“Whatever he knew or guessed,” she said, “he can’t have known that we were following with two wizards on board. If he had known, the storm would surely have been much worse.”
In the shadow of the mast, Skerry gave a weak, incredulous laugh. “I don’t see how it could have been worse.”
Ruan was inclined to agree. Nor did he believe that Faolein, hampered by the shape he was forced to wear, had played much part in keeping them afloat. Sindérian might be too modest to say so, but she had performed a feat of which a much older wizard might be proud.
They tied up their craft among other fishing vessels above the town and stepped out on the dock, haggard and exhausted, but on the whole jubilant. No one had expected such a brief, eventful voyage.
“Nevertheless,” said Sindérian, “I am afraid the gale blew us many leagues east of any place the Pharaxions might have landed.”
“They will head south, as much as the roads allow them,” Ruan answered. “We have only to adjust our own course a little to the west.”
It took most of the day to find a fisherman willing to buy the boat, and to locate a man on the outskirts of town with horses to sell. Even then the Skyrran princes, unimpressed by the animals bred in Mistlewald, took a long time selecting mounts for themselves. By the time they found horses to suit them it was so near dark, no one protested when Ruan suggested they seek out an inn and enjoy a rare night’s rest in real beds.
They rode out the next morning before anyone else in the town was stirring. The roads in that region were good, and they made swift progress all that day and for many days afterward. Yet Sindérian felt the same urgency that had pressed on her while crossing Skyrra. At times, she thought she could smell the smoke of sacrificial fires rising in Apharos, carried a thousand miles on the world’s winds. And, linked in some way by the aniffath, she believed she could sense a growing disquiet in Ouriána’s mind—although what that meant for herself and the success or failure of the quest remained uncertain.
She woke one morning to find a white owl staring sleepily down at her from the same branch where the sparrowhawk had perched the night before. Faolein had gone through another transformation while she slept. This evening, I will begin to scout ahead after dark, he told her. In that way, I may be able to spot the Pharaxions’ campfires.
That night, Sindérian and her companions set up their own camp under the eaves of a great wood. There was abundant deadfall, so it took very little time to gather enough for a good fire. As they sat warming themselves around its cheerful blaze, Skerry posed a question that must have been on his mind—and Kivik’s, too—for many weeks.
“You’ve explained to us how Winloki was born on Thäerie, and how the High King and the wizards of Leal decided to hide her from Ouriána—but what we don’t know, for I suppose we never asked, is how her mother came to live on Thäerie in the beginning, or how Nimenoë and the Empress, being sisters, came to be mortal enemies.”
“Oh, but they never were that, not really,” said Sindérian, with an emphatic shake of her head. “Their feelings for each other—their entire history—were far more complicated. Nimenoë spent much of her childhood on Thäerie and Leal, while Ouriána remained on Phaôrax; that was how their estrangement began. But I see I must tell you the entire story, as my father told it to me.
“There was a treaty made between the High King on Thäerie and the King of Phaôrax, to patch up some minor dispute. Of course all the ruling houses of the old Empire lands have Pendawer blood”—she glanced sideways at Prince Ruan as she said this, and then away again—“but in spite of close kinship, Phaôrax had often been the source of trouble before.”
Sindérian stopped, shrugged, and then continued on. “Well, it is enough to say that this latest quarrel had been amicably settled, and as a gesture of good faith the King of Phaôrax sent his youngest niece to Thäerie to be fostered, and a little Pendawer prince went to Apharos. But he is not important to the story, for he lived a thoroughly unremarkable life and died an old man in his bed.
“As for Nimenoë, she was only a child of seven or eight, and no one suspected when she arrived in Pentheirie that she was magically gifted. It was the Old Queen, Prince Ruan’s great-grandmother, who discovered the truth. She was a great lady, and might have been a great wizard, had she been allowed time to develop her own gifts. As it was, she was determined to give the child the opportunities she had lacked. Nimenoë was sent to the Scholia on Leal to study for several years, and then returned to Pentheirie as apprentice to Elidûc. It was a long time before anyone suspected that Ouriána was also gifted. There were wizards in Apharos in those days but not very powerful ones, and it seems they were none of them capable of recognizing her talents. Perhaps that was the beginning of the rift between them: Nimenoë was learning so many new and remarkable things, which she dutifully wrote about in letters to her sister, and Ouriána…Ouriána was not even heir to the throne then. I am afraid she was rather neglected until the King, her uncle, died without issue.”
Sindérian threw some sticks into the fire and watched it briefly blaze up before she returned to her story.
“Nimenoë did go back to Phaôrax to see her father crowned, but I’m told she was not made very welcome. As Ouriána was then the heir, I think no one liked the confusion of having her twin at court.
And they were growing into beauties by that time, you see, and perhaps Ouriána, who was finally beginning to receive the attention she craved, felt a little diminished by the presence of her sister. There was no quarrel, but from that time on there was a certain coolness between them, and the letters that went back and forth became less frequent.
“I should have mentioned that Nimenoë did not go to Phaôrax alone. It is, in its way, a most important point. Naturally, a seventeen-year-old princess, no matter how magically gifted, could not travel such a distance unaccompanied. She went with a party of noblemen and ambassadors from Thäerie, and they were joined for most of the way by a like embassy from Leal. My father was part of that embassy, and Éireamhóine and Camhóinhann—” She broke off speaking as Kivik exclaimed loudly and Skerry half rose from his seat on the ground.
“Your pardon,” said Kivik with a shamefaced look. “You took us by surprise with that name. For a moment I thought—we thought—but I see now that it can’t have been the same man.”
“Oh, but it was the same man. You didn’t know that Ouriána’s High Priest was at one time a Master Wizard on Leal?”
“We did not know,” said Skerry. “But how—? No, we will be silent and let you finish your story, and perhaps our questions will be answered in due course.”
“Camhóinhann was one of the Nine Masters on Leaclass="underline" the oldest, the wisest, by far the most powerful.
Éireamhóine was his apprentice, more than a century and a half ago, but as great as Éireamhóine would become, the pupil would never compare to the master. They said Camhóinhann was the greatest wizard since Mallion Penn. He was also a prince of the old Thäerian line, who refused a crown in order to devote himself body and soul to the magical arts he loved so well—but that was before the fall of Alluinn.
“I have said he was the oldest wizard on Leal, but being also the most powerful, he looked—and was—a man in his prime. And Ouriána became infatuated. Another reason, perhaps, to envy her sister, for Nimenoë had been very briefly the great wizard’s pupil. But what attraction could a beautiful, willful child have for him, when he had lived almost two hundred years and known so many great beauties? He was flattered, he was amused, he was very, very kind. Perhaps, having been raised long ago in a royal court, he was a little too courteous, a little too gallant. Her infatuation became an obsession, though nobody knew it then.