'Naturally,' Velindre agreed with suspicious meekness.
Kheda looked warily at her for a moment. 'You had better see to that sail. I want to be well beyond the outer reef before it occurs to Redigal or Ritsem to look for a merchant galley flying their domain's pennant out on the trading beach.'
'Why would they do that?' Velindre went to adjust the ropes at the little boat's mast.
'To make note of every line and plank of this ship,' Kheda said succinctly. 'So they'll know you the next time they pass you on the sea lanes. And they'll be looking for you, make no mistake.'
'With the intention that I'd enjoy their hospitality until I'd given up everything I knew or suspected about where you might have gone?' Velindre suggested flippantly. 'Along with anything that might possibly explain this aberration of yours?'
'Just be grateful Ulla Safar isn't still here.' Kheda scowled. 'You wouldn't expect to escape him without being tortured to give up your secrets.'
'I heard enough tales about Safar on my travels.' Velindre shivered as she looked around the lagoon. 'Just let that oar trail in the water.'
Kheda felt the deck shudder beneath his feet. 'Magic?'
'None that anyone will notice,' Velindre assured him. 'I know better than that.'
'Just what have you learned about Aldabreshin attitudes to magic, after sailing the Archipelago for half a year?' The oar thrummed in his hands and Kheda realised
that a discreetly cooperative current was sweeping them towards the closest break in the outer reef.
'That largely theoretical prejudices have flowered into active hatred of all wizardry, thanks to the arrival of those wild men and the cruelty of their onslaught.' Velindre looked at the triangular sail and it bellied obediently with just enough wind to carry the Reteul forward. 'Which gives me reasons of my own to want to put an end to their predations.'
'And what would those be?' Kheda slid a sideways glance at her.
You sound as if you were born in these waters and even if you don't look like the rest of us, you 're convincing enough as azamorin slave of barbarian blood. But you 're more different from me and mine than even the most barbarous pale-skinned northerner from those unbroken lands. I mustn 't forget that.
She surprised him with her candid answer. 'I like the Archipelago, Kheda. Each domain has a fascinating history and poems and legends as elegant and sophisticated as the most accomplished mainland literature. I've met all manner of wise and friendly people, from highest rank to none. I'd like to be able to sail these waters without hiding who and what I am. I wish I could counter fable with some truths about us wizards from the north,' she added wryly. 'We mages of Hadrumal are nowhere near as numerous and as all-powerful as Aldabreshin tales make us out to be. We keep to ourselves much of the time, mostly debating how to win the respect due to our powers without striking such fear into the mundane populace that they turn on anyone suspected of magebirth. There's no hope of persuading you Archipelagans of the reality of wizardry if those wild mages reappear with all their vile abuses of magic. Come to that, if tales of the invasions here and of
dragons overflying these islands reach the mainland, I can see life for some of my associates there becoming far more uncertain.'
'How many wizards are there in the north?' Kheda wondered, not for the first time.
'Magebirth isn't that common.' Oblivious to his curious gaze, Velindre watched the foam framing their path through the outer reef. 'Think about those savages that invaded. Every wizard was backed by several hundred men without any magic within them. Those men must have had wives and mothers and sisters, and then you can count in the men too old to fight as well as children at their mother's knee.' She grinned with an irritating superiority. 'I don't think we need worry about finding wild wizards standing shoulder to shoulder on this unknown island.'
'I wouldn't bother counting the old and infirm.' Kheda raised his voice as they passed through waters noisy with surf. 'They get fed to the dragon.'
'Which is an obscenity every northern wizard would abhor,' Velindre said with sudden loathing. 'I've read enough Aldabreshin philosophy on my travels to know that your sages condemn the abuse of power, from warlords down to some swaggering bully of a village spokesman. We wizards of Hadrumal condemn the abuse of magical power just as thoroughly.'
'Condemning it is one thing.' Kheda hauled up the stern oar and stowed it by the side rail. 'Doing something about it is quite another. The philosophers are eloquent on that subject.'
'Which is why we should both want to see just what we're dealing with out in that savage land.' Velindre narrowed her eyes as the ship surged forward on the open sea, a strong wind filling the sail with scant need for magic. 'You have to come with us, Kheda. You've done the most
difficult bit — getting away from Chazen. You can't waste this opportunity.'
'We'll discuss it when I see that Risala is safe and well.' Kheda watched the Brittle Crab turn on her station around the arc of the reef. The fast trireme looked expectant, oars poised and projecting either side of the brass-sheathed beak of her ram. He held his breath but no signal horn sounded from the inner islands to set the vessel pursuing them.
Velindre turned to him with a question of her own. 'What's so ill-omened about this burned island where she insisted we hide up?'
'It's where Chazen Saril's younger brothers were kept after being blinded and made zamorin on his accession.' Kheda didn't like the distaste he saw on the magewoman's face. 'It's also where I first encountered those wild men and their wizards, when I brought Daish triremes and swordsmen down to see why Chazen ships were fleeing into our waters with tales of fire and mayhem in the night. I went there with Chazen Saril.' He tensed at the recollection and his voice turned accusing despite himself. 'We were attacked by monsters. Magic twisted lizards and birds and the crabs on the shore into abominations that ripped my men to pieces.'
It's also where we laid Chazen Saril's putrid corpse when we brought it back in shame and secrecy from Daish, on the darkest night in the five-year cycle of the heavenly compass. None of this is omen or portent. You just realised it was the safest place to hide this wizard Velindre wished on you, didn't you, Risala? Because no Chazen islander would dare set foot there or even sail close enough inshore to see who might be anchored there.
'I recall Dev saying you destroyed the monsters by setting the whole island alight?' Velindre queried.
'Fire is the ultimate purification,' Kheda confirmed shortly.
'I don't know how your philosophers are squaring that with that dragon blasting Chazen with flaming breath last year,' the magewoman mused with sly provocation. 'A crude measure, but still, I gather it was effective. I imagine you weren't facing the most powerful wizards in that invasion, if they couldn't quench the flames.'
'I have no idea.' Kheda looked ahead to the white-rimmed lumps of indistinct green dotting the horizon.
Will I find you convinced you 've seen some omens on that wretched isle, Risala? Will you be hoping I will see something to restore my belief in such guidance? You're the only one who knows I laid Chazen Saril in the blackened ruins of the pavilion where his brothers had been imprisoned. Did I still half-believe such an act might have a power to influence the days to come? I know you did. But my disillusion with portent and prophecy runs deeper than ever nowadays.
The only other person who knew where we laid Chazen Saril was Dev, and Dev's dead. He was powerful enough to fight the strongest of the wild wizards who came to plague us and he nearly died of it. He tried to turn his magic against the fire dragon and that was truly the death of him. How powerful are these wizards of this unknown isle? How many of them might there be? fust how strong is Velindre, or this new wizard that she's brought with her? Are they equal to whatever perils might lurk on this mysterious island? Can I risk finding out that they are not and dying for their arrogance? What will become of ltrac and the babies?