This brought Zanna to the moment she had been dreading. So far, Aurian was still unaware of what had happened to Vannor—but the girl knew how close the friendship had been between the Mage and her father. She was aware that the Lady would be extremely upset by the story of Vannor’s maiming, and wanted to break the news to her in private.
“Lady?” Zanna interrupted Aurian’s conversation with Yanis, not caring how rude she sounded. “Will you walk outside with me for a moment? There’s something I have to tell you—alone.” She saw Yanis open his mouth, about to protest, but Tarnal quickly laid a warning hand on the Nightrunner leader’s arm. The Mage exchanged a swift, startled glance with Anvar, then nodded and, to Zanna’s great relief, followed her outside.
During the last hour or so, Aurian had noticed that Zanna seemed to be gravely troubled by something. Curious, and not a little alarmed, she walked with the girl a little way beyond the dwellings, followed at a distance by the ever-watchful Shia. The Mage smiled to herself at her friend’s protective zeal, and hoped that Zanna would not be too alarmed by their uninvited companion.
Zanna, however, seemed too perturbed even to notice the cat. As they walked together in the moonlight toward the point, the girl told Aurian, brutally and without embellishment, exactly what the Weather-Mage had done to Vannor.
As the hammer blows of Zanna’s words fell on her ears, and she visualized—all too clearly—her old friend’s pain and suffering, the world seemed to stand still for the Mage in a single, agonizing instant of grief and rage. When she came back to herself, her hands were shaking and clenched tightly into fists. Noticing that Zanna was cowering away from her, Aurian forced herself to relax. She knew, that as a wielder of the Artifacts, her rage must be terrifying to behold, and didn’t want to scare the girl.
“It’s all right, Zanna.” The Mage spoke softly. “Once more, Eliseth has added to what she owes. But the time of reckoning is approaching fast.”
“Good.” There was a spark of fire behind the young girl’s eyes. “I’m glad to hear it—and I’ll help you in any way I can.”
“I knew I could count on you.” Aurian smiled, and put her arm around Zanna’s shoulders. “Your father was lucky to have you there to help him through such a horrifying experience. How is he faring now?”
“At first he lost his confidence, and was afraid of being crippled and useless,” Zanna admitted, “but he’s getting better all the time.”
“And how did he react to the news of Sara?” Aurian asked quietly.
Zanna shrugged. “Badly, at first—but all in all, he took the blow better than I would have expected. I would not have come away and left him—except that Parric is helping him far better than I can, at the moment.” She looked up at the Mage with a rueful grin. “In fact, it’ll probably take us about two days to sober them up!”
Aurian laughed. “That sounds more like the Vannor I remember. Come on—let’s go back to the others. It’s only a couple of hours until we sail.”
When at last the ships embarked in the soft blue light of dawn, Anvar stood with Aurian in the bows of Yanis’s vessel. They were talking softly, for many of their fellow voyagers had already taken the opportunity to snatch some sleep. “I know that courtesy demanded that we travel with Yanis,” Aurian was saying as she looked out across the waters at their companion ships, “but I wish we could have gone with Tarnal.”
“Why?” Anvar was surprised. “What’s wrong with Yanis?”
“Nothing—he’s a fine young man…” Aurian had the grace to look abashed. “It’s just that I was curious to see how Zanna and Tarnal were getting along. I like him—and I’m very fond of Zanna. She deserves to be happy.”
Anvar chuckled. “I think that situation definitely doesn’t require your meddling, my love. It looked to me as though they were getting along just fine!”
“It looked that way to me, too,” Aurian mused. “Did you notice—”
“I noticed you noticing him,” Anvar couldn’t resist teasing her.
The Mage lifted her chin and glared at him. “Well—and why not? Tarnal is worth noticing. He reminds me of you, a little—only he’s handsomer, of course!”
“You wretch!”
“That’ll teach you!”
Simultaneously they broke into peals of laughter, and hushed each other hastily, muffling their mirth with a kiss.
“Do you remember the last time we voyaged like this, together?” said Anvar. “Little did we think, when we fled Nexis, that we were heading for the southern lands, where such incredible things would happen to us.”
“I never guessed then that I’d end up falling in love with you—or that we’d meet such wonderful friends.” Aurian looked at the Windeye, who was peering nearsightedly over the stern at the receding Xandim coastline, and at Shia and Khanu, who were curled up asleep on a tarpaulin nearby with Wolf and his foster parents. The Mage noticed, with some amusement, that despite her reassurances, the Nightrunner sailors were giving that particular area a wide berth. “I hope we get the chance to come back some day,” she went on,
“especially to see Hreeza—but right now, I’m looking forward to going home.”
“It’s still not over yet,” Anvar reminded her with a frown.
“No,” agreed Aurian, “but at least it feels as if we’re making progress. And once we find the Sword, who knows what will happen?”
Her words, though spoken in all innocence, sent a premonitory prickle of dread sheeting across Anvar’s skin.
Eliseth shrieked curses, and threw the crystal across the room. “She’s back! I don’t believe it!” But there was no room for doubt. She had seen it in the crystal with her own eyes—and with increasing practice, her scrying was becoming very accurate nowadays. The Weather-Mage began to pace back and forth across her chamber, thinking furiously. It had been humiliating enough when Vannor and his daughter had escaped her. Her face now bore the ravages of an extra ten years—the mark of Miathan’s rage. She intended to pay him back for that—but now that Aurian had returned, her time was running out.
Eliseth had lost all faith in Miathan’s effectiveness as an Archmage. More than once, he’d had a perfect chance to end Aurian’s life, but had always refused. And look what had happened. The accursed renegade and her half-blooded abomination of a paramour were practically knocking on the very door of the Mages’ Tower!
If only I possessed the Caldron, Eliseth thought desperately. After his dreadful error that had resulted in the Night of the Wraiths, Miathan had always seemed afraid to use the Artifact again… If he had only learned to control it, as she would have done had the Caldron been hers… If only he had taken the trouble to spend as many hours in the dusty, freezing archives as she had done, poring over ancient, half-decipherable scrolls to research the Caldron’s powers… Abruptly, the Weather-Mage stopped pacing. Well, why not? she thought. Why shouldn’t I possess it? Have I not earned it? Would I not make better use of it? It’s wasted on that doddering old fool!
But here common sense asserted itself. That fool was not so old and feeble that he couldn’t snuff out her life like a candle, if he caught her crossing him. Eliseth resumed her pacing. After a time, her eye lit on the pile of scrolls on the table, that she had taken from the library to continue her researches in comfort. The glimmerings of a plan began to form in her mind…
Miathan looked up in surprise and annoyance as the Weather-Mage entered his chambers without knocking. What in the world was she thinking of? It was still a disgustingly early hour of the morning—in fact he had not been to bed yet, for as was his wont these days, he’d spent the night in contemplation, in the restful solitude of his garden. He had just been thinking about going to bed now—and here she was, interrupting him.