Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (51 page)

Eight chairs surrounded a round table of polished, honey-coloured wood. Five of the seated figures were dressed as richly as barons and their ladies at a wedding. The three remaining wore plain robes with hooded surcoats; a man in pale grey over black, a thin-faced woman in cream wool over dark brown, and a black-bearded man favouring tan over charcoal. Each one wore a different pewter ornament on a leather thong around their neck.

Hosh blinked and looked more closely to see that the man in grey and black was the dead Soluran.

‘Where is that? Who are they?’ Corrain demanded.

Jilseth shook her head, slowly and carefully, her unblinking eyes never leaving the vision. ‘I cannot say where they are but that woman in the russet gown is a mage from the Order of Detich.’

Jilseth’s tone told Hosh that this was ominous news.

‘What are they saying?’ Corrain narrowed his eyes as though that might help him hear the faint voices floating through the smoke.

Hosh concentrated and found he could just make out their conversation.

‘Then Detich, Noerut, Ontesk, Ancorr and Temosul are agreed.’

The woman’s satisfaction was vindictive in its intensity.

‘Does Remulde of Solith know of this?’

This speaker was far from sharing her confidence.

‘As yet the Order of the Lake of Kings has no reason to know anything which might perturb them.’

Hosh instantly mistrusted such slyness.

‘What does this mean?’ Corrain demanded, frustrated.

‘What—’ Hosh would have drawn the captain’s sword except that swift reason told him that at least one of these two people appearing in the room must be a wizard to step out of the empty air in such a startling fashion.

The man was of middling height and wiry build with an amiable face and the merest fuzz of hair softening his balding scalp. His companion was no taller than Hosh’s mum, though her figure was womanly and curved rather than girlishly slender like Lady Ilysh.

‘Usara?’ Jilseth still didn’t look away from her spell. ‘This necromancy will be lost entirely if I break off now.’

‘Forgive me. We came here as quickly as we could.’ The man turned to answer the question on Corrain’s lips. ‘I am Usara, a mage of Suthyfer in Archmage Planir’s confidence. This is my wife, Guinalle Tor Priminale, an aetheric adept of advanced skills.’

‘Why are you here?’ Jilseth’s tone was clipped with concentration.

‘May I show you rather than try to explain?’ the woman said in strangely accented Tormalin.

She knelt beside Jilseth and laid her silver-ringed hand on the magewoman’s forearm. Jilseth flinched as though she had been stabbed with a pin and the amber magelight around the necromancy flared bright as sunlight.

Corrain stifled an oath and would have stepped forward. The Suthyfer mage barred his way with an outstretched arm. From the surprise on the captain’s face, Hosh guessed that the wizard was stronger than Corrain expected.

‘What is that?’ Jilseth demanded harshly.

‘I will explain, but let me work,’ the Tormalin woman replied with equal intensity.

The golden light faded to a web of amber threads amid the smoke and steam framing the vision somehow drawn from the dead man’s flesh.

Do we have sufficient allies among the Houses of Sanctuary?

The dead Soluran answered the russet-clad magewoman emphatically.

We do.

Hosh was repelled and fascinated in equal measure. He had never imagined that the dead could be subjected to such wizardry. Was this why even those with scant faith in the gods sought a funeral pyre to burn their bodies to ashes?

‘I’m sorry.’ The Tormalin lady adept withdrew her hand.

Her husband helped her to her feet. ‘We couldn’t know.’

‘A moment, if you please.’ Still seated on the floor, Jilseth leaned forward, her breathing harsh in the abrupt silence.

Hosh could see that the meeting in the vision had drawn to a close. The conspirators were rising to their feet and making brief farewells.

‘Master Usara, shall I return this spell to its beginning or shall we see where the Soluran goes next?’

As Hosh heard the tremor in Jilseth’s voice and noted the strain on her face, he recalled his mum saying that the magewoman had collapsed with exhaustion during their flight from Halferan. The manor’s folk had agreed that the only thing more terrifying than seeing a wizard’s power unleashed was being deprived of such aid.

‘Will you be able to work a second necromancy on this body?’ Usara asked, concerned.

