Dhiammara

4 The Silence

The Sword of Flame spun away clattering over smooth white stone. The blackened Chalice of Rebirth fell ringing to the floor, rolled in a circle on its rim, and came to a trembling halt. Eliseth stumbled forward and fell to her knees, downed by her own unexpected momentum and by a sickening swirl of disorientation as reality wrenched itself back onto its normal course. She touched the paving beneath her and bit back a shriek as pain exploded through blackened, blistered hands that had been burned by the Sword, following her theft of the Artifact from Aurian. Instinctively, the Magewoman concentrated her powers to block the pain. Further healing could wait—at the moment it was the least of her concerns.

When had it come to be night? As her vision gradually cleared and the whirling in her head steadied, Eliseth looked about her, expecting to see the same Valley that she had left—only moments ago, it seemed. Instead she saw a low, white wall sculpted in the familiar, nacreous marble that still, despite the surrounding darkness, held its own faint glimmer. The Weather-Mage, amazed and disbelieving, pulled herself unsteadily to her feet and looked over the low parapet. Nexis lay sprawled in the valley below, and she could discern the dark, swelling humps of the hills beyond, black against the cloudy sky.—Even to a Mage’s night vision, Nexis looked different somehow—the contours of its streets and buildings seemed subtly altered from the shapes she remembered—but Eliseth gave the matter little thought as her heart leapt with joy at the sight of the city. She uttered a soft, triumphant cry of relief. By some miracle, the grail had returned her to the Academy and placed her on the flat roof that topped the Mages’ Tower. Though she did not look to any gods, it seemed that this time her unvoiced prayers had been answered. Not only had she survived her horrifying fall through the rent in reality—but she was safely home.

The Weather-Mage, shivering a little in the cool breeze and still very shaky from the shock of her recent experience, leaned against the parapet in the silken darkness and took deep breaths of blessed, smoke-tinged Nexian air. Her narrow escape from the tumultuous events in the Valley had left her feeling light-headed and inordinately pleased with herself—as though she had been responsible for her own good fortune. Once her plan to defeat Aurian had recoiled with such dramatic and deadly consequences, snatching Eliseth out of the world, survival had been her only concern. She could recall an incandescent blaze of multicolored light—a sensation of being sucked, swirling, into a darkly gleaming vortex. She remembered wishing with a desperate wild yearning to be back at the Academy—but who would have suspected that the Artifacts would take her wish so literally? Clearly, the strength of her own will had saved her.

Her gloating was interrupted by the faintest whisper of sound and a flicker of movement at the very edge of her vision. Eliseth spun round with a startled curse. Behind her, a long, dark form was inching weakly across the roof. A pale hand stretched out, reaching for the precious Sword. Anvar! Eliseth’s breath exhaled in a hiss. In the panic of her fall through time and the subsequent relief at finding herself back in Nexis, the Weather-Mage had forgotten, briefly, that Aurian’s lover had also been drawn into the vortex.—The Magewoman saw Anvar freeze as he realized that he had been discovered. In the shadowed gloom of the rooftop his eyes met hers and for an instant Eliseth saw fear, determination—and the icy steel of implacable loathing. Then with unexpected speed he lurched forward, his outstretched hand snatching desperately at the Sword. Eliseth reacted instantaneously, gathering her powers and lashing them out toward the recumbent form in a coil of smoky blackness laced with threads of searing blue-white light. Anvar jerked once, convulsively, as the spell hit him, pouring over him in a writhing mass of dark vapor webbed with crawling strands of blue. Then he was utterly still, unbreathing, locked away in an instant and stranded outside the stream of time—until Eliseth should choose to bring him back again.

The Weather-Mage laughed aloud in triumph as she walked over to her prey. For a moment she stood there, looking down at him with a sneer. How easy it had been to defeat him! Without Aurian to protect him, the former Academy drudge had soon betrayed his lowly half-Mortal origins. Following the capture of Miathan, taking another Mage out of time had been a simple matter—and one that put Anvar into her power while she decided his future at her leisure. The possibilities of the situation were now beginning to dawn on Eliseth. With her enemy’s paramour enmeshed and isolated within the crawling blue shimmer of the spell, she knew she had some time to ponder the considerable advantage his capture would give her over Aurian—who, judging from her absence, so plainly lacked the courage to follow her so-called love to his fate. But she would turn up eventually—of that, Eliseth was absolutely certain. And when she did .

