'Come and tell me anything you find out.' Itrac stepped forward, quelling her women's questions with a flurry of rapid instructions. 'Pack your lord's clothes and his jewels. Start stripping the beds and the furniture. Send for Beyau. He needs to see to it that the observatory is cleared. We're sailing for Esabir.'

Kheda watched her go.

Chazen's people have mettle and so does their lady.'Looks like an ant heap someone's stirred with a stick.' Dev stared out over the lagoon where the galleys and triremes seethed with activity to match that on the land.

'I'd better find the Green Turtle? Risala scanned the bustling scene.

'Dev, go and play the proper slave for once and see that my rooms are packed up properly.' Kheda jerked his head towards his personal pavilion. 'Risala, wait, come with me for a moment.'

'If it's quick enough for him it'll be no good for you, my girl,' Dev said over his shoulder as he strolled away.

'What is it?' Risala followed Kheda into the hallway.

'This.' He opened a tall black cabinet inlaid with nacre and countless coloured woods. It was full of small, closely fitted drawers. Kheda pulled them open, searching, heedless as he pulled too hard and several clattered to the floor. 'This.' He turned to Risala holding a twist of carved ivory pierced and threaded on a leather thong.

I found this, raw and unearned, on that voyage to the north, that led me to you, as well as to Dev and the means to defeat the wild mages. I saw it as a sign I was on the right path, as I carved it into something I thought only existed in myth. I was certainly blind to that portent.

'The dragon's tail.' There was a strange edge to Risala's unexpected laugh. 'It doesn't look much like the real thing, does it?' She pressed her hands to her face. 'We never saw this in it, did we?'

'I don't suppose the poet whose descriptions I had in mind when I carved it had ever seen the real thing. There's probably some significance in that but I haven't got time to worry about it.' Kheda hurried forward and hung the talisman around her neck. 'We can't second-guess the past and I'm more concerned with the future. It may just be a way of reading the stars but all the forefathers in every domain say the opposite arc of the sky to a moon is where the dragon's tail lies.' He stumbled over his words. 'And that's where the unseen portents lie, because the dragon never looks behind it. I don't want it looking at you.'

Risala seized his face and drew him to her, kissing him with desperate passion. Then with a suddenness that left him standing there, shocked, she tore herself away and ran out of the building.

CHAPTER NINE.

, , ith the brightness of magic snuffed, the room felt smaller, darker, colder. Velindre felt as if the leaden grey of the sky above Hadrumal was seeping through the tall lancets of her window to dull the white plaster of the wall, dimming the parchments on the table before her. She shivered and waved a hand at the coal scuttle beside her hearth, sending a flurry of nuggets on to the glowing embers. She abandoned the table and sat on a footstool set before the fire, hugging her blue-gowned knees as she looked unseeing at the golden tongues of licking flame.

So Dev was still enjoying cloudless blue skies and brilliant sun. He hadn't drowned or burned in that dragon's fires. There had to be plenty he could tell her, not least how he was managing to work magic as an Aldabreshin warlord's trusted servant. Velindre shivered again, this time with revulsion. Tales of Aldabreshin savagery were no idle invention to frighten apprentices into caution. She'd learned that much from days and nights reading ceaselessly in the empty silence of Otrick's study. The old wizard had been intrigued with the Archipelago, not least with the Archipelagan obsession with omens and portents.

Velindre chewed at a thumbnail already bitten to the quick. The firelight struck threads of bright gold in her hair which was drawn back from her angular face in a thick, sleek plait, as usual. Dev reckoned the lore he needed so fast was to be found in the endless shelves of Hadrumal's hushed libraries. No.

Velindre had long since tired of reading reams of speculation and half-understood observations in the hope of satisfying any gnawing magical curiosity. Otrick had cured her of that.

But what if she delivered such lore? Could she trust Dev's promise of safe passage through the Archipelago? Could she trust him not to just take whatever she showed him and twist it to his own advantage? Could she afford to delay and debate such questions? If she was going to do all she'dboasted, she had precious little time to spare. And if she couldn't, sure as curses no one else in Hadrumal would be able to. If she could, no one else in Hadrumal would ever doubt her abilities again.

