“Do you teach goodwives to spin their distaffs in your spare time, Otrick?” Planir inquired. “We know all this.”

“All I know is we need to find out how this magic works, the basis of it. Only then can we work out how to stop the bastards.” Usara’s shoulders drooped and weariness clouded his face.

“The ancients who sailed to Kel Ar’Ayen knew. That’s what they called that colony of theirs, that much I can tell you.” Otrick leaned forward in his chair, his eyes bright sapphire. “They knew enough to disrupt the basis for aetheric magic so thoroughly that the Elietimm have been chained to their barren rocks for thirty generations or more. They must have been masters of it; they’d been using this mysterious power to stitch the Empire together across thousands of leagues for twenty generations! They would hardly have sent people clear across the ocean without the very best magical support they could muster. We need to know what they knew, so let’s find this colony of theirs and see if they left any records, any clues, some helpful tome covering aetheric magic right from its first principles, whatever there might be!”

Planir drew a sudden breath and leaned back in his tall chair, long fingers laced together in front of his smoothly shaven jaw. “You might have an idea worth study there, Cloud-Master.”

“You mean I’ve got something else to try and tease out of this ever increasing tangle of half-remembered dreams and reveries,” groaned Usara.

“It can’t be that difficult.” Otrick’s tone was dismissive.

“Would you care to work out the rules for White Raven, working from a set with half the pieces missing and no board?” the younger mage retorted with spirit.

“Who can we spare for a search of the Archives?” demanded Planir abruptly. “We’ll start by collating all the references to this lost colony in the existing record; that should give you some idea which thread to pull to unravel the weave, ’Sar.”

“Casuel Devoir,” Usara replied almost before Planir had finished speaking. “He has got the talents for it, Misaen only knows, and it’ll keep him out of my hair for a good long while with any luck.”

“He’s a real kiss-breeches, that one, isn’t he?” commented Otrick contemptuously. “Still, he has an eye for detail, I’ll give him that. So where are the best records likely to be held?”

“I’ve been thinking about sending a mage to wait upon Messire D’Olbriot,” Planir said thoughtfully. “Devoir’s Tormalin born, isn’t he? He’ll know the steps of the dances there well enough to be a credible choice for an envoy and he could make a discreet survey of any contemporary records, while he was there.”

“It’ll be a long job.” Usara shook his head.

“Well, if the Elietimm turn up before we’ve discovered some more elegant way of frustrating their magic, we’ll just have to blast them into the Otherworld with traditional fire and flood.” The old wizard grinned like a death’s head.

“That would certainly give Kalion something useful to do,” remarked Planir dryly.

The Barracoons,

Magistrates’ House of Correction,

Relshaz,

30th of Aft-Spring

I can’t say I woke up; rather the chaos inside my skull finally subsided enough for me to become aware of my surroundings and myself again. Once I had the measure of it all, I almost wished I hadn’t bothered.

My arms and legs ached as if I’d been trampled by a dray team and for one heart-stopping moment I thought I couldn’t move any of my limbs. The frozen panic of that idea eased when I found I could just about force my sword hand toward my eyes but it felt as if I were drowning in treacle, it took so much effort, so I gave it up once I had seen my fingers with my own eyes.

That wasn’t particularly easy either; blood, mud or both was thickly smeared across my face and my eyelids pulled painfully at my lashes as I forced them open. I blinked to try and clear the worst but it did little good. To my feeble annoyance an unbidden tear of frustration escaped me, and I winced as it stung a raw graze across the bridge of my nose. That at least did not seem to have been broken again and I managed to mumble a rather incoherent blessing to Dastennin for that minor mercy. If my nose had been broken I would probably have suffocated on my own blood, never to waken.

Insidious fears came creeping out of the back of my mind. How had I come to collapse like that? Was this falling-sickness? There wasn’t any history of it in my family, not that I knew of, but you never could tell. Perhaps that Elietimm enchanter rampaging through my mind had done some damage that was only now becoming apparent. Was this the start of some awful disease; was I going to lose my legs, my sight, my wits, end up drooling into my gruel like the old man who had lived with his daughter at the end of our street, worms eating away his brain? Was I going mad?

I gradually became aware that I was lying face down on a dirt floor, coarse straw pricking painfully into my naked skin. This did not augur well. I drew a deep breath, preparing to try and get myself to my hands and knees, but the stench of the place seized me by the throat: a potent mix of old urine, rank sweat, rotting food and soiled straw. I was racked by merciless coughing until I retched up a sour mouthful of bile. That started such vicious cramps in my gut, they would have floored me if I hadn’t already had my nose in the ratshit.

I had taken an unholy beating; that much was becoming apparent. Who had done it, and, in Dast’s name, why? I lay in the filth, wished helplessly for some water and waited for the fire in my lungs to subside, the iron constriction around my chest to ease. In the meantime, I tried to lash my debilitated wits into action to at least make sense of the sounds around me, since that took no effort that could cause me more pain.

There was a low murmur of voices, mostly male, some that could either be lads or women. A bark of rapid Relshazri came from somewhere and caused a shuffle of bare feet on the earth and straw of the floor. Someone laughed, a vicious cackle and leather whistled and snapped on naked skin, the crack followed by a strangled whimper. Whoever was laughing carried on merrily, clearly having the whip hand in more ways than one. Somewhere at a little distance, an argument erupted, the words lost in snarls and obscenities. Fists smacked on flesh and a surge of encouragement from all sides urged the combatants on until a metal door clanged and booted feet stamped in to break up the brawl. I opened my eyes and squinted at the figures silhouetted against the meager light from a grille set high in a wall, watching as clubs forced the fighters apart, landing indiscriminate blows on any of the cowering, filthy bodies within reach, just for good measure.

I was in a lock-up. That was better than being in an Elietimm cell or at the mercy of Relshazri street robbers, I was forced to conclude, but how in the name of all that’s holy had I got here? I forced myself to try and knit my wits back together; I’d collapsed for some reason I couldn’t guess at and the implications of that were enough to start shivers running up and down my spine like blackbeetles. Given the place I was in, who knows, it could have been actual blackbeetles. I forced myself to concentrate, no easy task given my exhaustion and the multitude of aches distracting me.

“You’re a Tormalin, a sworn man; get a grip on yourself,” I berated myself silently. “Lying in a heap of filth feeling sorry for yourself will get you nowhere.”

If I’d been found collapsed on the street, some kind citizen could have rung the Watch bell on me, couldn’t they? If that had happened, the Watch would most likely assume I was drunk. From what I’d seen of Relshaz, it seemed to be a city where soaks would probably be left where they lay, but if I’d been blocking some wealthy man’s gate perhaps the Watch would have dumped me in a cell to sober up. All this sounded reasonable enough, but what had I done to deserve a kicking like this? I narrowed my eyes with some effort and deciphered the pattern of boot nails on my forearm. I had hardly been in a state to stand, let alone fight back, so why beat me even further senseless?