Morgan looked sceptical. ‘And you are just going to ... give these back to them in return for their support in this war? You could buy Felmere’s baronetcy for this, and his
neighbours’.’
‘Oh, there is much, much more than this. The Grand Duke has laid claim to the rest. Negotiations with him regarding the settlement of all the finds are on-going.’
‘Well, one thing is certain.’ Morgan sat back in his chair, a half smile on his face. ‘We need to leave quickly. If the men get a whiff of what you are hiding here, your lives
won’t be worth an Arshuman groat.’
She sat back on the bench, closed her eyes and let the scent of the sea roses gently overpower her. The soft warmth of the late-afternoon sun felt good on her skin and in the
near distance the omnipresent crash of the sea against saw-toothed rocks only enhanced her torpor. She had a firm belief that everyone should have a period of solitude every day, a time to be alone
with one’s thoughts and reflections. So, while the other initiates congregated in the main hall turning it into a hub of chatter and gossip before the evening meal was served, she instead
retired to the bathhouse and, after ten minutes soaking in a tub scented with sage and lavender, she took her book and, skin and collar-length hair still damp, retired to the rose garden to keep
her own company for a while.
The garden itself was walled on all four sides, access being through a warped wooden doorway which had a tendency to creak loudly on its hinges when opened. The bench (
her
bench she liked
to think) on which she sat was situated in an alcove in the corner where the north and east walls met. It was one of the few places on the island where you could not see the austere sable-black
stone walls of the Grand College of the Magisters, the place she had called home for the last fifteen years.
She opened her eyes. Elmund, the lay brother who tended to the garden with a zealous attention to detail, was busy with his pruning shears, wisps of his white hair flying in all directions in
the breeze. The garden being walled mitigated the excesses of the wind and salt spray, but as this was a small island surrounded by the slab-grey ocean its presence was always felt.
She gazed absently at the cracked stones of the path through which the weeds constantly tried to push before Elmund could notice them and pull them loose with a maniacal cackle, sending a spray
of loose earth flying. As she did so, he finally noticed her. He slowly straightened his back, wincing slightly as he did so and made his way towards her, favouring his right leg. His left had been
injured in a fall on the stone steps leading up to the college; they were high and uneven and many of the older brothers had fallen victim to them in one way and another over the years. He raised
his hand in greeting.
‘Good afternoon, Sister Cheris. I heard the gate but wasn’t sure if it was you.’ He was a sprightly old man, a bit deaf and always smiling.
‘Oh come on, Elmund, who else would it be at this time of day? Fancy a pastry?’ His sweet tooth was legendary and a quick detour to cadge something from the kitchens was almost
obligatory on her way to the garden. His pale-blue eyes fairly gleamed.
‘Ever so kind of you, Sister Cheris. Many of you youngsters never pass a glance at a lay brother, but if you don’t mind me saying so, you have always been different. You’ve
always shown consideration to those that keep this place running.’
‘I know, I know!’ she laughed. ‘We owe our food, our water, our bedding and our warmth to the ceaseless labour of the lay brothers and yet we never give any thought as to how
it is all provided. We live like the duchesses and baronesses of the mainland, taking every luxury for granted, never thinking of the work involved in filling our plates and goblets, washing our
laundry and stocking the log piles.’ This was almost word for word the speech he always made on her visits to this quiet, half-forgotten corner of the island.
‘Aaaah, but as I said, Sister, you have always been a bit removed from the others.’ He cast her a deferential look before shoving the pastry into his almost toothless mouth in one
go, flakes of it fluttering around his chin before being taken by the wind. Cheris laughed again. The old man liked her, she knew, but then, didn’t everyone?
Cheris Menthur – twenty-two years old, five foot four; jet-black hair cut short to her collar in a bob; keen, penetrating blue-grey eyes betraying her sharp intelligence – had never
been an average pupil at the college. When she had arrived on the island at the age of seven her raw untrained abilities already surpassed those of pupils twice her age and since then her progress
had continued unabated. It had left her slightly isolated at times – jealousy and, yes, fear in her contemporaries had made her early to mid-teen years difficult, but the gentleness and
warmth of her character combined with a tendency towards self-deprecation meant that few of these problems existed nowadays.
