Going back to the shore. Then we’re going the other way.
Forcing himself upright, Kheda dragged Dev’s senseless body on to his shoulders and began breaking a path though the undergrowth, heading away from the nightmare on the beach.
Chapter Fifteen
Sitting in a high-backed chair upholstered with painstaking needlepoint, Velindre allowed herself a moment to enjoy the warm sunshine pouring through the unshuttered window. Then she opened the crisp new almanac lying in the lap of her lavender gown and ticked off the twenty-ninth day of Aft-Spring. Carefully setting her pen down on the octagonal table at her elbow, she blew the ink dry and then closed the book. Her thin lips narrowed to invisibility. Thirty days here and still no closer to a decision. She gazed out at the paved square beyond her window, its enclosed garden watered by a glittering central fountain. The sweeper was about his leisurely business brushing the flagstones free of dust, at the same time showing broad shoulders to keep the square free of Relshaz’s hopeful indigents. A nursemaid in yellow livery shooed a gaggle of excited children out of one of the genteel houses with whitewashed walls and ruddy earthen-tiled roofs. As they rushed towards the circumscribed freedom of the central garden, some nameless youth pushing a handcart paused to talk to the nursemaid. After a glance up at the blind windows, the girl slipped something into his hand before hunying after her charges. One of the two little girls was denouncing her bolder brother as he swung on the green-painted rails, hands on her diminutive hips.
Velindre lost interest in the pedestrian byplay, looking up at the scudding clouds dotting the clear blue sky. There was little enough power to tempt her. Relshaz was too far south to find the lofty ribbon of air she had pulled down over Azazir’s lake, and too far north to find its counterpart that raced high across Hadrumal. All was as yet untroubled by the thunderstorms sweeping in off the gulf to break over Lescar and Caladhria, as the wide inland plains threw off the summer’s heat. Far beyond the horizon, she could sense the long reach of Toremal cradling the broad gulf, its mountains denying passage to the turbulent winds of the open ocean.
There was little enough power but there was still sufficient to tempt her. Sweat prickled beneath her shoulder blades and under her breasts despite the moderate temperature of the room. With her newfound skills she might be able to summon the dragon once more, even with such dissipated breezes in these placid skies.
Another dragon, she corrected herself savagely. The first one was dead at the hands of Azazir’s simulacrum. And it was no true dragon, merely a creature of magical contrivance and convenience. But it had been a creature all the same that had delighted in the soaring element that so thrilled her. A creature condemned to fade and die before it had barely begun to comprehend where it was or what it was. Unless she threw it into a brutal fight to the death against some other wizard’s equally enslaved magic.
Sweat beaded her forehead as she felt suddenly nauseous. Getting carefully to her feet, she crossed to a sideboard and poured herself a glass of wine. She was standing, motionless, holding the wine undrunk when a knock at the door startled her into spilling it all over the prettily embroidered linen draping the polished wood.
‘You have a visitor, my dear.’ The amiable widow who was renting her these two comfortable rooms beamed as she opened the door. ‘You said you had no acquaintance in Relshaz,’ she chided.
‘I don’t,’ Velindre said curtly as she moved to hide the spilled wine from view.
‘Well, dear, she says she’s a friend of yours.’ The widow’s smile faltered and she brushed at the frivolous lace hanging from turtleshell combs supporting her complicated coiffure. ‘She says she’s Madam Esterlin. Shall I show her up?’
No need,’ laughed a genial voice from the hallway. ‘Velindre, my dear, no wonder you stay so slender, climbing all these stairs day in and day out.’ A generously proportioned woman in an elegant gown of jade silk appeared in the doorway, fanning herself with a silver-mounted spread of vivid green feathers. The widow bridled as the visitor sailed past her into the room. ‘I’ll leave you to your conversation.’
‘Thank you.’ Velindre managed a brief nod for her landlady. The widow shut the door with a force that spoke of her indignation.
The newcomer grimaced as she deposited a light wool wrap and her fan on an old-fashioned satinwood side table. ‘I don’t think she’ll be bringing us wine and honey wafers.’
‘Probably not.’ Velindre folded her arms. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Mellitha.’
‘Unexpected, that much I’ll grant you.’ The newcomer’s laugh had a harder edge now that the door was shut behind her. Her shrewd grey eyes took in every detail of the room, lingering on the table by the lustre-tiled fireplace where twenty or more leather-bound books were organised in precise piles. A thick sheaf of notes on expensive reed paper was set squarely between them. T was surprised to learn you’d been in the city for nearly half a season without calling on me.’ She looked at Velindre, her plump face expectant.
‘You’re curious to know what I’m reading?’ Velindre crossed the room in long strides to pick up the topmost book. ‘Lawsenna on the history of Southern Toremal and-’ she lifted the volume beneath ‘-Den Jaromire on the beasts and birds of the Cape of Winds.’
‘You’ve sailed the Tormalin ocean coasts extensively.’ Mellitha nodded with apparent understanding. ‘Though I’m curious as to why my book merchant mentioned you’ve been buying everything and anything he can find on the nature and lore of dragons.’
Velindre replaced the books carefully. ‘I’m hardly your pupil to explain myself to you. Still,’ she continued, to forestall the words on the other woman’s lips, ‘I was Otrick’s pupil, as you well know. It’s not so remarkable that I’d be retracing his steps in my reading.’
No, but I know full well you did that ten years ago and more. He told me as much himself Mellitha crossed the room in a rustle of lace-trimmed petticoats and sat in the chair matching the one Velindre had vacated. ‘Since we’re being so frank with each other,’ she went on with distinct sarcasm, ‘it’s not so much what you’re reading that piques my interest as where you’re reading it. I’m surprised to find you away from Hadrumal.’
‘One can learn many things beyond Hadrumal’s shores,’ Velindre responded smoothly. ‘Otrick taught me that.’
‘I would have thought Otrick taught you how to pour a fine wine without spilling it.’ Mellitha leaned back in her chair to look at the stained cloth behind Velindre. The sunlight picked out the silver thick in her chestnut hair. Did he teach you how to rise above disappointed hopes?’
Velindre smiled coldly. ‘You can reassure Flood Mistress Troanna or Archmage Planir, or whoever it is you’re reporting to, that I’m not sitting here weeping over my shattered dreams.’
‘I imagined Rafrid’s elevation would still be a sensitive subject.’ Mellitha waved an airy hand bejewelled with rings. ‘You misunderstand me. I’m not here on anyone’s behalf. Oh, when Planir’s curious about something in this ant hill, I’ll kick over a few stones if it suits me to find out more, but that’s seldom called for. I have plenty of things to occupy my time, far more interesting things than reading inferior copies of books I found tedious the first time around in Hadrumal. Which is why I’m curious to see you reading them.’
Velindre found her nausea retreating. ‘These things that occupy you, they’re matters of magic?’ she queried.