Western Shore

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Kheda drew his hand back slowly, his eye fixed on the plump bird insouciantly probing the sandbank with its fine spike of a beak. He threw the stone hard and true and the bird fell in a flurry of feathers.

'Well done.' Risala gave a soundless clap from the slanted deck of the Zaise, careful of her splinted and bandaged wrist.

Kheda grinned up at her. 'You wouldn't care to go and get it, would you?'

She smiled down with a shake of her head. 'You shot it, you fetch it. I've done enough today carrying water.'

Kheda looked inland to the pit he had dug in the deepest channel that was still nonetheless as dry as a bone. At least there was water far beneath in the sand. And ironically, more water than they wanted was edging up the slope that the upheaval had made of the river mouth. The floods filling the grassy plain were slowly reclaiming the channels. His pleasure in securing fresh meat abated somewhat.

We 're not drinking that water, stagnant and tainted with whatever's rotting beneath it. And it's bringing far too many insects to bite us and that could lay us low with whatever foul fevers this land might harbour.

He tried for a reassuring smile as he turned back to Risala. 'Did you see anyone?'

'No one.' Risala sighed. 'Nothing alive bar a few new birds, those little striped lizards and far too many flies.'

'Those people who stayed back on the higher ground must have been safe,' Kheda said stubbornly. 'We saw smoke from a fire, didn't we?'

'Who's to say who or what lit it?' Risala glanced involuntarily over her shoulder. 'If you want to find that village again, you'll have to go and look for yourself.'

'I think we can wait until someone finds us, if someone risks those floodwaters. I can't see any easy path for us inland, not if we have those two to help along.'

It's no bad thing that the twists of this channel hide us from view from inland. I don't suppose those wild men and women would be too impressed if they came to us looking for help and found our vaunted mages wholly incapable. And I don't think any of us want to get entangled in their affairs again.

Kheda followed Risala's gaze towards the stern cabin. 'Is she trying to scry again?' he asked quietly.

'For the third time today.' Risala nodded, half-concerned, half-exasperated. 'I told her she should wait till tomorrow, or at least until after noon.'

'You don't imagine she'll listen, do you?' Kheda shook his head, resigned. 'How's Naldeth?'

Risala answered with a shrug. 'Still just sitting and staring at his hands.'

Kheda shook his head, frustrated. 'I wish he'd let me see what's happening under those bandages. Or take some poppy syrup. He must be suffering agonies.'

'You don't think he's afraid of how much it might hurt if you need to re-splint his fingers?' Risala suggested with a shudder.

Kheda gave another sigh. 'I'd better go and find that bird before green ants eat it.' He trudged over the dessi-cated sand and picked up the dead bird. Digging a shallow pit with the square end of the single hacking blade they still had between them, he gutted it carefully with Risala's dagger and buried the entrails. Pausing to wipe the sweat

from his forehead before it drew too many flies, he looked back at the Zaise, wedged in a curved hollow, masts broken, her deck a hollow ruin. Then he looked back out to the west. The ship rested high and dry an astounding distance from the sea.

What are we going to do if both wizards' powers continue to fail them? Risala and me are hardly going to carry theZaise over those exposed reefs and out to the sea between us. Though the ship's not going to be seaworthy, even if we could.

Retracing his steps, he threw the bird up to thud onto the deck and pulled himself up the dangling rope ladder. Sitting on the rail, he began plucking the bird, letting the feathers drift idly away to be lost on the steady breeze coming in from the distant ocean.

Risala studied him. 'What are you thinking about?'

Kheda continued stripping away feathers. 'Arrogance,' he said after a long moment. 'I keep wondering how I could have been so arrogant as to think I could just change what didn't suit me about this place, because I was a warlord and that's what I wanted.'

'It wasn't just you,' Risala protested quietly. 'They were at least as determined to work their will here.'

'And we all just dragged you along with us.' Kheda tried to rid himself of down sticking to the blood on his fingers.

'I had a choice,' Risala reminded him. 'I came because I wanted to, because I believe in you, because I believed we had to find out just what might threaten Chazen.'

