Date: 2019-03-30 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; dragons; Young Adult; Coming Of Age; Magic
Description: The biggest problem in fifteen year old Raif's life used to be finding lost goats. Now, apprenticed to a terrifying war wizard he is caught in the web of intrigue and assassination surrounding the heir to his home kingdom. And if that was not enough he becomes foster parent to an orphaned dragon. He must do his best to make sure he and his new friend survive the dangers of the deadly world in which they find themselves.
Rights: Copyright 2019 William King. All rights reserved.

A Dragon From The Desert

Book One of the Dragonbond Trilogy

William King

Typhon Press

To get your free copy of Flesh to Shadow (containing the first three Kormak sword and sorcery novels) sign up for my mailing list. You’ll also get free short stories, special offers and learn about my latest releases. Join now and get your free ebook!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

About the Author

Chapter One

It was not the approaching soldiers who frightened me. It was the woman with blood-red hair. The soldiers were big, heavily armed men riding as if ready for war, but she was far more terrifying. She reminded me of the figures I had seen in the strange nightmares that had plagued me over the past few weeks.

I ducked out of sight, crouching in the cool shadows behind the ancient wall, praying to the Sun, the Moon and the Elders that she had not noticed me. Sweat ran down my back and my mouth felt dry. The riders were two hundred strides away, but I feared they would hear the pounding of my heart. Dragonlings circled overhead on leathery wings, hunting for desert hares amid the scrub and creosote bushes.

My first thought was that these newcomers were bandits, but they were too well armed to be mere highway robbers. They rode with the same discipline as our liege lord’s tax collectors. Surely it could not be that time of year again so soon.

Despite my fear, I could not resist taking another look. What fifteen-year-old boy could? I raised my head above the broken parapet and risked another glimpse at the strangers.

The riders were strung out along the road, moving slowly in the full heat of the late afternoon. At the head of their column a herald carried a fluttering standard displaying a yellow tower beneath a stylised sun, the same sign that showed on the riders’ white tabards. I knew they did not follow our liege. His soldiers always wore black tunics with a red hawk.

Behind the riders came several wagons, the covered type favoured by pedlars and wealthy farmers. One vehicle was a coach, even more elaborate than the one our lord’s wife rode in. Behind it, a column of infantry marched. Some carried pikes. Others had crossbows slung over their shoulders. A few bore heavy axes. At the very rear came more riders, shabbier than the ones in the front.

The woman with blood-red hair drove the leading wagon. Her head turned as she scanned the horizon. When she looked in my direction, I knew she had spotted me.

Unlike the men, she did not wear chain mail and she carried no sword. Her dyed hair was cropped short. I had a clear view of it because she wore no helmet. Her pale face did not have the natural lightness of the untanned lady aristocrat. It was more like the white-washed sides of our cottage. The colour reminded me of a bleached skull. Black painted circles surrounded her eyes, making her face even more skeletal.

A drum was attached to a wide leather belt at her waist by a thick bronze chain. It blazed like a campfire on a winter night. I wondered how she could carry it so close to her skin, especially on a hot afternoon like this.

She pointed right at me and said something to the nearest rider. He and another knight broke away from the column and galloped straight towards my hiding place. How had she known I was there? I had been quick, and I was good at hiding. No one else had noticed me yet she had sensed my presence.

Instinct drove me to arm myself, the urge to make a gesture of defiance on in the face of oncoming death. I stooped to pick up a stone then unwrapped the sling from around my neck. I was a fair shot, but it would do me no good against so many armed men. If I was lucky, I might take down one the way I killed that blight wolf from the mountains a year back.

Fear urged me to run but I knew it was pointless. Those big chargers would soon overhaul me. I toyed with loading the sling, but the men had not lowered their lances or drawn any other weapons. As they got closer, they slowed their mounts. The largest shouted, “Hey there, boy, a good day to you.”

I tried to speak but I was so nervous I could not force the words out. I just stared at them, taking in their stubbled faces and well-worn gear.

“What’s the matter, boy? Can’t you speak?” asked the big rider. His skin was almost as dark as mine. There was a spider tattoo on his face running from his forehead to his chin. The legs splayed out across his cheeks and ran all the way to his neck.

“Maybe he’s an idiot,” said his companion, a beefy youth with the golden hair and lightly tanned skin of a Sunlander who spent a lot of time outdoors. “A lot of these moondogs are.”

There was a mean edge to his aristocratic voice when he said moondog. He gave the first speaker a provoking look. I sensed the tension between the two of them.

“And a good day to you, sir,” I said, responding to the men the way I would to the Lord’s tax collectors. The note of subservience made me despise myself.

“This your father’s land?” the man with the spider tattoo asked. This time I noticed his accent was coarse, more like my father’s than a noble’s. It was not quite as rough but there was the tang of the peasant or freeholder to it.

“It is, sir.”

The spider-tattooed knight surveyed the scrubby land then looked down at me again. I was suddenly aware how ragged my tunic was and how patched my britches were. My feet were bare and dirty.

He was not much better though. His face and clothing were grubby from the road. The fabrics he wore were rich, but they had the washed out look of something that had been scrubbed too often.

“He got water and beasts?”

“We got a spring near the house, sir, and I am sure my Da would not grudge any rider a drink on a hot day like this.”

Not that my father would make any objections in the face of so many armed men. He owned a dagger and a sling and had gone to war as part of the Lord’s retinue before he got sick, but there was nothing a single man could do against the small army approaching.

The tattooed knight looked at his companion and then back at me. “Can you show us to the spring, boy?”

That would mean showing them to the house, and where Da and Ma and my brother and sisters were. I considered making a run for it, but I feared these big men and their even bigger horses. My voice shook when I said, “I could, sir.”

“Then what are you waiting for. Lead on,” said the second rider with nothing but contempt in his voice. There was no suggestion of a request. It was an order given by someone who expected to be obeyed.

I considered telling them that I was supposed to be minding the goats then decided they might think I suspected them of wanting to steal the flock. Truth to tell, it seemed likely but one thing I had learned was that you did not say such things to men who looked like tax collectors, not if you wanted to keep your teeth anyway.

I did not like sound of the horses’ hooves crunching the baked soil behind me. I did not like their closeness or the way I could hear their breathing. I did not like the way the men talked to each other as if I was not there, but there was nothing I could do about any of it. These lands lay close to where Umbrea bordered the Shadow Kingdoms, a place where men and things other than men had warred for centuries. My people had always come out on the bottom of such struggles. Any objections I made would count for nothing.

A horn blared close behind me.

I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw the tattooed knight had sounded the instrument. Now the whole column left the road and rumbled along behind us, raising plumes of dust. At least my family would have some warning of the approach and could hide in the caves in the hillside. All of them except Da, who was sick again, which meant Ma would not leave his side, and I thought it unlikely the young ones would go without Ma.

I cursed the curiosity which had brought me off the hillside to investigate those dust plumes when I had seen them in the distance. I had been too sure that I could keep myself hidden. Perhaps my whole family would pay for that now.

I walked in silence as the Holy Sun slid towards the western horizon. The heat had risen till the plains shimmered and the cool shadows of the distant mountains beckoned like the promise of paradise. A few straggling clouds limped across the sky. Their shadows fell on the haunted ruins off to the south, the ones I had never been bold enough to explore despite all the dares of my brother.

“We got much further to go, moondog?” the younger rider asked. It was the first time either of them had spoken to me since commanding me to lead on. He did not sound best pleased and when I looked up at him, I understood why. His face glistened with sweat.

Why did he wear the armour in this heat? Surely, he understood no one around here was likely to attack him. My entire family and all their kin could not menace one of these brutal warriors let alone the force that came along behind him.

“Not much further now, sir,” I said.

“You’d better be right,” he said in a tone that made me glad I had not led them astray as I had considered doing. It was all very well imagining yourself doing something heroic when you were lying on your back, listening to the flocks and dreaming of the stories Da had told in better days. It was a different thing entirely when there was a pack of armoured killers mounted on massive warhorses riding along behind you.

I took the path that turned down into the hollow, passed the elder sign Da’s grandfather had scratched on the stone to keep the Old Ones away and led the strangers down into the little valley where my family lived.

I prayed I had not just made the worst mistake of my life.

One of the children must have seen us coming and ran to give warning. Da sat on the big boulder near the well, resting his too-thin body. Ma stood beside him, the children strung out beside her, as neatly lined up as they always were when the tax collectors came. Da would be wondering what was going on. The collectors were not due for another season; unless the Lord had decided that he needed to raise some emergency tax to fight a new war with his neighbours.

I ground my teeth at the unfairness of it. My father was a freeman, not a thrall. He was under no obligation to the Lord other than to make sure his rent was paid on time. It was something he grumbled about often, just not when the collectors were at the door. If the Lord wanted to raise illegal taxes, a scrub farmer was not going to stop him. The Duke’s court was a long way away, and chances were he would side with his Sunlander vassals anyway.

I wanted to shout at my folks, to tell them to run and hide, that these soldiers had not come from the Lord, that more of them were just about to ride into the valley. It was pointless now. There was nowhere for the family to run without being spotted, even if Da was capable of it. They would be ridden down without mercy.

I glanced up at the riders and saw that they were grinning, although whether it was at the sight of the well or the family house to plunder, I was not sure.

The soldiers made their way down into the valley. They brought their horses to a halt directly in front of the boulder on which my father sat. The tattooed man greeted him politely and much to my surprise asked his permission to draw water and give their horses something to drink. My father nodded as if he had some choice in the matter. I wondered what the horseman would have done if my father had said no.

Da’s head swivelled to watch the rest of the riders arrive. He took in the other armed men and the wagons and the woman with the blood-red hair and his face fell. It seemed that my father felt the same dismay I did when he looked at her. Maybe he even felt the same fear. I moved closer to my family and my father gave me a look, eyes narrowed, lips pursed, that told me how unhappy he was with this turn of events. I could not blame him.

My mother looked scared, her eyes darting from the mounted warriors to the wagons and then to her children. Ma’s hands clenched into fists but there was nothing much that she could do. All my life I had been frightened of my mother’s anger. She had seemed a much more formidable figure than my father but now, in the face of these armed strangers, she dwindled into a small skinny powerless woman who looked old before her time.

The lead wagon rumbled closer and I could see that it was drawn by two cart horses even larger than the warhorses of the knights but far more docile looking.

The woman with red hair looked directly at me now. I could not meet her gaze and my eye slid down to the drum that was not a drum. It shimmered, as if made of paper. A snake of fire slithered around within it.

I also saw that there was an elder sign, a five-pointed star within a circle, inscribed on the top. Looking at that made me even more frightened because that was the sign of the Holy Sun, protector of mankind against all the evils of the Shadow. What sort of thing was in the drum that it needed a holy symbol to contain it?

The other wagons descended into the valley. One of them was crowded with soldiers. Another teemed with men and women in the liveries of servants. A chubby looking soldier with a cheerful face drove one. He winked at me as he passed, but that did nothing to reassure me.

Then came the coach, guided as carefully by its driver as if it contained a cargo of precious gems. Servants walked beside each of the horses to make sure they stayed under control.

It struck me that the woman with the drum rode on her own, as if everyone else was afraid to ride with her.

All the riders dismounted and made their way towards the well. The man with the spider tattoo raised the bucket from the depths, drank then splashed some water on his face before passing it to the second.

I had always heard that knights looked after their horses first but that did not seem to be the case here. The men laughed, clearly relieved to have something to drink. Their companions rode up to the well and demanded some water themselves and only after everyone had drunk did they begin measuring out small amounts for their steeds.

Mixed among their crossbowmen were warriors with axes and swords. One of them was the most striking youth I had ever seen. He was taller than any of the nobles. His skin was freckled and his hair was red, marking him as an outlander of some sort. Slung over his back was a massive axe that I would have struggled to lift with both hands. He saw me looking at it and nodded pleasantly.

The tattooed knight rode back to the carriage. He said something to the curtained window and appeared to get a response.

The youth who had sneered at me earlier rode forward and said, “You have noble guests. You should be grateful.”

My father looked at him and said nothing. There was a time when he might have grovelled and a time before that when he might have been defiant but now he was too sick to care.

My mother glanced at my brothers and sisters and then at me and said, “We are, sir. May we ask who?”

The knight simply spat on the ground in front of her. My mother’s face was blank, but I saw anger and fear in the tightness around her eyes and the tense way she held her hands.

The big man with a spider tattoo returned and asked my father whether he had any beasts to sell, glancing significantly had the pen beside the cottage which held a few sheep and then at the goat tethered near the shed with the milking stool next to it.

My father considered this for a moment. He was obviously as frightened as I was, but he hid it better and he did not look quite so nervous now. The fact that the strangers had not immediately put everyone to the sword seemed to have reassured him. He said that it could be arranged, and the spider faced knight asked him to prepare a beast for slaughter.

“Mind if we make camp for the night,” the tattooed man asked. “It’s going to be dark soon and we will not be going much further anyway.”

I studied him closely. He was polite of speech and did not act the way other knight did, with the habitual Sunlander contempt for the local peasants.

Even as that thought struck me, I became uncomfortably aware that the woman with blood-red hair was staring at me. I knew it even before I looked at her and saw her bloodshot eyes fixed on me. Once again, I let my gaze drift to the drum attached to the belt on her waist. Once again, I was aware that there was something moving inside it, something that made me deeply uneasy, something that was not in the slightest natural.

And I felt as if she knew what I was thinking.

Chapter Two

Darkness gathered. The moon rose. Somewhere in the distance something howled, maybe a blight jackal or one of the evil spirits that haunted this part of the Umbrean wastelands. I should have felt reassured by the presence of these armed men, but I did not. Having so many strangers around our home was deeply unsettling.

They gathered around the fire built with kindling carried on their own wagons and they cooked the goats Da had slaughtered for them earlier. They ate it with some of the goat’s milk cheese they had purchased.

The soldiers seemed too polite. They had the look of men used to taking what they wanted. They strode around as if they owned the place and one or two of them eyed my young sisters in way that seemed less than decent.

Tents were set up. One of them was huge and gaily coloured. It stood higher than my parents’ house and covered a greater area. As I watched, a tall woman made her way from the coach while a female servant held the flap open for her and bowed as she went through. Moments later two burly servants carried someone else into the tent on a stretcher.

A number of the liveried servants followed, carrying bedrolls and other things. They were better dressed than the merchants in Khorba, the nearest market town. Their master or mistress must be wealthy indeed. Arranged at points overlooking the tent were alert-looking soldiers carrying crossbows.

The knights camped near the coach and the big tent. The bulk of the pikemen went with them and the wagons with servants and the wagon of the woman with the drum. None of them made camp outside the ring of wardstones, which was wise, for all feared the Old Ones.

I walked up the hill, wanting to get away from the mass of people. I circled round to look at the huge tent. It seems ludicrous now but back then it was the strangest and most wonderful thing I had ever seen. I picked my way among the rocks, sure-footed in the darkness from having spent the years of my childhood playing there. I made sure I kept within the arc of the big boulders with the elder signs on them. They had protected my family from the dark for generations.

“Spying on your betters, eh?” said a voice near me. I turned and saw the younger of the two riders who had accosted me. His fine nose was turned up in a sneer. “Hoping to get a glimpse of the Lady Alysia or one of her maids?”

There was something odd in the way he said the last sentence. I cannot think what devil prompted me to speak next. “No. Are you?”

A look of pure rage crossed his face and I realised that I had touched a nerve. His hands balled into fists and he sprang on me like a wolf on a sheep. I jumped back but I was not nearly quick enough. His hand smashed into the side of my head and sent me sprawling. He drew back his foot and let me have it in the ribs with one heavy boot.

“Sir Vorster, that will be quite enough,” said a woman’s voice. It was high-pitched and shrill, exactly like I imagined a witch’s. “We are guests on this boy’s father’s land. This is not the time to beat another peasant to death.”

“I am not a peasant,” I said. “I am a freeman.”

The handsome young knight drew back his boot again.

“Sir Vorster,” said the woman’s voice again. “I said that was enough.”

Something in the woman’s tone froze Vorster on the spot. His eyes narrowed, and his tongue flickered out across his lips. Just for a moment, I caught the ghost of fear on his face and it brought a pained smile to my lips. He saw it and knew that I knew he was afraid. He glared murder at me. It was bad enough that he was frightened of a woman but the fact that I had seen it made it worse.

“Learn to speak to your betters with civility,” Vorster said. He moved his leg suddenly enough to make me flinch, but he did not unleash the kick. I turned to thank the person who had saved me, and I saw why he was afraid. It was the woman with the blood-red hair. She walked up until she was so close I could smell her musky perfume. There was a smell of wine and something else on her breath. Her gaze burned with an unholy light.

She smiled. Her teeth were small and sharp. In the moonlight her painted skin looked even paler. Close up, the dark circles around her eyes made her features look even more like those of a skull. Her fingers scratched the top of the drum, a faint metallic sound.

“You’re afraid,” she said in the same shrill voice that had frightened Sir Vorster. I opened my mouth to deny it but found that I could not. I looked at my feet, unwilling to meet her gaze or to look at the drum from this close. “But why are you afraid? That is the question.”

I wanted to say something, to show her that I was not intimidated but I could not. She was shorter than me and I guessed that she was probably about the same age as Ma. Her figure was evident within the tight leather jerkin she wore underneath the green cloak. There were numerous tattoos on her arms and there was something about their intricate patterns that hurt my eyes. Once again, I glanced away. I felt certain that she noticed this.

“So, you do not like my glyphs. They disturb you – is that it?” I thought that they would most likely disturb anybody, but I did not want to say so, instead I shook my head. Her laughter was low and there was a hint of madness about it. She tilted her head to one side in a way that reminded me of a bird inspecting a worm.

“They do not disturb you? That is most unusual. Most people find them hard to look at. Most people fear they are the work of the Shadow. Most people are afraid of them and most people are afraid of me.”

“Are they right to be?” I was surprised to hear my own voice.

“He speaks,” she said, mockery evident in her voice. “With the accent of a dung-eating peasant but he speaks.”

Her words made me realise that she somehow still managed to sound like a Sunlander noble. She might have been dressed like a maniac, but she was one of the ruling class. Her tone made me angry.

“So why are you talking to me then?” I asked.

“And he shows some spirit at last,” she said. “He can do more than look at his feet like a bashful boy intimidated by womanly good looks.”

“You are not good looking,” I said. The words left my mouth before I could stop them. “You look like an Old One or a demon of the desert. Like one of the murder goddesses in the passion play pageants.”

“I do, do I? And how would you know what the Old Ones look like?”

There was no answer to that. I had heard Da’s stories, of course, and sometimes when I had snuck out to the wardstones in the moonlight I had seen lights and shadowy things that might have been Old Ones but in truth, I had no idea.

“Isn’t that what you are trying to look like? Aren’t you trying to make people afraid?”

“He understands that at least,” she said. Her voice was silky and there was an edge of menace to it. “And why would I do that?”

“Because you are afraid of something yourself.” The words rose from within me and I sensed their rightness as they left my mouth. The woman took a step back. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open a little. A moment later, she smiled, and when she spoke her voice sounded more normal, deeper, less cracked. “I deserved that,” she said.

“Why?”

It was as if a mask had lifted for a moment and then fallen back into place. When she spoke again her voice was shrill and high-pitched. “I am here to ask you questions,” she said.

“What gives you that right?”

“You see something when you look at the drum,” she said. “Don’t deny it. I will know if you are lying.”

I wondered if she was playacting or whether it was the truth.

“Tell me,” she said. There was a note of command in her voice that was impossible to disobey.

“There is a snake of fire in the drum,” I said.

“You can see it,” she said. It was not a question.

“I can see it. Is it chained by the elder sign?”

“It is.”

“Is that why the elder sign glows.”

“It is, though you and I are the only ones here who can see that.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I am a wizard and you are…well, I don’t know what you are. It is something I will need to find out.”

“You think I am witch or a Shadow worshipper?”

“Witches are female, boy, and practitioners of a certain type of magic. You are most definitely not one.”

“A sorcerer then?” I felt a surge of fear. Most of the tales I had heard about magicians portrayed them as evil-doers. In almost all of them they came to a bad end. And those were the ones who were not possessed by demons or devils or turned into the walking dead. Most were said to be followers of the Shadow.

A sudden awful suspicion occurred to me. Was the red-haired woman a worshipper of the Shadow? Was that why she was garbed as she was? If she were that, what did that make the men with her, who were even now camped down around my family’s hovel?

She understood what I was thinking. “I do not follow the Shadow, boy. I would not be able to bear the presence of the elder sign if I did. No, the question is whether you do or rather whether you will.”

I felt like striking her with my fist. It was the most insulting and the most threatening thing she could have said. Followers of the Shadow were burned alive when they were caught. I had seen it happen once in Khorba to an old woman folk claimed was a witch.

“I do not follow the Shadow,” I almost shouted, but even in my anger I had enough sense to keep my voice down. It was not the sort of thing to be cried aloud.

“I do not think you do,” she said. “But you might someday.”

“Never,” he said. The vehemence in my voice surprised me but I had heard the priests speak of the damnation that took the followers of the Shadow, of the corruption that overcame their bodies and their souls.

“You should not be so sure of that,” she said. “You cannot afford to be so sure of that.”

“I can,” I said and without thinking I reached out to touch the elder sign, intent on showing her there was no taint in me. She snatched the drum away then slapped me with her free hand.

“Idiot!” she said. “Never do that.”

My face tingled oddly from where she had hit me. The slap had not been hard, but I had felt its impact as if she had a stone in her fist.

“Why?”

She slapped me again. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you the answer but for now, believe me when I tell you doing so is worth more than your life.”

There was something compelling in her tone and in the blaze of her eyes. I blinked back tears, determined not to show any sign of weakness.

“First,” she said, “we must find out what you are.”

From within the leather pouch strapped to her shoulder she produced a flat piece of stone, etched with a complex pattern. She handed it to me. “Look at this,” she said. “What do you see?”

“A pattern scraped on stone.” I sensed a trap although I was not sure of what sort.

She gave a grimace that might have been of relief or of disappointment. “Is that all you see?”

“It looks like one of your tattoos.”

“Yes. It is a glyph. Now I want you to look at it. Really look at it. Focus all your attention on it.”

Once again there was a compulsion in her voice that was irresistible. In the moonlight, it was difficult to see the entire complex pattern, but I made myself trace their outline with my glance. At first there was nothing. The pattern looked a little like an elder sign only much more complex, a labyrinth of lines that the eye struggled to follow. I kept looking. Some urgency in the red-haired woman’s tone told me that this was important. I suspected it might possibly be the most important thing in my life.

I began to see more. It was as if the lines on the stone glowed with their own internal light. They reacted to my gaze, as if the mere fact of my looking drew a response from them. The pattern was complex. It forced me to follow all the intricacies of its lines. In trying to work out its tangles, I grew dizzier and dizzier. The lines glowed ever brighter.

Slowly my awareness of the world was shut out. I stopped noticing the chill of the night, the nearness of the red-haired woman, anything except the stone itself. It was a puzzle, a trick that I could master. It hinted at something just outside my comprehension, that if only I tried a little bit harder, I could understand. It reminded me of the things I had seen in my dreams.

Something rose up within me, responding to the challenge. The glyph grew brighter. My vision blurred. My breathing came harder. My heart thumped against my ribs as it had done earlier. The glow intensified.

I felt dizzy, as if I was being sucked into the pattern on the stone, as if all the life in me might spill into it. I wondered if that was the woman’s intention, if this was the trap, and as that thought occurred to me, I became aware once more of my surroundings.

We stood in a small pool of light cast by the stone I held in my hand. Within the circle, it was bright as day. I could see the red-haired woman’s features as if I held a lantern, and the rocky landscape and knife-edged shadows of the valley for a short distance around us. All the lines of the glyph in the stone blazed with a golden light. The woman looked at me with an expression somewhere between horror and wonder.

“Put it down,” she said. “Put the stone down.”

Her words came from very far away, as if I was hearing her from inside a thunderstorm, and that storm was my breathing and its thunder my heartbeat. I wondered why she was telling me to drop the stone. My hand tingled where I held the piece of rock and in that tingling was a good deal of pleasure.

“Put the stone down,” she said, in the patient tone of a mother repeating something to a slow child. I opened my fingers and let the stone fall. The loss of the tingling sensation was almost painful. The glyph on the stone continued to glow for a few moments after it hit the ground and then it winked out.

“What was that?” I asked. “What have I done?”

Her smile was sharp and strange and not without envy. “You have cast your first spell,” she said. As she spoke the words all strength drained out of me and I slumped to my knees and was violently sick.

It took me some time to recover my composure and when I did so, I felt as weak and ill as I had when my mother nursed me through the breakbone fever. I was shivering, and I found it difficult to remain upright. The world spun and I was forced to lie back down until the heavens stopped rotating.

As I lay there, the red-haired woman’s words kept repeating themselves again and again inside my head. You have cast your first spell. I had worked whatever magic had occurred here, not the stone. It seemed that I was in some sense a wizard.

I knew then that my life was never going to be the same.

Chapter Three

The moon beamed down, and the red-haired woman’s face seemed even paler in its light. Off in the distance the howling continued. In the beast’s lonely call I heard some of my own exultation and my fear.

I am a sorcerer, I thought. And all the old tales came flooding back, of terrible men who worked fearsome curses, who sold their souls to the darkness, who brought down awful dooms. Off to the South lay the Shadow Kingdoms where such men, and things older and wiser and more terrible than men, served dark powers.

In front of me stood this strange and fearsome woman and she too was a sorcerer. I remembered other tales where the wizards helped the poor hero by providing him with magical talismans and mystical aid. She did not seem like one of those characters either and yet she rode with the knights and she carried an elder sign, as well as something bound with it.

It all seemed much more complex than the stories made it sound, and I wrestled with the possibilities. Perhaps the soldiers were her servants and sworn to the darkness, but that did not seem right either. I had seen the way they behaved around her, and I had heard them talk to each other and they did not sound much like monsters and slavers.

“Who are you?” I asked eventually.

“My name is Mistress Iliana,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Raif is my name. Who are these soldiers?

“Most of those men are knights and guardsmen in the service of the Duke of Solsburg. I am too in my way.”

“You do not look like a knight.”

She laughed. The sound was unnerving. There was a shrill edge of madness to it. “My birth is as good as theirs and certainly better than yours.”

“That is not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“I meant you carry no weapons. You are not wearing mail.”

“I fight in a different way.”

I considered this for a moment. The rulers of this land were warriors, men who fought from horseback with lance and sword and swore to serve their overlords. I told myself there was much I did not know of the world. I had spent most all my fifteen years on this farm, save for the days when I had accompanied Da to market in Khorba, the nearest village.

“Why did you test me? Why did you make me cast the spell? Do you wish to damn my soul?”

Again, she laughed but this time there was some humour in the sound. “I am trying to save it.”

“What do you mean?”

She turned to look away. Her profile was shadowy. I could see her nose was small and her mouth was wide. “All mages are born with their souls as risk.”

“All human beings are born with their souls at risk. That is what the priest says. We risk damnation by the Shadow every day if we sin.”

“I am not speaking of those…metaphysical risks.”

I did not know then what metaphysical meant but I sensed the contempt behind her words. She did not have respect for the words of the priests. “What are you talking about?”

“You have power. Just like I have power. Certain things are attracted to that power. They feed on it. They use it to touch your mind and your soul.”

“Demons?”

“If you want to call them that.”

“I don’t see what else I could call them.”

“You may learn in time.”

“I hope not.”

She turned to face me again and her expression was not without sympathy. “You will not have much choice in the matter, if you want to live and to escape the damnation you fear so much.”

There was an urgency in her voice as if she very much wanted to convince me of this. I believed her. I was not certain why. She stared at me for ten heartbeats and then said, “Can you read?”

I shook my head.

“No matter. You will learn. If you live.”

“If I live?”

“Do you have dreams? Strange ones. Vivid dreams that seem so real that when you wake, it is your life that seems like a dream. Dreams of other times, other lands, maybe other worlds. Do you see strange patterns and stranger things?”

I said nothing but she read the truth in my silence. It was as if she could pluck these things from my memory. I considered telling her that I had seen things that looked like her in those dreams but not for long.

“Then it has already begun and you are on a road from which there can be no turning back.”

“What has begun?”

“Your power has stirred. Dreams are where the things you call demons can touch us unless we protect ourselves.”

I was not sure I liked that we. “The Holy Sun protects us from demons,” I said. “Prayer protects us. Elder signs protect us. If I walk in the Holy Sun’s light no evil can touch me.”

“Ignorance cannot save you, boy. Only knowledge.”

I was shocked by her casual dismissal of everything I had been taught was true. Of course, I knew that the Holy Sun did not protect everyone from misfortune. He did not answer all prayers either otherwise Da would be better. Otherwise half the babies Ma had birthed would not lie in shallow graves near the house.

“And you will just give me this knowledge.”

She laughed her mad laugh. Somewhere out in the darkness, something answered it and then fell silent. “No. You will earn it.”

“What?”

“You will be my apprentice.”

I spread my arms mockingly, and then looked around at the barren scrub of my father’s land. “My folks cannot pay an apprentice fee. They cannot even pay their taxes to the Lord.”

She let out a long breath through her nose then surveyed the land around them. “No, they could not. Such an apprentice fee would cost more than all their land is worth and all their lives if they were put into indenture.”

“Then I cannot be your apprentice.”

“True. But you can be my servant.”

“I am a freeman, like my father. I have no debt to you.”

“You can indenture yourself to me until the apprenticeship debt is paid.” I felt a trap closing around me.

“I do not want to do that.”

“It is no longer a case of what you want, boy. If you do not learn how to protect yourself then you will be enslaved by far worse things than me. They will eat you from the inside out and then they will devour all those you love.”

I told myself she was lying but I knew that she was not. Something in her manner compelled belief. She held up the stone she had given me, looked at it for a second and it lit up once again. “You have power in you, boy, great power. It took me months of practise to be able to do what you just did and it was hard.”

I felt flattered. No one had praised me for anything before.

She said, “That power will just make you a more attractive vessel for the things that will destroy you. It draws them like blood in the water draws ripjaws.”

She handed the stone back to me.

“I cannot just leave. My parents need me. I look after the flocks and my brothers and sisters.”

“If you stay here you will destroy them. I am just the first to notice you. I will not be the last.”

“I do not want to be a sorcerer.”

“You do not have a choice. You are one. The only question now is what kind you will be, for good or ill.”

“They will not let me go.”

“They will if I pay them an indenture fee. I will tell them you will be my servant. It will be nothing less than the truth. You say they cannot pay their taxes. A seven-year indenture fee will more than cover those and the cost of your apprenticeship and with some left over for use in need.”

“You seem determined that I should go.”

“I need an apprentice to help with my work. You need training if you are to live. Your family gets a gold Solar disk. Everybody gains.”

She was convincing, but I sensed she had other motives than the ones she claimed. My head spun. This morning the biggest problem I had was finding a lost goat. Now I was being told I must become a sorcerer or lose my soul when I had always been told that to become a sorcerer was to lose your soul. I did not trust this woman with her breath that stank of wine and her strange voice and even stranger manner.

“I do not want to go.”

She shrugged. “You have no choice.”

“We shall see.”

She turned her head suddenly and stared at the distant moon. Something big fluttered across it. It was not a bird or a bat. “You must believe me, boy. More than your life hangs in the balance here.”

I did believe her but something in me resisted the idea of being forced into doing anything.

“Go sleep on what I have told you. Keep the stone. Think about what it means.”

I accepted the stone and looked down at it for a moment. When I looked up, she was gone as if she had never been there.

In bed, that night I felt exhausted, but I could not sleep. I lay in the darkness, listening to the unfamiliar movements of the horses and the men rising in the night to piss.

The stone felt cold in my hand. I held it before my eyes, but I could not see the lines in the dark. I tried to imagine them, but the pattern was so complex I could not visualise more than a small part of it.

The wizard woman’s words frightened me but the more I considered them and what I had done, the more they thrilled me too. I was being offered a chance of being more than a goatherd. I recollected the moment when I had brought forth light from the stone. I had done something wonderful then, something I would not have believed possible. I might learn to do much more. In the stories wizards had awesome powers. They could create gold and heal the sick.

Heal the sick. I might be able to learn to cure the illness that was killing Da. I might be able to make sure no more babies died. I might learn to perform wonders.

I gave a sour smile in the dark. I might learn to do such things but what would be the price? Everything had one and I suspected that this would have the highest of all.

I drifted off to sleep, dark thoughts still chasing themselves around and around my mind.

I stood in a place that resembled my family house. All around the soldier’s lay sleeping. My family dozed inside the house. I sensed a presence somewhere out in the night, the shadow of something malevolent.

I had felt it in my dreams on other nights waiting beyond the wardstones, unable to pass the elder signs my family had carved there. I had felt its presence but never seen it. Tonight, something was different. It took me a moment to realise what and then I was very afraid.

I sensed the presence within the wardposts. It had somehow bypassed them. I rose and glanced around. I tried to wake my brother, but I could not. I tried to speak a warning but my lips were sealed.

I walked to the door and looked out into the darkness. The moon was lost in ominous clouds. I sensed something behind me. I glanced around. The shadows seemed deeper there, but I did not dare investigate. Instead, I stepped out into the night.

I moved quietly over to the nearest soldier and shook him. At first, I thought the man was sleeping soundly but then I noticed that he was lying in a pool of blood. His throat had been cut and no one had even noticed. I looked to my left. I thought I saw something scuttle back out of sight, but I was not sure.

Ma! Da!

I headed towards the house, trying to shout a warning but something kept me from doing so. I could not force the words from my mouth. It was as if my tongue had been stilled with magic. A faint glow lit the window of the house. Maybe someone was awake. Maybe Ma was using one of her precious tallow candles. I moved over to the window and glanced inside.

The scene was lit, bright as day. A figure skulked inside the house. It was tall and thin and red-haired like the sorceress. It bent over one of the sleepers and its hands moved oddly. I heard an odd coughing croaking sound as if someone was choking. My feeling of dread intensified.

The red-haired figure looked up, glanced at the window and winked. It raised a finger to its lips and smiled at me. A long nail like a hawk’s talon extended from the finger, sharp as a dagger and covered in blood. The figure’s hair was red. Its skin was pale white. Its lips were red, but its features were my own.

It moved over to where my mother lay. I tried to shriek a warning. My hands felt wet. I looked down and saw they were pale white, with talons and that they were covered in blood. Somehow, I was inside the house now, looking down at my family who all lay there with their throats cut and the worst thing of all was that I knew I had done it and I had enjoyed it too.

When I woke, Iliana was looking down at me. Her eyes were haunted and seemed even larger in her face. Lines crinkled her forehead. More lay around her eyes I had not noticed before. Her breath smelled of alcohol and some medicinal herb.

“What?” I asked. I did not feel good about her watching me while I slept. There was something odd about it. I frowned and I felt something on my forehead. I reached up and chalk came away on my hand.

“Your sleep was troubled,” she said. There was an odd emphasis on the word troubled. My mind held utter conviction that she knew what had happened. I glanced desperately around. My parents sprawled by the fire. My brother lay near them. I could hear one of the girls stir in her sleep above me in the loft. They were all still alive although there was something odd about the way they still slept despite the presence of the sorceress.

I remembered what the grinning demon had looked like. It had my features but her hair and skin colouring. I tried telling myself that it was just a dream, brought on by tiredness and what had happened last night, but I knew it was not. I tried telling myself it was nothing more than a nightmare brought on by the tales she had told me last night. She had suggested the content of the dream and it had preyed on my mind.

I could not convince myself. The dream had been too strange and too real. There was something out there, haunting my sleep, waiting for something. I knew this. Mistress Iliana knew this too.

I looked at the chalk on my fingertips. I reached up and drew my forearm across my forehead and more chalk marked my sleeve. “What was that?” I asked.

“I marked you with a glyph,” she said. Her voice was very soft. Only the two of us could hear it.

“Did you cause the dream?” I asked, an awful suspicion blossoming in my mind.

She shook her head. Her lips became a thin line. Her eyes mere slits. “It drew me. It would have drawn any wizard within a league. Other things too.”

Her tone told me that those other things would be nothing pleasant.

“You woke me,” I said. Even as the words left my lips, I knew they were true.

She nodded. “The glyph woke you. It was the only safe way of doing so. From tonight you sleep within wards.”

She rose from the cross-legged position in which she sat and left. I lay there, dazed and afraid. No one around me stirred, and I wondered if they had been ensorcelled, like in my dream.

Chapter Four

The sun rose bright and fierce over the parched land. It was going to be another scorching day. Not even the Holy Sun’s light could make me feel safe. It might drive away the demon in my dreams, but the thing would return at night.

The soldiers stirred. They stretched and farted and scratched. They complained to each other as they drew water from the well, splashing some on their faces, filling their canteens. The fat man who had winked at me the previous evening was cooking porridge in a huge pot. He must have got up early to get the fire lit. He saw me looking at him and for a moment, his plump pleasant face was troubled then his natural good humour reasserted itself and he grinned, scratched his belly and said, “Want some?”

He lifted a ladle of unappetising gloop and waved it in my direction. Flies buzzed away from it. I shook my head, suddenly shy with this stranger.

“Nah, can’t say as I blame you,” he said, and his grin grew wider. “Still– eat what you can, when you can, I always say. You never know when you’re gonna be hungry.”

Suiting actions to words, he raised the ladle to his lips, blew on the porridge to cool it, then ate a few mouthfuls. Somehow his few words managed to raise my spirits.

I saw the sorceress striding towards the cottage. The big old building had been raised from the local stone by my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather. In the morning light it looked shabby, even to me. When I had been younger the walls had always been white-washed and trim and the shutters painted a bright blue and covered with white elder signs. Since my father got ill, he had lost interest.

The sorceress entered the house without knocking. My mother and father sat by the fire. My sisters were in the loft along with my brother. I guessed they had been told not to come down until they were called.

The sorceress squatted next to my parents and talked to them in a low voice. I moved closer so that I might hear what they were saying.

“…never been in trouble with the priests,” said my father, his voice surly. He tilted his head to one side and he stared at the wizard woman with the look he gave me when he suspected I had been slacking off watching the goats.

“But the priests have seen him?” Mistress Iliana said.

“Now what exactly do you mean by that?” Every sunburned line on Da’s narrow face was visible when he frowned. They looked like furrows in parched farmland. If she was in the slightest daunted, Mistress Iliana gave no sign.

“He has been tested?”

“Tested?” My father said as if he really had no idea what she was talking about.

“You know what I mean. Has he been tested for taint?”

My father looked at her as if she was insane. “The boy shows no stigmata. If he had, he would have been exposed as a baby and none of my children have been left on a rock in the desert.”

“There are other signs of taint,” Iliana said. She must have been aware that she was giving offence, but she did not show any sign of it. Perhaps my father simply did not register on any scale of humanity meaningful to her. He was after all just a poor farmer and one without the slightest hint of aristocratic Sunlander blood.

My father did not see things that way. I could tell by the way his mouth got tight that he was angry. I half expected to see him reaching for the strap. I noticed that he was looking over to the small nook where he kept his dagger. Clearly, he, like me, was wondering where this conversation was going. He could see no good end to it.

“What exactly are you trying to say?” He kept his voice down and I realised that they were both speaking very softly and that no one but myself and my mother could overhear them. Ma sat with her hand over her mouth and an appalled look on her face. Her gaze jumped from me to the sorceress and back again and then, sometimes, to the door as if she half expected an inquisitor to enter at any moment.

It dawned on me that my father must be thinking the same thing and in his small, stubborn way was doing his best to delay the inevitable. My parents were afraid not just for me but for themselves and for the other children. Bad blood. It was the sort of thing that could lead to a holding been burned once word got around. And it surely would.

Of course, this fear was exactly what the sorceress was trying to stir up. She was manipulating their emotions to suit her purposes, letting their imagination work for her. She was conjuring up spectres in that room as surely as if she worked sorcery. And I suddenly understood why.

Once she had worked their fears up to a high pitch, whatever she said next would be a relief. It could not possibly be as bad as whatever my parents were imagining. I saw then that she was expert at getting her way and not just by magic. She was a cruel, clever woman and that is no lie.

“There is nothing wrong with my son,” my mother said, speaking for the first time. My father gave her a dagger-eyed look. It was the man’s job to talk to strangers. She had shamed him in front of the sorceress. She gave him a defiant look and went on speaking, “He is a good boy. Always has been. Always will be.”

All her love and her fear for me was in her voice. Her fists were clenched, and she looked as if she was about to assaulting the wizard woman even though it would be suicidal with all the soldiers in easy call.

Mistress Iliana laughed, a frightening sound. There was more than a hint of madness in it and I could see that my mother was taken aback. She edged away as if she expected to be attacked at any moment.

“You cannot see his future. I cannot see his future and, believe me, I am far better qualified to do so than you.”

“I know what you are,” my father said. There was an edge to his voice and a challenge. I was proud of him. For standing up to her. For standing up for me and for himself.

“What I am is no business of yours.” Mistress Iliana’s voice was cold and cutting, the voice of an aristocrat talking to a thrall. Then, as if she realised that taking such a tone would do her no good in what she knew was a negotiation even if my parents did not, she said, “I’m not here to discuss my profession but your son. I find myself in need of a servant and I am struck by his manner and his intelligence.”

My parents exchanged a baffled look. This was clearly not what they had been expecting and once again I was struck by the cleverness of it. It took them completely off-balance. I could see calculation written on their faces, an odd mixture of guilt and hopefulness. I could also see that my father was wary for I was quick and strong and I did much of the work around the farm.

“A servant?” My mother said as if she did not quite understand the meaning of what was being said.

Iliana nodded. “I would pay for his indenture. A reasonable sum. Let us say half a gold solar.”

“Let us say, purely for the purposes of discussion, a gold solar.” My father’s old trader’s instincts came into play. Unfortunately, they betrayed him. He had done exactly what Iliana expected. He had even mentioned the figure she had brought up the previous evening. This entire conversation had been planned like a chess game. My father was negotiating without ever questioning whether he should have been having these discussions at all.

I looked at Iliana with respect and suspicion and I resolved that whenever I had dealings with her in the future, I would pay attention. I knew I was out of my depth. She had decades of mastery but if I could not match her, I could watch and learn. I would not be a victim like my parents. I even considered interrupting but then I realised that I did not know exactly what I would say. I wanted them to have the money. I wanted to have a chance to learn sorcery. And I did not want to sabotage these negotiations no matter how one-sided they appeared to be.

“That is a lot of money for the indenture of a servant,” Mistress Iliana said.

“That depends on the period,” my father responded. Just for a moment I saw him as he had been when I was very young, brash, with the confidence that rude health gives. I remembered the way he used to dicker with our neighbours and with the merchants in Khorba. Judging by the thin smile on his face, he was remembering it to.

My mother looked troubled. She was thinking of my departure. And she was likely wondering about the work to be done around the farm once I was no longer there to do it. Her life was full of troubles and this would be one more.

“For that sort of money, I would be thinking about seven years,” Iliana said.

“I thought you wanted a servant not an apprentice.”

Seven years was the usual duration of an apprenticeship. The wizard gave my father a sharp look. She was wondering if he suspected anything or perhaps whether my father had talked with me. It did not matter really. She was going to get what she wanted. It was only a matter of time.

“I take it you are amenable to your son entering my service,” Iliana said. “Otherwise there is no point in continuing this discussion.”

Another piece moved on the chessboard. Another element of pressure entered the negotiation. After giving my parents a glimpse of more money than they were likely to see in coin in their lifetime, she whisked the possibility away.

“Of course, we’re interested,” my father said. “I just want to do what’s best for the boy.”

“He’ll be treated as well as any servant,” Iliana said. “Probably better if truth be told. But I need to be aware of his character. If I take him on, I need to know that he’s not going to run away at the first chance.”

“You can take it from me that that won’t be the case. He’s a good boy and he will do what you tell him to do and he’ll stick with you. Unless I miss my guess it’s a chance for him to rise in the world and to see a bit of it and he’s always wanted that.”

“Won’t it be dangerous?” My mother asked. “You ride with soldiers and, no offence, you seem to be one yourself in an odd way.”

“I ride with the Duke of Solsburg’s soldiers and we ride to war often. But he will not be in any more danger than I am, and I have been a member of this company for many years. We look after our own.”

“I don’t know,” said my mother. She looked at Mistress Iliana again very closely. She knew in her heart of hearts what Iliana was. Perhaps she even sensed that the mage’s interest in me was not what she claimed.

“The boy could die even if he stays here, Ma,” my father said. “The breakbone fever could take him again or he could starve if the crops fail or the goats die.”

“And who will look after the goats?” My mother was raising any objection she could now, more from instinct than for any other reason. Iliana sat back and folded her arms. She had won. My father and my mother were now each other’s principal antagonists. All she had to do was keep her mouth shut and let them work it out.

“Sadec is big enough to do his share of the work,” Da said. “We’ll get by and will have enough money to pay the Lord’s taxes this year and next.”

There was a note of pleading in his voice. Ma heard it but she still wasn’t ready to admit defeat. “And what about the year after that?”

My father shrugged. His shoulders slumped, and he glanced up at the ceiling for a long moment. He looked unutterably weary. I could tell he was thinking who knew what would happen in those few years? He might not be here to see them but at least the taxes would be paid for the next few seasons.

His expression defeated my mother. My father had the strength of his weakness. Ma did not want to put any additional strain on him, and she knew he was right about the taxes. There would even be some money left over and those could be used by other things: clothes from merchants, new tools, maybe even a wheel for the old cart that had been baking in the sun for so long. We did not have a horse to pull it but perhaps we could borrow one.

My mother looked at the wizard and said, “very well.”

“I have a contract of indenture,” Iliana said. “But the boy tells me he cannot read. Can either of you?”

My mother shook her head. My father stared at the wizard but eventually said, “no.”

“No matter,” said Iliana. “If the boy can make his mark it will all work as well.”

Of course, it made no difference. None of us except her could read and the contract could say anything. It could have made me her slave for the rest of my life and none of us would have been any the wiser. Everything was being taken on trust by my parents and by me. Except for the gold coin which she produced from within her purse. She also produced a piece of parchment with words on it. She handed it to my father who gave every appearance of studying it.

“If you make your mark on it. It will be legal.”

“We have nothing to write it with,” my mother said. There was a note of desperate hope in her voice as if she had found some loophole in the agreement, a way out of sending her son away.

