Cyran poured himself a goblet of crimson wine. Gripping the cup with both hands to offset the slight tremor in his fingers, he drank deeply, as if in hope that the welcome warmth could counteract the chill of fear that settled in his heart whenever the visions appeared. In an attempt to calm himself, he turned his back on the table with its silver mirror, walked across to the eastern window and looked out at his home.
The city hugged the coastline around two deep coves defined by three promontories, with the bay to the south encompassing both the seaport and the mouth of the Tyrin River. At various locations around the bays were the eight Luens, spacious complexes of elegant old buildings, centres of learning and excellence that covered every aspect of Wizardly life. Ariel’s Tower, the soaring edifice housing the Archwizard and his administrative staff, was perched above the seaport on a high, rocky cape. Occupying a similar position on the northern promontory was the Luen of the Academics, the centre of Wizardly knowledge and learning. The Luens of the Healers and the Spellweavers were also located there, whereas the Bards, including the artists and weavers of tales, had gravitated to the long, narrow cape to the south, building their Luen there and colonising the crumbling old mansions which had once, before the district fell out of fashion, been the homes of the merchants who berthed their vessels on the opposite side of the bay.
The southern bay was thronged with ships, its extensive docks swarming with Wizards, mostly sea captains or the richly robed merchants, whose Luen was nearby. The humans were even more numerous: the fishermen, the lowly ships’ crewmen and the half-naked stevedores unloading cargo. This was the commercial area of the city, with its countless shops and markets, and the Luen of Artisans was also near the centre. The Luen of Warriors, however, was set apart from the others, high on the slopes above the city’s outskirts.
Around the bays, Tyrineld had expanded into a tangle of narrow streets lined with beautiful snow-white houses that embraced the tranquil blue ocean and climbed the hillsides beyond. The Wizards’ homes were interspersed with trees, parks and gardens that were a mass of blooms in any season of the year. The city was old, its stones steeped in history and learning and peace. It looked as though it would last for ever. Until the dreadful day two years ago when the visions had first appeared, Cyran had always believed it would.
It had begun with such a small thing - the Archwizard had misplaced a book and, having turned his study upside down, he’d suspected that he’d left it behind when he had been reading in the garden the previous day. Too busy (or too lazy, if he was being honest) to go and hunt for it, he had prepared his silver mirror and sat down at the table to scry for the lost volume. Once he’d found it, a small apport spell would soon have it back where it belonged.
Holding the image of the book in his mind, Cyran had gazed into the shimmering glass. Sure enough, it was in the Academy gardens, lying on his favourite bench among the willows by the ornamental lake. He tutted to himself. The Great Library of Tyrineld was the most extensive collection of knowledge and wisdom in the entire civilisation of the Magefolk. Its contents were a trust handed down through each generation of Wizards, and the careless mishandling of one of the precious tomes by the Archwizard himself was hardly setting a good example. Sharalind, the Chief Archivist, tall and stern, with brown hair that was never quite tidy and an arresting, high-cheekboned face, was the most feared and formidable being in the entire city - and, incidentally, Cyran’s consort. She would have his hide if she found out.
Hurriedly, Cyran had banished the scrying. With a negligent snap of his fingers, he apported the missing volume back to his desk and gave the dew-spotted leather covers a hasty wipe with his sleeve. As he did so, his eye was caught by a flash of colour in the silver mirror. He turned towards it, with a frown that was a mixture of puzzlement and irritation. He hadn’t lost control of a scrying since his student days. Then he saw that the images in the glass had changed. Frozen with horror, unable to tear his eyes from the dreadful scenes before him, he watched the destruction of his beloved city, and saw the entire Magefolk civilisation tear itself apart in bloody conflict.
The visions had come to an end in profound darkness, as though night had fallen on the era of the Magefolk. For a long time, Cyran had simply sat, his face in his hands, unaware that tears were leaking between his fingers. Then suddenly he straightened, and wiped the salty drops from his face. Leaping to his feet, he hurled the mirror out of the open casement, and heard it shatter into jagged splinters on the flagstones of the courtyard below. Shuddering, he closed the window with a bang. The warning had been well taken. The catastrophe had not happened yet. Maybe it could be averted altogether. At any rate, there would be time to prepare.
And there had been time, Cyran thought, bringing his mind back to the present. In the two years since the first of the visions had come upon him, he had been working tirelessly to make provision for the worst. His first action had been to warn the leaders of the other Magefolk races - the Dragonfolk, the Winged Folk and the aquatic Leviathan - for the calamity he’d witnessed had threatened to destroy them all. At first they had taken him seriously, but two years later the world seemed to be continuing on its tranquil, ordered course, and Cyran could sense that doubts were beginning to creep in. Their main objection lay in the fact that so far, he had been the only one to see these visions. Surely, they argued, if he had experienced a true foretelling, then they should also have received a similar warning. Cyran hoped with all his heart that they were right. Nonetheless, he felt compelled to persist, though the other leaders had insisted that he keep the information to himself for the present, to avoid spreading unnecessary panic among the Magefolk races.
The Archwizard, however, had continued to lose sleep over the horrendous possibilities that seemed to lie in his people’s future. At first the dread visions had returned every time he attempted to scry in crystal or mirror, but to his frustration they kept coming as brief, disconnected glimpses of war and terror, none of which gave him any clues as to when, why or how this cataclysm might take place. If only he could know how much time remained for his people and the other Magefolk races to prepare.
One of his main concerns was the amount of magical knowledge and lore that might be lost forever if the disaster happened, plunging Magefolk civilisation back into a primitive age of barbarism. Eventually, he had asked his fellow leaders for permission to send three of his brightest and most trusted young Wizards, one to each of the other three Magefolk races, to learn what they could of the other disciplines of magic. This had caused an uproar among the others. Nothing like it had ever been tried before, and the consensus of opinion seemed to be that it was impossible for a Mage of one race to learn the magic of another. If, however, Cyran was right, and such a thing could be accomplished after all, then they were reluctant to give away the many secrets of their lore.
Eventually, however, the Archwizard had worn them down. His three carefully selected delegates had been away for almost a year now, ostensibly just to learn and study, as none of them, and none of their hosts apart from the Archmages, had been told of Cyran’s vision of the cataclysm to come. The Magefolk leaders had made the secrecy a firm condion of the plan, as they were reluctant to spread panic amonst their people on the strength of a vision - and one not even their own.
Yinze was in Aerillia, city of the Winged Folk; Ionor, using specially created spells to allow him to breathe underwater, travelled beneath the sea with the mighty Leviathan; and Chathak had gone to the far south-lands, across the Jewelled Desert to the Dragonfolk in Dhiammara. So far, much to Cyran’s disappointment, none of the other leaders had sent delegates to one another, or to the Wizards in Tyrineld. If only even one of them could experience the ghastly visions he had seen, it would be another matter, but until that happened, they still continued to doubt; though they were willing to go along with his wild schemes for the sake of respect and old friendship - so far, at least.