Kellanved's Reach

‘Reports. Estimates. Correspondence with … assets … in the coastal cities.’

The two scribes now eyed him warily, as if he were about to snatch up a handful of the pages and race for the door. He nodded instead. ‘Intelligence. Very good. We are on track, then, for the … ah, the plan?’

She spared him a sharp glance. ‘Are we?’

He tilted his head, thinking. ‘Speaking for the mage corps – no. We are not. We are far behind my first expectations. Surprisingly, recruiting here on this island has been poor. To say the least.’

‘I thought you told me the island was rife with talents.’

‘It was – is. However, none appear interested in leaving. They seem content to remain. Which, as I say, is surprising. I assure you this is not the usual case.’

The Napan woman nodded, her attention refocusing upon the reports spread before her. ‘Very well. Continue your efforts.’

The conversation – or interrogation – was over. He inclined his head and turned away. He knew that another person might be insulted by the curt treatment, but somehow he and she seemed to understand one another; each considered themself a professional in their field, untroubled by such petty concerns as feelings or ego. And each seemed determined to out-professionalize the other.

Exiting the bar, he turned uphill, his feet taking him whither they would, as he set loose his thoughts. Surly’s questioning reopened the mystery of why this island’s fecund pool of talents should be so reluctant to leave. Quite frankly it did astonish him that almost none were willing to join Kellanved’s forces. Perhaps some personal animosity or dread? But no, he was given to understand that such had always been the case. And all the more unlikely was it, given that this isle’s crop of wax-witches, hedge wizards, wind-callers, card readers and sea-soothers was the densest anywhere. Above almost every cottage door there hung a sign proclaiming readings, healing or an apothecary, or showing the candle of a wax-witch.

He brooded upon the mystery for a time as he walked, hands clasped at his back, until, looking up, he realized he’d left the town far behind and had climbed one of the low and bare inland hills. Here, lichen-dappled granite rocks protruded through the grasses as little more than stubs – a circle of ancient standing stones.

The hill afforded a view southwards, over further blunt hills. Unseen beyond lay the southern seas. The Strait of Storms. Said to be haunted by the so-called Stormriders: alien beings that terrorized the waters and allowed no trespass. He remembered reading third- and fourth-hand transcribed legends of attacks upon this isle by the Riders.

He pressed his fingertips together and brushed them to his lips; something. He’d touched upon something – he felt it. There was a mystery here. But one so very much larger than he’d first imagined. It was as if he had entered some shepherd’s sod-roofed hut only to find a multi-roomed mansion.

But what was it? What was hidden here on this island?

‘You are looking for recruits?’ someone called, startling him.

He turned. A woman approached, tall and thin, in bedraggled simple peasant’s tunic and trousers, her feet bare and dirty. As she neared, he became uncertain as to her ethnicity; her hair was hacked short, dirty brown, her eyes very large, her face long. He couldn’t quite place where she might hail from. She walked stiffly, using a cane, one hand across her front. It seemed she’d suffered some sort of injury recently.

He nodded to her. ‘Yes. You are interested?’

‘Yes.’

He attempted to sense her aura only to find himself blocked – this in itself startled him. Few possessed the power to so fully forestall any probing from him. ‘You are shielding yourself,’ he observed.

‘As are you.’

He allowed himself a thin smile. ‘True enough.’

‘You hide from the priests of D’rek.’

Now he frowned, irked. ‘That is not your—’

‘That is wise,’ she said. ‘I am of the same mind as you. Some taint has contaminated that cult. It is a worry.’

He waved a hand to dismiss the subject. ‘You say you are willing to join. Why?’

‘This mage of Shadow. He … interests me.’

Tayschrenn now understood. ‘You mean you sense he has found power and you wish to learn his secrets for yourself.’

She shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘Have it that way if you wish. Is that not why he fascinates you?’

He laughed, a touch unnerved by her strange frankness, and insight. ‘From a purely academic stance only, I assure you.’ He shook his head. ‘I do not think anyone could wrest away those powers he has demonstrated. I believe it all to be part of him. Of his essence.’

The woman nodded. ‘I sense this also.’

‘Very well. You are …?’

She inclined her head a fraction. ‘You may call me Nightchill.’

Chapter 3

A cold, long-fingered hand clasped across his mouth woke Gregar and he flailed for an instant before realizing who it was; then he nodded. Haraj released him and raised a single digit to his mouth to sign for silence.