“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.
“I don’t suppose you want to stay in the hall, so I told Pered you’d be staying with us.” Shiv was talking blithely as he led the way out along the main street, heading inland where I was relieved to see the lofty halls give way to more normal row houses of pitted gray stone and tile-hung roofs. I began to notice all the other businesses that kept these wizards free to pursue their arcane studies; scribes, booksellers, apothecaries and not a few tisane houses where younger mages laid aside their parchments and robes to gossip with their fellows over a cup of steeping herbs. Wizards had to eat as well, it seemed; shopfronts had their shutters laid down to form counters laden with summer fruit and plump vegetables where canny eyed women were doing their marketing and catching up on gossip with their cronies. Children hung at their skirts and a more venturesome group scampered in the roadway with a rag ball. There was a light drift of debris around a barrel fallen into a gutter and two men were arguing over who exactly had let it fall from their handcart. Hadrumal began to seem less outlandish, but I warned myself not to let apparent familiarity breed carelessness.
“We prefer to live down here; most of the other mages don’t give a cut-piece whether someone’s sleeping with a man, a woman or a donkey but there are always a few who are Rationalist enough to make themselves offensive. You remember Casuel, don’t you? Anyway, we find it’s better this way; nails that stick up get hammered down, after all.”
Shiv’s back was to me as he stepped ahead through the gap between two carts. I allowed myself a grimace. Still, unsure as I might be about meeting Shiv’s partner, anything had to be better than lodging in one of those grim halls with a covey of wizards staring at me from every side like crows waiting out a dying beast. I got on well enough with Shiv, didn’t 1? A more urgent consideration that had been tugging at my cloak since I landed now seized my attention and held it.
“Where’s Livak?” I inquired, stepping off the curb to draw level as Shiv made his way along the crowded walkway.
“She went to see Halice. There are some Soluran scholars here who are trying to improve her leg. Some aetheric magic has remained in their healing traditions, but you knew that, didn’t you?”
I have to confess I’d hardly given Halice and her problems a passing thought since we’d been separated. Mentally shaking myself, I determined to stop dwelling on my recent experiences and get a grip on the reins again. Would there be some magic that could mend so severe a wound, and one now several seasons mended and healed? That would certainly be something to see and, more importantly, something to bring to Messire’s attention. I’ve not seen too many men left with only stumps of leg or arm in order to save them from green rot, but hearing one screaming, weeping, pleading with the surgeons to no avail had been enough for me when Aiten and I had been working for Messire along the Lescari border. The reminder that I was not the only one with troubles was salutory as well.
“What about Viltred?”
“He’s back in his old hall, catching up with whoever he trained with who isn’t dead yet.” Shiv’s tone was nevertheless affectionate. “Here we are.”
He opened a stout door to usher me into a modest abode in the center of a well-weathered terrace. I blinked as my eyes adjusted after the sunlight outside and I saw the front of the lower rooms was laid out as a workplace, a sloping desk set to catch the best of the light, parchment, pigments and binding agents neatly arranged, ready for use. I vaguely recalled hearing that Shiv’s partner was a copyist or an illuminator, something of that kind, certainly not a wizard, which was the most significant thing to me.
“Pered!” Shiv stepped into the rear room and then shouted up the tight curve of the boxed staircase. “No, he must be out, probably getting some food in. Look, make yourself at home, there’s wine in the kitchen or you can have a tisane. I have a few things I need to do but I’ll be back soon.”
Before I could protest he was out of the door, pulling it to behind him with an emphatic slam. Not wanting to upset anything in the study, I went through into the kitchen, a little surprised to find a modern charcoal stove standing in the fender of the hearth where a damped-down fire was making the room stuffy in the summer heat. Other than that it was an unremarkable place apart from a collection of wildly differing and highly decorative herb jars with a shelf to themselves on the far wall. I opened a couple, sniffed, stoked up the fire and put a kettle onto boil, but then decided I didn’t really want a tisane after all, took the kettle off again and went out into the narrow yard at the back. Shiv’s neighbors evidently kept chickens and on one side a pig, as you might expect, but the sty and run in this yard were swept bare and empty. I poked around a bit, finding a handful of stones and tried my hand at hitting a large, pale stone high on the wall of the piggery. Striking it every time, I was about to look for more missiles when I heard the door behind me open.