Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis)

by McKenna Juliet E.

  ‘Those mainland mageborn who are sent to us after setting a chimney alight in some fit of adolescent temper or because they have stirred lurking heat deep within a granary into deadly flames?’ Troanna demanded. ‘Who have shattered windows with a sudden frost in midsummer or with a dust storm on a calm day, or brought a millstream into unforeseen spate to shatter waterwheel, gearing and millstones, leaving an entire district to grind their daily corn in pauper’s querns? Sent here precisely because they are such a menace to the mundane?’

  ‘You cannot buy your bun and still pocket your penny, Archmage,’ Kalion said crossly. ‘You refuse to attack these mageborn directly yet you are content to see the warlords slaughter them. How are you defending the oaths of your office then?’

  ‘I said I was content to see the Archipelagans rid us all of the Mandarkin,’ Planir reminded the Hearth Master with cold precision.

  ‘These mageborn can hardly be considered as guilty as the Mandarkin,’ Rafrid interrupted. ‘They have been coerced. Those of us already in the Archmage’s confidence have all seen this for ourselves,’ he assured the gathering.

  Jilseth saw that revelation prompt an unwelcome variety of expressions. Rather too many of the Council members looked affronted that the number of those evidently already well aware of this crisis didn’t include them.

  ‘Then let us bring these unfortunates here.’ Kalion threw up his hands, exasperated. ‘I take it that’s what you intend, Planir. By all means, let us train them properly.’

  ‘How would you propose to keep that a secret?’ Planir nodded towards the sealed door and to the high road beyond Trydek’s Hall. ‘From the wine shop gossips? From the wharf rats in Relshaz or Col when the ships which bring us mainland cargoes return to their home harbours? The Aldabreshi will learn of it, sooner or later,’ he assured the assembled wizards. ‘How do you think the warlords will react to news of us abducting their slaves and vassals?’

  ‘These mageborn are all corsairs,’ Kalion said hotly. ‘As guilty of attacking the Archipelagans as they are of murdering the mainlanders.’

  ‘Then Aldabreshin justice has a claim on them,’ Planir replied, ‘along with the Caladhrian parliament and the Magistracy of Relshaz and the Elected of Col. Do you imagine any of those will look kindly on Hadrumal usurping their authority?’

  ‘The first pebble lobbed into these waters was Minelas’s betrayal of Baron Halferan,’ Troanna spat. ‘All that has followed stemmed from that first treason against Hadrumal. That gives you all the authority you might require, Archmage!’

  ‘Do you think that the Elders of the Order of Fornet will agree?’ Planir wondered. ‘Or those of any other Soluran Order of wizardry? Do we believe that we’re the only ones scrying after this Mandarkin?

  ‘I very much doubt that,’ he continued thoughtfully, ‘just as I have no doubt that the Mandarkin lord to whom this renegade was once sworn seeks to track him down by some magical means, if he hasn’t already done so.’

  ‘If Mandarkin wizardry was capable of dealing with him, we would already have seen it,’ Troanna asserted.

  ‘Unless whoever is scrying on him from afar has chosen to wait and see,’ Rafrid said suddenly. ‘To see what becomes of him. To see what becomes of this collection of artefacts which he has amassed,’ he added with growing concern.

  ‘The Soluran Orders will not stand for seeing those fall into Mandarkin hands. And whatever lore may be gleaned from the things will be lost to us if any other wizardly tradition seizes them.’ It was hard to tell which prospect alarmed Kalion more. ‘Archmage, we must act!’

  ‘We will act when I decide the time is right,’ Planir said sternly. ‘In the meantime, let us see how the Mandarkin mage handles his surviving apprentices.’

  The Archmage gestured towards the emptiness above the central dais with a wry smile. ‘I’ll wager good gold that we see he is as capable of quelling unruly magic as any of our pupil masters and mistresses.’

  No one else in the circular chamber seemed remotely amused.

  Planir shrugged. ‘Then make your feelings known.’

