Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis)

by Juliet E. McKenna

  Didn’t he know that wizards had no need of keys?

  ‘Farewell Sergeant, I hope to see you soon. Please convey my respects and my thanks to Lady Zurenne and Lady Ilysh.’

  Jilseth laid a hand on the coffer to surround it with a dense ward woven of quadrate magic. Even with the spells quiescent in the artefacts, she didn’t want to be surprised by some unsuspected clash of magecraft. The memory of her translocation colliding with Velindre’s wizardry in Relshaz still unnerved her.

  The lamp light mingled with the spell’s strengthening glow. With Halferan’s foundations rooted in the same bedrock underpinning the wizard isle, carrying herself and this booty back to Trydek’s tower was the work of a moment.

  There was no one in Planir’s sitting room though lamps were lit here as well. Lowering the Archipelagan coffer to the floor, Jilseth looked around. The wide table was still piled high with poor Kerrit’s books and papers. An untended fire in the hearth had died away to barely smouldering clinker.

  Jilseth went to the mantelshelf to find a taper and mirror, about to bespeak the Archmage. She heard a door opening up above and footsteps descending the spiral stair leading down from the Archmage’s private study beside his bedchamber.

  ‘This is where I teach my pupils and receive more informal visitors to Hadrumal.’

  Jilseth wondered who Planir’s companion was, to be so unfamiliar with Trydek’s tower.

  Planir smiled as he saw her and that smile widened as he saw the Aldabreshin chest. ‘Madam Jilseth, I’m delighted to see that your quest has prospered.’

  ‘Archmage.’ She answered him with equal formality and waited to be introduced to the tall, muscular man at his side.

  Planir turned to him with an open hand. ‘May I make known to you Mentor Micaran, sealed to the School of Rhetoric at the University of Col and an adept of aetheric magic.’

  ‘Good evening, Madam Mage.’ The dark haired man bowed politely.

  ‘I am honoured to meet you, Master Scholar.’ Jilseth wondered what business he had here. She’d wager it had something to do with Corrain.

  Planir rubbed his hands together and fresh flames kindled in the hearth despite the lack of coal for burning. ‘Was there any word of strangers passing through the Halferan barony? Did you notice any unfamiliar faces in the village?’

  ‘No.’

  Jilseth saw that wasn’t to be the end of it as Planir nodded.

  ‘I would like Mentor Micaran to use his Artifice to show you this man supposedly from Wrede, who was dogging Corrain’s footsteps in Ferl. It may be that you’ll recognise him. You may easily have passed him in Halferan’s village unawares.’

  ‘I think it’s unlikely that any stranger would have gone unnoticed, Archmage,’ Jilseth said with careful respect. ‘With Aldabreshi visitors within the manor, the demesne folk were as nervous as children watching shadows for the Eldritch Kin.’

  ‘We have reason to suspect that this man from Wrede is also an aetheric adept.’ Planir ushered Micaran towards the fire. ‘He may have enchantments to convince everyone that he belongs wherever he happens to be.’

  ‘Artifice can do that?’ Jilseth realised too late how impolite her words must sound. She offered an apologetic glance to Mentor Micaran. ‘Forgive me, I know little of your discipline.’

  ‘Few people do, here or on the mainland.’ He didn’t seem perturbed. ‘But there are many ways of going unseen using aetheric magic.’

  ‘If you please?’ Planir’s nod indicated that Jilseth should sit beside the mentor adept on the settle opposite his own.

  She complied, somewhat apprehensively. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Clear your thoughts,’ Micaran smiled. ‘I often advise my subjects to stare into a candle flame but the Archmage tells me that would only focus a wizard’s senses.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Jilseth glanced at the hearth, reminded that the Archmage’s mastery now somehow allowed that fire to burn with no fuel. ‘Oh!’

  Two things caught her unawares. First, Mentor Micaran took her hand. Second, in the same instant, Jilseth found herself in a library, though it was assuredly not one in Hadrumal or any of those she knew in Col.

