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.
“Where’s someone to fight?” demanded ’Gren.
Usara flexed his hands, tongue between his teeth as he concentrated. “I can’t find anyone close at hand, that’s something at least.”
“Just find the main bulk of their forces,” ordered Darni.
Usara looked up over his shoulder. “This would be a great deal easier without you breathing down my neck. I’ll manage my scrying as I see fit, thank you all the same.” He scowled. “I can’t be sure if their cursed aetheric magic is baffling my scrying.”
“Try it with this.” I dangled the Sheltya bitch’s paring knife over the bowl and smiled sweetly at Usara. “Isn’t your scrying much more certain with someone’s possessions?”
Usara narrowed his eyes at me but took the knife and dropped it into the water with an expressive flick of his fingers. I grinned at Sorgrad and ’Gren.
“Here we are,” said Usara suddenly. We all moved to look over his shoulder, jostling each other but careful not to jog the mage.
Green light rose from the water, soft and fragile in the sun. The silver of the knife blade glittered for a moment before disappearing as a little image floated on the surface of the water. It was the woman, in a rekin somewhere.
“I wouldn’t say all you Mountain Men look the same but your homes sure as curses do!” I murmured to Sorgrad. The woman was standing by a long slate table that could have been cut from the same slab as the one in the Hachalfess. As I spoke, the Sheltya woman crossed the cluttered living hall of the rekia. She went outside; Gilmartin caught his breath while the rest of us swore.
The compound was thronged with men and activity. Sheaves of arrows were being handed out from a workshop, swords strapped over mail-shirts and helms buckled beneath determined chins. The woman went from group to group, leaving each man grim-faced with hatred or bright-eyed with a hot rage that only vengeance would quench.
“You should have used the bluesalt, my girl,” said ’Gren without pleasure. He pointed out a head darker than the rest, gray Sheltya robes over workday leathers. It was the Elietimm enchanter and I cursed vilely.
“We’ll get him next time,” Sorgrad murmured. “See how he copes with a sword through his guts.”
I managed a thin smile. Usara’s spell drifted above the compound and we watched as the crowd ebbed and flowed, people spilling out onto the hillside below the great gates.
Mules laden with nameless bundles were tracking up the long haul, unidentifiable people trailing up after them. The broad valley was cut by myriad workings, old and new scored into the land around like the gouges of giant claws. Stone mills and limekilns sat huge and squat, the fess and the rekin almost insignificant, huddled among sprawling heaps of spoil. The mountains dwarfed everything, reaching upward into the blue sky, the color mirrored in Sorgrad’s eyes as he studied their summits and scarps.
“Someone’s planning a war,” Darni said with grim satisfaction.
“Show me the peaks,” asked Sorgrad abruptly.
Usara’s breath was laboring now, thin shoulders hunched, but he wheeled the image around and lifted it to the mountains high above the fess. A sharp-edged ridge of bare rock ran up to a snowy field of white, ice defying the summer sun in the hollow breast of the mountain. The ridge split into two, one spine running up to a ragged summit of tumbled rock, the other to a higher crest, notched and dished like a well-worn knife. Two mighty peaks dominated the head of the valley, one a thrusting spearhead clad in ice, riven down one face with deep clefts, the other dark and brooding, tolerating no snow on sides that the summer sun struck with the sheen of a raven’s wing.
“Teyvasoke,” said Sorgrad with utter certainty.
“You’re sure?” demanded Darni.
Sorgrad looked at him, face impassive. “I’m sure. You were taught the streets and houses of your hometown as a child? We are taught the peaks of all the ranges, east, west and middle.”
“Teyvasoke.” Darni tried the unfamiliar name on his tongue. “Where are we in relation to it?”
“About twelve days or so from here, traveling fast and light. I’ll draw you a map,” murmured Sorgrad. “If they don’t get here first.”
We looked down on a sizeable number, all intent on their various tasks. Tents were being set up, some in circles, others in neat rows, a few on their own. People were bringing in arms of brushwood and stubborn thorn, stacking the fuel by fire pits while others ferried water and slops. Chainmail gleamed in the sunlight and a few people hurrying to and fro without the burden of armor were dressed in the anonymous gray of the Sheltya. I stifled a faint shudder.
We watched for a while and nothing much happened but then the gates of the fess swung open and a small group emerged, catching up the curious as they headed for an open space in the valley. Everyone sat in a half-circle on the dry ground while the man who’d come out of the fess stood up to address them. He was stocky in build but with a face Niello would have paid good coin to model for an actor’s mask. Wiry golden hair was swept back from a broad forehead above a proud nose. The man’s jaw was square beneath a close-trimmed beard and, given his gestures, his mouth was as eloquent as it was handsome. He turned from side to side, hands expressive as they were spread in appeal, clenched in determined oration and finally raised to the skies in impassioned exhortation. The crowd stirred, soon nodding and echoing his movements as his words spurred them on. When he finished whatever it was he was saying with a flourish of his sword, his audience sprang to their feet, waving and visibly cheering, eagerness bright on every face. My frustration at not being able to hear this charismatic leader’s words was mirrored on everyone else’s expression as they gazed down at the face framed in the bowl while Usara bent all the spell’s attention on the man.
“We’d need ten times the men we’ve got here to stop them,” growled ’Gren.
“Who’s to defend these, if we take everyone who can stand and hold a weapon?” Darni glowered at the children, the elderly and the infirm.
“That would be a legitimate use of wizardry,” offered Gilmarten.
“Wouldn’t you be more use fighting?” Sorgrad countered. “A lightning bolt in the right place could do more damage than half a Tormalin cohort.”
“We’re going to have to be very careful where and how we fight.” Darni was ignoring this byplay. “Picking the right ground is going to be crucial.”
’Gren was watching the tiny figures drifting away from the speaker. “I don’t think he’s managed to rouse any complete soke. If this was a true host, like the old sagas, every fess would have its own fire, its own standard.”
“So who’s behind him?” I looked closer, trying to discern any difference worth the name in the multitude.
“Exiles, those driven out for some crime, real or imagined,” suggested Sorgrad with a thin smile.
“Younger sons from hungry lands,” offered ’Gren. “Sons of those that married out and lost their blood claim?”
“ ’Sar, I need you to scry all the closest valleys,” decided Darni. “See if they are all taking up arms or whether this is a limited rising, stirred up by Blondie there.”
“I don’t know what difference that makes,” muttered Usara rather testily. “There are scores of them, all with swords, and they’re heading this way.”