The sea was not to be scorned. The grey stone was disfigured from waterline to the highest ragged knife edge. Every face was dappled with pockmarks gouged by the incessant spray. Plants that had thought to colonise the lower ledges raised only bleached, dead fingers in mute warning to any that might follow. Here and there the ripping tides had forced their way through some weakness to carve a new path, joining forces with the waters beyond to wear the stone down into submission. Pillars that had once been sturdy bastions stood alone, undercut by the ceaseless sea, frozen in the endless instant before they fell to be lost for ever beneath the waves.
‘You can see some safe anchorage?’ Kheda couldn’t restrain his disbelief.
‘Beyond that one.’ Velindre pointed unperturbed through the impenetrable barrier of a sheer grey outcrop. At her bidding, the sail billowed with blue light and swung around. Blithely ignoring the vicious turmoil of the currents, the Reteul danced around the end of the rocky islet. Buoyed on a raft of sapphire light, the little boat eased backwards to nestle snugly in the embrace of a cup-shaped hollow. The cliff edge aloft was a man’s height or perhaps a little less above the top of the mast.
‘How are you going to be able to hold my boat secure in here if you’re throwing all your magic into summoning this cloud dragon?’ demanded Dev.
‘How can we hide it?’ Kheda was already dragging anchors from the lockers beneath the stern thwart. ‘I don’t fancy trying our luck swimming home, and the beast has decided that sinking boats is a sound tactic before.’
‘Where can we hide?’ Risala looked up at the unforgiving barren face of the cliff above, a rope held indecisively in her hand. ‘We’ve no part to play in this.’
‘Give me that.’ Dev took an anchor from Kheda and swung it in one hand. The iron flukes glowed red and when Dev threw it, the anchor sank into the stone, melting the splintered rocks like wax. ‘We could work a spell together to hide the boat,’ said Velindre thoughtfully. ‘Then your magic would secure it.’
Nexus magic?’ Dev paused before throwing a second anchor to bite deep into the rocks with a triumphant hiss. Who’ve you been sharing yourself with back in Hadrumal?’
‘Just give me your hand.’ Velindre ordered, exasperated.
As Dev raised his arm, the magewoman laced her fingers with his. Ruby light oozed from between their tight-closed palms, trickling down Dev’s forearm. Velindre frowned and a dusky purple suffused the wizardry, tuning the magic to a dull amethyst. Pressed close together, their arms were coated with the opaque radiance. Their gazes locked, the magewoman’s hazel eyes staring deep into the bald wizard’s; Dev’s eyes were so dark brown as to look black. The glow of overt magic faded and as it did so, the deck beneath Kheda’s feet faded with it. The wood shimmered and reappeared before vanishing once more.
Like some mirage of a distant vessel carried up over the horizon to offer an always ambiguous portent. Even with the reassuring solidity of the planks under his feet, Kheda took a step backwards as the deck continued to come and go beneath him. ‘Does this sorcery hide us as well?’
The question turned Velindre’s head. Dev assaulted her cheek with a rough kiss, pressing his body close to hers with blatant suggestion. ‘We always were good together, weren’t we?’
‘Probably.’ Velindre pulled herself free of Dev with a look of contempt. ‘I won’t be working any conjoined magic with you in Hadrumal, nor doing anything else with you, not unless you learn some finesse. No wonder they call you a barbarian hereabouts.’
“Probably” doesn’t fill me with confidence.’ Kheda looked at Risala.
‘There are hollows in the rock where you can hide if you want to,’ Velindre said impatiently. ‘The dragon will have better things to think about than you two.’
‘I’ll show you finesse if that’s what you want. How do you think I kept my hide whole in these islands?’ Dev cracked his knuckles absently, surveying the looming cliff above. But I thought you wanted fiery uproar to summon this wizard and his dragon. I need solid ground beneath my feet if I’m going to do that.’ As he spoke, he vanished. ‘Where . ?’ Kheda looked up to see Dev standing on the edge of the crumbling precipice.
Risala stood, head tipped back, expression dubious. ‘How . . . ?’
‘Allow me.’ Velindre’s spiral of azure light carried the three of them up to the heights before Kheda or Risala could say anything more.
‘This is better.’ Dev was looking along the broken line of the Serpents’ Teeth, the rocks disappearing into the distance. ‘There’s fire beneath the seabed here. Deep, but not too deep.’
‘Don’t do anything just yet,’ warned Velindre. ‘It’ll take me a little while to summon a cloud dragon.’
‘We’ll leave you to work uninterrupted.’ Kheda’s sarcastic courtesy went unnoticed by either wizard. ‘Over there.’ He tugged at Risala’s hand and led her towards a storm-carved hollow where a trio of resolute nut palms had laid claim to what little soil and moisture the winds and rains let fall on the undulating top surface of the rock. Kheda saw they had persisted there for some years, for all they were barely taller than his head. Earl successive season had seen the new fronds yellow and wither to fall down around the ridged trunks in tattered curtains.
‘It’s some cover, I suppose,’ he muttered, unconvinced.
‘I can’t see anything better,’ agreed Risala glumly. ‘But we’re no threat to the beast. There’s no magic in us.
Nor in half the people it’s eaten so far,’ Kheda said incautiously.
Wasn’t there? Many learned warlords have judged those encountering wizards, however innocently, to be soiled. Most agree there’s an irrevocable stain left with those mho have suborned magic for their own purposes. Will the dragon smell that on you, sniffing you out wherever you hide? What of it? You’re committed now. You brought this magic to this domain. Can you complain if it becomes the death of you, if that’s the cost of freeing Chazen from the dragon? Would you have it any other way?
The mages were still standing in the centre of the island, talking about something, gesturing. Risala sat cross-legged between the nut palms, tugging at the wholly inadequate bather of damp and musty fronds. Kheda eased in beside her, the rock cold and unyielding beneath the thin layer of soil. He welcomed her warmth pressed against him as he watched the wizards’ animated discussion.
‘Is this how wizards treat the barbarians in the unbroken lands, disrupting their lives at any whim or fancy?’ He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, cupping his chin in his hands. ‘Don’t the men of the north resent that? Not that they could do much about it, I suppose.’
‘Velindre says they have little enough to do with the mainlanders.’ Risala’s comment surprised him. ‘None of the wizards seem that interested in them, nor in anything much beyond the whys and wherefores of their own power, as far as I can tell.’
Before Kheda could think what to make of that, the eerie glow of magelight erupted on the far side of the rock.
Velindre stood stock still, hands cupped before her, her eyes downcast and intent on the empty air she cradled. A gossamer filament of faintest blue radiance drifted downwards to fall in lazy coils in her palms. The thread thickened and brightened, shining azure drawn taut between the gathering magic in the magewoman’s hands and the unimaginable realms of the skies above. The coil of enchantment wound into a ball, the brilliance darkening to a vivid sapphire. The sphere swelled, summoning ever more magic. The thread of light became a solid shaft of piercing blue. Wind whirled around Velindre, whipping up a spiral of dust crackling with miniature lightning, darkening with every spin.
Unmoved, she stood in the centre of the vortex, the hem of her tunic not so much as stirring, trousers hanging loosely from her narrow hips. She was concentrating on the magic building between her hands. A new light began to glow in the innermost heart of the sapphire. It might have been blue to begin with but within moments it was too bright to look on. Too bright for anyone but Velindre, who stared at the burning mote unblinking, her face a mask of cold fire.