Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (40 page)

Halferan Manor, Caladhria

32nd of Aft-Winter

J
ILSETH RETURNED THE
silver-gilt plate to the chest. It was embossed with a dramatic hunting scene where Archipelagans in small boats harried a monstrous sea serpent with spears and harpoons. It was no more imbued with magic than the table the chest stood on.

She closed the lid and rolled her head from side to side to ease her stiff shoulders. Her back ached from constantly stooping and standing up again. Though she was only physically weary; as far as wizardry went, the day’s work had been more protracted than demanding. Her mage senses readily identified pieces with magic within them even if the precise nature of such spells was a more complex puzzle.

Twenty-seven strongboxes had been brought up from the iron-gated cellar to this narrow-windowed muniment room. They ranged from chests large enough to carry half an Aldabreshi noblewoman’s wardrobe to nail-studded coffers with intricate locks, small enough to rest on two outstretched hands. Each one had been crammed with jewellery and ornaments though this could be barely a fraction of the Khusro domain’s treasury.

Jilseth had diligently examined every piece. She turned to the white-clad Archipelagan standing silently inside the door opening from the barony’s audience chamber. ‘Do you know why these particular things were selected? Was there some reason to suspect magic’s contamination?’

He didn’t answer or even meet her gaze to acknowledge that she had spoken. As he stared intently at the array of items which she had set aside on the table Jilseth guessed that he was committing every one to memory, to tell his mistresses what this voyage had cost them, to free themselves from lurking sorcery.

A belt made up of four strands of plaited leather threaded through gold roundels, each one with a different bird’s head in its centre. A long cylindrical whetstone with a silver finial shaped like a dolphin. Four narrow plaques of different lengths, cast in bronze and each one showing a violent battle scene. Jilseth guessed these were part of a swordsman’s gear.

An alabaster statue of an eagle-headed woman holding a shallow dish. A bronze bowl engraved with ducks splashing among tufts of reeds. A gold cup embossed with enamelled feathers. Spoons, cast from bronze and copper or carved from horn or dense black wood and inlaid with chips of bone and coloured stone. A tall, narrow-necked ewer and a pair of enamelled copper candlesticks. Would these have spells imbued within them for unsuspected domestic purposes?

An array of silver and gold brooches shaped into flowers and sprigs of leaves, bright with precious stones. A pair of intricate ivory earrings studded with turquoise. Three anklets; one of braided copper, one of dull brown agates set in dark iron and one of silver bells.

Conferring some more personal magic, Jilseth guessed, but she hadn’t tried any piece on to discover precisely what spells it held. Not with this daunting quantity of boxes to be opened and searched through, when Velindre and the Archmage had insisted that this task must be completed as swiftly as possible.

The blonde magewoman had warned that the Greater Moon, the Opal, would move from the region of the sky offering omens for friends into that arc offering omens of enemies this very evening. Sunset, not dawn, marked each passing day for the Archipelagans. The Lesser Moon, the Pearl, would pass into the arc of death to join the ill-omened heavenly Emerald in three days’ time.

Planir had simply asked that she bring the artefacts to Hadrumal as soon as possible, so that the Aldabreshi women and their swordsmen would leave Halferan. Then the Archmage could reassure Corrain, still furious in Col, that Lady Zurenne and her daughters were unharmed.

Small figurines carved from soapstone; a kneeling child, two men wrestling, a reclining woman seemingly asleep. More ominously, a coiled snake, a crouching rat and what Jilseth had identified after a moment’s thought as a scorpion. From the threat in its up-curved sting-tipped tail, she was glad she’d only ever encountered such a creature in books. A narrow bronze box as long as a large man’s hand which had proved to contain reed pens although none of those had had the least hint of magic.

As far as Jilseth could see, there was no more commonality between these pieces than there was between the other Aldabreshin treasures. Some looked fresh from a craftsman’s hands. Others were tarnished and neglected, evidently as long-lived as that arm-ring which Hosh had given to Velindre.

Reven was standing wide-eyed beside the silent Archipelagan. ‘I suggest you send word to the tavern,’ Jilseth told him, ‘to tell Lady Zurenne that we’re done here. I will remove myself and these offending articles before her guests return.’