  A flick of his wrist sent a beam of amber magelight soaring up to the white sphere floating high in the vaulted roof. The Archmage’s wizardry turned the light filling the chamber to soft gold. Rafrid, Sannin and a handful of other mages added their own colours to brighten the rippling brilliance.

  Just as swiftly, Troanna flung a shaft of mossy darkness upwards, dimming the sphere with her disapproval. Canfor’s indigo endorsement of her action was followed more slowly by Kalion’s maroon rejection of Planir’s proposal. Other mages proved similarly unconvinced by the Archmage’s reasoning. Their verdicts dulled the magelit sphere with a tangle of rainbow shadows.

  Jilseth added her own magelight to the next surge of wizardry, bright as brimstone. Cyan, rose and palest jade coloured declarations of support for Planir. The beams of radiance writhed and shifted amid the ochre and cobalt wizardry of those equally fervent in their opposition.

  She set her jaw as she poured all her conviction that the Archmage’s strategy was correct into the light soaring upwards from her outstretched palm. The mundane magistracies and assemblies of the mainlanders were welcome to make their decisions on a simple show of hands or some tally of tokens dropped into empty barrels. Trydek and the first Element Masters and Mistresses had ensured that the wizards of Hadrumal had the means to gauge the strength of feeling behind every vote.

  Sweat beaded Jilseth’s lip. Her magelight shivered as her affinity vacillated between ominous weakness and the terrifying possibility of wild magic escaping her control once again. She gritted her teeth as she bound her affinity with iron determination neither to abandon Planir’s cause nor to disgrace him with some undisciplined outburst.

  If such a thing was possible in this chamber warded with ancient spells to prevent any wizards’ quarrel being settled by direct assault, magical or physical. All of Hadrumal’s current residents might agree that tales of battling mages belonged to those long-lost days before Trydek and his followers had settled this island but no Archmage had ever seen fit to unpick those particular sorceries.

  Sorceries which would doubtless be as effective in quelling unbidden rampaging magic as they would be in stifling malicious intent. With that realisation soothing her fears, Jilseth found her affinity strengthening. Her magelight brightened.

  Just as well, she realised, and just in time. The great chamber was dimming almost to twilight as the magelit sphere was veiled by the strength of the opposition to Planir’s proposed plan of action, or rather, inaction.

  Jilseth wished she could see who was supporting the Archmage and who did not but she dared not spare the merest flicker of concentration from the gleaming sphere up above. The silence in the council chamber was broken only by the rustling as wizards here and there shifted in their seats and by the increasingly harsh sound of breathing.

  Someone on the far side of the circle let slip a wordless snarl compounded of disgust and exhaustion. A rising spiral the colour of clotted blood vanished to leave a shaft of magelight tinged with leaf-green soaring upwards unopposed.

  A single slipping pebble can start a landslide. Every earth mage knew that. Jilseth was intensely relieved to see that first breach in Troanna’s support was followed by other wizards abandoning their opposition to Planir’s authority. Though she noted uneasily that the remaining magelight, from all those endorsing the Archmage’s strategy, shone nowhere near as brightly as the floating sphere had done before the vote.

  ‘Very well.’ Planir rose to his feet, his face impassive. ‘Now that is settled, let us see what the rest of this day has to show us of events in the Archipelago and elsewhere. There are any number of possible considerations that might better guide our actions along the most prudent course for Hadrumal.’

  He snapped his fingers at the magical warding barring the entrance and the ensorcelled metal flowed aside to remake hinges, latch and burnished bindings. The Archmage gestured and the door swu
ng open. He left the chamber before half of the Council members had even risen to their feet.

  Jilseth hurried to catch up with him, pushing Canfor’s arm aside when he would have blocked her path. The tall mage was so taken aback that she left him standing on the staircase, gaping after her lost for words.

  She reached Planir’s side as he turned into the narrow alley between the original outer wall of Trydek’s Hall and the later range of accommodations built beside it. ‘Do you want me to scry after the Mandarkin with you, Archmage?’

  As they did so, perhaps she could find the right questions to draw out some hints as to what he really intended for those coerced mageborn. He must have a plan. Jilseth had no doubt of that. Where could he send them to avoid outraging the mainland’s rulers? Suthyfer? Hadn’t the Tormalin Emperor himself decreed those islands were beyond his own or any other jurisdiction?

