Exodus of the Xandim (GOLLANCZ S.F.) (21 page)

Ionor had his own special way of avoiding storms, both the weather sort and the gathering storm of conflict that was threatening to tear the city, the Wizardfolk and even his
own lifelong friendships apart. He had never believed that such a chasm could open up in his own tight-knit group of companions. Melisanda was, like him, vehemently against the idea of war. Thara
also, but he could sense, occasionally, that she was beginning to waver. Yinze and Chathak, both with loved ones to avenge, were openly welcoming the chance to strike back and were backing
Sharalind wholeheartedly. They were already training with the Luen of Warriors, and were in no mood to hear talk of peace and moderation.

The Wizard was beginning to wish that he had remained with the Leviathan, and had never returned to Tyrineld. In a few short days the atmosphere had changed out of all recognition. This was no
longer a gentle-paced city devoted to beauty, creativity and learning. Suddenly, everyone accepted war as a foregone conclusion, whether they were for or against. Fear and a kind of sick excitement
stalked the streets; it was as though the conflict had already reached into every home and family. He felt increasingly isolated here; alienated from even his closest friends. For the first time in
his life he was bitterly at odds with Chathak and Yinze. He was grieving for Avithan too – his friend’s death had torn a deep and painful wound in his heart – but fighting the
Phaerie and getting a whole multitude of other Wizards killed wouldn’t bring him back and, Ionor was sure, it was the last thing that Avithan himself would have wanted. Thara and Melisanda,
though they concurred with him, were both grimly busy now. The Healers were devising strategies and making preparations to cope with the carnage that must surely come, and Thara’s cadre of
the Nurturers, those concerned with growing things, were working themselves to exhaustion trying to accelerate the maturing of every harvestable crop, to feed Omaira’s army and increase the
city’s stockpile of supplies.

Ionor had never felt so lonely, not even during his childhood. Except for his friends, he had never known a true family. His parents had conceived him in a starburst of passion that faded as
quickly as it flared. His mother, Laranel, was a trading captain, highly placed in the Luen of Merchants. She commanded her own ship and was famed for her daring, both in the voyages she made and
the ventures that sprang from them. His father, Nolior, was a Bard, well respected for his researches into ancient ballads and poems that cast light on some of the more obscure, barbaric and
little-documented periods of the Wizards’ ancient history.

This mismatched couple had met when Nolior took passage on Laranel’s ship to the far-off Apiun Islands, to investigate some ancient inscriptions that had been found there. Their shipboard
romance was a brief flowering of lust, never meant by either of them to last any longer than the voyage itself. Unfortunately it coincided with the passage through the Dead Zone, an area in the
tropics where an undersea volcano had thrown up a strange, dull grey metallic ore that had an inhibiting effect on magic.

A Wizard called Zathbar, from the Luen of Artificers, had discovered much about the material, and had even gone so far as to fabricate a pair of bracelets from the vile stuff, but it was so
unpleasant and dangerous to work with that no one else wanted to have anything to with it. Zathbar, horrified by what he had wrought, had buried the bracelets in the wild, hot, inhospitable lands
of the Jewelled Desert, far to the south, and thankfully moved on to other things.

Only the Dead Zone remained – slap-bang in the middle of the north-south trade route. Mortal sailors were unaffected, but the Wizard captains got through the area as fast as they could,
thanked their stars when they reached the other side, and did their best to forget about it. Only when Nolior and Laranel had gone their separate ways, and Laranel discovered, to her utter horror,
that she was pregnant, did she realise that the Dead Zone had affected the spells with which Wizards controlled their fertility.

Laranel did what any Wizard did who didn’t want their life’s work to be hampered by a child. She had the baby and left him in the House of Children, where Wizard offspring were
brought up communally by volunteers who came mainly from the Luens of Nurturers and Healers. Neither she nor Ionor’s father had taken any further interest in him and he had grown up as a City
Brat, as the occupants of the House of Children were colloquially known – as, indeed, had Melisanda. Her parents were both itinerant Healers who dedicated their lives to treating Wizards in
far-flung, scattered communities. They, at least, had loved their daughter and always spent time with her on their occasional visits to Tyrineld, but the wilderness was no place to bring up a
child, especially one whose father and mother were exposed to so much infection and disease. When Melisanda was a first-year student with the Luen of Healers, both her parents had perished when an
epidemic decimated a backwoods settlement. Her grieving had brought her closer to her circle of friends; just one more bond to add to the many that they shared.

