In that instant, the Mage’s smug thoughts were cut off by a searing crack of thunder. Beneath her feet, the foundations of the tower began to shake.—Eliseth sensed that some alien, unrecognizable variety of magic had triggered the earthquake, but had no idea that, in using the grail’s powers in the Academy, she had sprung a trap that had been laid for her long ago. As the tower rocked and vibrated, her mind went blank with panic. The tower, protected from destruction by the residual magic from the many spells that had soaked into its structure over the centuries, was probably as safe a place as any. Eliseth could do nothing but stay where she was—and watch in horror as the city crumbled around her.
A piece of the balustrade that bounded the edges of the tower roof cracked and broke loose, vanishing into the depths below. Eliseth crouched down low for stability, clinging tightly to the precious grail, and looked out through the gap at the collapse of the city.
From somewhere in the center of Nexis the Mage heard the tearing crack of stone as the Garrison plateau with its large walled complex of buildings fractured right across the middle. The high, protective walls that Miathan had built around the townlands broke apart and toppled in a hail of stones, and a surging wave of earth was shrugged loose from the southern slopes upstream from the city to fill the valley bottom with debris. A long fissure appeared in the riverbed below the Academy and the gathered waters went swirling and boiling down into the bowels of the earth in a burgeoning cloud of dust and steam.
At last it was over. The tortured landscape ceased to quake, and the dust began to settle. The only sounds were the groans and screams of the injured and bereaved. Throughout the city dozens of fires had sprung up, spreading the destruction further. Eliseth shuddered, paying no heed to the suffering of the Mortals below. Her thoughts were all for herself. She had no idea what, exactly, had happened—but she had a very bad feeling that it had been aimed at her, and that the missing Archmage was behind it, somehow. It was high time she got out of here.
Some three days later, Yanis was surprised to receive a message from Vannor asking for a swift ship to ferry some unknown person and a manservant to the Southern Kingdoms. He was very surprised that Zanna’s father had time to concern himself with such trifles right now, for after the mysterious earthquake, the Lord of Nexis, only just recovering from his illness, had his work cut out to keep order and deal with the crisis. It made little difference to Yanis, however. Considering the amount of gold that Vannor was offering, the Night-runner was only too happy to oblige in person, though for some reason the mysterious traveler, who spent the whole journey heavily hooded and cloaked, made him very uneasy. But by the time he had dropped off his passenger in a secluded cove on the southern coast, and made the return journey through seas that were still unstable and storm-tossed after the quake, all traces of his earlier curiosity had vanished from his mind—along with all memory of the unknown voyager.
7
Wind on the Plains
Eliseth arrived in the Southlands with little more than Bern, the useless Sword of Flame that the Mortal carried slung on his back in an old cloak, and Anvar’s stolen memories to guide her through these strange new lands. It was scarcely a triumphant arrival—considering that she planned to rule these Southern Kingdoms before much longer.
The Magewoman stood on the lonely, windswept beach, watching the ghostly outline of the grey Nightrunner ship disappear into the rainy darkness. She was mightily relieved to see the back of it. This had been her first sea voyage, and she hoped it would be her last—the seas had still been violently rough following the Nexian earthquake, and she had not known it was possible to be so wretchedly ill.
Eliseth shivered with something more than just the raw, damp cold. She had never known what it was to feel so vulnerable. She was unaccustomed to being without the privileges conferred upon her by tradition: the luxury and security of the Academy, and the protection and authority of her rank as Magewoman, one of the city’s powerful elite. Now she must set out to sculpt her future from the raw materials to hand, and her feelings were an unsettling mix of trepidation and anticipation as she set foot on the shores of an unknown future.
“Lady—please, what do we do now? I’m cold and I’m hungry, and this burden you’ve given me weighs so heavy....”
Eliseth rounded on the petulant Bern. “Stop whining, Mortal—ere I give you a reason for your spineless sniveling! Don’t just stand there—go and find us somewhere to shelter until this accursed rain stops.”
“Have pity, Lady. Where will I go? I can’t see in the dark like you,” Bern wailed.
The Magewoman gritted her teeth in exasperation. “In the name of all the Gods—why did I ever drag you along?” she snapped. In search of a target for her temper she gathered her powers and lashed out with her will against the looming clouds above. Abruptly, the rain cut off in a sudden silence as though the world itself was startled by what she had done.
She turned back to the gaping Bern. “Come on, follow me. And take this, since you’re only useful as a beast of burden.” Eliseth threw him the bag containing the few belongings she’d salvaged from Nexis, with a flash of spiteful satisfaction to see him stagger beneath the additional burden. Then, without a backward glance, she strode off along the beach confidently expecting her Mortal slave to follow. She had no time to waste on him—there was too much to be done. The next months would be challenging times indeed, but Eliseth had no doubt that she would soon make this place her domain. After all, Aurian had done so—and wherever that red-haired bitch could succeed, the Weather-Mage expected to do a damn sight better.
It was as well that Eliseth had her determination to sustain her. She spent the most uncomfortable night of her life shivering in the lee of a pile of fallen rock that had clearly, at one time, been attached to the overhanging cliff that provided scanty shelter from above. Though she had formed a magical shield around herself as a protection from the cold wind—not to mention any further rockfalls from above—she was unable to warm the raw night air, or soften the stony ground on which she lay. Between the strain of maintaining the shield and the fear of what might happen if she did not, she didn’t close her eyes all night.
A grey dawn crept reluctantly forth, heralded by the sound of Bern’s coughing.—Eliseth scowled at the shivering, sunken-eyed Mortal. Since the deaths of his family, Bern had been neglecting himself, and the rough sea voyage and the night spent on the exposed, inhospitable beach had been too much for his feeble Mortal constitution. Typical! Had she not known better, she could have sworn he did it deliberately, to plague her. Really, these accursed Mortals were no earthly use whatsoever—they were so frail that the slightest hardship finished them. She was reluctant to leave him, however. It was too convenient to have a servant—especially one whose mind she could control. Besides, she needed Bern to carry the Sword of Flame. The Artifact still reacted to her powers with dangerous violence, but in the hands of the magicless Mortal it remained dark and dead.
The Magewoman hesitated—then sighed, and shouldered her heavy bag herself, leaving Bern to bring the Sword. “Come on,” she snapped. “The sooner we find something to eat, the sooner you’ll get your strength back and be some use again.”
Eliseth felt horribly exposed on the endless flat expanse of the coastal plains, like a fly crawling along the top of a vast table. Once she had left the coast there was nothing, as far as the eye could see, but league upon league of waving grass:, a pale, tawny gold beneath the steel-grey autumn sky.—With nothing to obstruct it, the perpetual wind had an edge like a whetted knife. It came moaning across the plains like a soul in torment, hissing and whistling between the dry grass stems until the Magewoman wanted to scream.—On foot, it was a long and wearisome journey. Eliseth traveled mostly at night, scrying frequently in the grail to foresee and avoid any approaching Xandim patrols. The trek also proved to be a hungry one—for the town-bred Bern, inevitably, proved worse than useless as a hunter, and the Magewoman was forced to obtain most of their food herself, using her magic to kill rabbits and the small deer that grazed the plain.