Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (42 page)

‘A baffling miscellany.’ Jilseth couldn’t think how else to describe the random collection of ensorcelled objects. ‘I didn’t have time to identify their spells.’

That was only the first of her concerns. Hadn’t Hadrumal’s Council insisted that no such artefacts be taken to Suthyfer?

‘Let’s go and see what we have.’ Usara gestured and the chest rose to float a few paces ahead as he led them along the path skirting the kitchen building.

Jilseth saw that this practical range abutted what looked like a hall for gathering or dining, as in any Caladhrian manor or indeed Hadrumal’s wizardly halls. On the hall’s far side, a third building with windows indicating two storeys topped by garrets benefited from the south-facing aspect which Jilseth naturally associated with libraries.

A Caladhrian manor would be surrounded by barracks, servants’ quarters and storehouses ringed with a high wall. Every wizardly hall in Hadrumal was hemmed in with quadrangles offering accommodation to mages, pupils and apprentices. Towers recalled past generations when such a defensible building was an essential refuge in time of trouble.

Suthyfer’s mage hall stood without wall or watch tower in a wide hollow of short-cropped turf dotted with more stunted bushes. A deeply rutted gravelled road cut across the greensward from east to west, meandering to draw close to the kitchen though there was no immediate sign where any wagons delivering foodstuffs could have come from.

Jilseth could see a bare handful of modest houses, not one within easily hailing distance of a neighbour. Each had a garden large enough to be called a smallholding, with pigsties and chicken coops and vegetable patches roughly dug over for the winter. Such cultivation barely made a mark on the prevailing wilderness.

‘This way.’ Usara cut across the open court framed by the three buildings and gravelled like the road. ‘You’re welcome to use a study here whenever you’re in Suthyfer—’ he smiled at Jilseth as he opened the central door ‘—and if Guinalle and I already have guests, one of the other wizardly households across the islands will offer you a bedchamber.’

‘Thank you.’ Jilseth privately recoiled from the notion of finding herself wished on an unsuspecting family of strangers. Visitors to Hadrumal had their needs met by a wizard hall’s impersonal servants.

She looked at the corridors of closed doors on either side and at the staircase ahead. ‘Is your library up above?’

Usara shook his head. ‘We’ve yet to amass enough books to warrant one. For the moment, this hall offers our mages and adepts peace and quiet for private study away from household distractions and somewhere for experimentation that might otherwise cause uproar. And of course, we meet with our apprentices and pupils to assess and guide their progress.’

He opened a door with a gesture and ushered the floating chest into a room overlooking another long sweep of turf bounded by trees, still densely leaved despite the winter season. ‘Only Shiv and I have laid permanent claim to a room. He’s just across the corridor, or at least, he will be when he gets back from the landing.’

Usara glanced at the Archmage. ‘A ship arrived from Bremilayne with a cargo of Sitalacan wine. Livak sent a note on this morning’s carrier’s cart saying she’s set a case aside for us, as long as she’s paid by sunset tomorrow.’

‘Then I will personally inform that ship’s captain and whichever mage is aboard of the Council’s decision to withdraw Hadrumal’s magecraft from the mainland,’ the Archmage said drily. ‘One of your own mages can see the captain safely back to Bremilayne or Zyoutessela as he prefers, but make sure he understands that attempting to return here without wizardly assistance would be very ill-advised.’

Usara looked askance at the Archmage. ‘What do we tell Temar D’Alsennin? He’s not at all happy after hearing the rumours thus far.’

‘I will visit Kellarin myself and explain to him and Captain Halice,’ Planir assured the mage, ‘as well as calling on Captain Ryshad while I’m here.’

He glanced at Jilseth. ‘Please forgive our discourtesy, talking of people and places you don’t know.’

‘Please don’t trouble yourselves on my account.’ Privately though, Jilseth found herself uneasy.

How quickly and completely could the Archmage settle all Suthyfer and Kellarin’s concerns? How many challenges could he deal with before he was caught looking in the wrong direction at some vital juncture?