She took care not to refer directly to the Khusro wives as Velindre had advised her. The white-clad Archipelagan in his incongruous woolly jerkin stiffened, making it perfectly plain that he understood what she had said. He still didn’t look at Jilseth, only deigning to notice Reven addressing him.

‘Please go to the village, Master Soviro and tell your mistresses and mine that the—that the work here is done.’

Jilseth saw that the young sergeant-at-arms was embarrassed by such discourtesy towards her. She waited until the Archipelagan had departed through the audience chamber and the anteroom beyond.

‘It’s difficult, isn’t it, Sergeant, not to tread on their toes by saying the wrong thing.’ She used a skein of air to lift the middling-sized coffer which she had earmarked for her own use onto the table.

‘Saedrin save us, isn’t it just?’ Reven looked with wonder at the treasures on the muniment room table. ‘These things all have some magic about them? What do they do?’

‘They have had spells instilled within them,’ Jilseth confirmed, ‘though as yet, I can’t say precisely what their magecrafting might entail. Some hold more than one spell.’

She realised that she had no idea how many chimes had passed her by, while she’d been so intent on examining the Archipelagan treasures. She hadn’t even noticed the lamps being lit in the muniment room or the audience chamber beyond. ‘How late in the day is it?’

‘Coming up on the tenth chime.’ Reven said promptly.

‘When are the funeral pyres to be lit?’

‘At the first chime of the night.’

Jilseth nodded. ‘Then I need to be gone, so Lady Zurenne and Lady Ilysh can bring the mourners to the shrine.’

Kheda had warned her this morning that the Aldabreshi women would wish to show their respects for Caladhrian funeral rites even though their own beliefs were so very different.

‘Please convey the Archmage’s thanks to your mistress. I will make sure that Master Olved bespeaks her with the latest news from Baron Halferan in Col as soon as we see that the Aldabreshi have left—’ Jilseth broke off from putting the ensorcelled artefacts carefully in the coffer. ‘Don’t say that in the Archipelagan women’s hearing or anywhere near their slaves. They mustn’t know that they’re being scried for.’

‘They wouldn’t like that,’ Reven said fervently.

‘Quite.’ Jilseth gestured towards the strong boxes. ‘I suggest you whistle up some help and get everything safely stowed in the cellar until the Aldabreshi take to the high road.’ She closed the coffer’s lid and pressed a finger to the lock.

‘That’ll be the day after tomorrow, most likely, according to Master Soviro. Saedrin save us,’ the young Caladhrian said involuntarily, startled as the lock’s tumblers turned and clicked.

Didn’t he know that wizards had no need of keys?

‘Farewell Sergeant, I hope to see you soon. Please convey my respects and my thanks to Lady Zurenne and Lady Ilysh.’

Jilseth laid a hand on the coffer to surround it with a dense ward woven of quadrate magic. Even with the spells quiescent in the artefacts, she didn’t want to be surprised by some unsuspected clash of magecraft. The memory of her translocation colliding with Velindre’s wizardry in Relshaz still unnerved her.

The lamp light mingled with the spell’s strengthening glow. With Halferan’s foundations rooted in the same bedrock underpinning the wizard isle, carrying herself and this booty back to Trydek’s tower was the work of a moment.

There was no one in Planir’s sitting room though lamps were lit here as well. Lowering the Archipelagan coffer to the floor, Jilseth looked around. The wide table was still piled high with poor Kerrit’s books and papers. An untended fire in the hearth had died away to barely smouldering clinker.

Jilseth went to the mantelshelf to find a taper and mirror, about to bespeak the Archmage. She heard a door opening up above and footsteps descending the spiral stair leading down from the Archmage’s private study beside his bedchamber.

‘This is where I teach my pupils and receive more informal visitors to Hadrumal.’

Jilseth wondered who Planir’s companion was, to be so unfamiliar with Trydek’s tower.

Planir smiled as he saw her and that smile widened as he saw the Aldabreshin chest. ‘Madam Jilseth, I’m delighted to see that your quest has prospered.’

