Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (5 page)

He was done with the gods and goddesses and their deceits and uncertainties. Now it only remained for him to cut Halferan’s last ties to wizardry and be free from the perils of consorting with mages.

More than that, for his dead lord’s sake and with the help of Baron Saldiray and Baron Taine, he’d see all of Caladhria guarded against Hadrumal’s influence before this midwinter parliament dissolved.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

The residence of Mellitha Esterlin, Relshaz

Winter Solstice Festival, 3rd Day

In the 10th Year of Tadriol the Provident of Tormalin

T
HE ARM-RING LAY
in the centre of the rosewood table. A gaudy ornament, it showed its age in its florid styling as well through evidence of hard wear. Several of the rock crystals studding the circle were chipped and the inner surface had lost its gilding, the silver dull with scratches.

‘What did the boy Hosh say to you about his experience of its ensorcellement? His exact words if you please, Velindre.’ The oldest of the four wizards seated around the table looked intently at the tall, blonde magewoman sat opposite.

‘Forgive me, Madam Mellitha, but what is the point of this?’ the youngest of the four asked curtly. ‘We have been striving all afternoon with nothing to show for our efforts.’

‘Merenel?’ Jilseth looked at her friend with concern. She could feel the warmth of Merenel’s fire magic fading from the arm-ring.

The nexus which the four magewomen had wrought, in hopes of penetrating the silver gilt ornament’s secrets, was already unravelling. Jilseth would never have imagined such a thing when she and Merenel had perfected their skills with Tornauld and Nolyen, the two other wizards handpicked by the Archmage to learn quintessential magic’s secrets alongside them.

It was all the more puzzling since Merenel’s ability to work individual fire spells seemed largely unaffected although her skills with quadrate magic, combining all four of the wizardly elements, had become markedly erratic.

‘We know that this trinket bestows a stoneskin spell on whoever wears it. Granted, that’s no trivial wizardry but any of us could work it if we wished.’ Merenel ran a hand through her curling black hair. The Tormalin magewoman’s olive complexion was sallow with exhaustion and her shoulders sagged beneath her long-sleeved crimson jerkin.

‘Stoneskin isn’t the only enchantment instilled into the thing,’ Velindre observed. ‘No mundane born who wears it can remove it. Doing so requires a mage’s touch and I would very much like to understand that spellcrafting.’

‘I wish to understand how an inanimate object can still confer such benefits when the mage who first wove that wizardry is ten generations dead,’ Mellitha added.

‘Then I suggest that you find another mage to make up your nexus.’ The Tormalin wizard stood up and left the elegant sitting room. As she slammed the door to relieve her frustration, the angry draught stirred the long velvet curtains shielding the tall windows.

Hearing the clack of Merenel’s boot heels retreating down the marble floored hallway, Jilseth wondered if she should go after her. She knew something of such distress; of being suddenly unable to rely on the magic which one had so carefully nurtured and studied ever since that first manifestation of one’s affinity, thrilling and terrifying in equal measure.

Though their situations weren’t wholly the same. In that last desperate defence of Halferan Manor as the corsairs attacked, Jilseth had feared for her own life as much as anyone else. She had willingly poured her strength of mind and body into her innate link with the elemental earth, to harness the complex spells which Hadrumal’s great mages had devised.

Merenel had been given no such choice. She had been swept up in the Archmage’s magic, unable to resist as Planir had woven fifteen other wizards’ power together to secure the destruction of the corsairs’ lair. Ever since, it seemed that the Tormalin magewoman’s intuitive grasp of quintessential magic’s complexities had deserted her.

Quintessential magic could only be wielded by four mages working together to double and redouble their united strength in a nexus of sorcery uniting their affinities with air, earth, fire and water. Its secrets were among Hadrumal’s most closely guarded lore.

Ever since that catastrophic night, Jilseth found herself wondering what other secrets were hidden in books and scrolls held in the wizard isle’s tallest towers? Had the Masters and Mistress of the elements known that Planir could unite four separate quartets of wizards into one still greater nexus? Did they understand how he had been able to control that immense magic, an order of magnitude stronger than the quintessential magecraft which Jilseth had always been told was the summit of Hadrumal’s wizardry?

It had been the only way to defeat the murderous magic wielded against them by the renegade Mandarkin mage who had sought to claim the corsairs’ island and to enslave hitherto-unsuspected Aldabreshi mageborn for his own vicious purposes. So the Archmage had explained, offering his regrets but no apology to those who had suffered as badly as Merenel.

‘I don’t believe that the problem is with our nexus.’ Mellitha studied the silver-gilt arm-ring.

‘What nexus?’ Velindre retorted. ‘We cannot—’

Mellitha looked across the table. ‘We know that a precise combination of all four elements must have ensorcelled the thing. I am beginning to suspect that this particular blending has also been crafted to disrupt any subsequent union of wizardry which might seek to nullify the spells within it.’

Jilseth decided she could leave Merenel’s temper to cool while she learned what she could from these far more experienced wizards. There were few to rival either magewoman, even in Hadrumal. Velindre had been widely expected to rise to the rank of Cloud Mistress not so long ago. All the wine shop sages agreed that Mellitha could become Flood Mistress whenever she chose to challenge Troanna, even after her decades away from the wizard isle.