Kheda glanced at her. 'At least they had their magic to encourage them to think they might actually be able to do something about any dangers lurking here.'

'You don't think their magic just made them more arrogant?' countered Risala. 'Do you honestly think they intended to raise up the coastline like this? I don't think

they had any idea what would happen when they let their magic loose like that.'

'Well, we're all more humble now.' Kheda tore viciously at a particularly stubborn quill. 'And at least they saved us all from those dragons.'

'Do you think you might have been a little arrogant in setting your face against omens and portents?' Risala fiddled with the bandage around her broken wrist.

Kheda didn't answer, simply ripping more feathers from the partially denuded bird.

'When we get back to the Archipelago,' Risala persisted, 'will you at least look again at all the records, all the philosophers' writings, and listen to the epic poets who discuss their misgivings? You're hardly the first one to have doubts. Just to see if there's a chance you might be mistaken, before you throw all that away?'

Kheda cleared his throat. 'All right. I can do that much for you.'

When we get back to the Archipelago? If we ever get back to the Archipelago. That's an easy promise to make, because I don't see how we're ever going to get home.

'Kheda! Risala!'

The shout from the stern cabin made them both jump.

Risala looked at Kheda. 'Naldeth wants us.'

'Let's see why.' He swung his legs inboard. Traversing the slanted deck was a question of half-crawling, half-walking. The door to the stern cabin was hinged on the uphill side and awkward to manage. Splinters from the shattered ruby egg were driven deep into the wood.

Kheda forced a cheerful tone as he looked inside the cabin and flourished the dead bird. 'Fresh meat tonight, and I'll see if—'

He swallowed the rest of his words as he saw that the cabin wasn't just lit by the harsh sunlight filtering through the holes in the broken planking. A green glow

rose from the dented silver bowl that Velindre cradled, illuminating her face.

The magewoman sat cross-legged on the haphazard collection of clothing and bedding that they had piled in the angle of the sloping deck and the tilted wooden wall to make a vaguely level surface for sleeping. Looking up, she smiled at Kheda. Where her face had been thin before, the magewoman was now positively gaunt and the green light made the bruises all down one cheek look black against her pallor.

'How far can you scry?' Kheda tossed the dead bird back out onto the deck and stepped into the cabin. Risala followed him, her face alive with curiosity.

'So far I've seen that our friends in the village over on that higher ground escaped the worst of it.' Velindre sounded weary yet exultant.

'Some of their warriors have even made their way home.' There was no mistaking Naldeth's guilty relief. He still looked as exhausted as Velindre. His tan had faded to an unhealthy sallow and deep lines were now fixed between his brows and either side of his mouth. The blood staining his eyes had decayed to ghastly yellow and purple.

Kheda sneaked a discreet look at the young wizard's stump. The convulsions that had racked Naldeth during the mountains' eruptions had left his metal leg a misshapen ruin. As the mage had lain unconscious, Kheda had forced himself to see what had happened to his bleeding thigh. Relieved to find metal and flesh separate once more, he had forced the contrivance off the blistered stump and thrown it into a corner. Naldeth hadn't spoken of it since recovering his senses. Nor had he allowed Kheda to re-dress his broken scars.

At least there's no sign of suppuration, and if the flesh was rotting, we 'd all smell it in here.

Then he realised that the young mage's hands were

clasping his remaining knee. He had discarded all the splints and bandages Kheda had used to painstakingly reconstruct his broken bones.

'Naldeth, your hands,' the warlord said, astounded.

The young mage looked down and flexed his fingers, wincing. The torn flesh was still thickly scabbed and odd lumps bulged beneath the skin. 'I thought I had better make use of that black dragon's bone magic,' he said, swallowing hard. 'If my hands don't mend sufficiently to be useful, I really will be a cripple for the rest of my life.'

So such knowledge has its uses, however vile the uses that cloaked wizard might have put it to.

'Indeed.' Kheda kept his voice neutral.

'What have you seen?' Risala peered into the ensorcelled bowl.