“There is blood,” Iliana said. The words just hung in the air. She flipped the coin with her thumb. It flickered in the sunlight and drew every eye as the implications of her sentence sunk in.

“Blood.” My father’s voice held a note of cautious disappointment. It seemed possible that he was not going to get the money after all. That his hopes had been raised just to be cruelly dashed. “Blood?”

“I am a wizard,” Iliana said. “If I have a sample of your son’s blood, I will be able to find him. I will be able to place spells upon him. He will not be able to break this contract until it is done.”

“Even then,” my father said. He knew all the old stories about wizards and demons and pacts. Everybody knew that giving your blood to a supernatural being was a very foolish thing. Even I knew that.

“You have no ink?” My mother asked. “What did you write this in?”

“It was the last of my calligraphic ink,” Iliana said. “I have no more.”

She smiled, daring them to call her a liar. My parents looked at each other again and this time the faces were troubled. I could see the weight of age and penury pressing down on them. I understood then how cruel this woman could be. She had offered them the means to escape their crushing poverty for a few years, which in my father’s case could mean his lifetime. Now she was asking them to make a devil’s pact with the life of their son.

All the hope drained out of my father’s expression. The smile that had tightened his cheeks relaxed and the flesh of his face seemed to sink in on itself revealing the skull beneath. He swallowed. My mother let out a long sigh. For her this was a reprieve.

“I will sign it,” said a voice, that took me several moments to realise was my own. All their eyes went to me.

“You don’t have to, son,” said my father.

“I want to,” I said. I heard my mother’s sharp intake of breath. She stared hard at me and I felt like a traitor. I suppose I was. I was choosing to leave them behind, a parting of the ways they could not choose themselves.

“This for the best, Ma,” I said. “You need the money to pay the Lord’s taxes. If you can’t, it’s the end for all of us anyway. How will you live without the farm? Where will you go?”

“That’s not your worry, son,” my father said. My mother just nodded.

“Of course, it is, Da. I don’t want you to lose our house. I don’t want you to have to go on the road like all the other beggars. What would happen to you and to Ma if you don’t have that gold? What would happen to our Sadec and to the girls? You need that money. We all know that.”

“But not at the price of selling our son into slavery,” my mother said. The words came out slowly and I could tell that she was thinking about what I had said. It was nothing less than the truth. They did need the money. There was no alternative. Or if there was, it was a worse one for all of us.

“It is not slavery,” Iliana said. “It is a servant’s indenture. That is all. For seven years. After that he will be free.”

“Do I have your word on that?” My mother asked. “Do I have your oath?”

Iliana considered this. The silence stretched. People say that those who swear on the name of the Holy Sun and then break those oaths are punished after death, but no one can be sure of that save people with unbounded faith.

Oaths have a different meaning for wizards. They are bound by them in a way that normal mortals are not. Breaking an oath has consequences for a mage it does not have for other people. Wizards who break oaths are punished by themselves if by nothing else. This is something that I have learned to be true over the years and even then I had a sense of it.

Mistress Iliana was silent for a long time. “If he lives, he will be free of any obligation to me in seven years. On this you have my word sworn upon my power as a wizard.”

For a moment, the light took on a different quality and the temperature seemed to drop. She was a sorceress of great power, and the swearing of that oath could be felt even by those who were not.

Mistress Iliana looked at my mother with something like resentment. She did not like having been backed into that corner or made to do that thing. It took me many years to understand exactly why.

“Now are you satisfied?” she asked. There was a note of menace in her voice that said that we had better be.

My mother nodded. She had won a victory and she knew it even if she had no idea of the scale.

With a flourish Iliana produced a small knife, more suitable for cutting a quill than for cutting meat. “Come here, boy,” she said. “And give me your palm.”

I approached and very gingerly stretched out my left hand. She made a quick clean incision on the fat part just below the thumb. I pressed my right thumb in it and stained the contract with my bloody thumbprint. The wizard inspected it, smiled a very cold smile and gave my parents the coin.

My indenture had begun.

Chapter Five

Everything felt different when I stepped through the cottage door. Every stone of the walls, every sight, every smell was suddenly precious to me because soon I would be leaving it behind.

I resented the soldier’s presence. Just by being there they altered the atmosphere. More than that, I saw in them a presentiment of my future. I would be travelling with them and living among them. Perhaps I would die beside them.

I looked at their strangers’ faces and wondered what they were like. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mistress Iliana approach the tall man with the spider tattoo. She said something to him and then pointed at me. His gaze followed her finger and his eyes met mine.

He frowned then nodded and turned to say something to one of the mounted soldiers. It was the arrogant Vorster. He too glanced in my direction. When he saw me looking, he spat on the ground. He said something to the man with the spider tattoo and laughed. Neither the older man not the wizard did so. He strode off then and I did not watch to see where he went.

Instead I just stood there, trying to fix everything in my memory; the cottage, the shed, the well, even the goats. I watched my sister Yasmin playing with a white kid, and my brother Sadec called into the house by my mother. He was going to have his new duties explained to him. I could not blame him if he resented me for that.

I was leaving home. Yesterday, it had seemed impossible. Now it was unavoidable. I could not remain if I chose. I was going to walk away from here in a few hours and I might never see my family again. I wanted to hug them and tell them I would miss them. I wanted to run into the hills and hide and not come back until I saw the soldiers ride away.

And I knew I could not. For they might not ride away if I did not go with them. They might punish my family. They would certainly take back the gold coin.

I looked to the distant horizon. The heat haze was already rising to obscure it. Somewhere far to the north was the sea. To the South were mountains and desert. To the west, scrubland ran all the way to the Graveyard of Angels, to the east, the direction the soldiers had been riding, the road ran towards Ghazan and the Carved Mountains. It occurred to me then that I did not have any idea of where I was going or what I was to do when we got there.

These men were soldiers, so presumably there would be fighting, but with who and for what and did it really matter to me?

The thoughts raced through my mind when a heavy hand hit me on the side of the head and dropped me to the ground. I looked up and saw Vorster staring down at me. There was a sneer on his handsome face. “Servant! Go and pack your mistress’s stuff and put it on the cart. Now!”

I rose up, fists clenched. The way his smile widened told me this was exactly what he hoped I would do. I tasted blood in my mouth. I looked at him. He was taller and more muscular, and he was wearing armour. Just the way he stood spoke of violence. He was accustomed to it, had been trained to it. He would like nothing more than for me to come at him. I considered doing it anyway.

“Where?” I asked.

He hit me again, the movement too quick for the eye to follow. “Speak to me respectfully and only when spoken to.”

I looked up at him. I noticed the sky was very clear and blue behind his head. Thin wisps of cloud drifted up there. I picked myself up and keeping my eyes on him backed away. He made as if to kick me, but it was a pantomime motion, done so that others could see then he turned away with utter contempt.

I headed through the camp and I felt someone fall in beside me. It was the outlander soldier. He was tall and red-haired with skin that must once have been very pale before it was sunburned. The axe slung over his shoulder looked like nothing I had ever seen. It was double-bladed and marked with runes and obviously had not been intended for chopping wood.

“You Grinner’s servant?” he asked.

“I am Mistress Iliana’s servant.”

He smiled. His teeth were white and large. “That what I say.”

“Grinner?”

“That what company call her. On account of face paint.”

“And she does not mind?”

“I know not. To her face I not said it.” His accent was not local. I wondered if he was frowning because he was struggling with the language.

“You are not Umbrean,” I said.

“Hell, no! I from Northlands.”

“Where’s that?” I said. I was just a farm boy from the wastelands of Umbrea. I had no idea.

“North,” he said and grinned and looked sidelong. “What surprise, huh?”

“You a soldier?”

“I Spider’s bondsman two years. Three more before bond finish.”

I did not understand exactly what he meant. “The man with the spider tattoo on his face?”

He nodded his head. “That Spider. Has tattoo so can remember his name.” He laughed as if it were a good joke. Maybe that was what passed for humour in the Northlands.

We stopped in front of a tent. There was a ring of stones worked with runes around it. All of them where white and polished and had been laid out in an intricate pattern. Inside the ring lay the remains of a fire.

He looked at me, waiting to see what I would do. Green as I was, I already knew better than to try and cross that stone ring. I remembered how Mistress Iliana, Grinner, had hit me for trying to touch the drum.

If he was disappointed, he gave no sign. He punched his chest over his heart with his left hand. “Ghoran,” he said.

I was not sure whether it was his name, his tribe or some peculiar northern insult.

“Raif,” I said.

“Pleased to meet you, Raif.” He grinned again, glanced around and strode away. When I looked back at the tent Mistress Iliana was standing there. She seemed to have materialised out of thin air.

“What happened to your face?” she asked.

“It met a knight’s boot,” I said.

“Who?” She did not sound angry or affronted, just curious.

“Vorster,” I said.

“Try and keep your face out of his boot’s way. We don’t need it becoming any homelier than it is.”

“As you say,” I said.

“As you say, mistress,” she said. “We might as well start as we mean to go on.”

“As you say, mistress,” I agreed.

She spoke a word, and something shimmered in the air over the pattern of stones then she picked them up and put them in a leather pouch on her belt. I thought of Ghoran and how he sweated in the sun. She looked cool and the white makeup stayed perfectly in place. If nothing else had done so, that would have told me she was a wizard.

“Take down the tent, pack it and load it on the wagon with the glyphs on the side. Then tell Clarin, the cook, that I said he should feed you as well.”

“Yes, mistress,” I said. She stared at me until I said, “Thank you.”

The tent was a thing of metal and canvas. I studied it for a minute, noting how the drawstrings on the corners were held by bronze hooks. The tent was built around a number of poles, if I slackened the tension on the strings it would collapse.

I went inside, pulled out a couple of leather bags of stuff and removed the poles. The tent partially collapsed, and I went outside and untied the strings letting it down completely. I then started to fold it.

Iliana sat nearby in the shadow of a boulder, eyes closed, lips moving as if she was reciting a poem from memory. When I had finished, she looked up.

“Have you ever packed a tent before?”

I shook my head. “No, mistress.”

“You worked out how to do it quickly enough. You’re a clever lad.”

So I had passed another test. “Thank you, mistress.” I said.

She grunted closed her eyes again and returned to her recitation. The air around her shimmered, at least so it seemed to me. Perhaps it was just the heat.

I made my way to the cook wagon. The fat man who had offered me porridge was lying on the buckboard, eyes closed. He did not look in my direction but as I approached, he said, “What do you want?”

He seemed affable, but he was a big man and I was young and shy and unsure of how to proceed. Still I had been given a command and I felt sure that Mistress Iliana was a stickler for having her orders carried out.

“Mistress Iliana told me to tell you that you should give me something to eat, sir.”

He sat up suddenly. His gut rippled. His small eyes narrowed. “Did she now?”

“She did, sir.”

“Did she happen to mention what I was to give you? Truffles, perhaps, or spiced sweetmeats or perhaps curried fish roe with a side-helping of clarified ghee?”

I felt fairly sure that none of these were things he would be cooking for common soldiers. “She did not, sir.”

“Just as well since they are fresh out of stock. Tell you what, have an apple.” He reached down into a bag beside him and pulled out a small wrinkled apple. “Might have a few worms in it, but hey, they’re meat.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. He grinned and lay back down.

I glanced around. The rest of the soldiers, the ones without horses, were sitting around in the shadow of walls or trees or bushes. They huddled together in small groups, talking with one another, repairing their gear, sometimes just sitting with their backs to something cool and studying the landscape.

They were a motley looking bunch, for the most part smaller and darker skinned than the riders. The crossbowmen wore only light tabards with the Sun and Tower, the halberdiers leather tunics and helmets. Most of them wore their tunics open because of the heat.

These were the men I was going to be spending my next seven years among and I knew nothing of them. Looking back, I can see many were just boys and youths little older than me, but they seemed worldly and experienced to me then. I wanted to talk to them, but I found I could not. I crawled under the shadow of the wagon and began to eat my apple.

“Sensible boy,” said the cook from above me. “Find shade when you can. Eat when you can. Sleep when you can.”

There was something reassuring about his voice and his words, but sleep would not come. I had somehow managed to put distance between myself and my family and failed to narrow it with the soldiers. I sat there, under the wagon, on my own, eating that sour tasting apple and feeling sorry for myself.

Eventually I got up and looked around. I walked back to where Mistress Iliana sat but her eyes were closed, and she paid me not the slightest attention, so I walked back towards the cottage and in through the door.

My father looked at me with miserable eyes. My mother stepped forward and hugged me. The children, not really understanding what was going on, but sensing something was different, looked troubled. For no reason, Yasmin began to snivel. I walked across to her and patted her head. She looked up at me, gave my leg a hug and then scampered off into the corner.

My father got up and limped across the room. He put his bony hand on my shoulder and half-dragging me and half-leaning on me, got me to step outside and away from the rest of the family.

“What happened to your face?” he said.

“One of the young nobles decided he’d teach me what boot leather tasted like.”

“You’ll get that a lot. Don’t fight back unless your life is threatened. That’ll just make it worse.”

I wondered if things would be different once I became a wizard. If I became a wizard. I certainly hoped so. I would have the means for revenge then.

He handed me his scabbarded dagger. It was his pride and joy, a thing he had picked up long ago in Skorpea when campaigning with the Lord. It featured in all his stories of the battles of his youth.

“Take it,” he said.

“I can’t,” I said.

“It’s all I got,” he said. “And you’ll be riding to war.”

“I’m a servant,” I said. “Not a soldier.”

I wanted to tell him about the other thing, about the apprenticeship but I couldn’t. For some reason my lips were sealed. It was not exactly that I was ashamed but I felt he would not understand.

Da gave me a sour smile. “You think that servants don’t get attacked. You think that they don’t go out onto the battlefield once the fighting is done. How do you think I got this? I picked it up after the Amam Re slaughter. Me and Slim Adib were scavenging for whatever we could find.”

It took me a moment to realise what he was saying. “The Lord did not give it to you?”

He looked at his feet. “I found it on the body of a dead knight. The Lord let me keep it.”

Something else dawned on me. “You found it after the battle. You didn’t fight then.”

He shook his head. “No. I was taken as a bearer, same as you’re doing. I carried stuff, washed pots made food, helped watch the camp.”

“Did you ever fight?”

He gave a soft laugh. “Oh yes. Just not in battles. There’s always raiders attack the baggage train. There’s thieves. There’s your own folks when they decide they have a better right to your stuff than you do.”

“Did you kill a man with this?” I was starting to doubt everything he had ever told me.

“Yes. In Tarnheim. He tried to rob me in an alley behind the White Swan. Him and two mates. I stabbed him and the others ran away. I never stuck around to watch him die. The body was found the next day. Bled to death.”

“Why are you giving it to me?”

“You might need it. The world is a dangerous place. And I wanted you to know the truth. You’re old enough now and you’re going to see a bit of it for yourself.”

I held the dagger in my hand. It felt heavy with the weight of death and lies. I took it from the scabbard. The blade was plain, but it was sharp.

“I hope you never have to use it for what it’s intended, but if you do, cut from below, aim for the belly.”

He had showed me this a dozen times when I was younger. It had always felt grown up and exciting. Now it just felt sad and ominous. I put the dagger back into the scabbard and the scabbard inside my shirt.

“Thanks,” I said. Yasmin emerged from the house and watched us and the soldiers wide-eyed.

On the hillside the sides of the huge striped tent started rippled in the light breeze. Around it the knights in white tabards and their attendant soldiers prepared to leave. A tall straight old man came out with the lady and assisted them up into their coach. Once again, a stretcher was taken to the coach, and lifted gently inside.

Servants took the tent down and stowed it on the wagons. It was fascinating to see how quickly and easily they managed it. It looked much larger and more complicated than the one I had packed for Mistress Iliana.

The soldiers packed, and the knights stood by their horses chatting and waiting for the signal. Vorster rode down the hill and said something to Spider.

The tattooed man turned and spoke to Mistress Iliana. She closed her eyes and tapped the strange drum chained to her waist. The noise was not what I expected. It was like thunder. It rumbled through the air and I felt it inside my chest. My skull vibrated in time to its beat. All the soldiers around me made ready to go. Mistress Iliana beckoned to me.

The only people who seemed unprepared for this were myself and my family. Little Yasmin scampered into the cottage and got my mother. Ma had a shocked look on her face. In her hand she held a small basket containing bread and cheese, the sort she often prepared when I went out with the goats of a day. She was rubbing her eyes and I could tell that she was frightened but now she was even more worried by the possibility of not being able to give me the food.

The soldiers were getting into marching order. The cook was sitting up on the buckboard of the cart. He already had the reins in his hands and was getting ready to move off. The riders were mounting their horses. Mistress Iliana strode towards her wagon, still tapping the drum, still sending that thunderous sound echoing towards the distant mountains.

Amid all the commotion my family seemed tiny fragile figures, about to be trampled by the armoured force around them.

My mother grabbed me and give me a savage hug and thrust the basket into my hand. Alaya and Tara and Yasmin surrounded me and grabbed me and Sadec did the same. I could hear one or two of the soldiers laughing and it shames me to think that I was embarrassed by this display of emotion by my family.

Nevertheless, I tried to encircle all of them in my arms and gather them to me as if I would never let them go. For a moment everything seemed to freeze. I can remember it perfectly to this day, a small chip of warmth wrested from eternity by memory.

I can feel my mother’s bony form and the tiny weights of my sisters pressing against me. I can remember my brother’s fists pounding me between the shoulder blades and I was surprised to hear he was crying.

“Come back to us,” my mother said. “Come back to us.”

My sisters simply shed their tears. I heard someone bellow, “Get out of the bloody way!”

I held onto them for a few seconds longer. I squeezed my eyes shut and still something leaked out between my eyelids. Wheels rumbled closer. The thunderous drumbeat suddenly stopped, and I found myself looking up into Mistress Iliana’s eyes. She sat on the buckboard, reins in her hand.

“Get on the cart,” she said. “We are leaving.”

I was surprised to see something like sympathy in her eyes although it was not written in the grinning mask of her face. She tugged the reins and the cart moved off.

Reluctantly, I tore myself from the grasp of my mother and clambered up onto the backboard. The cart raised a cloud of dust that blurred the faces of my family.

The wheels of the cart hit a rut on the path, and I bounced on the wooden board and was almost overbalanced. I clung to the sides desperately and it seemed to me that I needed to hold on to something to keep from jumping down and begging to be allowed to stay. I turned my head slightly to avoid my mother’s accusing stare and I saw my father resting on the rock where he normally sat. There was no expression on his face. He met my gaze though and he raised one hand as if it weighed as much as that boulder and slowly waved.

That’s how I always remember them, caught in that frozen moment, watched by the pitiless sun, clouds of dust rising around them, soldiers on every side.

After a few moments, I could not bear to look any longer. I raised my hand and waved at my father, then I looked around and saw Mistress Iliana’s painted face studying me as she might have some peculiar specimen of beast. I swallowed, and I met her gaze and she gave a faint smile.

“Remember this,” she said.

“I always will.” It never occurred to me to ask why she said what she did, but I knew that it was important. I knew that if ever I came back that things would be changed utterly because I would be changed utterly. Even then I had sense enough to see that.

We rode down slope back towards the main road and every heartbeat took me further from my family and closer to my strange destiny.

Chapter Six

I sat on the back of the cart, feeling miserable and alone. Looking down at the wickerwork basket I saw that my mother had wrapped the cheese and bread in one of her precious pieces of cloth. I thought I’ll give it back to her this evening and then realised I would not be seeing her that evening or possibly any other. That made me feel even worse. It troubled me that I would not be able to return the basket to her.

We headed east along the Old Road bumping and juddering on the ruts left by the wheels of thousands of carts. Within a matter of hours, we were as far from home as I had ever been.

A dust cloud marked our trail through the parched land, hiding part of the horizon. In the distance I saw the hills on which our family farm sat, great crumpled ridges of brown rock set against a background of blue, blue sky. They formed a mighty crescent that blocked off the horizon to the South. It was the start of the enormous barrier that shielded us from the dangers of the Shadow Kingdoms.

The marching infantryman got to eat the dust of the noble riders ahead of them. The knights were scouts and vanguard to the rest of the party. We drove along directly behind, the worst of the dust swirling away from us, perhaps because of some enchantment of my mistress’s.

The coach huddled in the middle of the formation. Military necessity meant that there had to be knights ahead of us on the road in order to protect it. Behind the coach and the supply wagons were the bulk of the infantry and behind those a smaller unit of cavalry. It did not surprise me when I later learned that its riders were of lower status than the knights in front of us.

Eventually, after hours of silence, Mistress Iliana said, “Tell me about yourself.”

“There’s not much to tell, mistress,” I said. “You’ve seen where I come from. I lived there all of my life.”

“Do you believe in the Holy Sun?”

I wondered if it was some sort of trick question. There was only one answer to that unless you wanted a visit from the local priests and a quick burning. I made the sign of the five-pointed star above my heart and I said, “Of course, mistress.”

“What do you think the Holy Sun is?”

I pointed to the sky above us. “He is there, mistress.”

She laughed. “Do you think he is watching us right now?”

“I do.”

“Do you believe that he sees everything he looks down upon?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Do you believe that he talked to the prophets and gave them his Word?”

“That is what the priests told us, mistress. And I believe them.”

“Of course, you do.” There was a world of mockery in her tone. I looked at her sidelong and saw the faint smile on her face.

“I do, mistress. Don’t you?” It was a dangerous thing for me to say and I knew it. I was inviting her to commit heresy. I don’t know what I expected her response to be. Perhaps she would strike me again. She appeared to consider the question quite seriously.

“I believe the prophets were telling us the truth as they saw it.”

Young as I was, I heard the equivocation. She was choosing her words very carefully, so they could not be used against her if she was cross examined by a priest. I understood then that she did not entirely agree with the religion of the Holy Sun. It was thrilling in its way. I had never heard anybody express doubts in the truth of our faith.

Why was she asking me these questions? Was she trying to recruit me into some sort of heresy? This hardly seemed the time or the place to ask so I waited in silence for what she would say next.

She glanced around as if to make sure that there was no one within easy hearing distance. There was nothing for her to worry about. No one who had any choice in the matter rode close to us. All the soldiers and all of the knights avoided her. I wondered if the real reason I was there was because she was lonely but I dismissed that thought as too far-fetched.

“I want you to know,” she said, “that I belong to the faith even if some of the things I tell you contradict what the priests say.”

She stared directly at me and I sensed that she wanted an answer. “Of course, mistress. I understand.”

She showed me that sinister smile once again. “How can you understand when you don’t even know what I am going to say?”

She waited again. I said nothing in response and that seemed to satisfy her.

“Over the next few months, you will learn many strange things. Such is the nature of wizardry. You will not be able to share these things with the people around us without danger to yourself or to me. Do you understand that?”

Everything seemed a little more threatening now. She wanted to know if I was taking the danger seriously. I considered her words and eventually I nodded.

“You don’t say much,” she said, “and you’re careful about what you do say. That is good. Stay that way. It will keep you alive.”

I heard the implicit threat in her voice, but I also understood that she was not the only danger. She was going to teach me the sort of things that could get me into trouble with the Church. I took a moment to think about that.

I had not lied to her. I was of the Faith. I did not wish to put my immortal soul in peril, but she had already implied that it was. My evil dreams confirmed this. I sensed the world of the wizard was a lot more complicated than the one I had grown up in. It was exciting and menacing at the same time. I wanted to hear everything she had to say, and to make my own mind up about it.

Of one thing I was utterly certain. Last night I had cast a spell. Last night I had become a wizard. I might not yet be a very good wizard, but I intended to become so. And to do that I was prepared to listen to her even if it contradicted the words of the Holy Sun himself.

I did not want to remain what I had been. I did not want to be like my father or his father before him. Something had made me different. I did not know why. I just knew I needed whatever it was that this woman could give me, and I was prepared to pay whatever price was asked.

Of course, it did not seem sensible to tell her this, so I kept my own counsel and I listened. But at that point she had got whatever answer she needed, at least to these questions. She decided to take another tack.

“How old are you, boy?”

“I have seen fifteen summers.”

“Do you mean that you have counted them or is that what your parents told you?”

“It’s my parent’s word.”

“Well, they should know. You were the eldest child?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Do you know anything about your grandparents?” This seemed an odd turn for the conversation to be taking. I was not sure why she wanted these answers, but I sensed there was a pattern to her questioning.

“My father’s father worked the farm before him. It has passed from father to son for as long as anyone can remember.

“And there were no strange stories about any of them? None of them were wizards? None of them met strange ends?”

“No, mistress. Why do you ask?”

“Because usually mage blood runs in a family. It is extremely unusual for a wizard to be born to people who don’t have a history of being able to use magic.”

“Like the kids of white goats are mostly white,” I said.

She looked at me sidelong. I was not sure why. Perhaps she thought what I said was stupid. It was the first thing that came into my head. “That might actually be a good way of looking at it. I normally hear it expressed as the fact that most noble born are taller than most peasants.”

I could see how that would appeal to her aristocratic sensibilities. I could also see how she would prefer that analogy to one involving goats.

“There is no history of magic in my family,” I said.

“How can you be so sure of that? Do you know the history of all of your ancestors on your mother’s side and your father’s side going all the way back to the first man and the first woman?”

“I’m sure that if there was a wizard in our blood line in recent memory I would know.”

She laughed again. Her voice sounded normal. It was a not unpleasant sound. “I wish I was as sure of anything as you are of everything.”

“What do you mean, mistress?”

“I mean that having a wizard in the family is not something that everyone is proud of or that everyone talks about.” There was a hint of bitterness in her voice.

I understood what she meant. Many people, particularly those of the Solar faith might be ashamed of being related to a mage. Most people associated magic with the power of the Shadow. Still, it was the sort of thing that would come up during family discussions. Or at least be hinted at. A thought struck me so hard it must have been written on my face.

“What?” Mistress Iliana asked.

“My mother sometimes claimed that a very distant ancestor of my great-grandmother was a Priestess of the Moon.”

She looked thoughtful. “The Old Ones chose humans with the gift of magic to be their factors and intercessors. Your family has been in this land for a very long time.”

“For as long as anyone can remember. Since before the Sunlanders came.”

“Which coming of the Sunlanders are you talking about?”

“What do you mean, mistress?”

“The history of these lands is not simple. The Sunlanders have invaded several times and seized the land from the followers of the Old Ones. They have been driven out almost as many times but they have always come back to claim what is theirs.”

“How can they be so certain that the land is theirs then?”

She was quiet a long time and I wondered if I had offended her. After all she did come from a noble family and they were always touchy about these things. The Sunlanders were invaders in Umbrea. Everybody knew that. The Sunlanders even boasted about it. It was a source of their pride, that they were conquerors.

“That is a good question,” Mistress Iliana said. She looked pleased. As if I had somehow proved cleverer than she expected or the task of teaching me less dull. “Sometimes there are written records. Sometimes the claims are settled with the sword.”

“That is the Sunlander way,” I said.

“Yes, it is. And you would do well not to use such a sardonic tone when you say it.”

At the time I did not know what a sardonic tone was, but I could tell it was not a good thing and in the future I was to keep my disapproval hidden when I said such things.

“I’m only a servant, mistress,” I said.

“You’re being sardonic again,” she said. “And believe me it would be best for you if you were not.”

I was fifteen summers old. My nod was sullen if it could not be sardonic.

“You do not like being a servant, do you?”

“I’ve not been one for very long, mistress.”

“It is better for you that people believe that you are my servant rather than my apprentice.”

My disbelief must have shown in the look that I shot her because she said, “it is the truth. There are those who do you harm if they thought you were a wizard.”

“Harm, mistress?”

“They might kill you if they thought they could get away with it, and the opportunity to get away with it always arises when you’re part of a company like ours.”

“It seems to me that there are those who will do me harm simply because I am your servant, mistress. Or perhaps because I am not noble.”

“You’re talking about Vorster. He is one of those that I am thinking of. He fears me too much to try anything against me, but he can work out his spite on my servant.”

“What do you mean, mistress?”

“I mean that there are those who hate mages just as there are those who hate women or who hate men who sleep with other men. They do not need any excuse to vent their prejudices. And they hate and resent and fear those who can work magic because they cannot. Or perhaps because they wish they could, and they imagine that we do with our power what they would if they had it.”

Her expression was intense. She was talking about something she had brooded on for a very long time. I knew then that she was lonely even surrounded by all the soldiers. She regarded every one of them as a potential enemy and perhaps she was right to do so. She was a wizard and she had known that for a very long time as I measured such things in the days of my youth.

She must have heard all the stories about evil wizards. Given her status and her education she had probably heard a lot more than I had. She had grown up with the idea that everyone around her would see her as a villain. It was just starting to dawn on me that I too would now occupy that role.

After that we were both silent for a long time. “May I ask you a question, mistress?”

“If it is an intelligent one.”

“Why are we riding with the knights of the Tower and Sun and who are those women in the coach?”

“That’s two questions,” she said. “But I will answer them because they are connected. One of those women is the Lady Alysia, the only surviving daughter of the Duke of Solsburg. Another is her lady in waiting, Rebeka. The rest of the women are servants or poor kin or both. Those knights and their accompanying soldiers are her escort, and we too are part of that escort.”

“Where are we escorting her to, mistress?”

“Back to Solsburg,” she said. My face fell. I had heard of Solsburg. It was a port city on the coast a hundred or more leagues away. If she had told me were going to fly to the moon, it could not have seemed more distant. If Mistress Iliana noticed my expression, she did not seem to care. “Lady Alysia was on a pilgrimage to see the Angel of Tarnheim.”

“That is a long way, mistress,” I said. “Even to ask the blessing of an Angel.”

As far as I knew then Tarnheim was almost as far west as Solsburg was east of our present location, a famous holy place on the edge of the Graveyard of Angels. I had often spoken to pilgrims trudging along the road towards it.

“She has her reasons. As has her father.”

“What would those be, mistress?”

“No concern of ours, boy,” she said.

“As you say, mistress.” A thought struck me. “Is it normal for young ladies to ride with so many bodyguards. I have never heard of such a thing happen with our local lord. I only ever see his tax collectors.”

“The Duke of Solsburg is a much greater man than your landlord. His is one of the oldest families in the land. He has few rivals in Umbrea.”

That statement while true, did not answer my question. I waited to see if she would say any more. She did not disappoint me. “The Duke wanted a wizard to accompany his daughter. I was deemed the most competent for the purpose, so I was dispatched.”

I was curious, and Mistress Iliana seemed disposed to answer my questions so I blurted out, “why would his daughter need a wizard in her escort?”

“The Duke has several wizards sworn to his service but none as good as I with battle magic. And that is the reason I am here, to protect his daughter should there be any attempts on her life. And it is fortunate I was there, for there was.”

That bit of information stunned me to silence. But only for a moment. “Someone attempted to kill the Lady Alysia?”

She nodded.

“But why? Who?”

“Your questions are getting shorter, but you still ask too many of them at once.”

“I am sorry, mistress.”

“There is no need to be. You are my apprentice. You are entitled to ask me questions. Just make sure you do it when there is no one else around.”

“Thank you, mistress.” She made a curt gesture of dismissal.

“As to who would want to kill her, I do not know for sure. The Duke has many enemies– all powerful men do– but I do know they were wealthy and well-connected.”

“How do you know that, mistress?”

“Because they hired assassins from the Crimson Brotherhood.”

I gulped. The brotherhood was a whispered legend. They were mentioned sometimes by my father and by the storyteller in Khorba when he wanted to give us a particularly spine-chilling tale.

“How can you know that, mistress?”

“Because I killed one when he put a blade in Lady Alysia.” There was something terrifyingly casual about the way she mentioned killing. She might have been describing cooking a goat.

“Is the Lady Alysia alright?” I asked.

“As alright as anyone can be who has been stabbed with a poisoned dagger,” Mistress Iliana said.

“A poisoned dagger,” I said, trying to get my head around the idea that someone would use such a weapon. “That is dishonourable.”

“You don’t say. In my experience honour is not something most assassins care much about.”

My cheeks went red.

“There is no need to blush,” Mistress Iliana said. “It is dishonourable, and it is also despicable but that is the world we live in. Not even a young girl is safe from a poisoned blade if her father happens to be a powerful man with many enemies.”

“Will she be all right?”

“It was little more than a scratch, but the wound was infected,” my mistress said. “I have done my best but all I have managed to do is stabilise her condition. Our only real hope is to get her home as fast as possible and let Master Lucas, the Duke’s healer look after her.”

“Poor girl,” I said.

“She must be, for she is currently relying on my skill as a healer.” My mistress looked gloomy and I feared that perhaps Lady Alysia had not much longer to live.

“Is that why she never leaves the coach? And is always inside that huge tent?”

“You see — you can think things through for yourself when you have to,” Mistress Iliana said.

Another terrifying thought struck me. “Is it possible the assassins will strike again?”

“It is more than possible. It is very likely.”

“How did they get to her in the first place? I would have thought she would have been well protected.”

“And you would have thought correctly. But a disguised assassin can get anywhere. The Lady Alysia was praying at the shrine of the Angel when she was attacked by an assassin disguised as a pilgrim. None of her bodyguards were carrying their weapons for they are forbidden inside the shrine.”

“How did the assassin get his dagger in then?”

“No one is searched when they go into the shrine. It is blasphemy to carry a weapon into such a place. No one expects to be attacked there either.”

“But it happened.”

“Yes, it did, and no doubt the perpetrator is being punished by the Holy Sun.” She could not keep the irony out of her voice.

“But you used a deadly spell inside a sacred spot.”

“The assassin burned. The Holy Sun smote down the blasphemer in the act of committing his atrocity.”

“But you said you killed him with a spell.”

“A theologian might argue that I was merely acting as a proxy for the Holy Sun. Particularly as I was doing it in defence of one of the most powerful men in Umbrea’s daughter, a great patron of the shrine.”

I could see it give her a great deal of pleasure to say these words. I wondered why she hated our religion. It did not seem like the right time to ask.

“Why would anyone attack the Duke’s daughter?”

“Why would you think?”

“I have no idea, mistress. I cannot imagine trying to use a poisoned dagger on a young girl.”

“That is to your credit. The most likely reason is that someone wished to prevent her from getting married.”

The idea horrified me. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

“Because one reason Lady Alysia was at the shrine was so that Prince Tarik could look upon her.”

Even I had heard of Prince Tarik. “He is Duke Leon’s brother isn’t he?”

“You’re not quite the ignoramus I thought you were.”

“Thank you, mistress. I think.”

“Yes, he is the Duke of Nordburg’s brother. Duke Leon wishes to become the king of Umbrea and an alliance by marriage with the daughter of his greatest rival would go a long way towards making him so.”

My head swam. It seemed I had stepped right off the farm and into the sort of intrigue that only a storyteller would dream of. “So, you think someone is attempting to prevent an alliance.”

“It would seem like the most likely theory, wouldn’t it?”

“But you have another?”

“It would not matter whether I had or not. It is not my job to come up with such theories. It is my job to keep Lady Alysia alive until she is delivered to her father.”

“Will it be dangerous?”

“Of course. An assassin with a poisoned blade has failed. Who knows what the person who wants Lady Alysia dead will try next.”

Just for a moment I saw the mask she wore drop. Worry was etched into her face.

“Sorcery, do you think?” I asked.

“Anything is possible.” After that she fell silent and something about her expression told me it would be unwise to question her further.

Chapter Seven

We made camp long before it got dark. Spider rode back to our wagon and nodded to my mistress. She hit the drum and once again it produced that thunderous roar. This time the sound was greeted with cheers and jokes from the soldiers. The knights of the vanguard glared back at us, but they too came to a halt.

The wagons left the road and the soldiers looked around for places to pitch their tents. It was immediately obvious why Spider had chosen this spot.

The road angled north past some ruins. The riders had already scouted them and found them abandoned. Mistress Iliana got down from her wagon and walked towards them, gesturing for me to accompany her. I did so reluctantly. In the part of Umbrea I grew up in ruined buildings were something you avoided unless they had been on your land and generations of your ancestors had proved they were harmless.

There were always stories about haunted places, and places where the Old Ones still dwelt and where monsters existed. Somewhere to the west lay the greatest collection of such things in the world, the Graveyard of Angels.

These buildings did not look like they had been built by the Old Ones or the Solari or any of the Elder Races who had preceded mankind in our world’s dim and dusty past. They looked as if they had been built by farmers like my family and then abandoned.

Spider looked at Iliana. “What do you think?” he asked.

She shrugged. “A hovel. Most likely just some place where the land proved too hard or the well ran dry.”

“Most likely,” Spider said, but he kept walking along beside her and his hand was never too far from the hilt of his sword. A group of knights including Vorster fell into position around us and they too kept their hands near their scabbards. They had the look of men who suspected they might be ambushed.

Behind us, the rest of the force stood ready. The archers had strung their crossbows and held them ready. The pikemen lofted their weapons into the guard position. Ghoran stood with his big axe in his hands. There was a palpable tension in the air.

By the time we reached the walls, I was ready for grey spectres or mirklings to attack us. What we found was a tumbled-down building. The roof had collapsed. Cobwebs and their occupants hung within, not the big kind, that sometimes emerge from the blight and not the bright jewelled sort whose venom can kill a grown man, just the normal web walkers I knew from my home.

Mistress Iliana closed her eyes and muttered. I felt something in the air that had not been there a moment ago. She raised her hand, fingers held in pairs and splayed apart and surveyed the room through the gap as if she was sighting between them. She aimed at every part of the room, then stepped outside and walked around the building, studying the exterior and the approaches from the surrounding land.

As we walked, I noticed the elder signs worked into the walls and over the lintels. Ward posts made a circle around the building fifty strides out. The barn and the byres were similarly protected. The cuts looked clean and if anything, better than the ones back home.

“The place is clear,” Iliana said. “We can camp here. Tell the men to stay within the wardstones just in case.”

The word rippled back through the company and I saw the coach move close to the ruins along with the wagons of the servants. Soon that great striped awning had risen beside the building and the sick noblewoman had been taken inside. Guards were in place all around.

I set up the tent for my mistress near the walls of the house. The knights camped inside the ruins. The other riders and the infantry set themselves up near the wagons. The cook had already got the pot out. The well proved dry so he broke out the water barrels and cooked a mix of beans and vegetables and dried meat. Every man got stew, waybread and black coffee with grounds in it and every man complained about the quality as they presented their wooden bowls and enamel mugs.

Mistress Iliana sent me to get two bowls of the stew. The men stepped aside and let me pass. It was not from any sense of respect for me or because I had any privileges. They knew who I was getting the food for and they did not want her hungry. I saw resentment written on many faces.

When I got back, I set her bowl and mug on the rug she had produced in front of her. From inside the building emerged the loud chatter of the riders. I produced the basket my mother had provided for me. It seemed only polite, so I offered her some. She shook her head and said, “If you want to make a friend give some of that to the cook in the morning.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, mistress,” I said. I sat down opposite her, and she made no objections. I looked up at the stars. It was a warm night and we had no fire nor did we need one. The sky was black velvet strewn with glittering gems. I thought of other nights I had spent under the stars, looking after goats.

Back home my family would have eaten and Da, if he felt well enough, would have settled down to tell us a tale or quote a piece of the Scriptures to us from memory. Soon the little ones would drift off to sleep and I would lie awake for a bit, thinking about what I had seen that day or what life was like in the far off cities. Of late, I had done that more and more, putting off my descent into strange dreams and nightmares.

Homesickness stabbed me. All around me sat strangers. There was no one of my blood, of my immediate family. These people all knew each other and had for many days, even my mistress. She was not liked, but she was respected. I was on my own.

My mother and father might as well have been as distant as those stars above. No one around me cared if I lived or died. Now, I thought, that was not true. There were probably a few who would happily see me dead if they knew what I was really doing here. That had been the substance of my mistress’s words earlier.

The night seemed vast and empty, like some great beast ready to swallow me if I gave it a chance. My mistress was concentrating on her food and did not seem disposed to chat, but I could not bear the silence any longer. I wanted to hear a voice talking to me just as all these strangers were talking to each other. “Mistress, do you mind if I ask a question?”

She raised an eyebrow without looking at me. “Ask away.”

“Why was everyone so afraid of this place?”

“They were not, not really.”

“They behaved as if they were.”

“They are soldiers, and this is a potentially hostile land. We are closer to the border with the Shadow Kingdoms than many like. They are wary of abandoned places because such things can hold hostile entities.”

“Entities?”

“They fear the supernatural, but such places can house anything from scorpions to serpents to bandits. Under the circumstances it is better to be cautious.”

That made sense. It did not explain everything though. There had been a palpable sense of fear in the air earlier and it had not entirely vanished even now.

I did not press the question though – it was easy enough for me to understand why the soldiers might be afraid in such a place as this. It had been abandoned for a reason and it was far from the normal haunts of men. It was not a place I would have liked to have spent the night on my own.

“Mistress?”

“Yes?”

“Do you really think that there are those out there who would kill me if they knew I was your apprentice?”

“I have already lost two apprentices.”

There was silence while the shock of that settled into my brain. It seemed that she had not been talking in terms of vague possibilities. It seemed there was a very real threat. I was curious but I did not like to ask because I’ve never been in a situation like this before.

“Lost, mistress?”

She gave a soft sour laugh. “You’re thinking it is very careless of me, but I can assure you that it was not my wish. I have enemies. Most wizards acquire them if they live long enough. You will. If you do.”

I was silent, and I studied the stars above trying to imagine what sort of enemies a wizard could have. It was not the most reassuring thoughts. “Actually,” she said, “I suspect you already have.”

My first instinct was to deny it. What enemies could I possibly have? I was just a farm boy, a goatherd. I had once got into a fight with one of the village boys from Khorba. I had given him a black eye but that was as close as I could think of. Then it dawned on me – the dream I had had last night.

“Are you ready to get some sleep?”

“I need to relieve myself, mistress,” I said.

“Then don’t do it here,” she said.

“Of course not, mistress,” I said.

“But stay within the wardstones.” There was a note of warning in her voice that I resolved to heed.

I walked to the edge of the camp making sure that I did not go beyond the boundaries of the wardstones. I stood there relieving myself and looked at the distant mountains that cut off the stars on the horizon. They were jagged edged as the fangs of some great beast. It was easy to believe that beyond them lurked things inimical to humankind.

Footsteps approached from behind me. Boots crunched on the hard ground. I turned, and I saw two figures. One of them was Vorster. The other was a huge brute of a man, bigger than anyone I had ever seen.

Vorster’s features were hard in the moonlight. “Missing your mother so much you’re wetting yourself?”

“No, are you?” It was the sort of automatic response I might have given my brother if he was cheeking me and I knew as soon as I spoke that it was the wrong thing to say.

Vorster’s smile was cruel. His punch was crueller still. It caught me right on the nose and I heard something break. The pain was astonishing. Blood dripped down my face. I fell to the ground and a heavy boot connected with my ribs as Vorster’s companion joined in.

I curled up in a ball until the kicking stopped. I heard a low cruel laugh and then footsteps retreating. I just lay there on the ground, fighting back tears. I refused to cry or shout.

The watching stars gave me no sympathy. The blood curdled on my face and became sticky. The throbbing did not decrease. It became worse when I moved my head. I wondered if Vorster had done me permanent damage. In Khorba a boy had died after being kicked on the side of a head by a horse. I wondered if the same was possible from a gauntleted fist. My answer was most likely yes.

Doubt, fear and anger fought a battle within my mind. I was alone. I was far from home. There was no one near who cared for me. I was marching with a group of men, one of whom at least would be perfectly happy to watch me die. I did not doubt that his friends would feel the same. Then there was what Mistress Iliana had said about the deaths of her previous apprentices.

That was perhaps the most disturbing. Had I misunderstood her? Had they died because of what they learned from her? She had claimed magic was dangerous. Could it be that dangerous?

I had made a terrible mistake. I should never have left the family home. I should never have believed the wizard. I should never have signed that contract in blood. My life had been one of poverty, hunger and deprivation but I had been with people who loved me and whom I loved. Here there was nothing save a vague promise of future power and knowledge and most likely pain and death.

What could I do? Run away? It was possible I suppose. I could follow the road back the way we came and eventually find my home. We had not gone that far, a day’s walk, maybe two would take me there.

Except that it would be the first direction anyone looking for me would go. They had horses. They would follow the road. It would not be hard for them to overtake me. And what if one of those sent for me was Vorster? He would not thank me for putting him to any inconvenience. The results would be painful or perhaps fatal.

I told myself I was not afraid of him, but I was. He was so sure of himself, so certain he would get away with what he did. I could hit him back, but he was bigger and faster than me and more used to violence. I thought about my father’s dagger and I considered using it. I could plunge it into his flesh and teach him not to mess with me.

Just thinking about it warmed me with satisfaction and dulled the pain. But I knew I was fooling myself. I had a dagger. He had a sword and far more experience using it. It was not a fight I could win.

Rage told me that I could walk up behind him and plunge the blade into his back. Once again felt a sick satisfaction in the idea of it. I had never realised before that I was capable of such anger, of feeling such a desire to kill.

Doubt whispered but what if something went wrong? What if you missed and the sword came out?

Rage said at least you would not be a coward.

Stabbing a man in the back is the coward’s way.

I considered the options. In the long run the result would be the same. If I killed him, I would be hung for it. I would gain nothing except a moment’s satisfaction. If I took vengeance, I wanted more than that. I wanted Vorster to suffer as he had made me suffer and I wanted him to feel as powerless as I felt now. I wanted him to know that there would be nothing he could do about it.

There was only one way I was ever going to be able to achieve that. There was only one way a poor boy with no friends and no influence and no money could ever achieve that. I would need to follow the path of the wizard.

For a moment, through the pain I had a sudden vision of myself wielding dark magic and blasting Vorster into a pile of ashes. I imagined wielding powers that would make him my slave and teach him the true meaning of fear.

I felt a sudden stab of unreasoning terror. The stars glittered cold in the night. I closed my eyes, knowing I had felt the temptation of the Shadow. I remembered the images of murder and violence that had flowed so easily through me. I knew my soul was in peril. It was not the simple choice Mistress Iliana had presented. There might be something out there that could devour me if I did not learn the way of the mage. There was also something in me that could eat my soul if I followed that path to its end.

I prayed furiously to the Holy Sun for guidance. It was night. The moon was out, and I got no answer and felt no sense of peace. The pain in my face got worse. My side and back hurt from the kicks I had took. I tried to raise myself up. My body felt stiff and it was difficult to move. I fumbled in my pocket and I found the piece of stone that Mistress Iliana had given me after my test. The runes scratched on it caught the moonlight.

