Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis)

by McKenna Juliet E.

  Zurenne’s dark eyes, shadowed with weariness, promised a reckoning with her elder daughter. ‘She should have told you that is to be a purely household affair.’

  ‘She did,’ Planir assured her. ‘However I realised that I can do you a particular service in advance of those rites.’

  ‘What service?’ Now Zurenne was wary as well as mystified. Before Planir could speak, she turned to Raselle who was hesitating in the doorway.

  ‘Tisane for our guests, if you please!’ she snapped.

  The girl shut her mouth, bobbed a curtsey and shut the door. Jilseth heard her boots pattering away on the flagstones. She’d half expected the girl to listen at the keyhole.

  Planir looked steadily at Zurenne. ‘I was most grieved to learn that your husband’s ashes are now mingled with those of his ancestors.’

  Distress creased Zurenne’s forehead. ‘We swept everything into a new urn and set it before Saedrin’s statue. We had no choice—’

  Jilseth recalled how the barony’s shrine at Halferan Manor had somehow escaped the destruction levelling the rest of the buildings but funeral urns toppling from shelves had smashed and scattered their pale contents across the tiled floor.

  ‘I can draw your husband’s ashes out of all the rest,’ Planir said quietly. ‘To be enshrined separately once again. I know what it is to lose the love of one’s life. It is a comfort to me to have her funeral urn close by.’ The unmistakable shadow of grief dulled his own eyes.

  Zurenne stared, open mouthed. Jilseth was as utterly dumbfounded as the noblewoman. Separating the blended ashes would be a challenge for all but the most expert earth mage. Jilseth realised she was grinding her teeth and forced herself to stop.

  ‘I—I shall have to give it some thought.’ Zurenne turned abruptly away and walked towards the wide bay window.

  Not quickly enough. Jilseth saw the shine of tears on the noblewoman’s rose-petal cheeks.

  The door opened but the new arrival wasn’t Raselle.

  ‘Archmage?’ Lady Ilysh hurried into the sitting room, ignoring both her mother and Jilseth. ‘Do you have news of—of my husband? Of Halferan’s new baron?’

  Jilseth wondered if the girl’s father had always been so direct, so reckless? Perhaps that explained his fatal readiness to trust Minelas.

  ‘A little decorum if you please.’ Zurenne rounded on the girl.

  ‘No, I have no news,’ Planir apologised to Ilysh.

  ‘Mama?’ the girl demanded. ‘Do you?’

  Jilseth saw Zurenne make a visible effort to keep her temper in check. So it wasn’t only her father who had bequeathed the girl her spirit.

  ‘How?’ Zurenne asked bitingly. ‘We have barely a handful of courier doves raised from the nest and that nest was in Halferan Manor—’

  Now Ilysh’s hand went to her own rune sigil pendant. ‘Archmage—?’

  Zurenne interrupted before the girl could demand Planir’s magecraft to assist them.

  ‘I sent a pair of troopers to wait by the ruins of the manor’s dove loft. As soon as Corrain sends word, they will catch the bird and bring it here with its message. Saedrin willing, we’ll have word by the end of the following day, whenever the parliament comes to a conclusion.’

  Whatever that conclusion might be. Jilseth noted that Zurenne laced her fingers tight together to still her trembling hands.

  She wasn’t prepared to grant the former guardsman the honour of her dead husband’s title. Not yet anyway. But she would have to, if the noble lords acknowledged Corrain as the new Baron Halferan. And this whole contrived marriage had been Zurenne’s idea.

  ‘My lady, your tisane.’ Doratine hurried in from the corridor as Raselle opened the door, crystal chiming on the tray in her hands.

  The cook must already have been preparing such refreshments when Raselle arrived in the kitchen, Jilseth realised.

  ‘Thank you, Doratine.’ Zurenne made her way towards the spindly silk-cushioned chairs on the incongruous carpet before the fireplace.

  ‘There you are, my lady, my lady mage, my lord Archmage.’ Doratine curtseyed briefly before retreating and ushering Raselle out through the door.

  ‘Madam Jilseth? What would you like in your tisane?’ Zurenne asked with a determinedly cheerful smile. ‘We have lime blossoms, gathered this very season, as well as raspberry leaves, camomile and elder flowers.’

