“Yes?” he demanded testily. “What the blazes do you want at this hour, Eliseth?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Archmage…” Smoldering beneath her civility, he could sense a blaze of suppressed excitement. “It’s this document,” she went on, holding out a scroll. “I found it last evening in the library—I’ve been up all night trying to decipher it. It relates to the Caldron—it should help you to control its powers, and use it in safety.”
“What?” Suddenly Miathan was wide-awake. “Let me look at that!”
“Certainly.” The Weather-Mage handed the scroll to him, but when he unrolled it, he found that it was written in a language so ancient—and with an ink so faded—that he could barely decipher a word of it. Little did he guess that Eliseth had made certain he could not.
“Don’t worry.” She slipped the document from his fingers. “I can only understand it myself because I’ve been studying Finbarr’s notes over the last months, hoping to find a way to help you.”
Very likely! Miathan thought to himself. Trying to help herself, if he knew anything about it. Yet she had brought the scroll to him…
“It says that there’s writing hidden on the side of the grail,” Eliseth was saying, “that describes the Spells of Power to control the Caldron—”
“Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me!” Miathan snorted.
“If you fetch the grail,” Eliseth prompted, “I can try to use the scroll to bring out the secret writing. Surely it’s worth a try,” she cajoled.
“Now, just a minute.” At this point, Miathan’s suspicions definitely were stirring. “Why don’t you make a translation for me,” he temporized, “and then I’ll see how well it works?”
“That’s just like you!” Eliseth flared, losing her temper completely. “You never trust me—you want to keep me out of everything! It was my hard work that found the scroll; my eyes that got strained translating the accursed thing. And now you want me just to hand it over to you without so much as a please or thank-you? Well, you can go to perdition, Miathan. If you won’t let me be a part of this, you can whistle for your scroll—and the priceless knowledge it contains.” Taking the brittle parchment in both hands, she made as if to tear it across.
“Wait—wait!” Miathan shouted hastily. What if the temperamental Weather-Mage should prove to be right after all? “All right,” he sighed. “Have it your own way.”
As the Archmage went off into the adjoining chamber, Eliseth, relieved to be out of his sight for a moment, allowed herself the luxury of a sigh of relief. Then she heard the grate of shifting furniture, followed by a soft but distinctive click, and raised her eyebrows. So the Archmage had a hidden panel in there, did he? Well, she’d investigate that later. Who knew what other secrets it might hold? Then the thought flew out of her mind as Miathan came back into the room carrying the blackened, tarnished grail.
As he placed the Artifact on the table between them, Eliseth could feel the power that thrummed through it, belying its sorry condition. Without touching it, she examined it closely. “Couldn’t you have cleaned it up a little?” she complained.
“I tried,” Miathan said with a sigh. “I’ve tried many times, but since that night it stays as black as ever.”
“Well, there’s no trace of secret writing that I can see—but, then, there wouldn’t be. Let’s see what our document says…” Eliseth turned away, as if looking for the scroll—and suddenly whirled back, her fingers extended and pointing at Miathan as she threw all her powers behind the spell that would take him out of time.
Miathan, if he’d had suspicions, had been expecting an attack on the Caldron, not on himself, and had prepared his defenses accordingly—as Eliseth had hoped. As the Archmage froze in position, taken out of time by her spell, the grail flared with a brief white light and then went dark again. She extended a cautious hand toward the Artifact, with all her senses attuned to the slightest hint of more defensive magic—but there was nothing there now, save its own thrumming power.
As the realization of what she had done truly came home to her, Eliseth laughed aloud in triumph. “As for you,” she told the frozen Archmage, “you can go down into the catacombs and keep Finbarr company, until I decide how to dispose of you.” She knew, with a chilling certainty, that Miathan must never be unbound from the spell. Her life depended on it.
But now there was other work to be done. These next few days would be busy, for she must keep an eye out with her crystal for any sign of her enemy’s movements, while also working with the grail, to wrest its powers to her will. Eliseth smiled to herself. There might be challenges ahead of her, but she was looking forward to the next few days immensely.
Though evening had long since shadowed the ocean outside, the great cavern of the Nightrunner hideout knew neither day nor night. As always, it remained shrouded in its perennial darkness, which was only alleviated by the many lamps that glimmered at intervals around the curve of the sea-smoothed walls, or twinkled high on their poles set into the shingle. Vannor paced the beach, alone, anxious, and impatient for the ships’ return. Over the preceding hours his surliness had chased his companions away one by one, until only the stalwart and stubborn Parric had remained. Eventually, even the cavalrymaster had been deterred by his friend’s dour and un-forthcoming attitude, and had gone grumbling off in search of bottle and bed, leaving the merchant to the solitude he had been craving.
On this particular night, Vannor’s hopes and fears were more than enough company for one man. Though he had been endlessly grateful for Parric’s companionship and support over the last few days, the little man’s notions of assisting is friend had involved shadowing the former rebel leader everywhere he went, talking incessantly—and, by his own example, encouraging Vannor to drink more than was good for either of them.
“I know he’s only trying to help,” the merchant muttered to himself, “but sometimes a man needs time to be alone, to think.”
There was certainly a good deal to think about. Zanna’s increasing taste for adventure, for instance—not to mention her growing partiality toward that blond young Nightrunner. Where would it all end? Though Vannor was forced to admit to an increasing liking for the lad, this was not the kind of future he had planned for his beloved daughter! And on a far more serious note, would Zanna even have a future? Would any of them? What would Aurian have in mind when she returned?
Vannor was looking forward to their reunion with a mixture of pleasure and trepidation. On one hand, he had always been remarkably fond of the lass—yet on the other, her return was sure to bring back sorrowful memories of Forral. Parric’s tidings had given Vannor time to grow accustomed to the notion of the Mage’s new attachment to Anvar, whom he had always liked in any case, and the merchant felt a great deal of sympathy with Aurian due to his own experiences of bereavement following the death of his first, beloved wife—and the resurgence, on meeting Sara, of feelings that he had thought were lost forever. Nonetheless, it would seem strange to see her with a lover other than his old friend. Also, though her news of his own faithless wife could cause him nothing but pain, how could he resist asking her about Sara? What was worse, the merchant dreaded the prospect of the Mage’s pity, when she saw how he had been maimed.
With such thoughts to torment him, the eventual arrival of the little smuggler fleet could only bring relief to Vannor. When the sound of shouted orders and the echoing creak and splash of oars finally reached him, he turned toward the shadowy cavern sea gate, the sound of his own racing heartbeat like thunder in his ears.
One by one, the lean gray Nightrunner vessels slipped into the great pool beneath the cliffs. Vannor was utterly oblivious to the crowd who, having been alerted by the sentinel on the cliff, were streaming out through the tunnels onto the beach in order to greet the homecomers. Though Zanna was hailing him from the deck of Tarnal’s craft, he only had eyes for the nearest ship—and the tall, flame-haired figure that stood watchfully in the prow.