I stared at them. They were just marks on stone. The pain in my head made it difficult to concentrate, to lose myself in the labyrinth of lines. I felt none of the sense of connection I had the other night. Maybe it had been a fluke. Maybe I had not worked magic or maybe I had used up whatever small amount of power was in me.

I squinted at the useless bit of rock and nothing came. I tried to follow the pattern of lines and sensed nothing. Perhaps all my grandiose dreams of power and wizardry meant nothing. Perhaps it had all been just a trick for Mistress Iliana to get herself a servant.

In daylight these ideas would have seemed ludicrous, but at night the mind plays strange games. By moonlight thoughts can take a treacherous turn. Again my mind returned to the idea of running away, of going home.

My father would be ashamed of me, but my mother would be happy. I was sure my siblings would be to. If I left now and walked through the night, I could get a huge lead. The moon would show me the way.

I tried not to think of all the stories I had heard. Of the dangers that might overwhelm a lone traveller. Slavers. Nightrunners. Monsters. Old Ones. I tried to drive thoughts of pursuit from my head. I had some food in my basket. I had my father’s dagger. I could make it.

This might be the last chance I would get. Every day took me further from home. Every twist of the road would make my path harder. My nose hurt. My body hurt. I did not want to be here, surrounded by strangers, a despised servant.

If I left, I would lose my one chance of being a wizard. I might bring disaster and disgrace on my family. I might end up possessed.

I looked at the stone in my hand, tracing the lines, seeking some sign of grace. It did not come.

I looked out into the scrubland beyond the wardstones. In the distance faint greenish lights flickered. They might have been fireflies, but I knew they were not. I had seen them on other nights, from our farm. I had heard my father’s tales about them and my mother’s warnings. There were things out in the night it would not be good to meet.

As if they sensed my eyes upon them, the lights coalesced into a shape that might have been the shadow of a woman and then they swirled into something bat-winged and yet not a bat. It took to the air and swept off into the distance, keeping low to the ground until it vanished beyond a ridge.

I wondered whether I should tell anybody, but I knew these soldiers had set sentries. They would give the alarm. And if I did go and tell I would lose my chance to quietly slip away.

The stone felt cold and dead in my hands. I tried one last prayer to the Holy Sun. I let my mind go blank as I asked for guidance. I breathed deeply and calmly. I traced the lines on the stone with my gaze.

Was there just the faintest flicker of light there or had I imagined it? Maybe I could learn to repeat what I had done with the runes on my own. Maybe I did not need a teacher.

That would be a sort of betrayal too. Mistress Iliana had opened this door for me. She had taught me this much and she could teach me more if I was prepared to learn.

I could go back into ignorance because of fear. Or I could step forward into a new life, trusting that I could master it. I had come to a crossroads, one invisible to other people but very real to me. I had a choice to make about the sort of person I was going to be, and it would haunt me for the rest of my days.

Whatever I did would have consequences. I stared at the stone willing it to give me light. Nothing happened except that faint flickering. Enough to encourage me. Not enough to give me certainty.

I thought of Vorster again and my desire for vengeance. It was still there, a dark weight in my belly, sharp as hunger, a temptation to evil. My heart beat with fear when I thought of the potential consequences of seeking that vengeance. I wanted it nonetheless.

And I wanted other things. Power. Wealth. Respect. A chance to make my own life and my own choices. Those were things I would never get if I stayed on my father’s farm. The road ahead might be dark, but it promised a glittering destination.

As is so often the case, the moment came and went without me even really noticing it. At some point I decided. I would stay and I would learn and some day, I would have my revenge for every slight and every insult.

No matter what it took, no matter what it cost, I was going to be a wizard.

Chapter Eight

I didn’t hear any approaching footsteps. When I looked up Mistress Iliana was there, as if she has congealed out of the cold night air. She looked at me with her head tilted to one side, eyes slitted, lips narrowed. I wondered how long she had been present.

“What happened to your face this time?” she asked. Her words came out flat and soft. There was no emotion in them.

“It met Vorster’s fist, mistress.” She moved closer. Her movements had a controlled quality. Her shoulders were hunched. She smelled of perfume and spiced wine and sweat.

She stood in front of me, looking up then reached out and grasped my jaw with her left hand and tilted my head to one side. The movement made me dizzy. The pain stabbed my head.

There was a tightness to her jaw that told me she was angry. I thought it was with me. I kept my lips sealed.

“I thought you were taking a long time,” she said. She reached down into her bag and produced a small flask. At first, I thought it was water but when she unstoppered it, I smelled alcohol. She took a sip then pressed the mouth of the bottle against a strip of cloth and wiped the area beneath my nose. The strong spirit stung and burned, and the pain grew worse. When she pulled the cloth away it was dark and sticky. I knew that by daylight it would look red. Now it was merely monochrome.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Something I said made him angry.”

“Apparently anything you say makes young Vorster angry.”

“It could be, mistress. He seems like an angry man.”

“That he is. Angry and in his heart afraid.”

I just stared at her. Fear was the last emotion that I would have attributed to Vorster.

“Fear and anger are sides of the same coin,” she said. “Something you would do well to remember.”

“Afraid, mistress?”

“Vorster fears me and does not dare admit that. He will not come at me directly, but he will pick on my servant. If you give him reason to. You did give him reason, didn’t you?”

“I fear so, mistress.”

“Then best learn to guard your tongue as well with him as you do with me.”

“As you say, mistress.”

She shook her head and made a tut-tutting sound. “Your nose is broken. I am no great healer, but I see nothing else for it. Sit and brace yourself.”

Her tone told me that whatever she was going to do was going to be unpleasant. I kept standing. “I do not need healed mistress.”

“With a broken nose, a thousand things could go wrong. Some of them could kill you. I have already invested a gold solar in you. I would not want to waste it. Sit down!”

The whiplash of command was in the last two words. I sat without even thinking about it. I could no more have resisted the order than I could have lifted a horse.

She unslung the leather bag from her shoulder and handed me the strap. “Bite down on this.”

I did not like the sound of that one little bit, but I did as I was told. The leather tasted soft and salty in my mouth. She reached out and touched my nose with both hands, twisting it. As she did so she spoke a word.

A spike of agony drove into my brain, as if every instant of pain the wound would have caused me had been concentrated into one burning moment. I bit down on the leather. If it had not been in my mouth I would have screamed. I felt something grind within my face. It was strange and uncomfortable but as nothing compared to that brief instant of anguish.

Mistress Iliana took her hand away and stood for a moment considering her handiwork. The flesh of my face felt numb, as did my nose. I could not stop myself from reaching up to touch it. My hand felt the outline of my nose. The part of my face underneath it might have been frozen in a block of ice for all the sensation I picked up from it.

There was no pain, but I never wanted to experience her magic again if it could be avoided.

“What have you done?” I asked.

“I healed you and set the bone. You’ll always have a dent in it unless you pay a fleshsculptor to make it look like it once did, but you’ll be none the worse for it. How do you feel?”

“Very, very tired,” I said. I felt elated and numbed as men sometimes are after chewing certain narcotic leaves, but I also felt wearier than I ever had in my life.

“That’s one of the side-effects of healing magic,” she said. “Come. Let us get you back to the camp while you are still capable of walking.”

It felt as if we walked for a score of leagues instead of a hundred yards. She had to partially support me with the last few strides and I all but crashed to the ground beside her tent. I lay there barely able to keep my eyes open as she laid out the elder signs around us. It seemed she had been serious about that at least.

I fell into a dark and dreamless sleep.

The sunrise woke me or rather the sound of the camp coming awake around me did. I picked myself up. My mouth felt dry. My eyes felt gritty. I smelled horses and men and food cooking over an open fire.

I touched my face and it felt different. My nose was sore and sensitive, and its shape was just plain wrong, flattened in one part and bent in another. I pulled out my dagger and studied my features in the reflection on the blade. My skin was still dark, my eyes still brown. My hair remained black. My lips were broad and my cheekbones high. But my nose looked like a huge wart, bulbous and distorted. My reflected eyes narrowed, and my lips twisted into a snarl and I slammed the dagger back into its sheath.

When I looked around, I saw that Mistress Iliana was watching me. She always seemed to be able to pick moments of extreme sensitivity to observe me.

“It could be worse,” she said. She was already dressed. Her hands danced through the patterns of some subtle magic. Once again, I felt the air and something else ripple around me in response to her will. She bent down and picked up the stones and returned them to her sack.

I became aware that she was not the only one watching me. A dozen sets of eyes were upon us. All the soldiers were curious about what had happened. All they had to do was look at my altered face to see someone had hit me very hard.

“Get water and food, servant,” Mistress Iliana said loudly in the voice of a bored householder talking to the lowliest of servants. “Don’t think taking a beating from your betters excuses you from your duties.”

She sounded so convincing that I half suspected that she really meant the words. I got up. I felt a light headed and very weary. I remembered how I had felt when I was recovering from the breakbone fever. This was worse. I took the plates and the mugs and made my way to the cook wagon.

The foot soldiers got out of my way. All of them looked at me. Some gazes held curiosity. Some held mockery and there were more than a few that held something like sympathy.

I staggered a little as I walked, and I was surprised to find that someone had stepped beside me.

“You good?” said a voice I recognised as Ghoran’s. “Your face look like it head-butted boot.”

“It was a fist this time,” I said. I kept my voice low.

“I guess who fist belong to,” said Ghoran. I looked at him sidelong to see if he was taunting me. He smiled and there was no mockery there, just friendliness. It occurred to me that he too was an outsider and a potential ally.

“I’ll bet you can.”

“It take hero of sagas to hit unarmed servant,” he said loudly. I heard a few sharp intakes of breath then and people edged away from us. One of the men, a hulking brute, with a cauliflower ear and a nose even more broken than mine looked at Ghoran intently. He was so big, he made the Northman look small, which was no easy thing. He seemed to be paying particular attention. I remembered the mountainous shadow who had accompanied Vorster the previous evening. It was him.

Ghoran moved towards him. “What you think, Todd?”

The big man looked as if he was considering breaking Ghoran in two and eating him, like an ogre in the storybooks would. “I think some people had better watch their mouths,” the giant said. “When they are talking about their betters.”

“This Todd,” Ghoran said, turning to me. “Todd big as troll. Not so good looking.”

A low rumbling sound started somewhere deep in Todd’s chest. His two plate sized hands came together and he cracked his knuckles.

“I kill troll once,” said Ghoran conversationally. “Big but slow. It ask about son before it die. It tell me say hello to little Todd if ever I meet him.”

This maniac was not in the least frightened by the huge warrior. He seemed determined to provoke him. The pleasant smile never left his face. “By chance, Todd, was mother troll? If so, she say hello.”

Todd’s face had gone red. I noticed two other men standing near him were watching closely. They were his friends or his allies. If he attacked Ghoran, they would to.

“No?” Ghoran said. “Mother not troll? Just passing resemblance. Anyway, Grinner’s servant here for food. Best not keep her waiting.”

Before anything else could happen, he stepped aside and allowed me to get to the cook. The bowls and mugs were filled, and I backed away not taking my eyes from Todd and his friends. All the others were watching now as well.

I thought Todd was about to launch himself at Ghoran when everyone suddenly straightened up and made themselves look presentable. Spider was there, his eyes went from Ghoran to Todd and then came to rest on me. I thought I saw a flicker of sympathy stretch the tattoo on his cheek.

It seemed like Ghoran had picked his moment well. No one was going to start a fight with Spider watching. I gave him a respectful nod, raised the plates and mugs by way of explanation and began to back away towards where Mistress Iliana stood.

Ghoran walked along beside me. “Who is Todd and why do you want to start a fight with him so badly?” I asked.

“Todd and his two buddies Vorster’s men,” Ghoran said. “I think maybe they trouble you, so I distract them.”

“They might try to kill you,” I said. “But thank you.”

“They try, they die.” He was not joking, just stating a fact. I noticed for the first time the aura of confidence about him, and the air of relaxed violence he had. The idea of killing three men did not bother him in least. In this he was like my mistress.

“Did you really kill a troll?” It did not seem impossible.

He shrugged. “I lie a bit about that.”

“I thought so,” I said.

“Troll no ask about son Todd before I kill it,” he said. My jaw dropped. He laughed that good-natured laugh and I found myself joining in. It was hard to tell whether he was mocking me or not, but I did not mind. I felt like maybe I had found a friend.

I glanced back over my shoulder. I could not help but notice the monstrous Todd was glaring at us, hatred in his eyes.

“You tried to use the stone last night,” Mistress Iliana said. “Before I found you. After Vorster broke your nose.”

We rode through the parched landscape on the wagon. Ahead of us the knights raised their dust cloud. Desert hares loped through the brush at what they thought was a safe distance. Sometimes they stood on their hind legs and studied us as if passing judgement on the foolish strangers moving through their land.

“How did you know?” I asked. There seemed little point in denying it despite the disapproval I heard in her voice.

She gave the reins a little tug and the beasts moved a little faster. The wagon bounced more on the cobbles. I noticed a Solari waypost by the roadside. It had toppled over on its side. The elder sign and the runes were still visible despite the erosion wind and the occasional desert storm.

“When a spell is cast, unless the caster takes some pains to shield it, another wizard can sense it.”

“I did not cast any spell. I looked at the runes.”

“Spells don’t cast themselves by accident,” she said. “It takes a wizard to work his will on the surrounding aether to make magic. It’s close to being the definition of what a spell is. Whether you knew it or not, that is what you were doing. Unless there is another caster in camp that I do not know of. Which seems unlikely.”

“I looked at the runes” I said. “I thought I saw a faint glow.”

“Was this before or after Vorster punched you?”

“After.”

She drew a sharp intake of breath. “He did not see you working the spell? It was not why he hit you?”

I shook my head. The movement still made me feel a bit dizzy. My breakfast continued to crawl around in my stomach.

“You are sure?”

“I am certain, mistress.”

“You are telling me that even with your nose broken you managed to draw a response from that crude glyph I drew?”

“I am not sure I would call it a response, mistress. There might not even have been anything there. I thought I was imagining things.”

“Take it from me, you were not.” She paused for a moment and then took the flask out of her satchel. She unstoppered it and took a sip. The alcohol smell made my nose twitch.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing, mistress.”

Her face twitched. Her eyes narrowed. “You think it is perhaps too early to be drinking?”

“No, mistress.”

“Then why did you look at me like that?”

“Like what, mistress?”

“I don’t need your approval or your silent criticism. If you are going to be my apprentice, you need to understand that.

“I don’t understand mistress.” She stared at me as if trying to decide whether I was mocking her. She must have read the bafflement on my face for she shook her head and put the bottle away. I noticed the way the white makeup on her face had cracked, like the neglected plasterwork on the side of my parent’s cottage. I wondered if the dark circles of makeup around her eyes simply hid real dark circles.

“You should not use the stone unless I am there,” she said. “I understand the temptation to do so but much could go wrong, and you might attract the wrong sort of attention. Even out here in these wilderlands. Perhaps particularly out here.”

Then why did you give it to me, I wanted to ask, but did not dare. A few seconds reflection gave me the answer anyway. She had left me with the pebble as a reminder. She had not believed I would be able to do anything with it.

“What sort of attention, mistress?”

“Well aside from the likes of your friend Vorster, there are Old Ones and elementals and aetherials in these wastes. Some of those might be drawn to you?”

“Even within the wardstones, mistress?”

She looked pleased by the question, as if I was being a particularly sharp pupil.

“There will not always be wardstones,” she said. “And you should not come to rely on them for protection. When you work with the Power you always need to think about what you are doing. There are always consequences.”

She spoke with utter seriousness and it came to me that she was not treating me as an illiterate farm boy and a servant. She was talking to me as one who was also involved in a dangerous enterprise, albeit as a junior partner.

“I understand, mistress.”

“You cannot yet, but you will.”

“As you say, mistress.”

“Give me back the stone. I was foolish to leave it with you.”

She held out her hand, palm upwards then gestured towards herself by folding her fingers.

I fumbled in my pocket. The stone felt cool to my fingers and I felt a curious reluctance to give it up. It meant something to me. It was a tangible link to the moment when I had first touched the Power. It was, to me, something magical, even if all it was to anyone else was a pebble with some scratches on it.

She saw my reluctance. Her eyes became flat mirrors, her expression cold. Her skull smile was suddenly menacing, and I knew without having to be told that there would be consequences for any disobedience.

I considered claiming that I had dropped the stone, but I feared she would know I was lying. Even if I could fool her this once, she had already proved she could tell when I was looking at it. If she sensed me doing so at some future date, after I had claimed to have lost it, it would be so much the worse.

It came to me once that magic was already tempting me to lie. It was a small temptation on a dark path, and I resolved to resist it. I produced the stone.

Her smile became a little wider and it looked to me like a sneer. “Good,” she said. “You are obedient.”

I did not like that word. It made me sound too much like a dog.

Chapter Nine

In the distance ahead of us a cloud of dust churned. Some of our scouts cantered off to investigate. They returned escorting a peddler’s wagon. I recognised the driver. It was old Zhul the Pedlar.

Zhul visited our farm from time to time with stuff to sell. My father sometimes traded him a lamb for some cloth. In the days when my father had done well at the markets in Khorba, we had bought spices and trinkets and toys from him.

The old man sat on his wagon now. He smiled amiably but his face was paler than usual and I could tell that he was wondering whether all of these armed men were going to plunder his stock. His two sons sat beside him, frozen-faced. Normally they were there to protect their father but this time there was nothing they could do.

Vorster and a couple of the others rode alongside the wagon. I could tell that Vorster had enjoyed himself. No doubt he had done his level best to intimidate the old man. Now Zhul confronted Spider.

“Greetings, master,” he said. “Greetings – what can I show you? Clothes for your good lady? Rings to win her heart. Spices to add savour to your meat.”

Spider laughed. “I doubt there’s anything you have with you that we can’t buy cheaper in town.”

“You never know, sir. You never know until you ask.”

The merchant seemed reassured that Spider had not put a sword to his neck and taken his stuff. His smile warmed a fraction then his gaze came to rest on Mistress Iliana. His face froze and his flow of words died away.

“Do you have red bindwort?” Mistress Iliana asked. Her voice had the odd nerve-grating sound she had used to intimidate me during our first meeting. Zhul opened his mouth but no words came although her request was for a common enough herb.

“Yes, mistress,” he said eventually. “A penny a packet.”

Iliana’s eyes simply narrowed.

“A farthing for you,” he said. “A special price for your blessing.”

“I have no blessing to give,” she said.

“Then for your goodwill,” said Zhul. He noticed me. His head suddenly tracked back as if he had not recognised me at first glance. His look was not missed by Mistress Iliana.

She tossed the coin down into Zhul’s hand. “Give it to my servant,” she said.

I scrambled down from the wagon. The trader said something to his sons and one of them fumbled beneath some sacks, produced a wooden chest and from it withdrew a paper pouch. He handed it to Zhul who handed it to me. I caught the rich tang of the herb.

The march had come to a halt as Spider talked with Zhul. Soldiers set down their packs and rested against them, producing hard tack to chew and flasks of water to drink. With march discipline temporarily relaxed, some of our troops pressed around the cart to make purchases. Zhul’s gave his spiel once more. It gained strength as he went on and only had to deal with normal men.

I went back to the wagon and gave the herbs to my mistress. “He knows you,” she said.

“His name is Zhul, mistress. He is a travelling pedlar. He sometimes visits our farm when his route takes him this way.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Anything else?”

“He carries messages from town to town and place to place. So I’ve heard. Sometimes it’s just a sentence. Sometimes it’s bits of paper with words inscribed on them.”

“That can be a profitable business if the words are the right words,” she said. There was an odd flatness to her tone, and she studied the trader closely.

“What do you mean, mistress?”

“Some pedlars trade in information as much as in goods. They report what they see as they travel to those who take an interest in such matters.”

“You think he is a spy, mistress?”

“When did he last pass this way?”

“About three moons ago, mistress.”

“And before that?”

“Maybe six moons before that.”

“And before that?”

“Half a year, mistress.”

“So six moons would be the normal interval between his visits.”

I did some swift calculations in my head. “Yes, mistress.”

She noticed my baffled look and her narrow smile widened. I tried to follow her line of reasoning and thought I grasped it. “You think he is here now for a reason, mistress?”

She spoke very softly. “Armies march across the land. Soldiers are being recruited and your friend Zhul is on the road at the same time as us. It might just be coincidence.”

The tone in which she spoke made it clear that she believed it was no such thing.

“What are you going to do, mistress?”

She shrugged. “The man has the same right to use the road as we do. And we have no idea who he reports to. It may be that he provides eyes for our liege lord.”

“Or for our lord’s enemies, mistress?” I asked not because I really wanted to know but because I was hoping she would say that our employer had no enemies. It was a stupid thing to think really.

“Just so,” she said. “Be careful of what you say around your friend Zhul. Don’t tell him anything important.”

“I don’t know anything important, mistress.”

“You know why you are really here.”

“I would not tell anyone that, mistress.”

“In silence lies wisdom,” she said. She was quoting an old proverb although I did not know that yet.

After I talked with Mistress Iliana, I was free to wander around the camp. I sat near the pedlar’s wagon and watched the crush of soldiers buying stuff from Zhul and his sons. Everything I heard was conditioned by what my mistress had said as, no doubt, she intended it to be. I was starting to think that a good deal of her wizardry consisted in her ability to plant thoughts in people’s heads and manipulate them.

A tall soldier shouted for bunion ointment.

“Come far, have you?” Zhul asked. “Feet sore.”

“Feet’s always sore these days, old man,” said the tall soldier. “Yours would be too if you had just marched from Tarnheim.”

“You pray at the shrine of the Angel? Ask the Holy Sun to watch over you?”

“Yeah and I prayed for a sack of gold too.”

“Maybe the Holy Sun will grant you that. You never know what loot can fall into a soldier’s hands when there’s war.”

That got a round of cheers. Zhul knew what his customers wanted to hear.

“More likely to take a head wound than see a sack of gold,” said the soldier. His voice was bitter, and I noticed his face was gloomy. When I thought about it, I don’t think I had ever seen him smile the whole march. He took his bunion cream and limped off to one side.

“Don’t forget to wrap them afterwards, keep the ointment against the skin,” Zhul shouted.

“Keep the stink in more likely,” somebody shouted. Zhul laughed.

“Doubt any ointment could make Samael’s feet smell worse than they do. He’s making cheese in his boots.”

Another soldier pressed forward. He was young and chubby, and his face was red. He inched towards Zhul, put a hand against his ear and whispered something. The rest of the soldiers speculated in ribald terms about what he was saying.

Zhul nodded, gave a small curt smile, produced something from a box and dropped it into the soldier’s hand. The soldier face still flushed, pushed his way back through the crowd and disappeared.

More selling took place. Whetstones guaranteed to keep your sword sharp and unbroken. Arrowheads that would pierce the thickest armour and bring down the biggest beast. Infallible lotions to cleanse wounds. Potions to settle a sick stomach. Eventually all business done, the crowd thinned out and I noticed that Zhul was looking at me. His eyes were piercing. There could be no doubt he recognised me. It would have been rude not to go and talk to him.

“How are you, boy? You’re old Lhin’s son, aren’t you? Raif, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Never forget a face,” said Zhul. “How is your old man?”

His voice was soft and confidential. He knew Da was sick.

“Not better, sir.”

“I would have thought you would have been at home, helping on the farm, not going for a soldier.”

Once again, I remembered Iliana’s words. It was the same sort of chat I remembered from all the pedlar’s previous visits to our house, but she had cast a shadow over him. “I’ve not gone for a soldier, sir. My mistress needed a servant, so I took an indenture.”

He nodded and smiled as if that somehow made things different. Maybe for him it did. “You have some silver to spend then!”

“No, sir. My Da has the money.”

“Of course, he has. You’re a good boy and you look out for your family.”

I felt my chest swell at his praise.

“I’ll be paying your folks a visit then. Maybe sell you Ma some fine new cloth for a dress.”

“Money will most likely have to go for taxes, sir, but she would be pleased to see you.”

He nodded, all sympathy and understanding. “Any message you want me to pass on.”

“I got no coin to give you, sir.”

He slapped me on the back and said, “No charge. Least I can do for old friends.”

It would give him a reason to call and see if they had silver to spend.

“Just tell them you saw me then, sir, and that I am well.”

He nodded, and he mouthed the words. I had no doubt he could easily remember them but often his customers were simple peasant folk and some liked a bit of a show.

“I saw you and you are well,” he said. “Anything else.”

He looked pointedly at my bruised face and shattered nose. I had not had that the last time he had seen me. Maybe he was just curious about what had happened. The words just hung in the air. They drew other words from me just by doing so.

“Tell them I miss them and Alaya and Tara and Sadec and little Jasmin.”

He repeated the words to show he had got them perfectly.

“Anything else?”

I was starting to wonder if this was wise. My Da had the gold Solar and no doubt that would come up in conversation and maybe that would set this clever man to wondering about the price of the bond.

“Nothing I can think of, sir, and I’ve taken up too much of your time already.”

“Nonsense. Anything you need to say, just say it. Who knows when you might get another chance?”

The words pierced me to the heart, as they were no doubt meant to. I remembered how far from home I had felt the previous night. “Tell them that I love them, and I miss them.”

If he had expected me to say anything else, he was grievously disappointed. “I shall do that.”

He paused for a moment and said, “What is like being her servant.”

“Like being anyone else’s, I imagine,” I said. “Although I have no real experience of that.”

“Have you seen her work any magic?”

I shook my head. “I pitch the tent and I bring food. I ride in the wagon when we travel. I expect there’ll be a lot more work whenever we reach where we’re going.”

“And where’s that?”

“You know I have never thought to ask,” I said. He laughed at that. I could not blame him. He must have thought me a very dull boy. I was starting to think I was one myself.

“What happened to your nose?”

“I had an accident, sir.”

“Must have been a pretty bad one given the dent you got it in it and the bruising on your face.”

“Do me a favour, sir, and don’t mention that to my Ma. It would only worry her.”

“As you say, boy. As you say.”

“Thank you for your time, sir,” I said and backed away.

“Do you really think Master Zhul as a spy, mistress?” I asked. I had settled back beside her on the wagon. She studied the pedlar and the soldiers. The way she narrowed her eyes crinkled the make up around them.

“Tell me what you told him again,” she said out of the side of her mouth. I repeated what I’d said to the best of my ability and all of the time she kept watching the negotiations. After I had reported the gist of the conversation, she nodded her head and said, “I suppose it could have been worse.”

“Worse, mistress?”

“If we are lucky Master Zhul will think that you really are my servant. As far as I can tell, if you have reported honestly, he has no reason to think otherwise.”

“I have reported honestly, mistress.”

“I know you have,” she said. I looked at her sidelong. I did not know whether she was lying in trying to create an aura of mystery about herself or whether she really had used magic to listen in on my conversation with the peddler. A faint smile flickered across her lips as if she sensed my consternation and was amused by it. Or perhaps that too was an act and she had no idea what I was really thinking but merely wanted to convince me that she did.

“If you knew, mistress, why did you question me so closely?”

Without looking at me, she said, “it’s not your place to ask.”

“If I am to be your apprentice,” I said as quietly as possible, “I should ask such questions.”

“So you’re an expert on such things now, are you?”

“No, mistress, I’m just curious.” She laughed softly.

“Such curiosity has its place but now is not the time. You can ask me anything you like when we are alone at camp but now you must behave as a servant would, with that peddler about. Do I make myself clear?”

I felt a small surge of triumph. I had forced her to make a concession. That is what I thought then anyway. She continued to squint at the merchant, and I could see that he was becoming uncomfortable under her scrutiny which was, no doubt, what she intended.

“To answer your first question, I do not know whether he is a spy, but it is best to assume the worst until you know better. In answer to your second question I wanted to know how well you remembered your conversation with the merchant. Memory is an important qualification in what we do.”

I noticed she was leaning on her hand in such a way as it would be extremely difficult to see her mouth. I suppose she was worried about lip-reading. When I thought about it perhaps that is how she knew what I had been saying to Zhul. I could see that my mistress was full of tricks as well as genuine wisdom and it was difficult to tell where one stopped and the other began.

“I see,” I said.

“What do you think?” She asked.

“About what, mistress?”

“Is the peddler a spy?”

“I don’t know, mistress. I don’t think so.”

“Why don’t you think so?”

“I have known him for many years, and he seemed much the same as he always did.”

“Perhaps he was always a spy.”

“Perhaps, mistress. But why would a spy be selling pins to my mother?”

“Because he wants everyone to think he is what he appears to be and a peddler who does not behave like one would soon be noticed by those whose job it is to do so.”

“You could be right, mistress.” I found what she was saying profoundly depressing. I did not want to think that old Zhul could have been involved in such a sinister business for all the years I had known him. It did not seem right.

“You do not want to believe me,” she said. “That is a mistake.”

“In what way, mistress?”

“You’re letting what you want to see cloud what you actually do. You should look at the world as it is rather than how you would like it to be.”

“Is that the way a wizard looks at the world, mistress?”

“It is the way any intelligent person does.”

“I am not sure that is possible, mistress,” I said. Again, I caught that faint flicker of a smile. “I am not sure it is possible to separate the way we view the world from what we believe.”

“You have obviously given a lot of thought to the mysteries of life during the time you spent watching goats,” she said. “You are correct, but it is best to attempt to see the world in a detached way when we can. We make fewer mistakes then.”

“I will do my best, mistress.”

“I certainly hope so.” She fell silent and continued to glare at the poor old merchant.

I think Zhul was relieved when it was time to pack up and go.

“Have you ever handled a wagon before?”

I nodded. “My father used to have a cart, mistress, before he had to sell his mule.”

“Take the reins,” she said. She took another small swig from her bottle, clambered into the back and fell asleep. I guess all that staring and questioning had took it out of her.

She trusted me with the reins though. It was a beginning of sorts.

Chapter Ten

We rode on through a land increasingly bleak. The Old Road turned northward though we were still heading generally east. The sky was bright and clear with ribbons of clouds high above. The mountains smudged the horizon. I was glad we were leaving the dark southern peaks behind us. Anyone who has ever lived in their shadow knows how ominous they can be.

The beasts gave no trouble. Perhaps my mistress had broken them with her magic, or perhaps they were simply good tempered. I sat on the buckboard and guided the wagon along the rutted road. My face hurt and every time Vorster or one of his cronies looked back, I flinched. Nevertheless, I settled into a routine of driving the animals and studying the horizon and sometimes allowing myself to daydream as I once had when I was watching my father’s goats.

I had something new to dream about. I was going to be a wizard. I was going to wield strange powers and face strange temptations and visit strange places. Of course, I had no idea what any of those things would be like, but I conjured up images from the cheap broadcloth of my father’s stories and our priest’s sermons and the tales I had heard on market days.

I pictured myself tall and powerful, commanding lightning and dragons and rescuing beautiful damsels and making Vorster cringe. I imagined myself fighting monsters of the Shadow, and that brought my imagination back from the brink. There really were monsters of the Shadow, creatures of great power and ancient evil, and someone had to confront them. There had never been a time before that I had imagined it might be me.

Worse, it was possible I had seen one of those monsters, in my dreams. When I thought about it, I could easily picture that white grinning skull-like face with its red hair and features so like mine. Mistress Iliana’s words about being devoured came back to me too and I began to consider the chilling possibility that the process might have started. She was a wizard, but it was a demon and perhaps it could even hide itself from her magic and the light of the Holy Sun.

These thoughts drifted around in my mind as I watched dragonlings rise on the thermals over the Bleak Lands, their outstretched wings making them look like long-bodied, long-tailed bats. I started to hum to myself and then recite the words of an old song just to drive the dark thoughts from my mind.

“Quit that droning,” my mistress said, from behind me. “I am trying to think back here.”

“Yes, mistress,” I murmured and gave my attention to the beasts.

Late that afternoon we made our camp far from any ruins or any wells. We pulled off the road and Spider set sentries and the men fell asleep in the shadows of the wagons. The only fire was the cook fire. I was sent to help build it and help the cook with the pots but once that was done my work appeared to be over until it was time to bring food.

My mistress gave me permission to rest but I walked to the edge of the camp, being careful to avoid Todd and his companions and keeping my eyes open for Vorster. I took out my sling and fumbled around for a few small stones. I took careful aim at a small bush a hundred strides distant and then unleashed a stone. I hit what I was aiming at and I heard a branch break. From behind me came the sound of applause.

I turned and I saw Ghoran standing there but he was not the one applauding. It was the innocent faced lad who had blushed when he had made his purchases from old Zhul.

“Nice shot,” he said then looked away. He seemed to have been embarrassed by the sound of his own voice.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You practise a lot with that sling?”

“I once took down a blight wolf with it.”

Ghoran raised an eyebrow.

“I did. It came down off Shadow Mount, was raiding my father’s flocks.”

“I am Jay,” said the embarrassed looking boy. “Lanky Ghoran here you’ve met.”

“You a soldier too?” I asked.

“I am a crossbowman,” Jay said. “I don’t know what he is.”

“I hero,” said Ghoran and grinned.

“Modest to a fault,” said Jay. He rubbed his soft hands together. “He’s a Northlander you know. They are strange.”

“No,” said Ghoran. “It you southerners who strange. You live in strange hot lands. You eat strange hot food. You live in strange hot cities.”

“I didn’t,” I said.

“No. You live on strange hot farm.”

“It’s all strange and hot to him as you may gather,” said Jay. “He can be a cheeky monkey but don’t let that bother you. When the going gets tough, he’s good with that axe. Even if he speaks like he’s retarded.”

Ghoran said, “I smart. I good with axe. And I devilish handsome. Jay jealous. No blame him. Hardly seem fair Gods bless one man so much.”

“And he’s a heathen,” said Jay. He lowered his voice. “His kind follows the Old Gods.”

Ghoran looked blandly into the distance. I wondered at that. It was the sort of thing that could get a man into trouble with the priests of the Holy Sun yet Ghoran did not seem bothered by what Jay had said.

My people worshipped the Holy Sun, but we did not go out of our way to antagonise the Old Ones. You never knew when they might come back. They had ruled this land before the Solari. They had taken it back during the Resurgence. They might do so again.

Jay strung his crossbow and sighted at the bush I had hit. He fired and the arrow buried itself in a branch. He fired again, and his bolt landed just below the first. He unleashed another, and it too impacted on the branch.

I noticed Todd and a couple of his friends coming over the ridge. They looked down at me and then they saw my companions. Todd turned and said something to his friends, and they withdrew from view again. It struck me that Ghoran and Jay might not be there accidentally. They might be looking out for me somehow. I could not think why. No one here had any interest in me, and this pair were not exactly my friends.

Mistress Iliana. Maybe she had put them up to it. Maybe there was some connection between her and Ghoran. Or maybe he and Jay simply wanted to get into her good books.

I was not the only one who had seen Todd’s little gang. Ghoran looked at the direction, they had disappeared in and spat. “Todd want girl just like mama. He look for desert troll.”

“You’re going to push him too far someday,” said Jay.

Ghoran shrugged, as if that were an eventuality too negligible to bother about.

I did not care what reason this pair had to be here. I was glad they were. I did not doubt that if Todd and his buddies had found me alone out here, it would have gone badly for me.

“What do you have against Todd?” I asked.

Jay turned on his heel and said, “it’s not Todd he hates. It’s his master.”

“Vorster?”

Jay nodded.

“Why?”

“He dick.” Ghoran said.

“It’s about a girl,” Jay said. “What else could it be about? For some reason she preferred a noble knight to a penniless barbarian axeman. Imagine that– a whore choosing the man with the most money.”

I was embarrassed by the way the talk was going. It was the sort of thing my parents forbade us to speak about.

“Anya beautiful girl though,” said Ghoran. “I saw first.”

“Maybe that’s how it works in the barbarian north,” Jay said. “Although I doubt it. It certainly doesn’t work that way in the brothels of Solsburg.”

“I offer penny she ask for.”

“And he offered her silver. Which would you rather be paid?”

“It depend who does the paying and for what. If Todd’s mother offer gold for me to sleep with and Anya offer silver, I choose Anya.”

“And outside the realm of such fantasies, most people would choose the gold. Am I right?” Jay looked at me.

“I suppose,” I said.

“You see, even the farm boy agrees with me.”

“He no farm boy now. He Grinner’s servant.”

“And I’m sure that’s a big step up in life for him,” Jay said. “From chasing goats to doing chores for a mad magician.”

“She does not seem mad to me,” I said.

“They’re all mad,” said Jay. “Or they go that way in the end. They start seeing things, hearing voices, talking to people who are not there.”

“They might be there, you just no see them,” said Ghoran. “They wizards. You no.”

“And aren’t I glad of that,” said Jay. “Well at least you can be grateful you’re not her apprentice.”

I was suddenly very curious. “Why’s that?”

“Because the last two both died. Under suspicious circumstances.”

Jay lowered his voice and Ghoran moved closer. They had that conspiratorial look young men get when sharing gossip.

“Suspicious? How so?” I allowed my very real interest to show.

“Malcolm got a dagger in his back in an alley in Solsburg. Gerard was poisoned.”

I remembered what Mistress Iliana had told me. I pretended ignorance. “Do you mean he was bit by a snake?”

“No, I mean he drank a goblet of wine laced with something that disagreed with him…fatally.”

“It might have been bad wine.”

“Maybe but both Ghoran and I drank goblets poured from the same bottle and we were none the worse for it.

“Jay have stinking hangover next day. Cry like baby. Boo hoo.”

“Who would want her apprentices dead?” I asked.

“Word has it that she had some kind of falling out with her old master and the cabal of wizards he belonged to.”

“Why kill the apprentices? Why not just go after her?”

“She’s too well protected. And maybe they just wanted to send her message.”

“Couldn’t they just get Zhul the Peddler to bring one, like everybody else?”

“That’s not the way wizards do things,” said Jay.

“Jay expert on wizards,” said Ghoran. “He know everything.”

“I know enough. I grew up in Solsburg and there’s a half a dozen of them there. They’re mixed up in politics and business and warfare. They own half the town. Sometimes I think there’s truth in the tales of secret cabals of wizards conspiring to rule the world.”

“They should just move to Northlands,” said Ghoran. “Wizard-priests rule in Old Ones name.”

“Then they’d have to submit to your Old Ones,” said Jay. “Hell, maybe Vorster is right and they already do.”

“I pretty sure Grinner no take orders from Old Ones,” said Ghoran.

“Maybe that’s why the others are after her.”

Ghoran just laughed.

“You’d best be careful,” said Jay. “Now that’s she’s run out of apprentices, whoever is doing the killings might start on her servants next.”

He set off towards the bush to reclaim his bolts. I stood there horrified. A dagger in the back. Poison. Mistress Iliana had told me her apprentices had died but not how. This conversation made it all so much more real.

“No worry,” said Ghoran. “He wrong. No kill servants. You safe long as no one mistake you for apprentice.”

Was there a note of warning in his voice? It was hard to tell. His speech held the same mocking quality as always.

Chapter Eleven

“Someone just told me how your last two apprentices died, mistress,” I said.

She looked up from within the circle of runes she had been drawing in the hard-dried earth and said, “I made no secret of that.”

She did not need to look around to see if we were being overheard because there was no one camping close to us. The wagon was pitched away from the main body of troops, close to the edge of the Bleak Lands. No sentries stood near us. I wondered at this change of position, but she had not seen fit to explain her reasons to me.

“They told me that one of them was stabbed in the back and that another was poisoned.”

“And that has you worried?”

“Wouldn’t it worry you, mistress?”

“It would. And I can see that you’re curious and will not leave it alone so what exactly is it that you want to know?”

Nearby the cart horses loomed, hulking shadows. Overhead the cold stars glittered. The temperature was dropping. I considered my words carefully, unsure of how she would respond.

“The soldiers think your apprentices were murdered by your enemies, mistress,” I said. I did not want to tell her who told me because I feared she might do something to them.

She continued to trace the rune as she spoke. “They may well be right.”

Her mouth shut like a trap and she glanced at me sidelong as if to see how I was taking this information.

“Who might these enemies be, mistress?” I was hoping she might mention some secret cabal of wizards, let me know more about the world I had entered. She chose to talk around the subject, to reinforce the warning she had already given me.

“They could be any of a number of people. Wizards have enemies the same as everybody else. They probably have more since there are many people who feel they have reason to hate anyone who can use magic. People are very suspicious of us and rightly so.”

I sat there listening carefully. I did not like the way she used the word us. I was nothing like her. I did not have her power or her prestige. People were not afraid of me. And yet it appeared that if I wanted to progress further down this path, I risked being murdered by enemies unknown.

She took my silence as evidence of the fact that I was paying careful attention. “You can’t really blame them. After all wizards can manipulate the fundamental forces of nature. More than that, a wizard can bind another’s will, make them think whatever the wizard wants, forget whatever the wizard wants, do whatever the wizard wants.”

“Can you really do that, mistress?” I asked, catching a sudden fearful glimpse of the possibilities that lay in my future.

“It does not matter what I can or cannot do. It matters what people think I can. The fact that some wizards can do these things is enough.”

She paused to let that sink in.

“You’re saying that people fear that we have secret power over them without them even knowing it.”

“Precisely so.” Once again, she sounded pleased with how quick I was on the uptake and once again I felt a small surge of pride. “They think that, and they are wary.”

She had not answered my question. In fact, she seemed to be manoeuvring away from it but I was fascinated by what she had to say. She raised her flask and took a small sip from it. I began to wonder if it was magical. I had never seen her refill it.

She licked her lips and turned to look at me again. Her long lean fingers traced the pattern of the elder sign on the drum without her even looking at it. I wondered if the sign was embossed or whether she just knew the position from long practise.

“It was a wizard who had my apprentices murdered,” she said. The words hung in the air, sudden, shocking. “Few mundani would dare such a thing.”

“Mundani, mistress?”

“It’s how the old Solari texts refer to people without the ability to wield the Power.”

“A knife and poison. These do not seem like the weapons of a wizard, mistress.”

Her laughter was soft and bitter. “Do not be naive. A spell carries a recognisable signature. Even if it did not, using a spell would be a sure giveaway as to the nature of the murderer and would stir up the mundani.”

“I can see how that would happen but why would a wizard risk using a dagger or poison? They might get caught either way.”

“I did not say a wizard committed the murders. I said they were responsible. Do you understand the difference?”

“They paid someone to do it.” Paying someone to commit murder was a shocking thought. And yet I did not doubt for a moment someone would. She had already mentioned the Crimson Brotherhood.

“They worked through agents. Yes.”

“Who would do such a thing?” It all kept coming back to that.

“My former master for one.” She spoke those words with visible reluctance. It was hard to imagine this terrifying woman playing the same role as I now did, but it was only logical that she had. Everyone must learn from someone.

“Why would he do that?”

“We did not part on the best of terms.”

Her eyes bored into mine as if she was trying to read my soul. Naive as I was, I understood that she was looking for some sign that we would part in a similar way. I knew that I would not like to have her for my enemy.

“Are such things common, mistress?”

“No. They are quite rare. In most cases it benefits both master and pupil to remain amicable. There is usually a level of trust between them. They can swap knowledge and they make natural allies. Indeed, many schools and guilds are formed by masters and apprentices and apprentices of apprentices. Such people usually have a common interest and a common style of magic.”

“Style?”

“A means of invoking their powers, of casting spells. They share teachings and a common language and vocabulary of technique.”

I considered the implications of this. It seemed that not all wizards were the same or used the same methods. Another thought struck me. “Does your former master have such allies? Do you?”

“No. We followed an independent path. Few of the mageborn want to be war wizards.”

“Is that what you are, mistress, a war wizard.”

She nodded. “It is one of the most feared and fearsome paths. If the mundani have reason to fear wizards, they have even more reason to be frightened of those who follow the path of destruction.”

“Why do you follow it?”

She looked out into the darkness, took another small sip from the flask. “It is where my talents lie.”

Her hand stopped its movement on the drum. The serpent of fire stirred within. I felt suddenly fearful of it, even though I did not know why. “You are curious now,” she said. “Aren’t you?”

I was curious about everything she had said but she seemed to have some specific question in mind. She waited and her fingers tapped at the drum. It sounded loud in the darkness.

“I am, mistress,” I could think of nothing else to say.

“You are wondering what your own talents are.”

“I am wondering what these talents you speak of are, mistress.”

“At least you are honest.” She considered her words for a moment then spoke. “Have you ever been good at anything?”

“I was good with the goats, mistress.”

“Did it come naturally to you?”

“I don’t know, mistress. I worked with them so long.”

“No matter. Most people have something that they are good at, that they pick up easily. With some people the gifts are obvious– they are a good singer, or they are very strong or they are very quick. Some learn weapons easily. Some can draw or paint.”

I thought I saw where she was going with this. “Some people have a gift for magic.”

She shook her head. “Anyone who is a wizard has that gift. A talent is something more– it’s an affinity for certain spells or certain types of magic. Some are good at healing. Some are good at divination. And some, like me, are good at destroying things.”

“Why is that, mistress?”

“Why am I good at destroying things? Or why do wizards have different talents? The answer is most likely the same. We are born that way. It’s something passed down to us, like red hair or great height or blue eyes. The gift of the Power is like that so why should talents not be?”

“I don’t know mistress.”

“It was a rhetorical question.”

“What’s that?”

She smiled. “You are so sharp I forget your education has been sadly lacking. It is a question to which you already know the answer, asked for the purpose of eliciting a certain response in the listener.”

I said, “You were talking about talents, mistress.”

“I was. And no doubt you are wondering what yours is.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“It will become evident as you learn.”

“And when will I start doing that, mistress?”

“It’s what you are doing now.”

It had not occurred to me until then that it was so but once the realisation hit me, I knew that she had been teaching me since the conversation started, perhaps since long before. She must have seen the knowledge written on my face because she said, “There are many ways of learning and many things to learn about magic. It is not all casting spells and making lights shine.”

“I can see that mistress,” I said. My eyes were downcast, and I could not keep the disappointment out of my voice. I wanted to learn to cast spells as desperately as a man lost in the Bleak Lands craves water. It was the reason I was here, the reason why I had signed that contract and left home.

“You are troubled and that is understandable. But you need to realise something– the fact that you drew light from that stone was a mistake on my part. I merely wanted to test your potential. I never expected you to make it glow. That was a sign of astonishing talent. It is natural for you to want to use it but you have to learn how to do so safely, in a way that will not get us both killed.”

“I understand.” No doubt my expression was sullen.

