Kellanved's Reach

Chapter 2

The day after he, Surly, and Kellanved had their strategy talk, Dancer was in the upper chambers of Mock’s Hold when Kellanved entered and carefully shut the door behind him. The mage, now permanently appearing as a wrinkled, black-skinned Dal Hon elder, beckoned Dancer close and whispered, hushed, ‘Are we alone?’

Dancer shrugged, a touch mystified. ‘Well, yes. I imagine so.’

‘Good. Then let’s go.’

‘Go? Go where?’

The grey-haired ancient raised his eyes to the ceiling in frustration. ‘Our research. The stone! We follow the stone!’

For the last month Dancer had heard nothing but this and so he pulled a hand down his face, exhausted by it. Their first trip chasing up a lead regarding ancient weapons from the Fenn mountains had been an utter disaster and they’d barely escaped with their lives – yet again. He’d hoped that would’ve been enough to quell the lad’s ambitions, but apparently no setback, no matter how dire, could in any manner rein in this one’s plans. ‘Right. The spear-point. You mean this very moment?’

‘Of course!’ The mage drew himself up straight and pronounced, ‘If not now, then what? If not where, then who?’

Dancer stared at him, his brows crimping. ‘What?’

The mage threw a finger in the air for a pause. ‘Wait!’ He stroked his chin, thinking furiously. ‘If not where … then why … no, that’s not it. If not what, then who?’ He shook his head. ‘No. Wait …’

Dancer waved that aside. ‘Not now. We have to prepare. Water, food, the proper gear.’

‘Fine!’ Kellanved pointed to a candle inscribed with lines. ‘One segment – an hour.’

Dancer nodded his agreement. ‘Okay. One hour.’ He headed to the door. ‘We’ll meet here.’

Downstairs, in the main hall of the Hold, he found Surly. She was leaning up against a long feasting-table, her arms crossed, the usual sceptical and disapproving scowl on her hard face. ‘You’re off disappearing now, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah, we’re leaving.’

She raised a hand to inscribe a languid circle as if encompassing the Hold. ‘And what makes you think all this will be here waiting for you when you return?’

He raised his shoulders, dismissive. ‘I don’t assume any such thing – if that’s what you mean.’

‘Really? Then why all this? Why do any of it?’

‘This? The Hold? The isle?’ He waved a hand. ‘I care nothing for this. It’s a by-product only. I don’t need it.’

Now Surly raised a brow, extremely doubtful. ‘Really. A by-product … of what?’

‘Of me challenging myself.’ He inclined his head. ‘Now, if you will excuse me – time is short.’ He headed off.

‘What if you do not return?’ Surly called after him. ‘Then what?’

Turning, he bowed, while retreating. ‘Then do with it what you will.’

An hour later he pushed open the door to Kellanved’s chambers then kicked it shut behind him. He now wore his customary armoured vest beneath his shirt and pocketed jacket. Knives of all lengths and weights were thrust into sheaths sewn into vest, shirt and jacket. Further weapons were secreted at his neck, in his boots, and round his waist. A coiled rope was at one shoulder, and a pack containing a drinking skin and dried food. A pouch inside his jacket held a selection of miscellaneous coins, a tinderbox, lengths of drawn wire, a few fine tools, and two beeswax candles.

Kellanved he found once more behind his desk, feet up, snoring.

In three long strides he was across the room to kick the desk and Kellanved fell from his chair, arms flailing. His head appeared from behind the desk, peering about in wonder. ‘What was that?’

‘An earthquake.’

‘Really? Imagine that.’

‘Yes. Ready to go?’

‘Already?’

Dancer righted the candle, indicated the remaining scribed lines.

The mage frowned, then shrugged. ‘Hunh.’ He stood and straightened his vest. ‘Very well.’

‘All set, are you?’ Dancer enquired sweetly. ‘Got everything, have we?’

The ancient-looking Dal Hon fluttered a hand. ‘Well, I imagine you’ve taken care of all the mundane details.’