Most initiates were deemed to have graduated by their mentors at around the age of thirty, for there were many tests to pass, all of which had to be performed perfectly under the unsparing glare
of five different seniors. She had completed her final test just the night before and was waiting for her chief mentor, Brother Marcus, to summon her to his chambers to confirm to her what in her
heart she already knew: that she could now officially call herself a mage, that is, a fully qualified practitioner of magic.
She could discard the white (or, rather, off-white, she thought testily) robes of the initiate and don the dark-blue ones so coveted by her peers. It was the truest mark of status here. She
could even teach others, though in someone so young she knew that would be seen as rather unseemly. Her province in that regard would likely be the smallest of the children, the newest arrivals,
caught and shipped here as soon as evidence of talent was detected. All of which made the fact that she had not yet been summoned a matter of vexation to her. She turned back to Elmund, who had
finished his treat and was looking at her like an eager puppy.
‘Was that nice?’ she asked politely.
‘Lovely, thank you, I had better be getting back to the roses now.’ He turned to go, stiffening and putting his hand to the small of his back. Cheris looked concerned.
‘Have you ever seen the healers about that?’
‘Oh no, Sister Cheris! They have more important things to do than coddle an old man.’
‘Do you want me to speak to them for you?’
‘You’re very kind but no – to be honest, all they could do is take the pain away, not replace crumbling bones.’
‘But surely, being free from pain would help?’
Elmund looked thoughtful. ‘Yes and no. It would be nice certainly to work without discomfort but the pain is important. It tells you when to stop, you see, before you damage yourself
further. Without the ache in my back I would continue working and, when the healing wore off, it would come back to kick me tenfold. The almighty Artorus gives us everything for a reason, even that
which we would rather not have. Anyway, Sister, it has been lovely to talk to you but I must return to my duties. Weeds never stop growing, pain or no.’
He ambled back to his roses. She watched him for a moment, inhaling the flowers’ sweet scent, then finally returned to her bench.
She picked up her book,
The Abuse of Mana and Its Terrible Consequences
, but decided she was not in the mood for another lecture on the dire costs of the hunger for power. She set it back
down again and shut her eyes once more.
Where was Marcus? Granted, if anyone lived up to the well-worn cliche concerning the enigmatic behaviour of ‘the older mage’ it was he but her patience, she could feel, was draining
out of her like water from a sponge. Perhaps she had failed the test? Unthinkable. Anyway, even if she had, he should at least do her the courtesy of telling her. She went over the test in her head
for the thousandth time. How she had stood barefoot in the stone-casting circle near the island’s west point; how she had called the ball of lightning forth, held it in space four feet above
the ground and ten feet from her outstretched arms, then gently commanded it to move, slowly, in a circle around her. How she had stopped it dead, then made it rise higher and higher into the
evening sky, until it finally took its place among the stars, before bringing it back towards Earth once more and, with one imperious gesture, dismissing it from this world altogether, showing her
complete control over the elemental forces she could summon. No, it had gone perfectly – there had been no mistakes – so where in the pits of damnation was he?
She sat there quietly a little while longer until the liquid blue sky started to deepen in colour and the increasing cold started to nip at her fingers and ears. Then, just as she was about to
get up and head off to the refectory, the gate gave a loud creak. She stood up as Marcus finally came towards her.
He was a big powerful-looking man, probably in his mid-fifties (she had never asked him his age), black hair streaked with grey as was the short brush of his beard. His brown eyes were lined
with red (a scholar’s eyes, she had heard them called, caused by too much reading by candlelight or not enough sleep, or both), and as ever he exuded a barely discernible air of grandfatherly
disapproval, of which she was usually the cause. His robe was long, blue and flowing, tailored for him, and completely unlike the one-size-fits-all white initiate robes that caused so much grief
and despondency among the younger female mages, many of whom resembled little more than a sack of meal once they had put them on. Catching sight of her, he harrumphed loudly before walking
authoritatively towards her and seating himself on the bench. She remained standing until he gestured for her to sit next to him.
‘Mentor,’ she said, trying to keep both her impatience and irritation out of her voice, ‘I have been waiting.’