She sprang to her feet and crossed to the door in lithe strides, catching her dark cloak from its hook, swathing the cornflower blue of her high-necked gown as she hurried down the echoing stone stairs. The raw wet wind buffeted her as she emerged from the base of the tower. She waved an irritated hand and the wind swirled away, forbidden to stir even one pale hair escaping from her hood.

'I want a fire for my feet and warm ale for my belly'

'Let's see what Brab and Derey think about the ocean's currents.'

A pair of apprentices threatened to cross her path. Youth and maiden both had wet hair plastered to their heads, faces tight with cold and their brown cloaks bulked out with books cradled safely in their arms.

'Excuse me.' Velindre swept past them with a shrug of indifference.

Out beyond the ancient stone arch and the weathered oak gate the high road was busy, foul weather notwithstanding. Velindre threaded between men and women of different ranks and ages, master mage and raw apprentice all equal beneath heavy cloaks, hoods and hats worn against the drenching rain.

Intent on their own occupations, the commonalty of Hadrumal hurried this way and that, their conversations focused on lives that owed little to wizard halls or affinities.

'I said, I told him, you want to think who'll be mending your stockings in ten years' time before you go playing fast and loose with every girl who catches your eye.'

'May I get past?' Frustration building, Velindre found her progress curbed by a pair of slow-footed matrons with a handful of brats in tow. She reached a narrow side lane with relief and hurried between lofty stone walls stained dark with rain, her boots clacking on the slippery, sloping cobbles either side of a rain-filled gully. She cut across to take a back alley where the sodden, hard-trampled earth muffled her steps.

Reaching the back gate of Atten Hall, she paused to catch her breath and compose her thoughts. The five chimes of midday sounded around her, the echoes of different timepieces tangled among Hadrumal's towers. Good; her father would be rid of his pupils, or if not, her arrival would prompt their departure.

He'd have half his mind on what the maid was bringing for his lunch, so he might just let slip what she needed to know.

Pushing open the black iron gate, she walked up the flagstones running through the physic garden. The beds of rich soil were black and empty, neatly dug over and marked out with stones. Here and there, pale scraps of straw bore testament to the stable muck brought to nourish the sleeping herbs and seeds.

Hardier shrubs were set back against the walls of the court, dark green and brown against the weathered stone. Withered creepers clutched at skeins of trellis, waiting for spring.

This hall was centred on the broad, squat tower standing alone in the middle of the garden, a style Archmage Atten had brought from his mainland home long ago, along with the coterie of wizards who had chosen to follow his teachings. That tradition had long since outgrown the tower and now its topmost windows could barely see over the ranges of accommodation built inside the walls that enclosed it. Three had serried ranks of casements while the fourth had the long tripartite windows of a large hall where those hopeful mageborn invited by Atten's successors sat at long tables to listen to instruction, to debate lofty concerns or, more prosaically, to eat their meals.

Velindre advanced on the central tower, the door's brass fittings gleaming in defiance of the weather.

Inside, harsh matting was finally losing the battle with the mud of the winter. Velindre paused to wipe her boots and heard her own breath echoing in the hush. The stairs were a square spiral on the southern side of the tower. Subdued light filtered through broad mullioned windows on the landings leading to the apartments on every level. Some doors stood hospitably open, faint sounds of movement within. Others were closed on intense discussions just on the edge of hearing. Velindre ignored them all, heading for the topmost floor.

Her father's voice rang through the emptiness as his door opened, encouragement mingled with warning.

'First thing in the morning, the day after tomorrow. I want arguments on both sides from all of you.'

A trio of apprentice mages appeared on the landing, two girls and a rangy youth not yet grown into his height. 'There can't be an alchemist from Selerima to Toremal who still believes in phlogiston,' heprotested under his breath, all the arrogance of the Imperial city in his accent. His linen shirt was snowy white, breeches and tunic impeccably tailored in sober grey broadcloth, only a trimming of scarlet buttons marking his affinity.

'The Duke of Triolle, he's been paying out gold for years to all manner of charlatans promising him the secret.' The shorter of the girls shrugged; Lescari intonation as robust as her figure and the vivid red dress that flattered her pale skin and dark hair.

'What would he do with it?' wondered a willowy Caladhrian girl who'd opted for a pale-rose gown. 'If it really existed.'

'I hate to think,' muttered her female companion darkly. 'Madam.' The Tormalin youth caught sight of Velindre on the stairs and swept a creditable bow given the armful of books encumbering him.