. . The Weather-Mage smiled coldly. Aurian was a pathetic fool for her softhearted devotion to this half-Mortal scum with his tainted blood! Eliseth knew that she could use Anvar as bait to rid herself of her foe for good.—Without a backward glance, she left her victim where he lay on the cold stone of the roof—isolated as he was in her time spell, he should be safe enough up there—and strode across to the door that led down into the tower. Eliseth’s eyebrows rose in surprise, then drew down in a frown as she tugged at the latch and nothing happened. But this door was never locked! A closer examination showed that the latch was stiff with rust.

“But I was only up here five or six days ago,” the Mage-woman muttered to herself. “How could the wretched thing get into this condition in so short a time?” Reluctant to actually damage the door that kept the weather out of the tower, she stepped back and unleashed several brief, successive bursts of pure force at the recalcitrant latch, until the metal was shaken loose from its coating of corrosion and the bar rattled loosely in its socket. Even with the latch free, however, the door, its swollen panels cracked and weathered to a faded silver, stubbornly resisted Eliseth’s attempts to push it open.—Eventually, as her patience was reaching the breaking point, the door groaned open reluctantly on stiff, rust-caked hinges, allowing her sufficient space to shoulder her way inside. Eliseth leapt backward with an involuntary gasp, as dank, clinging trailers of cobwebs swept across her face. Colliding with the wall, she found it slick and slimy to the touch. “What the bloody blazes?”

With a grimace, she scrubbed her hands against her skirts, then illuminated the stairwell with a bolt of searing lightning.

It was unbelievable. Long after the incandescence had faded back to darkness and the dazzle had left her eyes, Eliseth stood transfixed with shock, unable to accept what she had seen. The clean white stone of the staircase had vanished beneath a thick layer of dust and grime, and it was clear from the lack of footprints that no living soul had passed that way for many a long age. The ceiling was festooned with webs, and the curving walls glistened black with slimy mold. The air within the passage was stale and fetid with neglect and decay.

The Weather-Mage sat down dumbfounded on the top step of the staircase, oblivious of the dirt and the chilly dampness that immediately began to seep through her skirts. How could this have happened? The upper reaches of the Mages’ Tower had clearly not been used in years. But that was impossible—or it ought to be. Eliseth’s mind went back to her terrifying fall through the gap in Creation. Clearly she had passed through space, from the Vale to Nexis.—Had she also traveled through time? And if so, how many years was she adrift?—Had she journeyed to the future or the past?

“Use your brain!” the Magewoman muttered to herself. “It must be the future.—Had I traveled into the past, the Academy wouldn’t be deserted like this.” But how far into the future had she come? Eliseth remembered her uneasy feeling that Nexis had somehow altered from the city she remembered and, scrambling hurriedly to her feet, she left the stairwell and rushed back across the flat rooftop to the low wall that looked out across the undulating landscape of rooftops. In the darkness, however, and from this great height, she could make out no details to help her gauge the passage of time. Though a scattering of lamps glittered on the darkened streets of the city, there were no lights or other signs of life among the Academy buildings, and no soldiers manned the guardroom at the gate. Eliseth might have been the only person alive in all the world. For the first time since she had vanquished Miathan, she felt the cold touch of true fear. Without warning, she had been wrenched away from everything that was familiar and secure. She shivered as an unaccustomed sense of loneliness swept through her.

This was no use! With an effort, the Weather-Mage thrust aside the insidious feelings of fear and desolation that were threatening to swamp her good sense.—Straightening her shoulders, she turned and strode resolutely back toward the tower stairs. As she went, her foot caught on something that rolled away with a metallic rattle and a flash that sent rippling waves of power right across the rooftop. With a start, Eliseth recognized the grail that had been partly responsible for bringing her here. Stooping to pick it up, she stowed it safely in a deep pocket in her robe. The Sword, however, would have to remain where it was for the time being. She knew better now, than to try to handle it. It had already injured her—indeed, she had been lucky to survive her first encounter with the Artifact. Until she could discover a way to master, or at least endure, its wild and lethal powers, it would be no use to her whatsoever.

