Northern Storm

Chapter Fifteen

Sitting in a high-backed chair upholstered with painstaking needlepoint, Velindre allowed herself a moment to enjoy the warm sunshine pouring through the unshuttered window. Then she opened the crisp new almanac lying in the lap of her lavender gown and ticked off the twenty-ninth day of Aft-Spring. Carefully setting her pen down on the octagonal table at her elbow, she blew the ink dry and then closed the book. Her thin lips narrowed to invisibility. Thirty days here and still no closer to a decision. She gazed out at the paved square beyond her window, its enclosed garden watered by a glittering central fountain. The sweeper was about his leisurely business brushing the flagstones free of dust, at the same time showing broad shoulders to keep the square free of Relshaz’s hopeful indigents. A nursemaid in yellow livery shooed a gaggle of excited children out of one of the genteel houses with whitewashed walls and ruddy earthen-tiled roofs. As they rushed towards the circumscribed freedom of the central garden, some nameless youth pushing a handcart paused to talk to the nursemaid. After a glance up at the blind windows, the girl slipped something into his hand before hunying after her charges. One of the two little girls was denouncing her bolder brother as he swung on the green-painted rails, hands on her diminutive hips.

Velindre lost interest in the pedestrian byplay, looking up at the scudding clouds dotting the clear blue sky. There was little enough power to tempt her. Relshaz was too far south to find the lofty ribbon of air she had pulled down over Azazir’s lake, and too far north to find its counterpart that raced high across Hadrumal. All was as yet untroubled by the thunderstorms sweeping in off the gulf to break over Lescar and Caladhria, as the wide inland plains threw off the summer’s heat. Far beyond the horizon, she could sense the long reach of Toremal cradling the broad gulf, its mountains denying passage to the turbulent winds of the open ocean.

There was little enough power but there was still sufficient to tempt her. Sweat prickled beneath her shoulder blades and under her breasts despite the moderate temperature of the room. With her newfound skills she might be able to summon the dragon once more, even with such dissipated breezes in these placid skies.

Another dragon, she corrected herself savagely. The first one was dead at the hands of Azazir’s simulacrum. And it was no true dragon, merely a creature of magical contrivance and convenience. But it had been a creature all the same that had delighted in the soaring element that so thrilled her. A creature condemned to fade and die before it had barely begun to comprehend where it was or what it was. Unless she threw it into a brutal fight to the death against some other wizard’s equally enslaved magic.

Sweat beaded her forehead as she felt suddenly nauseous. Getting carefully to her feet, she crossed to a sideboard and poured herself a glass of wine. She was standing, motionless, holding the wine undrunk when a knock at the door startled her into spilling it all over the prettily embroidered linen draping the polished wood.

‘You have a visitor, my dear.’ The amiable widow who was renting her these two comfortable rooms beamed as she opened the door. ‘You said you had no acquaintance in Relshaz,’ she chided.

‘I don’t,’ Velindre said curtly as she moved to hide the spilled wine from view.

‘Well, dear, she says she’s a friend of yours.’ The widow’s smile faltered and she brushed at the frivolous lace hanging from turtleshell combs supporting her complicated coiffure. ‘She says she’s Madam Esterlin. Shall I show her up?’

No need,’ laughed a genial voice from the hallway. ‘Velindre, my dear, no wonder you stay so slender, climbing all these stairs day in and day out.’ A generously proportioned woman in an elegant gown of jade silk appeared in the doorway, fanning herself with a silver-mounted spread of vivid green feathers. The widow bridled as the visitor sailed past her into the room. ‘I’ll leave you to your conversation.’

‘Thank you.’ Velindre managed a brief nod for her landlady. The widow shut the door with a force that spoke of her indignation.

The newcomer grimaced as she deposited a light wool wrap and her fan on an old-fashioned satinwood side table. ‘I don’t think she’ll be bringing us wine and honey wafers.’