'Apprentice.' Velindre inclined her head tautly as the trio hurried past her. Sudden laughter floated back up the stairs to be cut short by the slam of the door below. Velindre took a deep breath and knocked briefly on the open door. 'Father?'

'Come in,' barked the stern voice. Velindre entered and blinked, frowning. 'Do you have something against daylight, father?'

'I've nothing against it.' The old wizard sat shrouded in darkness by a hearth whose fire was no more than a feeble glow. 'Nor yet any great interest in it, either. I'll leave the skies to you cloud mages.' His tone was uninterested.

Velindre crossed the room with some difficulty, given the plethora of small tables laden with books and the countless volumes stacked on the floors. She reached the windows and tugged at heavy red velvet curtains, an exact match for the distempered walls.

'You'll get precious little light at this time of year,' observed her father. 'All you'll do is let in draughts.'

'You still think any apprentice who can't illuminate his own reading isn't worth teaching.' Velindre managed to shed a thin shaft of light on the leather-backed chairs that ringed her father. For all the clutter, the room showed no speck of dust. No smudge marred the gleaming brass of the fender or the white marble of the fire mantel.

'As rules of thumb go, I've always found it sound.' The white-haired man said. He was sparely built, the height he'd boasted in his prime now bent into a stoop and the flesh fallen away from his aged bones. His face was gaunt, wrinkles carved deep on either side of his beak of a nose, eyes deep set above hollow cheeks. Eyes the same colour as Velindre's burned with the same intensity, undimmed by the burden of his years. Straight and swept back with pomade, his hair was cut precisely at jaw length, his wrinkled chin clean-shaven above a knotted silk scarf. He wore an old-fashioned gown of maroon velvet over layered jerkins, one long-sleeved, one sleeveless, and knee-breeches the colour of old wine. Thick woollen stockings warmed his shrunken calves, his feet in soft leather shoes that gleamed with polish.

Velindre approached and submitted to her father's dry kiss on her forehead.

'What do you want?' prompted the old man briskly. 'Spit it out, girl.'

'Do you remember Devr' Velindre sat on a chair and looked at the fire rather than her father.

'Of course,' the aged wizard answered with a hint of scorn. 'I remember all my students. A great deal of talent that I rapidly realised would go to waste. Far too ready to take issue with the supposed injustices of life. Always harking back to whatever ne'er-do-well village he stumbled away from. He was never going to make anything of his abilities unless he turned his back on such distractions and applied his intellect to his affinity.' The old wizard's voice was censorious as he folded his age-spotted hands on his chest.

'Did you know he'd gone to be Planir's eyes and ears in the Archipelago?' Velindre glanced at her father.

The old man shook his head, indifferent. 'Planir's another one who should concentrate a little less on the wider world and a little more on the proper business of wizardry.'

'Dev's found a dragon in the Aldabreshin south,' said Velindre carefully. 'One attuned to elemental fire, from what I saw.'

'You scried it?' Curiosity sparked in her father's eyes. 'What's your interest in this?'

'Dev wants to know more about dragons.' Velindre shrugged with unconcern. 'He bespoke me, asOtrick's former pupil, since I'm carrying on his work.'

'Otrick?' The ancient mage's laugh was a dry creak. 'I thought you were finally over that old pirate's foolishness of sailing hither and yon and whistling up winds to see where they lead you.' His disdain was withering. 'Cloud Master or not, Otrick led you astray from your studies. You might have stood a chance of the Council approving you as Cloud Mistress in your own right if you'd stayed here, applied yourself and shown them what you have to offer. You've a good mind. You just need to use it.'

He tapped one bone-white finger to his snowy temple before withdrawing into his high-backed, deep-winged chair. 'Your mother was a fool for encouraging you. She's another one with her head in the clouds. Well, Rafrid's no fool, even if he is one of Planir's cronies. And a mastery isn't what it used to be.

I could have been Hearth Master, but nowadays, well, Kalion's welcome to people hanging on his cloak day in and day out, knocking on his door with their whines and complaints. I don't see him adding anything to the sum of wizardry, and that is a waste of a fine mind,' he concluded sourly.