“This is a serious matter. The most serious we will ever talk about. We are involved in something extremely dangerous you and I. Many things can go wrong when one of the mageborn comes into their power. And those things that go wrong have terrible consequences– madness, mutilation, death. Magic is like fire, boy. It has many uses, but you can easily burn yourself, or burn down your house or your town. There have been times when magic has burned kingdoms. Some say it has burned whole worlds. You would not want your baby sister to play at an open fire, would you?”

“I am not three summers old,” I said.

“Then behave like it. When you use magic, you are playing with a lit torch in a barn full of hay that has been dried in the summer heat. You need to remember that.”

“You are impressing this on my mind most successfully, mistress.”

“I doubt it, unless you are unlike every other apprentice who ever lived. If I have, I will count myself a great success as a teacher.”

She reached inside her jerkin and produced an amulet. It was a simple thing. The setting was made of copper. In the middle was a white stone that caught the moonlight like a pearl.

“Do you know what this?”

“How could I, mistress? I am but a simple farm boy.”

“Spare me the mock humility. It does not suit you. This is wraithstone. It is found in the deserts surrounding the Graveyard of Angels. Have you ever heard of it?”

“No, mistress.”

“Some say it is the solidified blood of all those dead angels. Which may be true. It is one of the greatest wards against corruption a wizard can employ.”

“A ward, mistress?” I could not help myself. I leaned forward. She had succeeded in catching my attention once more. When I looked closely, I could see the stone was not pure white. Tiny threads of blackness, like ink dropped in water, swirled within it.

“Wraithstone absorbs the evil effects of blight.” There was no need for me to ask what blight was. Anyone who grew up in the Bleak Lands knew what that sour tainted land was and how living near it twisted things mentally and physically. “The stone starts out pure white but as it absorbs the taint of evil magic it grows darker and eventually crumbles.”

“How long does that take, mistress?”

“It depends on how strong the taint is. A stone like this can last a mage for years if she restricts herself to certain spells cast only when needed. It can last for mere days if you walk through the heart of a Shadowblight and it still won’t protect you at all if you eat tainted meat or drink tainted water.”

I knew about the way blights affected animals and water. I grasped the point she was making. “You are saying there is a connection between magic and blight.”

She smiled as if once again gratified by my quick understanding. “All magic carries the taint of Shadow to a greater or lesser extent. Any time you use a spell you expose yourself to the possibility of corruption.”

“Which is why you wear that amulet, mistress,” I said. “And why it contains those dark lines.”

“Correct.”

The night seemed suddenly still. Somewhere in the distance I heard the lonely howl of a blight wolf. It thrilled me strangely as I saw the connection between that twisted monster and the use of magic. I do not know why. Perhaps it was just the feeling that I had gained an insight into the way the world worked.

Mistress Iliana tapped her fingers on her drum, stood up and walked to the edge of her wards. She peered out into the darkness as if looking for something then she turned and walked slowly back to where I still sat. She hunkered down beside me, closed her eyes, muttered something under her breath. I felt something swirl around me. The hackles on the back of my neck rose. She was using magic. I wanted to ask what she was doing but I did not dare interrupt her.

Her eyes snapped open and she said, “Where were we?”

“What’s wrong, mistress? What were you doing?”

“I was making sure that wolf was only a wolf.”

“From here?”

“Yes.” She stared at me, as if to remind me I had forgotten to use a respectful title. “We were talking about wraithstone. It purifies magical energy when you draw on it. It keeps your body and your soul from absorbing taint. Whenever you cast a spell, make sure you have some next to your skin.”

I thought it was all very well for her to talk like that but where was I supposed to get wraithstone and how was I supposed to pay for it? “I will if I have some, mistress.”

“No. If you are wise, you will never cast a spell without having wraithstone on your person.” Her voice was utterly compelling, and I wondered if she had woven some sorcery into it. “Over time the taint of the Shadow will build up within you and change you, and never for the better. It drives some mad. It turns others into monsters. In many cases, it does both.”

Her nails were like talons biting into the tendons on the back of my hands. I tried to pull away, but she held me in place. Her pitiless gaze bored into my eyes. “There is always the temptation to cast spells without being protected. You think this is minor magic. I will not draw on so much power. But every spell cast means more taint stored within you. It all builds up and one day…” She clapped her hands together, startlingly loud. “You are changed. Utterly.”

She spoke with such conviction I wondered if she had witnessed such a thing. Her eyes were wide. Her pupils huge. I saw that she was talking about a prospect that terrified her.

“If you take nothing else away from this conversation, remember this. It will never guide you wrong.”

“Are there no circumstances, I could attempt a spell without wraithstone, mistress?”

“If your life is in immediate danger of ending and you have no other choice. Even then think twice. You may be ending your own life by doing so without ever realising it.”

“Can this taint kill then, mistress?”

“It can and that might be the least bad of all the things that could happen.”

We were both silent after that as we contemplated what was said. I could not let the quiet stretch out too long. I desperately wanted to learn more.

“You talked off drawing on tainted power, mistress. Is all magical power tainted?”

“To a greater or lesser degree. In a blight, the aether, the magical energy, is so curdled you can taste it in the air. Everywhere else it is present. Sometimes it is so thin as to be unnoticeable, but the taint is always there.”

Aether I thought, savouring the word. I had no real idea of what it meant but I knew that it was important. “Why is that so, mistress? Why is it always there?”

“Some say it is a result of an ancient curse from the time when the Angels fought the Old Ones for control of the world. Some claim it is a natural property of aether, always present.”

“How can I touch aether, mistress? How can I see it, feel it, manipulate it?”

“That is the essence of being a wizard. You can already perceive it. You saw the binding on my drum and what it contains. No mundani could. You can feel its movements as another would feel the wind passing over their skin. You know when I am casting a spell, don’t you?”

“Perhaps mistress. I think so.”

“You knew when I invoked the spell of farseeing a few minutes ago?”

“I felt something, but you closed your eyes and muttered something. That is what I really noticed.”

“You sensed a change in the air around you. Do not deny it.”

“I don’t mistress, but it might have been just my imagination.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

The words hit me with the unmistakable force of truth. I did not believe that. I never had. In my heart of hearts, I had an unshakeable certainty that I had known every time she had cast a spell in my presence. “You are correct, mistress.”

“I know I am. Any of the mageborn can sense the working of magic close to them unless the person casting it takes steps to hide what they are doing. Even then someone sensitive enough will notice something.”

She moved her finger through the air. A line of fire followed it. I felt a faint unmistakable presence.

“Close your eyes and tell me if I am casting a spell. Tell me any time you feel something.”

I felt the swish of displaced air as she moved her hand. I sensed nothing. I felt it again and this time, there was that odd tingling.

“Now.” I said.

The sensation vanished. She muttered something. Still no sense of magical presence. Then suddenly a surge of power.

“Now,” I said.

The sensation vanished, and the muttering continued. I sensed nothing for a long time as her voice trailed off into silence. All around the night was quiet. I could hear the muffled sounds coming from the camp. Suddenly there was a flare of power close to me.

“Now,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “Every time you were correct. At no time were you wrong. You have the gift pure and strong. You are a natural mage.”

“Thank you, mistress.”

“There is nothing to thank me for. What is in you is in you. Anyway, enough talk. It is time to sleep.”

It took me a long time to get to sleep that night. My mind seethed with dreams, some of them very dark.

Chapter Twelve

When I returned with the food next morning, a girl in ducal livery was standing there, talking with Mistress Iliana. I offered the breakfast to the sorceress, but she shooed me away with a gesture of her hand.

“Lady Alysia is very bad this morning, Mistress Iliana.” The servant girl sounded distressed. Her voice almost broke when she mentioned the name of her lady. Despite this, I could not help but notice how pretty she was. “She is asking for you. She thinks she is dying.”

Mistress Iliana got to her feet. She gestured towards the bags that lay nearby and indicated I should pick them up and follow her. The servant girl fell into step beside us.

“Can you describe her symptoms?” Mistress Iliana’s tone was all business but there was a frown on her face.

“She was unwell last night, mistress, but no worse than usual, but through the night she began to talk in her sleep. She was feverish. I gave her the red bindwort and the other drugs you left, and she seemed to improve so I did not come for you. But this morning she is much worse. Please help her.”

Mistress Iliana said, “I’ll do what I can, child.”

We strode towards the large striped tent. The guards watched us approach, their faces stony, their crossbows ready. An older man in the livery of the Duke of Solsburg held the flap of the tent open for my mistress and then strode through himself. A servant caught it and held it to allow myself and the girl through.

Inside the large tent was a different world, shadowy and cool. The air was scented with perfumes but underneath it all was the smell of corruption. A woman lay on the floor wrapped in sheets. Her gauze veil was drawn back revealing her face. She was pale and beautiful and very young. Her hair was long and blonde and lank. She was sweating a great deal. The simple gown seemed stuck to her body. She wore an amulet of greenish stone on her throat. I sensed some power within it. She bore a strong resemblance to the serving girl. They might have been cousins.

Another young woman veiled in traditional noble fashion laved her brow with water from a basin and greeted my mistress courteously. She too looked as if she might be blood kin to the patient. This I guessed was Rebeka, the lady in waiting.

Mistress Iliana raised her hand above her head and moved her fingers through a complex pattern. I sensed something familiar about the surge of power. Light appeared in a glowing ball in her palm. She made a gesture of placing it in the air above the sick woman and it hung there.

The strong light was unflattering to the patient. I could see the shadows beneath her eyes and the veins within her pale skin. She looked around, eyes wild with fear. They became even more terrified when they saw the sorceress. With her makeup and her blood-red hair, Mistress Iliana was far from a reassuring sight.

“You,” said the sick woman. “You did this to me! You said you would save me.”

She pointed at Mistress Iliana and her voice was full of anger and fear. “If I die, I want the world to know you are responsible.”

An awful stillness swept through the tent. All eyes went to my mistress to see how she would respond to these allegations.

“Hush, my lady,” she said. Her voice was flat and calm and sounded as aristocratic as Lady Alysia’s. There was none of the cracked madness I had come to associate with her. “You are sick, but you will not die yet. I will not allow it.”

“Death,” said Lady Alysia. “You are death and you are accompanied by shadows. I see them around you and my noble cousin.”

Mistress Iliana turned to the crowd of servants and soldiers and said, “Everybody out. Now! I need room to work and she needs air to breath. Keep the flaps open but make sure no one enters.” The last words were spoken directly to the commander of the guards. He did not look keen, but he moved to obey. I did so too.

“Not you, boy!” Mistress Iliana said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I will need your aid. You can stay too, girl.”

Her bony hand indicated the servant girl who had brought the message.

“What about me?” said the woman who had been laving the sick woman’s brow.

“You can remain if you wish, Lady Rebeka but please remain quiet and do exactly what I tell you to. I will be working strong magic here.”

“Is it bad then?” Lady Rebeka asked.

My mistress did not respond which implied only one thing. “The rest of you get out! Now!”

They did not need to be told twice. No one seemed keen to be present when magic was worked. Or possibly they did not want to be present if Lady Alysia died. It occurred to me that blame for that might fall in many different ways.

Lady Alysia thrashed around and moaned. Curses streamed from her mouth.

“Hold her down,” Mistress Iliana said. I bent over the struggling woman and grabbed one arm. The servant girl grabbed the other. The woman was weak. She began to cry and beg for water.

Her skin tingled beneath my touch and I felt the presence of magic. Mistress Iliana spread her arms wide and began an invocation. Power swirled around her, coiling and gathering. She bent over and her hands lashed out like striking snakes. Her fingers enfolded either side of the sick woman’s cheek and I felt the power flow from Mistress Iliana into Alysia.

Just for a moment Lady Alysia’s features shimmered. I wondered what was happening. She seemed almost a mirror image of the serving girl beside me. Perhaps it was some side effect of the magic.

Then Lady Alysia screamed and bucked in agony. I thought of the ungentle nature of the spell Iliana had used to set my nose.

From outside I heard gasps and groans and prayers. There was something terrifying about the sounds of the woman’s pain. Mistress Iliana leaned forward and touched her brow. She spoke a sentence in some strange tongue. The words had a new rhythm as did the power that flowed through her.

Lady Alysia’s eyes went wide, and she fell back into unconsciousness. All animation left her face. The tendons in her neck relaxed. A sickly smell rose from her and a dark patch in her robe where pus stained it. I guessed this was where the knife had gone in.

The servant girl touched her hand and said, “Will she be all right?”

She was braver than I to do that when she had just seen my mistress work strong magic. Mistress Iliana nodded and said, “The fever has broken. Keep giving her water and the tincture of bloodberries. She will be well enough to travel soon. Call me if she gets worse.”

The servant girl and the aristocratic woman nodded. Mistress Iliana stood up and surveyed her handiwork for a moment. She seemed at once troubled and satisfied. She turned on her heel and strode out of the tent. I followed her at once. The mage light went out behind us.

After the shadows of the tent, the sunlight was dazzling. All faces turned to look at us. There was fear in some, anger in others. None of the warriors would meet my mistress’s gaze.

We took the long way back towards our wagon, moving to the edge of the camp. Dragonlings watched us from rocks, scampering lizard-like from view when they saw we noticed them. Mistress Iliana walked slowly and seemed tired. She reached out for her bag and I handed it to her. From inside it she produced the small silver flask.

“Will she live, mistress?” I said.

“For now.” Her shoulders slumped, and I realised how much working the magic had taken out of her.

“You seem tired, mistress,” I said.

She gave a bitter laugh. “Healing is really not my forte. Quite the opposite. It drains me more than anything else.”

She raised the bottle to her lips and took a deep pull. I could almost see its progress down her throat. Her features became more relaxed even as her eyes glazed. She squared her shoulders and looked down at me.

“You did well back there. You did not faint. You did not panic. You did what you were asked.”

“It wasn’t much, mistress.”

“Nonetheless, you are to be commended.” I felt myself swell at her praise.

“She is dying, isn’t she?”

She gave me a sharp look. “What makes you say that?”

“I saw where she was wounded. It smells rotten. I saw a kid like that once. It did not live long.”

“The Lady Alysia is not a young goat,” she said.

“Does the amulet she is wearing help keep her alive?”

“You noticed that, eh?”

I nodded. “I sensed the power in it. I felt it too when I was holding her down.”

“You are very sensitive. Most wizards at your stage would have noticed nothing.” There was something odd in her voice. Her eyes narrowed. A frown etched lines in the white makeup of her forehead. I wondered if I had said something wrong. “Do not mention the amulet to anyone or what you sensed. I don’t want attention drawn to it.”

I sensed that asking her why would not be a good idea so I kept my mouth shut. She moved her hand as if she was about to ruffle my hair and at the last second drew away. She was not a woman given to gestures of affection.

“Was it the same spell that was inscribed on the stone you used to summon the light back there, mistress?”

She nodded. “A variant of it.”

“Will I be able to do what you did? Hang the light there in thin air.”

“If you master the spell, yes. There are many other things you might be able to do with it as well. Intensified it burns the Old Ones. It can be used to produce heat in the cold. A very concentrated variant can be used as a weapon.”

“You made it look so easy.”

“Anyone who is good at something makes it look easy. That does not mean it is.”

“I realise that mistress. You used at least two other spells back there– may I ask what they were?”

“One of them was a spell of healing combined with a spell of purification. The healing spell lends the patient some of the caster’s health and energy.”

“Is that why you looked so tired just now?”

“In part. In part it was the natural cost of spell casting.”

“Did the last spell put her to sleep?”

“Yes. It induces unconsciousness. It is often used during surgery on the battlefield. That too has several other uses. Not all of them particularly ethical.”

“In what way, mistress?”

“Putting people to sleep can also be used offensively. Against enemy sentries for example.”

I thought about that. “It seems every spell is a two-edged sword mistress.”

“Spells are tools,” she said. “They can be used for good or ill, depending on the desires of the caster. The same spell that can be used to heal, cast in reverse, can drain life and transfer it to a wizard. It is often used that way in the Shadow Kingdoms.”

“Why?” I thought about it for a moment and saw the answer. “Because the caster can heal himself of wounds by draining the health of his victim.”

“You grasped that possibility quickly enough.” Mistress Iliana’s tone was not entirely approving.

“It was logical, mistress.”

“Yes. It was. But it is probably best not to allow your mind to follow those logical paths too enthusiastically. It is one of the temptations of the Shadow. You get other things from such life draining, memories of the victim, taint. Those who weave such spells pay a steep price.”

She sounded as if she had some experience of that although it did not seem wise to say so. “I do not want to fall to the Shadow, mistress,” I said.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Not ever,” I replied. I was very certain of that.

Chapter Thirteen

The soldiers lay around next to the tent, feet on packs, cleaning their weapons, smoking their pipes, chatting. There was none of the usual hustle and bustle. The knights tended to their mounts, the cooks had lit their fires and were preparing food.

Spider came over, exchanged whispered words with Mistress Iliana then strode off to consult with the knights and sergeants of the company.

“What is it, mistress? What’s wrong?”

“Lady Alysia is too sick to be moved,” she said. “So today will be a rest day.”

“A rest day?”

I wasn’t looking at her. I noticed some scavenger birds circling in the air about a mile away. I wondered what they had found to interest them out there.

“A rest day for the soldiers and the beasts. No one can keep marching indefinitely. The Solari legions used to march for two days and then rest for a day. It stops everyone from getting overtired, gives you a pace you can keep up indefinitely.”

“I did not know that mistress. The only rest days we ever had was on the Holy Sun’s day, once per week when we went into the temple at Khorba.”

“I guessed that,” she said. “Well, today, we will rest. We may need to move in a hurry after this. So it will be as well to take the opportunity to relax. We may not get another for some time.”

“So what are we going to do, mistress?”

“You are going to get me some more food and then you can take the rest of the morning off.”

“What will I do, mistress?”

“Whatever you want as long as you keep out of my way. I must meditate and prepare myself for the journey and I would prefer not be interrupted by interminable questions while I am doing so.”

“As you wish, mistress,” I said. “I shall make myself scarce once I have brought you the food.”

I was at a loose end. I did not know anyone well and my mistress clearly did not want me around. I did not want to hang around the camp with the soldiers or too close to the knights for I was not keen to encounter either Vorster or Todd.

When I thought no one was watching I slunk over the ridge and away from the camp, picking my way over the rough ground, through the thorn bushes and out into the Bleak Lands.

It felt good to be on my own, to have time to think, to not be a servant or an apprentice, just myself. It reminded me of looking after the goats. I had spent long days with only the beasts for company. That thought made me homesick, so I tried to divert myself by studying my surroundings.

They were unprepossessing. Barren baked ground. Thorn bushes. Lizards. Insects. Desert flowers. Scrub. Circling buzzards and dragonlings. Bright sun. Not unlike a good deal of my father’s land.

I caught a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye and my hand went to my dagger. I was not sure what it might be– jackals, blight wolves. It was a girl in the long skirt, head-dress of one of the Lady Alysia’s house servants. There was something familiar about her. Her height. The way she carried herself. It was the pretty servant girl who had summoned Mistress Iliana to Lady Alysia’s side. She was carrying a bunch of flowers in her hands. I felt suddenly shy.

She walked straight towards me. “Good morning to you,” she said. I was struck by the clarity of her speech. She sounded more like Sir Vorster or Mistress Iliana than my family or the inhabitants of Khorba.

“Good morning to you,” I said. My tongue felt thick and my mind slow. An urge to study my feet overcame me.

“You are Mistress Iliana’s servant, aren’t you?”

“I am, mistress. And you are Lady Alysia’s.”

She laughed. It was a crystalline sound. Her eyes crinkled at the corners. They were already very nice eyes and that made them more so. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

“You suppose?”

She controlled her mirth and her eyes were serious now. “Yes. I am. No suppose about it.” She still did not sound very sure.

“You don’t sound much like a servant,” I said. My words came out sullen for I suspected she was mocking me. I was starting to suspect that there might be a gulf between different types of servant as great as that between servants and their employers.

She stared at me and her face flushed although for the life of me I could not understand why. “Why do you say that?”

“Your accent. You sound more like one of the knights or the lady in waiting or Lady Alysia herself.”

She paused for about ten heartbeats as if she were considering her reply very carefully. “Oh. I do?”

“You do.”

“You don’t.”

“I know this.”

She seemed to recover herself. “You just entered Mistress Iliana’s service, didn’t you? You are the farm boy she hired to be her servant. The others are talking about it.”

The idea that the other servants were talking about me was at once disturbing and fascinating. It distracted me completely, as perhaps it was meant to. “The others are talking about me? Why?”

“Some of them are wondering why she did not just hire a servant back in Tarnheim, if she needed one. Others are wondering why she did not just ask Lady Rebeka to place one of them at her disposal. Mostly they seem to be pleased that she took you on. All of them fear her.”

“But you’re not afraid,” I said.

She looked flustered again.

“You said ‘all of them’,” I said to push the point home.

“I meant all of us, of course.”

“Of course.” She stared at me and I thought she was going to stamp her foot.

“You have a most provocative way of talking, for a servant,” she said.

“So do you.” We stared at each other for a long time as if we were about to fight then, much to my confusion, she laughed.

“I suppose I do,” she said. I did not see the joke, but I was willing to take any excuse to bury the hatchet. I liked those eyes.

“I am sorry if I gave offence,” I said.

“And I,” she said. She gave a gracious curtsey. I could not manage anything so elaborate so I just bowed as I had been taught was polite.

“There’s no need to do that,” she said. “Really.”

“Do what?”

“Bow so deeply. I am not your liege lord.”

“It is how I was taught by my father.”

“The deeper you bow, the more respect you show. For another servant, which I am, you should barely do more than incline your head.”

“It seems I have a lot to learn.”

“Apparently.”

“Will you teach me?” I just wanted an excuse to talk to her. I had never had much of a chance to talk to girl’s my age. She took a step back and I wondered if I had somehow offended her. She tilted her head to one side and then said, “If I have the time and our mistresses agree, I think I would like that.”

I wondered if there was something flirtatious in the way she said it. I tried to push the thought from my mind but found I could not. “What are you doing out here?” I asked. “Aren’t you afraid?”

“Aren’t you?”

“I have my father’s dagger,” I said. I produced it from inside my shirt. She did not look impressed. “It’s very sharp,” I said.

“I am sure it is.” I wondered if I had frightened her and then I thought about it for a second. We were on our own, out of sight of the camp and I was showing her a weapon. I put it away at once and she looked relieved.

“Your father was a farmer– what was he doing with a dagger like that?”

“He had been to war. He gave it to me for my own protection.”

“Are you going to war?”

“I don’t know. But I suppose so.”

“Your mistress is a war wizard,” she said. “And a very famous one.”

“I have never heard of her.”

That confused her. “People in Solsburg all know her. The way she dresses. The way she rides to battle. The way she defeated the Four Grey Shadows at Gallitha.”

“I never guessed I had entered the service of such a…hero,” I said.

“Hero is perhaps not the right word. She is feared and respected,” she said. Her hand went to her mouth. “And I talk too much, particularly to one in her service.”

“Are you scared she will turn you into a toad,” I said. For some reason the prospect filled her eyes with fear.

“I am sorry,” I said. “I did not mean to upset you. I seem to have a gift for it.”

She shook her head and looked into the distance. “What are those buzzards doing over there?”

The subject had very definitely been changed.

“I don’t know. Maybe they have found something to eat. Want to go and look?” I cursed myself at once. Whatever those scavengers had found would not look very pretty.

She considered this for a moment. “Yes. Why not?”

We walked out into the waste. Before we went, I turned to make sure I could relocate the camp if I needed to. Plumes of smoke rose reassuringly into the sky.

“What were you doing out here anyway?” I asked.

“I just wanted to get away on my own for a little bit. I’ve never really had the chance before.”

There was an aching note of sadness in her voice that I thought I could identify. She sounded homesick and lonely. Perhaps I was just projecting my own feelings onto her. It’s an easy thing to do.

“It might be dangerous – wandering away from the camp on your own.”

“You’re doing it.”

“I am a boy.”

“You think bad things don’t happen to boys?” There was a challenge in her voice that I did not quite understand. “Soldiers take young boys as easily as young girls.”

That flustered me. It had not been what I was thinking about at all. My mouth shut like a slamming door. She laughed then.

“No one will bother me,” she said. “I am the Lady Alysia’s maidservant.”

I was not quite as sure as she was that would protect her, but I did not say it. I was still thinking about what she had just said about soldiers and boys.

“I know,” I said eventually. “You came to my mistress to ask for her help this morning. I remembered you.”

I sensed amusement in those cool blue eyes. “You remembered me? I am flattered.”

My tongue refused to work. I felt like I had just confessed to fancying her or something. To my surprise my voice came out calm and level if a little quieter than usual. “I thought you were very brave helping my mistress with your mistress.”

“Thank you. What are you doing out here?”

“My mistress gave me the morning off and I felt like going for a walk,” I said. It sounded better than saying I was afraid to go into the camp and meet Vorster and Todd.

“I was doing something similar,” she said, as if she had only just thought of that. “I found some wildflowers here. My mother always used to bring me some of those when I was a little girl.”

She held up a small bunch of desert skiprose. They were tiny and lovely and blue. Their thorns were very sharp.

“I thought I would give them to…to Lady Alysia when I got back.”

“I am sure she will appreciate the thought.”

“I hope she is capable of it. She is not at all well.”

“My mistress will keep her alive,” I said. I was far from confident about that, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

“She is very powerful.”

“She is.” Again, I had no idea whether that was true or not. I had no experience of any others. But if it made me seem more important by association with this girl, I was all for it. “I can carry those for you. If you want to gather some more.”

“That’s very kind of you but I can do it myself. Do you like it here in these barrens?”

I considered that for what seemed like a long time. No one had ever asked me such a question before. “I grew up here on my father’s farm. I don’t know much about anything else except Khorba. I suppose I do though.”

“It is frightening,” she said. “So wide. So empty. The sky so blue and clear. The buzzards. The lizards. The dragonlings.”

Part of me wondered why if she found it so scary, she had come out here on her own but it did not seem exactly diplomatic to say so. “You are from a town?”

I was fishing for information. I freely admit it.

She nodded. “A big town. Where you are almost never alone. Constantly surrounded by people coming and going, wanting things.”

“I always wanted to see a city,” I said.

“You shall. Solsburg is the biggest city in Umbrea. You’ll be able to eat salt fish from the Dragon Sea.”

There was nostalgia in her voice now and she was looking off into the distance as if she could see the towers of Solsburg there already.

“You’ve been there before?”

“Yes. I grew up there.”

It seemed odd even to one so naive as I was at the time that a servant girl from Tarnheim should have grown up in Solsburg. Most people never travelled more than a day’s walk from their homes except when they went to war or on a pilgrimage.

“You are well travelled for a servant girl,” I said. The words came out tarter than I intended. She turned and looked at me sharply.

“I was not always a servant.” There was an under-current of anger and resentment in her voice.

“Nor was I until a few days ago.”

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment and then said, “My father was a distant cousin of the Duke’s. My family fell on hard times when he died of lung rot and I was forced to accept a position with Lady Alysia to keep body and soul together.”

It sounded like a rehearsed speech, as if she was hiding something or not telling the exact truth. I did not mind.

“I am sorry to hear that,” I said. “It explains why you look like Lady Alysia, I suppose.”

She looked at me sidelong as if trying to gauge the effects of her words. She let out a small sigh. “You think I do?”

“It struck me when I saw you together this morning.”

“I suppose I must.” She fell silent again, as if I had said something to offend her.

“When did your father die?” I asked as we picked our way through the rocks. The hem of her skirt had become tangled on a thorn and I kneeled to disentangle it.

Once again there was a pause, longer I thought than there should have been. Briefly I wondered if she was somehow slow of mind like Big Toby who had been kicked in the head by a horse. Her speech did not seem to indicate so.

“What happened to your nose?”

“Sir Vorster broke it.”

“He did what?” Her voice sounded outraged. “Why?”

“He did not like the way I spoke to him.”

“I could see how that could happen but still…breaking a servant’s nose, and not even his own servant. That’s very ill-bred.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I said.

She stopped, turned to face me, reached out and touched my arm. I felt the contact all the way up to my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to sound so callous. It must have been horrible for you, but you seem to have recovered from it very quickly.”

“My mistress healed me,” I said. “And I would not let Sir Vorster hear you talk in that tone of voice.” He might decide to teach you a lesson too."

“He would not hit a lady,” she said, and she sounded very sure of that. Even I realised it would be undiplomatic to point out that she was a servant and not a lady.

“Of course,” I said. There must have been something sardonic in my tone for she glanced at me sidelong and said, “Of course, I am not likely to give him any cause for offence.”

“Of that I am sure,” I said.

“You really don’t speak like a servant,” she said.

“Neither do you.”

She laughed at that. “Perhaps we should be friends.”

“Because we don’t sound like servants?”

“That and because we like each other.” She sounded oddly wistful when she said that. There was a questioning note in her voice.

“Then let us be friends,” I said.

Her eyes crinkled. “My name is Ruth.”

“Raif,” I bowed less respectfully this time.

Just then we reached the rocks and saw the body of a dead dragonling. It was quite an old one, large almost as a man. The buzzards took off when we got close and circled around waiting for us to go. They had already made quite a mess of it.

“It must have been a beautiful animal when it was alive,” Ruth said. Bits of its hide still looked quite beautiful, a mixture of metallic red and green scales.

“Yes.”

“What could have killed it?”

“Most likely another dragonling,” I said. “The big adults fight over territory sometimes. I used to see it sometimes on the boundaries of my father’s farm.”

“I suppose we should head back now.”

I looked at the sky. There was still some time before the sun reached noon. I wanted to keep walking out here with her for as long as I could.

“We could look for eggs,” I said.

“Eggs?”

“Sometimes they lay their eggs nearby, among the rocks. They taste good.”

“You’ve eaten dragonling eggs? I thought only nobles did that.”

“I sometimes found them when I was out watching the goats. You want to try and find them or not?”

“Where would we look?”

I glanced around. “Up there in that cluster of rocks would be a good place to start.”

I was not nearly as confident as I sounded but she started to walk in that direction. I found I was following her as we scrambled up into the rocks. She moved easily and well.

“Yes!” she shouted. I scrambled up beside her and looking down into a small basin in the rock saw a collection of dragonling eggs. Most of them were grey and dull and dead looking as the ones I had found in other nests, but one was mottled bright red and green. I reached out and picked it up. As I did so a tingle passed right up my arm.

“What’s happening?”

I looked at her and then back at the egg. It was perhaps twice the size of a hen’s egg but I could still hold it in my hand. It bulged in one corner and then it broke. A tiny head peeked out with huge liquid eyes. A long scaly neck, dripping with some sort of goo emerged. Small slimy wings stretched, and the egg broke further. The tingling in my hand grew stronger.

The creature opened its mouth and vomited on me. I resisted the urge to shake my hand. A thin mewling cry came from its mouth. It turned and licked the slime from its wings with a long serpentine tongue.

I looked at Ruth and then I looked back at the creature. I held a tiny baby dragonling in my hand. I felt strange and proud as I had done after assisting in the difficult birth of a kid back on the farm.

Then the bloody thing bit me.

The dragonling had no teeth but its beak had a sharp edge and it drew blood. At once it began to lick the red fluid away. I felt the rasp of its tiny tongue on my hand. I was in considerable pain and I felt the urge to toss it away, but I resisted. It looked up at me with its huge eyes and I felt an odd compulsion in them. Now that the slime was gone, I could see its scales were of the same colour and pattern as the dead beast we had seen down in the barrens.

“It’s an orphan,” I said. I felt suddenly sorry for the small creature. He was all alone in this world with no one to look out for him.

“He’s lovely.”

“He just bit me.”

“He must be hungry.”

“It doesn’t mean he can feed on my blood.”

“We can find him other food. He must eat something.”

I thought about that. “Dragonling are predators. He’ll need meat.”

“I have some jerky. Try and give him some.” She produced a small stick of dried meat and shrugged. “I was keeping it to eat as a snack.”

I tried to give it to the beast, but he chewed it and then spat it right out as if it were too tough for him. “Nope,” I said. “Not working.”

“Wait a minute.” She popped some of the meat into her mouth and began to chew. “Give him to me.”

I felt oddly reluctant to do so but I stretched out my hand and offered the tiny dragonling to her. It refused to get off my hand and when I forced it into her hand, it fluttered its little wings and tried to curl back into my hand. All the while it made horrible, high-pitched mewling sounds.

I let it rest in my hands and it immediately calmed down. The mewling ceased and it purred. Ruth shrugged and spat the chewed meat into her hand. She pushed a tiny amount towards the little monster and this time he gulped it down. She fed him the rest of the meat and he devoured it greedily. No sooner was he done than he gave a tiny belch and his eyes closed and he was asleep. I felt his little heart beating beneath my fingers and his small chest expand and contract like a tiny bellows.

“Nice trick with the meat,” I said.

“I read about something like that once,” she said.

“You can read?”

“Yes, of course. Can’t you?”

I shook my head.

“You really ought to learn.” She said it as if things were really that simple, as if all I had to do was decide to learn and it would be so.

“Who will teach me?”

“I will,” she said. “Providing you take good care of this little fellow.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Can I borrow your dagger?”

I produced it from within my shirt with a flourish, curious as to what she intended to do. She unsheathed it, bent over and cut a long irregular strip of cloth from the hem of her skirt. She made it into a sling and handed it to me. I hung it around my neck and placed the little dragonling in it. It snuggled down there, breathing quietly and lay in an exhausted sleep.

“What are you going to call him?” Ruth asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He’s a bit small to have a dramatic name like Flametongue or Reaver.”

I used the names of dragons that the storytellers always talked about. She looked at me sidelong. “You really have no idea.”

“Well he is red– so I think that’s what I’ll call him to begin with.”

“It’ll do,” she said.

“Do you have a better idea?”

She shook her head. “We’d best be getting back.”

Neither of us suggested collecting any of the unhatched eggs to eat. After we had picked up Red, it just would not have seemed right.

I was sorry when we reached the camp and went our separate ways, she to the tent of her sick employer, me to the tent outside which Mistress Iliana sat reading.

Her eyes widened when she saw my small burden. “Where have you been and what do you have there?”

Chapter Fourteen

“A dragonling, mistress,” I said. Her eyes narrowed. The familiar frown crinkled her brow.

“A dragonling? Where did you find it?”

“Out in the barrens, mistress. We were looking for eggs and one of them hatched.”

“Just like that? It hatched. You found it and it hatched?”

“More or less, mistress.”

“Who was we?”

“Lady Alysia’s maidservant, Ruth and me, mistress.”

She fell silent and stared at me for what felt like a very long time. “Where did you find her?”

“She had gone for a walk in the scrub.”

“Oh, she had, had she?” There was an edge of annoyance and concern to her voice that I did not understand.

Why was my mistress sounded so displeased? What did it matter to her what a servant did? She did not strike me as one who would cast judgement on a girl for going walking unchaperoned with a boy. Or was she? After all what did I really know of Mistress Iliana and her views?

“Suppose you tell me what happened, starting from the beginning.”

I did. She listened carefully, nodding her head sometimes. She was a good listener when she wanted to be.

“So let me get this clear– the dragon hatched when you picked up the egg?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“And then it bit you and lapped up your blood?” She frowned very hard, as if she considered this point extremely important. I wondered if I had done something wrong without knowing it. I wandered whether baby dragonlings were poisonous or carried some terrible disease. I looked down at the little beast huddled down in the sling. It had wrapped its tail around the narrowest part of the cloth as if to hold itself in place. It looked tiny and vulnerable.

“Indeed, mistress.”

“And you say you felt something– a tingling, a surge of energy such as you sense when a spell is cast.”

“I did feel it, mistress.” I wondered if Ruth was undergoing a similar inquisition at this moment. I doubted it. Life was not fair that way.

“There is no need to sound so sullen. I just want to be absolutely certain that what you say is the case and that I understand it correctly.”

“Why, mistress?”

“Because you may have done something that has not been done in a very long time.”

“What would that be, mistress?”

“Hand-hatched a dragonling.”

“I don’t understand, mistress.”

“Clearly.”

“Are you perchance going to explain it to me?”

“I am not sure I understand it fully myself.” She did not say this as if confessing a weakness as many people would have done. She was simply stating a fact.

“I would appreciate anything you can tell me.”

“I am sure you would, boy.” I wondered if she enjoyed mystifying me. I clamped my mouth shut determined not to give her the satisfaction of forcing me to ask any more foolish questions.

“Dragonlings are strange creatures. There is a great deal of magic in them. Their eggs only hatch in the presence of it which normally means an adult dragonling has to be present.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Its mother was dead, I think. You are saying it responded to my magic.”

“To your aura, yes. Then it drank your blood and you fed it.”

I considered the implications of what she was saying for a moment then they struck me. “Red thinks I am his mother.”

She laughed out loud then. It was not the mad mirth she simulated when pretending to be an insane wizard. It was a rich throaty sound. “That’s about the size of it,” she said.

“What am I going to do?”

“That’s entirely up to you. Are you ready to look after the thing, to take responsibility for it?”

I looked down at the tiny beast that had drunk my blood. He looked harmless and alone. I could just put him down or wring his neck– it would probably be less cruel to do so. He stirred in his sleep and whimpered as if he sensed the direction of my thoughts. Perhaps he did. If my mistress was correct there might be some sort of link between us.

“You mean feed him, look after him, mistress?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“I don’t know how and where I would find his food. Would the cook give me some of his meat?”

“I am sure he would give you scraps if you asked.” She seemed to be prodding me in the direction of keeping Red. I did not need much.

“Of course, I want to keep him,” I said. “With your permission.”

“Oh that you most definitely have,” she laughed again as if at some jest only she understood.

“Why do you laugh, mistress?”

“I did not realise I was recruiting a potential dragon lord when I took you as my apprentice.”

At the time, I thought she was joking.

As I walked through the camp that evening I got a lot of strange looks. Red’s head poked out of the sling around my neck and he made an odd trilling cry every so often that made folk stare.

Ghoran walked up to me and extended a finger towards the dragonling’s mouth. Red nipped at his finger playfully but every time he did so Ghoran pulled his finger away. It amused the big Northlander and it goaded the little dragonling into a frenzy.

“Him hungry,” Ghoran said.

“Always,” I said. I took a small stick of beef jerky and chewed it before feeding it to the little monster. That calmed Red down immediately. He swallowed and belched and then returned to chasing the tormenting finger. He was a lot less angry about it this time.

“Where you get him?”

“In the barrens. I found an egg just as it hatched.”

Ghoran frowned. “What are chances?”

I forced a smile. “Whatever they were, they happened.”

“Apparently so.”

“My mistress says I can keep him,” I said.

“I not surprised. Dragonling valuable. And cute in vicious sort of way.”

“I think he likes you.”

“Of course, he do. What not to like? What you going to do with him when he get big?”

“I’ll use him as a horse,” I said. I meant it as a joke but Ghoran appeared to take it seriously.

“Might be difficult. He have wings. He run fast then take off.”

“Then I will have a flying steed.” I looked down at the little dragonling snapping at my potential friend’s finger. It was impossible to imagine him ever being other than the size he was. He looked very tiny and very vulnerable for all his aggressive temper.

A circle of soldiers gathered around about us and extended their fingers towards Red as well. Soon he was overwhelmed by the amount of potential prey and withdrew inside the sling when he closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep. Ghoran laughed and went to tickle him under the chin. As he did so, Red opened his mouth and finally managed to bite the finger.

“Cunning brute,” Ghoran said. He withdrew his slightly bitten finger and placed it in his own mouth. “He got my axe hand. I may not be able to use it for hours.”

“Do you want to sell that creature?” A soldier asked. I shook my head.

“He wants to keep until he have riding beast,” Ghoran said. “I no blame him. Will make very fast mount.”

The hulking figure of Todd appeared on the edge of the crowd. He had his friends with him as always. “What has the servant boy found?” Todd asked. “What are you so interested in?”

“He has a dragonling,” said the soldier who had asked about buying Red. “He found it in the desert.”

Todd shouldered his way through the crowd. He loomed over me massive as a castle tower. His huge hand reached out as if to grab Red by the neck. Instinctively I pulled away, twisting around so that my shoulder was presented to the big man and my body was between him and Red. Something told me he would harm the little animal if he could.

“What’s your problem, boy?” Todd asked. “I just want to see the thing.”

“You can see it from where you are,” I said.

“Are you disrespecting me, boy?”

“He just scared your breath slay dragonling,” Ghoran said.

“I’m getting tired of your cheek,” Todd said.

“I surprised you understand it.”

“I understand it well enough and I think I’m going to teach a lesson.”

“Only thing you teach is how to look like troll. I no want to learn. Also I not sure I was right. Maybe he scared that your face scare little dragonling to death.”

Todd flexed his fingers and cracked his knuckles and I felt sure he was getting ready to swing at Ghoran. The Northlander studied the performance as if it amused him. That seemed to disconcert Todd. I guessed he was not used to be taken so lightly. It was a strategy I could see blowing up in Ghoran’s face if he kept it up.

Vorster and some of his fellow knights strode up. Clearly, they had noticed the fuss near the infantry campfires and were curious, but just as clearly they could not be seen to be too interested in what the lower orders were up to. I confess I flinched when I saw him. My nose gave a twinge. He smiled when he saw that. It was no doubt what he had been hoping for.

“Why are you all gaping at a silly lizard?” Vorster asked.

“It no lizard. It dragonling,” said Ghoran.

“I was talking about the dragonling’s owner,” said Vorster, which got a laugh, particularly from Todd. He moved across to hulk near Vorster.

I wanted to say something, but my mouth felt frozen shut and my tongue huge. It’s hard to be witty when you know the result will most likely be broken bones. Vorster stared at me as if waiting for me to put my foot in it. He seemed almost disappointed when I said nothing. He strode contemptuously off, Todd following him like a well-trained dog.

The group around me broke up and I was surprised to discover I missed being the centre of attention. Ghoran watched the knight and his hanger’s on depart. “Asshole,” he said loud enough to be heard. Vorster ignored him.

Ghoran looked angry for a moment then shook his head and laughed. Jay strode up looked at us and said, “What did I miss?”

“Raif found dragon,” Ghoran said.

“It’s a dragonling, you stupid northern bastard,” said Jay.

“Dragon, dragonling, no difference.”

“Big difference,” said Jay, leaning forward to inspect Red. He kept his fingers well away from my pet’s maw. He had more sense than the Northerner.

“No difference,” said Ghoran. He sounded utterly confident. “Same thing.”

“Maybe up there in the icy wastes, down here they are two different things.”

“We see.”

Jay laughed. I asked a question that had been troubling me. “What’s the connection between Vorster and Todd?”

“Todd’s a family retainer of Vorster’s clan,” said Jay. “He’s here to keep an eye on Vorster and back him up. There’s a few like him about. They keep themselves apart from the rest of us. Vorster’s daddy wants to make sure his little boy comes home in one piece. Just in case big brother dies and he needs a new heir.”

Mistress Iliana strode up. She beckoned me with an imperious gesture as she went by. I fell into step behind her. The others did not say goodnight. They were silent. She had that effect on people.

The next day was warm and pleasant, and my duties were light. I brought food for my mistress, struck the tent when it was time to leave camp and then travelled on the wagon. I kept my eyes open for Ruth but was disappointed. I wondered if Mistress Iliana had said something to her. It was strange. She had been there all along, but I had not known. Now that I did know she was there, I wondered what she was doing and where she was. Did she ride with Lady Alysia and the lady in waiting or with the servants?

Red stuck his head out of the sling and studied our surroundings lazily. His eyes were bright with curiosity. Occasionally I saw my mistress glance at him out of the corner of her eye. She frowned sometimes as if some disturbing thought had occurred to her. When her hand strayed to her drum, I noticed that Red would duck his head inside the sling and hide until she moved her fingers away from it. Whatever was in there, Red was disturbed by it.

He sometimes mewled for food, and I was glad I had stored some sausage and dried meat against this eventuality. Clarin the cook had been glad to give it to me. He liked the little dragon. If the sight of me hand-feeding the dragonling disturbed my mistress she gave no sign of it. She made no attempt to help and unlike almost everyone else in the camp, showed no sign of interest in Red. He in turn seemed afraid of her in a way he was not afraid of anyone else.

The land grew hotter and dryer and I knew we were entering the Bleak Lands proper. Sources of water were fewer here, and such animals as we saw were a lean and desperate lot. And yet there were still ruins even this dry inhospitable land. They lay tumbled near the road. Abandoned forts and monasteries brooded over the dusty wastes, providing nests for vultures and dragonling and other things.

There were old farmhouses and what might once have been an inn. It looked dry as bleaching bones, and I wondered what had become of the people who had once lived there.

Red slept, and my mistress had been quiet for a long time. I cleared me throat.

“What is it?” she said.

“May I ask a question, mistress?”

She nodded but did not look at me.

“Where did all the people go?”

“What people?”

“The ones who lived here. The people who built these towers and houses and farms. Why did they build out here in the desert?”

“Because it was not always desert. Once this was fertile land.”

“How do you know that?” I glanced at her sidelong, expecting some mystical answer.

“Because people once lived here and because people need to eat and drink. And because I read of those times in a book.”

“You read of them?”

“There are several histories of south Umbrea, written from both the Sunlander and the Lunar point of view. All of them tell the same story, that once this was fertile land. Long ago, it was the breadbasket of the Solari Empire.”

I looked at the wastes. “That is hard to believe, mistress. It is desert now.”

“Things change,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Once there were endless cornfields here, and cattle ranches, and dairy farms.”

“How could this have all been farmland, mistress? There is no water.”

“Once there was. Then there was drought for years and years, until the land dried and cracked. Some say it shook and split. The old irrigation systems were broken. The patterns of the weather changed. The rains did not come and water would no longer rise from the wells.”

I paused and tried to take that in. My hand drifted to Red’s head. His scales were smooth. He did not stir. “The weather changed, mistress?”

She shrugged. “There are times when the world gets colder and times when it gets hotter. There are spells that can alter the pattern of rainfall. The Solari Emperors wove magic on a colossal scale to do so. In the wars that ended the empire those spells unravelled. The consequences were equally colossal.”

I thought about what that meant. Tampering with the weather seemed sacrilegious but many of the Emperors had been saints. Who was I to judge them? Mistress Iliana glanced at me to make sure I was still listening. “The weather patterns still shift. This land might become habitable again.”

“That would be mighty sorcery, mistress.” I was still thinking about what she had said about the Solari.

