I found this, raw and unearned, on that voyage to the north, that led me to you, as well as to Dev and the means to defeat the wild mages. I saw it as a sign I was on the right path, as I carved it into something I thought only existed in myth. I was certainly blind to that portent.
‘The dragon’s tail.’ There was a strange edge to Risala’s unexpected laugh. ‘It doesn’t look much like the real thing, does it?’ She pressed her hands to her face. ‘We never saw this in it, did we?’
‘I don’t suppose the poet whose descriptions I had in mind when I carved it had ever seen the real thing. There’s probably some significance in that but I haven’t got time to worry about it.’ Kheda hurried forward and hung the talisman around her neck. ‘We can’t second-guess the past and I’m more concerned with the future. It may just be a way of reading the stars but all the forefathers in every domain say the opposite arc of the sky to a moon is where the dragon’s tail lies.’ He stumbled over his words. ‘And that’s where the unseen portents lie, because the dragon never looks behind it. I don’t want it looking at you.’
Risala seized his face and drew him to her, kissing him with desperate passion. Then with a suddenness that left him standing there, shocked, she tore herself away and ran out of the building.
Chapter Nine
With the brightness of magic snuffed, the room felt smaller, darker, colder. Velindre felt as if the leaden grey of the sky above Hadrumal was seeping through the tall lancets of her window to dull the white plaster of the wall, dimming the parchments on the table before her. She shivered and waved a hand at the coal scuttle beside her hearth, sending a flurry of nuggets on to the glowing embers. She abandoned the table and sat on a footstool set before the fire, hugging her blue-gowned knees as she looked unseeing at the golden tongues of licking flame.
So Dev was still enjoying cloudless blue skies and brilliant sun. He hadn’t drowned or burned in that dragon’s fires. There had to be plenty he could tell her, not least how he was managing to work magic as an Aldabreshin warlord’s trusted servant. Velindre shivered again, this time with revulsion. Tales of Aldabreshin savagery were no idle invention to frighten apprentices into caution. She’d learned that much from days and nights reading ceaselessly in the empty silence of Otrick’s study. The old wizard had been intrigued with the Archipelago, not least with the Archipelagan obsession with omens and portents. Velindre chewed at a thumbnail already bitten to the quick. The firelight struck threads of bright gold in her hair which was drawn back from her angular face in a thick, sleek plait, as usual. Dev reckoned the lore he needed so fast was to be found in the endless shelves of Hadrumal’s hushed libraries. No. Velindre had long since tired of reading reams of speculation and half-understood observations in the hope of satisfying any gnawing magical curiosity. Otrick had cured her of that.
But what if she delivered such lore? Could she trust Dev’s promise of safe passage through the Archipelago? Could she trust him not to just take whatever she showed him and twist it to his own advantage? Could she afford to delay and debate such questions? If she was going to do all she’d boasted, she had precious little time to spare. And if she couldn’t, sure as curses no one else in Hadrumal would be able to. If she could, no one else in Hadrumal would ever doubt her abilities again. She sprang to her feet and crossed to the door in lithe strides, catching her dark cloak from its hook, swathing the cornflower blue of her high-necked gown as she hurried down the echoing stone stairs. The raw wet wind buffeted her as she emerged from the base of the tower. She waved an irritated hand and the wind swirled away, forbidden to stir even one pale hair escaping from her hood.
‘I want a fire for my feet and warm ale for my belly’
‘Let’s see what Brab and Derey think about the ocean’s currents.’
A pair of apprentices threatened to cross her path. Youth and maiden both had wet hair plastered to their heads, faces tight with cold and their brown cloaks bulked out with books cradled safely in their arms. ‘Excuse me.’ Velindre swept past them with a shrug of indifference.
Out beyond the ancient stone arch and the weathered oak gate the high road was busy, foul weather notwithstanding. Velindre threaded between men and women of different ranks and ages, master mage and raw apprentice all equal beneath heavy cloaks, hoods and hats worn against the drenching rain. Intent on their own occupations, the commonalty of Hadrumal hurried this way and that, their conversations focused on lives that owed little to wizard halls or affinities.
‘I said, I told him, you want to think who’ll be mending your stockings in ten years’ time before you go playing fast and loose with every girl who catches your eye.’
‘May I get past?’ Frustration building, Velindre found her progress curbed by a pair of slow-footed matrons with a handful of brats in tow. She reached a narrow side lane with relief and hurried between lofty stone walls stained dark with rain, her boots clacking on the slippery, sloping cobbles either side of a rain-filled gully. She cut across to take a back alley where the sodden, hard-trampled earth muffled her steps.
Reaching the back gate of Atten Hall, she paused to catch her breath and compose her thoughts. The five chimes of midday sounded around her, the echoes of different timepieces tangled among Hadrumal’s towers. Good; her father would be rid of his pupils, or if not, her arrival would prompt their departure. He’d have half his mind on what the maid was bringing for his lunch, so he might just let slip what she needed to know.
Pushing open the black iron gate, she walked up the flagstones running through the physic garden. The beds of rich soil were black and empty, neatly dug over and marked out with stones. Here and there, pale scraps of straw bore testament to the stable muck brought to nourish the sleeping herbs and seeds. Hardier shrubs were set back against the walls of the court, dark green and brown against the weathered stone. Withered creepers clutched at skeins of trellis, waiting for spring.
This hall was centred on the broad, squat tower standing alone in the middle of the garden, a style Archmage Atten had brought from his mainland home long ago, along with the coterie of wizards who had chosen to follow his teachings. That tradition had long since outgrown the tower and now its topmost windows could barely see over the ranges of accommodation built inside the walls that enclosed it. Three had serried ranks of casements while the fourth had the long tripartite windows of a large hall where those hopeful mageborn invited by Atten’s successors sat at long tables to listen to instruction, to debate lofty concerns or, more prosaically, to eat their meals. Velindre advanced on the central tower, the door’s brass fittings gleaming in defiance of the weather. Inside, harsh matting was finally losing the battle with the mud of the winter. Velindre paused to wipe her boots and heard her own breath echoing in the hush. The stairs were a square spiral on the southern side of the tower. Subdued light filtered through broad mullioned windows on the landings leading to the apartments on every level. Some doors stood hospitably open, faint sounds of movement within. Others were closed on intense discussions just on the edge of hearing. Velindre ignored them all, heading for the topmost floor.
Her father’s voice rang through the emptiness as his door opened, encouragement mingled with warning. ‘First thing in the morning, the day after tomorrow. I want arguments on both sides from all of you.’ A trio of apprentice mages appeared on the landing, two girls and a rangy youth not yet grown into his height. ‘There can’t be an alchemist from Selerima to Toremal who still believes in phlogiston,’ he protested under his breath, all the arrogance of the Imperial city in his accent. His linen shirt was snowy white, breeches and tunic impeccably tailored in sober grey broadcloth, only a trimming of scarlet buttons marking his affinity.