‘Thank you so very much …’ His acid comment trailed off as he found he was no longer in the mage’s chambers in Mock’s Hold. The two now stood on a vast plain of volcanic black dust and ashes, a sky of roiling dark clouds shot through by blasts of lightning above. ‘That was … very smooth,’ he managed, secretly quite impressed.

‘Why thank you,’ the little mage answered, with all his usual smugness. ‘It’s coming so much more easily now. Almost as if I never really leave, you know?’

Dancer didn’t know, but he nodded. ‘If you say so. This isn’t Shadow, clearly. The Scar?’

Kellanved nodded. He waved his walking stick about and headed off. ‘Yes. More private, don’t you think?’

Personally, Dancer didn’t like it. He was uncomfortable in this wasteland region, or Warren, or whatever it was. He felt as if he were always being watched. And there was also the atmosphere. Melancholy was the best word he could come up with to describe the aura this place seemed to exude. It unnerved him. But at least nothing was actively trying to kill him – nothing he knew of, at any rate.

He turned his attention to the crabbed, hunched, falsely aged mage at his side. ‘As if I never leave,’ the fellow had said. Dancer thought that inadvertently revealing. Once more he tried to make sense of what the Tano Spiritwalker had confided to him that day in the far-off Seven Cities prison. That this mage may inhabit more than one plane or Warren at any one time. That having been engulfed by a storm of Otataral dust, his essence had been annealed, or translated, across more than one location: the mundane physical plane, the Warren of Shadow, and this strange artificial dimension – be it whatever it was.

And if this were indeed so – he glanced aside to the mage as he sauntered along swinging his walking stick – it may be that this fellow had become rather difficult to kill. For it may be that his spirit would persist in those other Realms.

Dancer rubbed a temple, almost wincing. Whatever. Not his area of expertise. Suffice it to say he had a resourceful partner he could trust, and so it was time to push himself as far as possible to see just what he could accomplish.

Kellanved fished in a vest pocket and brought out the stone – the infamous knapped broken spear-point – which he jiggled in his palm. ‘Nothing,’ he announced. ‘Thought not. The influence, or connection, that bears upon it does not extend to this Realm.’

‘So we return.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘North. Somewhere north.’

‘Not Heng, please,’ Dancer said, laughing.

Kellanved offered a weak smile. ‘No indeed.’ Then he frowned, thoughtful. ‘But it came to me there, didn’t it?’

Dancer’s half-amused smile fell. ‘Not that town.’

The mage offered an ambiguous shrug. ‘Who knows? I swear, Dancer, I mean to avenge myself upon those mages. Eventually.’

They paced onwards for a time; a thin, wind-borne scarf of ash and dust preceded them. Dancer could not shake his discomfort, his sense that the Realm was somehow haunted. ‘I dislike this place,’ he announced to Kellanved, who nodded, not surprised at all.

‘Yes. It has that aura. A great crime was perpetrated here, I believe. Long ago.’

Finally, Dancer could endure the wait no longer, and he asked, ‘Now?’

Kellanved paused, peered round. ‘Well. I suppose we could see where we are …’

In a moment Dancer found himself in sudden night, amid a plain of tall windswept grasses. He peered round, crouching, now quite used to these transitions. ‘Northern Dal Hon,’ he offered, cocking an eye to his companion.

The mage glanced about, distaste upon his wrinkled features. ‘Sadly so,’ he agreed. He studied the stone in his hands, then announced, ‘This way.’

Dancer followed, hands on his heaviest weapons, for hyenas, leopards and other beasts stalked these grasslands. After a time, the wide, bright bridge of the gods arcing overhead, he suggested, ‘We should bed down for the night.’

The wizened Dal Hon native had been slashing his walking stick through the grasses as he went. ‘Really?’ he answered. ‘Are you tired?’

Dancer considered. Was he tired? He realized that he was not. The walk through the ashen Warren had only been a few hours, after all. Yet it was night here. Had it been a half-day, or even two? He had no way of knowing until they reached a settlement that kept a decent record of the days – beyond that of the traditional ‘close to harvest’, or ‘soon after the solstice’, or whatever.