‘Probably not.’ Velindre folded her arms. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Mellitha.’

‘Unexpected, that much I’ll grant you.’ The newcomer’s laugh had a harder edge now that the door was shut behind her. Her shrewd grey eyes took in every detail of the room, lingering on the table by the lustre-tiled fireplace where twenty or more leather-bound books were organised in precise piles. A thick sheaf of notes on expensive reed paper was set squarely between them. T was surprised to learn you’d been in the city for nearly half a season without calling on me.’ She looked at Velindre, her plump face expectant.

‘You’re curious to know what I’m reading?’ Velindre crossed the room in long strides to pick up the topmost book. ‘Lawsenna on the history of Southern Toremal and-’ she lifted the volume beneath ‘-Den Jaromire on the beasts and birds of the Cape of Winds.’

‘You’ve sailed the Tormalin ocean coasts extensively.’ Mellitha nodded with apparent understanding. ‘Though I’m curious as to why my book merchant mentioned you’ve been buying everything and anything he can find on the nature and lore of dragons.’

Velindre replaced the books carefully. ‘I’m hardly your pupil to explain myself to you. Still,’ she continued, to forestall the words on the other woman’s lips, ‘I was Otrick’s pupil, as you well know. It’s not so remarkable that I’d be retracing his steps in my reading.’

No, but I know full well you did that ten years ago and more. He told me as much himself Mellitha crossed the room in a rustle of lace-trimmed petticoats and sat in the chair matching the one Velindre had vacated. ‘Since we’re being so frank with each other,’ she went on with distinct sarcasm, ‘it’s not so much what you’re reading that piques my interest as where you’re reading it. I’m surprised to find you away from Hadrumal.’

‘One can learn many things beyond Hadrumal’s shores,’ Velindre responded smoothly. ‘Otrick taught me that.’

‘I would have thought Otrick taught you how to pour a fine wine without spilling it.’ Mellitha leaned back in her chair to look at the stained cloth behind Velindre. The sunlight picked out the silver thick in her chestnut hair. Did he teach you how to rise above disappointed hopes?’

Velindre smiled coldly. ‘You can reassure Flood Mistress Troanna or Archmage Planir, or whoever it is you’re reporting to, that I’m not sitting here weeping over my shattered dreams.’

‘I imagined Rafrid’s elevation would still be a sensitive subject.’ Mellitha waved an airy hand bejewelled with rings. ‘You misunderstand me. I’m not here on anyone’s behalf. Oh, when Planir’s curious about something in this ant hill, I’ll kick over a few stones if it suits me to find out more, but that’s seldom called for. I have plenty of things to occupy my time, far more interesting things than reading inferior copies of books I found tedious the first time around in Hadrumal. Which is why I’m curious to see you reading them.’

Velindre found her nausea retreating. ‘These things that occupy you, they’re matters of magic?’ she queried.

‘Relshaz has little or no interest in magic’ Mellitha chuckled. ‘And the games around the magistracies here make the scrambling for the high seats on Hadrumal’s Council look very tame.’

‘I’ve no doubt,’ Velindre said distantly.

‘I came to see if Otrick or anyone else had ever let you consider opportunities beyond Hadrumal for a woman of your intelligence and affinity.’ Mellitha looked out of the window at the serene square. ‘I’ve lived more than half my life here. I’ve made a handsome fortune, satisfied my own desires as I’ve seen fit and raised four happy, healthy children, all grown and gone now, leading their own lives as they see fit, mageborn or not.’

‘I don’t think I’m cut out to wheedle contracts to gather taxes out of a council of venal magistrates.’ Velindre smoothed her skirts as she returned to her seat.

