only the unprecedented four-fold nexus could possibly defeat the elemental maelstrom whipped up by the Mandarkin? Had Planir hesitated for even an instant before risking the lives, the sanity and the affinity of those wizards whom he had summoned to work with him, by weaving their elemental powers inextricably into his elemental lattice?