“She’s alive, I tell you!” Miathan’s bony fists hammered with soundless violence on the thick quilt that covered his bed. His face, below the bandage that concealed the ruin of his burnt-out eyes, was twisted with frustrated rage.
Bragar stepped close to Eliseth, to whisper in her ear: “Are you sure she didn’t fry his brain as well as his eyes?”
“I heard that!” Miarhan turned toward the Fire-Mage with unerring accuracy, and lifted his hand. A chill, misty vapor flowed rapidly from his fingers and pooled round Bragar’s feet, coalescing into the form of a glimmering serpent that began to make its coiling way up the Mage’s legs. Bragar bit down on a scream, and tried, too late, to make frantic warding gestures as the cruel head reached the level of his face. The serpent hissed, showing ice-pointed fangs that glittered with venom.
“Miathan, no!” Eliseth cried hastily. “He didn’t mean it!”
“She’s right, Archmage! I—I apologize!” Bragar’s voice was no more than a squeak. The serpent vanished.
Miathan cackled spitefully, a laugh cut off with shocking suddenness in mid-breath. “So what are you going to do about it?”
The Weather-Mage frowned, “About Bragar, Archmage?”
“No, you stupid woman! About Aurian! She’s coming! Coming for me, for all of us! She stalks my dreams—corning after us with death in her eyes . . .”
“Archmage, how can that be?” Bragar protested. “She drowned in Eliseth’s storm, We all felt it—”
“It wasn’t strong enough!” the Archmage snapped. “Not like when that ass Davorshan got himself killed.” Eliseth gasped, and he cackled again. “Oh, I knew all about you and Davorshan from the start. I may be blind, but I don’t miss much around here, let me tell you.”
Eliseth turned on him furiously. “That’s beside the point,” she said flatly. “Aurian is dead. What difference does it make that we barely felt her passing? It’s not surprising, with the distance, and the ocean between us, not to mention all the panic from her attack on you—”
“Eliseth, you’re aJo4>l,” Miathan retorted, “Aurian is alive, and a threat to us all. If we’re to keep what we’ve gained, she must be intercepted.” His spidery hands clawed at the crystal around his neck. “And what about that accursed Anvar? I know he survived your blundering storm!”
“Who the blazes is Anvar?” Bragar interrupted.
Eliseth gave him a blank look. “I’ve no idea.”
“He was Lady Aurian’s servant.” Elewin’s respectful voice came from the corner. The Chief Steward had been there so long, devotedly nursing his master, that they had forgotten his presence. “My Lord Archmage never liked poor Anvar,” he continued, “yet he was as diligent a lad as ever I—”
“Shut up!” Miathan spat. “Yes, he was her servant, against my wishes. I want him dead, do you hear? His head on a spike! His heart ripped from his living body! His corpse hacked to pieces and trampled into the ground! I want—”
“Hush now, Archmage,” Eliseth murmured, handing him a cup of wine. “Bragar and I will deal with Aurian and her servant, I promise.”
“Not Aurian, you imbecile! I want her brought to me alive! I want her—” Miathan licked his lips in an unsavory manner, and lapsed into a crooning reverie.
Bragar opened his mouth to protest, but Eliseth waved him silent. “Don’t worry, Archmage,” she said. “You may leave the matter safely in our hands. Stay with him, Elewin.” Taking Bragar’s hand, she hauled him firmly away from the bed.
Elewin bowed them^ respectfully out of the room. Then: “More wine, Archmage?” He tugged the cup from Miathan’s grasp. Slipping a twist of paper from his pocket, he poured its contents, a greenish powder, into the wine, and handed it back to Miathan. “Is that better, Lord Archmage?”
Miathan drained the cup. “It’s good. I don’t recognize the vintage, but it’s very good . . .” He slumped back against the pillows, snoring gently. Elewin took the cup from his hands and straightened; his subservience vanished. Following the Mages, he crept downstairs to Eliseth’s door. Setting an ear to the panels, the Steward composed himself to listen.
Eliseth’s white-painted chamber was spacious and spartan, its furnishings elegant but spare and uncomfortable. Bragar squirmed uneasily on a hard wooden chair, wishing that she wouldn’t insist on presenting such a chilly front to the world. He knew that the bedroom behind those doors at the far end of the room was a den of luxury; a fur-carpeted, silk-hung, perfumed temple dedicated to sensuality and lust. The thought reminded him unpleasantly that since Eliseth had started taking an interest in Davorshan, he, Bragar, had been pointedly denied access to that inner sanctum. How glad he had been when that slimy youth had died!
“Wine?” Eliseth took goblets from a cabinet in the corner.
“Have you nothing stronger?”
The Magewoman raised her eyes to the ceiling. “You’re drinking too much, Bragar,” she snapped. “How can I depend on you if your brains are permanently pickled?”
“Shut up and give me a drink!” Bragar snarled. You wait, he thought. Someday I’ll make you pay for treating me like this. And when I’m done, you’ll be begging for mercy—or begging for more! The thought, along with the glass of spirits that she grudgingly handed him, was some comfort.
“Well, what do you think?” Eliseth’s voice dissolved his fantasy. “Not that there’s any point in asking you,” she said with a sneer, settling herself in a chair near the fire, a glass of white wine in her hand.
“What a shame you’ve no one else to ask,” Bragar retorted,
le to resist needling her about Davorshan’s death. He had satisfaction of seeing her face twist with rage. “What can I say?” he replied to her question. “Miath’an’s brains have clearly been addled by Aurian’s attack. How could she not have perished?”
Eliseth frowned. “I’m not so sure,” she said. “Remember how close Aurian and the Archmage used to be? He should know whether she’s dead, if anyone does.”
“Rubbish! The old fool is senile, and you know it. We should put him out of his misery, and take power ourselves!’
“Bragar, you’ve the brains of an ox!” Eliseth snapped. “We need the Archmage as a figurehead! He made sure of that when he spread the tale that it was his power that destroyed the Nihilim! We were able to bribe that toad Narvish onto the Council as the merchants’ representative, and Angos at the Garrison is nothing but a thickheaded mercenary who will do whatever we say for a price, but they won’t last long if Miathan is not seen to be behind them! It is only the Mortals’ fear of his power, and what will happen if he withdraws it, that keeps the city in our hands.’”
“If he’s only a figurehead, why do we have to jump whenever he snaps his fingers?” Bragar sulked.
Eliseth took a sip of wine. “As a rule we don’t—but if there is a chance that Aurian survived, we cannot risk her returning. Miathan may want her alive, but I do not! I’ve been giving it some thought. We know she was at sea, and I know the strength and direction of the storm I raised. If she is anywhere, it has to be the Southern Lands.”
“The South? But even if we had the people, we could not send a force in sufficient numbers to find her,”
Bragar protested. “The Southerners would take it as an invasion, and a war is the last thing we need at present. Besides, they’re supposed to be hostile to the Magefolk. If that’s where Aurian is, the problem will take care of itself.”
“Why rely on it, when we have other means at our disposal?” Eliseth glanced at him slyly.
Bragar knew she wanted him to ask what she meant, so she could accuse him of stupidity again. Refusing to play her game, he gulped the contents of his glass and went to refill it. “You always did have a high opinion of yourself,” he said, sneering.