‘I believe so.’ Jilseth didn’t sound as certain as Hosh would have expected.

‘Then I suggest you halt and tell us what you’ve learned so far.’ The Suthyfer mage looked for his wife’s nod of agreement.

‘Very well.’ The sag of Jilseth’s shoulders betrayed her relief as she removed her hands from the pot. Her palms weren’t even reddened.

Acrid smoke surged upwards from the bubbling oil. Steam laced with golden magelight spread throughout the room. Before they all choked, a cold gust surged through the window, too purposeful to be anything other than wizardry. Hosh drew a deep, appreciative breath of clean air.

Jilseth tried to stand but her strength failed her. Corrain went to offer his assistance.

‘Thank you.’ As soon as she was on her feet, the magewoman held out her hand to the captain. ‘May I have your knife?’

Hosh wondered queasily what she intended as she stooped over the corpse.

Jilseth sliced open the Soluran’s shirt sleeve and prodded his dead flesh with the knife’s tip, fingerwidth by fingerwidth to a point just above his elbow. Standing upright, she looked at Usara.

‘Once we remove this arm, I believe I can repeat the necromancy.’ She offered Corrain his knife back, only for the captain to hand her the leather scabbard instead.

‘Keep it, please.’

Jilseth shrugged and sheathed the blade, tucking it into a pocket in the seam of her skirt as she looked intently at the Tormalin woman.

‘What were you doing?’

The Tormalin Artificer raised her hand to display the silver ring which Hosh had noted earlier. ‘Have you heard tell of an ensorcelled ring which Cloud Master Otrick had from a mage called Azazir? The ring Planir gave to Larissa?’

Hosh wondered who these people were and what this ring’s significance might be.

‘We don’t know if Azazir crafted the magic in this ring or if he had it from somewhere else,’ the Tormalin noblewoman went on, ‘but the first and most potent spell instilled within it is scrying, to enable someone mundane born to search for a person known to them with a bowl of water and ink.’

Usara continued the explanation. ‘We have discovered that an adept can work certain enchantments through another mage’s scrying while wearing this ring. We wondered if Artifice could reach through your necromancy.’

‘That explains the surge of water magic.’ Jilseth looked thoughtfully at the ring on Guinalle Tor Priminale’s finger.

Hosh had always known that wizards’ concerns were far removed from ordinary people’s lives but now he was caught in the midst of this, seeing Madam Jilseth’s spells and listening to this incomprehensible conversation, magecraft seemed more unnatural and inexplicable than ever. To witness this in Col was still more unnerving. The renegade Anskal’s magic might have been more dramatic and deadly but the Mandarkin had menaced Hosh far away amid all the dangers and mysteries of the Archipelago. Col was far too close to home.

He looked at the Tormalin noblewoman with well-hidden misgiving. Her Artifice seemed far more powerful than Mentor Garewin’s benign charms. More powerful and much more daunting, if aetheric magic had truly held hundreds of people in enchanted sleep in some Kellarin cave. Hosh had heard that story along with everyone else. Like everyone else, he’d had his doubts. Seeing Lady Tor Priminale and hearing her archaic speech, he found he could believe it and that was more unsettling still. Kusint had told him stories of the Mountain
sheltya
’s ominous and eerie powers but like the Archipelago, the Gidestan peaks were safely far away.

Guinalle looked at him, her eyes narrowing. Hosh took a step back only to find his shoulders pressing hard against the door. Was she reading his thoughts?

‘What did you learn from your necromancy?’ Usara asked Jilseth.

‘That the Orders of Detich, Noerut, Ontesk, Ancorr and Temosul are conspiring with at least three Houses of Sanctuary,’ she answered crisply, ‘to provoke an Archipelagan attack on Hadrumal.’

‘To take on the Archmage?’ Usara shook his head in grim wonder. ‘How do they propose to foil Hadrumal’s defences?’

‘Some adept, here or in Suthyfer, may well be able to tell us.’ Guinalle Tor Priminale smiled thinly. ‘Whether he or she wishes to or not.’

