“With normal weather, that’s untampered with?” Tris shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll come to these refreshments of yours once I’ve had a look at the Syth, if you’ll direct me to the outer wall.”
Ishabal covered a smile with one well-groomed hand. “I shall do better. I shall take you there myself.” She stopped a passing footman with a snap of the fingers and murmured something to him. As he hastened back the way she had come, Ishabal pointed to another hallway. “This way.” She led Tris down through the axis of the palace, into a wide room. It held an enclosed staircase that led onto the inner wall that surrounded the palace. From there they took an enclosed bridge to the outer wall that followed High Street on one side of the palace, and the cliffs on the other three sides.
“Don’t you like walking in the open air?” Tris asked on the bridge to the outer wall. “Why enclose your stairs and bridges?” She wasn’t exactly complaining. She could no longer simply let the open air pour over her at will, though sometimes she risked headaches and bewilderment in the open wind just because she missed it so much.
Ishabal smiled ruefully. “Why? The god Sythuthan will turn your breath into a frozen diamond necklace at winter’s height,” she replied. “We dare not walk outside up here at that season—these stairs and bridges are the closest we get. Fortunately, at that time the god himself, and the lake, are defense enough. No one has to die on guard on this open part of the wall.”
They stepped through the doors on the far side of the bridge. Here was a walkway broad enough that three people could ride abreast on it easily. The whole of the Syth stretched out four hundred feet below at the foot of the crenellated wall. The young woman and the old walked some two hundred feet along the top, the wind pulling at their hair and gowns, until Tris halted in one of the crenels, or stone notches. She pointed to the gray mass of storm clouds some ten miles offshore.
“I spoke out of foolish national pride,” Ishabal said, leaning against the merlon at the side of the crenel. “The god Sythuthan is a notorious trickster with a nasty habit of hurling storms at us with no warning to our mages.”
Tris bit her lip. The wind showed her a sharp image of a distant scene that was just a blurred dot to her normal vision.
“I hope all the fishing fleet got back to shore,” Ishabal remarked worriedly. “The storms are infamous for the speed in which they appear.”
“They’re trying,” murmured Tris. The image of the fleet tore out of her hold. She closed her eyes and did a trick with her mind, shifting the shape of her eyes and of the power she slid in front of them. Carefully she removed her spectacles and tucked them into a pocket inside her overgown, then opened her eyes. Now she could see across the miles without being forced to rely on a windblown image. A small fishing fleet struggled to turn and race for the shore, caught in a crosswind that left it becalmed.
Ishabal’s hands were moving in the air. Suddenly everything in front of the wall ripped, and Tris’s view was ablaze with silver fire. “Ow!” she cried, clapping her hands to her watering eyes. “What did you do! That hurt!”
Ishabal, who had turned the air before them into an immense scrying-glass that showed them the fleet in exact detail, asked, “Hurt? What do you mean? Why do you hold your eyes—child, what did you do?”
Tris yanked a handkerchief out from under the neckline of her undergown. “What I normally do, prathmun bless it!” A blessing from the outcast prathmun of Tharios was no blessing at all. Tris wiped her eyes and changed her magic until her vision was normal, then returned her spectacles to their proper place on her long nose.
Ishabal clasped her hands before her as she watched the fleet struggle to move again. “If you may correct your vision as you like, why do you wear spectacles?” she inquired, her voice distant.
“Because I like them,” Tris grumbled. “Because I have better things to do with my magic than fix my vision when ordinary glass will do.”
“Isha, what is this?” The empress, along with her court, Sandry, Daja, and Briar, had come to join them. “Your messenger said Viymese Trisana predicted a storm on the Syth.”
“And more, Imperial Majesty.” With a wave of the hand, Ishabal spread the zone of air along the walkway so the entire group could see the drama that unfolded miles away.
“Are you going to do something, Viymese Ladyhammer?” asked Tris, mindful of her manners now that they had company.
“This is not an area in which I have expertise, Viymese Chandler,” Ishabal replied. To Berenene, she said, “They won’t be able to escape in time, Imperial Majesty.”
“We’ll see about that,” Tris said. She hated making a scene. More than anything she wished the court would go back to its refreshments, but she was in no position to give orders. Those fishing crews were running out of time. She drew an east wind braid from the net at the back of her head and undid it, unraveling half. Berenene and Ishabal were forced to step back as wind roared around Tris, stirring dust and grit on the walkway. Tris turned up her smiling face into the air current as the wind tugged at her. Carefully, stretching out both arms, she pushed her wind out over the wall and through Ishabal’s spell.
Once it was in the open air in front of the cliff, Tris clung to lengths of the wind like reins, letting her magic stream through them into the billowing air. For a moment her grip on the wind shuddered as the air tossed, confused.
Why was it starting in the south, it seemed to ask, if it was an east wind?
“Because I need you to go north first, then east,” Tris whispered to it. “Now, go. I’ll tug when you’re to take your rightful path. You have sails to fill and boats to send home.”
That satisfied her wind. It liked to fill sails. North it went, Tris keeping a light tension on her airy reins. She moved both into her right hand, then searched her head to find a braid with a hurricane’s force bound up in it. Unraveling only a third of it, she thrust its power north, straight at the onrushing storm. The lesser hurricane raced ahead of her east wind, spreading as it flowed high over the masts of the fishing fleet. Tris gave it a fresh shove north, then tugged on the east wind’s reins. The wind found its natural path at last, slowly, as Tris dragged on its reins, until it struck the limp boats’ sails with a strong punch. The sails filled to the cheers of the court, watching through Ishabal’s spell. The fishing boats scudded through the rough lake water, headed for the shore.
Tris ignored the fleet. She had released the east wind. All of her will was fixed on that quick-moving storm and its battle with her lesser hurricane, as the force she had turned loose fought to keep the storm from advancing. Sweat trickled down her round cheeks. Making even part of a hurricane obey was hard work, particularly when its biggest need was not to halt a storm, but to join in and help it along.
They don’t want me anymore, her east wind seemed to say. Now what?
Tris risked a glance at the fishing fleet. They had made harbor safely and were furling their sails as the ships drifted toward their docks.
“Thank you,” Tris murmured. She released her east wind, setting it free of any future claims. She could always braid up another. “Now for the interesting part.”
She let one end of her small hurricane feed into the storm. It plunged in gleefully. The storm, though, was another matter. If I let it loose, with my bit of hurricane in it, there’s no telling what other fleets or even villages it’ll destroy, she told herself. And I knew I couldn’t hook it with anything weaker than a piece of hurricane. Oh, curse it all. I’ll have to take the whole thing back in before it does any harm.
She took a deep breath, wishing she had a moment to pray. Quickly the hurricane struck sparks that turned to lightning as it wove itself among the thunderheads. Tris leaned on a stone merlon, letting it hold her on the wall, then reached with her magic to grip the hurricane’s tail. Sweating, she dragged on it with all of her strength, drawing it toward her as Sandry might draw a fine thread from a mass of wool.