‘Self-control is not self-will,’ Velindre retorted with effort. ‘And losing one’s mind is hardly a route to wisdom.’
‘Self-control,’ sneered Azazir. ‘Self-doubt and denial.’
‘Self-restraint,’ spat Velindre, wiping sodden hair out of her eyes. ‘Something you’ve never bothered with. Not pausing to wonder if you should do something, just because you’ve established you could—you don’t call that arrogant?’
‘I serve a higher calling.’ Azazir’s unearthly eyes glowed green. ‘I serve my element. I will not be confined by Hadrumal’s petty rules and fears.’
‘I wish to master my element,’ Velindre retorted, ‘not to have it master me. Loss of myself is too high a price to pay for whatever power I might gain in following you. Where is the man you once were, Azazir?’
‘Gone where you haven’t the courage to follow, that much is plain.’ The translucent mage smiled with open derision. ‘Go back to Hadrumal and try to live with yourself, within those confines, now that you’ve tasted true freedom in your magic. Try to content yourself with your plodding progress, groping for knowledge in your fearful obscurity. Don’t tell me you haven’t learned more in these past days than you could in a lifetime on that rock!’ Laughing, he walked towards the water, growing paler and more transparent with every step.
‘Wait!’ Velindre found she was trembling and not merely from cold, fatigue and slowly building outrage at his assault on her. ‘What did you mean, “in these past days”? How long was I I. . .’ She struggled and gave up. There were no words to describe where she had journeyed.
‘Who knows?’ Azazir halted almost on the water’s edge. Ripples ran towards him, eager to narrow the gap. ‘Who cares? I abandoned almanacs and hourglasses along with all of Hadrumal’s other constraints.’
‘I said stop!’ Velindre raised a shaking hand and summoned a wall of air to block the mad wizard’s path. The questing lake waters flowed away on either side, baffled. ‘Yes, you’re right. I’ve learned a great deal Boni this experience.’ She stifled a shudder at the recollection of such insidious delight. But I haven’t learned what I came for. I came to ask you about dragons.’
Dragons?’ Azazir turned with a smile of delight that was the most terrifying thing Velindre had seen yet. ‘What business could a frigid inadequate like you have with dragons?’
Not so inadequate,’ Velindre retorted coldly. She looked up and wrenched the winds free from the strangling grip of Azazir’s ceaseless storm. With a battering blast of air, she drove the rain aside and seized the warmth of the sun riding high above. In an instant her clothes, such as they were, were dry, and she had driven the deathly chill from her bones.
Not so inadequate?’ echoed Azazir, mocking. He raised a hand and his magic crashed through the barrier she had erected between him and the lake, brutal as a breaker from a winter storm at sea. Her spell disintegrated under the assault. He looked up at the clouds and they swirled inwards, crushing the shaft of sunlight she had pulled down. ‘Want to try that again?’ He grinned at her, open challenge in his eerie eyes. Now that I’m ready for you?’
‘I came here to learn, not to fight.’ Velindre shook her head. ‘The lowest apprentices know better than that.’ She drew a breath to keep her voice calm. ‘You’re right,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve learned an astonishing amount. Or rather, I’ve seen that I can work instinctive magic with a power I’ve never known, if I allow myself. Instinct isn’t knowledge, though. If it was, every migrating bird is a secret sage.’
‘I see they still teach how to chop reason into shards of logic in Hadrumal.’ Azazir laughed, his mood as fickle as the glitter of sunlight on the lake. ‘Shards so fine that there’s nothing left. Knowledge is overrated, my girl.’
‘But you hold knowledge Hadrumal has lost,’ Velindre persisted, bolder now that she was dry and warm. Her golden hair obscured her face, coiling and frivolous in the teasing breeze. She brushed it back with irritation. ‘That’s what I’m seeking: the knowledge you shared with Otrick. What do you know about dragons?’
‘You’re persistent, I’ll give you that.’ Azazir turned his back on the uneven surface of the lake and the waters sank back to a glassy smoothness. ‘Or rather, I’d say Otrick gave you that. Among other things.’ His smile took on a lascivious curve that sat bizarrely on his liquid face.
‘Don’t think you’re in any condition to follow him there.’ Velindre was surprised into an incautious response. ‘And I’ve long since given up on lesser liaisons.’
‘My condition is whatever I choose it to be.’ Azazir walked away from the water and with every pace he took on a greater solidity. His skin turned a pearly white, pale as a fish’s belly, shining with a faint suggestion of scales. His hair and beard bristled, long and unkempt and washed to a colourlessness somewhere between grey and white. Only his eyes stayed the same, lit from within with that same green madness. ‘So you want to know about dragons, my cold and constrained lady mage? What do you already know?’
‘I know they laired in the Cape of Winds from time to time, where the mountains of Tormalin run into the sea.’ Velindre kept her eyes resolutely on the mad wizard’s face. ‘Where they were hunted for their hides and teeth and claws. One voyage could set a man up for life, if he came back. Plenty didn’t, from all I’ve read. And I’ve also read, in Otrick’s notes, that there always had to be a wizard on the ship otherwise the dragon hunters wouldn’t sail.’
‘But you don’t know why,’ Azazir taunted her. No, you wouldn’t. Hadrumal has been happy to see that knowledge erased from its dusty libraries and learned tomes.’
‘Why?’ demanded Velindre.
Azazir stepped close to whisper in her ear. ‘On account of all a dragon can do for a mage. Because of what a mage can do with a dragon.’
Velindre spread her hands. ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
Azazir’s grin had all the reassuring warmth of a death’s-head. No, you wouldn’t.’
‘Then teach me,’ Velindre challenged, hands on her hips. ‘If you don’t want to see that knowledge lost up here in the wilds.’
‘Why should I care?’ Azazir studied her intently.
‘Because you want to see wizards exploring their full potential,’ Velindre shot back ‘How can they do that without a fuller understanding of all they might achieve?’
‘You think you’re up to it?’ His smile turned cruel.
‘I think I can take what I learn back to Hadrumal and share it with others,’ she said steadily. ‘Whereas you’ll be condemned out of hand if you go back.’
‘All right. I’ll show you what I know of dragons. Then maybe you’ll see why I live up here in the wilds.’ The emerald madness in Azazir’s eyes faded as cunning lit his face. ‘Whether you can learn from it, whether you can set aside your fears, with your mind hobbled by Hadrumal’s teachings, that’s another question.’
‘Let’s see, shall we?’ Velindre raised her eyebrows expectantly. She fought not to shiver, not with cold but with apprehension.
‘Yes, let’s,’ murmured Azazir as he squatted in the mud and thrust his bony white fingers into the cloying ooze. The ground trembled and the lake glowed suddenly green in its crystal depths.
The spiralling clouds above fell apart to blow away. The sun flooded the valley with brilliant light and frail spring warmth. Velindre looked around to see the mud all along the shore drying out, the glistening rocks tuning dull.
Dust wafted from the ridges of the valley’s edge, confused and helpless.
She turned her attention to the lake. That was where all the water was going, concentrating all the elemental power the mad wizard had gathered here. She frowned. Why were the ripples receding from the shore? Shouldn’t the water be swelling the lake? She took a step forward, the parched ridges of mud now hard enough to bruise her unshod foot.
‘Careful,’ warned Azazir, intent on the depths. ‘You don’t want to catch its eye. It’ll be hungry.’