  Planir halted to look at her as he considered her offer of assistance. ‘No, I will scry alone for the moment. Go and get some rest and a decent meal, then come to my study when you’re fully refreshed.’

  ‘Yes, Archmage.’ Now Jilseth allowed herself to long for bread warm from the oven spread with soft cheese and quince preserves as well as a sweetly aromatic tisane to take away the lingering taste of Planir’s holly draught.

  She would have time to breakfast properly. The Mandarkin and his coerced mageborn would need far more than a meal and whatever it was the Archipelagans drank before they could make any more mischief.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Black Turtle Isle

  In the domain of Nahik Jarir

  HOSH CONTEMPLATED THE marks he’d scratched on the wall plaster, mostly hidden by his makeshift bed. He tucked the little folding knife back in his trews pocket.

  Had he kept his count correct, when he’d begun this fresh tally? He hoped so. After all, he’d had plenty of leisure to check and recheck his count these past few days. Anskal had largely ignored him, beyond summoning him to bring food or drink each morning and evening.

  It had proved simple enough to establish that the island was free of invaders. Scrying spells and a sweep across the island led by the raider-mages had confirmed that those fleeing the calamitous attack on the anchorage had either been carried off by the waiting galleys or had drowned in their desperate attempts to swim after the departing vessels.

  Now the Mandarkin was intent on training his new apprentices.

  So now Hosh reckoned, as best he could without an almanac, another sixteen days or so would see the equinox. Even if the Archipelagans paid it no particular heed, the three-quarter mark in the year would signify the end of the sailing season between the Archipelago and the mainland. Aft-Autumn’s brutal storms would come wheeling in from the western sea. The most reckless sailors shunned the choice of being overwhelmed out on the trackless billows or driven onto rocks ready to smash bone and timber alike.

  So that was all the equinox meant to the Aldabreshi and there was little more point in Hosh marking it. He had no more chance of ever enjoying a Caladhrian festival again than he had of catching a moon in a net.

  ‘You.’ One of the new-fledged wizards, one of the erstwhile raiders, appeared in the inner chamber’s doorway.

  Hosh scrambled to his feet, shoulders hunched and craven, to save himself from some casual beating. This was one corsair who’d regained all his former arrogance now that they had all proved themselves as mages.

  ‘How may I serve you?’

  ‘You are to keep watch.’ The swordsman gestured through the outer door. ‘For ships.’

  ‘Of course.’ Hosh ducked his head again though this instruction made no sense.

  ‘Go now.’ Without any further word, the raider-mage walked back into the inner chamber.

  Hosh heard the man open the far door into the pavilion’s central garden. He heard Anskal’s voice.

  ‘You must draw the fire from the air to make the water that remains visible. Send the fire deep into the earth. Picture your breath on a snowbound morning—’

  The Archipelagans voiced their confusion at such a notion. There was no sign of their former reluctance to learn the secrets of magecraft now. The Ensaimin mariners spoke over each other in their attempts to explain what winter truly meant in more northerly climes.

  Hosh lifted the corner of his stacked palliasses and retrieved a round of unleavened bread which he’d hidden there the night before.

  Now that all the previously cooked and stored food had all either been eaten or spoiled, the women had deigned to show the Aldabreshi raiders and slaves how to cook, in return for a share of the loot which they were currently recovering from the ruined pavilions.

  They weren’t only recovering coin, gold and gems as they used their newly honed wizardry to toss aside cracked stone and charred timber. The buried cellars held stores that had escaped the general destruction but few of the foodstuffs would make a meal without someone making an effort.

  Hosh preferred to join the Ensaimin mariners and the two Lescari, offering them his unskilled hand to chop and peel and stir when they claimed some time in this remaining pavilion’s kitchen. All of the mainlanders proved to be competent if basic cooks, thanks to their time spent afloat or in a militia camp, far from helpful mothers, wives or sisters.