  She gestured at the bowls on the tray, along with the glasses in their polished holders, the pierced silver balls to hold the steeping herbs and the tall jug of hot water, a wisp of steam escaping from its long spout.

  ‘Lime blossoms, thank you.’ Jilseth took a chair opposite Zurenne.

  Both women looked expectantly at Ilysh. After an instant of indecision, the girl took a seat.

  ‘The same, thank you, mama,’ she said curtly.

  Zurenne busied herself spooning pale dried petals into the hinged silver balls, dropping each one into a tall glass and pouring on hot water. ‘Archmage?’

  ‘Raspberry and a little elder, if you please.’ He walked to the window to look out at the broad sweep of grassland bounded in the middle distance with a paling fence overhung with trees.

  ‘Archmage.’ Ilysh looked up from stirring her tisane. ‘Do you play white raven?’

  ‘White raven?’ Planir turned from the window. ‘Yes, I play.’

  ‘It was one of my father’s favourite pastimes.’ Ilysh set down her glass. ‘I am the heiress to Halferan. I intend to honour my father’s legacy by learning the game. I don’t care if it’s not considered seemly for women.’

  Jilseth trusted that Planir had also seen the challenge in Lysha’s eyes as the girl glanced at her mother. So this was another bone of contention between them.

  ‘Will you teach me?’ Ilysh was on her feet and heading for a side table. The round board was set ready with the carved wooden pieces assembled on either side. ‘Do you prefer to play the forest birds? Or to set out the trees and play the raven itself?’

  Planir considered the question. ‘I find different challenges in playing either side.’ He smiled as though struck by sudden inspiration. ‘The most suitable person to teach you would be Merenel. Don’t you agree, Jilseth?’

  ‘Indeed, Archmage.’ Sipping her tisane, she wondered what game Planir was playing here.

  Her Tormalin-born friend would seem as exotic as a Derrice songbird among the dowdy hens of the Taw Ricks’ household with her warm olive skin and curling black hair. She would overtop Lady Zurenne by a head though, more handsome than pretty, Merenel shouldn’t prompt the Widow Halferan’s envy on any other score.

  At least Planir hadn’t suggested that she teach the girl white raven herself. Jilseth had never found the game particularly engaging. The intellectual challenge of devising tactics within the game’s constraints couldn’t outweigh the essential triviality of the opposing tasks; capturing the solitary white bird for the player marshalling the forest fowl or evading them amid the wooden thickets which the raven’s player arranged on the board at the outset.

  ‘Provided that your lady mother agrees, of course.’ Planir came to accept his own tisane glass from Zurenne’s shaking hands.

  ‘We’ll see, Lysha.’ Whatever she saw in the Archmage’s eyes seemed to calm her nerves as she looked up. The hot water’s agitation in the glass stilled.

  ‘May I ask?’ Planir nudged the pierced silver ball with the long spoon and red tendrils spread through the hot water. ‘Where is the new shrine to be?’

  Zurenne sipped her own tisane before replying with some ill-grace. ‘There is a window bay in the great hall, much like this one. The shutters have been locked and there’s enough room for a shrine table. For the present we’ve hung a curtain and the Taw Ricks carpenter and some men from the manor say they will carve a proper screen.’

  ‘Come and see it,’ Ilysh urged.

  ‘My lady Zurenne?’ Planir raised his dark brows as he fished the steeping ball out of his glass and laid it in the waiting dish on the tray.
/>   The noblewoman took another drink. Jilseth expected her to say no. Then Zurenne shrugged in a fashion that reminded Jilseth irresistibly of encounters with Ilysh on her previous visits to Halferan.

  ‘If you really wish to.’

  Ilysh was already half way to the door. Jilseth set down her glass and dutifully followed Zurenne and Planir after the girl, through the cluttered entrance to the great hall.

  She wondered what the long-dead baron who’d found the original lodge so inadequate would have made of this use of his proud addition. The once-polished floor of the vast room was invisible beneath rolls of blankets, heaps of clothing, wooden boxes and wicker baskets. Thankfully the Halferan villagers who were bedding down in here were currently all out and about. Jilseth still had no notion what the Archmage sought here so this lack of an audience was surely preferable.

