The Swordsman's Oath toe-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  I was feeling uneasy again. I turned back to the end of the alley, looking back at the smithy, wondering what to do for the best. My wits seemed to be unraveling, and I swallowed on a suddenly dry throat. It was a warm day, sure enough, but I hadn’t been that long without a drink. I scrubbed a hand across my face but that seemed to make things worse. My eyes began to blur and the noises of the street around me became oddly distorted, echoing around my ears then lost in a sound like crashing waves. Cold sweat began to pour from me, my shirt clung stickily to my back as I crumpled against a wall, legs suddenly unable to support my weight. The blood was pounding in my head like the beat from Misaen’s own anvil and my breath was catching in my chest as I fought off the panic that threatened to choke me.

  I heard a footstep on my off hand and gripped the hilt of the sword with nerveless fingers; as I did so, Saedrin opened the shades to swallow me.

  The outer court of Wellery’s Hall,

  in the island city of Hadrumal,

  30th of Aft-Spring

  He was an imposing figure; tall, dressed in black velvet with a subtle embroidery of scarlet and gold flames at the neck, indicating his mastery of fire to even the most untutored apprentice. A ruby glowed on his breast, clasped in the jaws of a sinuous dragon brooch, the red gold of his ring of office catching the sunlight as he raised his hand to adjust the hang of his maroon cloak. This and the excellent cut of his gown happily concealed much of his bulk, but regretfully the current fashion in high, tight collars was cruelly unflattering to his thickly jowled neck. Several apprentices hastily removed themselves from his path as he strode through the courtyard, an expression of extreme displeasure on his flushed face.

  “Archmage!”

  A slimly built man in dark, workaday broadcloth turned his head, an unremarkable figure were it not for his air of absolute confidence.

  “Hearth-Master.” Planir inclined his head in a nicely calculated acknowledgment then turned back to the trio of nervous novice wizards.

  Kalion had no choice but to wait for the Archmage to conclude his conversation. He stood, feet planted firmly on the cobbles, brows knitting as his already high color deepened to beetroot, which clashed unpleasantly with his opulent attire.

  “It’s been a pleasure; remember, my door is always open.” Planir’s warm smile deepened the fine creases around his eyes, which lingered a little on the slim back and fine ankles of one of the girls. The apprentices quickly retreated from Kalion’s forbidding gaze.

  “Good morning, Hearth-Master.” Planir ran a hand over his close-cut black hair and turned to Kalion. “Let’s use your study, shall we? It’s closest.”

  Before the fire mage could reply, Planir led the way briskly out of the courtyard and down the flagged sidewalk of Hadrumal’s high road. Kalion swept after the Archmage, his lips narrow with barely concealed irritation by the time they turned into a second courtyard of pale stone buildings and he took out a key to open the door to a slender tower whose pinnacles were carved into tongues of stone fire.

  “I am very much perturbed by what I have just learned—” he began as they climbed the stairs.

  “That much is evident,” said Planir without heat. “Which is why I feel we should discuss your concerns in the privacy of your rooms.”

  Kalion’s heavy boots rang on the oak of the stairs as he stamped his way up to his luxuriously appointed accommodations.

  “What has happened to this man Ryshad?” he demanded without preamble, shoving the door closed behind Planir and dumping his cloak unceremoniously, half onto a sumptuous brocade chair, half on the floor.

  “Shivvalan is attempting to find out, Hearth-Master,” replied Planir mildly, retrieving the cloak and hanging it precisely on its customary hook.

  “Attempting sounds more than a little vague,” Kalion sniffed. “Do these Ice Islanders have the man or not?”

  Planir spread his hands in an eloquent gesture. “As yet, we do not know.”

  “We need to find out,” stated Kalion firmly. “The matter must be raised with the Relshazri magistrates at once; I have contacts in the city with sufficient status to do so. I should have an answer for you within a few days at most.”

  “Thank you, Hearth-Master, but I don’t believe that will be necessary, just at present.” There was steel wrapped in the velvet of Planir’s courtesy.

  Kalion stared at him, undaunted. “Your man, Shivvalan, has managed to lose perhaps the most significant of all the artifacts we have discovered pertaining to this lost colony, and you don’t think urgent measures are necessary? That sword is one of the few items we can absolutely place in the possession of a man we know without doubt to have sailed with Den Fellaemion to Dastennin only knows where and then vanished.”

  “I prefer to give Shivvalan some time to discover Ryshad’s whereabouts discreetly.” Planir made himself comfortable on a leather upholstered settle. “I don’t particularly want the Relshazri asking questions about this man’s significance or wondering just what our interest in him might be. It is my decision to make, Kalion.”

  The Archmage’s tone was smooth but implacable. Kalion turned to busy himself at a sideboard where a crystal decanter stood in a circle of red-stemmed glasses.

  “Cordial?”

  “A little of the damson liqueur, thank you.”

  Planir took the glass with a warm smile and Kalion sat down in a high backed, ornately carved oaken chair, arranging the skirts of his robe with some care.