The Archmage was already facing dissent in Hadrumal’s Council, antagonism from Soluran wizards as well as this so far inexplicable hostility from Soluran adepts in Col. Relshaz had expelled its wizards and Jilseth had no doubt that antagonism to the mageborn would soon spread more widely. Meantime the Tormalin Emperor’s spymaster was seeking any way to compel Planir to deliver ensorcelled artefacts into his liege lord’s hands.

Now Planir had chosen to defy the Council of Wizards by delivering this chest full of treasures to Suthyfer. When had he told Usara and Guinalle to expect these spoils from the Khusro treasury? Before or after the Council had forbidden the removal of any of Anskal’s loot to Suthyfer?

Had Planir suspected that stricture would be laid on him? Had that prompted him to tell Velindre to persuade Kheda to advise the Khusro wives to cleanse their domain of such magic?

Was Jilseth supposed to keep this secret from her friends in Hadrumal? What would happen when the Council found out? She acknowledged the irony of her situation. She had been resenting not knowing what was going on. Now she would far rather be ignorant.

Rather than ask any such perilous questions, she contemplated the table under the study’s window. It wasn’t so different from her own in the Terrene Hall. Lumps of rock and ore were set beside worked stone and finished metal, along with robust dishes and crucibles should any of these things need reducing to powder or a molten state. Pen, ink and parchment lay ready for noting whatever insights such alteration might reveal.

What hitherto unsuspected understanding of elemental earth might Usara share with her, Jilseth wondered in passing, to inform and inspire her own studies? Or had his own vaunted prowess been blunted by more prosaic use of his talents in these islands?

Jilseth’s shelves held her growing collection of journals, a new volume prepared by Hadrumal’s bookbinders around the turn of each season as she wrote a concise summation of her thoughts and discoveries in accordance with Hadrumal’s long-established custom. Usara had one small shelf stacked with haphazard sheaves of notes.

The rest of the walls were covered with maps; some finely delineated examples of the cartographer’s craft, others sketches apparently drawn with a burnt stick on some scrap of sail cloth. Whether costly or crude, the maps were dotted with different coloured spots of paint and hasty notations.

A second table was covered with draftsman’s tools, parchments with architectural designs, an Aldabreshin counting frame and a child’s wooden-framed writing slate. Not that any child had worked those closely written equations. Previous calculations had been copied onto coarse paper before the slate was wiped clean and used again.

‘Wizardry has to earn its own way in Suthyfer,’ Usara was evidently amused by her frank curiosity. ‘We don’t have an island of farms and villages raising crops and beasts to feed us, nor a city of artisans and merchants paying us rents and dues. So we assist the islanders as best our affinity enables us. I help to build houses hereabouts and Shiv and I are improving the anchorage at the landing, above and below the tide line. I visit Kellarin from time to time, to lend a hand in the coastal settlements and to make sure the miners inland aren’t digging a shaft that’ll fall in on their heads.’

‘The master mage is too modest,’ Planir remarked. ‘Usara and Shiv have also explored the ways in which wizards can blend their strength short of combining in a full nexus.’

‘The Mandarkin Anskal could do that, whether or not the mageborn around him consented.’ Jilseth would be very interested to know what these Suthyfer mages had discovered about such elemental thievery.

‘Quite so.’ The Archmage nodded. ‘And wizards here also learn all they can from the aetheric adepts who study with Guinalle.’

‘We know better than to scorn Artifice simply because we cannot use its enchantments.’ Usara looked back through the door as a hand bell rang on the far side of the gravelled courtyard. ‘Just as I know better than to keep my beloved wife waiting when dinner is ready.’

‘Please make my excuses. I must visit Kellarin and the landing and then get back to Hadrumal.’

Planir vanished, catching Jilseth unawares and leaving her more than a little irritated. What was she supposed to do now? Beyond waiting to take Micaran back to Col, whenever he had concluded his mysterious aetheric business with Lady Guinalle. Was there any better use she could make of her time here?

‘Master Usara, will Merenel be dining with us?’

Usara ushered her through the door and out into the fading daylight.