Eliseth descended the staircase with difficulty. Since she had little skill with Fire-magic, her wispy attempts at Magelight were dim and of short duration. They had an annoying—and dangerous—tendency to flicker into oblivion at the slightest wavering of her concentration, plunging the treacherously slippery steps beneath her feet into utter darkness. She passed by Miathan’s chambers on the upper landing and Aurian’s door on the next floor without a second glance, heading directly for her own rooms—for by this time the Mage felt a desperate need for the reassurance of familiar surroundings. There was little comfort to be found, however, in the decay and ruin that met her eyes as she let herself into her chambers. Her suite was unrecognizable from its former, pristine self.

Eliseth wandered from room to room, recoiling in disgust as her feet sank almost to the ankles into the oozing remains of a rotting carpet: once snowy white, but now grey and stained with black mildew and greenish mold. The discovery of her jewels, still safely locked in their dusty box, cheered her, however. She pocketed them clumsily, wincing and cursing at the stiffness of her burned hands, but her hopes of finding anything else that was salvageable soon withered, for her precious possessions, amassed over many years for their beauty and priceless value, had long ago been lost under a thick blanket of rot and dust. Her numerous clothes, made from rich, luxurious furs and fabrics and carefully stored in closets and chests, had also succumbed to the ravages of time. A thin, cold wind blew in through the broken windows, stirring the shredded rags of curtain that still hung there and adding to the atmosphere of abandonment and dissolution.

This devastation of her quarters was too horrible to contemplate, and Eliseth could not bear to remain and investigate further. Though she had too much pride to break into a run, she turned abruptly on her heel and descended the remainder of the staircase recklessly in darkness, not bothering to waste time on an attempt at Magelight and not pausing until she had reached the door at the bottom, which she blew into splinters with a single lightning bolt.—Stepping carefully over the smoldering debris, she hurried out into the courtyard. Only when she had regained the open air at last did she feel that she could breathe again.

Eliseth’s sense of relief, however, was short-lived. The silence of years weighed down on the Academy like a dense, muffling blanket, adding to the eerie sense of desolation. Memories of treachery and violence thronged about her like the Death-Wraiths that Miathan had once manifested from the grail.—The shivers that ran up her spine were not entirely due to the cold wind that swirled around the Magewoman’s shoulders. “That’s enough of this nonsense!”

she muttered to herself. “Just because you’re tired and hungry, there’s no need to carry on in such a spineless fashion.” After all, she thought, with a grim smile, she had not eaten in years. Suddenly she remembered the food that the Archmage had taken out of time and stockpiled in the storerooms behind the kitchen.

Could it still be there? Hunger lent fresh impetus to her steps as she hurried across the courtyard to find out.

At least there were candles in the kitchen. No longer did Eliseth have to concern herself with the vagaries of Magelight once she had ignited the first wick. As her flame took hold and the amber glow of candlelight swelled to encompass the room, she was startled by the pattering and scuffling of a multitude of small feet. Shadows moved and scattered into corners and under benches as cockroaches and rats, so long the undisputed kings of this domain, scrambled for cover.

The Magewoman wrinkled her nose in disgust, but pressed on undeterred, heading for the storerooms. Any food that had been taken out of time would have escaped the attentions of the scavengers—if the spells still remained in force. In the absence of their creators time spells were a chancy business at best. They often tended to decay—and there seemed no way of predicting how soon or at what rate. It depended on a whole range of factors such as the positions of the sun and moon when the spell was cast, the physical health and the mental state of the summoner, and many other seemingly trivial concerns. That was why Miathan had used the magic of the Caldron to reinforce the time spell that immobilized the Wraiths—and a good thing too, the Magewoman thought with a shudder. The thought of those abominations getting loose while she was in the Academy made her blood run cold—but thankfully, there was no way those particular spells would decay.

Sadly, she was less fortunate where the food was concerned. Miathan had spent too long out of the world, a victim of her magic. In his absence, the time spells had gradually decayed, and the provisions that had not been accessible to the vermin had rotted down into a stinking black sludge that set Eliseth retching. She beat a hasty retreat, mopping at streaming eyes as she stumbled out of the kitchen.

Enough of this! Irritation was fast overcoming the Weather-Mage’s hunger and dismay. Plainly, there was nothing for her here at the Academy. As she searched for alternatives, her mind turned to the Mortals of the city. Down in Nexis there was one person, at least—if he was still alive—who still owed her.—She drew her cloak across her face and set off down the hill from the Academy.—Bern felt the blood drain from his face as he opened the door and saw the Lady Eliseth. His knees sagged, forcing him to cling to the edge of the door for support, and his mouth opened and closed wordlessly as he gasped for breath.—I’m dreaming, he thought. I must be. This is all a dreadful night—I’ll wake up in a minute and she’ll be gone....

