“But you use the prattle, turn it against the tattlers.” Larissa’s voice was losing the certainty of affront in the face of Planir’s calm.

“True enough,” he agreed. “I use all and every means to discharge my duties; I told you that from the outset. But I haven’t done anything to create gossip. I have neither flaunted you nor hidden you away as if we had anything to be ashamed of. That’s the other side of the coin after all, if I were to let myself be influenced by the whispers and snide remarks.” Planir unlaced his plain broadcloth breeches, stepping out of them and crossing to a wardrobe where he found a clean shirt of soft silk. “I told you from the start that there would be talk and that it would be for you to judge if it ever weighed too heavily in the scales against me.”

Larissa looked down at her hands and the room was silent but for the rustle of silk as the Archmage dressed.

“All I ask, my dearest, is that you weigh my words before anyone else’s,” Planir said gently. “Have I ever lied to you? Have I ever deceived you? Do you believe me when I tell you that your wit and your company, your charm and your passion, are the greatest gifts ever bestowed on me? With you at my side, I would count myself the most fortunate man in the world, were I the meanest miner in Gidesta, never mind the Archmage of Hadrumal.”

“But you are the Archmage of Hadrumal,” said Larissa with a catch in her voice.

“I am,” Planir nodded. “And I have to bear all that comes with it. You do not, unless you choose to, my darling. You know that.”

Another silence threatened to lengthen interminably until bells all over the many-towered city began to strike their chimes. Planir looked at a small timepiece on the night-stand beside the bed. “For the moment, we have to decide if we are going to the dance at the Seaward Hall. There will be grist for the rumor mill in every set we dance together, but then again if we do not go that will spark a whole new round of speculation and rumor. Has his eye lighted on some other maiden? Has she got the advancement she sought, whatever that might be? Is he moving on now he’s got another notch on his bedpost, or has she tired of being an old man’s folly?” His voice was gently teasing. “But that won’t alter the fact that if you prefer not to go, that is good enough for me. If we go, that’s of no significance beyond the fact that I like to dance, that I particularly love to dance with you, and that I feel like shedding the cares of my office for an evening and reveling with the most beautiful girl in Hadrumal.” He moved to the door, an elegant figure in understated black silk, tailoring impeccable.

Larissa stood up, twitching aside the skirts of her gown. “Find your dancing slippers, O revered Archmage.” She was smiling with a combative light in her eye. “Let them talk. Though, as for reveling,” she linked her arm through his as they departed, “that will depend on whether or not you tire yourself out on the dance floor, won’t it?”

The Great Forest,

6th of Aft-Summer

While Usara was fussing around with his mirror and a spill from the fire, I followed one of the healers out of the hollow and down a farther slope in the forest floor to a long narrow lakelet. Trickles of water ran down the fern-draped face of rock laid in layers of gray and ocher pierced with damp blackness here and there. Cool struck up from the slowly rippling water; groups of men and women were bathing, washing clothing and picking their way carefully along a slippery green ledge to fill pans from the clean water of the spring. I washed thoroughly, gasping at the chill on my hot body but relishing being clean again. Draping my jerkin around me, I went in search of what passed for clean linen.

The man Harile was busy with bowls of steeping herbs in the mouth of the cave and nodded at me as I rummaged in my bag. “You are of the Folk?” He sounded doubtful.

“No,” I shook my head. “My father was, but I am an out-dweller.” I had that much clear by now. My parents’ past was theirs and my future was my own. I lifted the precious book out of the bottom of my satchel and checked that the wrappings were intact. I looked at Harile. “That song you were singing earlier, it was ‘Mazir’s Healing Hands,’ wasn’t it?”

He glanced up from his work. “What of it?”

“Did you know there is power in the song, in the jalquezan?” I smiled at him.

Polite mystification creased Harile’s forehead. “What kind of power?”

“A form of enchantment.” I laid every pennyweight of sincerity within me on my words. “I came east at the behest of Tormalin scholars, to learn the hidden lore of the ancient races. I found the jalquezan.”

Interest was beginning to replace the doubt in Harile’s expression. “But how can it be enchantment? It’s just nonsense.”

“It’s far more than that,” I assured him with utter conviction. “No question of it.”

“If jalquezan is a means of enchantment, what can it do against the Mountain Men?” He seized on this notion as I’d hoped he would.

“You find a song to suit your needs. If you wish to hide, you sing of Viyenne and the Does; if you are lost, sing of Mazir and the Storm and you’ll find your path again.” I made it sound as easy as shelling peas. “The jalquezan ties enchantment to the song. It’s all in this book.” I hugged it tight and hoped he wouldn’t ask to see it.

“You can work enchantment just by singing?” I kept a curse behind my teeth as I heard doubt faltering in Harile’s voice.

“I’ve been traveling with these wizards for the best part of the year. They’ve been trying to solve this puzzle for a generation and jalquezan proved the best piece to fit!” I felt I was bluffing with an empty hand to win a king’s ransom.

“We just have to sing?” Harile looked toward a group of little children. All were tear-stained and one kept looking over her shoulder, her puzzled demand for “Mamamam” understandable in any tongue.

“You sing and you trust in the power of the jalquezan.” If I could match this depth of earnestness, I could persuade the Emperor of Tormalin to pay me for the right to his own throne.

“Do we all have to sing?”

Saedrin save me, what had the scholars’ theories been about Artifice? Belief was the key and the more minds focused on something, the more power that belief could draw on? Just trying to make sense of it made my head hurt and I closed my eyes. Why try to make sense of it? Why not just do it and trust to luck? I opened my eyes to see Harile looking at me expectantly.

“Try to get as many people singing as possible,” I said, all calm confidence. ”Just tell them to concentrate on the words and their wish to have your people safe and well. The jalquezan will do the rest.”

Harile’s brow cleared and he shrugged. “If it does no good, it can do no harm,” he smiled wearily. “And singing will certainly put some spirit in people.”

I’d have preferred a more whole-hearted endorsement but I’d take what was offered. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and see how my friends are getting on.” That was one rune laid, time for some more.

I saw the others clustered around Usara, who was settled on the ground, legs outstretched either side of a broad shallow bowl. I stood next to Gilmarten. ’Gren sat cross-legged opposite and Darni looked down over Usara’s head. Sorgrad sat a few paces away eating something, face neutral.

Dim green light began to gather and swirl in the bottom of the bowl, coalescing into a reflection that sparkled with the sharp uncluttered sunlight of the mountains, odd contrast to the muted light filtering through the woods where we sat. The image swooped and took flight, plunging down a stony track that coiled down the parched turf. Dry earth and broken rock filled the image, sliding past with a speed that baffled vision. I closed my eyes as my stomach protested.