‘But you say there is already a dragon in the southern Archipelago, doing the bidding of some unknown wizard?’ Mellitha returned to the crux of the problem tormenting
Velindre.
‘Who will quite probably kill Dev if I don’t show him how to fight back on equal terms,’ the blonde magewoman agreed ‘And will certainly cause even more mayhem across the Archipelago, killing innocent Aldabreshi and giving them yet more cause to hate and fear and murder any mageborn they happen to come across.’
‘And given that no wizard in his right mind travels in the Archipelago, there’s no telling how far north this unnamed, untamed magic will come.’ Mellitha pursued Velindre’s predicament inexorably. ‘How much blood do you want on your conscience? How exactly are you going to explain keeping such a secret from Hadrumal? I take it Dev hasn’t told anyone of his little adventures?’
‘I don’t imagine so.’ Velindre sighed. ‘So that’s what I’ve been doing—trying to learn more about dragons, to find some alternative. I haven’t found one yet.’
‘Some other means of killing one or driving it off?’ Mellitha frowned.
Velindre nodded. ‘Or some way of finding the wizard who summoned it and killing him. Saedrin save me if the Council ever finds out about that.’
‘You say a dragon summoned through Otrick and Azazir’s spell is a creature of pure element? No-’ Mellitha raised a hand and her emerald rings sparkled in the sun ‘-I don’t want to know how. I don’t need to know. Perhaps there’s another alternative. Give me a moment to think’
Velindre sat looking out of the window. The children in the square below played their blithe games, shouting and laughing, and the clouds tracked across the sky. The five chimes of noon sounded across the city and their echoes died away.
‘You said the dragon is pure element shaped and bound with magecraft?’ Mellitha said after some considerable while. Velindre nodded.
‘Do you suppose it might be possible to undo that binding?’ the older magewoman suggested slowly. ‘Or to introduce some other element into it, to somehow contaminate the wizardry within it?’
‘I don’t know.’ Velindre looked at her, mouth half-open. She rubbed her forehead with the back of one hand. ‘It might be possible.’
Mellitha smiled. ‘It’s all very well shutting yourself away to beat your brains out against a problem but it’s often said that a problem shared is a problem halved, even if you share it with an old wife like me.’
‘It would be nigh on impossible to undo your own creation once the simulacrum is made,’ Velindre said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know if I could do that to another mage’s dragon.’
‘Do you suppose it would improve matters if that dragon had been made by a wizard attuned to the same element as yourself?’ Mellitha asked. ‘Or as Dev—you said he was looking to fight fire with fire.’
‘That’s certainly something to consider,’ mused Velindre, but how would he introduce another element? Would it have to be antithetical? Or perhaps we could do it between us—air and fire are sympathetic elements.’
‘This looks like one of those possible answers that brings a handful of new and harder questions along with it,’ said Mellitha ruefully. ‘Loath as I am to say it, you’re more likely to find the answers in Hadrumal than Relshaz. Hearth Master Kalion is a pompous fat fool in many ways, but he’d certainly be someone who could advise you. Or your father, though I imagine he’d be too busy telling you he told you not to visit Azazir in the first instance.’ She smiled as Velindre looked sharply at her. ‘I’ve been a daughter as well as a mother, my dear.’
Velindre stared out of the window again. ‘I’ve been wondering if the wisest course might just be to lock what I’ve learned in the darkest recesses of my memory. The collective wisdom of the Council seems to be that such dangerous knowledge should be lost. It would have been washed from the annals of wizardry whenever Azazir finally achieves the ultimate dissolution he seems intent upon.’
‘Lost knowledge has an inconvenient way of reappearing,’ Mellitha said briefly. ‘And keeping your own counsel on this won’t help Dev, will it?’
Velindre sighed.
‘I’m son-y, my dear, but I have other appointments.’ Mellitha stood up, gathering her wrap and fan. ‘Come and see me if there’s anything more I can do. Come and see me anyway. I meant what I said about the wider world offering far more than the narrow halls of Hadrumal.’ She favoured Velindre with a sunny smile before bustling out of the room and away down the stairs.
Velindre stood up with sudden decisiveness and crossed to the door of her bedchamber in a few quick strides. Taking the shawl off the mirror, she set a beeswax candle in a single silver stick before it and lit the wick with a snap of her fingers. Deftly, she wove the bright circle of bespeaking and then frowned. The mirror stayed obstinately empty. She snuffed the candle and tried again. She had no better success. The crease between her blonde brows deepening, she crossed to the marble-topped washstand and, lifting out the floral ceramic ewer, passed her hand over the broad, shallow bowl. Moisture slowly coalesced out of the air until a small puddle had gathered in the bottom. She passed her hand over the bowl again and the water glowed green. But there was still no image riding on the iridescent surface.
Where was Dev? Too far away, in a place so entirely unknown to her? It wasn’t as if she had any possession of his to focus her spell. Or was he hiding, as she had been, in case she betray him with such magic? Velindre hurriedly banished the spell. She had no wish to condemn Dev to the agonising death the Aldabreshi reserved for wizards. And the more she thought about it, the more foolish her own plan of travelling south began to seem, risking such a fate herself. But she had better let him know that she was almost certainly returning to Hadrumal.
She walked slowly back into the sitting room and picked up the almanac, her lips moving unconsciously as she calculated the days since she had last spoken to Dev. Would that ship he had promised her be waiting in the docks, ready to carry her away? The Aldabreshi had their own ways of sending messages among themselves, with their ciphers and puzzles to hide their meanings. If the ship was there, this warlord’s envoy would surely have some means of getting word to Dev.
Velindre left the room and the door locked itself with a soft click as her purposeful steps faded away down the stairs. She didn’t pause as the door to the widow’s sitting room opened. ‘I’m going out. I may be some while.’
She pushed the outer door open and walked rapidly down the house’s steps. Her pace didn’t slow until she left the guarded privacy of the square for the bustling thoroughfares beyond. There were more people clogging up the streets and alleys in Relshaz every time she visited,
Velindre thought with irritation. But this busy commercial street was by far her quickest route to the docks.
Women were slowly perusing the displays laid out on drapers’ counters and ribbon sellers’ doorposts. Those hunying with more purpose jostled the magewoman on their way to appointments with the dressmakers and milliners whose workshop windows opened above the shop fronts. Some of the women walked in two and threes, hearts close together, arms linked as they sought to cany on a conversation. Others barked orders to the maids or menservants at their heels laden with packages or bolts of cloth. Merchants’ inducements, hawkers’ blandishments and the rising notes of intense haggling added to the hubbub.
‘Something for that lovely fair skin of yours, my lady?’ An importunate pedlar darted in front of her, thrusting forward a wooden tray, leather strap looped around his neck. ‘Well into spring now, madam. You don’t want that delicate complexion spoiling in the sun. I’ve calomel powder here—’