The Mage showed no signs of going anywhere. A malicious smile appeared on her flawless face. “What’s wrong, Bern?” she asked him in poisonously sweet tones.

“Why, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“But I ...” The baker managed to find his voice at last. “Lady, I thought you were dead. When you vanished in that flash ... I was sure you’d been killed. We—everyone—thought all the Magefolk were dead.”

Eliseth shrugged. “You were wrong, then.” Without waiting to be invited, she pushed roughly past the baker and swept into the room. Bern followed her on shaky legs. By this time, he had sufficiently gathered his wits to notice the lines of strain and weariness on Eliseth’s face, and the charring and blistering that disfigured her hands. Apart from that, she looked just as she had when last he had seen her. Her silvery hair, normally so smooth and immaculate, was snarled like a crone’s and reeked of woodsmoke as though she had only just come from the burning of the Valley’s trees. Where in the name of the Gods had she been all these years? he wondered. And what had she been doing there?

“Clearly you have profited from the absence of the Mage-folk.” The Weather-Mage was raking the newly refurbished bakery with her eyes. “As I came up the lane, I noticed that you’ve purchased the building next door to expand your premises.” She turned her cold and penetrating gaze full upon him. “I find myself wondering, can all this newfound prosperity be due to the grain that was supplied by me some time ago?”

“Indeed, Lady—I’m a man of some substance now.” Bern saw no point in denying it. He was well aware that she would be taking careful note of all the repairs and additions to his property. Everywhere she looked, there would be signs of his increased affluence, from his rich, expensive clothing to the gleaming new ovens and counters. Against all hope, he prayed that she would not discern the many subtle, decorative touches that could only denote the presence of a woman—but it The Mage raised an eyebrow. “Well, well. And have you been wed, Bern, in my absence? Are congratulations in order?”

“Why, Lady—what makes you say that?” he asked—a shade too quickly.

Just then a voice rang out from the back room. “Who is it, Bern?”

The baker cursed under his breath as a short woman with sleek brown hair scraped tightly back into a knot appeared from the back room. She was well advanced in pregnancy, and two young children, a boy and a girl, peeped shyly at the visitor from behind her skirts. Before the baker could send her back, Eliseth stepped forward and held out a hand to her. “Why, you must be Bern’s wife,” she said brightly. “I’m delighted that he has found such a charming and lovely helpmate—and such sweet little children!”

As Eliseth had deigned to speak to her, Bern had no choice but to introduce his woman. “This is my wife, Alissana,” he mumbled. The woman, plainly flustered, had recognized one of the Magefolk. Bern saw her shudder as she took Eliseth’s hand with its blackened flesh, and noted the terror in her eyes as the Magewoman noticed the children. Alissana tried to curtsy but was unbalanced by the ungainliness of her pregnant body. She would have fallen, dragging the Mage with her, had Eliseth not held them both upright.

“Clumsy bitch!” snapped Bern, and raised his hand threateningly. The woman blanched, her hands moving quickly across her body as if to shield her unborn child. Flinching away from her husband, she scurried into the other room, followed by the younger child, a boy. The other, a girl of about five or six, hovered in the doorway, watching the Magewoman with huge, round eyes.—Eliseth shrugged, and turned back to Bern. “I presume you keep a chamber for guests somewhere on these expanded premises of yours. Show it to me at once, and then I will require a bath and a good, hot meal—and in the morning, your wife can arrange to have some new clothes made for me.”

Bern’s eyes bulged. Oh dear Gods, she couldn’t be wanting to stay! “Why, Lady,” he gasped, “you do us great honor, but.. .”

Striking out like a serpent, the Magewoman gripped his wrist in a blackened claw. “Listen, you despicable little turd—you owe me, and never forget it,”

she snarled, gesturing around the refurbished bakery, to the comfortably appointed living quarters in the room beyond. “Without my gift of that grain, you’d have none of this.”