‘Archmage.’ She answered him with equal formality and waited to be introduced to the tall, muscular man at his side.

Planir turned to him with an open hand. ‘May I make known to you Mentor Micaran, sealed to the School of Rhetoric at the University of Col and an adept of aetheric magic.’

‘Good evening, Madam Mage.’ The dark haired man bowed politely.

‘I am honoured to meet you, Master Scholar.’ Jilseth wondered what business he had here. She’d wager it had something to do with Corrain.

Planir rubbed his hands together and fresh flames kindled in the hearth despite the lack of coal for burning. ‘Was there any word of strangers passing through the Halferan barony? Did you notice any unfamiliar faces in the village?’

‘No.’

Jilseth saw that wasn’t to be the end of it as Planir nodded.

‘I would like Mentor Micaran to use his Artifice to show you this man supposedly from Wrede, who was dogging Corrain’s footsteps in Ferl. It may be that you’ll recognise him. You may easily have passed him in Halferan’s village unawares.’

‘I think it’s unlikely that any stranger would have gone unnoticed, Archmage,’ Jilseth said with careful respect. ‘With Aldabreshi visitors within the manor, the demesne folk were as nervous as children watching shadows for the Eldritch Kin.’

‘We have reason to suspect that this man from Wrede is also an aetheric adept.’ Planir ushered Micaran towards the fire. ‘He may have enchantments to convince everyone that he belongs wherever he happens to be.’

‘Artifice can do that?’ Jilseth realised too late how impolite her words must sound. She offered an apologetic glance to Mentor Micaran. ‘Forgive me, I know little of your discipline.’

‘Few people do, here or on the mainland.’ He didn’t seem perturbed. ‘But there are many ways of going unseen using aetheric magic.’

‘If you please?’ Planir’s nod indicated that Jilseth should sit beside the mentor adept on the settle opposite his own.

She complied, somewhat apprehensively. ‘What should I do?’

‘Clear your thoughts,’ Micaran smiled. ‘I often advise my subjects to stare into a candle flame but the Archmage tells me that would only focus a wizard’s senses.’

‘Indeed.’ Jilseth glanced at the hearth, reminded that the Archmage’s mastery now somehow allowed that fire to burn with no fuel. ‘Oh!’

Two things caught her unawares. First, Mentor Micaran took her hand. Second, in the same instant, Jilseth found herself in a library, though it was assuredly not one in Hadrumal or any of those she knew in Col.

Sloped reading desks with comfortable chairs were set amid a labyrinth of waist-high book cases filled with neatly ranked tomes. Broad windows in all four walls as well as skylights in the roof allowed bright sunlight to illuminate long tables laid ready with every device and substance which a mage might need to test a theory.

‘Forgive my stratagem.’ Micaran was standing at her side. ‘Turning your mind to wizardly matters makes it easier to weave my thoughts into your own.’

Jilseth studied her hands. How could she still feel the pressure of the scholar adept’s fingers? How could it still be daylight when she had returned to Hadrumal at dusk?

Those were the least of her concerns. She extended her wizardly senses and found nothing, not even the reassuring solidity of those stone walls. She reached further but there was still no hint of the elements which underpinned all things.

Jilseth felt wholly cast adrift. Worse, the sensation brought back the agonies of fear and uncertainty which she had suffered after exhausting her magic in Halferan’s defence.

She reached out still more urgently with her affinity. The entire room shimmered like summer haze striking upwards from sun-scorched flagstones but she still couldn’t find any elemental reality.

‘Does the Archmage know where you have taken me?’ She could barely stifle her growing alarm.

‘I’ve taken you nowhere.’ Micaran looked around with keen interest. ‘This is a refuge within your own mind.’

At least his calm voice gave her something to concentrate on besides her burgeoning panic. Jilseth shook her head. ‘I’ve never been here before.’

‘It’s not a memory; it’s a refuge,’ Micaran said patiently, ‘wrought from some ideal which you cherish unawares. Please believe that this is an illusion. It is merely the simplest way for me to work the Artifice which Planir has requested. You are perfectly safe within the Archmage’s tower. Your own imagination has made this place.’