“Till then though, this will be harsh place.” I was quite shocked to hear her admit that. She was such a formidable woman; I had not thought anything could daunt her.

We fell silent again. I was saddened by the thought of this once populous place transformed into a desert by some magical catastrophe. It seemed to me that there was a warning in that.

Chapter Fifteen

Early that evening, after we made camp, I walked out to the edge of the Bleak Lands. I was hoping I would bump into Ruth again but there was no sign of her. Mistress Iliana had gone to check on Lady Alysia. She seemed to be doing that a lot. I was left on my own, to do as I wished.

Red was happy to ride within the sling but occasionally he would look up at me with those huge strange eyes, stretch his neck and make an imploring squeaking sound.

He wriggled and tried to escape. I was not sure whether to let him do this, whether he would return if I did so. That would make me feel guilty, for he was in no way prepared to thrive in the wild. Some large predator would take him almost instantly, of that I was sure.

In that moment I realised I really had taken on responsibility for another living being. His mother was dead, and I stood in her place. It had not exactly been my choice but if what Mistress Iliana had said was true, I was still responsible. It had been my aura that had started the hatching process.

As that thought occurred to me another one sidled along behind it. I wondered what would have happened if I had touched all the eggs. Would all of them have sprung to life? That seemed unlikely but I did not know the answer. The only way to find out would be to go back and find the nest. There was not much chance of that happening now. Even if I could get back, the eggs would probably all have been broken and eaten by wandering predators.

It was strange to think that my decision had brought this little creature to life. If that was what had happened. I tried to picture him lying fully formed within the egg waiting for my presence to break him out. What would have happened if I had never arrived? Would he still be in there waiting for a life that would never come?

Perhaps all our decisions and all of our lives are affected in such a way. Perhaps we are all waiting for that person who will change us, make us complete. I have since seen such things happen. At the time though I was just a boy wrestling with the complexities of a strange new life.

We passed the edge of the camp and made our way into the rocky wilderness. At least no one else followed me out of the camp. At the time it did not occur to me that I was perhaps the only person in the whole company who had spent a lot of time alone in the Bleak Lands. It did not daunt me as it would these city folks. It seemed natural to me to wander off.

I clambered through the low hills, oddly restless and strangely exhilarated. I was not sure exactly what I was doing. In the shadow of a huge boulder I set Red down on the ground and started to pace away from him. As I did so he made a horrible whimpering sound, as if he feared abandonment.

I stopped ten paces away from him and turned and faced him. I hunkered down on my knees and extended a beckoning finger and made encouraging sounds. He began to wriggle towards me moving through the dust and dirt then extended his wings and making tiny flapping movements that helped to maintain his balance. He raised his chin into the air and looked proud. I swear that is the truth. It was as if he understood that he had achieved something important. His first faltering steps took him a good ten minutes but after that he was waddling around like a new-born lamb.

That is to say he was not moving with the greatest of ease or grace but he was moving and with ever-increasing proficiency. When he made his way to my foot, I chewed some jerky and fed it to him and then I strode away again. This time he did not whimper. He made tiny barking noises and waddled along in hot pursuit. After a while he started to bounce and jump and at the apogee of each leap, he spread his wings and flapped them.

His leaps became longer and longer, and he spent more and more time in the air. At one point, not quite understanding what he was doing, he kept his wings extended and glided for a few strides before coming down to earth with a bump. He was not prepared for his landing and he tumbled head over heels in the dirt.

I think he was more surprised than hurt. He lay there for a moment and looked up at me as if I had somehow betrayed him. Then he picked himself up, shook himself, spread his wings, lifted his chin into the air and began to bounce towards me. I waited to catch him, and he landed on my outstretched arm and I raised them up into the air and tossed him.

He gave out one long wail, stretched full-length and extended his pinions to catch the air with an audible snap. The wail became a sort of happy gibbering noise and he flapped his wings again and again.

With each beat he pulled himself higher and then as if realising what he was doing he give out a long screech, stopped flapping and tumbled earthwards. I felt a sudden stab of fear, thinking that I had perhaps been too ambitious throwing into the air but at the last moment he spread his wings once more and swooped down, gliding across the ground faster than I could run.

He had the hang of it now. His wings pumped, and he gathered speed and height. A new idea struck him, and he stopped flapping and merely kept his wings extended and he glided away from me. Once again fear stabbed at me. This time I was afraid he was going to just keep flying until he disappeared into the distance. There was no way I could ever catch him.

“Red! Red! Come back!” I cried. At first, he paid no attention to my panicked shouts. He kept going, caught a thermal and began to gain altitude. His squeaks became ecstatic as he moved higher and faster. I felt as if I should do something, but I could not think what. I simply waved at him and shouted and tried to get his attention. I have no idea whether he understood me not. I had no reason to think my cries would penetrate his tiny reptilian mind. I had no real reason to think he had any fondness or connection to me either.

I knew at that moment that I did not want to lose him. Somehow, I felt as attached to him as a member of my own family. Perhaps he was providing a substitute for what I had lost when I agreed to serve Mistress Iliana. Perhaps that was why I was attached to him.

This time it was my voice that held the panic. He shrieked and banked and swooped, casting a shadow much larger than himself upon the parched earth. And he kept rising and putting distance between us and my sense of loss increased.

“Come back!” I shouted but my voice sounded weaker even to myself. He became a small speck soaring against the cold blue of the sky. I thought I had lost him completely. I could barely hear his squeaks but then an odd longing note entered his voice and he began to spiral down.

At first, I was not sure whether he was coming towards me or whether he had simply lost control and was plummeting to his doom. I offered up a prayer to the Holy Sun to preserve his small life. He spiralled in and this time I felt certain that he was coming for me. Once more I stretched out my arm. I felt a flutter of leathery wings against my face as he came to rest. Tiny claws dug into my flesh. The pain was welcome for it meant that Red had returned to me.

When I got back, Ruth was standing at the edge of the warded area that I shared with my mistress. She had brought a wax tablet and some sticks. She spoke softly to the sorceress and at the end of her speech Mistress Iliana nodded and gestured for me to approach. My heart beat faster, and my mouth felt dry as I obeyed.

“It appears that Ruth has agreed to teach you how to read,” my mistress said. “Do you wish to learn?”

“Of course, mistress,” I said.

“Then I see no reason why you cannot begin to do so. It will save me the work of teaching you myself. Lady Alysia has agreed to letting Ruth do this so there is no reason why you cannot start right now.”

“Thank you, mistress.”

“It’s not me you should thank, it’s Ruth.”

“Thank you, Ruth.” Red gave a small screeching cry of recognition. He flopped down out of the sling and waddled across to Ruth and nipped her ankle very gently.

“He remembers you,” I said.

“And why not,” she said. “I was there at his birth. And I see he has already learned to walk.”

“He is a quick learner,” I said.

“Let us hope you are too,” said Mistress Iliana, before returning to her meditations.

We walked over to a small rock and took seats in the shadow of it. Red followed us squeaking and screeching all the time until I gave him a small pellet of chewed meat and a string of jerky. He pounced on it as if it was a hare and began to tug it hither and yon, dragging it around as if it were the corpse of a small animal. It seemed to amuse him, and he liked the taste. He did not immediately fall asleep as he normally would after eating but frolicked around us, flapping his small wings and lashing his tiny tail.

“He seems happy,” Ruth said.

“He’s pleased to see you. I think he likes you.”

“And I like him. In any case it’s time to begin your first lesson. Has anybody ever tried to teach you to read before?”

I shook my head. “There was never much call for book learning on the farm.”

“What do you know about letters?”

“You mean the messages that people sent each other written on paper or do you mean the little symbols that they scrawl on that paper?”

“See you do know something about writing. I was talking about the symbols.”

“That is about the limit of my knowledge,” I admitted.

“I saw wardstones back on your farm,” she said.

“My father made those. He learned how to do that from his father. And I learned something about it from him before he got sick.”

“Letters are a bit like wardstones. They have a meaning. That meaning is associated with a sound.”

She started to explain to me how letters worked, and she inscribed some examples on the ground with a stick and she made me copy those examples and repeat their meanings. It should have been humiliating but it was not. I was hungry to learn, and I was happy to have her company. Even if I had not the slightest interest in learning how to read, I would have been willing to do so in order to have that. As it was, I knew it was an important skill and having such a pleasant teacher was a bonus. I certainly much preferred the idea of learning from Ruth than from Mistress Iliana.

The hours of the evening passed quickly, and I barely noticed when Mistress Iliana placed one of her witch lights in the air above us so that we could continue after dark. All too quickly the time was up. We barely seem to have started when Mistress Iliana loomed out of the darkness over us and said, “it is time to end your lessons with this evening. I will accompany Ruth back to Lady Alysia’s tent.”

“I can do that, mistress,” I said.

“I’m sure you could. But I need to stretch my legs and I would like to have a few words in private with Ruth myself.”

I hid my disappointment and watched a period of them disappeared into the darkness in the direction of the elaborate tent where the nobles slept. They appeared to be talking for their heads were close together and I wondered what the two of them would have to chat about.

Red lay asleep on his back, tail twitching, wings curled around his body like blankets. I picked up and moved him over to where my own bedroll was. He stirred and snored but did not wake. I began to set things in order around the camp. It was a long time before my mistress returned and I wondered whether she had spent the entire period talking with Ruth or whether she had stopped to inspect Lady Alysia.

She stared at me curiously when she came back, and I could not help but feel she was judging me. I thought for a time she was going to say something, but she did not. She went to her bedroll, invoked the wards and went to sleep.

I lay awake thinking about the day, of Red learning to fly, of me learning to read, of what Mistress Iliana had told me, and mostly about Ruth. It was a long time before I fell asleep.

Chapter Sixteen

At dawn, the sky was overcast. That was unusual in the Bleak Lands at this time of year. It looked like one of the sudden storms was coming off the mountains. By time we were on the road, the wind had picked up and sent more and more dust whipping by my face.

Red quit scampering around on my shoulder and crawled into his sling. He huddled there, little claws piercing the cloth of my tunic and embedding themselves in my flesh. Gently as I could I disengaged them. Straight back in they went.

“Storm coming,” said Mistress Iliana. Her eyes scanned the horizon and I knew she was looking for shelter, the same as everybody else. No one likes to be out in the Bleak Lands when lightning splits the sky.

Horses ahead of us neighed nervously. Their riders tried to calm them with soft words. Behind us the marching soldiers moved nervously on.

“It might pass us by, mistress. It’s pretty far off and, judging from the wind, it’s not coming directly at us.”

She looked directly at me as if doubting me but then she said, “I suppose you have lived in this death-dry place your whole life.”

“I have, mistress.” I prayed that the storm would miss us. I was invested in being right. Then I noticed something else. On the edges of the clouds, black specks swirled. I had never seen anything like them before. They were moving against the direction of the wind, turning constantly backwards and forwards as if riding their own personal cyclone. There seemed something almost sorcerous about them.

“What are those spots, mistress?” I pointed.

“What spots?” she said. I described them to her. Her eyes narrowed, and she muttered something under her breath. Once again magic flowed around us. Something flickered around her head, a greenish halo that came into being, winked out and then returned.

“Damnation, boy,” she said. “You have keen eyes.”

Her fingers tapped the elder sign on the drum. It boomed out like the sound of thunder. The column stopped and the soldiers moved immediately into defensive positions. The knights formed themselves up ready for a charge. Every man tensed and made ready for battle. I scanned the area looking for any threat, but all I could see were the bushes swaying in the rising wind.

Spider rode back towards us. His face was calm, but his glance was tense. He came alongside the wagon and said, “What is it, Iliana?”

“Blight birds, riding on the storm winds. The boy saw them before I did.”

Spider nodded an acknowledgement to me. I barely noticed. I was too busy worrying about what my mistress had said. Blight birds were creatures of shadow and many dark tales were told of them. They were the eyes of the masters of the Shadow Kingdoms, sent to spy on the lands of the Sun. I tried not to think what might be riding behind them.

“You think this storm is the work of a Shadow Prince?” Spider said. I was astonished at how calm he was. If I had tried to mouth those words they would have stuck on my tongue.

Mistress Iliana shook her head. “It’s a natural storm. They are just riding the air currents at its edges.”

“Still. It’s not a good sign. Where those damn vultures are, bad things are usually behind. Best hope we can make it to the steadings at Ghazan. I would not want to be caught out in a storm with Shadow Wyrms or mirklings about.”

“You’ll get no argument from me.”

“Give the signal to move out. Double time,” Spider said.

The drum beat sounded again, urgent, relentless and faster than normal. The company moved into the gathering storm, marching as quickly as they could. Spider rode beside us now. He wanted to be able to relay his commands by drumbeat if need be and consult with the mistress if that should prove necessary.

Red retracted his claws and snuggled in. He whimpered softly as if he was afraid.

Two hours later the sky was much darker. The wind howled and roared. The huge birds swept by overhead, like giant shadows. Their feathers were dark, and I swear their eyes glowed red. The span of their wings looked as long as the wagon and their claws glittered as if shod in metal. Mocking caws rang out above us, horribly intelligent. I remembered the old tales of how some servants of Shadow could transform themselves into beasts and wondered if evil sorcerers rode the wind above us.

Red cringed against my chest, his little claws holding so tightly to the sling that I could feel them pricking my skin. He was a small bundle of nerves and fear pulsing against my chest.

“They’ve spotted us,” Spider said. “And now they’re tracking us.”

“Might be worth ordering the archers to take them down,” said my mistress.

“I would if I thought it would do any good. No man living could hit one of those birds in this wind, shooting upwards at a target moving that fast.”

Iliana gave him a sour look. He was not in the least daunted. “It wouldn’t do us much good and there are too many of them. Look over there.”

I followed his pointing finger and saw more of the birds skimming along in the distance to our left. They were circling to the right too.

“They are tracking us,” said Mistress Iliana. As if to confirm this, one of the great dark shapes peeled off and raced off into the distance, as if seeking out its master.

“Scouts,” Spider said. “And we’re probably the biggest force of troops in thirty leagues.”

“Raiders, you think?”

“Better hope so. If there’s a full-scale invasion force all we can do is run for it. My guess would be slavers, looking for sacrifices or new prizes. They sometimes cross the mountains at Shadowgate and this would be right on their route. Could be bad for us if they have a wizard with them. You sure this storm is natural?”

“How long have you known me?”

He shrugged. “Fair enough. It’s natural. There’s not a weather worker with them?”

She laughed, an eerie sound in the gloom and the wind. “I did not say that. A weather worker could have deflected the storm from its natural path. Maybe even sent it this way.”

“You’re not reassuring me,” Spider said. His voice was calm as ever and he showed no fear. I could not say the same for myself. My terror was written on my face for all to see. Not that anyone was paying any attention to what a fifteen-year-old servant boy felt.

Scouts raced in from ahead of us. They were always out there, checking the road ahead and it took something significant to bring them scudding back at such a rate. They straight to the wagon.

Vorster was one of them, I could not help but notice. He always seemed to be moving ahead. I was grateful that he paid no attention to me. His eyes stared directly at Spider. His face was flushed. He looked elated and at the same time disturbed.

“Ghazan is burning, sir,” he said. His words came out crisp and clear in the Sunlander aristocratic accent. “There are Shadowlanders there.”

“Shadowlanders? You are certain,” said Spider.

Vorster’s cruel smile showed itself. He was certain. “They are garbed in black and show the sign of the Skull. They are rounding up the villagers. I think they know we are here. The force was looting and capturing but now they are assembling into their companies again. If we are quick, we can take them by surprise.”

Spider’s face was impassive. “How many?”

Vorster said, “One hundred, maybe two hundred.”

“That’s quite a spread of numbers. Since it’s you Vorster, I am going to take two hundred and add a few more. You see any siege engines?”

Vorster gave a disbelieving laugh. “No! We can take them, sir. If we move now.”

Spider said, “Thank you, Sir Vorster. That will be all. Return to your position and let me know if you see any of those Shadowlanders coming our way.”

Vorster’s smile turned to a sneer. He clearly wanted to argue. Spider simply stared at him and slowly the defiance leeched out of the young nobleman. He twisted his horse’s head round and rode to the head of the column with his fellow scout.

“He’s keen,” Mistress Iliana said.

“Too keen. Like all the young nobles. Mind too full of thoughts of glory. It would take more than a hundred Shadowlanders to capture Ghazan. Probably a lot more and without siege machinery, they would need magic.”

Mistress Iliana nodded. “The black birds are a sign of that.”

“What do you think?”

“If I sensed the use of any magic from this distance, I would tell you to run far and run fast. Anyone who could cast spells so powerful would be far beyond our strength.”

“But you didn’t sense any such casting?”

“It might have happened hours ago when we were leagues away.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“Any mage that strong would have hit us after the birds spotted us. We would have been dead before we could do anything. There are few so mighty in this world.”

Her words increased my horror and terror. I would not have thought that was possible, but it was. How could they stand there so casually discussing destruction and evil magic?

I know, in the stories, people always take such things in their stride. But when you are fifteen and on the open road in blasted lands, imagining the approach of Shadowland soldiers and all the horrors of their magic, it’s not so easy to do. You have a terrible sense of vulnerability and the imminence of death.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” said Spider.

“Local aether levels are too low. No mage of that order of power would risk coming here and starting a ruck unless they had no choice. Such adepts do not fight battles over places like Ghazan.”

“We have Lady Alysia with us,” Spider said.

Mistress Iliana considered this and eventually shook her head. “She would be a prize, but I doubt any of the Great Ones would put themselves at such risk even for her.”

Spider seemed to accept this. “Anything else?”

She shook her head. Her nails scraped along the surface of the drum. I could see that trapped serpent of fire squirm within it, as if struggling against its bonds.

Spider did a quick calculation inside his head. “If Vorster is right, still too many for us. And if they catch us on open ground…”

“There’s Greytop ridge,” said Mistress Iliana. “We take the higher ground there, get a look at what’s happening in the village for ourselves. If we need to make a stand it’s the best place within ten leagues.”

Spider considered this. When he spoke, he seemed to be thinking aloud, “It’s either that or make a run for it now. They can track us with the birds and if they’ve got hound riders, they might overtake us on the road. Let’s make for the ridge. If there’s anything there young Vorster may see action yet. Sound steady advance. I’ll take the colours and ride ahead. Get yourself ready. We may need you.”

Mistress Iliana handed me the reins. She beat a relentless tattoo, amplified, fast time on the drum. Spider rode forward and said something to the standard bearer. The soldiers exchanged glances, knowing that something was up.

I wondered what Ruth was doing and whether she was as frightened as me.

Chapter Seventeen

I held the reins with shaking hands. Mistress Iliana merely sat there with her eyes closed, muttering words to herself in a language I did not understand. There was no sense of the power flowing around as it usually did when she was casting a spell. I did not know whether that was because she was shielding herself from detection or she was not casting at all. I felt alone, helpless and ignorant as we approached what was almost certainly going to be my first battle.

It was all I could do to guide the wagon. Even those stolid beasts sensed something was happening. They were company drays, maybe they knew the signs that their owners were going into action.

The road rose ahead of us, running towards what I assumed was the ridge. The great dark birds swooped and circled, keeping watch for their master. I replayed Vorster’s words again and again in my head. Shadowlanders, slavers. Those words were the nightmare of every farmer who lived in southern Umbrea. They conjured up images of twisted, soulless beings sneaking across the border in the dead of night to kidnap the innocent and bear them away to a life of slavery and worse in the Shadow Kingdoms.

It was not night now though. It sounded like we were outnumbered but there was a hard confidence about the men around the wagon that suggested they would not be dragged away screaming. They would fight. The question was whether that confidence would lead them into an early grave.

I glanced at Mistress Iliana. She had opened her eyes but her face, beneath that white makeup, was unreadable. I sensed a change in her when next I looked. It was as if she suddenly housed a great and terrible power, a blaze of energy, a storm of destruction held in check by an iron will. That may only be a trick memory plays with me though. She did not look at me. She studied the horizon and the skies above as if seeking a target the way a hawk might look for prey.

The serpent of fire lay coiled within the drum, at rest, rather than in constant motion. That somehow only made it more terrifying, as if it was saving its energies, readying itself to unleash them in one mighty conflagration.

I was not in the worst position to be going into battle with the forces of the Shadowlands. It did not make me any less frightened, but it did make me curious.

There were enemy scouts on the ridge. They did not wait to meet ours. They scuttled down into the valley, bearing word to their master. Our outriders settled themselves along the ridgeline and waited for us to arrive.

We approached the brow of the ridge. I did not know what was on the other side of it. I did not want us falling over a sheer drop or simply running away with the momentum picked up on a slope. I pulled on the handbrake and the wagon came to a stop. Mistress Iliana looked at me sharp-eyed then, realising what I had done, nodded her approval. She dropped from the wagon and strode towards Spider. I followed her.

The winds bore the tang of smoke and cooking meat. In the valley below a village had stood. I could see the well in the centre and the burning houses. Black clad warriors moved like so many ants below us. They had rounded up long lines of captives and chained them together. They had a score of wagons.

I tried to count the soldiers. There must have been hundreds. It was not a company on the move. It was a small army. I did not see how Vorster could possibly have miscounted them, and the answer came to me that he had not. He really wanted to attack them. He was one of those idiots who believed that one Sunlander knight was a match for twenty lesser warriors.

Drums sounded below us, as the enemy formations began to move in our direction. They were disciplined and they marched well. There were riders on night-black steeds. They moved faster than our men and did not seem so heavily armoured. There were companies of archers and lightly clad infantrymen and there were other things that did not look human at all. They were too big and too muscular. They held their heads low with their massive shoulders hunched higher. They moved bow-legged, misshapen but immensely powerful.

I heard some sharp intakes of breath from the men who taken position along the ridge line. Our archers spread out in ranks, slightly down the long slope so that all had a clear field of fire over the heads of those in front of them. The pikemen moved forward to protect them. The cavalry held themselves on the ridge in a compact mass, waiting to be unleashed.

The enemy scouts scurried back into the body of their own warriors. They rode up to a group huddled around one of those massive twisted figures. It had a banner on its back. There were several drummers near it. At the centre was a man robed in scarlet and black.

The tempo of the enemy drums changed. They began to march towards us. A number held back, making sure their prisoners could not escape. The bulk of the enemy force took up position at the foot of the slope and remained there. They were only a few hundred yards away now. I could see exactly how badly we were outnumbered and the fact that many of our attackers were monstrous did not make our position seem any stronger.

“What do you think?” Spider asked Iliana.

“They used magic to blast the gate. Rode in fast and hard, rounded up the villagers and were getting ready to move off when we came on the scene.”

Neither of them sounded particularly worried. If they were putting on a show for the men, it was a good one. I knew I could not have sounded like that with hundreds of Shadow worshippers advancing on me. Of course, I did not then possess their experience.

“They are not exactly champing at the bit to meet us,” Spider said.

“They’ve had some exercise this morning,” said Iliana. “Their mage has used some of his reserves of power. They will be cautious.”

She was right. The bulk of the enemy had stopped where they were. Only one group of about a dozen of those huge bestial forms still advanced. Men with whips tried to drive them back but they fought a losing battle. The monstrous creatures seemed determined to get to us.

As they loped closer, the whip-wielders gave up and returned to their lines. The Shadowlanders stood ready, wanting to see our response.

I glanced around. In the face of the enemy horde, not even Vorster seemed too keen on charging. I did not think he feared the monsters. I am sure he was confident that a cavalry charge downhill would break them. It was what waited at the end of that wild ride that restrained him. There was at least one mage down there.

Spider watched the approaching enemy with no great concern. I could not match his indifference. The creatures had once been human but something had changed them. Their skin was greyish, and their eyes were red. Their teeth were huge. Their arms extended all the way to the ground and were thick around as a man’s thigh. Their stubby fingers ended in massive claws. They looked as if they could tear a horse apart with their bare hands.

Mistress Iliana laid a hand on Spider’s arm and said something. He shrugged then nodded and she started walking down the hill towards the attackers.

A cheer went up from our side as she passed through the ranks of the pikemen. A muffled roar of bafflement went up from below then the Shadowlanders started to egg the monsters on.

To any uninformed observer it would have seemed insane, a lone woman picking her way downslope to meet a score of slavering brutes any one of which must have outweighed her ten times over. It looked like some form of ritual sacrifice.

But I sensed the power gathering around Mistress Iliana like a thundercloud. My mouth was dry, and my heartbeat sounded loud in my ears. The gap between the monsters and my mistress closed swiftly.

I risked a glance at the rest of our troops to see if anybody was going to do something. The crossbowmen had strung their weapons but did not open fire. The knights stood ready. The pikemen held their weapons in guard position but did not advance. The motley assortment of infantrymen armed with swords and axes and shields stood ready. Ghoran watched intently as if this was all part of some feastday pageant put on for his entertainment. He noticed me looking at him and gave me a thumb’s up sign.

Perhaps fifty strides separated my mistress from the monsters, when her fingers flexed on the drum. A single enormous beat sounded, louder than thunder. The monsters paused, confused. I doubt they knew fear. They were simply puzzled.

When Mistress Iliana’s hand rose again a wicked greenish glow surrounded it, so bright it hurt the eyes. She held the light above her head for a heartbeat and then moved her hand in a throwing motion.

A sphere of emerald fire as large as a human head broke off from her hand and arced towards the Shadowland brutes. Sensing some threat, they raced towards her. The glowing ball landed in front of them and exploded. There was a sound of rock cracking, and hideous high-pitched screams. I felt the backwash of heat where I stood.

When I looked again, no brutes moved. Their scattered, smouldering remains were strewn across a score of strides. Here lay a scorched head, there a severed arm. At the point where the sphere had impacted was a small crater around which the earth itself seemed fused into something that glittered like glass.

Mistress Iliana tapped her fingers on the drum once more. Once again that thunderous challenge rang out. When she raised her hand, it was again encased in green fire. She held blaze above her head. Its hellish green radiance illuminated the field of slaughter. A small dark sun hovered over the hillside. Sharp edged shadows skittered away from her.

Silence lay over the battlefield. The enemy were mute. Our own warriors seemed stunned. Mistress Iliana just stood there, holding that killing fire in check, staring at the Shadowlanders. The message was quite clear. She had killed the mob of monsters. She would kill anything else that came up the hill.

I saw her with new eyes then. She went from being a small though frightening figure to something else. She had slaughtered those enormous monsters. They never had a chance. I saw the awful potential within her, and I knew that the same thing lay within me.

In that moment, a ferocious ambition was born. I wanted to be like her, to wield power like that. I did not care what the price was. I had found a path I wanted to tread, and I was prepared to walk it to the bitter end.

The figure robed in scarlet and black gave my mistress an ironic wave and then turned and made a gesture. For a moment I expected some answering magic to erupt from the enemy camp but all that happened was half the enemy force pivoted and began to march away south. With them went the troops holding the captives. The last of the enemy force, still many times our number remained in place at the bottom of the slope, providing a shield for their comrades in case we should advance.

They watched in silence. The robed figure waited with them. He did not seem any more nervous than Iliana or Spider. The message was that if we advanced, they would meet us. No doubt the remainder of their force would swing back to do battle if we were so foolish.

Spider sat on his horse watching and the rest of our men took their cue from him. Mistress Iliana stood until the final section of the Shadowlanders wheeled and began to march away, taking their bounty of slaves with them. My fear and my exultation slowly subsided. The threat of violence shrivelled away before my eyes. There would be no battle today. I would not die within the next few hours.

It was over.

Chapter Eighteen

We watched the Shadowlanders recede into the distance and made no attempts to pursue. The mood curdled from jubilation to something else. There was muttering among the men. When Iliana returned to the ranks no one reached out to congratulate her.

Of course, she was not the most approachable of women, but I don’t think that had anything to do with it. The soldiers had keyed themselves up for a fight, had seen what amounted to a small victory against far superior forces and then realised that they had nothing to do with it. The triumph was all hers.

They were fighting men, brave and proud, and it gnawed at them to have done nothing. I could tell from some of the things I overheard.

“We should pursue. Show them Shadow worshippers what’s for. Free the slaves.”

“Or maybe take them ourselves.”

“We could have taken them. One charge would have scattered them. One Sunlander knight is worth twenty Shadowland scum.”

The last one was from Vorster. There was something like rage on his handsome face.

“So how many of you would it take for those Shadowlanders then?” Spider asked. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

Vorster shot him a belligerent look. Spider smiled as if that was exactly what he wanted to see. The look faded fast as the nobleman realised his mistake.

Spider said, “Would you take five knights? Or maybe ten? Or perhaps the whole company might be better?”

Vorster’s face turned red, but he forced himself to look respectfully at Spider. The tattooed man continued to speak gently, but I sensed anger in his voice. “Possibly twenty-five might have been better given the number of Shadowlanders down there. Didn’t your expensive tutors teach you to count, Sir Vorster?”

I made the mistake of smirking. Vorster caught it and he shot me a look of murderous hatred. It was my turn to look away in a circumspect manner.

Spider kept talking, his tone conversational. “Of course, you might have lost a few of our lads going down that rough slope. Not exactly perfect ground for a cavalry charge. And a few more of you might have died if that sorcerer leading the Shadowlanders decided to do to you what Mistress Iliana did to his pets. So tell me, Sir Vorster exactly how many Sunlander knights would you need?”

Vorster said, “We have our elder signs, sir. And the Shadowlander had exhausted himself attacking the village.”

“You are sure of that, are you, Sir Vorster? Your expensive tutors gave you a working knowledge of sorcery as well as an erratic understanding of arithmetic, did they?”

“I know nothing of sorcery,” said Vorster. His tone implied that Spider had suggested he favoured sexual congress with donkeys.

“Then perhaps you will so good as to leave the battlefield assessment of it to those who do? You’re a handy man in a fight Sir Vorster and brave as a lion but the next time you bring me such an erroneous report, I will flay your hide with a rusty dagger. Do you understand me?”

The menace contained in Spider’s quiet voice might have given Ghoran pause.

“Yes, sir.” Vorster was torn between swelling at the praise and defying the threat. Vorster looked around at the other knights. One or two of the younger ones looked like they might back him up if it came to a confrontation. The other responses lay somewhere between backing away from him and mocking grins. Common sense prevailed.

Spider rode off leaving Vorster to stew in his humiliation. He began to ride towards me then he noticed that Mistress Iliana had reached the wagon. She turned, gave him a mild look and said, “You have something you want to say to my servant, Sir Vorster? Perhaps some message for me?”

He shook his head and rode away, followed by his cronies. Mistress Iliana gave me a cold smile and then sat down on the buckboard of the wagon. She looked tired but elated and I guessed that the use of her power had thrilled her as much as it had thrilled me.

“Well?” she said, noticing the near-worshipful look I was giving her.

“What you did today, mistress. It was the greatest thing I have ever seen.”

Her smile became a fraction sourer. “Not the greatest. Just the most destructive.”

“Both,” I said.

“It was powerful third order magic,” she said. “But someday you may see much more impressive things. And I would not have been able to work such a spell if that sorcerer down there had not exhausted his strength attacking the village. His apprentices did not have the skill or the power to counter me.”

“The sorcerer had exhausted his strength?”

“Casting magic is draining,” Iliana said quietly. “The more powerful the magic, the more draining it is.”

“That’s why you held the fireball, mistress. To show him and his people that you had the strength to do it again.”

“You are quick, boy. There’s no denying that.”

“What do you mean by strength, mistress.”

“This is neither the time or the place for such discussions. We will talk about it later. When there are fewer ears to overhear.”

A few of our men went down into the village to look for survivors or people left behind. They found none.

“I am not surprised,” said Mistress Iliana as we sat in the shelter of the wagon. “Shadowlander mages can sniff out the living, and their pets have the same talent.”

Once the village had been checked and the way scouted, we returned to the road and put as much distance between ourselves and the ruins of Ghazan as possible. We were headed in the opposite direction from the slavers and it felt to me very much like flight. The huge birds followed us until darkness then turned south still screeching their mocking cries.

That night we pulled far off the road and set up camp within a great clump of rocks that formed a natural fortification. Mistress Iliana placed wardstones at each point of the compass on the edges of the camp. The soldiers watched her with a mixture of awe and resentment as she did so. The nightly sentries were doubled, and nobody felt much urge to go roaming. Everybody had the Shadowlanders on their mind.

I set up the tent and built a fire then brought food from the cook wagon. Mistress Iliana watched me do all this with cool curious eyes. In her hand she held the wraithstone amulet. Even in the firelight I could see the dark tendrils swirling within it were much thicker. She had drawn on a lot of power today and it had been tainted.

Once again, we were settled away from the bulk of the troopers although I noticed Ghoran and some of the other soldiers were not too far away. Within easy calling distance certainly.

I settled down with the slop that the cook had provided and waited for the mistress to start talking. She took a sip from her flask. It seemed a smaller mouthful than usual, as if she did not need it so much to keep the chill and whatever else that ate at her at bay.

“You did well today,” she said.

“I did nothing, mistress.”

“You did not panic. You remained calm. You guided the wagon without faltering. At very least you are not a coward.”

“I did not have much choice, mistress.”

“I have seen others simply freeze and become unable to act in such circumstances.”

“Really?”

“Really. You can never tell when it will happen or who it will happen to.”

“You were very brave.”

“Ah, the approbation of a child. How flattering.” She noticed my sour expression and laughed her mocking laugh. “I did what needed to be done.”

“You could have defeated the enemy all on your own.”

“Hardly. I could have managed another two or three balefires and that would have been it. If the Shadowlanders had rushed me, they could have chopped me to pieces. And that’s if I did not simply exhaust my power.”

“What do you mean, mistress?”

“Every wizard has limited strength. Just as there is a limit to how far a man can run before he falls exhausted, so there is a limit to how many spells a mage can cast before the same thing happens. It is easily reached.”

“That is what you meant when you said the sorcerer in black and red had exhausted himself earlier.”

“Quite.”

“If he knew this why did he simply not order his men to attack.”

“Why should he? He had nothing to gain. He would have lost a large part of his force if he had attacked us while I had my power to use and our company held the higher ground. He had already taken his prize, new untainted slaves and whatever wealth was in the village. All fighting with us would do was weaken his force and make him vulnerable to other raiders when he crossed back into the Shadow Kingdoms. What you saw was a piece of theatre, nothing more. I was letting him know the cost of attacking us. He understood the message.”

“I heard Vorster and some of the others claim we should have pursued them and freed their prisoners.”

“Vorster and his ilk are young, and they think only of glory. It’s a bad quality in a soldier and one he will grow out of.”

“I wonder, mistress.”

“You do not like him, do you?”

“My nose resents him, mistress, and the rest of me just goes along.” She laughed at that. It was not the harsh false laughter I had heard before, but a more natural sound, rich and throaty. The laughter stopped abruptly and she said, “Do not let your resentment get you into trouble. Young Vorster is a man who likes to kill.”

“I have looked into his eyes, mistress. I have seen that.”

“Then you need to understand something else. In our line of work, in the world in which we live, that is not necessarily a disadvantage. It often works in a man’s favour. Vorster is a natural killer. One of life’s predators.”

That made me prey. It was not a comfortable thought. I changed the subject. “If I understood you correctly, you don’t think we could have succeeded.”

“I know we could not have succeeded. As it was, we were lucky to come upon the Shadowlanders when we did. If we had run into them a day earlier, with that sorcerer full of power and no prizes to be protected they would have torn us apart, unless we fled.”

“Was he stronger than you?”

“About the same strength, I would guess. We would have neutralised each other and it would have come down to blade-work. Our troops were vastly outnumbered.”

“Neutralised?”

“When two mages fight there are a number of ways they can do that. They can simply unravel each other’s spells, or they can conjure up opposing forces. If I summon fire, he summons ice or vice versa. There are spells to disrupt the working of spells.”

“You know all of these?”

“I know some of them, and I seek knowledge of more. To be a mage is always to be learning.”

“How do I get to be as strong as you?”

“You practise, for many, many years. Magic is like exercise but more so. The more you do it, the more you can. But right now, you are like a child who is learning to walk. You have a long way to go before you need worry about such practise.”

“I wish to learn.”

“I can see that. And so you shall. In time.”

“I wish to learn now, mistress.”

“What do you think you are doing?”

“Learning, mistress.”

“But not learning the things you want to.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“There are things you need to know before you try to cast any more spells. You must walk before you can run and crawl before you can walk.”

“Children do not need to be taught that, mistress. I have a brother and three sisters. I have seen them all learn.”

“It was an analogy, boy, and a poor one.”

She paused for a moment, then stared into the fire. “Or perhaps not so poor. Mages do learn by themselves.”

I glanced quickly over at her. She had my full attention now. “Some of them even survive the experience.”

“What do you mean, mistress?”

“Do you know how to swim?”

“No, mistress.”

“What would happen if I threw you in deep water?”

“I would drown mistress.”

“You might thrash around and struggle your way to land.”

“I might.”

“It happens. And if I did this to you every day, you might eventually work out how to avoid panicking and keep yourself afloat and then you might learn how to swim all by yourself. That is what it is like being a self-taught mage. Only it is worse, for there are things in the water that will be attracted by your thrashing and will come and devour you.”

“That’s not the first time you have mentioned this, mistress.”

“Nor will it be the last. You have power or rather you have the capacity to draw on power.”

“What is the difference?”

“The power is external. You have the ability to sense it, shape it and wield it.”

“Magic is not within us then?”

“It is but it’s a spark that in some people can become a bonfire. It can be drawn on if you know how but that way lies death, for you are drawing on your own life force and that will eventually kill you.”

“I see,” I said, although I did nothing of the sort. I only heard one more vague warning.

“It’s best to draw on the aether, the magical energy that surrounds us, if you can. That will cause you no long-term harm save for the taint you will draw with it.”

I thought I saw a weakness in her reasoning. “Does that mean you can draw on your own life force without risking taint?”

She gave me that sour smile again. I was too quick on the uptake for her liking. “It does but you would be well advised not to do it too often lest you drain yourself of all life.”

“What is this aether, mistress? I mean really, where does it come from? What is it made of?”

“There you ask a question over which philosophers and wizards have argued for millennia.”

“Somehow that answer does not surprise me, mistress.”

“You have wit, boy, and it amuses me. But there is a time and a place for levity, and this is not it. We are talking of matters that put your life and your oh-so-precious soul in peril. You are concerned about your soul, aren’t you?”

My face flushed at her mockery, but she was right. I looked at the ground abashed. “Yes, mistress, I am. As are all decent people.”

That made her laugh and it was not at my wit. “Some say aether is the energy from which souls are made. Some say it is the residue of all the living things that have existed on this world.”

“That is blasphemy, mistress. Souls go either to the Light or to the Shadow.”

“Indeed,” she said. “So the Testaments say and who are we to dispute them.” Her words were pious, but her tone was ironic. “You will be pleased to learn that that is but one theory. Another is that aether is just a form of energy, like fire, like light.”

“Can those be shaped, mistress?”

“A blacksmith’s forge does that. A simple hearth does it. A torch does it.”

“I withdraw my question, mistress.”

“You should not, for it is a good one. And it begs other questions such as where does that energy come from? A fire must burn something. It must be kindled. It will eventually be exhausted.”

“And magic cannot be?”

“Indeed it can. There are whole vast areas of this world where no spell can be woven except by drawing on your own life force. The aether in those places was exhausted or destroyed long ago.”

“How do you know that, mistress?” I was not being insolent. I was curious.

“Because there were once kingdoms in those places, and they left both ruins and records. We know that magic was once worked there but can be no longer. Indeed, some of those places survived only because of magic and when that went away, they died out.”

“I did not know that, mistress.”

“Keep listening. You may discover there are a few other things you do not yet know, my young goatherd.”

“Now you are mocking me, mistress.”

“And you are quite intelligent enough to spot that. I am impressed. Now listen for I will answer your question as best as I am able to your limited understanding, and I do not wish to be here all night.”

“Thank you, mistress.”

“You asked about aether. Some think it flows into our world from elsewhere, from other dimensions–”

“Dimensions, mistress?”

“Planes of existence. Worlds that exist beside ours. The homes of demons and immortals and other races.”

I had a sudden vision of possibilities. Of worlds beyond worlds. Of other places tucked away behind folds in reality. It was like being told all the daydreams I had ever had when I was watching my father’s goats might be real somewhere.

“There is much evidence to support this theory. There are places where the aether is much thicker and flows more freely and these places are almost always near the gates to other worlds.”

“Such things exist?”

“Yes. Though they are little used now save by the Old Ones and very powerful sorcerers and even then there is great peril involved. Something happened long ago that disrupted the spells that created them and since then most of the portals have been damaged.”

“What could have done that?”

“The war of the Angels and the Old Ones. It caused enormous destruction. You can see the remnants still. Ruined cities of elder world demons are strewn across the desert. The Graveyard of Angels is littered with the corpses of fallen Auratheans.”

It was a dark and terrible thing she was talking about and yet it gave me a secret thrill. I was imagining the bodies of dead angels lying in state. They could not have been more than a hundred leagues from where we sat. Once that would have been an inconceivably great distance to me, but we must have covered a significant fraction of it over the past few days.

“Anyway, the power comes from somewhere else and those of us with the gift to wield it can tap into it. In the end, as with so many things to do with magic, it does not really matter which explanation you choose to believe. All you must know is that it works. And now, I bid you goodnight.”

With that she set the drum beside her head. Within it the serpent of fire coiled and squirmed and I wondered whether it was just my imagination or whether it seemed a trifle dimmer and weaker than it had the previous night.

Chapter Nineteen

I could not sleep. I was too worked up by the events of the day. I lay wrapped in my blanket and stared at the stars. Occasionally in the distance I heard a horse stir, or the jingling and clanking of a sentry doing the rounds. Red snored away next to me, asleep quickly as if all the excitement of the day had drained him.

Over and over I replayed what I had seen in my head. I recalled the black birds and the burned village and the enemy force waiting below us. I recalled the fear of death and the elation of survival. Most of all I remembered the way Mistress Iliana had confronted the advancing monsters and destroyed them. The image burned itself into my brain.

I wanted to be able to wield power like that, more than I wanted food or drink. I wanted to be able to rain down fiery destruction on my enemies even though part of me knew that lust for the power of death was sinful.

I tried to remember all the things Mistress Iliana had told me afterwards, but they seemed small, bland facts compared to the bright, burning reality of what she had done. I wondered what else might be possible to someone who could wield such forces.

Could I learn to fly or pass from place to place instantaneously? Could I learn to manipulate the minds of others, to make them see what I wished or not see me at all? I was almost certain that Mistress Iliana could do the last, and that she had used the spell on me. I thought of what it would mean to be able to pass invisibly through the mass of humanity. Of all the things that you could see or steal or do. Such a power was a temptation and it led to others. I saw that as I thought about them, but I could not stop myself from thinking.

I brooded on the rune that Mistress Iliana had shown me when she had tested me. I tried to remember exactly what it looked like, the patterns of the lines, the way they had drawn my eye. I wanted to recreate it in my mind, to feel the thrill of magic surging through me. It hovered there partially complete in my mind’s eye, just out of recollection. I could not quite envision it. If only I could get one last line correct, fit the pieces of the puzzle into place, but I could not, no matter how hard and I tried.

Eventually, exhausted I must have fallen asleep. I was somewhere else, in a place surrounded by mist, which slowly congealed into the ruins of Ghazan. I saw the town as it had been after the Shadowlander attack, with buildings burned out and collapsed, with corpses in the streets and chattels strewn everywhere. What I could not see was people. The place was eerily quiet and empty of the living. There was just me and something else I could not quite see, although I kept catching glimpses of movement out of the side of my eye. Whenever I turned to look in that direction there was nothing there.

I walked through the village towards the central well. There were the bodies of men and women and children. Many had been pecked by scavenger birds. There was no sunlight, merely a grey misty sourceless glow that came from nowhere and showed everything in its colourless light. It was as if the village was located within the Kingdoms of Dust, which I supposed it was, and I was walking there too.

The ground crunched beneath my feet. Grey ashes clung to my toes and heels. At the well I lowered the bucket. It went down and down but there was no splash and no sign of water. I was thirsty but there would be no relief here.

Again, I thought I caught sight of something watching me from the corner of the ruined temple desecrated by the Shadowlanders. Excrement smeared the hangings. The smell of urine hung over the pews. The dead body of the priest sprawled across his pulpit. Clouds of buzzing things hovered over his corpse. They might have been flies. They might have been beetles. Their buzzing hinted at something– some words I might understand if I listened closely. I knew then that I did not want to, that comprehension might prove fatal or blast my sanity and leave me a gibbering madman. I knew too that understanding hovered close to the surface of my mind.

I turned to flee, and confronted by the thing I least wanted to face. It wore my face, only my flesh was white and my hair was red. The eyes which were pools of pure shadow in which I could somehow discern a malevolent intelligence.

It smiled and its teeth were sharp and pointed. It did a mad capering dance around me, then grabbed my shoulder and dragged me from the desecrated house of god into streets filled with death and putrefaction. Behind me the priest’s corpse followed, brains dripping out through the cleft in its skull.

A little girl’s corpse joined us still clutching a straw doll and then her mother, belly split, and then two men and then two more until a procession of the murdered danced through the streets following the demon and myself. Their eyes showed no pupils or no irises, just whites that were not white but grey. The demon led me to the edge of the town, still clutching my shoulder, mouthing words but making no sound. It came to the spot where the battle had been fought and Iliana had slain the brutes. They too were there. Their burned bodies and severed limbs somehow reformed, still bearing the marks of what had killed them. They lumbered towards us, dancing to the sound of silent horrible music.

The crimson-haired demon mouthed words that I was sure I could understand if only I listened a bit more closely. It held me in place, clawed fingers burying themselves into my shoulder blades. The dead danced around us in a ring, and I knew then that this was some sort of dreadful ritual and that if it was completed I would be trapped here forever. I wanted to scream but no sound came. I was silent as the dead.

I tried to wrench myself free of the demon’s grip, but its talons dug in tight and it was strong, far stronger than I was. I punched at it, but it was as if I struck a stone. And all the while, the dead folk danced, whirling faster and faster. And I sensed that I was getting more and more trapped in this hellish place, wherever it was.

It seemed hardly worth struggling. I could not overcome this thing and something told me I did not really want to. In the dancing, in the eyes of my tormentor, in its gestures knowledge was encoded. If I remained in this place it could teach me all of the things I wanted to know. I could become as powerful as I wanted as quickly as I wished.