Despite his fear of her, Bern’s grasping, mercenary nature revolted at such a claim. “Lady, with all respect, you seem to have forgotten that the grain was not a gift but payment, for infiltrating the rebel camp and—”

“And luring them out of their lurking place so that I could deal with them—a task which you singularly failed to accomplish.” There was steel in Eliseth’s voice. “You thieving Mortal scum! Having failed to keep your side of our bargain, how dared you appropriate that grain? You had no right to it whatsoever!”

Bern wrenched himself from her grasp and fell groveling to the floor. “Forgive me, Lady—I didn’t mean to steal your grain,” he wailed. “But what was I to do?—When I got back there was no longer a spell on it, so I thought you must have meant me to have it....”

Belatedly, Eliseth remembered that, in the interests of ridding herself of an irritating distraction, she had dissolved the wardspell that protected the grain once Bern had left for the forest. Frankly, she hadn’t cared at the time whether he profited from the stuff or not—but now it gave her a convenient lever to use on him.

“It would have been a crime to waste that grain . . .” The baker was still whining. “Besides, I thought all the Mages were gone!

“Evidently,” the Mage said flatly. “But you were wrong—and now you must atone for your mistake. Unless, that is, you would prefer your wife and children to pay for it in your stead.” Her voice was as cold and deadly as a steel-jawed trap.

Bern shuddered to think what she might do to his unborn child. Having no other choice, he throttled his anger and subsided in defeat. “Very well, my Lady,” he whispered.

Alissana barely had time to leap back from the door at which she’d been listening as her husband burst into the room.

“The Lady will be staying with us.” Bern spat out the words as though each one tasted vile. “She’s demanding a hot bath and food,” he added with a scowl, “so I’ll stoke up the fire and start the water heating, while you start cooking—and for both our sakes, you’d better make it the best meal you’ve ever produced in your life. Well go on—don’t just stand there gaping, you brainless baggage. Get to the stove, and get busy!”

His wife scurried to obey him, suppressing a chill of trepidation at the thunderous expression on his face. During the years of their marriage, she had become all too well accustomed to her husband’s temper, for he had a tendency to take it out on his family whenever anything went wrong. As she assembled the meal, Alissana fretted. She was a sensible, even-tempered woman who had been well aware of the baker’s failings when she wed him. She had chosen him in any case, however, for in the aftermath of the Magefolk vanishment, he was the only man of any substance among the impoverished laboring folk of Nexis.—She had learned perforce to shield herself and the children from the worst of his rages, and this time she understood his anger, for she shared his anxiety.—It had stunned Alissana to discover that their prosperity had stemmed from some unholy bargain made with the Magefolk in the past. Difficult and sometimes brutal as Bern could be, he represented security and even luxury for herself and her children. Alissana shuddered at the memory of the twisted black claw that the Mage had held out to her, and Eliseth’s ice-cold eyes. The Lady terrified her. Alissana feared for the safety of her children—and now the Mage had accused Bern of stealing.... Her hands trembled as she rolled the pastry for her pie. What if Eliseth should slay him in a fit of pique, or turn him into something unnatural? What would become of his family then?—Grumbling and swearing all the while, Bern was testing the temperature of the water in the big copper that was built into the side of the fireplace. His back was turned toward his wife. Almost of their own accord, Alissana’s eyes went to the metal box with the tight-fitting lid that was placed safely up on a high shelf, out of the children’s way. Rats and mice were a frequent problem in the bakery and recently Bern had gone to the local herbwife and purchased a new batch of poison. Swiftly, Alissana reached up for the box. Bern’s back was still safely turned as she sprinkled the white crystals between the layers of apple in her pie. Before her husband had time to turn around, the deed was done, the box replaced on its shelf, and the crust clapped into place, hiding the results of her deadly handiwork. Only when Alissana came to put the pie into the oven did she notice that her hands had stopped shaking.

Some time later, Eliseth, clean and refreshed now, sat before a blazing fire in what was evidently the best bedchamber in the house. The fact that Bern and his pregnant wife had been forced to give up their room to her caused her not the slightest qualm. It had been most uncomfortable and inconvenient to have no servants around to tend to her needs, but now, for the first time since her precipitate return to Nexis, she was filled with a soothing sense of life returning to its proper course. She savored the thought of the baker staggering up and down the stairs with his buckets to fill—and later empty—her bath. At least Mortals were useful for something!