No, I don’t think you are.’ Mellitha rested her chin in her hand, studying Velindre. ‘I think you intended to head back to Hadrumal with some startling discovery spun from Otrick’s wilder speculations, to make Planir and all the rest regret not raising you to Cloud Mistress. I think you’ve stumbled on something you didn’t expect. You’re certainly hiding from someone. Or should that be everyone? Why do you think I’ve gone to all this trouble of visiting you in person? Because I couldn’t raise you through any kind of spell, and even if I don’t play Hadrumal’s games, you can rest assured there’s no one there who’s my equal in scrying.’ Velindre couldn’t help her glance towards the closed door of her bedchamber, where the mirror was shrouded with a heavy shawl and both ewer and basin stood dry and empty.

‘You’re not looking well, Velindre,’ Mellitha continued after a few moments’ tense silence. ‘You were always thin, but now you look positively gaunt and that’s not flattering for a woman past the first flush of youth.’ Velindre still said nothing.

Mellitha stood up and fished in the mesh purse hanging from the plaited silk girdling her well-cut gown. ‘Come and see me if you feel like confiding in me. I’ll tell my servants I’ll always be at home to you.’ She laid a folded and sealed piece of deckle-edged paper on the wine table beside her chair. ‘Or just come to dinner, if you don’t want to talk.’ She gathered up her wrap and fan as she sailed blithely to the door. ‘I’ll give you one piece of advice to be going on with. I used to tell my four children, if you skin your knee, don’t pick at the grazes. It’ll take all the longer to heal. The same is true of wounded pride.’

‘If I talk to you . . Velindre forced the words out. ‘Will you keep my confidences?’

‘Yes.’ Mellitha stood motionless, one hand on the door handle. ‘I told you, I don’t play Hadrumal’s games.’

‘I have to talk to someone.’ Now that she had started, Velindre regretted it. At the same time, she wondered if she would be able to stop. ‘To someone mageborn, someone who might just possibly understand. Or I’ll go mad.’

‘We wouldn’t want that, my dear.’ Mellitha walked swiftly back to her chair.

‘Did you ever know Azazir?’ Velindre stared out of the window at the alluring blue sky. ‘Only by reputation,’ said Mellitha cautiously. ‘They say he’s mad.’

‘That doesn’t equal the half of it.’ Velindre shivered even though she was sweating again. ‘He’s gone beyond madness. He’s lost himself utterly in his element.’

‘It happens.’ Mellitha’s voice was cold. ‘I take it you’ve seen him?’

Velindre nodded jerkily.

‘Do you think you might be going down the same path?’ Mellitha asked softly.

Startled, Velindre looked at her. ‘No.’

‘Good.’ Mellitha’s grey eyes were steely. ‘Because that’s not something I could keep from Hadrumal. Anything less than that. . .’ She shrugged. ‘That’s no business of anyone else’s.’

Not entirely reassured, Velindre looked back out of the window. ‘Azazir knew how to summon dragons, did you know that?’

‘Him and Otrick both.’ Mellitha nodded. ‘Is that what you’re planning on astounding the Council with?’

‘I had some such notion,’ Velindre admitted, running a shaking hand over her mercilessly braided hair. ‘Have you any idea how they do it?’

Mellitha shook her head. ‘I was never that curious to raise some creature that might bite my head off.’

‘I know how,’ Velindre said simply ‘And now I wish I didn’t. Only I went to find out to help someone else. If I don’t tell him, he’ll most likely die as a result. But he could well end up dead if I do.’ The words rasped in her dry throat

Mellitha rose and fetched them both a glass of wine. Who are we talking about?’

‘Dev.’ Velindre sipped at the wine and felt it strengthen her. Did you ever meet him?’

‘More than once.’ Mellitha chuckled. ‘He’s another one who was never born for Hadrumal, never mind his wizardry.’

‘He’s down in the far south of the Archipelago.’Velindre swallowed another mouthful of wine. ‘He’s been helping a warlord fight some wild wizards who appeared out of the southern ocean last year. He thought they were all dead but this year a dragon’s appeared, so presumably there’s at least one left’

‘Or one’s recently arrived from wherever the first contingent came from?’ Mellitha raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows.