  Sloped reading desks with comfortable chairs were set amid a labyrinth of waist-high book cases filled with neatly ranked tomes. Broad windows in all four walls as well as skylights in the roof allowed bright sunlight to illuminate long tables laid ready with every device and substance which a mage might need to test a theory.

  ‘Forgive my stratagem.’ Micaran was standing at her side. ‘Turning your mind to wizardly matters makes it easier to weave my thoughts into your own.’

  Jilseth studied her hands. How could she still feel the pressure of the scholar adept’s fingers? How could it still be daylight when she had returned to Hadrumal at dusk?

  Those were the least of her concerns. She extended her wizardly senses and found nothing, not even the reassuring solidity of those stone walls. She reached further but there was still no hint of the elements which underpinned all things.

  Jilseth felt wholly cast adrift. Worse, the sensation brought back the agonies of fear and uncertainty which she had suffered after exhausting her magic in Halferan’s defence.

  She reached out still more urgently with her affinity. The entire room shimmered like summer haze striking upwards from sun-scorched flagstones but she still couldn’t find any elemental reality.

  ‘Does the Archmage know where you have taken me?’ She could barely stifle her growing alarm.

  ‘I’ve taken you nowhere.’ Micaran looked around with keen interest. ‘This is a refuge within your own mind.’

  At least his calm voice gave her something to concentrate on besides her burgeoning panic. Jilseth shook her head. ‘I’ve never been here before.’

  ‘It’s not a memory; it’s a refuge,’ Micaran said patiently, ‘wrought from some ideal which you cherish unawares. Please believe that this is an illusion. It is merely the simplest way for me to work the Artifice which Planir has requested. You are perfectly safe within the Archmage’s tower. Your own imagination has made this place.’

  Jilseth surveyed their surroundings, trying to ignore the vile absence numbing her wizardly senses. She had to agree that this library was perfectly suited to wizardly study. If she were ever to be Mistress of a newly founded Hall, she could commission just such a building.

  ‘Good.’ Micaran smiled. ‘Now let’s proceed before Planir tries shaking one of us back to awareness? He’s as impatient as he is curious about Artifice.’

  Jilseth turned back to Micaran. ‘What manner of place do you find in Planir’s thoughts?’

  The adept didn’t answer, looking instead at the far wall. Jilseth recoiled as a mounted man rode straight through the window’s leaded glass and stone mullions, like some hunting shade in a tale of the Eldritch Kin.

  But the wall wasn’t truly there. Nothing here was real. Everything shimmered again.

  ‘Please look at what I’m showing you.’ Mentor Micaran gazed intently at the mounted man. ‘The Archmage wishes you to know this man’s face.’

  Jilseth did her best to ignore the fact that the rider and his mount were now advancing through the book cases with no more concern than a horseman forcing a path through tall grass.

  That became easier the more she concentrated on his face. The stranger’s countenance was unremarkable, though she found she was curiously certain that she would be able to pick him out in a crowded marketplace any number of years from now.

  Resisting the crawling dread now filling the void left by her absent wizard senses was becoming ever more difficult though.

  ‘Madam Jilseth?’ Micaran was behind her.

  Turning, she saw him standing beside another man with sandy brown hair and hazel eyes. This new stranger sat at his ease in a leather upholstered chair which certainly hadn’t been there before. The prosperous man had a glass of wine in his hand and his mouth moved as silently as a festival marionette. Was he talking to someone unseen?<
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  ‘Thank you.’

  As Micaran spoke, the library vanished and Jilseth found herself sitting beside the Archmage’s fireplace. She seized on the elemental fire burning within the hearth, on the air swirling around the tower, moist with water drawn from the surrounding seas. Her affinity took hold of the ancient stones, rooting her in the present through their aeons of existence. She extended her wizard senses down through the tower’s foundations and deep into the bedrock.

  ‘Well?’ Planir leaned forward, his eyes intent.

  ‘That was—’ Jilseth shuddered convulsively ‘—horrible.’

  ‘I know,’ Planir assured her, ‘but you have passed a test which too many mages fail.’

  ‘A test?’ Jilseth stared at him. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘My apologies.’ The Archmage’s eyes were opaque. ‘If you knew, it couldn’t be a fair outcome.’