Not that it mattered. Days and years came and went. There was no pressing need to keep count. Why bother, after all? Only pinched dry historians argued over what happened in the third year of king so-and-so’s reign. It was all over and done with to him. Not of the moment.

Setting aside his musings, Dancer looked to his companion and realized that he was uncharacteristically sombre and quiet this night. ‘You are troubled?’ he asked.

The little fellow shrugged his thin shoulders as he swatted at the grass. ‘Unhappy memories.’

Dancer smiled to himself. He thinks he had a difficult childhood?

‘I was beaten and mocked and belittled all through my youth,’ Kellanved began, unbidden. ‘Dal Hon tribes value martial ability, you see. Fighting. Strength. Athleticism.’ He motioned to his skinny form. ‘I possess none of these qualities, as you see. So I was the mongrel dog, the runt of the litter, that is the target of all abuse. Further, there seemed some darker motive behind it all. Some deliberate dislike or dread. At the time I knew nothing of this – all only became clear later.’

Dancer listened quite astonished; this was the first time the lad had opened up regarding his background.

The mage swatted anew as they paced along. ‘Eventually, useless as I was judged for warfare, I was taken in, reluctantly, by a neighbouring tribal shaman. I was overjoyed at first. This would be my calling! It seemed to fit so very well. But soon I found myself suffering even worse abuse at the hands of this fiend. Every degradation, every humiliating and disgusting task he set me, seemed deliberately designed to drive me away. And so, in time, he succeeded, and I ran away from my apprenticeship, out into the wilds, quite alone. Of course slavers captured me almost immediately.’ The lad swatted ferociously at the grass. ‘I will never forget the torture I received at their hands!

‘So I languished for a time, a bound servant in their camp. Then, one day, a man picked me out and took me away to serve him in his tower on the Itko Kanese border. He was a mage and he revealed to me that he’d picked me out because I, too, was touched by talent. There my real journey began.’

Dancer nodded. All this sounded not too dissimilar from his experience. ‘He trained you,’ he offered.

The lad nodded. ‘Yes. The rudiments. But nothing more. Stingy, he was. Never revealing quite enough to allow me to stand on my own. Eventually I realized the damned fellow intended to keep me perpetually in his service, if he could. And so I ran again.’

Dancer nodded. He, too, had also fled his master.

The lad raised his walking stick to the stars. ‘Then it happened. A revelation in the wilds. As you now know, mystic legend has it that ancient Shadow, Kurald Emurlahn, was shattered, broken into countless shards. In these very grasslands, I stumbled upon, or was washed over by, one of those shards, and at that moment everything became clear. Shadow! That was my home. All the dark insults and muttered asides directed my way during my youth were explained: such a fragment had happened to pass over, or through, the village during the moment of my birth.’

The mage halted, and Dancer drew up short, surprised, as Kellanved faced him. ‘That is why Meanas does not trouble me, you see. It is my home. I was born in it. All this,’ and he gestured about, ‘all this is an impediment; irksome. I loathe it. It is in Meanas that I feel most whole. It is my centre. I was formed within its influence. Do you think it mere chance that the Hounds responded to me? No. My soul, my essence, belongs there. It took a while – but they recognized a kindred spirit.’

Dancer let out a breath, nodding. Well … that explains a lot. ‘I … see …’

Kellanved continued on. ‘For a time I bounced from scholar to scholar, mage to warlock, ever pursuing more knowledge of Shadow. Everything since has been an effort to return there for ever. And I shall.’ He thrust the walking stick to the night sky. ‘I shall!’

‘I do not doubt it,’ Dancer murmured.

The mage now set a finger to his lips as he eyed the silvery monochrome landscape before them. ‘I judge we are some three days south of the Idryn. Must we walk it?’

Dancer considered the alternatives – neither of which he judged desirable. ‘Sorry,’ he answered, ‘but we really ought to.’

Kellanved sighed, his thin shoulders falling. ‘Really? Must we?’ He raised a finger in warning. ‘Fine! If we must. But I tell you, once I come into my own there’ll be no more of this tramping about, I promise you!’

Dancer smiled his approval. ‘Agreed. Once the benefits outweigh the hazards.’

