Velindre searched the bland face of the ocean. Had Dev died in the ship’s hold, dragged down into the drowning depths? A fire mage, even one of his talents, would be hard pressed to work any magic to save himself, engulfed by the very antithesis of his element. Had he swum for it before the beast made its final attack? What about the other two. All she could see was nameless detritus floating up from the wreck, nothing big enough to be a man’s or a woman’s body.
The inconvenient beast was filling her view once more. She could see its head clearly for the first time, as if it were coming straight towards her. Ruby eyes glittered above its broad, blunt muzzle, heavy crimson scales fringing its jowls and bristling in a mane of spines around the back of its head. It opened its mouth and she saw its brilliant daggerlike teeth.
Longer than daggers, that same dispassionate voice within her mind commented silently. The dragon’s red tongue flickered in and out and she noted a searing red illuminating its eyes from within. The light playing on her face turned from blue-green to greenish gold.
Velindre cursed the beast absently under her breath and drew back from the bowl, waving a hand across the water to lift the spell’s vision still higher above the sea, to give her a wider view of the immediate area Was there an island close enough for Dev to have swum to?
Nothing happened. The dragon still filled the spell. Now its wings were lost beyond the edges of the magic, just its head and body visible. With every beat of its wings, it grew bigger within the silver confines of the bowl. Now all she could see was its head. It opened its mouth and a coil of flame burst out towards her, white hot with unstoppable magic.
Velindre recoiled as the water within the bowl boiled, steaming and spitting, sending splashes leaping over the rim to mar the polished table top. She thrust her hands out before her, repudiating the magic she had worked. The water calmed but the scrying held, vivid emerald light shining up from the bowl with a halo of sunset gold. The magewoman moved slowly forward, irresistibly drawn by intolerable curiosity. The breath catching in her throat, she looked warily down into the water.
The dragon looked back at her. There could be no question of it. Against all she had ever been taught. Contrary to all she had ever read or surmised of this scrying spell. In defiance of everything Hadrumal’s wisest men and women had told her about remote magics. The dragon could see back through the spell as clearly as if it were looking through a pane of clear glass. More than that, the beast was looking straight at her, wild curiosity lighting its fiery eyes. The water began boiling again, and with some sense that she could not explain, Velindre could feel the dragon’s intent. It wanted to find her. It wanted to destroy her with the same savagery it had loosed to annihilate Dev, his companions and the very boat they had been standing on.
Velindre knocked the bowl off the table with a wild sweep of her ann. It went flying, water splashing to stain the plaster below the window with oily streaks. Irrational fear seized her and the crystal jug followed, shattering into countless fragments. Upturning the table completely, Velindre stumbled backwards, tripped over the chair she’d discarded earlier and fell heavily to the floor.
The room remained gloomy and grey, the sun far distant behind the clouds now wrapped around Hadrumal. The only sound was the distant crack and rumble of the storm. None of the drops and puddles of spilled water glowed with any hint of magic. Velindre lay motionless for a few moments, skirts in disarray around her stockinged legs, waiting for her pounding heart to slow.
Sitting up slowly, she rubbed her bruised elbow thoughtfully. She smoothed down her gown and stood, absently rubbing her hip, still stinging from the impact of her fall. Leaving the calamitous scene of by the window, she went to recover her boots and pulled them on, face pensive. A pang of hunger surprised her and she spared a glance for the bread and cheese and plum bread that had bounced across the floor. Shards of glass and earthenware now rendered it all wholly inedible.
No matter. She had better things to do than eat. Moving briefly to the mantel, she tugged the bell pull to summon some nameless maid to deal with the mess. Leaving the door ajar behind her, she ran lightly up to the floor above, her urgent steps echoing down the stone spiral. Heart racing once again, she laid a pale hand on the latch of the study door and whispered the old mage’s name under her breath. The tumblers of the lock clicked obediently and the door swung open.
What would Otrick have said to that? To the notion that a dragon had been looking back through the magic of a scrying spell to see who was working it at the other end? He’d have been intrigued by the idea. He’d have been utterly, resolutely determined to learn how such a thing might be so, to ascertain how he might do just such a thing in turn.
The faceless maids came here, too. The table was polished and gleaming. Even the haphazard parchments on the bookshelves were somehow kept free of dust. The cushions in the corners of the tall winged chairs on either side of the fireplace were plump and neatly placed. The hearth was laid ready with kindling and coal.
A fall of soot prompted by the dampness in the air had spotted the hearthstone and the raw smell caught in the back of her throat. Velindre shivered with distaste. This ordered emptiness wasn’t Otrick’s. The sideboard had been cleared of the old pirate’s prized collection of cordials and wines summoned from merchants trading from one end of the long-lost Tormalin Empire to the other. He had always boasted that he had the finest palate on Hadrumal, even with his breath redolent of the acrid sweetness of chewing leaf.
Velindre turned her back on such bittersweet memories and studied the bookshelves with a frown. There were gaps. Too many gaps. Some of the general tomes had doubtless been returned to the archives and libraries. The old mage had been an inveterate borrower of books and remarkably negligent when it came to returning them. Where were his journals, and those carefully bound records of his own thoughts and investigations into every aspect of the elemental air he had been born to command? Otrick had been meticulous in recording his conclusions and his musings on how he might make further trial of his affinity, of his powers and how they might rival or complement those of other wizards born to different disciplines.
Of course, other wizards and their pupils had sought and gained Planir’s approval to compare their own deliberations with the dead Cloud Master’s recorded wisdom. Velindre scowled as she tried to put names to the faces who had trooped up and down past her door. She was paying the price for ignoring them now. No matter; she’d just have to make a list. Sitting at the empty table, she opened a drawer to find parchment inside and one of the steel-tipped reed pens Otrick had favoured, but when she flipped the brass top of the inkwell open, she found that the crystal vial offered only a stain of dried darkness. Lightning flashed and thunder followed, a crack as if the sky itself had split. Rain lashed the lofty tower, a buffeting wind howling at the tall windows where she had stood with Otrick, listening rapt as he revealed so many mysteries of the magic that they shared. The rascally old wizard’s reputation as the finest Cloud Master Hadrumal had seen in an age was no idle boast. Velindre gazed out of the window, lost in memory as the storm raged unheeded.
Though there was the one crucial mystery he had never shared with her. Otrick had been able to summon dragons. Well, one dragon, at least—a creature of cloud and fury only loosely under his command. That much he had admitted to her in the warm intimacy of one chilly midnight, moonlight lancing through the snow falling slowly outside the narrow window to spill on the coverlet like the fall of her long golden hair on the pillow. She’d never seen it herself, but mages who had no reason to lie swore to it. Besides, Otrick had never lied to her. Now Dev had seen a dragon. Dev, who would lie black was white and fire was water if it would serve his purposes, which were rarely honourable and always self-interested. But she had seen it for herself, so that was hardly an issue. And this wasn’t one of those rare beasts glimpsed above the most distant northern peaks where not even the hardiest Mountain Men could claw out a living. This was a dragon born of fire threatening to set the Aldabreshin Archipelago ablaze.