  “If the Elietimm have taken the man, it’ll be because they have the talents to unlock the mysteries the sword is concealing.” Kalion leaned forward, his expression intent. “We must be prepared; we have to know what we are dealing with. I have said time and again that we should make a more active search of the libraries on the mainland, demand access to the archives of the remaining temples, perhaps even bodies such as Merchant Venturers’ associations, the Caladhrian Parliament. We need to know if they have information we can use and this slow accumulation of reports from itinerant scholars is simply not good enough.”

  “I am sure that we are learning what we need as fast as is consistent with discretion.” Planir wiped a bead of moisture from the foot of his empty glass and placed it carefully on the top of a highly polished wine cooler. “Still, tell me Hearth-Master, what do you propose to tell the Merchant Venturers of Col, for example, when you demand access to their confidential archive? What would be your explanation?”

  “I would assume such a request, with the authority of the Archmage behind it, would need no explanation.” Kalion clearly thought the question nonsensical.

  Planir nodded, pursing his lips. “And then, how would you counter the subsequent flocks of rumors taking flight clear across the Old Empire and probably right through the Great Forest and into Solura as well. That some secret plot is being hatched among all powerful wizards, hidden among the enchanted mists of their island city, guarded as they are by spell-wrought demons? What would you give me better odds upon; a plan to foist a mage-born King on to the throne of Lescar or some scheme to take control of, say, the Aldabreshi diamond trade?”

  Kalion looked at the Archmage, puzzlement wrinkling his pudgy brow.

  “Never underestimate the power of ignorant people in sufficiently large numbers, Hearth-Master,” said Planir crisply. “When people do not know the reason for something, they will supply their own. I have no intention of telling anyone outside the Council and our other contacts about the dangers the eastern lands might be facing.”

  “We have to do something.” Kalion raised one hand in an impotent gesture of frustration. “I have spent both halves of the last season trying to come up with an application of the elements to this cursed aetheric gimmickry and I might as well be trying to catch the moon’s reflection with a spoon.”

  Planir permitted himself a slight smile at the nursery tale image. “Your efforts may not have been rewarded but that in itself adds significantly to our knowledge. If you, the senior Hearth-Master, with one of the s
trongest affinities on record, cannot find an application of fire in the aetheric methods of kindling flame, no one can.”

  His tone was entirely sincere and Kalion acknowledged the truth of this with a grunt. “That’s all very well, Archmage, but if we can’t counter these unholy magicians, the threat they pose becomes even greater.”

  “We will find the means to combat them with their own methods,” Planir said firmly. “If we mages cannot use these incantations to access this aetheric power, whatever it might be, there are intelligent, trustworthy minds among the non-mage-born that we can enlist. The answers are there to be found and I am confident many of them are somehow carried in these artifacts from the end of the Empire. There are many secrets held in these dreams.”

  “How are you to reach them?” Kalion looked at him, unsmiling. “Your record to date is none too reassuring, Archmage. Tell me, has that girl from Vanam recovered her senses yet? Sending her into such a deep sleep may well have given her dreams holding all we could wish to know, but as long as she remains comatose, we cannot tell.”

  Planir’s expression remained unchanged. “We are hopeful that we will find a means to revive her. The indications are promising and she remains healthy in her sleep, thus far.”

  “So your quest for knowledge is split now; searching for a means to control aetheric magic, on the one hand, and the means to cure those whose wits unravel when your experiments go wrong, on the other.” Kalion’s tone was unforgiving. “Surely that makes it more urgent to find the relevant material more speedily?”

  “I think that haste has played its own significant part in those few tragedies that you are, of course, quite right to remind me about.” Planir rose and refilled his glass. “More cordial?”

  Kalion left his own drink untouched. “So you are going to continue as you are? Do my concerns count for nothing? What of the Council?”

  Planir relaxed against the deep crimson of the leather upholstery and smiled reassuringly.

  “Until the Elietimm make an overt move, either against ourselves or in attempting to establish a presence on the mainland, the greatest danger from aetheric magic stems from our attempts to wield it with imprecise knowledge. Our most complete information, such as it is, has come from the dreams of those students we have recruited from the Universities of Vanam and Col, and most particularly from those who are most closely matched, as far as we can estimate, to the original owners of the artifacts. I am confident the Council will understand that this is a long, drawn-out process. We know it takes time for the dreams to assert themselves and we have more artifacts than we have suitable volunteers for this project, since we cannot, by definition, use mages. We are doing all we can to interest suitable scholars, but any overt recruitment will only start more rumors, probably about ambitious wizards seducing innocents into arcane rituals, probably as a cover for unbridled carnality, knowing the sort of things cloistered academics dream up about us.”

  Kalion could not restrain a bark of laughter at that remark. “That’s all very well, Archmage, but—”

  Planir raised a hand. “You cannot deny that such things have happened in the past, Kalion. Remember the stories that are still told about Lauder the Benefactor. Think how much worse they would be if the mages of the day had not managed to conceal his worst excesses.”

  Kalion shuddered with unfeigned horror and Planir continued before the stout wizard regained his composure.

  “You have spent long hours in the Council, Kalion, making a very persuasive case that the time has come for wizardry to take a role in the wider world. I agree with you; you know that. Therefore, I would hate to see some ill-judged move as we attempt to deal with this puzzle of the Elietimm lead to a renewal of all the old prejudices and fears that drove some of my predecessors to a frankly excessive insularity.”