'Dev wants to study the dragon's innate magics' Velindre returned to studying the fire. 'He needs to get closer to it without ending up burned to a crisp. Otrick knew how to summon a dragon and how to control it but I can't find any record of exactly how he did it.'

'A charlatan's festival trick writ large,' the old wizard scoffed. 'Otrick was always a mountebank at heart.

Among his many other vices.' Dislike sharpened his tone. 'Not that such dalliances were any of my business. You were a grown woman.'

Velindre kept her gaze on the flames and held her voice level and emotionless. 'Otrick is dead, so we can't ask him about such lore. The only other mage I can find recorded as having this trick of summoning dragons is Azazir.'

Her father threw up his hands in exasperation. 'If Otrick was a disgrace to wizardry, Azazir was a blight.

What that fool cost Hadrumal in lost trust, in sowing fear and ignorance among the mundane of the mainland -there's no measuring it! We're still paying the price to this day,' he growled, fleshless fists clenched. 'With our Archmage bowing and scraping to every petty prince, just to make sure the mageborn can travel unhindered to Hadrumal before their emergent affinity is the death of them.'

'You knew Azazir.' Velindre looked up at her father, challenge in her eyes.

'I did,' he retorted, 'and if I'd been on the Council back then I'd have voted for his death, not just his banishment. Do those dolts who laugh over his exploits tell you how many drowned thanks to his fooling with the rivers or how many starved when his meddling caused famine?'

'I've heard all the tales. What they don't say is when Azazir died,' Velindre persisted. 'Rumour has it he's still alive, somewhere in the wilds.'

'Does it?' the old wizard growled with disgust.

In that instant, Velindre saw in his eyes that that much was true. 'Well?' she managed to ask, keeping all exultation out of her voice.

'He used to talk about embracing one's affinity, about immersing oneself in it.' The aged mage looked past her towards the slim shard of sky visible through the window. 'Which is all very well for a water mage, but I told him, just try that with fire. He didn't care. He was the most irresponsible, most dangerous wizard I ever encountered. He was all for seeking sensation, ever more sensational and never mind making sense of it, never mind understanding the interplay of element and reason and cause and effect. If he thought there was a chance he could do something, work some wonder with his magic, he'd try, never mind stopping to think if he should. He had a higher duty to his affinity, that's what he would say, to find out where its limits might lie. Never mind his duty to wizardry. Never mind wiser mages than him warning that there might be no limits to some sorceries. Never mind when more than one of his apprentices died a foul and lingering death,' the old man concluded with cold anger.

'Do you know where he is?' Velindre asked in measured tones.

Her father's eyes snapped back to her. 'No one will take your scholarship seriously if you associate yourself with a madman.'

Velindre met his gaze. 'There's precious little true scholarship about dragons, Father. It's one of the few areas of study where there's real work to be done. I want to know more and if Azazir is my only source,that's where I'll have to start.'

'Stubborn as your mother,' the old mage muttered. 'You haven't told her about this, have you? No, I'd have heard the two of you arguing from here if you had. And I suppose I've no small reputation for strong will.' A reluctant smile cracked his aged face.

The silence in the room was tense and brittle.

'I'll find him one way or the other,'Velindre said calmly, 'I'm going to do this, Father.'

'Perhaps you should see what it means to go chasing some madman's idle fancies.' The old mage pointed to a distant table where flat leather folders lay precisely piled. 'Fetch me that third folio of maps.'

Velindre retrieved it and he untied the rubbed-silk cord to open the tooled green leather.

'You've been to Inglis, haven't you, on one of Otrick's foolish voyages? Do you feel inclined to take the road north at the tail end of winter? That journey's not for the fainthearted.' He pulled out a half-sheet and stabbed at the parchment with a chalky nail.

'So the Council's banishment doesn't just mean quitting Hadrumal.' Velindre's brow wrinkled as she studied the point he'd indicated on the map.

'Azazir was told to lose himself. He was told if he injured anyone, ever again, that would be the death of him. You don't believe the Council would do such a thing?' The old man mocked Velindre's startled disbelief. 'Believe it, and there's more than me who will call for that madman's death if he ever shows his face in the lowliest village. And we'll know if he does. Planir knows what's due to his office of Archmage.

He keeps a weather eye on a menace like Azazir,' he said with grim satisfaction.

'So Planir will know if I visit Azazir?' Velindre asked warily.