'Rather more pertinent is what we haven't seen,' Velindre said slowly. 'We've seen no wild wizards working any magic to help the people or to help themselves. Some villages have gathered up their dead, but there's no sign that any dragon has been tempted to dine.'

'Neither of us have had any sense of a dragon within miles of here.' Naldeth gazed inland as if he could see through the splintered planks. 'And there's a warlord's ransom in rubies studding the deck. That would surely have drawn any beast attuned to fire.'

'I think we did it.' Velindre broke into a coughing fit that left her wheezing painfully.

The confusion plaguing Kheda resolved itself into one simple question. 'What exactly did you do?'

'We poisoned the well.' Velindre's smile was as cheerful as a death's-head rictus. 'That's another respected tactic in Aldabreshin warfare, according to what I heard as I sailed the Archipelago, one of the best ways to end a fight quickly.'

'We realised we couldn't beat the dragons.' Naldeth

shuddered. 'We must have been mad to think we ever stood a chance. We couldn't match them without destroying ourselves.'

'They were drawing on the elemental confluences that underpin this place.' Velindre gazed around as if she too could see through the broken hull of the Zaise. 'Or used to underpin it, I should say.'

'But what did you do?' Risala asked again.

'There was a degree of instability already inherent in the elements,' Naldeth said briskly. 'Water was seeping into the fissures in the sea bed, reaching all the way to the point where the fire came up out of the earth into the mountains. The pressures would have built up to an eruption long since if the dragons and the wild mages hadn't been drawing the elemental potential away with their wizardry, crude as it was. We simply accelerated events.'

Kheda wasn't wholly sure what the wizard was talking about but he knew self-justification when he heard it.

'Perhaps,' Velindre said dryly. 'The crucial thing was that we could use that ruby to work nexus magic. Between us we could draw all four elements together. Only there was no point in trying to use that quintessence against the dragons.'

'So we turned it against the instabilities in the elemental confluences and tipped the whole balance.' Naldeth rubbed a hand over his unkempt beard. 'I have to say, I wasn't expecting quite such dramatic results,' he added, contrite.

As Risala tucked herself under his arm, Kheda groped for understanding. 'How did this poison the elements?'

'They're all running into each other at the moment.' As Velindre looked up, the emerald light in the water dulled. 'Like dyestuffs bleeding into each other in cheap cloth. Any dragon with any sense will have gone in search

of a purer, stronger elemental focus. All this confusion will repel them.'

'None of these wild wizards will have a chance of working their magic' Satisfaction warred with apprehension in Naldeth's words. 'It's proved nigh on impossible for us these past few days and we're used to working complex wizardry. These wild mages only know how to draw on a single element and their spells are little more than pure instinct.'

'I think we've both learned that all the strictures and warnings about working nexus magic are more than valid, certainly without a full quartet of mages.' Velindre looked down at the silver bowl, frowned, and the radiance rallied.

'I thought I had burned out my own affinity,' Naldeth said, voice hollow.

Velindre shivered with sympathy. 'This was ten times worse than that potion you fed me and Dev, Kheda.' She closed her eyes, bloodless lips pressed tight together.

'But as you can see, it was just a matter of time.' Naldeth rubbed at the crease between his brows with the ball of his thumb 'We still have our affinities.'

'What do you think you can do?' Kheda asked carefully. 'Without exhausting yourselves. You mustn't risk overtaxing yourselves.'

'Dev told us how dangerous that could be,' Risala agreed anxiously.

'Don't you want to know if we can get us all home?' Naldeth's smile was unnerving in the eerie light.

'That's not my only concern,' Kheda said frankly, 'but yes, since you mention it.'

'Haven't we done all we came here to do,' Risala demanded, 'and more?'

'Rather more than we intended,' commented Velindre sardonically. 'I don't know if I can work a translocation

over such a distance,' she went on, abruptly serious. 'Not until I have some better understanding of the elemental changes we've wrought around here.'

'We can give you all the time you need. The Zaise isn't going anywhere and we've seen no sign of savages making their way in this direction.' Kheda returned Risala's supportive hug that inevitably found some of his bruised ribs. 'I'd be grateful, though, when you think you're strong enough, if you could try to see what's happening in Chazen.'