Small claws dug into my chest. Looking down I saw a tiny shadowy dragonling. It looked up at me with burning eyes. Its neck twisted, and it turned its head to look at the dead. It shrieked in horror and fear and defiance. Small flames flickered from its nostrils. Whatever had happened I was not trapped here alone. Red was with me. It was not just my soul that was in peril.

I stopped struggling and simply stood there. I tried to imagine the stone of light. I closed my eyes and visualised it while all around me the dead folk danced. I tried to reconstruct the pattern, feverishly desperately and finally I did so. I touched the light. I opened my eyes and saw I was surrounded by a glow. The demon melted back, and the dead folk turned to ashes in its glow, becoming outlines of dust before falling to earth in small heaps and blowing away. The last thing to go was the demon and I saw that it was smiling.

I woke to find myself surrounded by light. The serpent of fire hissed agitatedly from within the drum. Mistress Iliana stood over me, looking down. Destructive power churned within her, waiting to be unleashed.

“What have you done this time?” she said. I tried to pull myself upright, but the world spun and I collapsed. This time there were no dreams, only darkness.

I woke to find the sun staining the sky red in the east, and the soldiers going about their early morning business. I felt weak and dizzy. Something cold and hard pressed against my chest and when I reached up, I found a leather thong biting into my neck. I pulled on it and a chunk of wraithstone emerged from within my shirt. An elder sign had been carved in it. The stone itself was milky white without the faintest hint of darkness.

Desperately I looked around. Red was curled up nearby. His eyes were closed. His breathing rasped out. Was it just my imagination but or were faint streamers of smoke emerging from his nostrils?

Mistress Iliana watched me, cat-eyed. Her hand reached out to tap gently on the drum. “Tell me what happened,” she said. There was powerful compulsion in her voice, and I knew that I could not lie to her even if I wanted to. I told her everything from my thoughts before I went to sleep to my strange dreams. She listened without saying anything. Her eyes narrow. Her lips thin. Her nostrils flared into something like a sneer. Her right hand tapped away on the drum. Her left hand stroked her chin.

“What happened, mistress?” I asked when the tale was told.

She shrugged. “I do not know. It is not possible that a demon penetrated the wards I set unless it is a more powerful and subtle being than any I have ever heard of.”

“So you are saying that it was nothing.”

“The thing might have been within you all the time but there is no sign of taint on the wraithstone and the elder sign does not burn you.”

“So you are saying it was nothing.” I sounded increasingly desperate. She was not reassuring. She continued to stare at me.

“There are other explanations.”

“What are they?”

“The thing might be part of you. Part of your mind. It might be a projection of your darkest fears and wants and needs.”

“You are saying that thing is me.”

Her words became more halting as if something had just occurred to her. “It may be. It may be what you will become if you follow the path you are on. It may be what you fear you will become.”

“Can you do anything, mistress? Can I do anything?”

“You can stop attempting to dabble in magic, for one,” she said. “No more trying to visualise the word of light before you go to sleep. I suspect that is what brought this on.”

“Is there anything else?”

“There is nothing I can do in this place, with such primitive adjuncts as I have here. This is not my field. My talent is for destruction not divination or cleansing or healing.”

“But someone must be able to do something.”

“There are some who could. They would kill you.” She did not say it like she was making the threat. She was merely repeating a truth she knew. “The Order of the Dawn would if they heard this story. So we had best make sure they don’t. Keep that amulet close to your skin at all times and do not let anyone see it. Tell no one about what has happened unless I tell you they are trustworthy.”

“Who are the Order of the Dawn, mistress?”

“Knights, once sworn to oppose the darkness. Now they spend their time killing mages for pay. Among other things.”

“You think what has happened to me is dangerous, mistress. That I am tainted by Shadow. That my soul is lost.”

“I think it best to treat this thing as a threat until we know more.”

“Does this mean I cannot be your apprentice, mistress?”

She shook her head. “It means I must accelerate your training. You must learn to protect yourself, to defend your dreams.”

I felt unduly relieved, more for the fact that I was not to be denied my chance to become a mage. Nonetheless I feared my path would be a long and a hard one.

“Come,” Mistress Iliana said. “Get up. It is time to be about your duties.”

Chapter Twenty

I went to collect breakfast. As usual I got to walk to the front of the line. I took the bowls and returned with them to my mistress. She accepted the food, took a nip from her flask and said, “We won’t be moving off just yet. There are things I must do. Come back in an hour.”

I took back the bowls to the cook. Once that was done, I found myself at a loose end. I also felt vulnerable. I did not know many people and if Vorster or Todd came along things would go badly for me. I wanted to look for Ruth but I was not sure what I would say if I found her. Just the thought made me feel tongue-tied. I left the cook wagon and walked past where the infantrymen were billeted. The men sat around the remains of their fires or stood chatting or lay there with their heads on their packs studying the sky.

I felt very self-conscious, not really knowing anybody and feeling their eyes upon me. The wraithstone amulet lay cold against my chest and I felt that anybody looking at me must notice it and wonder what it was for. Red hung there too, head poking out of his sling, watching things warily. The events of yesterday seemed to have made him cautious and he wanted to be close to me.

Ghoran stood talking with Jay. He was demonstrating some complicated stroke with his axe but when he saw me, he grinned and said, “Look who is. How you do?”

Jay stopped oiling his crossbow and threw me a mocking salute. “Won’t you get beaten for slacking off?” he asked.

“My mistress is busy and does not want me around distracting her.”

“She’s preparing her spells, most likely. Or working some magic to protect us on the road.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I am just her servant.”

“Rather you than me,” Jay said. “After what I saw yesterday I would not want to sleep too close to her. I would be afraid of getting blown to bits.”

He looked at me as if he envied my bravery. I did not bother to point out that I had no choice in the matter.

“Was impressive,” said Ghoran. “Skulgrim rune-priest could not have done better.”

Jay and I stared at him. Neither of us had any idea what he was talking about. Other soldiers joined in. “I wish she hadn’t scared the Shadowlanders off so quickly,” said Samael, the big blonde-haired man muscled like a blacksmith. “I would have liked to blood my steel.”

Ghoran slapped him on the back. “That why you look so worried yesterday? You scared they would get away from you?”

“Something like that, you mad northern bastard,” Samael said. He grinned when he said it, showing big broad white teeth. One was missing and had been replaced with gold.

“I am glad we did not have to fight,” said Jay. “I did not like those odds, not at all. And I suspect if that Shadowlander mage had wanted to, he could have done as much harm as Grinner.”

“Then why didn’t he?” Samael asked.

I was an outsider. I had nothing to say to these hard, self-confident men, but suddenly and foolishly, I saw my opening. “Maybe he was exhausted from attacking Ghazan. He might have used up all his power for the day.”

As soon as I said it, I knew I had made a mistake. All of them stared at me, except Ghoran, who just said, “You think?”

It came to me that I was supposed to be just a servant. No. I was just a servant and I was not meant to be familiar with these things. I saw also that they were not things the soldiers were comfortable discussing. Who wants to feel his job is standing around waiting for some wizard to blast him to little pieces?

I felt my face flush and I studied my feet. “Maybe,” I mumbled.

Jay came to my rescue. “I heard Spider say something similar. Maybe we just got lucky yesterday. Maybe if we had arrived a bit earlier, we would have been joining those villagers in chains.”

Samael shook his huge shaggy head. “No. I would rather die than be a slave in the Shadowlands. I would open my wrists before I let them take me alive.”

I could not help myself. “Why?” I asked.

“They do terrible things to prisoners down there. Sacrifice them to the dark gods. Eat their souls. Warp their bodies with dark magic. What do you think those big brutes that Grinner ended were? They were men once like you and me, before the Shadowmages worked their blighted magic on them.”

I had heard my Da’s stories of course, and the tales the old storyteller in Khorba spun whenever somebody tossed him a copper penny but till then they had just been things to induce a shudder. I had lived close to the border all my life and I knew that the Shadow Kingdoms were ruled by sorcerers and things other than men, but it hit me then, really hit me, that yesterday I had been no more than a few hundred strides from one of them.

“I guarded a merchant’s caravan once between Solsburg and Tarnheim,” Samael continued. “Every last one of those men and their wives and their children carried poison to take if it looked like they were going to fall into Shadowlander hands.”

“Better fight,” said Ghoran. “Make them kill you. Send a few to meet their masters in the Hellblight. Or if me, send hundreds.”

Jay nodded his agreement and I could see more of the soldiers who had been listening doing the same. Once again, I sensed the frustration of the men after the events of the day before. They wanted a fight more now than they had done yesterday, but they were convincing themselves they had felt this way then.

An elbow hit my ribs, narrowly missed Red. I looked up to see Todd hulking over me. The dragonling pulled himself from the sling and hunched up on my shoulder, hissing.

I just had time to wonder where his companions were before I toppled backwards over the one who had crouched down behind me. Todd laughed at this crude piece of slapstick and the others joined in. I was an acceptable focus for the aggression they could not work out on Mistress Iliana.

I felt a surge of anger. If Red had not bounded free, I might have crushed him as I fell. Perhaps that was what the big man had intended.

Todd stopped laughing when Ghoran sent him tumbling over too. I just had time to roll to one side when he toppled like a great tree. Ghoran held his side and laughed. “Twice as funny,” he said.

Todd pulled himself to his feet, fists clenched. His face was red. The other soldiers were laughing at him now. He swung one enormous fist at Ghoran. If it had connected the Northman’s jaw would surely have broken. Ghoran barely moved but the fist flashed by.

Ghoran’s voice held real joy. “Now. Now. Todd Trollblood. Why break habit of lifetime and pick fight with someone who hit back?”

Todd growled, the sound of an angry beast. He reached out for Ghoran with both hands. Once again, he connected with nothing. The Northman gave no impression of moving with any haste. He hardly seemed to move at all. He stuck out his foot and Todd went tumbling down again. Todd’s friend, the one I had tripped over, pulled himself to his feet. He prepared to spring on Ghoran from behind. I hooked my foot around his leg and he too sprawled in the dirt. Jay stepped forward and put a heavy boot on his hand.

Red curled himself around my leg. I bent down and scooped him up. His tail encircled my wrist as if he was trying to anchor himself.

A ring formed with all the soldiers facing inward. Ghoran faced off against Todd, still smiling. I would not have in his place. Ghoran was a big man but Todd was bigger and looked much stronger and in the confined space of the circle he had an advantage. I made my way into the edge of the ring and watched.

The sour atmosphere of a few moments ago vanished, the tension released by this brawl. Todd moved forward arms outstretched in a half circle, moving carefully, one slow step at a time, determined not to fall into another trap.

Ghoran raised his hands in front of him, the first sign that he was treating this fight seriously. He let Todd close, then his hands moved, very fast, one, two. There was sharp crack where they connected with Todd’s head. The giant reeled back, blood flowing from his nose. He did not fall. Ghoran still smiled. His eyes were unblinking now, very pale blue.

“That the best you can do, Northman,” Todd asked. His voice was guttural with rage and hate. “My granny hit harder.”

“Thought we dancing.” Ghoran flipped his hand over and beckoned towards himself with all four fingers in the classic come-on sign of brawlers the world over. “If fight you want, fight you get. No blame me you get hurt.”

Todd moved with surprising speed for a man of his size. It was the spring of a wild beast. The weight of impact seemed to push Ghoran over and for a moment I feared for his life. Somehow though the Northman’s foot had got under Todd’s belly and, using the bigger man’s momentum, he threw him clear to land badly on his back. Ghoran rolled to his feet. Todd lay on the ground gasping. After a few moments he pulled himself up.

“I am going to kill you slowly, Northlander,” he said. You could tell from his tone he meant it.

“You serious?” Ghoran asked. “You want fight to death? You that stupid?”

Every man there heard the chill menace in Ghoran’s voice. Death radiated from him. I did not doubt that he would kill Todd if it came to it.

Todd felt it too. His eyes suddenly had the look of a trapped beast. He wanted to hurt Ghoran, but he was afraid now, and I don’t think he knew quite why. He also could not back down without losing face in front of every man present.

“I am going to kill you, Northlander.” He repeated the words very slowly as if he was trying to convince himself.

“Nobody is going to kill anybody,” said a calm authoritative voice. I looked around and saw the tall figure of Spider. “Your both going to be too busy marching with rocks in your packs.”

Ghoran’s face became bland. Todd actually looked relieved. Spider glared at every man present. “I don’t mind a little brawling. It relieves the tension. But no man in this company threatens another. Todd, I hear another word from your mouth about killing a brother and you’re out and I don’t care who your master is. Now the pair of you shake hands and go your separate ways.”

Spider in his own way was just as menacing as Ghoran. The Northlander grinned and stuck out his hand. For a moment I feared Todd would take the opportunity to strike him. I could virtually see the thought working its way across his low brow.

In the end, the two of them locked grips. Todd’s hand tightened as if he was trying to crush Ghoran’s fingers. The Northlander just smiled. As he had smiled when he had threatened to kill the man without saying the words and everyone had believed him.

I noticed Vorster standing behind the sergeant, looking for an excuse to intervene. His gaze shot from Ghoran to me then back to the Northlander. He gave a disgusted look to Todd who gazed upon his master with a beaten dog look and then he walked away. I knew the nobleman was not going to forget what had happened here.

After all the excitement the circle broke up with men speculating what might have happened if the sergeant had not intervened.

I walked over to Ghoran. As I approached, I heard Jay say, “You had better watch your back. Todd and his friends hold grudges.”

“I not scared,” Ghoran said.

“I believe that,” said Jay. “More fool you."

They both noticed me approaching. I looked up at Ghoran and said, “Thank you.”

“What for thanks?”

“You saved me from Todd. That’s twice. I won’t forget that.”

He grinned. “Just make sure your mistress no forget it and we both be happy.”

He laughed like a man who had not a care in the world. Once more he seemed like an ordinary, friendly young man but I could not forget the glimpse I had caught of the other Ghoran, the deadly one. I knew it would be better to have him as my friend than my enemy.

Red danced around in the sand, little wings flapping, as if trying to take flight.

Chapter Twenty-One

Not long afterwards I clambered onto the wagon. The company prepared to move out. The scouts had already departed. The riders were mounted, the marching infantry were drawn up in companies and ready to go. Spider gave Mistress Iliana the nod. She tapped on the drum and its steady beat rolled out. The soldiers began to march.

“What was all the fuss about?” she asked once I had guided the wagon down onto the road. I told her what had happened. She did not seem displeased by my account.

“It’s good that they got to blow off a little steam,” she said. “It will help after yesterday.”

“What do you mean, mistress?” Ahead of us the road rose towards distant mountains. Briefly, I wondered how long it was going to take us to get to our eventual destination, but other things were pressing on my mind.

“You saw it as well as I. The men resent what I did. No one likes to be made to feel useless, even by someone protecting their lives.”

“They were not useless,” I said, thinking about the way both Todd and Ghoran had fought. They were both hard, dangerous men, much more so than I.

“I did not say they were. I said they felt it. And that can be a bad thing to the likes of you and me.”

“In what way? You think they would turn on you? On us?”

“They turned on you, because they could not turn on me.”

I kept my mouth shut. There was no denying that.

“You were merely a proxy for me. It was not personal. Well, not for most of them. Maybe for Todd and Vorster. You are my servant and that makes you my stand-in. For better or worse.”

“I see, mistress,” I said.

“It is bad to cause such resentment. We need the protection of these men if we are to survive.”

I thought of what I had seen, of the way she had destroyed those monsters, of the wards we slept within, of the creature within the drum that watched over us. I had never met anyone less in need of protection than her. I said so.

She took a sip from the flask. I smelled alcohol and herbs. “Everybody must sleep,” she said. “Everybody must eat. Everybody needs someone to watch their back. Even wizards. Most especially wizards.”

I thought about that. She was laying careful stress on each word and it did not think it was because of her drinking.

“I am not immune to a dagger in the back,” she said. “Or a crossbow bolt fired from behind a boulder. Or poison in my food. Or any one of a hundred other ways that death might come.”

“Surely there are spells that can protect you, mistress.”

“There are but I cannot maintain all of them all the time and even if I could it would take all of my strength and all of my time to maintain them. And in no way would such a life be worth living.”

I thought about that. I begin to see what she was getting at. “People need company,” I said.

“People need company,” she agreed and there was such sadness in her voice that I wondered whether that was the real reason she had taken me on as an apprentice and why she was teaching me now. So many people were afraid of her and so many wanted something from her. Didn’t I? Did not Ghoran? And the Holy Sun alone knew how many others. “Wizards need allies.”

“Allies, mistress?”

“The thing you must realise is that we are few, very few, and they are many, very many. For every wizard there is perhaps ten thousand mundani, perhaps more. We must live among them and many of them hate us. Not all. Not even the majority, most likely. But a significant fraction and those odds being what they are, we will always be in danger.”

She paused. I sensed her burning gaze upon me. I felt the serpent of fire stir within its cage as if its mistress’s mood had upset it. I thought about her murdered apprentices. I thought about the way Vorster and Todd hated me for no reason. I could see that there was something to what she was saying. I thought about the witch I had seen burned. I tried to imagine a mob doing the same to Mistress Iliana, but I could not. Her blazing spells would have routed any crowd, no matter how enraged.

“You do not believe me,” she said.

“I have seen your power.”

“And I have told you it is not inexhaustible. We need allies. We need to find a place in the world. We need friends.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Surely it would make sense to make those friends among other wizards.”

“It would and it does, but it makes just as much sense to have friends among the mundani and if not friends, allies.”

I thought about Ghoran and Jay and Ruth. “Yes. I see that.”

“You had better. Someday your life may depend on it.”

“I am among the company now,” I said. “I am with you.”

And even as the words left my mouth I wondered if this whole conversation had been aimed at getting me to admit that one thing. Was there a brief smirk of triumph on her face?

“Yes, you are, but as you can see, even within the company there are those who would do you harm, and they do not even know what you are yet. They merely resent you for your association with me.”

I could see there was a lot to learn about being a wizard and perhaps most of it had nothing to do with casting spells.

Her face looked a little softer. “You will not always be with me, and you will need to find a place. Most wizards do. Some serve the church.” Something in her tone told me that she did not consider that a particularly good option. “Others serve powerful nobles or merchants. Or they serve in mercenary companies.”

“But they serve,” I said and my distaste for that idea showed in my voice. Magic had made me dream of being free of all shackles. Now she was telling me it merely imposed another set.

“They serve. Almost everyone in our world does. Even the nobles. They serve their feudal overlords. Even the kings, in theory, answer to the Holy Sun and to their people.”

That in theory told me exactly what she thought on the subject.

“What about the Shadow Kingdoms,” I said. “Wizards rule there?”

She looked as if she was considering striking me. She took a deep breath and said, “Never say that out loud again. Not even to me. If someone hears you, nothing will protect you. There are those whom even wizards fear.”

The way she said it was convincing, but I was young and I was sullen. “Like who?”

“Like the Order of the Dawn. Like the Reapers of Souls. Like the Claws of the Red Council. Like many others. The mundani have found ways of dealing with our kind, just as we have had to find ways of dealing with them.”

Once again, I felt a vast abyss yawning at me feet. Her statement had created a score of other questions in my mind, and I did not know where to begin asking them. I started with the most obvious.

“Who are they really, mistress? The Order of the Dawn, you mentioned them before.”

“The Order of the Dawn are a sect of knights sworn to the service of the Holy Sun. They have chapter houses across the Sunlands. They have thousands of soldiers armed and equipped to deal with mages and monsters. They have mages in their service and other things too. Creatures inhuman and possessed of ancient terrible knowledge.”

“Monsters and mages,” I said. I was not really surprised that she had mentioned the two in the same breath. After all a few scant days ago, I would have done the same thing myself. But then I had not thought of myself as a mage, and I did not think of myself as a monster.

“The worst are the guardians. Warriors trained to hunt and kill Old Ones, armed with swords that can slay even immortals and amulets which disrupt magic. In olden times, the Order kept to its mandate which was to protect humanity from the Old Ones. These days it serves the highest bidder.”

I thought about that. With every sentence she spoke I realised I had much to learn about the world in which I lived, and she could teach me. She had survived for decades amid all these dangers I knew nothing about.

“The Reapers of Souls?” I asked. The name sounded ominous enough already.

“A sect of assassins who serve the Courts of the Moon. They are mages themselves and that makes them doubly dangerous. The Old Ones send them to remove those who threaten their dominions. They lend their services to others in return for favours.”

She saw how intently I was taking all this in. “These are the most dangerous and remote threats you might have to face. If you do not draw the wrong sort of attention to yourself, you will never encounter any of them. If you do, my advice would be to flee as fast and as far as you can. There are other things much closer to hand and I would advise you to pay most attention to them.”

Before she could continue, I said, “The wrong sort of attention?”

“Killing people, enslaving people, casting dark magic, summoning dark things. It should be easy enough to understand. You have listened to the priests.”

“You kill people,” I said. I had not seen her do it. I had only seen her kill monsters and surely the Church would sanction that. But she served in a company of warriors. It seemed only logical she would kill others for pay. It was what they did after all.

She smiled at that. “Yes. But I am a war wizard.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“I am recognised by the Church and the Nobles as a military mage.”

I was even more curious now. “How does that work?”

“It dates to the time when all of the noble houses wanted to be able to employ wizards the way the Church did. They wanted access to the same power. They had the money and the strength to get such charters recognised by the Church.”

“There was a time when only the Church had wizards?”

“Once they had a monopoly on the Power. Their wizards were called templars, priests of light, healers, many such things. They still are. Any child found with a trace of power was held to belong either to the Light or the Shadow. If they belonged to the Light, they went to a monastic brotherhood to be trained. If they belonged to the Shadow, they were burned.”

“How could they tell which were which?”

Her cynical smile told me the answer before she spoke. “The ones who went willingly to the brotherhoods belonged to the Light. Those who refused belonged to the Shadow.”

“Surely there are spell that can detect the taint of Shadow,” I said. “You have practically told me as much yourself.”

“There are indeed. Such spells were administered by the brotherhoods, at the monasteries. If you refused to go, why obviously the Shadow was in your heart…”

“You do not sound as if you believe that?”

“How observant you are. Let us just say it was a system open to abuse. It still is. There are many nations across the Dragon Sea where it is still in force in some shape or form.”

“Why is it not here?”

“Because this is a land at war and the Church has not always been strong here, and in their wars with the Shadow Princes and the Children of the Moon, the Sunlander nobles often have had need of mages. The Church then, like the Church now, would rather see this land under Sunlander control than not. They licensed the use of mages, originally trained by them, to the noble houses. Since then, things have evolved, as they often do.”

I looked at her. I saw a flaw in what she was saying. “You say the Church claimed all mages belonged to them, but what about those who simply were not found by representatives of the Church. Surely they could not all live where they could be found or tested.”

She nodded. “Some managed to teach themselves and survive. Many others went mad or fell to the Shadow or were devoured by demons. You see the Church has a point. That is why to this day a wizard can still be called before the inquisition and be tested for the stigmata of evil.”

Again, her sour tone told me that she did not approve of this. I suspected she had some personal reason for her feelings, but I was more concerned with my own hide and the possibility of being called before the questioners of the Church. I had seen one at work once, at the witch-burning. It had been disturbing even when I did not feel the possibility of having to face the question myself.

“It is a system that can be abused,” she said. “I have seen it happen.”

“To who?”

“That is not important now. Someday I will tell you. All you need to know is that you should avoid giving anyone reason to bring you before the inquisition. It can be made to end badly if you have the wrong sort of enemies.”

“I have no enemies,” I said. Even then it was a lie. I thought about Vorster. He was a nobleman. His family had influence. He could if he wished have exactly this thing done to me. Perhaps he could have it done to Mistress Iliana which is why she made no move to stop his persecution of me.

“You will,” she said. “They come to us all.”

I thought about her murdered apprentices and the sorcerer in scarlet and black. Yes, she knew what she was talking about.

“What about the Moonlands,” I said. “Is there an Inquisition there too?”

“No. In the Moonlands wizards are made much of. They are second only to the Old Ones themselves – as long as they serve the Old Ones.”

I saw a pattern emerging. “It seems that everywhere we must serve,” I said.

“Mostly that is true. That is why you must be careful when you use magic.”

There it was again, the stress on being careful. I thought about her flamboyant use of the power, her drinking. She did not seem careful.

“It was not always this way,” I said. “The Solari Emperors were all wizards.”

“And all saints,” she said. “I can see you paid attention when the priests read the Testaments.”

I thought about the long Sunsday sermons. The smell of incense in the Church, the quiet voice of Frater Tobias from the Lectern, speaking of the glory of the Holy Sun and reciting tales from the scriptures that always made a moral point.

It seems strange now but at the time they represented one of the few breaks I ever got from the life of a goatherd on a farm. The stories conjured up far times and other days. They were full of miracles and battles and monsters and demons. They made simple points in ways even peasants could understand. They were dramatic. They told us how the Holy Sun and his prophets wanted us to be. The only things I had to compare with them were my father’s stories of his times in the war and those were different, more realistic, less strange, sometimes with no real point at all. It took me a long time to realise that the stories of most people’s lives are like that and most stories contain the morals we give them.

“The Solari Emperors no longer rule,” she said. “Their empire is gone.”

“The Sunlanders claim to be their descendants.”

“They are and they are not.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Empire collapsed in civil war. Its rulers were wizards. They fought each other. They killed each other. They did terrible things.”

This I knew from the Sunsday sermons. “They were corrupted by the Shadow,” I said.

“So the Church tells us,” Iliana replied.

“I expect you are going to tell me differently.”

She shook her head. “I would not dare do anything so blasphemous. The Church is essentially correct. Many of the Solari were corrupt and they did do terrible things. Those things brought all wizards into disrepute and they cost the First Families their power.”

I scoured my mind for bits of remembered sermons. “You mean the Patricians.”

“Yes. They were the real rulers of the Empire. The Emperor was chosen from their ranks. Always. He had to be. They were all mageblood. That is why they were the priestly class. That is why they could touch the Light. The commoners did not have the Power. They were mundani.”

“Except some were not,” I said remembering the story of Manutharis, the saint who had emerged from the slums.

“Of course,” she said. “The power sometimes arises among those who cannot trace a bloodline. It does not mean there is not one. People are people. They sleep with those they are not supposed to. But when mageblood were found they were always adopted into one of the First Families. Does that remind you of anything?”

“The way the Church recruits mages it finds. If what you have told me is correct.”

“Clever boy,” she said. There was a goading tone to her voice. “If you study history you will notice such patterns repeat themselves often and often. The Solari came to the Old Kingdoms because their home islands sank beneath the waves. A cataclysm caused by the use of magic apparently. They built an Empire which then collapsed in a – you guessed it– cataclysm caused by magic. The Solari had tales that they had originally come to their home islands fleeing a cataclysm caused by magic. And on and on.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

“Because I can read and before we are done you will be able to as well. You will be able to study the ancient texts yourself, judge them for yourself and decide whether I have been misleading you.”

“I thought I was to learn magic.”

“You will find it all goes together.” I thought she was merely putting another obstacle in my way, placing another burden on my shoulders. She saw my expression.

“It is not enough to have power,” she said. “You must know why you are using it. And you must understand why other people do the things they do.”

“It seems being a wizard is more complicated than I imagined.”

“It is more complicated than anyone imagines when they put their feet upon the path, and it only gets more so.”

“Why am I not surprised that you would tell me that?”

“Because you are an intelligent boy,” she said. “But right now, that is all you are. Never forget that. You have brains and talent and they may take you far. But everyone has to start somewhere.”

I waited for the threat I knew was coming. It was her pattern. I already knew her well enough to know that.

“You must learn, boy, or you will die.”

“You will kill me,” I said.

“You will kill yourself and you might take a lot of other people with you. You have seen that in your dreams. Do not let it become a reality.”

“How could that happen?”

“You have many questions, boy, and that is good. But we’ve talked enough of this for the nonce. There will be time enough before we reach Solsburg to answer your question. Think on what I said.”

She returned to reading her book. It was clear that for the moment our conversation was over.

Chapter Twenty-Two

That evening, after my reading lesson, I walked Ruth back, under the moonlight. We took the long way, around, walking by the edge of the Bleak Lands.

The stars glittered above us. Just for a moment I sensed something else there. A winged shadow blocked the pinpoints of starlight as it skimmed by overhead. Perhaps it was an owl or a buzzard, but I did not think so. There was a presence to it that made me shudder. Red woke. He looked up in the same direction I had, gave a small mewling cry and then subsided into silence.

“What is it?” Ruth asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not cold,” she said. “Why did you shiver?”

“I thought I saw something in the sky. I’ve felt something like it before.”

“A wind demon, an Old One?”

“I wish I knew.”

“You think it’s following us?”

“More likely it’s following Lady Alysia or looking for her.”

It was her turn to shudder. She reached out and took my hand. She was shaking.

“Will this never stop,” she said.

“Perhaps when we get to Solsburg, to the Duke’s castle. No one would dare attack her there. It’s too well protected.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“My mistress is.” It was a lie, of course, but she seemed to need reassurance.

“Assassins can come in many disguises.” Ruth said. “The way the one who attacked Lady Alysia in the shrine was garbed, he could easily have been taken for a priest. Except at the last second. There was something about his eyes then, an emptiness.”

“You sound like you were there.”

“I was. I thought for a moment he was going to kill me, but then…” Her hand shook even more, and she tugged it from my grip. She looked up into my eyes as if measuring me, as if weighing things in her mind. Just for a moment she looked as if she was going to speak but then out in the darkness something shrieked. A crashing noise sounded in the bushes.

“What was that?” Ruth asked.

“A hare. Something’s chasing it. An owl maybe or a spike-eared fox.”

“How can you know that?” Whatever had been on her mind, it was there no longer. If she had been thinking of telling me something, the moment had passed.

“I spent enough time watching my father’s goats to recognise those sounds.”

“It seems like everything out here is being hunted.”

“Or hunting,” I said. “But not everything. Some things are just watching– like I watched the goats.”

“But mostly it’s kill or be killed, eat or be eaten.”

“I’ve heard most of the world is like that. Even the big cities. Especially the big cities.”

“I wish it wasn’t.”

“Might as well wish the Holy Sun did not circle the earth. The wishes of people like you or me don’t count for much. But you were talking about what happened in the shrine. Did you really see what happened?”

She stared at me and she swallowed. She thought for another moment and she muttered, “I did. From far too close. He was coming right for me and then she got in the way...”

“Lady Alysia?”

She seemed startled when I said the name, then looked away. “Of course, Lady Alysia. Who else?”

She fell silent after that, as if afraid to say more.

“It must have been horrible,” I felt like I was missing something here, and I could not think of anything else to say. It encouraged her to speak.

“It is horrible to think about it. Being hunted that way. Being in fear of your life constantly. Not knowing who to talk to or who to trust.”

“The way you are talking you’d think you were the one being hunted.”

Her laughter was odd. She looked right at me. Her pupils seemed very large. “It scares me and it frightens me to see her lying there, not knowing if there will be another attack. Not knowing whether she will die or not. Not knowing what is going to happen.”

She looked small and scared and vulnerable. I reached out and drew her too me. She was shaking again. She hugged me back. Her face was wet. I took my sleeve and wiped the area around her eyes.

She sniffed and rubbed her nose and then withdrew from my clasp. I was disappointed. I had liked the warmth of her in my arms and the scent of her in my nostrils.

“Nothing’s going to happen to her,” I said. “She’s surrounded by soldiers and my mistress is watching over her.”

“Why would anybody want to kill her anyway? She’s just a young woman who wants to get on with her life.”

“My mistress thinks someone may want to prevent her being married. There is supposed to be a marriage alliance in the works.”

“Your mistress tells you things like that?” She sounded shocked. It was my turn to look evasive. I was supposed to keep secret my role as apprentice.

“I sometimes overhear things I shouldn’t,” I said. My voice was very quiet. I had to force the words out. I did not like lying but I could not see what else I could do.

She looked disappointed by my answer. Having started talking I could not bring myself to stop. “She also thinks that if the marriage takes place Lady Alysia will be safe. The whole purpose of trying to have her killed will have failed.”

She let out a long sigh then was silent for much too long. Red stirred on my shoulder, shifting his weight. His tail tickled my neck as it looped part way around it.

“Let’s talk about something more cheerful,” she said.

“As you wish– what would you like to talk about?”

“Do you think you’ll stay Mistress Iliana’s servant for long?”

“I am indentured for seven years.”

“And after that?”

“I have not thought that far ahead,” I said. There was truth in that too. It was almost half my then lifetime in the future, so far away I had difficulty imagining it. “But I don’t think I will remain a servant.”

I thought in seven years I will have learned a great deal of magic. Who knew what might be possible then or what I might be able to do? I said nothing. I could hardly tell her I was going to be a wizard.

By unspoken consent we walked further apart as we reached the area near Lady Alysia’s coach. I wished her goodnight and she looked at me for a long time before she replied.

“Good night,” she said at last, but once again I felt as if she was going to say something else.

“You took your time,” Mistress Iliana said, when I returned. She was waiting by the fire when I returned, looked at the waning moon.

“I was talking with Ruth, mistress,” I said.

“You two always seem to find a lot to talk about.” There was a strange stress on her words as if she had wanted to say something else.

“We are friends, mistress,” I said. She looked away into the darkness, and I had the feeling she was disturbed by that. She took a sip from her flask and she saw me watching her.

“Be careful of too much wine. It is a bad thing for a wizard.”Her voice was a little slurred. My eye strayed to the flask that was never far away from her hand. She gave me a sour smile. “In this, it is a case of do as I say, not as I do.”

“Why is too much wine a bad thing for a wizard, mistress,” I said.

“Magic is a thing of intellect and emotion as well as power. You must concentrate on your runes and fire them with your passion. Wine leads to too much emotion and too clouded an intellect. You can still draw on your power, but the results can be disproportionate and not what you desire. Taken to an extreme you can do things under the influence of wine that you would never consider doing sober. Think of the way men beat their wives and children when drunk. Think of someone with the power of a mage in a similar rage.”

Something in her voice told me she was not speaking hypothetically.

“I can’t do anything, mistress, so I doubt that would be a problem.”

“You can’t do anything yet,” she said. “That one little word makes all the difference.”

She took a sip from her flask and seemed to come to a decision. She took out the runestone she had once given me. She closed her eyes and I felt power surge around her, flowing through the wardstones she had set around us. The air shimmered and I knew without having to be told that we were somehow cut off from the rest of the company.

She handed the runestone to me and said, “Tell me what you see.”

Sudden excitement filled me. It seemed as if she was really going to teach me some magic.

“I see a lot of lines in a very complex pattern, so complex it is hard to follow and when I try it hurts my eyes.”

“You are looking at a word,” she said.

“A word?”

“Every rune is a word written in Eldrak, the Old High Tongue. Some say it is the language in which the Source wrote the universe.”

“At first dawn, the Word,” I said.

“In the beginning, the first of many words. These are them. Every word describes a concept perfectly, at least as far as the mind of a mage is capable of apprehending it.”

“This is just a word?” My disappointment showed in my voice.

“It is a word that describes its subject so perfectly it is its subject. It allows you to call on that subject and manipulate it if you know the correct sequence of other words. This is one way magic works.”

“You mean there are others?”

She nodded. “Many, many others. Some say as many ways as there are wizards. There are people who can work with the fundamental forces of magic who have never seen a rune. There are people who use rituals and prayers and invocations to gods and demons. You do not need to worry about those because you will not be learning them.”

“Why?”

“Because this is the quickest and easiest way I know. It is also the most potent.”

There was no arguing with that. “So what does this word mean?”

“You tell me.”

I thought about that for a moment. “It means light.”

“Close. It means a specific form of light. It means the light of the Holy Sun. That is important.”

“Why?”

“Because the light of the Holy Sun will burn Old Ones and drive back the Shadow. It is a true light. There are other forms which are not. Again, you do not need to worry about those because you will not be dealing with them for a very long time.”

I thought about the spell she had just cast. The way the air shimmered. The way it tasted. “You are working with false light right now.”

Her smile was shocked and proud. “You sensed that?”

“I guessed it.”

“A very accurate guess and one that shows the extent of your talent. I have woven an illusion around us. Anyone watching us will see only two sleeping bodies.”

Another thought struck me. “You chose this rune deliberately when you tested me.”

Another nod. “It is one of the easiest to learn, one of the basics, a building block for many other spells.”

“But that is not the only reason, is it? It would burn me if I contained the Shadow. Would I have even been able to use it?”

“You were not supposed to be able to use it,” she said. She was being evasive but much as I wanted to pursue the question, I wanted to pursue learning magic more. I studied the rune closely, trying to remember what it had felt like that first night. I traced the lines, but nothing came. My head started to hurt but I felt no surge of power. I kept squinting and concentrating but nothing happened.

“Nothing,” I said at last. “Nothing’s happening.”

“I can see that,” she said.

“Why?”

“Magic is not a simple thing. You cannot just call upon it and expect it to respond. Your mind must be receptive. Your mood must be appropriate. Your breathing must be just so.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Believe me, it is true. You are manipulating a great force with nothing but your mind and spirit. We are not creatures born to use magic, like the Old Ones. We can only do it under certain circumstances. That is why so many mages use rituals and drugs and chants and physical adjuncts. To prepare their minds to contact the aether.”

“You don’t.”

“I have been using the spells you have seen me use for many years. Tell, me when you first drove a wagon were you as relaxed about it as you are now. Could you guide the beasts without thought, while your mind dwelt on other things?”

“No, of course not.”

“Think of learning Eldrak as being like that. To begin with you need to concentrate very hard on what you are doing, particularly at the earliest stages of learning. Eventually things will become second nature and you will be able to do other things. You will be able to move from simply speaking one word, like a baby learning to talk, to stringing together sentences which are grammatically correct and can be understood by everyone. Or in the case of magic, to overstretch an analogy, by the powers on which you are calling.”

“Sentences,” I said. My head was whirling. Just comprehending the rune on the stone was fantastically difficult. She was suggesting that to learn to do what she did I would need to be able to hold and manipulate multiple runes in my head.

“Sentences,” she said. “Sometimes you will need to call upon many forces and mingle them and modify them. You need to hold the runes for light and illusion and mastery in your head to ward us as I am doing now. You will need to be able to hold them in a fixed pattern if you wish to maintain that spell and cast another, or even speak in coherent sentences, again, as I am doing now.”

“You are still casting the spell as you are talking to me?” I had a sudden image of how fantastically complex that must be and yet she did not appear to be under any strain. She was talking normally.

“There are modifiers that you can work into a spell that help maintain it with a minimum of effort, but yes, I am still casting the spell and others that I maintain.”

“That must be difficult,” I said. I thought about her strange silences, and the times when she seemed lost in thought. I wondered if she was casting spells then or maintaining them.

“It comes with practise. Over time you learn more runes and more modifiers, and your mind learns to accommodate them.”

“Accommodate?”

“Eldrak is not a language meant for humans. Our minds have difficulty dealing with it. The Old Ones and some of the other Elder Races could use it with a fluency we will never have.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“And as usual you don’t need to, at this stage. You just need to believe me when I tell you it is so. The language of magic does not come naturally to humans as it does to certain other races. It can drive us mad and it poses other dangers.”

“It seems that everything connected with magic does that.”

“There’s no need to sound so sour, boy. It does not change the way the world is. If you want to be a mage just be grateful for the fact that you are born with the gift to use the power at all.”

“Are you?” It was an impertinent question, but her tone irritated me.

“I am. Being a wizard is not without its problems, drawbacks and responsibilities but there is nothing I would rather be.” Her voice was utterly sincere. I thought about the way she could wield power and what that made her, and I could understand why. Another question occurred to me.

“What happens if someone who cannot wield the power reads one of the runes?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether they have any sensitivity to magic. Some of them will feel something. Some will be altered by the experience. It might drive them mad, as it drives some mages mad. In most cases, they will see only a complex pattern.”

“Wait a minute– looking at runes can drive mages mad?”

“Yes. If you attempt to master a rune that your mind is not yet capable of accepting, you might damage it. The same might happen if you try to master a rune that is antipathetic to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just as certain mages have a gift for comprehending certain types of magic, certain mages have the opposite. We say that certain types of runes are antipathetic to them. They will always struggle to master those types of magic and will never perform it as well as those who are gifted or who simply do not have the problem. I am antipathetic to healing magic myself. I have never been able to go beyond the simplest of curative spells.”

I thought about it for a moment. “But you are gifted at destruction. There would seem to be a balance there.”

“That is not always the way these things go but in my case you are correct. You are not the first to point it out either.” She saw the disappointment on my face and grinned. “You are the first to do so after so little schooling though. You are gifted, boy, no doubt about that.”

I considered what she had told me. It was a warning and an obvious one. I was not to try and go beyond certain limits. I had no idea whether it was true or not. Instinct told me it was, but that might not make it any less self-serving on her part.

“So I am limited to learning the most basic runes,” I said.

“Hark at the child,” she said. “Yes, and just as well for all our sakes. There are other dangers than insanity if you try a spell beyond your strength. Assuming you can force it into your mind, you can drain yourself of all power, burn yourself out when you try and cast it. You can attract the attention of certain entities it is better not to. They come uncalled when such a spell runs out of control, like sharks summoned by blood in the water. If that happens you are lost and most likely those around you as well.”

“I will be possessed.”

“Yes.”

“It seems to me that there is much that is right in what the Holy Inquisitors say.”

“I would not dream of denying it, boy. Now, if you are done with your own inquisiting, can we proceed with the teaching?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Runes are divided up into levels of complexity by those who know. The simplest are known as runes of the First Order of Magnitude. The most complex currently known belong to the Fifth Order.”

“Currently known?”

“There are tales and rumours of spells going all the way to the Tenth Order and beyond. Those are spells that could shake the world. Even Fifth Order spells are potent beyond the measure of most mages. A wizard who masters them can destroy armies, travel hundreds of leagues without passing through the lands in between, bend the weather to his will.”

“Can you do that?”

She shook her head. “I have neither the power nor the talent. With some effort I can wield spells of the Fourth Order but that is the limit of my strength, if not my understanding.”

“Why do you mention strength and understanding?”

“Because both are limits on a mage. It is possible to comprehend a spell without having the strength to cast it. It is perhaps possible to have the strength to cast a spell but not be able to understand it. We do not really know.”

“Because someone in that position would not be able to learn such powerful spells in the first place?”

“Precisely so. It’s something that every wizard comes up against, those limits. Either your mind or your power will fail you.”

“Is it not possible to increase those? My brother was weak until he started lifting sacks of stones. Now he is as strong as I.”

“That is what a great deal of magical training is about,” she said softly. “We build our strength in the Power. We increase our flexibility of mind. We do it through practise and sometimes we get increases in both for reasons that no one quite understands. Just as we can lose the gift through lack of practise, ageing, injury, burnout. Sometimes we lose the power without ever finding out why.”

That was a frighteningly long list of ways to lose your power before ever you started. I swallowed and I looked at her. “I am ready to begin.”

Her eyes crinkled at the corners. The makeup showed small cracks. Her too-red lips drew back to reveal her small predator’s teeth. “I am glad to hear it. Look at the rune. Follow the patterns. Concentrate on them.”

I did so. I squinted at them in the moonlight. I waited expectantly to feel the glow of power within myself.

Nothing happened.

I frowned and concentrated harder, tracing the pattern with my eyes, trying to find my way through the labyrinth, to return to the place I had found before.

Nothing happened.

I ground my teeth and glared at the stone. I focused all my will on it, seeking to draw a response from it. My jaw tightened. I felt the muscles strain in my neck.

Nothing happened.

My face flushed with anger. My nostrils flared. My fists clenched.

My mistress laughed. I glared at her.

“That won’t help,” she snapped. “Give your attention to the rune.”

I turned my eyes back to the stone. I stared and stared and stared. Minutes dragged by. The fire burned low. I was aware of my breathing rasping in and out of my lungs, of my heart pounding at my chest. Sweat dripped on my brow now.

I slammed the stone down. “It is not working.”

“Apparently,” she said.

“Is it the same stone?”

She raised an eyebrow, reached out, picked up the stone. A heartbeat later it glowed. Light flooded from the lines of the rune. It picked out the pattern, magnified on the ground around us.

“It is the same stone.”

“What is wrong with it?”

“Nothing. It is exactly as it was on the night I tested you.”

“Then why is it not working?”

She put her chin on her fist and looked at me. “Why do you think?”

“I don’t know.” I had to force the words out of my mouth. I felt like lashing out at her, but I knew how foolish that would be. Unfair as well. This was not her fault.

“It is me.”

She made a small gesture with her left hand indicating I should continue.

“I cannot tap its power.”

“The stone has no power. That must come either from within you or from the surrounding aether. How did you tap it then?”

“I don’t know.”

“And yet you did. What was different?”

“I was afraid. I had no idea what was expected of me. Something happened but I don’t know why.”

“And there is the nub of your problem.”

“My problem?”

“You are the one seeking to learn. I already know how to cast this spell.”

“You are supposed to be my teacher.”

“And I am trying to teach you, but you must learn!”

“What must I learn?”

“To control your temper and not to snap at me, for one thing, boy.”

“I apologise, mistress, but I am frustrated.”

“As is only natural and as you will be a thousand times as you try to master the Art. The first thing a mage must learn is patience. The power comes in its own time. Not in yours.”

“But it came before.”

“And it will come again.”

“What is wrong with me?”

“Nothing. You are seeing something that happens to every apprentice mage. Something that apparently not even you are immune to.”

“And what would that be, mistress?”

“Usually the first time anyone works a spell is when they are under a huge strain. Sometimes a young witch will burn down a house when her virtue is threatened. A young wizard will call down lightning on robbers without knowing how. You were frightened the night we first met. And you were under strain. And the power had been building in you for a long time without an outlet.”

“And you put me under pressure,” I said, seeing it for the first time. “And forced me to tap into it.”

She shook her head. “You put yourself under pressure.”

“And I did again just now, and nothing happened.”

“You tried to pull the power to you, to make the rune obey your command. You tried to will it so with your conscious mind.”

I nodded.

“A great deal of magic is not performed with the conscious mind. It is performed on a much different level by a part that does not think at all. It simply does.”

“I see,” I said, although I did not. I stared into the distance, wondering whether the ridgeline I was looking at was real or simply an illusion woven by Mistress Iliana.

“The part of your mind that can touch the aether is dormant, asleep. You are not afraid. It has no reason to reach out and you do not know how to make it.”

“Can you show me how to do that?”

“I can point you in that direction, but every wizard must find out what works best for them by themselves.”

I glared at her. It seemed everything she said was an evasion. I wondered what she could really teach me. She laughed again.