'Would that stop you?' He thrust the parchment at Velindre. 'You were easily his equal, even if you were apprentice when he was a pupil, and you've twenty years' standing since then. Besides, he's another one full of Otrick's high-flown nonsense about experimentation and observation. You might both learn something from a little closer acquaintance with Azazir, even if it's not what you're expecting.'

The hairs on the back of Velindre's neck prickled at his ominous tone. 'Something valuable, I take it, if you're prepared to help me with this.'

'More valuable than some foolery with dragons.' The old wizard handed her the green leather folio and leaned back in his chair, gathering his mantle around him. 'Put those back where you got them. And don't say I didn't warn you, if you decide to pursue this folly.'

'Thank you for the map.' Velindre rose and left, not looking back.

Outside, the rain had stopped and the clouds had lifted. A breeze was rolling down from the hills to scour the heavy dampness out of the air. Velindre relished the freshness as she walked rapidly through the empty back alleys. There wasn't time to waste, not given the urgency in Dev's voice. Whatever his many and varied faults, he didn't indulge himself in foolish alarm, like some dog barking vacantly at every footfall.

She pictured a very different city in her mind's eye. So Inglis was the closest place worth marking to this mysterious lake where the equally mysterious Azazir was lurking. A city of white stone, well planned and well built, entirely unlike the haphazard accumulation of Hadruraal. A peaceable city, thanks to the powerful Guilds who paid a well-muscled and well-drilled Watch, which incidentally ensured that they had loyal men to hand to deter any challenge to their hegemony. A city built on the endless resources of timber, fur and metal-bearing ores of the empty northern wastes.

Velindre smiled thinly as she arrived back at the New Hall's ancient gate, blurred carvings unlike the sharp elegance of Inglis's cornices. Her father might believe that the city was all respectability and serious trade. Otrick had known better and, thanks to him, so did she. Otrict had known the dockside taverns where those mariners who risked voyages out to the ocean deep could be found. Mariners who should more properly be called pirates, never mind their brandishing of some parchment from the Inglis harbour guild, licensing them to pursue some vessel condemned for not paying the requisite tariffs.A translocation spell would take her there in short order. Velindre climbed the stairs to her study.

Arriving somewhere discreet would be best, to avoid one of the wizards in Inglis reporting her arrival to Planir. Earth mages always found plenty of work and plenty to interest them among the mining concerns around Inglis. Planir had been Stone Master before he'd been Archmage and indeed still was, despite the displeasure of some on the Council. Well, Velindre had no interest in explaining herself to Planir until she had something to show for this boldness, something to give the Council pause for thought over their choice of Cloud Master.

She locked her study door. One of the better inns would suffice, where gold would shut the mouths of any chambermaid or potboy who happened to see her. Tossing her damp cloak over a chair, she went through the inner door to her bedchamber. Throwing open a tall cupboard, she surveyed the gowns lying on wide shelves, linen and stockings in cubbyholes beneath, boots and shoes thrown into the hollow bottom. She'd need heavy clothing as well as some furs and a sturdy saddle-horse when she got to Inglis.

Dev's timing was lousy as always. Velindre grimaced at the thought of the pristine white winter that would still be gripping those mountains. Even half a season later, she might have approached some privateer for passage north, but not now. No sailor would risk his ship among the inlets and coves still choked with floating ice.

Furs and horses would cost money. She found a soft leather bag among her neatly darned stockings and weighed it in her hand for a moment before setting it down again. That should suffice. Planir had been unwont-edly generous when she'd asked for coin to hire ships these past summers to continue Otrick's studies of Toremal's ocean winds. More to the point, the Archmage never asked for an accounting and she'd never felt the need to give him one.

She pulled a leather bag with stout handles and brass buckles down from the topmost shelf and threw in a handful of sturdy stockings and smallclothes, woollen chemises and flannel petticoats.

What would her mother do? As soon as word reached her that Velindre had left Hadrumal, her father's eyrie wouldn't save him from interrogation. Would he tell her mother where she had gone or keep it to himself, out of simple malice? Perhaps, perhaps not, if he decided he had erred in helping her. Would her mother set Planir on her heels? Possibly. It would be an excuse to remind the Archmage of Hadrumal's concerns. Her mother was a voluble critic of all the time he lavished on dealings with mainland princes.