The Magewoman had been immeasurably relieved to see that, though he had aged, the baker did not seem to be so very many years older than she remembered, and the expression on his face as he’d answered the door had afforded her a good deal of malicious amusement—enough, perhaps, for her to overlook the fact that he had looked anything but pleased to see her.

Now she had found that she was not too far astray in time, Eliseth’s chief concern was the condition of her hands that had been so badly seared by the Sword of Flame. Oh, how she wished that she had bothered to learn more than just the most basic of healing arts from Meiriel. Though she had tried everything at her disposal, all her best efforts could only buy freedom from pain and a certain amount of sensation and flexibility in her clawlike fingers—sufficient to allow her to use her hands again, but not enough for very delicate or complex tasks. The skin remained seared and blackened, and nothing seemed to change that. She had an ominous feeling that nothing ever would. The Weather-Mage bit her lip and swallowed against a tightness in her throat. Demons take the accursed Sword of Flame! What had it done to her?—The arrival of Bern with a tray of food interrupted Eliseth’s brooding. She was surprised to see him, for she had expected that he would find himself above such menial service when there was a woman around to do the work. He had certainly been surly enough about filling her bath. But Alissana might be too frightened to approach a Mage—or, in all probability, Bern was trying to keep his pregnant wife away from her.

As he put the tray down in front of her, Eliseth laid her other worries aside for the moment. “Sit down here, Bern, and keep me company while I eat,” she said. “I want to know exactly what has been happening in the city.”

Little by little, Eliseth extracted a picture of what had taken place in Nexis during her absence. She had, she discovered, been missing for over seven years—easily enough time for the foolish, gullible Mortals to convince themselves that the Magefolk were all safely dead and gone. Nonetheless, it was fear of Miathan’s restless ghost that had kept the Nexians from sacking the Academy—a fact that Eliseth noted with interest. It was difficult to contain her shock and anger, however, when she discovered that the Council of Three had been abolished and that upstart Vannor, of all people, now ruled the city. Since the night she had tried to fuel her magic through the pain of his mangled hand—and he had first defied her, then gone on to escape her grasp entirely—Eliseth’s hatred of the merchant had been virulent, her grudge against him deeply personal. No mere Mortal could make an idiot out of her and go unpunished!

The same went for Vannor’s daughter. The Mage’s supper lost all its savor as she remembered how the little bitch had infiltrated the Academy in the guise of a maidservant and succeeded in worming her way into the position of Eliseth’s personal maid. No one had ever been able to work out just how Zanna had managed to rescue her father and then vanish with him so effectively, but since the girl had been Eliseth’s servant, Miathan had always blamed the Weather-Mage for the escape—completely overlooking the fact that he had been the one who’d entrusted the girl with the prisoner’s care.

Her stomach churning with anger at the thought of Zanna, Eliseth pushed her plate of roast fowl aside. “Do you know what became of Vannor’s daughter?” she asked Bern, trying to keep the sharpness from her voice.

Bern shook his head. “She married. Lady, I think.” He shrugged. “I don’t know where she’s living now—it’s not in Nexis, though. I think she stayed away for safety’s sake when the Phaerie started raiding. She comes to visit her father from time to time and brings her children.”

The Magewoman sighed. Ah well—there’d be time enough to discover the whereabouts of Zanna. First of all she would concentrate on the girl’s father, the self-styled Lord of Nexis, and she had no idea, yet, how she would take her revenge on him. Then something that Bern had said broke through her thoughts of revenge to come into the forefront of her mind. “What did you say about the Phaerie?” she demanded.

Eliseth listened with dismay as he told her the sorry tale. In the turmoil of events that were taking place around her when she’d been snatched from the world, she had forgotten about the Forest Lord and his subjects. But it seemed that, in the absence of the Magefolk, the accursed Phaerie had been getting out of hand. In the first three or four years of his reign, Vannor had had endless trouble from the skyborne raiders. On the nights when the moon was bright and the north wind rode the skies, the citizens of Nexis and the surrounding countryside had soon learned to lock up their livestock and bar and bolt their doors when the Phaerie, on their powerful great horses that trod the air, came hurtling down from the skies. At first, only strong men were taken, but later specific craftsmen began to vanish—masons, tilers, builders, carpenters, and smiths. All were borne northward, too fast to be followed, never to return.