If I'm stuck here, at least show me that no disasters have struck there because I abandoned my responsibilities to Itrac and my new children.

'I can try now.' Velindre looked into her glowing bowl, the tip of her tongue toying with a split in her chapped lower lip. 'If you'll let me raid your physic chest.'

'Of course.' Kheda crawled over the unkempt layer of quilts and blankets to retrieve the ebony coffer.

Naldeth shifted so that Risala could sit beside him. Kheda carefully negotiated the yielding surface to sit opposite the two mages. Velindre set the silver bowl carefully down between the four of them.

Kheda opened the physic chest. 'What do you want?'

'Whatever it is that you've been using to ease my chest pains.' Velindre held out her hand.

Kheda gave her the crystal vial of pungent silver-leaf oil.

Velindre managed a thin smile. 'It's close enough to the aids we offer inadequate apprentices, and this is no time for me to be too proud to accept a little assistance.'

She let a few drops fall onto the water and the emerald radiance glowed through the slowly dissipating circles. As the oil spread into a fine film, the green light dimmed and a new brightness grew in the depths of the water.

Kheda saw the garden in the centre of Itrac's pavilion.

The logen vine was in full bloom and silken basket flowers clustered thick. The white-sand paths were neatly raked and in the central bower, Itrac and the baby girls were taking their ease on a green carpet patterned with fire-creeper and striol flowers. Chazen's lady wore a simple tunic and trousers of white silk, her bare feet kicking idly as she lay on her front, propped up on her elbows. The baby girls were lying on their backs on either side of their mother, each little face flushed with laughter. Itrac was using the end of her long plait to tickle first Olkai and then Sekni. The babies kicked lustily, trying to grab the teasing thing.

Assuming we ever get home, how will I ever explain any of this to you? Now I have still more secrets to come between us. We're further apart than ever.

'I wouldn't mind being there,' Naldeth said softly.

'Nor me.' Kheda ran a hand through his unkempt hair. 'Can you show me whether all is well around the lagoon?'

'I'll try,' Velindre said cautiously.

The spell flickered so violently that Kheda thought her magic had failed her. Then the emerald light returned and a new image floated on the surface. The lagoon around the Chazen dry-season residence was thick with ships — merchant galleys from all the neighbouring domains and a profusion of the dispatch boats and triangular-sailed traders that plied the sea lanes within the domain. Heavy triremes were manning the key stations that governed entry and departure from the heart of the domain. In the open seas beyond, fast triremes carved deceptively lazy circles in the blue waters, ready to pursue any importunate vessel.

Risala gazed down at this picture of abundant trade with longing. 'Do you suppose the pearl harvest is as rich as last year's?'

'I haven't given that a moment's thought.' Kheda shook his head in wonder.

Risala hugged him. 'There'll be time enough to find out when we get home.'

'I'm sorry.' Velindre shook her head as the emerald light faded and died with ominous finality.

'Do you think you could scry as far as Hadrumal? When you're fully rested, of course.' Naldeth ran a thoughtful finger around the rim of the bowl. 'Do you think we should try bespeaking the Archmage?'

'Are you that eager to have the Council asking endless awkward questions?' Velindre looked askance at him. 'Don't you think that can wait until we get back there?'

'We are going to have an unholy amount of explaining to do, aren't we?' Naldeth managed a crooked smile.

Kheda saw a faint green radiance rekindled in the bottom of the scrying bowl and frowned. 'Velindre, he's right - you should rest before you try that.'

'What?' She looked at him puzzled.

Naldeth looked down at the bowl. 'That's not your spell and it's certainly not mine.'

'Do you think the Archmage is looking for us?' Velindre looked like an unwed girl who'd been caught in some mischief.

'Is he?' Kheda forced himself to look into the bowl.

'No,' said Velindre softly. 'Oh dear.'

Words failed Kheda as he saw a pale-green dragon with turquoise spines crouching on a beach of yellow sand. The dragon's head whipped around and looked straight at them through the magic. It bared jade teeth in a soundless snarl, its aquamarine tongue tasting the air.

