So Dev had been wrong when he taunted me about being sold to the wizards. This was far worse; my honor was being held before me as a challenge. I stifled a disloyal anger toward Messire, that he would lay such a burden on me with no certainty of its weight or the length of the journey he was sending me on. Then I remembered the vision of the Elietimm flaunting the Emperor’s head on a pike and sighed heavily.
“I hope you are not going to prove Messire D’Olbriot’s word false, when he gave me his personal assurance of your co-operation and good faith, Ryshad,” said Planir crisply as he spread a yellowing chart over his highly polished table, anchoring its corners with books, an empty goblet and a random lump of rust-colored stone. “Tell me about your dreams before you were separated from Shiv, all of them, especially the night you were attacked.”
I crushed Messire’s letter in my hand, fixing my eyes on a distant weathervane and began my report, as detailed and dispassionate as any I had ever given Messire. Shiv motioned to me to slow down a little; as he took rapid notes, I remembered the time I had been sent to find the truth of a massacre of camp followers on the Lescari border where it abuts D’Olbriot lands. That hadn’t been a pleasant task, but it had to be done, and I had drawn the reversed rune. A sworn man had his orders to follow and his oath to protect him—that was the way of things, wasn’t it?
I talked and talked; Planir asked many questions, some so obvious as to be irritating, others obscure in the extreme. I didn’t notice him or Shiv ring for wine and bread, but drank and ate gratefully when sustenance arrived, snatching mouthfuls between answering yet more questions as we went over what had happened a second time.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” Planir was leaning over his chart, measuring something. He threw his rule down and turned on me, eyes bright.
“How do you mean?” I wasn’t about to give him a touch-by-touch account of my night with Laio, if that was what he was after.
“The dreams, Ryshad, the dreams,” said Planir softly. “Tell me about the waking dreams.”
I took a deep breath but could not bring myself to answer, not wanting to discuss the echoing sensations that kept trying to pick their way out of the back of my mind of late, if I ever let my guard slip.
“You see, I can help you with that.” Planir lifted a book from a neat pile on the window ledge. “We’ve recovered an ancient archive from a shrine sacred to Arimelin and learned a great deal about the dream lore of the ancients. We have a way to close your waking mind, to let us reach those dreams and learn all we want directly. Once we wake you from the trance the dreams will be gone, and we won’t need to make anymore demands on you. You will be free to go and you won’t be troubled any longer by dreams or visions.”
That was an offer so tempting there just had to be a hook in it somewhere, especially with the Archmage on the other end of the line.
“Just what exactly would you hope to learn?” I asked, puzzled. “I’ve told you everything I can remember and to be frank, none of that has seemed especially important. Anyway, the venture failed, didn’t it?”
“It was certainly lost, that’s true, but we still want to locate this colony, not just hear about it. We’re not simply trying to fill in the gaps in the archives to satisfy the scholars.” Planir poured himself some wine and offered a glass to Shiv, who closed his inkwell and folded up his notes. “If we are to counter the Elietimm threat, we need to know more about this aetheric magic, these powers the Ancients called Artifice. From what you have already told us, it’s clear people were being trained in these skills at this colony. There might be records, archives, even training regimes and instructions possibly.”
“Keep your coin to buy a pie!” I scoffed. “When was this? Twenty-six generations past? Anything they left will be rotted to dust and dirt by now!”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Planir was unbothered by my unrestrained scorn. “We can do much with air and fire, the sympathies of earth and water, to restore even the most damaged and stained parchments. Don’t forget the resources I have to call on, Ryshad: the finest minds of wizardry are to be found in Hadrumal. Anyway, finding nothing is a risk I’m prepared to take. You, on the other hand, would find yourself central to finding a lost land of considerable resources. I know full well your patron has already spent a great deal of coin and effort tracing every reference and record concerning Den Fellaemion’s expedition and would dearly love to reclaim that colony for the D’Olbriot name. Performing a service like that would go far to raising you to chosen man, wouldn’t it?”
There were a whole string of hooks nicely baited on this lure, weren’t there? No, for a man reputed to be someone you wouldn’t play at Raven for a bet, the Archmage was being about as subtle as a farmer tethering a mare in season to fetch a wild stallion into stud. Did he think I was stupid?
“You’ve done this? With other people you’ve foisted these artifacts on?”
“It’s not without its risks,” Shiv spoke up from his corner, his face somber. “We’ve been unable to rouse one girl from her sleeping state.”
“There’s no denying it can be perilous,” agreed Planir gravely. “I blame myself. We undertook the experiment with her before we had recovered the archive and had all the information we needed. Obviously you’ll need to think very carefully before any such undertaking, though, of course, since you say young D’Alsennin had some initial training in aetheric magic, it might be that we find some clue to restoring the poor girl to her wits.”
So if temptation didn’t bring me into his hands, the Archmage wasn’t going to leave me with a way out that didn’t make me feel lower than a louse’s stones, was he? I shook my head as I drained my glass and the eighth chime of the day rang out across the city, startling a bevy of mottled fowl from the leaded roof opposite Planir’s tower. After my time in the Archipelago, it was an incongruously familiar sound, especially in these unnerving surroundings.
“You need time to think about it.” Planir took a gown from a hook on the back of his door and pulled it over his simple shirt and breeches. I have to admit the transformation set me back on my heels a little. It was not a gaudy robe, neatly cut of matte black silk, but the close collar lifted Planir’s chin to give him an imperious gaze. The breadth of his shoulders was more apparent beneath square tailored cloth than soft linen, and as he strode from the room the fabric swept around him like half-bated wings, his questing face hawklike in its intensity.
I looked at Shiv. “Planir wouldn’t get very far in a Convocation of princes, if that’s his idea of sweet-talking someone.”
“You can stick all the roses you want in a pile of horseshit, it’ll still stink,” shrugged Shiv. “Planir knows you’ve been around the provinces, Rysh. Trust me, you should take plain speaking from the Archmage as a compliment. Come on.”
Shiv picked up my bag and his tone carried something more like the friendship I had first looked for, which weakened my defenses more effectively than any of the Archmage’s sallies. I followed him down the stairs and out into the court where the stone buildings overhung me on every side, oppressive and confining, the shadows dark and chill. A woman crossed the court, her eyes turning toward me, and two youths coming out of a doorway halted their conversation to stare for a moment before hurrying away. For a city built so close to the water, there was precious little scent of the sea in Hadrumal and I felt the dust of dry and ancient stone catch in my throat.