“I looked at my master the same way when he said such things. I learned. You can to.”

“I hope so.”

“You will. You are merely encountering the first of many obstacles. There are far worse ones ahead. If you give up at the first hurdle you are no use to me.”

There was a threat implicit in those words. “You said that if I do not learn then I will become a danger to myself and those around me.”

“There is a solution to that.”

“You will kill me?”

“That would be a last resort. Before that I would try and burn the power out of you.”

“Try?”

“It does not always work, particularly with ones such as you, in whom the power is naturally strong. The side-effects of doing so are not good either. It might be better for you if you died.”

“Being a mage does not seem to be a particularly pleasant or easy profession.”

“No one ever said it would be.”

All this discussion was doing nothing but frighten and frustrate me. I gave my attention back to the stone. I focused my attention on it. I strained. I did my best to relax. I tried and tried and tried but nothing I could do would make the power come.

Eventually, Mistress Iliana must have grown bored with my silence and my straining and my sullen looks. She said, “It is late, boy, and we travel tomorrow. Go to sleep.”

A wave of tiredness passed over me, and I did. Such was her power. There were no bad dreams.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The sun flared over the eastern mountains while the camp came awake around us. Men headed to clumps of boulders to do their business. The cook lit his fire and prepared his porridge. I collected food for myself and Mistress Iliana. My head still buzzed with what she had told me the night before.

I recalled what she had done last. She had sent me to sleep and my sleep had been dreamless and for that I was thankful, but I did not like it. I made me feel weak and helpless and completely in her power. I supposed it was meant to. I had no way of fighting back. I did not have any idea how to and the only way I was going to learn was by listening to her. Not that my efforts had achieved much.

I was so preoccupied I paid little attention to the rest of the company. The bad atmosphere of the previous day had receded. There was no muttering. No one tried to trip me. The cook handed me the bowls without comment and gave me two mugs of watered wine. I collected a bit of sausage for Red.

I looked around to see if I could see Ghoran or Jay or Big Samael but there was no sign of them. There was no sign of Todd and his friends either. Or Ruth. It seemed it was too early for company of any sort.

I took the food back to Mistress Iliana. She nodded and returned to reading the book. I was tempted to ask her what was in it but the look of concentration on her brow told me that would not be a good idea. I sat down near her and ate in silence, studying the sky as it brightened.

People think the Bleak Lands are lifeless, but they are not. The creatures that live there are sparse, but there are many different sorts. The plants that grow are not exactly edible– they are spiny and sometimes poisonous, but they can be lovely in their own way.

You sometimes get the impression that the denizens of the Bleak Lands hate life but that is not true. They are simply determined to hold on to it themselves with tooth and claw and spine. There is a loveliness to the land that grows on you the longer you live there, and I spent the most formative years of my life amid it.

I watched the birds hover on thermals, and I knew that they were observing me just as closely to see if I stopped moving and might provide them with a meal. I had noticed the same thing often enough when watching my father’s goats.

I played with Red and thought about magic and Ruth until it was time to depart. There was a mystery about what she had said last night that I had only been distracted from by Mistress Iliana’s attempts to teach me. Needless to say, it did nothing to diminish the attraction I felt.

As the road rose towards the mountains there seemed to be less dust. I certainly spent less time rubbing it from my eyes and breathing it in. Now all I had to get used to it was the smell of horse piss and dung as it was dropped on the road by the cavalry ahead of us. My mistress continued to read, and I guided the wagon along the road. It was easy at this point. Just follow the ruts. It had been a bright dawn and it was a glorious sunny day. It was not quite as hot as it was in the lands below. By noon it was hot enough to make us sweat, but the air did not shimmer and I was not that sense of being oppressed by the sun that was so easy to come by in the lowlands.

Of course, the horses found it harder climbing upslope as did the soldiers. Nonetheless they seemed to appreciate the lower temperature. It offset their complaints about going uphill.

Red scampered around, crawling all over me. My thoughts drifted between my conversation with Ruth last night and my failure to work magic. Only gradually did I become aware of the changes taking place around me.

The route took us towards a gap in the mountains. I noticed even at a distance that there was something odd about the shape of the pass we were heading towards. As the day wore on it became clearer what exactly was strange.

Two mighty figures loomed before us, hundreds of feet high and carved from the bones of the mountains themselves. They wore armour of a peculiar sort. Each figure wore a breastplate inscribed with an elder sign and a kilt made of leather straps. High greaves covered their legs. Similar armour covered their arms. Each held an oval shield that covered half of their body. In the other hand they held a lance tipped with crystal. Those gems looked tiny attached to those monstrous weapons but must have been at least the size of my father’s house. Even in the daylight they shimmered. The statues stood like sentinels looking down on the pass. They made me feel like an insect. I had no doubt that that was exactly what they were supposed to do.

Mistress Iliana looked up from her book and said, “the Sentinels. The Solari guardians of Asurean’s Gate. We are making good time.”

There was nothing of the awe that I felt in her voice. It was as if she had seen the Sentinels many times and become inured to their majesty. I stared and stared and stared. If the route had not been so straight and the beasts so docile we would undoubtedly have gone off the road.

The eyes of those monstrous stone figures glared down at me and I felt as if I was being judged and not a merciful way. I knew then that those huge statues had been set there is a warning to those who would challenge the might of the Solari emperors. They were a statement of power. More than that they were a statement of mastery. Who would defy those who could make such a thing? Who would dare face the might of an empire that chopped through mountains and set its seal on them?

“Close your mouth,” Mistress Iliana said. “Unless you want flies to buzz into it.”

“Mistress,” I said very softly. “I have never seen such…”

My voice failed me, and I simply could not find the words to describe what I was feeling. She closed the book with a snap. “Everybody feels that way the first time they see those statues. It’s what they’re meant to do. Look closely and you can see the enchantments woven about them.”

I squinted. There was an odd shimmer surrounding the bodies of the statues. If she had not mentioned that I would have simply assumed it was heat haze at least until I had got closer and felt the power surrounding those huge bodies. “They are awesome,” I said.

“They are meant to be, but if you want to see what magic is really capable of look at the walls of the pass.”

I did. They were sheer and smooth and it dawned on me that the Solari really had cut this pass out of the heart of the mountain. Indeed, when I looked, I saw that between the statues lay a tunnel that vanished into the depths of the mountainside. “Magic did this?” I said.

She nodded. “It would have taken ten thousand men years to excavate that tunnel. Asurean and his clan did it in a month. Of course, they were keen to get grips with the Kharonian Death Lords and drive them from their redoubts.”

“You are talking about Emperor Asurean.”

“I am indeed.”

“He must have been mighty.”

“Mightier than any now practising magic,” she said.

“He was the Chosen of the Sun.”

“He was,” she said. Her mocking smile appeared. “But I suspect that is not the reason his power cannot now be matched.”

I looked at her, knowing she would tell me what she wanted to in her own time.

“You are learning to keep your mouth closed,” she said. “That is good for you and for the flies.”

She gathered her thoughts for a moment, then said, “It takes an enormous amount of aether to shape a mountain.”

“Yes, mistress,” I said.

“When aether is used it is consumed like coal or wood when it is burned.”

I nodded to show I understood.

“Sometimes it does not come back. Sometimes when it does come back there is less of it than there was before.”

I remembered the stacks of wood my family kept beside the house for winter nights. I remembered how those stacks would be depleted over the long moons of the cool season. I remembered gathering more wood in the summer from the forests on the slopes of the nearby hills. I asked her if the return of aether was like this.

“Not quite,” she said. “More like water flowing into a well from deep underground. In most places you cannot exhaust that well completely. In some places aether flows so strongly that you can accomplish almost anything. In other places, there is no aether at all. It is exhausted or so tainted by blight that it has turned into something else entirely.”

I saw the point she was making then. “You are saying that Asurean and the others used up so much magic that it still had not been replaced.”

“Well reasoned,” she said. “It is possible that they used so much magic that they damaged whatever mechanism replenishes the aether in this area. Or…”

She let the question hang in the air. I looked at the statues, at the spells that shimmered around them. “Or the Sentinels themselves are tapping into the flow of the aether and prevent it being replenished.”

“Excellent,” she said. “You understand. Now imagine thousands of such mighty artefacts dotted across their empire all tapping into the flows of magic.”

“It means there is less aether available for everybody else.”

“Yes.”

“Why not simply destroy the artefacts?” It was an obvious question.

She fell silent for a moment. “Look at those statues,” she said. “How would you destroy them?”

I saw what she meant. They were gigantic. They weighed thousands of tons. They would be difficult to scale and even more difficult to deface or destroy with mortal instruments.

“Magic,” I said.

Her lip curled. “Unmake what the Solari Emperors built? Even if you had the strength, think about what you are saying. Those are sacred objects. The Church would declare you outcast. The Order of the Dawn would come for you.”

“So we must live with things that deny us the possibility of equalling our forebears,” I said. There was a certain amount of bitterness in my voice. I do not know why. I was a young and powerless boy and the chances of my ascending such heights were very low. It was not even something I had ever considered.

“There are other reasons,” she said.

“And what are they, mistress?”

“Those artefacts all form part of a pattern. They channel magic in certain ways, prevent certain things from happening. If one of them was destroyed, it would affect the flow of energy through the whole system. The backlash would be enormous. Terrible things would happen.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it has already happened once. When the Empire collapsed. When wizards lost their grip on temporal power. No one wants that to happen again.”

I thought about what she had said before, about patterns repeating themselves, about the Solari exile from the home islands. I thought about flows of magic great as the one that had sculpted this mountain. I multiplied that by thousands and imagined all that power running wild. It would indeed be terrible.

“I can see you are starting to understand,” she said.

And I was. I fell into silence contemplating those awesome warriors. My mistress gave her attention back to her book. The road unwound before us.

That night we made camp in the shadow of those great statues. Near us one huge sandaled foot crushed the ground. It was larger by far than my father’s house. One of its toes was larger. At first no one talked much and then everyone talked loudly as if unwilling to admit that they had been frightened by the presence of the statue when we first arrived.

It was cold on the mountainside by night. Men produced cloaks from within their backpacks and they wore any extra clothing that they had. Of course, I had nothing. I stood shivering until Mistress Iliana looked up, shook her head, went into the back of our wagon and dragged out a cloak. It was embroidered with runic patterns and patched in various places and it was clearly one of her old ones, but I was grateful to her nonetheless and put it on. Around it clung a smell of incense and perfume and something else I could not quite place but which are was strongly associated with her.

I went back down into the camp to get food for the evening. Many men huddled near the cook fires. Their shadows dancing strangely. Looking up I saw the tips of the statue’s spears glowed like distant stars. They provided a strange illumination to the whole scene. Ahead of us the mouth of the tunnel gaped over five times the height of a man. Down its maw the road disappeared.

Unnatural light came from within it. I guessed that was the reason we had not proceeded. I took the steaming bowls of food back to Mistress Iliana and presented her with one. Her nose was deep in a book and she waved me away with one hand, letting me know that she did not want to be disturbed. Looking over her shoulder I saw that the book did not contain normal script. Instead she was studying a pattern not unlike the one she had inscribed upon the stone the night she tested me.

It seemed to me that she was attempting to learn a new spell. Or perhaps she was honing her knowledge of what she already knew. At the time I was merely guessing. I had no real idea what she was doing but I was interested. Sensing that, she turned her head and looked up at me and once again made a gesture that told me to go. Her expression beneath the white make up was cold and I departed as quickly as I could. Red huddled close against my chest, keeping his head within the cloak. He whimpered as if he resented the cold.

Not wanting to encounter Vorster or Todd I walked up towards the tunnel mouth. I was the only one doing so and I wondered at my own temerity. I was not really doing anything brave. Quite the opposite. I was attempting to keep clear of the people who frightened me. The road itself was the same as the one we had followed all the way through the low lands. It was of Solari workmanship and it fitted in very well with its surroundings.

As I approached the tunnel, I saw that the stones of the great arch were marked with symbols. Some radiated magic. I walked up to the nearest one. Something about the way it was inscribed reminded me of the spell I had just seen in Mistress Iliana’s books.

So overcome with curiosity was I that I paid no attention to the tunnel mouth itself. My eyes were drawn to that rune-inscribed stone as iron filings would be to a magnet. Something about it made me want to run my fingers over the stonework and I did so, feeling the immediate shock of magical contact.

My mistress had been correct – the spells worked into the arch and the walls of the tunnel were still active. I knew that even though I could not sense what those spells were intended to do. All I had was the impression of something ancient, strong and enduring.

I withdrew my hand, suddenly afraid. I was vividly aware of the fact that I did not know exactly what forces I was toying with or what the consequences would be if I somehow managed to disturb them. I looked down into the mouth of the tunnel. The road ran long and straight right into the bowels of the mountain.

Overhead lights glowed, forming a line into the distance. A few of them flickered. In places, dark patches suggested that lights had once been there but were no longer. It was hardly surprising. According to the Testaments, Asurean had lived almost three thousand years ago. Even the most enduring of spells fade over time.

Noises echoed through the tunnel. At first, I thought it was only the rush of the wind but there were other sounds, like pebbles dropping in a well, water dripping, the call of distant animals. Those sent an icicle of fear into my heart. I tried to imagine what might live in a tunnel like this. I turned to go but when I looked down, I saw Vorster and Todd standing on the slope below, looking up at me.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. A sick feeling burrowed through my stomach. Red whimpered as if he sensed my fear. The pair were looking directly at me. It seemed that they too had been following the road. It looked like I was in for another beating, at very least. They kept staring at me, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the pair came up and began to torment me.

I heard the strange animal noises again. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I caught sight of a massive shadow skittering across the ceiling. It was gone so fast that I might have imagined it. I turned to look at the nobleman and his pet thug and they still squinted up at me, as if they could not quite decide what to do. I wondered why they had not acted already. It was not like Vorster to be so indecisive when the chance arose to pick on me. Something held him back.

Then I realised what it was. I was wearing my mistress’s old cloak. The hood was drawn up and in this light they could not see much of anything. Perhaps they thought I was her, inspecting the runestones. I stood straight and glanced back towards them, doing my best to impersonate her way of standing. I have no great gift as an actor but in that light, in that eerie setting it was enough. With one last glance at me, the pair departed.

Behind me I heard the fluttering of wings, and an odd sound, like the chittering of some huge rat, rising slowly up the scale until it became inaudible. Above me, I sensed rather than saw something huge and black and bat-winged. My first thought was that it was a demon. It swooped down towards me. It had a humanoid face, great saucer like eyes and sharp fangs. Behind came others. I ducked as it hurtled overhead. High-pitched shrieking laughter rang in my ears. Displaced air fluttered my cloak as it passed near me.

Another flyer erupted from the tunnel and then another. As they emerged into the light, I saw that the creatures were humanoids with child sized bodies and long spindly limbs. Where the arms would have been on a man were bat-like wings. Their ears were huge and twisted independently as if tracking sound.

One of them dropped on me like a stooping hawk. I leapt to one side. The flapping of huge wings blew the stench of unwashed leathery flesh towards me. Another came at me and I pulled my dagger clear of its scabbard. They were going to kill me if I did not do something. Red struggled to free himself from his sling. His heart raced. I did my best to ignore his thrashing. I could not afford to be distracted.

The creature dived at me once more. It extended its arm. The batwing ended in a long, sharp horn-like spike. I jumped away and my back hit the wall. Without thinking I lashed out with my father’s dagger. The blade caught the creature’s wing, rending the leather. The creature howled. The sound was deafening and I almost froze long enough for it to stab me. More by luck than judgement I stumbled to one side. The spike burrowed into the cloak and tore it.

Somehow, I managed to wriggle free of the garment. I grabbed part of it in my hand and tossed it over the head of the bat-winged monster, blinding the creature. It thrashed about, flapping its torn wing. It buffeted my face and sent me reeling backwards. Red was free now, tiny wings beating wildly. I was glad he was away. One of us might survive this.

Another of the creatures glided down towards me. It was warier, perhaps noticing the troubles its comrade was having. It skimmed low and at the last second opened its wings with a crack, killing its momentum. Its lower body swung forward and its taloned feet lashed out at my face. A line of fire seared my cheek where one of them connected.

Shrieking loudly, I grabbed its leg. It coiled the limb inward with surprising strength and the huge wings clutched at the air and began to drag the two of us skyward. I slashed at its thigh, drawing blood even as I let go and dropped to the stony ground. Howling the creature climbed away from me.

Looking up I could see more of the creatures circling above. I heard shouts from the camp below, telling me that they had been noticed. Crossbow bolts hissed into the sky and one or two of the flyers dropped. Then I felt a surge of magic. A flare of light briefly illumined the area, showing the bat-winged monsters, the statue and the rocks around us.

The creatures shrieked as if blinded. Those huge eyes reacted even worse to the flare than my own. I was dazzled for a few moments. When my sight returned everything seemed darker. Spots flickered across my vision. The winged thing had fought its way clear of Mistress Iliana’s cloak. It glared at me with its saucer eyes. Its ears twitched and focused on me.

My heartbeat thundered in my ears like my mistress’s drum. Which had now begun to beat, sounding like the pulse of a giant in the cool night air, echoing through the caverns created by the statues bulk, amplified by the tunnel mouth itself. The creature clutched its ears and shrieked as if in pain. Perhaps it was. Those gigantic ear-flaps must have made it sensitive to sound.

The monster glared at me with venomous hatred and spat. I brandished the dagger in what I hoped was a menacing fashion. The creature unhooked its wings from its ears and flapped painfully into the sky. Its fluttering looked unbalanced, because of the tear I had left in its wing.

It vanished back into the tunnel mouth, along with its companions and suddenly I was alone. My heart thundered in my chest, like a small trapped animal trying to burrow its way out. My legs felt weak and all strength seemed to spill from me. I feared I might collapse but I did not. I pulled myself upright, grabbed the cloak from where it had fallen and raced downhill towards the camp.

I am alive. I am alive. The thought pulsed in my brain with the monotony of a drumbeat. The cold clear air tasted good. I am alive.

Red flapped down to perch on my shoulder. His forked tongue licked away my tears of relief.

Mistress Iliana’s glare held a mixture of displeasure and relief. It was an intimidating sight. Her face was a demon mask. The killing power seethed within her. The drum pulsed on her waist. She stalked about within her wards like a trapped cat.

“Where in the name of Shadow were you,” she asked.

I told her and then I told her what had happened. The babbling spewed from my lips. I could not have controlled it if I wanted to. I needed to share what had happened. The fact that she was not the most appropriate person to do this with did not stop me.

She calmed as I talked. It came to me then that she had been worried about me. Something in her manner reminded me of my mother’s when I returned late from gathering the flocks on the night of the full moon.

“Well at least you are alive,” she said, and looked around to see Spider approaching.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Spider looked relieved to see her and then glanced at me as if he blamed me for the whole thing. “It appears they emerged from the mouth of the tunnel,” he said.

“They did,” Mistress Iliana said with total authority. She did not bother to tell Spider exactly how she knew that, but he did not doubt her.

“Did we lose anybody?” Mistress Iliana asked. My heart was in my mouth as I waited for the reply. I was thinking about Ruth, of course.

Spider shook his head. “No. Just a few crossbow bolts.”

Mistress Iliana looked pleased. “Lady Alysia?”

“Safe,” Spider said, “Or as safe as can be expected under the circumstances.”

“Good.”

“Shadowlanders on the Old Road, winged goblins in the Solari tunnel. The world grows darker.”

It was the way he said it that troubled me. Spider was not a man given to sensationalism. If he believed those words, then something dark was happening.

Mistress Iliana gave a grimace of agreement. Her fingers toyed with the drum chained to her waist.

“We cannot be certain of that,” she said, in a tone of voice that was meant to be reassuring but was somehow more upsetting. “Tribes of the little beggars have gotten in before. Some of them have taken up residence in the caves under the mountain. It may be nothing more than that.”

“Even that is too much,” Spider said. “The winged ones are normally scouts. Maybe we’re going to meet a lot more of them on our way through.”

“It doesn’t matter,” my mistress said. “Even a whole tribe won’t interfere with a force this size. If they do, we will just have to show them the error of their ways.”

“A tribe might not attack us in the open but who knows what the spawn of Graghur might think of doing down there in the long dark.”

“Are you saying that you want to take the alternative route?” Mistress Iliana said. “We would need to backtrack and go around the mountains and that would add a hundred leagues or more to our journey.”

Spider looked as if he was considering doing exactly that. He stared up at the Sentinels as if the colossal statues might give him some clue as to the correct course of action. This did not please my mistress.

“It’s only a few hours through the tunnel and if we meet any goblins, we can collect the bounty on their head. The Duke will pay it gladly.” She clearly did not relish the prospect of taking the alternative route. She was not afraid of going down into the dark either. “Or maybe you would like to explain to the Duke why we delayed bringing his daughter home.”

That seemed to decide Spider. “Very well. We will take the tunnel, but we’d best be prepared for violence.”

“When are we not?” My mistress smiled. It was not a reassuring sight, but it got an answering smile from the warrior. Spider gave her a small bow, an oddly courtly gesture in a man so grizzled and soldierly. She replied with an imperious nod of her head. Spider departed leaving me alone with my mistress.

“Things must look grim indeed to make him complain,” she said almost affectionately. She tilted her head to one side as she looked at me. “You’re a very lucky boy – try not to push your luck too often. Usually it runs out at the least convenient time.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, mistress,” I said. She settled down for the night but for me sleep would not come. I replayed every heartbeat of my encounter with the winged goblins in my mind. I did feel lucky. I had met two of the monsters and somehow survived on my own. It had not been magic that saved me. It had not been my mistress. It had not been Ghoran or Jay. It had been my own quick thinking and my father’s dagger. I felt proud of myself.

It was a small thing, but I started to feel as if I might be able to survive on my own if worst came to worst. It reminded me of the time when I had faced the blight wolf and killed it with my sling. Only this had been more intimate and more personal. The goblins looked far more human than the wolf and that made them more threatening in a strange way. The encounter had been at much closer range and that changed things as well.

Little details that I had not had time to really notice during the fight came back to me and lodged themselves in my memory. I remembered the way the light reflected in their saucer eyes and the faint glint of the tiny scales in their skin. I remembered the way the flesh of their wings rippled and bulged as they flew.

Far more worrying was my memory of how I had felt when I thought Vorster and Todd were going to come for me. The thought of that made my mouth go dry and my heart hammer. It baffled me that I should find them more terrifying than the monsters, but it was so.

I heard the sentries moving through the darkness. There seemed to be more of them than usual and the camp took longer to fall asleep. I was not the only one lying uneasily awake that night.

Sunrise found us yawning and blinking and stretching to greet the dawn. Scores of men were on their knees praying. I could not remember seeing them do that before. Perhaps the sight of those statues towering above us like angry gods induced a feeling of religious awe. Perhaps the prospect of entering the tunnel made men more willing to ask the help of the Holy Sun even as they descended far from his light. Or perhaps there was just something about the sight of those winged monsters last night that made the soldiers uneasy. In any case, they prayed.

I wrapped my mistress’s cloak around me as I climbed aboard the wagon. Vorster noticed that, gave a double take and spat. No doubt he was cursing his missed chance of tormenting me. He did not have time to do much more than that before Spider ordered him and his companions to mount up and head down into the tunnels. They came over and took bundles of torches and a storm-lantern from the back of the wagon before they departed.

Red kept close to my body, as if he needed warmth. I could feel his little claws scrabbling away against my chest.

Spider nodded, and Mistress Iliana drummed the signal to move out. Today she glanced around constantly, checking above us, alert for any sign of danger. I sensed the energy seething within her. She was ready to work deadly magic at the slightest notice and I was glad.

The wind was cold. A light rain started to fall and the dry heat of the lowlands seemed years behind us rather than a mere day. I wondered why it was so cold up here and yet so warm down there. You would think it would be the other way around. We were closer to the Holy Sun when we were on the mountainside.

Ahead the mounted riders disappeared into the tunnel. Like my mistress they were wary and ready for trouble. I guided the wagon over the paving stones and through the arch and down the slope into the dimness. It was a long, very gradual incline and I barely had to apply the brake. Rain ran down the slope in tiny streams. At least the high ceiling meant that we could not be drowned by a flash flood if a storm came. A mighty river would need to be redirected to fill that tunnel.

The carthorses, normally so docile seemed nervous, and I could not blame them. We had gone no further than a few scores of strides and already our surroundings felt gloomy. The unnatural light beamed down from overhead. Sometimes it flickered and sent shadows skittering across the walls like the images of huge monsters. Above us the weight of the mountain pressed down and I fought against the fear that the ceiling would collapse and bring the whole mass of the peak down upon us.

The singing and chatter of the marching infantrymen died away as they entered the shadowy tunnel. Soon the only sounds that could be heard were the clopping of hooves, the rumbling of wheels and the clatter of hob-nailed boots upon stone.

Red huddled down inside the wagon. He did not fly around or even crawl all over me. It was as if he wanted to avoid viewing his unnatural surroundings. He could have done that by keeping his eyes closed, I suppose, but this morning in the tunnel he seemed skittish and nervous.

As we rode, we passed under massive skylights through which water dripped and light and clear air entered. A breeze rippled my cloak as we approached them, and I felt its chill touch my neck as we passed.

The further we went, the more dead ceiling lights we encountered. At times the way ahead was through a long passage of darkness. At this point my mistress raised her hand. An aura of golden light surrounded it and illuminated a circle around us. I felt the tug of magical energy as I had earlier felt the wind below the skylights. I knew then she was using some variant of the light spell I had invoked myself, but she seemed to have no difficulty in maintaining it for long minutes and she did not pass out when eventually she allowed it to die.

The light revealed many things in the darkness. I saw galleries in the walls above us. From some man-sized tunnels ran off into the gloom. For maintenance and access to watchtowers above my mistress told me. Sometimes the arches were damaged and smeared with filth and I suspected that if you followed them, they would lead to places where goblins and worse things might be found.

At one point, following her pointing finger I looked up and saw a huge spider, its body the size of my chest, its legs stretching out long as a man’s torso. Its eyes glittered unnaturally as it withdrew into one of the tunnel mouths.

“The magic affects them,” she said. “It makes them grow huge. It can have other effects too.”

“Are you saying that if a man lived within these tunnels, he too might grow to be a giant.”

“Not in one lifetime, according to Petroneus.”

“Who is he?”

“A philosopher of the Solari.”

“Not a wizard?”

“No but a student of magic nonetheless.”

“Why would such magic affect a spider but not a man?”

“Because men are much larger and live much longer than spiders.”

“Why should that make a difference?”

“Petroneus believed that magic introduced small changes into the seed of each spider. Each generation would be slightly larger than the next until after thousands upon thousands of generations some might grow as large as a dog.”

“So the change is just a matter of time and lives passing? Why has it not happened to us?”

“What makes you think it has not? There are giants and there are elves and there are merfolk.”

“Scripture says the merfolk were created by Saa-Aquor,” I said. “An unholy perversion of the work of the Sun by the Old One.”

“Petroneus thought that the Old Ones merely used magic to accelerate and control the principles of which he talked.”

“What do you think?”

“That the theories Petroneus espoused are essentially correct. Experiments have been conducted that suggest this is the case.”

“The priests said that blights warp people and animals much more quickly. That is why we must avoid them on peril of our souls and lives.”

“They are right.” Her simple agreement silenced me. She usually lived to disagree with scripture. I tried to make sense of the things she was telling me. My head reeled as I tried to assimilate the various theories. That magic existed and was a vital energy in the world I had never doubted, but she had managed to make it all seem even more complex and mysterious.

I guided the cart further and wondered what Ruth was doing. I hoped I would see her again soon. I wanted to tell her all about my encounter with the goblin. The hours passed swiftly as I lost myself in daydreams as my mistress kept watch.

Ahead lay an arch filled with golden light. Hooves thundered as the cavalrymen raced to reach it. All discipline vanished, and they gave whoops of pure joy as they passed out into the rays of the Holy Sun once more. I could understand why. It was all I could do not give the beasts their head and send them racing forward myself. A single look from my mistress convinced me that would not be a good idea.

When we emerged, it felt much warmer and just for a moment it seemed much darker as my eyes adjusted to the brightness. The first thing I noticed was that the air tasted different, moist with the promise of spring growth. When my sight returned to normal, I saw that I was looking down the side of a great mountain. All the land beneath me was much greener than anything I was used to. The distant lowlands were yellow with corn. On the horizon something vast and blue shimmered in the Holy Sun’s glow.

“The sea,” my mistress said, when she noticed my confusion. Of course, I knew what the sea was. This was the Dragon Sea mentioned in scripture. I did a swift calculation of distance. The immensity of it was stunning. It was far bigger than any body of water I had ever seen. No wonder the air felt moist. No wonder the land looked so fertile. Down there too, in the distance, were the red-tiled roofs of towns. This looked a richer, more prosperous land by far than the place in which I had grown up.

Behind us the infantry emerged from the tunnel and gave voice to cheers. I realised it was not just from being free from the long dark way but for the sight of the rich land that surrounded us. The Bleak Lands always looked hostile to men, and you felt that as you passed through them. This realm looked more welcoming, a place where a man could live in comfort, where a farmer could grow a great weight of crops and not have to scrabble for even the smallest mouthful.

All of this I later found to be true. Little did I realise then, staring down at what seemed to me a veritable paradise, that this very richness made lords covet them, and brought war for control of their riches. This was a land of wealth, and much of that wealth was being channelled to towards the coming conflict for control of those riches.

“How much further, mistress, until we get to where we want to go?”

“Solsburg is five or six days ride from here, along the Old Road.”

In my head I did some calculations. I felt as far from home as if I had stood upon the face of the moon. Little did I realise how tiny a fraction it was of the distance I would eventually go.

As we rode down into these green lands, the difference swiftly became obvious. A patrol of horsemen rode down to meet us from the hills flanking the road. They were big, blond haired men in chain mail. Their surcoats and shields carried a golden gryphon on a blue background. They held their lances up, pennons fluttering. There were only about ten of them, but they were grim-faced as they set themselves across the road in front of us. Our scouts set themselves up in a line, much wider across. Spider rode to the centre.

Mistress Iliana nodded to me and I sent the wagon rumbling closer, so she could hear what was being said and respond to any violence.

“Well met,” Spider said. “Blessings of the Sun upon you.”

“Who are you and what is your business here?”

“We’re en route from Tarnheim to Solsburg in service to the Duke.”

Some of the approaching knights relaxed visibly. The tension went out of them. Their leader though, a stony-faced man with a broken nose and an impressive collection of scars studied Spider for a long time. If he was daunted by being so massively outnumbered he gave no sign of it. Say what you like about the Sunlander aristocracy– they are brave. Sometimes stupidly so.

“Where have you come from?” He studied Spider’s face as if he had some magical way of reading the truth there.

“Down through the tunnel,” Spider said. “Where else?”

“We’ve had goblin raiders out of the hills these past few months,” Scarface said.

“We met some under the Sentinels. Killed a few darkwings. Had no problem coming through.”

Scarface gave a barking laugh. “With your numbers I am not surprised.”

“It was not just our numbers. Mistress Iliana’s magic gave them pause.” With more showmanship than I would have given him credit for Spider wheeled from the waist and indicated our wagon. Mistress Iliana gave a mocking wave of acknowledgement. I heard a shocked gasp.

The newcomer’s leader made a small movement with his hand and their formation dispersed, putting at least a horse’s length between each man. I thought about the balefire Mistress Iliana had used. The move made them less vulnerable to it, but much more so to a concentrated charge by our own riders. Clearly these men had faced magic before.

“We mean no harm,” said Spider. “We are passing through. We claim right of passage on the Old Road.”

“You do, do you?” Scarface said.

Spider’s smile was cold. “We do.”

“There is a toll. Lord Galvin must be paid.”

“We are on the Duke of Solsburg’s business,” said Spider. “I am sure he will see the correct toll is paid by the appropriate person.”

The words just hung in the air. Scarface was obviously a man used to getting his own way. Spider looked relaxed, but I sensed tension in Mistress Iliana. Power swirled around her. Her fingers were claws poised over the drum. The serpent of fire swirled within it.

There was something else going on here. I could feel it the way I felt the presence of magic, but I could not quite tell what it was. Clearly Spider’s words about the Old Duke had some effect on Scarface. He appeared to be choosing his words carefully.

“The Duke is a long way away. The road is dangerous.”

“We have dealt with the dangers we have encountered so far,” said Spider. “I am sure we can manage any that present themselves now.”

His eyes went from Scarface to the rest of the gryphon-garbed riders. They sat their stone-faced waiting to see what their leader would do. The moment stretched as Scarface considered his options. Violence hovered in the air and for a moment I thought his temper was going to get the better of him.

Scarface’s expression reminded me of Vorster’s. He was a man who liked to fight, who liked bullying and who liked getting his way. Spider faced him calmly. Our infantry had deployed off the road. The crossbowmen had not yet loaded but the pikeman leaned on their weapons in such a way that they could drop them into guard positions instantly.

Ghoran ran his thumb along his axe blade, inspected the drop of blood and then licked it away.

“I will tell my liege that you are exempt from the toll,” said Scarface eventually.

“That’s very generous of you,” said Spider. There was not a hint of irony in his voice. Scarface raised his hand. The riders wheeled and rode away. Spider waited until they were a mile away before he gave the signal to move on.

“What just happened there?” I asked Mistress Iliana. I had missed something, and I wanted to know what.

“Lord Galvin’s men are used to extorting a toll from the weaker merchants and travellers on this road even though passage along the Old Road is meant to be free.”

“Then isn’t what they are doing against the law?”

“The man who holds the sword makes the law,” she said. “At least where he stands. That’s the bedrock truth of Sunlander rule. Whoever has most soldiers on the ground gets to say what the law is on that day.”

“And we had most soldiers on the ground.”

“Right here, right now, yes. They can always summon more bannermen and come back and try again. Unless I miss my guess, there are a few score more in the hills above us.”

“You think that likely?”

She shook her head. “They’d get too many hard knocks for too little reward. We might even slaughter them if it came to a battle. And the Duke of Solsburg would be displeased. Lord Galvin and all the landowners hereabouts are his vassals. In theory.”

I had not really given much thought to our eventual goal or what we would find when we got there. I had been too caught up in the day to day events and my own dreams of wizardry to give much thought to anything else. Now I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into.

“What is the real reason?” I asked.

“Surely you have noticed how dangerous the roads have become?”

“I have not had much experience of them, but they do seem dangerous.”

“Goblins, Shadowland slavers, local lords acting like bandit chieftains. These are signs of the times. They are all symptoms.”

“Of what?”

“Of great political shifts. The rulers of Umbrea are disunited. The Shadowlanders sense weakness and are testing our defences.”

“My father says the rulers of Umbrea have always been disunited, at least as long as anyone can remember. We have had no king for centuries.”

“There are those who want to change that.”

“The Old Duke?”

She laughed. “No. He is not an ambitious man. He is a conservative one. He simply wants to keep things the way they are, to maintain the status quo. No, it is Duke Leon who dreams of crowns.”

“The Duke of Nordburg?”

“The same. And behind him stands the King of Siderea, his distant cousin. The Old Duke thinks that if Leon becomes king, he will merely be a puppet of his kinsman across the sea and all the other nobles will become vassals of Siderea. He does not want that. He says he wants to keep what is his.”

How carefully she phrased that last sentence. “He says?”

“One man keeping what is his can very swiftly become his keeping what is yours too, particularly when he has a large army at his back. That said, I believe the Old Duke is sincere. He is not twenty-five summers old like Leon and he does not have a young man’s ambitions. His son might have had but he died and now there is only his daughter and she might not live out the week.”

There was real bitterness in her voice when she talked about ambition. I wondered if she had ever dreamed of empire herself. Perhaps she had only dreamed of the sort of freedom her brothers in the aristocracy might have had. The image of my father flashed through my mind.

“Why the sour face?” she asked.

“It’s not just noblewomen whose dreams are crushed,” I said. “Try being a peasant. Or even a freeman whose overlords treat him like a peasant.”

I let my own bitterness show in my voice. I am not sure why. It was disrespectful. A true Sunlander aristocrat would have repaid me with a blow. Her smile was conspiratorial though and I thought for the first time that I could perhaps like my mistress. The smile vanished as quickly as it came.

“Study hard,” she said. “Become a wizard. You’ll find your dreams will be made real more quickly than mine.”

“I suppose that would depend on what my dreams are.”

“I am sure you will have big ones. If you don’t have already.”

She was right, of course. Although even she could not have realised quite how big my dreams would become or how close I would get to making them reality.

That night we made camp on a hilltop overlooking the road. The sea glittered silver in the moonlit distance. The wagons were drawn up in a circle to form a small impromptu stockade with Lady Alysia’s tent in its centre. Sentries stood watch and Spider walked the edge of the camp to make sure they were alert.

I sat with Ruth and puzzled out letters while my mistress sat nearby with her own books. She looked up and saw us sitting side by side chatting amiably. A frown cracked the white makeup of her forehead and the look she gave us was not approving. I sensed she did not like the growing closeness between us and wondered if she were somehow jealous of our intimacy. She who placed so much stress on the apartness of wizards.

Ruth had listened to the tale of my encounter with the goblin. She seemed suitably impressed. “Weren’t you scared?”

“I did not have time.”

Mistress Iliana gave a grunt that might have been mocking or might just have been her shifting her weight. All around us the camp went about its business. Most people studiously avoided looking in the direction of our fire.

“I stayed by the tent with Lady Alysia’s guards,” said Ruth.

“Weren’t you scared?”

She frowned. “Like you I did not have the time. And so much has already happened on this trip. I think I am becoming accustomed to such things.”

I glanced over at Mistress Iliana again. I could not help thinking that she was not quite so engrossed in her book as she would have liked us to believe. I felt as if she was paying particular interest to our talk, although for the life of me, I could not understand why.

Ruth became aware of the direction of my look, and something seemed to freeze in her. She glanced down at the tablet and stylus and said, “Perhaps we should get back to our lessons.”

I nodded. A constraint had settled on us that had not been there before. I knew it had something to do with my mistress. It niggled at me as I tried to focus on the letters and Ruth’s voice. Was she worried that I would give away the secret of my apprenticeship? Was that it?

Ruth had taught me all twenty-four of the letters of the Sunlander alphabet now. She seemed surprised at how quickly I had picked them up. “I have known noblemen who could not do what you are doing after months of teaching.”

I felt flattered by her praise and at the same time wondered how she could have known such noblemen. She must have seen my eyes narrow for she looked away, her face flushing. She seemed, like me, to feel as if she had said something wrong. It was that sort of night. We were both of us awkward, despite our best efforts. I wondered at how self-conscious I was becoming around her. Perhaps the same thing was happening to her.

Mistress Iliana coughed. “The hour is getting late.”

“Yes, mistress,” Ruth said. She picked up the tablet and stylus.

“I will walk you back to the coach,” I said, keen to have some time out from under my mistress’s gaze. I remembered to add, “With your permission, mistress.”

Mistress Iliana put down her book and stood up. “No. That will not be necessary. I will walk back with Ruth. I must check up on Lady Alysia anyway.”

“Would you like me to accompany you, mistress,” I asked.

“No. You may remain here. I wish to have some words with Ruth.”

I knew better than to ask why she wanted to talk with a servant girl alone. I was starting to believe that she did not approve of the closeness growing between the two of us. I could even understand why, given the secret she was trying to keep.

The two of them departed leaving me to tend the fire and wonder about what had just happened. Mistress Iliana seemed to have been gone for a long time, but it did not seem wise to allow myself to go to sleep until she returned. Not that I could have anyway. Eventually, I heard her soft footsteps as she made her way back.

She emerged from the gloom like a white-faced ghost. Her expression was stony as she took her place by the fire. Her fingers moved over the pattern of the elder sign on her drum. She looked at me for a very long time without saying anything. She seemed to be judging me somehow. I resented it but I kept my mouth shut and stared into the flames, all too aware of the scrutiny she was giving me.

“You like Ruth, don’t you?” she said at last. I felt my face flush.

“Yes, mistress. She is very nice.”

Mistress Iliana laughed. It was her human laugh, not her mad wizard one. “I think she likes you too. That’s unfortunate.”

That made me look at her. I was not sure what she was trying to get at. “Unfortunate, mistress.”

“Yes.”

“Why, mistress?”

She studied the flames herself. “Because of who you are and who she is.”

“Because I am…” I was going to say a wizard, but I changed it to, “your apprentice.”

She started and I had the feeling that she had been going to say something different. “Yes. That’s one reason.”

“You told me that even wizards need people, mistress,” I said.

She tilted her head to one side and studied me as a cat might a mouse. Red whimpered in his sleep. “And I spoke the truth, but nothing good can come out of things between you and Ruth.”

“Why mistress? Because she is, what did you call them, a mundani, and I am what I am?”

Mistress Iliana made an exasperated sound, like a woman being drawn into a conversation that she did not want to have, or like one having to give an explanation she did not want to give. I was surprised that when she spoke she did not sound angry. “You are very young, and you are just coming into your power. Now is not the time for distractions.”

There was something in her manner that told me that a lot was being left unsaid here, and deliberately so. “And you think that Ruth might distract me?”

“She is already distracting you and at a time when neither of you can afford such distractions.”

“Neither of us?”

She paused and once again I sensed an uncharacteristic evasiveness. “You are both young. Your place in the world is insecure. To say the least.”

There was a brooding quality to the way she said the last sentence that gave me pause. She seemed disquieted in a way that I would not have thought her capable of. She gave me a sad smile. “I would not wish to see either of you hurt.”

Then as if she had given too much away, the mask slid into place again. The painted lips widened, the dark eyes slitted. She once again looked like something monstrous. “Do not get too close to the girl,” she said.

I would have questioned her if I could but there was a finality to the way she spoke that stopped me. “Enough talk,” she said. “It has been a long day.”

Of the many strange conversations, I had with my mistress in the days of our first journeying together, this was the strangest, and the one that upset me most, and it was only much later that I came to understand what it was really about.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The next morning the road reached the sea and turned east. A small keep overlooked the highway from nearby hilltops. Beneath it huddled a village. A few worn-out peasants tilled strips of land. No one rode out to challenge us. Quiet hung over the place and there seemed to be a lot less people working than there should have been. I said this to my mistress, while Red scampered over my knees.

She looked up from her book and took in the fields, separated by small ditches, the stooped men pulling up weeds, the columns of wood smoke that rose from white-washed brick buildings.

“They are hiding,” she said. “From us. They have learned to mistrust the sight of large forces of soldiers.”

The calm way she said it shocked me. I nodded in the direction of the keep. “Surely their lord protects them.”

The carthorses clopped along raising dust with their hooves. A trickle of sweat ran down my back. It was cooler here than in the Bleak Lands but the days were still hot. The air felt different though. It held more moisture and sometimes I caught a salt tang to it.

“And who protects their lord? There are bandits and raiders from both the mountains and the sea. Sometimes there are boundary disputes between the local nobles, small wars that disturb everyone’s peace.”

I thought about the land from which I came. It was emptier and there was less there worth fighting for. Distance buffered the nobles’ estates from each other. “I never thought living in a poor land might have its advantages.”

Mistress Iliana had no difficulty in following the contours of my thought. “It was not always like this. Raids from the Shadow Kingdoms are more frequent, and the Duke is older now, less inclined to ride out and bash a few heads to settle a dispute. There are those who take advantage of it, and I suspect there are those who support the troublemakers from a distance.”

“What do you mean?”

“It takes money to pay for wars and who gains by fomenting unrest on the Duke’s lands?”

“The Shadow Princes? This Duke Leon you have told me about? Any others that covet the Duke’s lands. The Old Ones perhaps.”

“You have been listening. Yes, all of these. No doubt some of them hope to break off parts of his realm, turn his allies into theirs, undermine his authority.”

“The Old Duke ought to do something about it.”

She showed me her cynical smile once more. Her voice was mocking. “Do you really think so?”

Red stretched his wings and let out a little shriek as if the sight of her teeth frightened him. He was sensitive to menace, my little draconic friend. His claws dug into my shoulder as he shifted position, settling his weight around my neck, peering out at Mistress Iliana as if he too were taking in lessons in politics.

“You have convinced me it is likely, mistress.”

“I am so glad my lessons are proving useful.”

“Are you being sardonic, mistress?” It was cheeky of me, but her tone stung. I had been paying attention to everything she said. I looked off into the distance. One of the peasants stood up, rubbing his back like a man seeking to relieve a dull ache. His thin, stooped figure made me think of my father.

“I can see you have been improving your vocabulary as well.”

“Do you think war is coming?” Something in my tone upset Red again. His wing flicked against my ear. His little heart beat faster against my shoulder.

My mistress considered this for a long time, or maybe she was simply considering slapping me for my insolence. Eventually she said, “I believe it very likely. The political situation is unstable. Too many ruthless and ambitious men see gains for themselves in it. This will lead to fatal miscalculations.”

“Fatal, mistress?”

“Fatal for someone, most likely for those of us who have to do the actual fighting.”

I thought that of all of those called upon to do the fighting she was the least likely to be killed. I kept that thought to myself.

“Will I be called on to fight, mistress?” The words emerged without too much thought on my part. I would have liked to have sounded brave, but I just sounded nervous.

“If I am, you will certainly be close to where the danger is.”

“You are a war wizard, mistress. You will be where the battles are.”

She smiled at that, as if something about the concept of going into battle pleased her. I suppose given the nature of her calling it must have. I was starting to think I was not going to be her sort of wizard. The thought of battle did nothing but frighten me.

“Most likely so,” she said.

“How many battles have you fought in, mistress?”

“Dozens. Although some were little more than skirmishes, some were between armies.”

“Did you do there what you did to those Shadowlanders?”

She sighed like one relentlessly badgered by a child, a sound my mother used to make when surrounded by us young ones.

“In some of them,” she said eventually. “At Tolenberg I was still an apprentice. I did little more than stand beside my master and keep watch while he called down a firestorm on the undead minions of Prince Kahlen.”

She stared off across the fields at the keep with its pennons fluttering atop it. She seemed lost in thought. Her nose wrinkled as if she scented a bad smell or maybe recalled one. “They stank. Flame and Shadow-corrupted flesh make a bad mix. The smoke was oily and clung to your hair and clothes. It took days to wash out. After my master’s spell there were only blackened skeletons. One of them rose when I was searching the battlefield for survivors. Its eye-sockets glowed green. Its bones were charred and still it moved.”

I could tell the memory haunted her. It had stuck with her for a long time. “What did you do?”