‘No need to call me “Master.” We’re seldom so formal here.’ The shaven-headed mage led her across the gravelled yard. ‘No, she’s in Kellarin. Do you know Allin Mere? They have become friends as well as collaborators.’

‘Allin Mere is the magewoman who married Temar D’Alsennin?’ Jilseth shook her head. ‘We’ve never met.’

She only knew that the girl, mageborn from some Lescari family and barely out of her apprenticeship, had married the Tormalin nobleman who now ruled the settlements being hacked out of the wilds of Kellarin. The tale had been a ten day wonder around Hadrumal’s wine shops but Jilseth couldn’t recall any mention of her after that.

Usara glanced at her, his face unreadable in a way that reminded Jilseth uncomfortably of Planir. ‘Don’t dismiss Allin so readily. She’s the fire mage who joined with Herion, Velindre and me to make up the fourth nexus, when Planir worked that ultimate magic against the Mandarkin.’

Before Jilseth could protest that she meant no disrespect, Usara continued, walking onwards.

‘Temar D’Alsennin has some skills with Artifice, though he’s very far from an adept. He and Allin work together, like Guinalle and I, to explore our vulnerabilities to each other’s magic as well as wizardry’s antipathy to Artifice.’ He glanced at Jilseth. ‘As you might imagine, such collaboration demands absolute trust.’

‘Temar D’Alsennin is also—?’ Jilseth couldn’t find the right words to frame her next question.

Usara’s thin smile suggested he was well used to confirming the rumours to the incredulous.

‘He is one of the Old Empire’s first colonists, who were bound in an enchanted sleep through Artifice and lost beyond the ocean for twenty-five generations. Along with my wife and a good many of those now living in Suthyfer and Kellarin. Very few have chosen to return to Tormalin, with everything they once knew so utterly changed and everyone known to them so long dead.’

He paused to look intently at Jilseth. ‘Here and in Kellarin, we have drawn one lesson above all else from that. Just because something can be done with magic, elemental or aetheric, that’s no recommendation to actually do it.’

‘Surely the colonists cannot regret that their lives were saved?’ Jilseth ventured.

‘No, they don’t regret it but equally, they live every day with the knowledge of what such salvation has cost them.’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps Hadrumal’s mages will learn a little humility, as they consider what destroying the corsair island will cost wizardry, now that the mainlanders and Archipelagans alike have learned how truly fearsome elemental magic can be.’

‘Planir had no alternative.’ Jilseth protested.

‘No, indeed,’ Usara agreed, halting to open the kitchen door. ‘The price remains to be paid regardless. Let us hope that some of our insights help you limit the cost.’

He smiled encouragingly, though Jilseth found that cold comfort as they entered the kitchen.

‘—since I was not mageborn myself, I never had any hope of wielding elemental magic like my uncle,’ Micaran explained. ‘When I was old enough to study at the university, I heard rumour of Artifice and sought out those mentors studying to become adept. I proved to have some aptitude—’

He broke off to rise politely from his stool. ‘Master Usara, Mistress Jilseth.’

‘Please, sit.’ Usara waved him back down. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here.’

So Jilseth was coming to realise. Guinalle and Micaran were alone in the kitchen, sitting at the long scrubbed wooden table beneath hanging lanterns.

Beyond the table, a substantial cooking range occupied the end wall. Shelves on one side were filled with stores and foodstuffs while a copper for boiling linens and deep sinks along the opposite wall drained into the stone-lined gully leading to the soakaway beyond the far door.

‘We have no cooks or laundry maids here. We all lend a hand.’ Guinalle Tor Priminale rose to stir a bubbling pot on the range, evidently the source of the aroma which Jilseth had savoured on her arrival.

Had the Tormalin adept read Jilseth’s surprise in her face or plucked that from her thoughts?

‘We use our magecraft to lighten the load wherever we can, however reprehensible some Council members consider abusing the privilege of wizardry for such trivial purposes.’ Usara’s smile widened. ‘You would be surprised how many of our visitors cannot use their magic to do something as trivial as cooking an egg without showering themselves with yolk and shell, seeing the water turn instantly to steam or melting the cooking pot in their hand.’