‘The Duke of Triolle, he’s been paying out gold for years to all manner of charlatans promising him the secret.’ The shorter of the girls shrugged; Lescari intonation as robust as her figure and the vivid red dress that flattered her pale skin and dark hair.
‘What would he do with it?’ wondered a willowy Caladhrian girl who’d opted for a pale-rose gown. ‘If it really existed’
‘I hate to think,’ muttered her female companion dandy. ‘Madam.’ The Tormalin youth caught sight of Velindre on the stairs and swept a creditable bow given the armful of books encumbering him. ‘Apprentice.’ Velindre inclined her head tautly as the trio hurried past her. Sudden laughter floated back up the stairs to be cut short by the slam of the door below. Velindre took a deep breath and knocked briefly on the open door. ‘Father?’
‘Come in,’ barked the stern voice. Velindre entered and blinked, frowning. ‘Do you have something against daylight, father?’
‘I’ve nothing against it.’ The old wizard sat shrouded in darkness by a hearth whose fire was no more than a feeble glow. ‘Nor yet any great interest in it, either. I’ll leave the skies to you cloud mages.’ His tone was uninterested.
Velindre crossed the room with some difficulty, given the plethora of small tables laden with books and the countless volumes stacked on the floors. She reached the windows and tugged at heavy red velvet curtains, an exact match for the distempered walls.
‘You’ll get precious little light at this time of year,’ observed her father. ‘All you’ll do is let in draughts.’ You still think any apprentice who can’t illuminate his own reading isn’t worth teaching.’ Velindre managed to shed a thin shaft of light on the leather-backed chairs that ringed her father. For all the clutter, the room showed no speck of dust. No smudge marred the gleaming brass of the fender or the white marble of the fire mantel.
‘As rules of thumb go, I’ve always found it sound.’ The white-haired man said. He was sparely built, the height he’d boasted in his prime now bent into a stoop and the flesh fallen away from his aged bones. His face was gaunt, wrinkles carved deep on either side of his beak of a nose, eyes deep set above hollow cheeks. Eyes the same colour as Velindre’s burned with the same intensity, undimmed by the burden of his years. Straight and swept back with pomade, his hair was cut precisely at jaw length, his wrinkled chin clean-shaven above a knotted silk scarf. He wore an old-fashioned gown of maroon velvet over layered jerkins, one long-sleeved, one sleeveless, and knee-breeches the colour of old wine. Thick woollen stockings warmed his shrunken calves, his feet in soft leather shoes that gleamed with polish. Velindre approached and submitted to her father’s dry kiss on her forehead.
‘What do you want?’ prompted the old man briskly. ‘Spit it out, girl.’
‘Do you remember Dew’ Velindre sat on a chair and looked at the fire rather than her father.
‘Of course,’ the aged wizard answered with a hint of scorn. ‘I remember all my students. A great deal of talent that I rapidly realised would go to waste. Far too ready to take issue with the supposed injustices of life. Always harking back to whatever ne’er-do-well village he stumbled away from. He was never going to make anything of his abilities unless he turned his back on such distractions and applied his intellect to his affinity.’ The old wizard’s voice was censorious as he folded his age-spotted hands on his chest.
‘Did you know he’d gone to be Planir’s eyes and ears in the Archipelago?’ Velindre glanced at her father. The old man shook his head, indifferent. ‘Planir’s another one who should concentrate a little less on the wider world and a little more on the proper business of wizardry.’
‘Dev’s found a dragon in the Aldabreshin south,’ said Velindre carefully. ‘One attuned to elemental fire, from what I saw.’
‘You scried it?’ Curiosity sparked in her father’s eyes. ‘What’s your interest in this?’
‘Dev wants to know more about dragons.’ Velindre shrugged with unconcern. ‘He bespoke me, as
()tick’s former pupil, since I’m carrying on his work’
‘Otrick?’ The ancient mage’s laugh was a dry creak. ‘I thought you were finally over that old pirate’s foolishness of sailing hither and yon and whistling up winds to see where they lead you.’ His disdain was withering. ‘Cloud Master or not, Otrick led you astray from your studies. You might have stood a chance of the Council approving you as Cloud Mistress in your own right if you’d stayed here, applied yourself and shown them what you have to offer. You’ve a good mind. You just need to use it.’
He tapped one bone-white finger to his snowy temple before withdrawing into his high-backed, deep-winged chair. ‘Your mother was a fool for encouraging you. She’s another one with her head in the clouds. Well, Rafrid’s no fool, even if he is one of Planir’s cronies. And a mastery isn’t what it used to be. I could have been Hearth Master, but nowadays, well, Kalion’s welcome to people hanging on his cloak day in and day out, knocking on his door with their whines and complaints. I don’t see him adding anything to the sum of wizardry, and that is a waste of a fine mind,’ he concluded sourly. ‘Dev wants to study the dragon’s innate magics’ Velindre returned to studying the fire. ‘He needs to get closer to it without ending up burned to a crisp. Otrick knew how to summon a dragon and how to control it but I can’t find any record of exactly how he did it.’
‘A charlatan’s festival trick writ large,’ the old wizard scoffed. ‘Otrick was always a mountebank at heart. Among his many other vices.’ Dislike sharpened his tone. Not that such dalliances were any of my business. You were a grown woman.’
Velindre kept her gaze on the flames and held her voice level and emotionless. ‘Otrick is dead, so we can’t ask him about such lore. The only other mage I can find recorded as having this trick of summoning dragons is Azazir.’
Her father threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘If Otrick was a disgrace to wizardry, Azazir was a blight. What that fool cost Hadrumal in lost trust, in sowing fear and ignorance among the mundane of the mainland—there’s no measuring it! We’re still paying the price to this day,’ he growled, fleshless fists clenched. ‘With our Archmage bowing and scraping to every petty prince, just to make sure the magebom can travel unhindered to Hadrumal before their emergent affinity is the death of them.’
‘You knew Azazir.’ Velindre looked up at her father, challenge in her eyes.
‘I did,’ he retorted, ‘and if I’d been on the Council back then I’d have voted for his death, not just his banishment. Do those dolts who laugh over his exploits tell you how many drowned thanks to his fooling with the rivers or how many starved when his meddling caused famine?’
‘I’ve heard all the tales. What they don’t say is when Azazir died,’ Velindre persisted. ‘Rumour has it he’s still alive, somewhere in the wilds.’
‘Does it?’ the old wizard growled with disgust.
In that instant, Velindre saw in his eyes that that much was true. Well?’ she managed to ask, keeping all exultation out of her voice.
‘He used to talk about embracing one’s affinity, about immersing oneself in it.’ The aged mage looked past her towards the slim shard of sky visible through the window. Which is all very well for a water mage, but I told him, just try that with fire. He didn’t care. He was the most irresponsible, most dangerous wizard I ever encountered. He was all for seeking sensation, ever more sensational and never mind making sense of it, never mind understanding the interplay of element and reason and cause and effect. If he thought there was a chance he could do something, work some wonder with his magic, he’d try, never mind stopping to think if he should. He had a higher duty to his affinity, that’s what he would say, to find out where its limits might lie. Never mind his duty to wizardry. Never mind wiser mages than him warning that there might be no limits to some sorceries. Never mind when more than one of his apprentices died a foul and lingering death,’ the old man concluded with cold anger.