'That's the dragon we saw off the southernmost headland.' Velindre was astonished, 'The one I sent chasing the water spout.'

'Then it got the taste of your magic from that,' Naldeth said.

'That's a trading beach in the Archipelago.' Risala

jabbed a finger at the wreckage of boats large and small drifting in the lapping surf. Cloth was tangled around one of the beast's forefeet and it was tentatively crushing metal wares and pottery under its talons. There was no sign of any people, dead or alive.

'Where exactly?' demanded Kheda.

'I've no idea,' Velindre said slowly.

The dragon continued to look straight at them, its head growing larger and larger as it filled their vision. The creature was stalking towards them.

'No!' Naldeth plunged his hand into the scrying bowl, sending the water slopping to soak the coverlets and wet everyone's knees. The emerald light flashed a sickly yellow and died.

'I think we had better bespeak Planir.' Velindre was trembling. 'Just as soon as we can.'

'What are we going to do after that?' Risala demanded.

'We rid Chazen of one dragon.' The magewoman sighed heavily. 'We know how to drive that one off. Without killing it,' she added determinedly.

'You can't think of attempting anything like that until all your bruises have healed and you've both recovered your full strength,' Kheda said angrily. 'How many people will it kill in the meantime?'

'Hopefully none,' Velindre said thoughtfully. 'That dragon had no interest in eating carrion, if you recall. It should find plenty of fish in Aldabreshin waters. Perhaps I can lure it away with a sea serpent as bait,' she said hopefully.

'Perhaps,' Kheda echoed with distinctly less optimism.

Risala was still wide-eyed. 'How many others have flown for the Archipelago? Can you tell what happened to the white one you made, that ate the blue sky dragon's heart?'

'I thought they'd go into the northern wilds to find

uncontaminated focuses of elemental power ...' Words failed Velindre.

Kheda closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath. 'Can you find out, without risking yourself?'

'As long as I'm ready to shatter the spell if it's subsumed into a dragon's magic again.' Naldeth stared into the empty bowl. 'We had better discuss all the possible tactics we might use against dragons of every colour,' the younger wizard said suddenly. 'And bespeak Planir and every other wizard we trust in Hadrumal, be they friend or rival, and seek their advice. The Council must insist that everyone share any relevant learning they can dig out of the libraries.'

'The time for keeping this all as our little secret has obviously passed.' Velindre was plainly not sorry about that.

'I share some measure of responsibility for all this.' Kheda took Risala's hand and held it tight. 'I had better come with you, when you find out where that beach is.'

'You'll come and help me fight a dragon again?' Velindre tried to sound incredulous. 'Even when it's not in Chazen, or anywhere close by the looks of things?'

'You'll need someone to help you convince the lord and people of whatever domain that might be that you're able to help them.' Kheda glanced at Risala, wordlessly beseeching.

She nodded resolutely, not even seeing his appeal as she looked at Velindre. 'If anyone suspects you're a mage, you'll just see your own hide flayed from your back and nailed to a gate in hopes that will be enough to deter the beast.'

Velindre closed her eyes as a tear glistened behind her lashes. 'I can scry for dragons with an air or a water affinity. Naldeth, if I work the scrying with you, can you look for those tied to fire and earth?'

'I'll help you scry for them but I don't think I'm going back with you to fight them.' His words stunned them all to silence. 'Someone has to stay here and I don't see that I have any choice.' Naldeth's voice strengthened, determined. 'I started all this. I have to see it through.'

'See what through?' Velindre shifted to look severely at him.

Naldeth met her gaze without flinching. 'The mageborn here will be incapable of working magic for a good long while, but sooner or later the echoes of these eruptions will finally die away. Instinctive magic will spark fires when someone's angry or freeze the water in the cup they're holding, just like some apprentice back on the mainland who's over-ready to be sent to Hadrumal. Once that happens, they'll soon stumble into some more powerful spellcraft. You know that.'

'What happens then?' Velindre asked brusquely. 'What will you do?'