* * *

Nedurian walked the cobbled main road that led out from Malaz City to cross the isle. Once he’d passed two wayside inns, an informal market ground, a blacksmith’s, and a shop dedicated to building and repairing the local heavy slate roofs, he entered fields and market-gardens where produce, pigs and chickens vied for space among low hedges and ancient, crumbling fieldstone walls. Past these he came to long fields of grain such as barley, millet and wheat that ran in narrow strips out from the road to a distant hidden stream. These rural farmers – crofters, some named them – lived relatively independently of the city just a few hours’ walk, though something of a world, away.

His left leg started to ache then, as it always did when called upon to cross more than a few rods of journey. It was an old injury. A summoned demon had taken a chunk out of his thigh and nicked the femur; a military churgeon had reached him in time to save his life, but the leg had never been the same. Thankfully, not so far ahead, among the windswept hills, he spotted what surely must be his destination.

It was an old local burial field, abandoned now, but rumoured to be haunted, of course. Shunned by the locals. Yet here fresh new canvas tents snapped and shuddered in the wind while long thin banners of black rippled above – sigils of the cult of Hood, resurgent here on the isle due to a personage now accruing a near worldwide reputation among the faithful. Dassem Ultor, Mortal Sword of Hood, god of death.

Nedurian limped onward, entered the field and traced his way through the tents to where adherents and the faithful were gathered, some kneeling, others standing as they prayed. He tried to push past the crowd, only to have his way barred by armed cultists.

‘Yes, brother?’ a woman demanded, her arm out.

‘I am here to see the Sword.’

‘As are we all. Yet he is praying and not to be disturbed.’

‘He’ll see me.’

‘Oh? And why is this?’

‘Because I’m here with a message from the woman he works for!’ Nedurian snapped, rather irritated. ‘That’s why.’

The cultist dropped her arm. ‘Ah. The Sword has left instructions. You may pass.’ Yet the arm snapped up again, a finger thrusting. ‘But the Sword does not work for this woman. They merely share obligations to the master of Shadow.’

Nedurian had been about to slap the woman’s arm aside, but her words startled him enough to make him pause, blinking. ‘The master of what?’

‘Shadow, of course. There are those among us who share allegiance to that faith as well. They wear the colours of twilight grey.’

Now Nedurian could not stop himself rolling his eyes to the sky. Gods! These religious people and their love of pompous self-important titles and hierarchies of power. Personally, he thought it insane – but, after all, he was just a soldier at heart. Give him comrades in arms, a warm fire and plenty to drink, and life was good. Who needed more than that?

So he shrugged, mumbling something like ‘Pissant fools’, and shouldered his way through.

The centre of the field was empty; a measure of the respect, and perhaps dread, in which the Sword was held. Nedurian passed simple cairns of piled stones to a larger structure, a sepulture of dressed black volcanic rock. Here the Dal Hon lad who was held to be the living embodiment of Hood’s will sat cross-legged, meditating – or dozing, depending upon your level of reverence.

‘Stay like that and you’ll stiffen up,’ Nedurian growled.

A smile crooked the lad’s lips. ‘Spoken like an old campaigner.’ He raised his dark, so very dark blue eyes and even Nedurian, sceptic and veteran, felt a shudder. As if he were looking through me to something else. Something so very far away. ‘What may I do for you?’ the lad asked.

Now Nedurian smiled, despite himself. No false pride or haughtiness here! Just two veterans hunkering down for a chat. And so he crouched to his haunches, picked up a rock and studied it, saying, ‘Got us a lot of raw recruits in need of training …’

The lad’s face clouded, and he nearly winced. He dropped his gaze. ‘Death comes to us all.’

Nedurian fought to hide his impatience with this sort of easy youthful fatalism. ‘That’s true. But it could come a year later just as easily – so who’s to decide? You?’

A half-smile ghosted the lad’s lips. ‘Touché, my friend. Nedurian, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And veteran of the Iron Legion.’ The lad’s penetrating gaze rose and Nedurian had to look away. ‘Officer, yes?’

He nodded. ‘Of the Old Guard. Before the legion was broken on the fields of Commor before Unta.’