‘Either way, Dev wanted to know how to summon a dragon of his own.’ Velindre fell silent again. ‘To attack the interloper?’ Mellitha prompted. ‘Like those old tales of the dragon hunters around the Cape of

Winds?’

‘He has no idea what he’s asking for.’ Velindre drained her glass.

‘Fire to fight fire, presumably.’ Mellitha looked intently at her.

‘Literally, as it happens.’ Velindre found she couldn’t smile at the jest. ‘Which would give him two things,’ she continued with brisk dispassion. ‘Firstly, access to far more power than he could ever imagine, and I don’t know how well you know Dev, but I certainly wouldn’t trust him with that. He could easily find himself slipping down the same road to Azazir’s obsession. Because a dragon’s aura is fascinating beyond belief, Mellitha. You can see all the things that have always been just beyond the reach of your wizardry and you think you could finally grasp them if you just reached out a little further. And when you find you can’t, you tell yourself it doesn’t matter because you’ll manage to do it next time and anyway, the power you’re feeling now is the purest and sweetest you’ve ever known.’

Her words slowed. ‘Have you ever had a lover who brought you such bliss that all you wanted was to feel his hands on you, that every moment you were apart felt wasted, even when you were well past the first flush of passion?’

‘Just the once,’ Mellitha said dryly.

Velindre looked at her. ‘And you realised eventually that however good the loving, there is more to life than ecstasy in bed?’

‘Eventually.’ Mellitha dimpled, her youth momentarily returning in her eyes. ‘Then I decided the best trick was having the ecstasy and the rest to go with it.’

‘Absolutely.’ Velindre laughed despite herself. ‘And once you’ve had that, you’re not inclined to settle for anything less thereafter.’

‘Quite.’ Mellitha looked at her quizzically. ‘But what has your life with Otrick or mine with whoever else got to do with dragons?’

Velindre’s smile faded. ‘It’s hard to think of anything more desirable than the elemental thrill of a dragon’s aura. You spend your days thinking of all the reasons why you should summon one up—for the good of wizardry, for the better education of the mundane populace. To drive untamed wizardry out of the southern Archipelago.’

‘And Dev did always have a taste for white brandy and dream smokes,’ said Mellitha thoughtfully. You said there was a second thing he’d gain, besides a dangerous new obsession.’

‘He’d get a dragon.’ Velindre pressed her hands to her face as she struggled for words. ‘I don’t mean the magical aura, I mean the beast itself. It’s pure element, Mellitha, shaped and bound with magecraft, and it’s an innocent. Yes, it’s dangerous beyond reason, and I certainly don’t trust Dev with something like that to do his bidding—always assuming he could bend it to his will—but there’s no malice in it. It’s a creature of instinct and all its instincts are mageborn. It revolts me, the thought of creating such a creature to fight like a pit dog, suffering pain and death, never even knowing why it’s there. It’s a perversion of all that’s good and honourable in magecraft,’ she concluded bitterly. ‘And I’m talking like some dewy-eyed fool of an apprentice, I know, and I should know better.’

‘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—’

Velindre would have stepped around him but the flagway was too crowded. ‘Get out of my way,’ she said coldly.

The pedlar’s cheeky grin widened now that she had been forced to acknowledge him. ‘Such gorgeous golden hair you have, my lady. Northern blood makes for such beauties—’

‘My forebears may have had northern blood, I neither know nor care.’ Velindre fixed him with a forbidding glare. ‘I am from Hadrumal and if you don’t let me pass, I’ll curdle every jar of unguent and snake oil that you possess.’

Mouth slack with shock, the pedlar pressed himself back against a sweetmeat seller’s handcart. Velindre pushed past to leave the two men arguing as the throng closed behind her. Seeing several women with entourages of maids and children pausing for mutual consultation and effectively blocking the flagway ahead, Velindre glanced at an urchin clutching a broom and ready to sweep a crossing in exchange for some copper. She reconsidered as a heavy dray rumbled past, barrels clunking together as the horses checked, their path obstructed by a carriage slowing to find an indistinct side alley. It would be quicker to force a path between the indignant women than to wait for a gap in the traffic.