Perhaps Merenel felt even more out of place than Jilseth sometimes did, caught between these two who could boast elemental understanding and expertise so vastly outstripping her own.

Then she realised that Velindre was looking at her intently, a frown of concentration sharpening the woman’s angular features.

‘The underlying sorcery is tied to the metal and the crystals, making this inherently an earth-magic artefact. You should focus your affinity on it alone while we three ward you and the piece alike from other elemental influences.’ Velindre glanced towards the closed door, her lips thinning with irritation. ‘If we can persuade Merenel to rejoin us.’

‘I’ll try,’ Jilseth temporised.

‘Let Merenel rest for the moment.’ Mellitha rose, gracious despite her comfortable curves and the years threading silver through her chestnut hair. Her costly green silk gown rustled as she picked up the silver-gilt arm-ring and carried it away to a side table. She returned with a shallow silver bowl and a finger-long purple glass vial.

Resuming her seat, she rested her fingertips on the bowl’s rim. Beads of water swelled in the base, wrung from the empty air to swiftly fill the bowl. Mellitha let a single drop of blended oils fall from the little vial. Emerald magelight suffused the water and then the spell called up a vision of some featureless sea.

‘We’re already losing the daylight.’ Velindre shook out the loose sleeves of her azure tunic, cut in the flowing Aldabreshin style so common in this port city, and cupped the bowl with her long-fingered hands. The sun’s afterglow gilded white-tipped wavelets two hundred leagues and more away. The Archipelago’s more swiftly falling night would soon shroud those southerly seas.

Aquamarine mist thickened over the remote waters and foaming crests surged across the bowl to vanish into the scrying spell’s emerald rim.

Velindre withdrew her hands, sitting back. ‘Nothing has changed as far as I can see.’

‘Jilseth?’ The green magelight striking upwards deepened the fine wrinkles around Mellitha’s grey eyes.

Jilseth focused her concentration on the scrying and then reached through the ensorcelled water to assess the swirling confusion of the elements in those distant seas where the corsair island had been.

As she touched the bowl, her innate tie to all things born of the earth recognised the essence of elemental silver. Its touch soothed and strengthened her wizard senses. It seemed absurd to recall that not so long ago she had feared that her affinity was crippled beyond recovery. Now she must concentrate on curbing powers awakened by the shock of being caught up in Planir’s assault on the Mandarkin mage. Where Merenel’s wizardry had been thrown into confusion, Jilseth had discovered myriad unsuspected facets of her affinity to explore.

Infinitely careful, she threaded her wizardry through Mellitha’s scrying and sought any sorcery swirling through those remote waters scanned by the scrying spell. Tangled amber magelight surfaced briefly amid the roiling waves. The amber skein unravelled and sank away.

‘Is that something new?’ Velindre leaned forward.

Jilseth shook her head. ‘Nothing prompted by wizardry. Just currents of molten rock shifting beneath the seabed.’

The sweetness of the oils blended with the scrying perfumed the room as though the bowlful of water was being warmed by that distant heat under the southern sea. Mellitha’s spell didn’t falter, unruffled by the elemental fire’s antipathy to her water affinity. Jilseth marvelled, not for the first time, at the serene magewoman’s skills.

Velindre contemplated the shadowy vision, her eyes hooded. ‘Elemental upheaval still lingers even after a full quarter of the year.’

Jilseth was still waiting for the right time to ask these eminent magewomen what they thought of Planir’s actions. Had they agreed when the Archmage and Stone Master of Hadrumal had declared the Mandarkin mage guilty of the most heinous crimes against wizardry? Had they concurred when the Element Masters of Cloud and Hearth and the Mistress of the Flood had agreed that Anskal’s abuses of those mageborn whom he had enslaved mandated his death?

Had anyone foreseen the consequences when Planir had woven his first nexus with Rafrid, Kalion and Troanna? Did even the most revered among Hadrumal’s Council know how mercilessly the Mandarkin Anskal would be confined by their quintessential magic? That his belligerent magecraft would merely rebound from that implacably constricting barrier? That his struggles to escape this incarceration would only hasten the moment when his control over his innate affinity failed? That his unbridled wizardry would be lethally destructive trapped within the adamant prison woven by the Archmage’s nexus?

Jilseth longed to ask Planir when he had realised that even this initial union of Hadrumal’s greatest wizards wasn’t going to suffice. That the Mandarkin was calling on some vile unknown sorcery; a spell to suck all elemental strength from those enslaved mageborn, to add their power to his own, not caring that he would kill them.

When had Planir decided to abandon Hadrumal’s original hope of rescuing at least some of those mageborn captives by confining their wizardry in less lethal fashion until they surrendered to judgement?

When had the Archmage realised that only the unprecedented four-fold nexus could possibly defeat the elemental maelstrom whipped up by the Mandarkin? Had Planir hesitated for even an instant before risking the lives, the sanity and the affinity of those wizards whom he had summoned to work with him, by weaving their elemental powers inextricably into his elemental lattice?