Jilseth contemplated the dead Soluran. ‘He came from Trudenar so I imagine that’s where we’ll find the House favouring those grey and black robes.’

‘We can thrust a spoke in their wheels by telling these mercenaries they’re being duped,’ Corrain said forcefully. ‘Hirelings or not, they don’t deserve to be sent to certain deaths against Hadrumal’s wizards. Hosh and I will take care of that while you get rid of this body.’

He raised a hand as Jilseth would have spoken. ‘Do whatever you like with the corpse, just as long as it’s not found anywhere in Col. I want his friends to have to go asking, not searching for him with magics. Tracing word of that hunt back could well lead us to some of his allies.’

‘Perhaps—’ Hosh ventured but before could explain his own idea to give the Archipelagans pause for thought rather than trying to persuade fighting men not to pocket ready gold, Guinalle Tor Priminale interrupted.

‘I require your assistance first, my lord Baron.’

‘With what?’ Corrain asked warily. ‘My lady.’

‘We share Archmage Planir’s concerns about this man from Wrede. He is clearly a proficient adept, able to evade even the ancient questing enchantments which I taught Micaran. I wish to direct such enchantment through a scrying. I don’t believe he will expect to be sought through a union of magics, so we can hope that he won’t guard against it.’

‘How can I help?’ Corrain was baffled.

Hosh noticed Jilseth looking intently at the Tormalin woman’s silver ring as Lady Guinalle explained.

‘You are the only person to have actually seen this man. I believe that Micaran working my Artifice through second-hand recollection materially weakened the enchantments.’

Hosh wondered why Jilseth looked fleetingly relieved before she addressed Corrain with what was surely calculated challenge.

‘If you’re afraid, I can assure you that Lady Tor Priminale’s proficiency outstrips any adept in Col or Vanam. Master Usara’s expertise in his own magic is second only to the Archmage.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ Corrain said scathingly. ‘How do we do this?’

All the same, he shivered and Hosh didn’t think the cold breeze through the open window was wholly to blame.

‘First, we scry.’ Usara gestured and the rank oil rose up from the cooking pot to pour itself back into the flagon. As soon as the oil was gone, the cooking pot began softly ringing as though rain were falling inside it.

‘Here and now?’ Corrain queried.

‘There’s nothing to be gained by delay.’ Guinalle stooped to lift the pot and carry it over to the table. ‘This man intervened in your struggles, so he must know this Soluran is dead. Perhaps what he is doing now will give us some hint as to whether he’s friend or foe.’

‘My lady?’ Usara offered Guinalle the single chair.

‘If you could stand beside me, my lord Halferan?’ Guinalle’s open hand demanded Corrain’s own as he did as she asked.

Usara glanced at Jilseth. ‘You can come closer, if you wish.’

‘Thank you.’ She went quickly to the far side of the table.

Unregarded by the door, Hosh realised that the magewoman’s expression reminded him of something. When he realised what it was, an involuntary shudder twisted his shoulders.

Those unsuspected mageborn whom Anskal had discovered among the corsairs and their slaves had watched him work his wizardry with that same avid interest. Hosh recalled how magic’s fascination had tangled those captives so thoroughly in the Mandarkin’s snares until there had been no escape but death.

These mages and the lady adept could doubtless defend themselves but was the captain about to risk some fatal magic? Master Micaran had already died today.

Corrain looked at Hosh as though feeling his gaze. ‘Come and see. I want you to recognise this man if you see him anywhere.’

Hosh walked forward reluctantly.

‘How can you scry if you don’t know this man?’ Jilseth asked Usara, perplexed.

‘Guinalle will find Corrain’s memory and pass it straight to me.’ The Suthyfer mage took his wife’s free hand and laid his other on the battered cooking pot.

Hosh saw that it was now full of glowing green water. An image floated on the surface an instant later.

He saw a man of middling height, neither particularly handsome or ill-favoured with neatly cropped brown hair. He wore riding boots, buff breeches and a long sleeved jerkin of dun broadcloth, a brown cloak slung over one arm. There was nothing else to see. The man might as well be standing in front of a green velvet curtain.