'Won't that depend on the people here?' Kheda said tentatively.

'What do you suppose they will do?' Naldeth challenged him. 'Will they have become sufficiently used to living without magical tyranny that they'll refuse to bow their heads to someone crowning himself with feathers or cloaking himself in some lizard's hide because he's discovered some inborn prowess? What if the dragons come back when the elemental confusion subsides? Will the whole sorry system that kept these people in their ignorance and filth simply be resurrected? A generation or more will have to die before all those customs are forgotten.'

Distress flickered across his face. 'Or do you suppose the people will be so determined not to be enslaved again that they will kill all the mageborn — those they know were guilty of abusing them in the past and any others, however young or innocent, that they fear might grow to

be tyrants? They have some way of telling the mageborn from the mundane, we know that much. Do you suppose there are enough of those painted caves to hold all the bodies?'

'I don't know.' The bitter memory of the slaughter the scarred spearman had ordered soured Kheda's stomach. 'But how will you help them, when you don't speak their language or understand their lives?'

'I'll find ways around that.' Naldeth looked at Velindre. 'There will be innocent mageborn here and we're always told that all wizards have a responsibility for all others.'

She looked troubled. 'That's usually in the context of one mage making sure another doesn't misuse his magic to the detriment of all wizardry.'

'Who else is going to teach innocent mageborn here not to follow in the corrupt practices of their forebears?' Naldeth's resolve was unshakeable. 'I'll have an advantage over them long enough to be sure of that.'

'Do you think the Archmage will approve?' Velindre plainly had her doubts.

'Do you want to try explaining to him that we've left mageborn here to either be slaughtered or sucked into a life dependent on abusing their affinity?' Naldeth took a moment to consider his next words carefully. 'Don't you think he will have concerns, when some of the wizards currently on the Council learn of this island and the elements that underpin it? When they learn there have been dragons here, with all the potential power that implies? I'm sure you'll find plenty willing to join you in establishing whether or not more dragons have flown to the Archipelago but there'll be some who'd rather make their way here, if they think there'll be no one to see what they do.'

'I can think of at least two,' Velindre said reluctantly, 'who I really don't trust.'

'If I'm here, there can't be any clandestine visits.' Naldeth gestured vaguely towards the wreckage of his metal leg. 'Not when I can bespeak Planir at a moment's notice with steel and magefire.'

'That might well be advisable,' Velindre agreed slowly.

'What if the dragons come back?' Kheda said sharply. 'They'll see you as a rival, won't they?'

'Then I'll have no qualms about calling for the Archmage's help, and that of any other wizard I can bespeak.' Naldeth smiled humourlessly. 'That will be no time for pride.'

'I see you're quite set on this.' Kheda held out his hand to the young mage. 'Then I won't argue with you. But you should be proud of yourself. This is a courageous choice.'

Naldeth clasped the warlord's hand. 'I don't imagine pursuing dragons through the Archipelago will be any task for a coward.'

'With any luck, there'll only be the one,' the mage-woman ventured. 'I'm sure the others will have flown north to find the purer elements.'

'I've given up trusting to luck.' Kheda looked at Velindre. 'Have you any idea at all how long it will be before you've recovered your magic sufficiently to get us home? You mustn't risk it until you're quite certain,' he added hastily.

'I won't,' she promised fervently. 'But no, I don't know how soon that will be. I'm sorry.'

'What can't be cured must be endured,' Risala said quietly. 'That's what the healers say.'

'And as Naldeth pointed out, we can make our plans while we wait,' Kheda said resolutely.

Risala looked at him. 'Will you look for omens in the heavenly compass tonight, please, just for me? You don't know what you might see.'

Kheda nodded slowly.

If it can't help, it can't hurt. That's something else that healers say, when they have precious little idea what they 're actually doing.

And the compass will turn full circle as we go back to the Archipelago. Where will that leave me, always assuming I don't finally end up in a dragon's belly?

It will leave me doing the task that's before me, as always. But what will I do once that task's done? Perhaps it's time to look beyond it. My life has certainly swung far out of the paths I always assumed I would follow.