Later, farmers and shepherds also began to vanish—always those from the bleakest holdings, who knew how to get the best from the tough vegetation and thin soil of the upland farms. A different pattern was emerging here, however.—The farms were discovered abandoned, with entire families gone, and the bams and fields stripped bare of livestock, implements and crops alike. Vannor, Eliseth was maliciously pleased to hear, had almost driven himself demented trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious abductions, but he had failed to discover the reason behind them, as abjectly as he had failed to put a stop to them. Soon farms were being deserted for another reason, as many of the outlying families fled their land to seek sanctuary with relatives who lived in the city.

Not that Nexis was really any safer. The Phaerie struck when they pleased, and snatched whosoever they wanted. Young girls were often abducted now, and sometimes even children. Women were being snatched away from home and family to suffer who knew what fate. Spinners and weavers were being targeted, as were seamstresses and lacemakers—not to mention bakers, brewers, and the members of the oldest profession of all. The Garrison seemed to be helpless—after so many failures to keep matters under control the commander had given up, and was occupied instead in drinking himself into an early grave. Though Nexis had prospered, by and large, under Vannor’s rule, there could be no true peace or prosperity until the problem of the Phaerie had been dealt with once and for all.

Bern was a frightened man, that much was plain, thought Eliseth. He had escaped the Phaerie once, that day long ago in the Vale, by plunging into the lake and hiding beneath the overhanging bushes at the water’s edge until they were safely gone before creeping away and finding one of the loose mercenary horses to make his way home. He had never forgotten, however, the horror of their attack when they had slain Eliseth’s force of hired soldiers to the last man. He had fortified the bakery as well as he could, but still lived in fear that one night he, too, might be seized—and what if the Phaerie took his family?

It was all the same to Eliseth if they did—save that Bern himself might prove useful to her in the days to come. The Mage was more preoccupied with the threat that the Phaerie posed to her plans. She intended to take up the reins of power in Nexis, and it might prove difficult if the blasted Phaerie were still rampaging through the city. On the other hand, if she could get rid of them she would win the admiration and respect of the populace. She wouldn’t have to lift a finger to oust Vannor—the stupid Nexians would be begging her to rule them. Scarcely listening to Bern’s ceaseless tirade of whining complaints, she continued to make her plans as she pulled the apple pie toward her and began to eat.

Eliseth’s eyes flew open wide with shock as the first pain lanced through her innards. As she toppled from her chair, clutching at her stomach, she could already feel the poison seeping into her blood like an insidious black tide.—She clawed at her throat as she thrashed helplessly on the carpet, choking on a corrosive mixture of bile and gore.

There were only seconds remaining in which to save herself. Thrusting back her panic and striving her utmost to ignore the pain, Eliseth turned her will inward, to slow her laboring heart. She reached, as though with invisible fingers, into her veins, to break down the deadly poison into its harmless constituents that could be flushed out of her system.

Gradually, the agony and distress diminished. To her utter relief, the Mage felt the rhythms and functions of her body returning to normal. The receding waves of pain washed her back to the shores of consciousness. Feeling weak, nauseated, and dizzy, aching dully as though she had been beaten both inside and out, Eliseth opened her eyes.

Where was Bern? Where was that two-faced, sneaking, back-slabbing lump of Mortal offal? Behind her, the Magewoman heard the soft snick and creak of the door being opened. Having discovered that she was about to survive his craven attack after all, the treacherous bastard was making a hasty escape.

“No!” Eliseth snarled, as she rolled over. She had had enough of Mortals slipping from her clutches. There was time for a fleeting glimpse of the terror in Bern’s eyes—then a bolt of sizzling lightning left her hand in a swift, fluent motion. The baker’s body crumpled, smoking, to the floor.—Cursing horribly, the Mage grabbed the edge of the table and pulled herself upright. A swift gulp of wine from the flask on the table helped to restore her. When she had steadied herself a little, she staggered across the room to the baker and looked down at his smoldering corpse with a frown, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the stench of charred flesh. “Damn the sniveling little rat to perdition—I would never have thought he’d have the nerve,” she muttered to herself. All the same, now that the first fierce blast of her anger had dissipated, she began to regret killing him so quickly. She’d had plans for Bern and his family—and now he was useless to her. And she’d have to kill the wife and children, too, or the news of her return would be all over Nexis in no time, putting Vannor immediately on his guard. Eliseth cursed again. Bloody Mortals! It was all very inconvenient.