  ‘Have you ever seen the man on horseback?’

  As Micaran released his hold Jilseth curbed an impulse to wipe her palm on her skirt. The adept’s hands hadn’t been in the least sweaty but she still felt an urge to cleanse herself of his touch.

  If only she could wipe away her revulsion at being deprived of her elemental senses. As she thrust that repellent memory away, resentment surged up instead. How dare he intrude so completely into her thoughts that he could weave such illusions from hopes and dreams that she wasn’t even conscious of herself?

  ‘I don’t know either man, Archmage.’ She couldn’t bring herself to look at Micaran for fear of berating him with undeserved hatred. He had only done Planir’s bidding. She drew on all her wizardly training to get her emotions under control. ‘Who was that second stranger?’

  ‘The Soluran stirring up discontent in Col.’ Planir leaned back in his seat. ‘It may well prove useful if you can recognise him.’

  ‘What do you want me to do? To help Corrain, that’s to say, Baron Halferan?’ Jilseth corrected herself hastily.

  The Archmage shook his head. ‘We’ll take your spoils from Halferan to Suthyfer first, along with Mentor Micaran.’ He acknowledged the scholarly adept with a courteous nod. ‘Once his business there is concluded, please use your wizardry to return him home.’

  ‘Suthyfer?’ Jilseth hadn’t expected that. ‘Isn’t Merenel already there?’

  Planir nodded. ‘She’s also been shown how easily a skilled adept can invade a mage’s mind. So she’s been working with Suthyfer’s Artificers, exploring why wizards are so vulnerable with their thoughts focused on elemental matters. As we of Hadrumal have learned to our cost, that can be the death of us even more swiftly than an adept’s malice can overwhelm the mundane born.’

  Planir’s face hardened momentarily and Jilseth had to force herself not to look upwards, remembering the funeral urn in the Archmage’s study.

  It wasn’t only Larissa who had died; Planir’s beloved and a talented magewoman who would surely have earned high rank in Hadrumal in her own right. Jilseth had made her own discreet enquiries since Nolyen had told of the struggle some years before, between Hadrumal’s wizards and unknown adepts from ocean islands even more remote than Suthyfer. She had been appalled to learn that little-known misadventure had seen the death of a handful of notable wizards including the redoubtable Otrick, Cloud Master before Rafrid and, it was rumoured, once Velindre’s lover.

  She wanted to steal a glance at Micaran. Did the scholarly adept know of these Elietimm who had challenged the Archmage? Barely any of Hadrumal’s mages outside the Council were even aware of their islands in the icy northern waters, inhabited by this race akin to the Mountain Men and willing to use their knowledge of Artifice wholly without scruple, according to the whispers which Jilseth had heard behind cautious hands in the corners of Hadrumal’s wine shops.

  Why else had Planir been so willing to allow Col and Vanam’s scholars to explore the remnants of Imperial Artifice, pieced together from sources as disparate as folk songs and noble family archives? Why had the Archmage defied those Council members who so disparaged Artifice, insisting on allowing Usara, Shivvalan and the other mages interested in learning more of aetheric magic to establish their own hall on those mid-ocean islands? The Archmage wanted to understand the threat facing Hadrumal.

  ‘Do Suthyfer’s adepts have some insight to offer the mageborn, into warding our thoughts against such intrusion?’

  ‘Insights, yes,’ Planir agreed. ‘Warding is proving considerably more complicated.’

  Once again, Jilseth saw unexpected weariness on the Archmage’s face. Before she could choose which of a handful of questions to ask, the sitting room vanished in a flash of blinding light.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Island Hall, Suthyfer

  32nd of Aft-Winter

  EVEN BEFORE THE Archmage’s spell released her, Jilseth’s affinity told her that this translocation had carried her further than ever before. Her wizard senses reeled after crossing such a vast expanse of wind-tossed water. Then she felt solid ground beneath her feet and her wizardry reached deep into the rock below. She knew precisely how far she was from home.