  He walked to the corner of the pavilion’s terrace, to secure the best view of the headlands framing the mouth of the anchorage. Why had Anskal sent him out here? It wasn’t as if Hosh could understand any of those arcane conversations revolving around wizardry, still less make any use of such knowledge.

  If he was concerned to keep watch, surely Anskal would do better to set one of his apprentices to gazing into a scrying bowl? Such a spell would warn of trouble well ahead of its arrival. What was the good in hoping for Hosh to glimpse some ship with his own unaided eyes? Assuming there was the faintest possibility that the Aldabreshi would launch a second attack after the magic-soaked slaughter of their first.

  Hosh couldn’t see anything in the stars to encourage such fresh folly among the Archipelagans. He couldn’t begin to imagine what manner of omen might convince the neighbouring warlords to send more men to such certain, accursed deaths.

  He looked across to the wrecked pavilions and to the vast black stain on the bare earth beyond. The prentice wizards had piled up all the corpses and carrion retrieved from the beaches for burning along with the wreckage of the old abandoned huts. The mainlanders had no quarrel with disposing of the dead in such a fashion while the Archipelagans wanted no lingering hatred interred in this island’s soil along with the bones of those they had killed.

  Anskal had fired the makeshift pyre with magic, stoking it into a blaze that had raised a column of smoke undoubtedly visible from leagues upon leagues away. As it burned, the Mandarkin had asked his Aldabreshin apprentices what they made of the way the winds tore the smoke into rags, what omens and portents they read into the flares of sparks or dancing flames.

  Hosh sat, his feet dangling over the edge of the terrace. As movement caught his eye, he choked on his mouthful of flat bread. As he spat the pulpy mess he was vaguely surprised to find that he hadn’t vomited up everything he’d ever eaten.

  So Anskal had known to expect these newcomers. That’s why he’d had Hosh sent out to keep watch while he discussed their imminent arrival with his apprentices.

  One galley. One trireme. One of the prentice mages scrying out these ships must have recognised the standards flying from their mastheads. But by all that was sacred and profane, Hosh wondered with sick terror, what had the coerced mageborn told the Mandarkin of the men who captained these vessels now heading down the anchorage, confident in their knowledge of these waters.

  Hosh ran back inside the entrance hall. He threw open the door to the inner chamber and then the double windowed doors opening onto the garden. Anskal and his apprentices sat on a circle of cushions surrounded by once carefully tended plants now variously charred or blighted by unnatural frosts.

  ‘Grewa is h
ere.’ Hosh wanted to scream his accusation but horror strangled him to a whisper. ‘You didn’t kill him, you fool!’

  He didn’t care if Anskal punished him. It was reward enough to see the same thought reflected on most of the other faces turned towards him.

  Anskal shrugged. ‘I can kill him whenever I wish. I am interested to see what he might have to say.’

  Leaving his circle of apprentices exchanging dubious glances, he strolled out of the garden, past Hosh and on through the pavilion, heading for the terrace.

  Hosh wanted to block the Mandarkin’s path, to seize him by the shoulders and shake some sense into the villain. Instead he stood with his hands hanging by his sides, his feet as heavy as lead. He would have liked to think that some hostile magic had him in thrall. But he knew his inaction for simple cowardice.

  The prentice wizards were all now following Anskal. Hosh retreated to make certain he gave none of them an excuse to take their own fear out of his hide. When the last had passed through the entrance hall, he finally followed.

  Anskal was already down the steps and heading for the beach. The galley was wheeling around to turn its stern ladders to the shore. The trireme held its position some distance off.

  What did the blind corsair hope to gain by that? No one could doubt that the wizard who’d claimed this island could sink any ship he wished. The anchorage was still cluttered with the three wrecks, one of them Grewa’s own burned trireme, while the waves continued to batter the shattered timbers of the vessels which the women had sunk on the far side of this southerly headland.

  Hosh’s last desperate hope, that this ship merely carried some of the blind corsair’s former followers flying his standard died as he saw the weather-beaten old man aboard the galley. Then as the ship drove its stern firmly into the sand, Hosh realised this day was more cursed than he had feared.