The Exile and the Sorcerer (43 page)

“Continue with your report.” Iralin recovered her composure. She displayed no further reaction as Jemeryl continued the narrative.

“You’ve just arrived in Lyremouth?” Iralin asked, once Jemeryl had finished.

“Less than an hour ago.”

“Have you spoken to anyone?”

“I met Pym in the stables.”

Iralin caught her breath. “Did you tell him any of this?”

“Oh, no.”

“This young mercenary. Will she be talking to anyone?”

“Yes...as I said. She’s reporting to her guild masters.”

“How much does she know?”

“About as much as me.”
And it would be hard to know any less
, Jemeryl added silently.

Iralin pressed the backs of her interlaced fingers against her lips while she withdrew into her thoughts. She dropped her hands. “Get the housekeeper to allocate you a room and go to it. Apart from that, say nothing to anyone. You will be hearing from me shortly.”

“Er... I’d arranged to meet Tevi at the guild house.”

“We will deal with the mercenary. You needn’t concern yourself with her anymore.” Iralin’s tone made it clear that she thought this to be the end of the matter.

“I thought I was supposed to accompany her on her quest.”

“The situation has changed.”

“I don’t want to be parted from her.”

“What you want is unimportant.”

Jemeryl’s stomach clenched, but she had to speak. “We’re lovers. That’s why I want to stay with her.”

Iralin leaned back and studied Jemeryl dispassionately. “You must have realised that I recognised Lorimal’s name. Possibly, you will soon learn why, but first I need to talk with others. Believe me when I say that this is a very serious matter. The stakes are far too high for a juvenile romance between you and this mercenary to count for anything. We will do what has to be done.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Unhappily, Jemeryl made her escape.

*

The guild master with particular responsibility for junior mercenaries was in one of the courtyards, inspecting the new nominees. Tevi waited to one side until the group was dismissed before approaching. The guild master looked to be well into her sixties and her body was visibly weakening with age. Maybe this fuelled the impression she gave of viewing the existence of everyone aged under thirty as a personal insult to herself. Although Tevi had also previously wondered whether her attitude might be a result of her position in the guild, or simply her main qualification for it.

The guild master scowled at Tevi and snapped. “What is it?”

“Ma’am, I have a report that I need to make.”

“All right. Let’s hear it.”

“It didn’t seem important when I joined the mercenaries, but possibly I should have told you about my quest.” Tevi began hesitantly. She got no further before the guild master cut in sharply.

“You’re quest-bound?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of? There is no sort of about it. Either you are or you aren’t.”

“It wasn’t a proper quest. Just a chalice that had been taken from my family. But I met with a sorcerer and told her about it, and she thinks it’s important. So we’ve come to Lyremouth so she can talk to—”

“Stop there.” Again the guild master cut off Tevi’s words, but this time her manner was changed; no less curt or decisive, but as if she had stepped back and slammed a mental door. “The Coven has become involved in your quest?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then it isn’t me that you should be talking to. I’ll make arrangements for you to see Tallard.”

“Would he be interested?” Tevi was surprised by mention of the chief guild master.

“Of course, and in the meantime, I suggest that you keep this to yourself.” The elderly woman put her hand on Tevi’s arm, and surprisingly, her expression softened. “You’re young and inexperienced. But take it from me, when the Coven starts tinkering it is seriously bad news all round. Tallard needs to know about it, and I don’t.” So saying, she turned and left.

*

The next four hours trickled by while Jemeryl paced restlessly. The more she thought of Iralin’s reaction, the more anxious she became.

“Do you have to keep marching about? How do you expect a bird to get any sleep?” a familiar raucous voice asked.

“How can you sleep at a time like this?”

“Exactly—I can’t, because someone is stomping up and down, muttering.”

Jemeryl sent a withering glare in Klara’s direction and then balanced herself on the wide window ledge. The conversation with Iralin kept going around in her head. Obviously, the senior sorcerer had known nothing about Tevi, or her island background. Iralin had not even been aware that a memory chalice was the object of her quest and Lorimal’s name had left her thunderstruck.

“If she’s important enough to send Iralin into a flap, you’d have thought I’d have heard of her. Who was she?”

“She’s a bad excuse to deprive a magpie of sleep.” Pointedly, Klara stuck her head under her wing.

Jemeryl pouted at the magpie, but with any luck, a summons would come soon, and she would be getting answers. Jemeryl slipped down from the window and selected a volume from the bookcase at random. She settled in a chair and tried fruitlessly to focus on the printed words.

At last, the expected knock came. Jemeryl tossed the book aside and yanked the door open abruptly enough to surprise the young apprentice outside.

“Please, you’ve been summoned—”

“To Iralin’s study. I know.”

In her eagerness, Jemeryl jogged on her way there. However, the second she entered the room, her enthusiasm died as sharply as if it had run into a wall. Iralin was not the only one present. Two other senior sorcerers were waiting—the two most senior sorcerers of all.

Gilliart, Guardian of the Coven, sat with her back to the window. The hair sweeping from her hawklike features matched the white amulet on her wrist. Her expression was solemn, even by the Guardian’s standards. Her deputy, Alendy, a stocky man in his late fifties, was on her left. Light glinted off his bald head. Iralin sat by her desk, staring grimly at its wooden top. All three appeared troubled, even frightened.

Nobody indicated that Jemeryl should take a seat, not that she had any expectation of being treated as an equal. She stood apprehensively. An interview with the Coven’s three most senior sorcerers would be daunting at the best of times, and she had the nasty feeling that this was not the best of times. After her earlier desire for more information, she was starting to suspect that ignorance might be an enviable state.