Now it seemed that those bonds were already fraying and breaking, leaving Ionor bereft. He had started the night sitting alone in the house he had shared for so long with Avithan and the others.
Yinze and Chathak, grimly purposeful, were out training at the Luen of Warriors, and Thara and Melisanda were busy with their own concerns, for the Healers and Nurturers had many preparations to
make for the conflict to come. Ionor belonged to the Academy, the Luen of Academics, who had nothing practical to do in preparation for war – nor, he suspected, would Aldyth allow his people
to become involved in any of the planning, such was the strength of his opposition.

And what about me? Will my own opposition stand so firm, if put to the test? Will I join those who refuse to go to war, or will I swallow my scruples and go along, because Yinze and Chathak
are going, and I want to be with them?

Ionor didn’t want to abandon them. He felt sure that their chances of survival would be greater if he was with them, if all three of them were together.

But what of my own chances?

Was it cowardice not to become involved, or common sense?

He needed to escape all this: to step away for a while, and allow his thoughts to settle. Maybe even talk the matter over with a friend whose perspective was less trammelled by so many personal
ties and conflicting loyalties. Luckily, such a friend existed. Lituya. Suddenly it seemed the most natural thing in the world to slip away from Tyrineld and all its worries, and head for the ocean
to be with the Leviathan.

The streets were quiet that night, with the wild weather keeping everyone snug indoors. Ionor decided to enter the water in the harbour where, thanks to the protection of the long piers and
breakwaters, the sea was relatively calm. The quays were deserted, with the boats moored snug in their haven, battened down against the storm. Shivering in the brutal blasts of wind and driving
rain, the Wizard took off his outer clothes and hid them, wrapped into a bundle in his cloak, behind a pile of lobster pots in an open-fronted shed. As always, he put back his belt, which held a
long knife in a sheath, and fastened it securely round his waist. Beneath the ocean, a tool or a weapon could mean his survival.

Ionor looked out at the ocean, wild and powerful in the storm, and his heart beat faster with excitement. Then, taking a deep breath, he sprinted through the downpour to the edge of the jetty,
and made a clean dive into the water.

As he wrapped the undersea spell around him like an old, familiar mantle, Ionor no longer felt cold or wet. His wizardly night vision worked just as well underwater as it did on land, and he
could see quite clearly where he was going. He left the shelter of the harbour, swimming strongly underwater and keeping near the bottom to escape the worst of the tumult on the surface, but here,
so close to the land, it was impossible to avoid the violence of the great waves that came churning and crashing in. The chaotic currents hurled him this way and that, and the water was turbid with
sand that had been stirred up from the sea bed.

Using all the strength and skill he had developed during his months with the Leviathan, Ionor fought his way through the turmoil, until he reached the place where the shelving coast dropped into
the depths and he could swim down to a level where everything was calm and still. The Wizard felt his spirits grow lighter. It was such a relief not to have to fight the ocean any more, and such a
joy to be back in this, his adopted element that was coming more and more to feel like home. All he needed to make things perfect was Lituya’s company. Concentrating on the image of his
friend, he sent out a call in mindspeech through the ocean depths.

Clearly Lituya was asleep, as the Wizard had to call for a moment or two before he got an answer. Eventually, however, he was rewarded with a reply. ‘Ionor?’ The mental tones were
fuzzy with sleep. ‘What is it?’ The thought patterns sharpened with alarm. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Lituya, don’t worry,’ Ionor cursed his own lack of consideration. Just because
he
couldn’t sleep, it didn’t give him the right to go round disturbing
everyone else. ‘I’m sorry I woke you. I was just feeling lonely and worried and I needed your company.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say so? I’ll come at once.’ There was a moment’s pause, then he continued. ‘It will be good to take some time just for ourselves but
also – well, there’s something I need to discuss with you.’