She pressed on until she had left the thriving mercantile heart of Relshaz. Now she had reached a quieter quarter where windowless warehouses rose high on each side of the narrow lanes. Waggoners bringing their creaking carts to be emptied or lashing their reluctant horses to pull a new load slowed to look at the unaccompanied magewoman with open curiosity. ‘What are you looking for, blondie?”Are you lost? I’ll trade you a ride for a ride, sweetheart.’

‘What’s a handsome piece like you doing in these parts?’ Velindre ignored honest concern and ribald jocularity alike. Taking a cross street and then cutting through a short entry, she emerged on to a broad dockside solidly built of pale stone. There were precious few Relshazri to be seen here. The storehouses were guarded by dark-skinned men in gleaming mail, expressionless behind their all-concealing beards. Each one carried more swords and daggers at his brass-studded belt than he had hands to use. Shutters above stood wide open, women in flowing gowns of brilliant silks sitting on the shallow windowsills. They sipped from sparkling glass goblets as they looked down at dutiful slaves carrying bales of linen cloth and nameless barrels. Their laughter rang out across the unintelligible harshness of orders and rebukes shouted hither and thither.

Velindre looked at the great swollen-bellied galleys bobbing gently, safe within the embrace of the massive breakwaters that reached far out into the open waters of the gulf. She had always known that all the goods of these civilised countries were brought down to Relshaz by the rivers and roads that threaded through the vast hinterland. It was another thing entirely to see the countless quantities of cargo waiting to be taken aboard the ships. She had never seen any need to visit the docks when she’d been in Relshaz before. She had never caught more than a glimpse of the Aldabreshi who set aside their lethal quarrels and fragmented alliances alike for the opportunity of trading the goods of the Archipelago for the mainland’s bounty. It was a trifle unnerving to see armoured slaves carrying iron-bound chests behind Aldabreshin men on their way to repay some Relshazri merchant’s generosity. Masters and slaves alike wore vivid jewels set in gold and silver around their necks and wrists in ostentatious token of the rewards of such trade.

One such Aldabreshin merchant paused to stare openly at Velindre, with her golden hair and pale, unpainted face. Her plain-cut lavender gown was certainly unlike the calculatedly seductive dresses of the decorated Arch-ipelagan women. The tnagewoman ignored him, walking along the dock for a better view of the lean, predatory triremes tied up further around the sweep of the seawall. Dev had said it would be a fast trireme from the Chazen domain. Perhaps Mellitha could help her identify it discreetly.

A hand caught her arm just above the elbow. ‘You would be Velindre,’ a soft female voice said in fluent if strongly accented Tormalin.

Velindre found a thin-faced Aldabreshin girl half her age at her side, her head barely reaching the wizard’s shoulder. She wore a plain straight dress of cotton as blue as her piercing eyes. Her straight black hair barely brushed her shoulders, unlike the flowing tresses of the other women on the quayside.

‘I saw you, with Dev’s warlord.’ Velindre tried to free her arm but the girl was stronger than she looked. Her bony fingers held firm, unyielding.

‘My name is Risala.’ She retreated, pulling Velindre with her. ‘Over there.’ Now the girl was pushing her forward, towards a dark doorway.

‘I don’t think so.’ Velindre stood firm, catching up a passing breeze to bolster her resistance. She saw that a crescent dagger had appeared in the girl’s hand. ‘You’: threatening me? Have you any idea what I could do to you?’

‘I’m protecting you,’ the girl retorted. ‘Or at least I’ll try to, till both of us are cut to pieces. Work any magic on this wharf and there will be bloodshed. Do you know nothing about the Archipelago?’

‘We’re not in the Archipelago.’ Velindre wrenched her arm free. ‘This is Relshaz.’