Once the door had closed, Gilliart fixed her gaze on Jemeryl. “Iralin has told us your news, and we have decided on a course of action that will require you learning something of the background to the chalice.” She paused briefly. “You know that the Coven forbids certain areas of magic. Nearly two hundred years ago, a young sorcerer, Lorimal, conducted experiments in one of these areas, more by naiveté than wilful disobedience on her part. Of course she was stopped as soon as what she was doing was discovered, but the Coven leaders at the time were guilty of an oversight. For various reasons, they assumed that she had made no progress, whereas in fact, she’d almost completed her work.” Jemeryl’s expression must have alerted Gilliart. “You have a question?”

“I merely wondered, ma’am, whether this was before or after she’d taken the plant potion.”

“Before. And of course, once she’d taken it, she was in no state to question or volunteer information. It was only in tidying up her affairs, after she’d disappeared, that the oversight was discovered—rather too late. The decision was made to delete all references to her, to prevent anyone from copying her work, but all attempts to locate her memory chalice failed. The hope was that it had been destroyed with her.”

The scarcity of information on Lorimal now made sense. Despite the situation, Jemeryl felt a degree of satisfaction.

“From what you have discovered, it would seem that someone has now found the chalice and is trying to retrieve the prohibited information. We can be certain the culprit is a member of the Coven, and the school of herbalism at Ekranos is the most likely location. We intend for you to go there and see what you can find out. Iralin will brief you further on what you need to know.”

“Will she not be coming to Ekranos also—or someone else?” Jemeryl spoke from a mixture of bewilderment and apprehension. She had no idea how dangerous this forbidden magic was, but Iralin’s reaction earlier implied that something very important was at stake. Were the Coven authorities really going to entrust the entirety of the mission to her?

“No. Unless the culprit is absurdly overconfident, they must be on the lookout. We’re hoping that one junior sorcerer will not raise the alarm. We also want to minimise the number of people who know of the chalice. Sending you means that nobody else needs to be drawn in.”

“What about Tevi?”

Alendy rejoined the debate. “She has played her part. Her continued presence in this is neither needed nor desirable.”

Jemeryl felt her neck stiffen, certain that the “desirable” part was a reference to her relationship with Tevi. She had suspected that the Coven leaders would try to separate them, but she had not thought the move would be so soon or so blatant. Was the mission to Ekranos even seriously meant, or just an excuse to get her away from Tevi? Jemeryl could not believe that sending her on her own was really the best way to catch whoever had taken the chalice.

Her eyes focused on the floor while she considered her options. She was surprised at how easy it was. She could leave Tevi or she could tell the senior sorcerers that she would not go to Ekranos without her. The latter option would destroy any hope of advancement within the Coven, but the former was utterly unthinkable.

Jemeryl drew a breath, about to refuse to be parted from Tevi, but before she could speak, Iralin entered the debate.

“I’m trying to remember the exact import of the oracle we received on this matter. As I recall, it was that the best hope of success was if Jemeryl accompanied the warrior on the quest.”

“Which she has done. And she has succeeded in finding out about what has happened,” Alendy argued.

“But the quest is not over.”

“The oracle did not say that the warrior’s presence was necessary to the end.”

“To my mind, accompanying someone on a quest does not mean abandoning them halfway through, once you think you’ve learnt everything from them that you can.”

“I do not think their liaison is something we should encourage.” Alendy made the reason for his objections plain, not that Jemeryl had any doubts before.

“I would not place the importance of separating them above that of succeeding in finding the chalice. Gilliart, I think the decision lies with you.” Iralin appealed to the white-haired woman in the centre.

Jemeryl fixed her eyes on the Guardian, aware that her future in the Coven depended on the outcome. Her heart thudded against her ribs.

Gilliart sat, looking thoughtful, but then she nodded to Iralin. “You’re right. We dare not take risks with ambiguous oracles. This warrior should go with Jemeryl to Ekranos.”

*

The chief guild master of the mercenaries was a thin, wiry man with sharp eyes. From what Tevi could remember hearing, he had originally been an assassin. But it was not this that caused her wariness when she entered his chamber. Even if he believed her story, Tevi was certain that he would not be pleased, and Jemeryl had not yet arrived.

Tallard stood by a window in his chambers, looking out. He did not turn when Tevi’s name was announced. The seconds dragged by as she stood waiting in the middle of the room for him to acknowledge her presence. At last he faced her.

“When you were asked if you had any other commitments that might affect your ability to undertake work for the guild, you should have told us you were sworn to a quest.”

Tevi swallowed. “I hadn’t sworn to complete the quest, sir, merely not to return to my home until I had found the chalice. At the time I joined the guild, I had no reason to think that I would even attempt to complete the quest.”

“You abandon your oath so quickly and start playing games with words?”

“No, but....” Tevi’s voice died. Should she admit that, in disregarding the quest, she was following not merely the words, but also the spirit in which the quest had been laid upon her? While she debated with herself, Tallard went on.

“Normally, we would be considering disciplinary action. However, this is clearly not a normal quest.”

“Yes, sir.” Tevi jumped in eagerly. “If it hadn’t been for Jemeryl, the sorcerer, I wou—”

“No, don’t tell me. I have already learnt as much about this as I want.” Tallard held up his hand. “If you’re going to succeed in my trade, you have to be able to tell the difference between what you need to know, and what you need not to know.” He walked forward slowly. “The Coven are involved in this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I’m better off knowing nothing more about it...as would you be.” He was now standing scant inches from Tevi. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in? As I said, normally you’d be looking at a hefty fine from the guild. However, the chances are that any penalty we might impose would be nothing compared to what you’ve walked yourself into. You should never, ever volunteer information that carries any risk of getting the Coven interested in you.”