‘What? What’s wrong?’ Now it was Ionor’s turn to feel a stab of alarm, and the Leviathan’s turn to comfort him. ‘Don’t you worry either. We’ll
talk about it when I see you. I’m sure it’s not beyond the ingenuity of the Magefolk to solve.’ Again, there was a slight hesitation. ‘Ionor, I’m glad you came
tonight. I’ve missed you.’

‘Thank you, Lituya. You’re a true friend. I’ve missed you too – I hadn’t realised how much, until tonight. I’m heading into the southern bay now, so
I’ll meet you there.’

Ionor swam on, blessing the Wizards’ night vision that allowed him to navigate these dark waters in safety. Through the spell that had been formulated for him to live among the Leviathan,
he could glide along with little effort, his body protected from the changes in pressure and the profound chill of the depths.

In the southern bay, where the cliffs plunged straight down into the ocean, a kelp forest grew; a multitude of slender stems with long, elegant fronds growing all along their length that swayed
and swirled like dancers in the shifting current. The strands of the giant seaweed stretched up and up, taller than trees, rooted on the sea bed and reaching right up to the warm water and bright
light at the surface. It felt sheltered and comfortable among the waving ribbons, and the Wizard settled there to await his friend. Using an old sea-otter trick he took hold of one of the stems and
twirled himself in the water so that it wrapped two or three times round his body, anchoring him in place. It felt so comfortable here, to be held gently without danger of drifting, to be cradled
by the murmuring ocean that rocked him gently on its shifting tides.

Ionor had not realised how difficult life had become for him up on the surface in Tyrineld. Now that he had escaped, if only for a time, all the worry, grief and conflict that stalked the city,
he realised that he was utterly worn out and weary. Gradually his knotted muscles relaxed and the tension seeped out of him, dissolving in the ocean currents that slid like silk around his body.
Cradled in the kelp, he drifted, drowsed and finally fell asleep . . .

Only to be awakened by a shattering splash and a clamour of voices, as something large and heavy hit the water and plummeted to the bottom. Shocked and shaken, the Wizard flailed among the kelp
fronds, almost throttling himself as he tried to get free from the entangling stem he’d wrapped around himself. When he finally managed to get loose he swam towards the point of impact where
the object had entered the water, which was still marked by a swirl of spreading foam. His common sense told him he was heading in the wrong direction, for surely the projectile could only have
been a boulder – and judging by the size of the splash it must have been a large one – that had been dislodged from the cliff by the storm, and by heading in closer to the shoreline he
ran the risk of being hit by any further falling rocks. Nevertheless his curiosity, that fatal flaw in the Wizardly character that had caused them so much trouble over the ages, nagged at him until
it drove him forward. He followed the trail of bubbles downward, until there, floating in a tangle of kelp strands, he saw a dark shape below. Ionor’s heart gave a lurch.

That’s not a rock!

Unless his eyes were playing tricks on him, that could be a cloaked figure, down there among the seaweed fronds. In a frantic burst of speed, the Wizard swam down and reached for the mysterious
object – and sure enough, his hand grasped a tangle of wet cloth.

‘By the light!’ Feverishly the Wizard worked to free the figure from the tangle of weed, hampered by the slippery fronds and the wet fabric of the cloak that wrapped itself around
his arms and clung to his skin. After struggling for what seemed like an eternity, he remembered his knife.

Oh, you fool, Ionor!

Thanking providence for the sharp blade, he hacked at the slick, rubbery fronds of the kelp, and felt a surge of relief as the limp, cloth-swathed form came was freed at last.

Who was this? As Ionor dragged the limp form to the surface, he caught a glimpse of several gleams of magelight on the cliff path high above. Who was up there and why had they not tried to
rescue the stranger? It looked to the young Wizard as though there was some sort of foul play afoot – and he had just rescued the victim. But was the poor soul alive or dead now? Well, as a
Wizard he wouldn’t have drowned, so everything depended on whether he’d survived the fall. Feverishly Ionor clawed the sodden fabric of the cloak away from the anonymous figure’s
face – and it was as though he’d been kicked in the stomach. ‘Aldyth!’