Do you think the Relshazri will deny themselves Aldabreshin gems and hardwoods and all the infinite craftsmanship of a myriad domains because some swordsman couldn’t restrain his revulsion at seeing a wizard threatening our ships with sorcery?’ asked Risala sarcastically. She looked warily around. ‘Come. We need to talk before you join the ship.’

Velindre narrowed her eyes. ‘We need to talk about whether or not I’m joining your ship.’

Risala opened her mouth on a question before changing her mind and urging Velindre towards the dark doorway once more.

The wizard yielded and curbed a rebellious impulse to flood the shadowy room with magelight as she entered. ‘What is this place?’ she asked instead.

Risala replaced her dagger in the sheath hanging beside a small purse on her plaited lizardskin belt. She fumbled for a spark-maker in the leather bag and lit the wick of a shallow cup-shaped lamp. The soft golden light revealed a cloth-covered table set with a fine Aldabreshin ewer and goblets in beaten bronze. ‘Please, sit down.’ She gestured towards a low stool before crossing the darkness to lock the door behind them. ‘This is a warehouse belonging to an ally of my master. He knew it would be empty, so he is allowing us to use it.’

‘Your master? ‘Velindre sat down warily. ‘You’re Chazen Kheda’s slave?’

Risala’s laugh surprised her. ‘Slave? No, I’m a free islander and not even Chazen born.’

‘But he’s your master nevertheless?’ Velindre looked around the blackness of the windowless, cavernous room. ‘Calling yourself “free” sounds like making a distinction without a difference.’

Risala poured pale golden liquid from the ewer. ‘I thought it was all agreed that you would join us.’

‘I need to speak with Dev before I go aboard your ship.’ Velindre sipped from her goblet to cover her hesitation. ‘Things have turned out to be a little more complicated than I expected.’ She wiped a drop of the sweet wine from the corner of her mouth.

‘You do know how to defeat the dragon?’ Risala demanded.

‘Yes,’ said Velindre slowly, but I need to know more before I agree to try, or even agree to share that knowledge. These are things I must discuss with Dev.’

‘What things?’ Risala held the ewer tightly between her hands.

‘Mage concerns,’ responded Velindre composedly. ‘I have been trying to reach Dev but he seems unwilling or unable to respond to my spells.’ She ignored an uneasy spasm in her belly at the latter notion. ‘I don’t suppose you want me to work the necessary magic here, so I shall return to my lodging and try again. You can wait here, I take it, for a day or so? I’ll let you know where we go from here, both of us, as soon as I have an answer from Dev.’ She drained her goblet to avoid looking at the Aldabreshin girl.

Risala topped up the magewoman’s drink before she could refuse. ‘You’re going back on your word?’

‘It is more complicated than you imagine.’ Velindre found that her throat was dry in the dead, dusty air of the storehouse. That was peculiar—everyone knew Aldabreshin wine was too weak to intoxicate but she would have imagined it would quench a thirst.

‘You do know how to defeat the dragon?’ Risala repeated her question.

‘I’ve discovered a great many things about dragons, which Dev almost certainly does not know.’ Velindre stopped short before continuing, ‘I need to discuss these matters with Dev before we can decide our best course of action.’

‘I thought we were agreed on the only course of action that matters.’ The girl set her own goblet down beside a twist of oiled silk and turned a silver and emerald ring around her finger. ‘We must rid Chazen of the dragon.’

‘That may be easier said than done—’ Velindre broke off as a wave of dizziness swept over her. ‘You don’t understand ...’ Further words clogged in her throat, her tongue thick and awkward. Darkness rushed in from every side, closing around the little lamp’s flame. Velindre stared at the golden point of light, her jaw slack. She didn’t even feel the spittle sliding down her nerveless face as she fell sideways off the stool and the blackness claimed her. The last thing she heard was the treacherous Risala shouting something in incomprehensible Aldabreshin.