The black-clad officer hung his head, clearly embarrassed. “Her name is Merian.” He hesitated, then reached into the breast of his tunic and pulled out a small wooden slat which split in two, like a slim book.
“This is what she looks like.”
They crowded around to look, like schoolboys. Formio held an exquisite miniature, a tiny painting of a blonde-haired girl whose features were delicate as a deer’s. Large, dark eyes and a high forehead. Andruw whistled appreciatively.
“Formio, you are a lucky dog.”
The Fimbrian tucked the miniature away again. “We are to be married as soon—as soon as I get back.”
None of them said anything. Corfe realised in that moment that none of them expected to survive. The knowledge should have shocked him, but it did not. Formio had been right in what he said about soldiers.
Andruw rose unsteadily to his feet. “Gentlemen, you must excuse me. I do believe I’m going to spew.”
He staggered, and Corfe and Marsch jumped up, grasped his arms and propelled him into the shadows, where he bent double and retched noisily. Finally he straightened, eyes streaming. “Must be getting old,” he croaked.
“You?” Corfe said. “You’ll never be old, Andruw.” And an instant later he wished he had never said such an unlucky thing.
EIGHT
G OLOPHIN wiped the sweat from his face with an already damp cloth and got up from the workbench with a groan. He padded over to the window and threw open the heavy shutters to let the quicksilver radiance of a moonlit night pour into the tower chamber. From the height whereon he stood he could see the whole dark immensity of south-western Hebrion below, asleep under the stars. The amber glow of Abrusio lit up the horizon, the moon shining liquid and brilliant upon the waves of the Great Western Ocean out to the very brim of the world beyond. He sniffed the air like an old hound, and closed his eyes. The night had changed. A warmer breeze always came in off the sea at this time of the year, like a promise of spring. At long last, this winter was ending. At one time he had thought it never would.
But Abeleyn was King again, Jemilla had been foiled, and Hebrion was, finally, at peace. Time perhaps to begin wondering about the fate of the rest of the world. A caravel from Candelaria had put into Abrusio only the day before with a cargo of wine and cinnamon, and it had brought with it news of the eastern war. The Torunnan King had been slain before the very gates of his capital, it was said, and the Merduks were advancing through the Torrin Gap. Young Lofantyr dead, Golophin thought. He had hardly even begun to be a king. His mother would take the throne, but that might create more problems than it solved. Golophin did not give much for Torunna’s chances, with a woman on the throne—albeit a capable one—the Merduks to one side and the Himerians to the other.
Closer to home, the Himerian Church was fast consolidating its hold over a vast swathe of the continent. That polite ninny, Cadamost, had invited Church forces into Perigraine with no thought as to how he might ever get them out again. What would the world look like in another five years? Perhaps he was getting too old to care.
He stretched and returned to the workbench. Upon it a series of large glass demi-johns with wide necks sat shining in the light of a single candle. They were all full of liquid, and in one a dark shape quivered and occasionally tapped on the glass which imprisoned it. Golophin laid a hand on the side of the jar. “Soon, little one, soon,” he crooned. And the dark shape settled down again.
“Another familiar?” a voice asked from the window. Golophin did not turn round.
“Yes.”
“You Old World wizards, you depend on them too much. I think sometimes you hatch them out for companionship as much as anything else.”
“Perhaps. They have definite uses, though, for those of us who are not quite so… adept, as you.”
“You underestimate yourself, Golophin. There are other ways of extending the Dweomer.”
“But I do not wish to use them.” Golophin turned around at last. Standing silver in the moonlight by the window was a huge animal, an eldritch wolf which stood on its hind legs, its neck as thick as that of a bull. Two yellow lights blinked above its muzzle.
“Why this form? Are you trying to impress me?”
The wolf laughed, and in the space of a heartbeat there was a man standing in its place, a tall, hawk-faced man in archaic robes.
“Is this better?”
“Much.”
“I commend you on your coolness, Golophin. You do not even seem taken aback. Are you not at least a little curious about who I am and what I am doing here?”
“I am curious about many things. I do not believe you come from anywhere in the world I know. Your powers are… impressive, to say the least. I assume you are here to enlighten me in some fashion. If you were going to kill me or enslave me you could have done so by now, but instead you restored my powers. And thus I await your explanations.”
“Well said! You are a man after my own heart.” The strange shape-shifter walked across the chamber to the fireplace where he stood warming his hands. He looked around at the hundreds of books which lined the circular walls of the room, noted one, and took it down to leaf through.
“This is an old one. No doubt much of it is discredited now. But when I wrote it I thought the ideas would last for ever. Man’s foolish pride, eh?” He tossed the aged volume over to Golophin. The Elements of Gramarye by Aruan of Garmidalan. It was hand-written and illuminated, because it had been composed and copied in the second century.
“You can touch things. You are not a simulacrum,” Golophin said steadily, quelling the sudden tremble in his hands.
“Yes. Translocation, I call it. I can cross the world, Golophin, in the blink of an eye. I am thinking of announcing it as a new Discipline. It is a wearying business, though. Do you happen to have any wine?”
“I have Fimbrian brandy.”
“Even better.”
Golophin set down the book. There was an engraving of its author on the cover. The same man—Lord above, it was the same man! But he would have to be at least four centuries old.
“I think I also need a drink,” he said as he poured out two generous measures of the fragrant spirit from the decanter he kept filled by the fire. He handed one to his guest and Aruan—if it truly could be he—nodded appreciatively, swirled the liquid around in the wide-necked glass and sipped it with gusto.
“My thanks, brother mage.”
“You would seem to have discovered something even more startling than this translocation of yours. The secret of eternal youth, no less.”
“Not quite, but I am close.”
“You are from the uttermost west, the place Bardolin disappeared to. Aren’t you?”
“Ah, your friend Bardolin! Now there is a true talent. Golophin, he does not even begin to appreciate the potential he harbours. But I am educating him. When you see him again—and you will soon—you may be in for a surprise. And to answer your question: yes, I come from the west.”
Golophin needed the warmth of the kindly spirit in his throat. He gulped it down as though it were beer.
“Why did you restore my powers, Aruan? If that is who you are.”
“You were a fellow mage in need. Why not? I must apologise for the… abrupt nature of the restoration. I trust you did not find it too wearing.”
It had been the most agonising experience Golophin had ever known, but he said nothing. He was afraid. The Dweomer stank in this man, like some pungent meat left to rot in a tropical clime. The potency he sensed before him was an almost physical sensation. He had never dreamt anyone could be so powerful. And so he was afraid—but absolutely fascinated too. He had so many questions he did not know where to begin.
“Why are you here?” he asked at last.