‘The Untans take credit for that victory.’

‘They shouldn’t,’ Nedurian answered, rather testily. ‘It was the Bloorian and Gris heavies. They sacrificed themselves to turn the tide. It was a slaughter, but they weakened the lines just enough. The Untans came swanning in later.’

‘You were there,’ the lad said – and it was not a question.

Nedurian jerked a nod, his gaze lowered. ‘Yes. I was there.’

The Dal Hon youth was quiet for a time, then he asked, quietly, ‘What is it you want of me?’

Nedurian flung his arms open. ‘Training, man! At least give them a chance to survive the first sword stroke!’

Dassem glanced away. ‘I’m not a soldier. Nor do I pretend to be.’

Nedurian swept that aside. ‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll take care of the soldiering. You just handle the swordsmanship.’

The lad considered, his head cocked. Then he gave a slow nod. ‘Very well. If that is our agreement. But I am no soldier or general. Remember that.’

Nedurian gave a curt nod of agreement in answer. ‘Whatever. So long as our lads and lasses have a better chance. That’s all I ask.’

‘You?’ Dassem demanded sharply. ‘Or this woman, Surly?’

‘Does it matter? So long as we can help these recruits?’

The Dal Hon smiled in answer, almost as if rueful. ‘She sent you, didn’t she?’

‘She asked that I speak to you,’ Nedurian admitted. ‘Yes. Why?’

The lad shook his head. ‘Never mind. It’s just that she knew. She knew that out of everyone you had the best chance of … well …’ He shrugged. ‘What’s done is done. Very well. I will return.’ He extended a hand, indicating that they were finished. ‘Tell her I will return.’

Despite his natural scepticism and irreligious bent, Nedurian bowed his head, rising. ‘Thank you. It will mean a lot to the ranks, I’m certain of it.’

Dassem inclined his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. ‘Thank you. Now I must reflect upon this. I must consider if this is the right path for me.’

Nedurian straightened, wincing at the jabbing pain from his left leg, and massaged his hip. ‘Well, we’ll see you at the wharves tomorrow, yes?’

The Dal Hon youth waved him off. ‘Tomorrow.’

He limped away, clenching his lips against the ache of his old wound. Well, if he’d just secured training from the foremost swordsman of their age for his boys and girls, then he didn’t give a tinker’s damn how much this furthered or served the woman Surly’s schemes.

* * *

Tayschrenn returned to Malaz City via the hidden Warren Kellanved had found and revealed to him. Not that he feared a renewed confrontation with any D’rek priests – it was just perhaps prudent to avoid notice for a time. Also, though it was personally crushing to admit, he’d failed his god and wanted no more reminders.

This new mage who pretended to be a youth, Calot he called himself, should follow along shortly. Tayschrenn did not consider himself naïve in allowing him time to finish his personal matters; he’d asked him for a small item, in this case a rag used as a handkerchief, and told him that should he fail to appear Kellanved would give this as spoor to the Hounds of Shadow, and they would chase him down no matter where he hid and tear him limb from limb.

Tayschrenn knew he was not the best judge of people’s social signals and body language, but the mage had seemed appropriately alarmed.

On his return, Tayschrenn went straight to Smiley’s. He found the Hold irritatingly distant from the ships that came and went daily with their news of distant lands; it was such news that interested him most, while he suspected that prior occupants of the Hold had been far too uninterested – to their ruin.

This disruption of the cult of D’rek, for example; were there whispers or vague rumours of similar upheavals among cults in other lands? The priests of Hood, say, or the Enchantress? Poliel? Or any other god or goddess? The phenomenon troubled him for reasons he could not yet firm up in his mind.

So it was that he entered, tapping a finger to his lips, his mind elsewhere, not paying particular attention to the common room until a gruff voice called out, ‘Hey, skinny – you work for the Dal Hon mage, Kellanved?’

He paused, blinking, drawing his mind in from its wanderings, and glanced over to see a very squat, sun-darkened older man gesturing at him from a table. He drew himself up to his full height and peered down his nose at the bald sweaty fellow. ‘And you are …?’