Well, at least the baker had given her the information she needed before he died. She could leave now and return to the safety of the Academy—dealing with the remainder of Bern’s family on the way. The Weather-Mage reached for her cloak, which was carelessly draped over the back of a chair. As she lifted it, she felt an unaccustomed weight, and touched a hard, lumpy shape hidden in the deep pocket that was sewn into the lining.

Eliseth stopped breathing and stood utterly still for a moment, the cloak forgotten in her hands. An incredible idea had suddenly occurred to her. The chalice she carried was said to be a fragment of the Caldron of Rebirth! Would it still have the power to perform the Caldron’s original function? And if it did—why, the possibilities were staggering!

With hands that shook a little from excitement, Eliseth took the grail from her pocket and filled it with water from the jug on the table. As the liquid filled the cup, it seemed to take on the properties of the tarnished interior, turning deep, viscous black without sparkle or reflection. A dark steam rose, curling, from the light-devouring surface. Holding the chalice very carefully, so as not to spill any of its contents over her hands, the Mage returned to the corpse of Bern and sprinkled a few drops over the still-smoking body.—At first, nothing seemed to be happening. There was no sign of life nor movement from the scorched, recumbent form. But then, just as Eliseth was about to turn away in disgust, she blinked, and looked again. The surface of Bern’s body was covered in a dark, moving cloud, that looked, from a distance, like a swarm of tiny, glittering black bees. The Magewoman noticed that the charred shell of his peeling skin seemed to be softening a little, and gradually turning to the paler hue of healthy flesh. Within minutes, he was recognizable as human again but, to her disgust, the baker remained as dead as ever, neither breathing nor moving.

Acting on impulse, Eliseth lifted his head and trickled a few drops of dark water from the grail into his slack mouth. A tense moment passed, and then another, while the Mage held her breath in anticipation. Without warning, Bern inhaled sharply with a strangled gasp—and leapt clumsily to his feet. “Lady—I didn’t! It wasn’t me,” he screamed. Then he blinked, and recognition returned to his eyes. “What happened?” he demanded, forgetting, in his confusion, to address the Mage with any mark of respect. “What was I doing?”

Eliseth, already framing an angry response, bit off her half-formed reply. Her eyes widened with shock as she realized that Bern, after his first, shrieked protest of innocence, had not spoken a word aloud. She could see into his mind!

She could see much more clearly once she realized what was happening, and began to focus all her powers of concentration. There, through the murky roil that constituted Mortal thoughts, was the baker’s intense bafflement as he puzzled in vain to retrieve what had happened during the weird blank spell which had left him unconscious on the floor. She saw his horror and fear as he cast his mind back to realize that someone had tried to murder the Mage—and that only one person could have been responsible.

Alissana! Eliseth took the image straight out of the Mortal’s mind. So it was Bern’s accursed woman who’d had the temerity to make an attempt on her life!—The Mage’s wrath boiled over beyond all controlling—and suddenly, with a wrenching change of perspective, she found herself looking at herself. Eliseth gasped, and flung her hands up to her face—but they were not her hands, nor was it her own features that she could feel beneath her fingers. She was seeing the room through Bern’s eyes!

Acting instinctively, Eliseth clamped her will down upon Bern’s weak and cowardly Mortal thoughts, and felt them streaming through her mental grasp like grains of sand through an hourglass. She discovered that the sensation differed from that of occupying another’s body, where the victim’s individuality was thrust aside and the personality of the intruder took over.—In this case, the baker’s thoughts were still his own—the Mage simply controlled them, as though his mind was a restless horse that she could restrain and guide with the reins of her will. With a thrill of delight, she realized that he was actually unaware of her presence within him. The sensation of control was exhilarating, and Eliseth wondered just how far her hold extended. Tentatively at first, she began to probe the limits of her newfound power.

There was no risk of damage or danger to Eliseth’s own body—she seated it carefully in a chair out of harm’s way. Soon, she discovered that all she needed to control were the so-called higher functions of the baker’s mind, and the automatic processes of his body took care of themselves. For a time she amused herself by making him move around the room and perform simple tasks.—Then, when she felt ready, she decided to put her hold over her puppet to the test. Riding the web of Bern’s thoughts like a lurking spider, she turned him toward the stairs—and the rooms where his family slept.