Kheda smiled back but didn't rise to the bait. 'Who made it for you?'

Dull steel was shaped into a blunt-toed foot beneath a curved metal calf riveted to a shin plate. Concentric curved plates overlapped at the front of knee and ankle to suggest that the remarkable creation would bend at both joints. The hollow thigh was topped with more straps and buckles.

'An armourer first came up with the idea.' Naldeth rapped the facsimile limb with his knuckles, the noise loud in the confines of the hold. 'We barbarians don't fight the endless battles that Archipelagan poets insist must constantly ravage the north, but there are enough pointless wars to leave all too many men missing a leg.'

'So these armourers profit when they send men to fight and again when they come back maimed.' Kheda propped himself casually on a chest.

'Don't tell me any Aldabreshi smith wouldn't do the same.' Naldeth shifted on his buttocks and eased his stump into the open top of the metal leg. 'If you're not the bloodthirsty savages our barbarian minstrels sing of, you're certainly as avid a flock of merchants as ever traded.'

'Does it bear your full weight?' As the wizard buckled a stout leather belt around his waist and began securing dangling straps to matching buckles on the metal thigh, Kheda reached stealthily behind his back and tucked the loose sacking under the ropes to hide the exposed surface of the dragon's egg.

'The steel skin's mostly for show.' Naldeth pulled a final strap tight. 'A solid wooden post runs all through the middle, down to the foot plate. There's a metal spring in the angle between the foot and the post, and this —' he tugged on a cord that disappeared into the angle behind the knee '— and some hinges inside mean I can bend it when I want to.'

Kheda nodded with admiration. 'Steelsmiths on the trading beaches must have made handsome offers for a chance to study it.'

'Velindre hasn't let me wear it in Aldabreshin waters.' Naldeth got to his feet with surprising ease, pulling and slackening the cord that bent the metal knee. 'She said you people don't wear plate armour, so it would mark me out as too newly come from the north.'

'That's true enough.' Kheda watched the wizard walk slowly up and down the hold, swinging the stiff leg out slightly with each step. 'It's a remarkable contrivance.'

'I still need my crutch if I'm not using a touch of magic to keep me upright.' Naldeth grinned. 'Which is another reason for not wearing it on trading beaches, that and the soft sand.' The wizard twisted to adjust a strap at the side of his waist. 'No Aldabreshi's ever asked me what happened to my leg, not once. Velindre said they wouldn't. No one asked how I was coping with such a loss or what I would do with the rest of my life.' He swallowed his unguarded anger and managed a thin smile. 'There's something very restful about the way you people simply accept a person for what they are. It must make life much simpler.'

'My life's hardly been simple.' Kheda strove to keep his words light. 'And every turn of the heavens seems to bring some new twist, such as Velindre turning up to propose this voyage.'

'We'll just have to see how it all turns out.' Naldeth studied the warlord for a moment. 'Are you sure you won't be looking for omens?'

Something in the wizard's gaze made Kheda a little uneasy. He looked up at the canvas-shrouded grating. 'Do you suppose it's worth trying some fishing yet?'

CHAPTER NINE

How fast is this current carrying us along? How much faster is this ship moving thanks to Velindre's magic? Why is there no wind? Is this more of her magic? Perhaps not. There are glassy seas in the central domains. Risala has crossed the windless reach between the northernmost Archipelagan isles and the seas that lap the unbroken lands. The fickleness of wind is why we Aldabreshi have always trusted in triremes and mocked becalmed barbarians.

He surveyed the sea, flat and calm all around. Without wind to swell the canvas, the Zaise's sails were furled, yet the ship sped on through the water. Kheda threw out his line and leaned over the rail to watch the hooks disappear in the curls of white water trailing alongside the Zaise. 'Risala, if I ever complain about sailer pottage again, remind me how much I dislike eating nothing but fish.'

'It's going to be plain fish if we don't make landfall soon.' Risala knelt next to him, gutting a silvery handful. 'We've nearly used up all the herbs.'

'There's some sailer grain left.' His flesh-and-bone foot tucked under the knee of his half-crooked steel leg, Naldeth sat baiting a line of viciously barbed hooks with rancid duck meat wriggling with indefatigable maggots. His northern features and plait of lank barbarian hair still looked incongruous above the cottons of an Aldabreshin slave.

'And we have all the fresh water we need.' Velindre spread her hands over the barrel lashed to the stern mast and the seawater briefly shimmered bluer than the sky

above. She frowned and a battered leather bucket emptied itself to wash the slime and fish blood from the deck planking.

'Have you managed to scry out this isle yet?' Kheda scowled. 'The Lesser Moon has gone right round the heavens, darkened and brightened again—'

'What have you tried by way of additions to your scrying water?' Naldeth looked up from his noisome task. 'Inks or oils?'

'When I need a fire mage's advice about a water spell, I'll be sure to ask you.' Velindre looked out past the prow. 'I can feel the currents of the ocean meeting some land not too far ahead. And it resonates with elemental vigour.'

'Do you suppose the confluence of elements is what attracted the dragon?' A maggot wriggled unheeded between Naldeth's finger and thumb. 'Or that the dragon somehow drew the elements together?'

How much longer before we learn something to justify my making this voyage? All I have done so far is enjoy the peace and calm of days without anyone making demands on me. Was it the prospect of such freedom that seduced me into agreeing to come, at least in part, even if I didn't realise it at the time?

Kheda wished briefly for a thin mantle to wear over his faded grey tunic and trousers. These seas were palpably cooler than Archipelagan waters. 'How much further?'

'I'm not entirely sure.' A frown deepened the fine creases around Velindre's hazel eyes. 'There's considerable turmoil ahead.'

'A storm?' Risala asked with some alarm.

'No.' Velindre shook her head confidently before frowning again. 'I'm not sure what it is.'

Kheda looked up from his taut fishing line. 'Before we get any closer, I want you to scry for Itrac. I want to be

sure that she and the children are thriving before we risk any unknown peril.'

'As you command, my lord.' There was no malice in Velindre's quip. She spread her hands over the barrel again and vivid green radiance dripped from her lingers into the water.

'You can do this without that necklace now?' Kheda moved to look into the vision the magewoman was summoning.

Velindre shrugged. 'Magic's like most skills - the more practised you are, the more effective you become.'

'A fact the Council and Archmages of Hadrumal are remarkably disinclined to make widely known, even among the mageborn.' Unblinking, Naldeth studied Velindre with a hint of envy hardening his undistinguished features. 'Your touch with water magic these days is truly remarkable for a mage with an air affinity. You learned more than I realized from Azazir.'

'If I'd ever imagined the toll his obsession had taken on his sanity and humanity, I'd never have gone near him.' There was a brief flash of anger in Velindre's eyes.

Anger and fear. Fear of the power you saw or of what you might become, if you let yourself go down that path? But if you hadn 't gone to find this wizard, be he mad or sane, we'd never have had his knowledge of dragons to help us free Chazen.