  Zurenne hurried towards the shallow dais, along the wavering aisle between the clusters of salvaged belongings marking each family’s claim on a patch of floor. Presumably that was where the high table had stood, to benefit from the bay window’s light. Now the smaller shrine table stood in shadow, thanks to the locked shutters supporting pale new shelves. Small effigies stood on each one.

  ‘We have recovered some unbroken statues from village shrines.’ Zurenne turned to explain, her tone bitter. ‘A few of those ungodly barbarians were more interested in loot than in wanton destruction.’

  ‘And you recovered this.’ Planir rested his hand on a storage jar; dull ochre and undistinguished but the only vessel large enough to contain all the ashes which had been scattered across Halferan Manor’s sanctuary. The lid was sealed tight with wax as well as tied on with twine, a further gloss of wax coating the knots.

  Ilysh bit her lip. ‘It was all such a horrid mess.’

  In that moment, to Jilseth’s eyes, the girl looked as young and as vulnerable as her little sister Esnina. Was Planir truly here, she wondered, to offer Lady Zurenne this service or to soothe this facet of the girl’s intolerable grief, shared through her own ensorcelled pendant?

  The Archmage was also, Jilseth realised, far too skilled at playing these games, to provoke Zurenne by repeating his offer. Drinking his tisane, Planir had turned from the jar to examine an archaic statue of Raeponin. The god of justice’s hood hid the direction of his gaze as he held his scales in one hand and a bell in the other.

  The noblewoman cleared her throat. ‘Archmage, if you please—’

  ‘I am honoured to do this for Halferan.’ As Planir spoke, pale golden magic threaded itself through the overlapping strands of twine securing the jar’s lid. The wax disappeared and the string fell away. With a soft grating sound, the lid rose up and removed itself to the linen-draped shrine table.

  ‘Lady Ilysh?’ Planir held out his hand. ‘I need your assistance.’

  Zurenne moved to stand between her daughter and the wizard. ‘How can she possibly help you?’

  Jilseth didn’t imagine the noblewoman meant to sound so accusing but once again she reflected how little the mainlanders truly knew of magic.

  Planir didn’t seem offended. ‘Lysha is born of your lost husband’s blood and of his bone. Her touch will enable me to find his ashes among the rest.’

  Wordlessly, Ilysh walked around Zurenne and to the Archmage. As she extended a trembling hand, he touched his fingertips to hers.

  The great diamond of the Archmage’s ring blazed with rainbow-hued fire. Lysha gasped and snatched her hand back.

  ‘Don’t worry, my dear.’ Planir smiled though his gaze was remote, his attention all on the storage jar.

  ‘It’s all right, mama!’ Before Zurenne could move, the girl pressed her fingers hard against Planir’s, her face now adult in its determination.

  The Archmage’s ring caught fire a second time, this time sparking an answering glow in the gems set around it.

  Amber magelight burned in the neck of the storage jar. A brighter light kindled in the heart of it, golden as candle flame. A thread rose upwards, gossamer fine. Insubstantial though it was, Jilseth could see motes dancing within it. The dead Lord Halferan’s ashes.

  More than that, she could feel the gentle wizardry sifting through the pale contents of the jar. She could feel the infinitesimal resonances between the dead fragments and the living girl. On the very edge of her wizardly instincts, Jilseth could sense the earthborn connections between parent and child and this land that had nourished them; the minerals carried into blood and bone by their shared lives here.

  That was all that she could feel. She couldn’t begin to see how Planir was working this magic, much less attempt it. But it was more comfort than Jilseth could have possibly imagined; to feel her own affinity outstripping the reach of her own hand once again, her wizardly instincts going beyond the paltry evidence of her own eyes and ears.

  ‘Thank you, my dear.’ As Planir withdrew his hand from Ilysh’s, the radiance in his ring subsided.

  He was still carrying his empty tisane glass in its silver holder. The pale thread rising from the storage jar came to coil inside it. The humble vessel glowed as though it came fresh from the glass-blower’s hearth. Then between one heartbeat and the next, the magelight dimmed from a furnace glow to the dullest of embers.

  Planir set the glass down on the altar table. It was no longer a plain tisane glass. Straight sides rose from a broad foot shod with silver leaves. The vessel was adorned with incised lattice work framing crystal teardrops. At the top, the glass folded over to cover the veiled contents with a crystal blossom. It was as exquisite an artefact as the most skilled glasswright might produce in a lifetime.