  The Hearth-Master sighed. “There was enough of that when we were apprentices, wasn’t there? When the Cloud-Master of New Hall had to clear up that mess Azazir and his clique made with the weather in Caladhria.”

  Planir nodded and got to his feet. “I appreciate your concerns, Kalion, I really do, but you have to understand I have a great many pots in the hearth at once. If one boils over, all the alchemy’s ruined.”

  Kalion looked up. “I’ve always said earth mages shouldn’t play with fire,” he commented with a touch of heavy-handed humor.

  “Do come and see me if you feel you need to.” Planir left the room without ceremony and strode back through Hadrumal to his own domain, high in an ancient tower overlooking the roofs of the various Halls, old and new, strung out along the long high road as it wound down to the harbor. He did not appear to be hurrying, but he covered the distance more rapidly than most would have done. The Archmage climbed the dark oaken stairs two and three at a time without any excessive effort and slammed the heavy door of his study back without preamble. A young man leaped to his feet, very nearly upsetting the parchment-covered desk he had been working at and only just managing to save a broad silver bowl from flying headlong. An amber gleam faded from the swirling waters within it.

  “Where’s D’Olbriot’s man, Usara?” demanded Planir, his eyes gleaming. “More to the point, where’s that cursed sword?”

  “I don’t know.” The pale mage’s voice was under control but he couldn’t restrain the tide of color that swept up from his ink-stained collar to shine through his sparse hair.

  “If you can’t manage the scrying, get Shannet to do it. It’s her specialism.” Planir’s tone was unforgiving.

  “I can’t see how that would help; she doesn’t know the man anymore than I do and we don’t have any of his possessions to give us a focus. At least I met him on the boat coming back from the ocean last year,” said Usara defiantly.

  “We need to find him, ’Sar, and fast!” Planir’s warning was unmistakable.

  “I know.” The younger man squared his rather thin shoulders. “I bespoke Shiv a while ago and he’s persuaded Mellitha to call in any favor that might give them a lead. It’ll cost her a lot of goodwill but she’s confident she should get a result.”

  The Archmage scowled. “Spending her goodwill means costing me coin. At least tell me she’s got the sense not to make it mage business? If people start thinking of her as a wizard instead of a tax-contractor she’s no use to us anymore.”

  “Give her some credit. By the way, there’s a letter here for you, came in with one of the ships from Col.” Usara turned to a side-table and held out a thick package with several ornate seals. “That’s the D’Olbriot crest, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, thank you, ’Sar, I think it might very well be.” Planir looked at the letter for a long moment and groaned with exasperation, tapping the creamy parchment against one palm. “So what do I tell the good Sieur? How exactly do I explain to him that we’ve lost his heirloom sword and have no idea where it has got to?”

  “I think he might be a little more concerned about the loss of his sworn man.” Usara avoided Planir’s eyes but his voice held a mild rebuke.

  “That too.” Planir granted him a perfunctory nod. “When does the ship sail? Do you know if they’re expecting a reply?”

  “They are,” confirmed Usara. “The courier said he had authority to hold the vessel for as long as you needed.”

  “I think I’ll write to Camarl,” Planir said thoughtfully. “He has the Sieur’s ear and can be trusted to be discreet. Tell me—”

  His question was lost as the studded door swung open to crash against its hinges. A sharp-faced old man leaned against the door jamb and heaved a rattling sigh.

  “Get me a drink, ’Sar, and clear away some of those bloody papers so I can sit down.”

  “Good morning, Cloud-Master Otrick. May I say how delighted I am that you honor us with your company.” Planir’s tone was sarcastic but he offered the old man his arm while Usara hastily grabbed a sheaf of documents off a chair.

  “Don’t get lippy with me, you jumped-up coal-heaver, or I’ll turn you into a rabbit. Thank yo
u, ’Sar.”

  Otrick drained the glass of white brandy and coughed with a penetration that rang a faint echo from Usara’s scrying bowl. The deeply carved lines in his face told of a long life, lived hard but his vivid blue eyes were as alert as either of the men in the room.

  “So, what’s the latest?” demanded the old wizard.

  “If we don’t come up with some results and fast, I’m going to be spending some long evenings persuading Council members not to back Kalion’s demands for an all-out assault on every library with more than three books to its catalogue,” Planir said grimly.

  “For a man who wants to see wizardry raised to a position of influence, he doesn’t seem too clear on the consequences of that, does he?” Otrick shook his head in disgust. “Perhaps we should just send an envoy to the Elietimm: ‘Please don’t attack us just yet; you see, we have no idea how to combat your magic and that really wouldn’t be fair, would it?’ ”

  “I can think of a few others who would be interested to learn that the fabled Archmage isn’t omniscient,” commented Usara, glancing through his documents. “Summertime ambitions in Lescar and parts of Ensaimin could get distinctly out of hand.”

  “I’d like Kalion to come up with that idea for himself,” Planir mused. “Do you think you could accidentally encounter Allin, that apprentice of the Hearth-Master’s, ’Sar?”