  The furthest Jilseth had travelled by means of her own magic had been to Inglis on the Gidestan ocean coast. This was the usual test to prove a would-be mage’s skills in the final days of apprenticeship. Planir’s wizardry had just taken the three of them half as far again.

  A thousand leagues? That was her best guess and Jilseth seldom erred by more than one league in a hundred. She looked up at the ragged clouds scudding across the rain-washed sky and saw that they had travelled far enough east to outstrip the sunset.

  On dry land this island would have been a mountain to fascinate wizards with earth and air affinities alike, with its peak soaring so high into the sky. Here in mid-ocean Jilseth could feel the plunging depths surrounding her as well as the fierce ocean currents surging through the channels between this island and its neighbours. A trailing line of such mountains had surged up from the ocean floor aeons before the molten rock’s fires had been quenched in time out of mind.

  As Planir’s magic faded, Jilseth reached further through the turbulent ocean to realise that a great sweep of land lay somewhere to the east, far closer than Tormalin’s ocean coast in the west. That must be the unknown expanse of Kellarin.

  The Archmage grabbed her arm and pulled her sideways to save her skirts. Mentor Micaran collapsed onto his hands and knees to vomit copiously and helplessly onto the flagstones.

  ‘Archmage?’ Startled, Jilseth looked at Planir.

  ‘The further our magic carries an Artificer, the worse their stomachs rebel,’ he explained wryly. ‘Those of a religious persuasion accuse Raeponin of a cruel sense of humour.’

  Jilseth wasn’t about to admit her own first mean-spirited thoughts. It was some comfort to see that adepts had their own vulnerabilities, after Micaran had so easily invaded her mind.

  Rather than humiliate the stricken scholar by staring at his distress, she looked around. They had arrived beside a tall, high-windowed building of dark grey masonry rising to a shallow pitched roof of close fitted stone slates. It overlooked a gentle grass slope dotted with scrubby bushes and pocked with earthen scrapes suggesting burrowing animals.

  There was no sign of anyone opening the door. From the savoury scents drifting from the high windows, Jilseth guessed at a kitchen within. Grease-flecked water filled the stone-lined gully running alongside this hardstanding to drain into a pit of gravel.

  ‘Is this where you routinely arrive? Should I commit this place to memory?’

  The Archmage summoned a surge of water to wash the consequences of Micaran’s misery into the soakaway. ‘If you are bringing an adept with you.’

  ‘One moment.’ Micaran managed to raise a hand as he took a shaky breath.

  ‘Good afternoon, Archmage.’

  A man and a woman appeared around the corner of the building. Both were within a handful of years of Jilseth’s own age; the man older, the woman younger. Both were clothed in
current Tormalin fashion, though in the broadcloth jerkin and breeches and calf-length gown of the merchant classes rather than nobility’s full-skirted silks and frothing lace.

  The man was lean-faced with a wiry build, with a fine sheen of sandy bristles on his head suggesting that he anticipated the untimely loss of his hair with a purposeful razor. His companion barely topped his shoulder, even allowing for the nut-brown braids coiled tidily on her head.

  Jilseth noted the calm determination in her dark brown eyes. She had often seen such purpose in those who lacked the height to impose their will on others.

  ‘Usara, Guinalle, may I introduce Jilseth, a mage of my own discipline, and Mentor Micaran, an adept from Col’s university.’

  ‘Master Usara.’ Jilseth was taken aback by such informality. Many in Hadrumal’s Council still hoped to see Usara acclaimed as Stone Master and his wife was a Tormalin noblewoman whose family had held the Imperial throne in antiquity. ‘Lady Tor Priminale.’

  ‘You are most welcome, Madam Mage.’ Though Guinalle barely spared Jilseth and the Archipelagan coffer a glance as she went to help Micaran to his feet.

  ‘My thanks.’ Despite his greater height, the ashen-faced mentor leaned heavily on her. Fortunately the Tormalin woman was no frail reed.

  ‘I have a restorative tisane brewing.’ Guinalle ushered Micaran away.

  ‘So what have you brought us?’ Usara looked at the Archipelagan chest with keen interest.

  ‘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.