  Ilysh knotted her trembling hands behind her back as she bent to study the five-petalled flower. ‘Mama? Is it a periwinkle?’ Tears shone on her cheeks, burnished by a stray shaft of light from the window at other end of the room.

  ‘It is,’ Planir confirmed.

  Movement at the far end of the room caught Jilseth’s eye. The doorway was now crowded with men and women, servants and villagers. She could make out the maid Raselle holding little Esnina up so the child could see.

  How many of these Halferan folk had just seen the Archmage’s magic? What would they make of that, and whatever else would local rumour make of his visit here today? What did Planir intend them to make of it? He was after all, a skilled player of games such as white raven.

  ‘My thanks, Lady Zurenne,’ Planir bowed low, ‘for allowing me to do you this service.’

  Zurenne could only nod and reply with a curtsey. Jilseth could see she was far too close to tears to risk words.

  ‘We will leave you to your devotions.’

  Planir bowed a second time and Jilseth expected him to take her hand to translocate immediately back to Hadrumal.

  Instead the Archmage stepped down from the dais and walked serenely down the length of the great hall. Jilseth was quietly amused at how fast the throng managed to melt away given the clutter choking the entrance hall.

  The first whispers of awe-struck speculation were beginning among those now pressed back down the corridor to the kitchens as she and Planir left through the front porch, both doors hastily opened by the steward.

  ‘Master Rauffe,’ Planir acknowledged him politely.

  ‘Good day to you,’ Jilseth made sure to greet the lean man too, ‘and thank you.’

  Not merely for opening the door. She owed him a lifetime’s gratitude for his skilled handling of their carriage and its team of panicked horses in that nightmare retreat from Halferan Manor’s destruction.

  A hand plucked at her elbow before she could follow Planir out onto the threadbare grass.

  ‘My lady.’ Doratine the cook was proffering a napkin full of glazed ochre sweetmeats. ‘Eryngo toffee, my lady. Merely a token of my thanks. Eryngo’s a restorative.’ Doratine peered closer, all solicitude. ‘Are you quite recovered, my dear—that’s to say, my lady mage? From your swoon?’

  A swoon. Of course. That’s what these Caladhrians would think had laid her l
ow. Mage or not, she was a woman and thus subject, in their eyes, to vapours and hysterics at the slightest provocation.

  Jilseth managed something approaching a smile. ‘Thank you.’

  There was no doubting the cook’s sincerity and it was hardly the Caladhrian woman’s fault that she knew so little of wizardry. Or that it would take far more than some sweetmeats to restore a mage in her predicament.

  ‘You must excuse me.’ Jilseth hurried after Planir.

  He was waiting beyond the carriage sweep. ‘What have you got there?’ He peered curiously into the napkin.

  ‘Eryngo toffee apparently.’ Jilseth wrapped the linen tight as Planir laughed out loud. ‘What’s so amusing?’

  She had intended to ask something quite different. Why was the Archmage proposing to send Merenel to teach Lady Ilysh how to play white raven? What did he think the Tormalin magewoman might learn here? Or was she simply to be his spy? Before Jilseth could decide what to ask, that same pale haze swept them away.

  The translocation spell didn’t stop the questions going through Jilseth’s head. Did Planir truly think that was the best use of Merenel’s considerable talents? Surely every mage of Hadrumal should be focusing all their attention on finding some magic to defeat the Mandarkin’s infuriating veiling magic.

  Who knew what he might be getting up to, while they couldn’t see him?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Black Turtle Isle

  In the domain of Nahik Jarir

  ‘THIS IS ALL very strange,’ Anksal pronounced.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Hosh agreed, ‘but they believe in this heavenly compass absolutely, and in its earthly counterpart.’

  Anskal walked around the beaten earth circle with the twelve stones equally spaced around the ditch that ringed it. He paused to study the symbols carved on each one. ‘These are for the stars?’

  ‘For the particular constellations that the Aldabreshi follow, yes.’ Hosh nodded.

  He wouldn’t have brought Anskal here given a choice but his first attempts to explain how and why the Archipelagans traced such intricate patterns in the sky had ground to a halt in utter confusion.