‘Fucking irritated to be kept waiting like this, kid.’

‘How very unfortunate for you.’

A broad, frog-like smile cracked the man’s face and he pushed back his chair to cross his thick, muscular arms. ‘No. Unfortunate for you, ’cause I was invited by Kellanved to join him here. So, my question to you is … who the fuck are you?’

Though quite taken aback, Tayschrenn controlled his features; he glanced about the common room and saw several of their Malazan hires lounging about, all armed, and all eyeing this stranger.

‘I have been asked to organize a mage corps,’ he answered. ‘And so I must ask again. You are …?’

The fellow’s dark gaze moved about the room also, his smile becoming, if anything, even more evil. ‘Oh, I see. You’re organizing a mage corps, are you? Well, we’ll see about that. Name’s Hairlock, and I’ve already seen some action with your Dal Hon friend. Up north. Seven Cities way.’ He hooked his thumbs at his tight belt. ‘So maybe I’ll just hang about till he shows up.’

Tayschrenn lifted a brow. ‘I was unaware that Kellanved had been to Seven Cities.’

The mage – for it was clear to Tayschrenn that this fellow was a fairly powerful mage – deliberately turned away to peer out of the dimpled glass of a slit window. ‘Oh, he gets around, he does. You’d be surprised.’

Privately, Tayschrenn was coming to the conclusion that nothing involving that mage of Meanas ought to surprise him at all; yet he shrugged. ‘As you please. We are recruiting, of course. Our aim is to place a talent with every military unit.’

The fellow barked a harsh laugh. ‘Slog through muck and dust surrounded by a pack of dimwitted knuckleheads? No thank you. Not for this mother’s son.’

Tayschrenn waved his dismissal. ‘Very well. We need people who aren’t afraid of a little discomfort,’ and he turned away.

A Malazan guard at the stairs motioned to him and he stepped close. ‘Yes?’

‘She wants to see you.’

He nodded and started up the stairs. He allowed himself one quick glance back to see Hairlock scowling savagely as he stared out the window.

At the top he knocked on the door to what was once Kellanved’s office, but had since been taken over by Surly as her headquarters; like him, she found the Hold too … high profile.

The door opened and he faced two guards in blackened leather armour. A more divergent pair one would be hard-pressed to find: a Dal Hon woman, surprisingly tall, with extraordinarily long thin arms; her partner, a man of swarthy shading, perhaps of south Itko Kan, squat, bearded and barrel-shaped. Yet both shared the same flat evaluative gaze as they studied him in silence.

Tayschrenn couldn’t remember having seen either of them before. But then, he wasn’t around much.

‘Let him in,’ spoke a hidden Surly from somewhere further within.

The two parted, hands on the knives at their belts. Curious, Tayschrenn also noted the glint of identical brooches at their chests: silver tokens that resembled birds’ feet. Some sort of order, or brotherhood?

Beyond, Surly stood, chin in one hand, peering down at a swath of papers spread out on the hardwood floor before her. Two aides, or scribes, knelt before her, arranging the pages. Seeing him enter, the two hurriedly turned each sheet face down.

He glimpsed copious notes and numerous long lists. The blue-hued Napan woman turned to him, rubbing her eyes, which shone bloodshot and bruised.

‘You appear to be in need of rest,’ he told her.

A half-smile ghosted her lips. ‘Ever the smooth flatterer and courtier, Tayschrenn.’ She added, musingly, ‘Rather like me,’ then, more forcefully, ‘thank you for coming. How goes the recruitment?’

‘It proceeds.’ He glanced to the guards. ‘As yours appears to be. Where are your old crew? Urko? Tocaras?’

‘They are far too busy these days. Urko is off raiding the coast, as is Tocaras.’

‘Raiding? I thought they were preparing for the—’ He caught himself before saying anything specific aloud, even here, and finished, ‘ah, the attack.’

The lean woman nodded, gestured for the scribes to turn back the pages, and resumed her study. ‘They are. We need weapons, stores, supplies. Raiding is the quickest way to amass them.’

‘Ah. I see.’ He waved to the papers. ‘And these?’

‘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.’