‘Ha!’ he snorted dismissively. ‘I do not doubt it!’
‘Is there a problem?’ she asked. ‘I mean, did I fail in my task? I was only thinking earlier...’
He cut her short. ‘Don’t be foolish, child; of course you did not fail. No, I was delayed by other matters ... by business I had with the Chief Magister which I will discuss with you
presently. When you return to your cell you will find your new robes waiting for you. Arbagast is preparing your staff even as we speak. From now on you have the full title of Magister. You may
attend council meetings and...’ He hesitated at this. ‘... You may go to the mainland on specifically sanctioned council business. Cheris, it is this last point which I wish to talk to
you about now.’
‘Wait!’ she said excitedly. ‘You are going too fast for me. I ... I have passed then...? What about the ceremony of induction? And the presentation of the Book of the
Magisters? And the...’
‘Yes, yes, all of that formal nonsense, too; you’ll have all that to endure I am afraid.’
‘And the presentation of the key? The key to the senior magisters’ library?’
‘All in good time.’
She bit her lip in frustration; something she had been working fifteen years towards he was treating like a mundane triviality. ‘Now is a very good time! You know how the initiates feel
about having knowledge withheld from them.’
‘I don’t know why! The senior magisters’ library is quite possibly the dullest place on the island, worse than the house of Artorus during Father Tomas’s prayer
recitals.’
‘You know it is the allure of the forbidden, and you know how terrible I am at resisting temptation.’
‘Yes, I know all about your feeble self-control, whether it is a library forbidden to the initiates or the chambers of Brother Mikel.’
He shot her a sideways glance, catching her flushing pink and glaring at the floor.
‘Worry not, lass,’ he said in a far kindlier voice. ‘I have told no one and, besides, you are committing the oh-so-familiar sin of completely distracting me from the purpose of
my calling upon you.’
‘What!’ she started. ‘This is not about my graduation?’
‘Of course it is, but surely you are not surprised to have graduated? It is something I have always seen as an inevitability. No, the reason for my preoccupation is another matter
entirely.’
‘What other matter?’ she said, smiling. ‘What can it be that is more important than that which I have spent most of my life in trying to achieve?’
‘It is simply this,’ he said. ‘You are coming to the mainland with me. You are to fight with me, in the eastern war.’
They had left the garden and were now walking slowly along the stone path leading to the college. It was uphill, starting at a gentle slope but getting ever steeper until they came to the
college stairs – some fifty high steps, cracked and worn, leading up to the great door. Behind them were the various enclosures for the herb garden, rose garden, and the garden of silence,
which was a place many went to read, along with the pens for the animals and the grain stores. Past all these the island continued to slope downwards to the west, tapering all the while, a narrow
winding path leading to the mages’ stone circle where Cheris had been the previous night, until finally the island ended, still some fifty feet above sea level, its black cliffs patrolled by
vociferous birds. From east to west the island was shaped like a giant teardrop that gave it its name – the Isle of Tears.
As one island ended, another began, smaller, flatter and almost circular. The gap between the two islands was little more than a gorge through which foaming waves crashed constantly. It was so
narrow a bridge joined them. It was stone, some six foot wide with rails on both sides, but was rarely attempted on anything other than good days. The most popular way of traversing the isles was
by ferry; the smaller isle had beaches and a low pier where the ferry itself was usually moored. The Isle of Tears was undercut by a cave on its eastern side, and a small harbour and mooring had
been carved into the rock of the cave. A low tunnel with steps led directly up to the college’s ground floor.
The smaller isle was called the Isle of Healing. It held a low single-storey building which had spread until it covered almost half of the island’s surface. This was the great hospital of
the mages where those on the mainland sent their sick and infirm, if they had the coin. Research and education were its other functions – many aspiring young doctors resided there including
those who had no magical gift at all, as the college did not discriminate. Mages were so rare after all and it was only the more prosaic methods of healing that were available to most people. It
also housed a small house of prayer dedicated to Meriel, goddess of healing, and an equally small chapterhouse of the Knights of the Holy Thorn, there to police errant mages. The chapterhouse in
the Grand College itself was much larger.