But enough of this foolishness, she decided. She had no time to waste. The trip had already taken longer than she had expected. Not that Dev had had any cause to complain that she was idling, she thought with irritation. And she wouldn’t be dealing with this nonsense if he hadn’t startled the widow and her children by bespeaking her like that. It was hardly surprising that the eldest girl hadn’t been able to keep something like that to herself.
Velindre walked away up the track, first looking ahead at her path and then back down the hill, to be sure those bold heroes were returning to their startled village.
The fallen men were picking themselves up. The scarred man took a cautious pace towards the charred skeleton of the rowan tree, his fair-haired companion following, careful all the while to keep the first man between himself and the uncanny spectacle. The Tormalin man and the one with brown hair were edging towards their hatchet-faced friend, who was still rooted to the spot with terror even though the skeins of azure light around his legs were fading. The Tormalin man gave him a sudden shove. The sharp-faced man cried out before taking a step to save himself as he found he was no longer bound by the spell. He took to his heels, slipping and sliding as he fled for the solace of the tavern. The hatchet-faced dun-haired man and the one with the scars followed him, barely slowly enough to preserve their dignity in front of the wide-eyed villagers.
The Tormalin man and his Mountain-bred friend stayed where they were, looking suspiciously up the track. Velindre hurried for the shelter of a starveling hazel thicket. These fools weren’t deaf, she reminded herself, or blind to any other trace she could leave. They might be miners in the summer; in the winter seasons they trailed game far smaller than an adult mage. She looked at the ground, shaking her head at the momentary disori-entation of not being able to see her own feet. She could see the ridges of the hard ground unyielding beneath her clumsy boot soles; no tracks there. But her weight had crushed blades of sere grass poking up through the sodden black leaves where the vagaries of the wind had left the ground clear of snow.
It had been a while since she had had to work two, no, three such spells in harness. Velindre summoned a second layer of dense air to cocoon her invisibility spell, baffling and muffling any crunch of her footfalls on the icy ground, any swish or snap as she brushed past the clawing hazel twigs. She lifted one foot and stepped up on to a soft cushion of magic. Pausing to be sure of her balance, she stepped forward, summoning a second squashy pillow of air to raise her a hand’s width above the ground.
Not that this was quite the sophisticated working with elemental air that Hadrumal would expect from a Cloud Mistress, she thought with distant amusement. And Planir’s rebukes for apprentices who felt entitled to cow mundane fools with gaudy trickery were legendary. Which was all well and good, but life was certainly different out here where the Archmage’s writ didn’t run.
She stumbled as the chancy air drifted beneath her feet and abandoned such idle thoughts in favour of concentration. Walking further into the trees at a painfully slow pace, she looked over her shoulder for any sign of pursuit after every few steps. If those fools from the village couldn’t hear her, she wouldn’t hear them approaching either, thanks to that same magical spell.
By the time she crested the ridge behind the village, her neck was stiff, her legs ached as if she had been walking all day through soft sand and a faint queasiness threatened to turn into a nauseous headache. Setting her jaw, she forced her way through a copse of shivering aspens and cast away the magic surrounding her. Her booted feet hit the ground with a jolt and she drew a welcome breath of fresh, cold air. Hastily she gathered up the magic dissipating around her and cast out a web of unseen magical threads, drawn taut to tremble with the noises of the forest and bring every sound magnified for her ears alone. Meltwater dripped from trees welcoming the optimistic sun that was strengthening with each new day. In the dark hollows of the forest, though, the chill of night was already returning, prompting protesting creaks from the icy streams frozen solid in their stony beds. Untrammelled breezes ran ahead of the shadows, trailing casual fingers through tangles of ivy clinging to the mossy larches. A faint scuttle of tiny paws whispered through the frostbitten undergrowth. Velindre breathed more easily. There was no sound of footsteps or the harsh breathing of men intent on a hunt.
Velindre looked across the wide expanse of snow pierced with scattered trees that separated her from the next rise in the rumpled land. Then she settled the rope of her bundle more securely on her shoulder beneath her cloak and began walking. The track from the village soon petered out, disappearing beneath the drifts of snow and the black swathes of leaf litter.
Would any of those oafs tell their tale the next time they made the wearisome journey to Inglis? And show themselves for the fools they had been? That was hardly likely, she concluded. What about the widow woman? Would she tattle to all and sundry about how she had given unknowing shelter to a mage unafraid to use her magic to teach ignorant buffoons a much-needed lesson? Velindre shrugged. What of it? If the woman did tell her tale, who could carry it to Hadrumal? She was well beyond Rafrid’s reach already and it was hardly likely that Plank would rebuke her if she returned with untried lore from both Azazir and this dragon loose in the Archipelago.
She studied the distant coil of grey clouds with growing interest. Even with long leagues still to go, she could feel a faint resonance of magic as the storm defied the natural currents coursing through the air. She found herself intrigued. Never mind Dev’s distractions with this dragon; just what would this Azazir have to teach her about the elemental air? If she was going to find out, she had to get to the valley beneath that unmoving, unbreaking storm. She considered the wide expanse ahead of her, deep snow reaching half-way up the dark stands of firs.
This looked like a good time to try another prentice mage’s trick: the impudent connivance that allowed the bold and reckless to dart between the highest points of Hadrumal’s roofs and towers when festival cheer overcame caution. Rafrid would doubtless be spending his Equinox issuing the usual reprimands and curtailing offenders’ privileges. Velindre smiled with vindictive amusement as she fixed her gaze on a patch of open ground beneath a stained outcrop of rock away on the far side of the woods. A rush of air carried her across the intervening half-league with a single stride. Another step took her to the top of the ridge and a third made light of a sprawling glassy expanse of frozen marsh.
From the bottom of the next ridge, she searched for a suitable foothold among the trees lining the heights above her. Seeing bare earth and stones where a storm had felled some mighty fir, she threw a coil of magic towards the open space. The ensorcelled air writhed, spiralling away up to be lost in the uncaring blue sky. Velindre was taken aback. It was several moments before she recovered her authority over the fickle winds. She cast her spell again. Once more, the magic recoiled from the patch of empty ground where she wanted to go. This time the spell curfcd back around her, threatening to carry her backwards and dump her unceremoniously among the sodden tussocks of the valley. She barely disentangled herself from the magic before she lost her footing, startled into cursing under her breath.
Face wary in the dark fur framing it, she made a third attempt, this time abandoning the spell as soon as she felt the first tremor of failure. She smiled thinly with slow realisation. The magic frustrating her own was being worked through the water suffusing the air. Only a very powerful mage could manifest his intent through the infinitesimal amounts of vapour in this cold, dry emptiness. Azazir evidently knew how to use his own element to dominate the air. Would she learn how to rule water with air so effectively? All the inconveniences of crossing these last interminable leagues on foot would be well worth it if she could, never mind what Dev and this warlord of his might owe her for any lore about dragons.