“I hit it with my staff until it broke.”

“Your master must have been a very powerful sorcerer, mistress.”

“He still is.”

“Where is he now, mistress?”

The question drew her from her reverie. There was an edge to her voice that told me to be careful. “Why? Do you seek another master?”

“No, mistress, I am just curious.”

She looked angry for a moment, took a deep breath and regained her calm. “Let us just say that my master and I had a falling out, and that is not a subject I wish to discuss. Do you understand?”

“Yes, mistress,” I said. Red skittered down my arm and ended up in my lap. The drays clopped away. Sweat ran from my neck down my back as if the curve of my spine were a trench or a riverbed.

“My former master currently serves Duke Leon, or so he claims,” she said at last. Something in her tone told me that this had better be the last thing she needed to say on the subject.

“Give me the reins,” she said. “And climb down. You need to exercise your body as well as your curiosity.”

I did as I was told. She had given me much to think about.

I walked back along the line towards where the coach was. I intended to march along with Ghoran and Jay but I was hoping to catch a sight of Ruth as well.

“Where you going, Dragonboy?” Big Samael asked. “Not deserting are you?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“Good because Solsburg’s this way, and you’re going the wrong direction.” He smiled as he spoke. He was watching Red scamper along my shoulder, not looking at my face.

“Glad you told me, sir,” I said and pushed on down the line. As I walked a number of the soldiers make clucking sounds at Red.

“How is the dragon doing?” Another soldier asked. “Will he soon be big enough to ride on?”

“I hope so, sir,” I said.

“Well, let me know when he is because my feet hurt.”

I passed the pikemen and came to the stretch where the coaches rumbled along the road along with the wagons containing Lady Alysia’s tent and supplies.

My heart beat a bit faster at the thought of seeing Ruth, and I was disappointed when she was not there. One of the servants stared down at me as if I was somehow responsible for the condition of his mistress. His lined face was red and sweat beaded his brow. When he saw me looking at him he looked away.

Ruth emerged from the coach. Her shoulders slumped, and she stared at the ground. She looked upset. At the sight of her Red let out a little scream, took to the air and flapped towards her. She looked up at his call, extended her arm and he landed on it. He immediately began investigating her hair as if he expected to find a small tidbit of meat there.

I walked towards her, glad to have an excuse to speak. “He is glad to see you,” I said.

She shook her head. “He is looking for food. And I don’t have any.”

She did not sound her normal cheerful self. “What’s wrong?” I asked. I was worried about our strange mood last night, as well as Mistress Iliana’s warning. I wondered if she had said something to Ruth as well.

“Our patient is getting worse,” she said in a voice so low I could hardly hear it over the rumble of the wheels and the sounds of the march. “She is very weak now.”

“That’s terrible,” I said.

“I am going to get water for her, from the supply wagon.”

“I’ll come with you.” We walked back towards the wagon, Red scampering from my shoulder to hers, flapping into the air, circling overhead and then dropping to the ground. I was worried that he might get crushed beneath wheels or marching feet but, somehow, he avoided it at the last second every time.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“She has fever, she’s thin as a broomstick, and she babbles all the time. She talks to people who are not there and calls me by different names. She says she’s burning up and begs for water. I could not bear being in there any longer and I volunteered to get some.”

“That sounds awful,” I said because I could not think of anything else. “Should I go and fetch Mistress Iliana?”

“Lady Rebeka said she would do that if it was needed. Right now, she just needs her medicine and the water to wash it down with. I should get it and get back.”

We reached the supply wagon and Ruth explained to the driver what was needed. He pulled the vehicle off the road, clambered into the back and ladled water out of a barrel and into a bowl as the soldiers marched by. Red circled him, hoping for a treat but got nothing. Ruth accepted the water and said, “I need to get back now.”

She turned to hurry away. Her tone was so clearly a farewell that I did not volunteer to go with her. As she walked away, she said over her shoulder, “I may not be able to give you your reading lesson tonight. I am sorry. If…if Lady Alysia is unwell, I need to be with her.”

“Of course,” I said, but I could not keep the disappointment out of my voice. Once again, I saw the hand of my mistress in this. What had they been talking about last night?

“If I can I will try and come over when we make camp,” she added.

I brightened at that, “I hope you can,” I said, and then added, “And I hope your mistress gets better.”

“Me too,” she said, in a tone that told me that she did not hold high hopes for that.

“Look who is,” said Ghoran as I came up to him. He smiled. “Is dragon and his pet boy. How you do, little dragon?”

Red shrieked at him and flapped into the air again. He circled around above the marching company. I fell into step moving along the side of the road to where Jay and Ghoran were. The ground was rougher there and I had to pick my way with care.

“He’s well,” I said.

“I pleased to hear it.”

“Was that Ruth you were talking with?” Jay asked. I felt my face flush and not just from the exertion of walking. Of course, the pair of them noticed.

“Little dragon’s pet human sweet on her,” Ghoran observed.

“I am not surprised,” said Jay. “She’s a pretty girl.”

“Best be careful,” Ghoran said to me. “You have rival. Jay.”

“I already have a girl back in Solsburg,” said Jay. It was his turn to blush.

“Someday I see her. Then I believe.”

Jay punched Ghoran on the arm. The big Northman laughed. “Another mighty blow,” he said loudly. “You hit harder than Todd. Of course, girl Ruth hit harder than Todd.”

“You come back here to see your girlfriend?” Jay asked.

“My mistress kicked me out of the wagon. I think she wanted time to herself.”

“So you get to come back here and practise marching with the rest of us poor bloody infantry.”

“Grinner like you,” Ghoran said. “She let you ride in wagon all time so she must.”

I wondered if he guessed there was more to it than that. Ghoran was sharp even if he spoke our language like a village idiot.

“He’s welcome to ride alongside Grinner,” said Jay and shivered. “I would prefer to march.”

“You need exercise, fat boy,” said Ghoran. “You pudgy.”

“I’m not,” said Jay outraged. “I am just big-boned.”

We teased each other in the way boys will as we marched. We laughed and joked in the sun. I was happy then and I did not even realise it.

The road curved down round a hill as the sun lowered in the west. To our left lay the sea in all its sparkling glory. Red gawped at the vast expanse of blue and screeched as if burned. He leapt onto my right shoulder, curled his tail around my neck, flapped his wings and screeched again as if trying to draw my attention to the thing that frightened him.

A white strand glittered beneath us, fringed by long grass and sand dunes like frozen waves. Here and there, palm trees swayed in the breeze. It was the first time I had ever seen a beach and it fascinated me, although I had seen more than my share of sand back in the Bleak Lands.

Red shrieked and took to the air. He rose high, wings spread, and the heads of the soldiers craned back to keep him in sight. One or two shouted encouragement to him. Someone, one of Todd’s friends no doubt, bellowed at him to fly out to sea and drown. I felt a surge of anger at that, but I could not see who shouted, nor did I have any idea of what I would do if I had.

Red kept moving, and then much to my surprise he veered towards the sea, sending a shadow much bigger than himself surging over the grass. I raced after him, worried that he was going to do something stupid, like try to swim. If small dragons could even do that.

He shrieked happily, tail held straight behind him, arrowed towards the beach, curved back and then stooped over a clump of long grass, dropping like a stone down a well. I heard more small shrieks and wondered if he had somehow hurt himself. He had descended very fast.

I found him hunched, paws protecting something. It had been a mouse before a small dragonling had removed its head. Blood rimmed Red’s mouth. He licked it away with his long flickering tongue.

He looked up at me and I swear he smiled. His tail wagged so fast as to be almost invisible and he looked pleased with himself. He nudged a little bit of what was left of his mouse towards me. I can’t say I was tempted.

“You have it, Red,” I said.

He did not seem inclined to argue. His muzzle descended, and the eating began again. I rose and stared out to sea, relieved that he was staying in one place for the moment. On the water, the white shark’s fin shape of a lateen sail moved towards the horizon. I wondered whether it was a fisherman, a pirate, a trader or something else I could not yet understand.

The sea itself was a vast moving wilderness, as threatening to me as any desert. White caps emerged as waves curled to break. The sound of the water’s rush reached my ears, as if I was hearing it for the first time. It had been there for a while, but this was the first time I had listened, to the sea’s relentless, monotonous voice.

I felt like that ship, a long way from home, blown by the wind, moving towards something, pushed by something I could not see or understand. In the past few days I had acquired a new life, acquaintances, companions. I had accepted responsibility to look after this small smelly beast.

My old life felt like a dream, and yet at the same time, when I thought of my family, I felt a stab of longing so great as to be almost painful. I wondered if I would ever see Ma and Da and my brother and sisters again. What would they say about Red? About me being a sorcerer?

That thought gave me pause. How would they feel? Would they look at me as if I was a monster and at Red as if he were my familiar? Would they seem as strange to me as I to them?

As I listened to the wind moan and the sea roar and Red munch, it struck me that I could never go back to my life that was. I could never make things as they once had been, no matter how much magic I learned, no matter how powerful I became. I had lost perhaps more than I had gained when I had signed that contract in my own blood. I had exchanged my old life for something new and strange, and I did not know where it was going to take me.

A shout drifted across the distance separating myself and the marching soldiers, and I realised that someone was telling me to get a move on. I did not want to be left by myself on that strand of a beach so far from home with night approaching.

Red finished his meal. He burped and farted and closed his eyes happily. I picked him up, draped him over one arm, and ran to catch up with my companions as if the demons of Shadow were howling at my heels.

Chapter Twenty-Six

We made camp along the beach that night, pitching tents on the grass-covered dunes, building fires and adding driftwood the soldiers gathered.

After they finished eating, men walked to the water’s edge, stripped off and dived in. A new division emerged, between those who liked the sea and those like me who mistrusted it. I wondered at the cause. Had some of them been born beside the sea, and had others come from inland?

I pitched the tent for my mistress and brought food, then waited for her to set the wards and tell me to sleep. It seemed as if there would be no reading lesson this night. There had been no sign of Ruth. There must have been something about the way I stood because she looked up at me and said, “Go on then, go explore, go talk to your friends, be back in an hour and I will set the wards then.”

I knew then that she too had been infected by the new mood in the camp. She seemed more relaxed. Perhaps she felt a little safer. It came to me then that her journey was a mirror image of mine. Every step took her closer to home.

“Thank you, mistress,” I said. “Is there anything I can get you before I go?”

“No. Just leave me in peace with my books.” Clearly there was going to be no teaching this evening.

I bowed and scampered off with Red hanging in the sling around my neck. He was still lethargic after the mouse he had eaten earlier. He looked up at me, blinked, eyes widened as he glanced at the moon and then closed his eyes again. He made a sawing sound that might have been snoring.

I detoured around the fire where Vorster and his circle sat eating, made my way towards the coaches, hoping to see Ruth but there was no sign of her, only whimpering noises from within the pavilion that told me Lady Alysia was no better.

I did not see Ghoran and Jay anywhere near the cook fires, so I walked down to the beach and found them there. Ghoran was swimming in the water, at home as any fish. Jay stood up to his knees in the waves, staring out to sea. His weapons lay on the sand, along with his tunic and his pack. Many of the soldiers had left their weapons in the sand. If we were attacked now, things would go badly for us.

I looked back, and saw Spider moving around harrying troopers into taking up sentry duty, and I was reassured. There were armed men on watch. He moved over to where my mistress’ tent was set up and said something to her. I felt a spell surge into being.

We had sentries and we had Mistress Iliana’s magic. We should be safe as anyone could be camping beside the road. Still I scanned the sky, looking for something, I don’t know what. Maybe devilwings or shadowbats or flying Old Ones.

Perhaps it was just the sea that made me nervous, or the prospect of arriving in Solsburg soon. I had become used to the rhythm of the march. It was something I understood. It was the new life I had acquired since I left home. The idea of another change upset me.

“You know how to swim?” Jay asked, when he saw me.

“Not really,” I said. I tapped the sling gently, and said, “Red is sleeping.”

“Dragon no good swimmers,” said Ghoran. “Puts out their fire.”

“You would know all about dragons, I suppose,” said Jay.

“We have dragon in Northlands. Big white ones. No breath fire. Breath ice and snow.” He stood up in water that came up to the top of his belly. It streamed from his hair and over his broad shoulders. Old scars covered his chest.

“You’ve seen a dragon?” said Jay. There was a note of doubt in his voice that I could not blame him for. With Ghoran it was hard to separate the truth from the jokes.

“I see dragon. Lot bigger than little Red. Big as house.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell us you fought it,” said Jay.

“I brave, not stupid. Dragon size of house not for fighting. Not unless you have no choice.”

Jay said, “When did you see this dragon?”

“Near Halisfjord. Skarsbad hills. Was flying over mountains, hunting mammoth.”

“You saw it kill a mammoth?” Jay said.

“What’s a mammoth?” I asked.

“It’s like an elephant only hairy,” said Jay. “Big thing. Nose like a snake. Can lift a man with it. Ears bigger than Ghoran’s.”

“Belly almost as big as Jay’s,” added Ghoran.

“This ice dragon was big enough to pick up an elephant?” I asked.

“I never saw. Only mammoth after dragon eat. Not much meat left and it frozen, cold as ice, hard as iron.”

I pictured Red sprawled over his mouse and tried to image something like him crouching over an elephant. Apparently, I was not the only one giving my imagination free rein. Jay said, “Do you think Red might grow that big?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I had never thought that far ahead. He was just a little thing now, but he had already grown. Who knew how long he would do that for, and what he would look like when he finished? I had never heard of a dragonling growing to the size Ghoran was talking about.

“Better find out,” said Ghoran. “Maybe have to buy cows for his eating. Be expensive.”

“I’ll ask my mistress about that,” I said.

Jay looked at me sidelong. “You think she’ll tell you?”

“I won’t know unless I ask.”

“Rather you than me,” said Jay. “Just the thought of saying one word to her makes my balls shrivel.”

Ghoran emerged from the water. He splashed out onto the sand, and began to dry himself off with his cloak, then he sat down on it and stared out to sea. Jay stopped paddling and sat next to him and I joined them. It was getting dark. Shadows flickered around the fires. The smell of wood smoke hit my nostrils and mingled with the salt tang of the air.

“Remind me of summer night in Long Fjord,” said Ghoran.

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“The Northlands, of course,” said Jay.

“Home,” said Ghoran. “Big valley between mountains, filled with sea. Lot of village along water edge. Dragon ships beached there. Hall overlook water edge.”

He sounded as nostalgic as I had been feeling earlier. “It’s a long way from here?” I asked.

“Very long way. Out of Dragon Sea into World Ocean and north, far north till sea turns white and mountains of ice float by.”

“Mountains of ice? Floating? Man, you know how to tell a story,” said Jay.

“Mountains of ice real. They break off glacier, drop into sea, drift south. You sail north far enough, you see.”

It sounded as exotic as an ice dragon. I was starting to get an image of Ghoran’s homeland, of ice and snow and monsters.

“Does it snow all the time in the North?” I asked.

He shook his head. “In summer it warm as here almost. In winter, it cold, cold, cold.” He mimed shivering.

“I can understand why you came here then,” said Jay. “If it’s all snow and ice dragons and floating mountains of ice. Giants and trolls too.”

“Nah! It accident I here.”

“Accident?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“Shipwreck. Picked up by slavers. Escape. End up here.”

He made it sound simple, as if escaping from slavers was just like hopping over a fence or diving into the sea.

“How did you escape from the slavers?” I asked.

“Break chains. Kill guards. Run. How else?” Once again, his voice suggested it was easy but there was something in his expression that told us that it might not have been as simple as he would have us believe.

He looked out at the sea as if remembering something dark. There was a stillness in him and a menace. His hands clenched into fists and his lips were a thin line. A frown trenched his forehead.

I looked at Jay. He shook his head slightly. I decided to change the subject. “How did you end up a soldier?”

He took his cue. “I joined the militia in Solsburg. They wanted people who could provide their own armour and crossbow and sword. Then the Old Duke put out a call for soldiers and I signed up for the life of adventure and loot.”

Jay would not meet my eye as he spoke, and his voice held tiny hesitations. There was something shifty in his response, but I could not figure out what. It was not that I suspected him of lying, but just that he might not be telling us the whole truth. Perhaps he had not been so keen on a life of adventure as he claimed.

“You must have been doing well to buy your own gear.”

“Well, my father provided the money. He was a locksmith. But after that that he had a run of bad times and lost his shop. I was never a very good apprentice. The life of a locksmith did not agree with me. I was a good shot.” Once again, the hesitations and an odd stress on the word locksmith.

“You ever been in a battle?”

He looked at his feet and seemed embarrassed. “I’ve hunted bandits. I’ve helped put down the riot in the Stew.”

“The Stew?”

“East Tower. The poor quarter of Solsburg. It’s a bad place, as you’ll find out soon enough. A couple more days and we’ll be in sight of the Lighthouse. A day after that and we’ll be home.”

I almost said you’ll be home, but I kept my mouth shut. Instead, I said, “The Lighthouse?”

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Jay said. “It’s not something you can miss, even from a long way out.”

Ghoran dragged himself back from whatever abyss of memory he had fallen into. “Big magic tower. Glows with sunlight. Keeps Old Ones out. Guides ships in. Sits at the end of pier in Solsburg.”

“It was built by the Solari,” said Jay. “They say it’s as big as the one in the King’s palace in Siderea. It has good magic in it. Lights the streets at night. Keeps out evil magic. It gives us the blessing of the Holy Sun.”

“Is impressive,” confirmed Ghoran. “Nothing like it in Northlands.”

I noticed the sun was almost down and I suddenly remembered Mistress Iliana’s instructions. “I’d better go,” I said. “Or my mistress will not be happy.”

“Run,” said Jay. “We wouldn’t want that to happen.”

“I thought you would have at least gotten your feet wet,” said Mistress Iliana as I came up to the tent. She lay near the fire, reading by the illumination provided by a small floating ball of light. I knew she had been working with the rune she had showed me first. Somehow, I sensed it. It had a flavour, a tang all of its own."

“We were talking about the lighthouse in Solsburg,” I said. “Jay was telling me it was created by the Solari.”

She closed her book, and the light floating behind her shoulder dimmed. “It was. There is a sunstone in it. A very powerful one.”

“A sunstone, mistress?”

“It’s exactly what you think it is. A large ingot of aurium. It drinks in sunlight during the day and releases it at night.”

“Jay says it keeps the Old Ones at bay and wards off evil magic.”

She laughed. “Perhaps you should become his apprentice, not mine.”

“Is he wrong, mistress?”

“Not entirely. The light does keep the Old Ones at bay. They can endure it no more than they can the light of the Holy Sun itself. But it has the virtues of sunlight and nothing more. It does not prevent evil magic.”

The disappointment must have shown on my face. She said, “It was never intended to. It was intended to guide ships at sea and keep them from crashing onto the rocks near the harbour. It helps illuminate the city and makes it possible to have night markets as well as day markets. It’s the reason that Solsburg is a centre of trade and of the Solar faith.”

“How so, mistress?” I asked.

“It made Solsburg a haven from the Old Ones. The worshippers of the Holy Sun felt secure there and the Lighthouse can be seen even in the darkest night or in the wildest storms. There is a good deep water harbour there as well. All things considered it’s a natural capital for the Duke’s family. They have ruled it for many years.”

Her words brought Lady Alysia to mind. “What will the Old Duke say when he finds out what has happened to his daughter?”

“I doubt he will be happy,” Mistress Iliana said. If she feared that the Duke might blame her, she gave no sign of it. “I don’t know what he’ll be able to do about it unless he finds out who sent the assassins.”

“Couldn’t you do that? Using magic?”

“You have a lot to learn about the limitations of magic,” she said.

“Apparently, I have a lot to learn about everything,” I said.

“Awareness of your own ignorance is the first step to wisdom.”

“What will happen if the Duke does find out who sent the assassins?”

“There will most likely be war. How could there not be? Lady Alysia has been the Duke’s heir since his son Kalum died. An attempt on her life is nothing less than a declaration of war if it has been funded by another noble house.”

“Has any such house claimed responsibility?”

“Of course not. That would be dishonourable.” There was a note of bitter humour in her voice. “No Solari nobleman would hire assassins. Honour does not allow it. At least it does not allow admitting it in public. But they all do it.”

Something in her voice told me that she was speaking from experience and that it had not been a pleasant one. Another thought struck me. “You said funded.”

“It takes a lot of gold to purchase the services of the Crimson Brotherhood. Only a wealthy noble house or a very rich merchant or perhaps an Old One could afford to do such a thing.”

“Whoever paid for the assassins will not be happy to learn that their money was wasted,” I said.

Mistress Iliana laughed. “What makes you think that the Crimson Brotherhood has given up? Do you know something that I don’t?”

It came to me then that I had been lulled into a false sense of security by our journey. I had assumed that we were safe for no good reason as it turned out. “You mean that there might still be assassins out there now and they won’t give up until Lady Alysia is dead?”

“I mean that there might be assassins among the soldiers. It’s possible the only reason that they have not made another attempt is that there waiting to see whether Lady Alysia dies from the poisoned wound.”

“I never thought of that,” I said. For some reason it made me feel obscurely ashamed.

“It’s not your job to think about such things.”

“You think there might be another attack?”

“The Crimson Brotherhood does not like failure. When they accept a contract, they like to succeed. The fact that they are usually successful is what ensures people hire them in the future.”

“So even if Lady Alysia recovers, they will come after her again.”

“Unless the Duke manages to buy them off, if the original contractor does not outbid him.”

“That is horrible,” I said. The idea that someone out there was an organisation that would auction off a person’s life appalled me. “Why does somebody not do something about them?”

“It has been tried in the past,” Mistress Iliana said. “Sometimes it has even appeared to succeed. But the Crimson Brotherhood always returns or at least someone claiming to be them does.”

“You mean it is not the same organisation?”

“If you were going to start an Assassins Guild, wouldn’t it make more sense to use a name already recognised in the field?”

I saw what she meant. There were always going to be those who needed assassins and providing the service was always going to be profitable. Why not claim to be an organisation that everybody already knew?

“How would you go about contacting such people?”

“Do you have someone in mind that you want assassinated, boy?”

“They would have to be careful in order not to be tracked down but at the same time they could not be too hard to get in touch with otherwise no one could ever hire them.”

“Your grasp of the situation is admirable,” Mistress Iliana said. “But don’t think too hard about this or you may find yourself locked up in a cell or facing the headman’s axe or perhaps getting a knife in the back from your potential competition.”

“I’m not thinking about doing such a thing myself,” I said. Something of my outrage must have shown in my voice because she smiled.

“Just as well. A sorcerer-assassin is a terrible thing.”

“How do you know?”

Her voice was sharp as she replied, “the Lunars train such people. They train many kinds of assassin.”

“Is it possible that the Crimson Brotherhood has some connection with the Old Ones?” It was the first thought that occurred to me when she said those words.

My mistress nodded. “It is very possible. It would give them a source of intelligence within the Sunlands and a way of stirring up mischief at the same time.”

It struck me then exactly how complicated was the world that I had entered. I was glad that I did not have to deal with such things as my mistress did. It was a measure of how naive I was that I could think so.

“It is likely that Lady Alysia will die from her wound, is it not?”

Mistress Iliana made an exasperated sound. “You don’t have much faith in my healing, do you, boy?”

“I have every faith in you, mistress. But you have already told me that healing is not your strong suit.”

“It is more than possible, it is likely.”

“And even if she does not die, she is likely to face the assassins again.” Once again, the horror of Lady Alysia’s situation struck me. She had done nothing to deserve this except to be born who she was. Now she was marked for death by ruthless individuals who would profit from it. Someone was paying to have a girl not much older than me murdered and they hoped to gain something by it.

Perhaps looking at who stood to gain the most would provide a clue as to who was paying them.

“I can tell that another thought struck you, boy. Give voice to it and then be prepared to sleep. Tomorrow we must rise early and be on the road again.”

I told her my ideas and she nodded. Of course, it was something that had struck her long ago, but she seemed prepared to acknowledge the clarity of my thinking. “The problem is that the list of suspects is long. The Duke has many enemies and all of them would gain from the death of his only heir.”

“Do you mean that Lady Alysia will be able to rule the Duchy after the Old Duke dies?”

“In theory, yes. In all likelihood the Duchy will go to the man she marries. And then if she has male children, it will fall to them.”

There was bitterness in her voice when she mentioned male children. I wondered if she had been in a similar position to Lady Alysia. If so, being born a woman would probably not have made any difference anyway. I had never heard of a wizard ruling any place in the Sunlands. It was just not done. Perhaps things were different in the place where the Children of the Moon ruled but that seemed unlikely to. In those lands the Old Ones ruled.

“And now I am tired,” Mistress Iliana said. “I bid you goodnight, boy.”

“Goodnight, mistress.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The next day the troops sang their marching songs cheerfully. There were smiles on men’s faces as if they were thinking about seeing their loved ones again. Perhaps they were simply happy with the prospect of a tavern after so long on the road. Even Spider smiled and you did not see that often.

As I drove the wagon, my mistress hummed the same tune as the soldiers. Despite our gloomy conversation of the previous evening I felt my own spirits lift.

Red howled tunelessly and scampered from my shoulder to the back of the wagon then fluttered around our heads. My mistress glanced at him thoughtfully from time to time and I wondered what was going through her mind.

Something about the sight of the little dragon made me happy in the same way as the singing seemed to make everybody else. The only thing that interrupted the good mood was the occasional moans from the coach behind us where Lady Alysia lay in her fever dreams.

The road ran for a time beside cliffs. Their black mass rose ten times the height of a tall man above us. If someone could have scaled them, they could have ambushed us by dropping rocks for the road became very narrow between the cliffs and the sea.

More ships sailed in the same direction as we marched. It did not take much thought on my part to work out that they too were heading for Solsburg.

Eventually the narrow path widened, and fields flanked us. Red took off to hunt for more field mice. Mistress Iliana gave me the nod and took over the reins. I scampered after Red. She seemed concerned for the dragonling’s welfare and that made me wonder about the value she placed on him.

I pushed such thoughts from my mind as I chased the little dragonling through the long grass. I came to the edge of a slope and looked down into a valley. Through it a road ran and along it marched a line of monks garbed in rough brown robes. Cowls hid their faces. Each carried a staff. None of them spoke or sang. A cart piled high with supplies and covered by a tarpaulin brought up the rear.

The sight disturbed Red, for he returned to my shoulder and perched there, watching warily. The path the monks were taking would eventually intersect with our company’s road. I saw how sloppy our caravan had become, because our only scout in this area was me. I wondered whether I should run back and tell somebody.

As the thought passed through my mind, the leading monk beckoned for me to join him. I hesitated. I was on my own aside from Red, and there were at least twenty men down there. They might be holy men but that did not make me any less nervous. I was an apprentice to a sorcerer, which would make me wicked in their eyes.

Of course, they had no way of knowing what I was, but I felt as if my status was branded on my forehead.

Then there was Red. What might these strangers think about him? I remembered the mean look that Todd had given me when I had first found him, and I did not want to take the chance of that recurring where there was no one around to help.

I waved to the leading monk and raced back towards the marching column. Red followed me at speed as if frightened I was abandoning him. He fluttered around my head, demanding attention. I stretched out my arm and he landed on it and crawled into his sling as I continued to run.

“What’s got into you?” Mistress Iliana asked, as I reached the wagon, red-faced and out of breath.

I clambered up and told her about the monks. She frowned and beckoned to the riders ahead of us. Spider rode up and she spread my news to him. A minute later a pair of scouts were dispatched in the direction I indicated. Vorster was one of them.

“We have been slacking off,” muttered Mistress Iliana. “We’re too close to home and we’re getting careless.”

“Are you worried about the monks, mistress?” I was not sure what I expected her answer to be. I had a vague suspicion that the presence of churchmen would make her as nervous as they made me.

“There is a monastery nearby,” she said, ignoring my question, “To the Southwest, amid the Grey Hills. They’ve probably come from there.”

“Where would they be going, mistress?”

“On a pilgrimage most likely, either back along the road we just took to Tarnheim or to Solsburg to take a ship to the Holy Island.”

I had seen such pilgrims on the Old Road in the past, when I had herded my father’s meagre flocks. Some had been holy men. Others had been folks in search of salvation, eager to see relics and touch the sublime. Most were older people with death on their minds, worried about the prospects for their soul.

I wondered whether such a pilgrimage could save my soul from corruption. It was something I should investigate. My mistress did not seem like the right person to talk to about it.

Ten minutes later the scouts returned. Spider beckoned them over and Vorster and the other horseman rode up the wagon. It was clear that Spider intended my mistress to hear their report.

“They are monks from the Abbey at Stormstead,” Vorster said complacently. “They are bound for Solsburg and a pilgrim ship to Sunholme on the Holy Island. They are led by Frater Xander. He has asked if they may accompany us. He says there have been reports of banditry between here and Solsburg and he is worried because his people are bearing offerings for their pilgrimage.”

Spider looked at Mistress Iliana. She shrugged as if to say it was his decision. “How many are there?”

“A score, Mistress Iliana,” Vorster said. His tone was flat and neutral, but his eyes were nervous as he glanced at her. “Hardly a threat to a force our size.”

“We can’t afford to offend the Holy Church,” said Spider. Again, his remarks seemed addressed at my mistress.

Once again, she shrugged. “Provide them with an escort then.”

Spider nodded to Vorster. “Take ten men and ride with them. Keep an eye on them until they join up with us and then ride with them on the march. Make sure their blessed offerings are kept safe.”

Soon we reached the place where the path to the monastery joined the Old Road. Looking in the direction I walked earlier I saw Vorster’s troop trotting along. The leader of the monks walked by his side and they seemed to be chatting amiably. My mistress saw me watching and said, “best keep your eyes on the road unless you want to put us in a ditch.”

That night when we camped on a headland overlooking the sea, the camp had a different feel. The presence of the monks put a damper on the high spirits of the soldiers. It was not anything they did or said. It was just that they were there, and they were both holy men and strangers. They sat at their own fire, cooking their own food. Some passed among the men, offering blessings. Mostly they kept apart with one noticeable exception.

Frater Xander was by the fire near the cooking site where Clarin doled out food. He had joined Vorster and Todd and their ilk and chatted away quietly. I did not mean to eavesdrop, but I caught some of what they were saying as the cook ladled out food for the mistress and myself.

“… sorceress, yes,” said Vorster, “and a powerful one. No doubt about it. She blasted those Shadow spawn and no mistake.”

“And yet something about her troubles you, my son,” the Frater said, “I can tell by your tone.”

“No, frater, I am not troubled.” I could almost feel Vorster’s eyes boring into my back. I suspected he would have said something else if I had not been there, but he did not want to risk word of any criticism getting back to Mistress Iliana. “It is the fate of Lady Alysia that worries me. She has been very sick since the events in Tarnheim.”

Clarin provided me with two full bowls of stew and I could not reasonably listen any longer, so I strode off towards my mistress’s tent, carefully avoiding looking in the direction of Vorster and his companions. Red rather spoiled the effect by sticking his head out of his sling and shrieking at them. He did not like Todd much, or Vorster for that matter.

“You look like you swallowed a mouthful of sour-root,” Mistress Iliana said, as I presented her with her food. “Is the cookery not up to its usual high standards?”

I told her of Vorster’s conversation with Frater Xander. I did not mention my suspicions of how he had moderated his remarks because of my presence. I did not have to.

“Men will talk as they sit at campfires,” said Mistress Iliana. “And we can hardly prohibit the soldiers from talking to monks. The Holy Sun alone knows what that might make them think about us.”

The note of irony was back in her voice again, and I saw immediately what she meant. A sorceress could not forbid anyone from talking to holy men without suspicion. She waited as if she expected me to say something. At that moment, Ruth emerged from the gloom, and I was so pleased to see her that I forgot to say anything.

“How is Lady Alysia,” Mistress Iliana asked.

“Quiet, mistress,” said Ruth. “The bitter root appears to be working. She is not so feverish, and she does not babble in her sleep.”

“That is good to hear. Let us hope the improvement in her condition continues.”

“Indeed, mistress.” Ruth looked in my direction. She had brought her wax tablet and stylus.

“You wish to continue with the reading lessons, girl? Pray proceed.” From her tone, you would never have guessed she had talked to me about avoiding entanglement with Ruth. She sounded much the same as she always did when speaking to the girl.

Mistress Iliana caused a light to appear over her shoulder. It was a little brighter than normal and it illuminated the pair of us. Soon Ruth was inscribing her runes on the wax, explaining their meanings and making me repeat them aloud and copy them on the tablet.

“Very good,” she said, as I replicated her symbols. “You have a real gift for this. Perhaps you could train as a calligrapher someday.”

“You are too kind,” I said. Mistress Iliana made a harrumphing sound at my false modesty. I resented her mocking presence but I tried not to let it show.

We did another rune and then another, and Ruth made me draw all the ones she had taught me that night and repeat the sounds they represented.

There was something as magical in that as there was in the runes my mistress had shown me. The way the letters’ shapes encoded sound seemed a wonder as great as any I had encountered. It delighted me to take the stylus and make the shapes and something of my pleasure communicated itself to both my mistress and Ruth.

The one person unaffected was Red. He cuddled himself within the sling, tail wrapped around his small body, eyes closed, chest rising and falling swiftly as he breathed. I had gotten so used to his presence I barely noticed him except when he shifted his weight or squeaked.

“You are making very swift progress,” Ruth said.

“He’s a clever lad,” Mistress Iliana said. “And he has a good teacher.”

“Thank you, mistress,” I said.

“Anyway, it is time to bring this lesson to an end, and for Ruth to return to her place. You may accompany her this evening.”

I was not sure why Mistress Iliana said that after her warnings of the previous evening. Perhaps the presence of the monks unsettled her, and she did not wish to draw attention to herself. Perhaps it was something else. In any case, I was not going to object. I carried the slate as we picked our way through the camp. It did not occur to me then that she might not want the monks to see her with Ruth.

“We are almost home,” Ruth said, and I had the sense the words meant more to her than they did to me.

“We are almost at Solsburg, yes. You will be home.”

Her mouth shut like a trap and I had the sense once again that I had said the wrong thing, that she did not want to speak to me. I was hurt, and all the more so because I could not work out what I had done.

We passed through the centre of the camp. Many of the soldiers were lined up near the monk’s wagon. Jay and Ghoran stood nearby, watching.

“What’s going on?”

“The monks have broached a barrel of their ale, and they’ve offered to share it in return for our hospitality,” Jay said. “The abbey is famous for its fine beer.”

He licked his lips.

“So why are you not drinking it?” I asked.

“We’re on sentry duty,” Jay said.

“I no drink southern beer. It weak as piss.”

“You are a barbarian indeed if you would turn down ale from Stormstead Abbey,” said Jay.

Ghoran shrugged his broad shoulders and grinned. “Says man who never tasted northern ale.”

Jay laughed. “And never wants to, if you can’t appreciate a good southern brew. I have no respect for your taste at all.”

The men each took a stoop of ale and moved on. I saw the cask was marked with a rune, but I had no idea what it said. I asked Ruth.

“It is the mark of Stormstead Abbey,” she said. “Each Abbey has its own sigil which it uses to identify its products and its people.”

“I knew that,” Jay said. He seemed to be paying a lot of interest to Ruth. She was a very pretty girl, so I suppose that was understandable. Even in the dim light I could see that his cheeks had turned a little red and he was blushing.

“I know that not,” Ghoran said. “I only know beer come in barrel.”

“You’re very clever too, the both of you,” Ruth said with a smile. She seemed to enjoy being the centre of attention. I was tempted to move on, but I confess I was wondering about the taste of the beer. Jay had done a good job of selling it. Then I remembered what Mistress Iliana had said about drinking too much and I decided that the last thing I needed was to experience a lack of control when using magic. My dreams could be bad enough without it.

“We’d better get back,” I said to Ruth. She nodded reluctantly and we walked on towards the coaches.

As we did so Frater Xander walked up and gave us his blessing. “I am very sorry to hear about your mistress,” he said addressing Ruth.

“It is a terrible thing,” Ruth replied.

“What is the world coming to when a young girl is targeted by vicious assassins?” Frater Xander had an open honest face, pockmarked by some childhood disease. His eyes were dark and quick. His voice was deep and pleasant. It was easy to imagine him preaching a sermon in church on Sunsday.

“You’re right,” Ruth said. “Please pray for Lady Alysia, father.”

“I will, daughter,” Frater Xander said, “she will be in the thoughts and prayers of all my brethren this evening.”

He smiled and just for a moment there was something sinister in his expression as if the words had a double meaning. The expression vanished as quickly as it had come, faster than a flicker of lightning. His face was placid and amiable once again.

“If there is anything I can do for your mistress,” Frater Xander said, “please let me know. If you would like someone to pray with you for her, I would be more than willing to do so. If she feels the need to pray, my brethren and I are here for her.”

“Thank you, father,” Ruth said. “I doubt my mistress is well enough to ask but I will certainly mention it to her and Lady Rebeka.”

“My blessing upon you,” Frater Xander said. “Rest in peace this evening.”

“Thank you, father,” Ruth said. A puzzled expression flickered across her face and she nodded give a slight curtsy and began to walk away. I bowed to the monk and followed.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Ruth said, shaking her head. “It’s just that he did not mention the Holy Sun when he gave me his blessing. I’ve never known a frater to do that before.”

“Maybe he forgot,” I said. “After all he and his brethren have been drinking their very fine ale.”

“You may be right,” Ruth said. “I’m making too much of it.”

We continued to walk until we reached the coach. The guards were alert but they recognised Ruth and welcomed her. They did not seem as pleased to see me but given my association with Mistress Iliana that was hardly surprising.

“Good night,” I said.

“Good night,” Ruth said. Her face tilted up as she looked at me and her lips parted slightly. For a moment I felt the urge to lean forward and kiss her but embarrassment and something else held me back. The guards were watching. That was it.

“Good night,” I said again. I turned and walked back towards where Mistress Iliana was waiting. She looked up from her book as I arrived and said, “you look a little odd.”

“I am unsettled, mistress.”

“Then start tidying things up. That will calm you down.” I obeyed, but all the time I was thinking about Ruth and whether I should have tried to kiss her. At this stage of our journey, there would not be too many more opportunities.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

My sleep that night was troubled by dreams I could not remember when I woke before dawn. I lay staring at the sky, hoping that my mistress would open her eyes soon and lower the wards so that I could go for a walk. It was as if I had not slept at all. I felt tired and my eyes felt gummed together. My back hurt as if every stone on the ground had been digging into it all night. Perhaps they had. Perhaps they were that malicious.

“There’s no need to thrash around so much,” Mistress Iliana said. “I know that you’re awake. You might as well go and get some water.”

She lowered the wards and I scampered off towards the cook wagon. The cook was already awake. His fire was lit and water was boiling. He seemed pleased to see me. He gave me a broad grin and said, “Are you here for food for your mistress?”

As if I could have been there for anything else. Red gave a screech when he heard Clarin’s voice and poked his head up from the sling. His eyes darted everywhere searching for food. Clarin looked particularly pleased at the sight of him. He produced a small piece of sausage and offered it to Red. It vanished into his tiny mouth as fast as a mouse’s head.

“My mistress requires water as well,” I said.

“She shall have it,” Clarin said. “Take as much as you think you need. There’s a bucket hanging from the back of the wagon.”

“Thank you,” I said. I ladled water into the bucket and took a bowl of Clarin’s stew and headed back to my mistress’ tent. She was waiting with the inevitable book in her hand. Her eyes were closed though, and I felt as if she was working magic although what she could be doing, I did not know.

I had enough sense to keep my mouth shut and wait until she was clearly finished and then I put the bucket of water down in front of her along with the food. She said exactly what I hoped she would say, “go get yourself something more. We don’t want you to be hungry today. There’s going to be a lot of driving if we are going to get within sight of the lighthouse by this evening.”

I ran off towards the cook wagon once more. The monks were already awake, praying on woven mats. Once finished some rose and broke their fast. Some began to walk around the camp talking to the soldiers who were up, offering them blessings. One or two of them even accepted small offerings of coin. It was quite common to do that with wandering monks.

I took my food and I walked down to the beach. I wanted to be alone and think.

I picked my way down the path of the headland all the way to the sand. It was relatively cool in the early morning and spray was coming off the waves. The breeze was pleasant. I wanted to enjoy the sensation before the full heat of the day fell upon us.

Red stirred when he heard the waves. He wriggled out of the sling. His wings buffeted my face as he took to the air, tail streaming out behind him and guiding him like the rudder of a ship.

Something about the sea fascinated him and frightened him at the same time. He flew towards it and then just before he would be over the water, he banked towards the sand dunes and circled in my direction.

After a short pause to gather his courage once more, he flew towards the waves. He could never quite bring himself to fly over them.

I thought about what Ghoran had said about water putting out the flames of dragons. I had no idea whether Red was going to be one of those dragons who could breathe fire or even a dragon at all, but I had my hopes. Given his colour, fire did not seem unlikely. It just goes to show how ignorant I was. I was making up stories to tell myself about my pet. I suppose it was natural.

I was so caught up in watching him that it took me a while to realise that footsteps were crunching on the sand behind me. I turned and saw Frater Xander. He made a gesture of benediction towards me, but his eyes were upon Red.

“That’s a most unusual pet,” he said.

“Yes, Frater,” I said. “I found him hatched from an egg in the desert and Mistress Iliana let me keep him.”

“A dragon from the desert? You are favoured by some power.” From his tone, I doubted he meant the Holy Sun. He moved up beside me and I was suddenly aware of how big he was. He was large as Todd and bulky. There was a certain solidity to his presence. I stepped away uneasily.

He looked down at me, smiling, perfectly aware of what I had done but not in the least bothered by it. “You seem nervous, my son. It is something that you would like to tell me? Do you have some sin upon your mind?”

“No, Frater,” I said. “No sin.”

“Then you are a most unusual boy,” he said.

“How so, Frater?”

“You consort with a sorceress and you don’t seem particularly worried about the state of your soul.”

“Mistress Iliana has a dispensation from the Church,” I said. “The Church must approve of what she is doing otherwise she would not be allowed to wander abroad in the company of soldiers.”

“You’re quick,” Frater Xander said. “Very quick. Perhaps too quick for your own good. You are correct about the dispensation, of course. But let us say that your mistress is tolerated rather than approved of.”

“I will bear that in mind,” I said. Then I remembered to add, “Frater.”

He noticed that too. There was a sharp intelligence behind those bland features. “And you say that your mistress allowed you to keep this small dragon as a pet.”

“He is a dragonling, not a dragon” I said.

“Of course,” Frater Xander said. “A silly mistake on my part.”

“Did you come here to pray, Frater? If so, I will get out of your way.”

“I confess I came down here to talk to you,” Frater Xander said. “I found myself fascinated by your pet. It’s not every day that you see a tame dragon…ling. Not every day that you meet someone who keeps one as a pet. You must have a rare gift for taming wild animals. The Holy Sun has blessed you indeed.”

“I have never thought about it, Frater,” I said. “It has only happened to me the once and I suspect that it was luck.”

“And you say that you found this creature in the desert.”

“Yes, Frater,” I said. “Ruth and I found him.”

I cursed myself for mentioning Ruth as soon as I did so, but it was too late and I could not take the words back.

“The servant girl was with you too?” It was hard not to miss the undertone of disapproval in his voice. I felt that there was not much about me that Frater Xander approved of, and the idea of that kept me off-balance. Where I had grown up, churchmen were powerful, well-respected figures. He must have known that for he used it to his advantage.

“Yes, Frater. She and I went walking in the desert the day we found Red.”

“Red?”

“That is his name.”

“I see. You went walking with a servant girl in the desert, and you a servant of the sorceress. I suppose such things are to be expected.”

Once again, he did not sound as if he approved. His eyes narrowed judgementally. “Are you sure there is nothing you want to confess?”

“I am sure, Frater,” I said. And I was. I did not like the way this man bludgeoned me with his unsubtle questions and their unsubtle implications.

“You must be very pure of heart,” he said. “To be so certain of that.”

“So must you, Frater, to be so certain of your judgement,” I said and cursed. As with my first meeting with Mistress Iliana, my tongue was going to get me into trouble.

His eyes widened in surprise, as if he had not expected such backchat from me. His fist clenched and I wondered if he was going to strike me. He probably felt he had the right to do that with any young whippersnapper who cheeked him. Instead, he took a deep breath, and his features remained calm.

“I try to live a pure life,” he said. I thought that he wanted to say something else but did not. I sensed tension in him and a deep well of rage, and something he was deliberately keeping under control. I found myself as frightened of him as I was of Vorster. I remembered seeing the two of them talking and I wondered what the rider had told the monk about me.

As if sensing my panic, Red circled back towards me and settled on my shoulder. He glared at Frater Xander and extended his tiny claws.

“I think your pet does not like me,” said the monk. He did not sound as if he cared very much. He looked as if he would have liked to reach out and wring Red’s neck. I took another step away from him, to put some distance between us.

My heart was pounding against my chest now, and there was sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, as bad as anything I had felt when fighting with the goblins in the shadow of the Sentinels. I wanted to run, but fear kept me from turning my back on this man.

At that moment, I heard a shout from behind me. “Ho, dragon boy. Best get move on. Grinner require service.”

Ghoran strode up, his insolent gaze focused on Frater Xander. He smiled as if he had not a care in the world. Frater Xander smiled back but there was no warmth in it. He seemed to be measuring the Northman and not liking what he saw there.

“Go swimming, Frater?” Ghoran asked cheerfully.

“Just chatting with my young friend here.”

Ghoran smiled again and slapped me on the back. “Let’s go.”

“Good day to you, Frater,” I said.

“And you, boy.”

As we made our way up the headland path, Ghoran said, “What wrong with you? You white as wave cap.”

“I do not like that man. He frightened me and I am not sure why.”

“Some monks like boys. Maybe he want cuddle.”

“You think?” It was one explanation for Frater Xander following me down to the beach, but it somehow did not strike me as being the correct one. He had been too interested in Red and Mistress Iliana. I wondered if he were some sort of spy, collecting information about the sorceress.

I pushed the thought to one side. What were the chances of someone chance met on the road being sent to spy on a specific person?

“Tell you thing,” Ghoran said. “Xander fighter before he frater.”

“How do you know?”

“Way he move when I get close. Feet apart. Balanced. Ready for trouble.” I had not noticed it at the time but now that Ghoran had pointed it out, I could see that it was true.

“Lots of people retire to monasteries when they get older. Maybe he was a soldier when he was younger.”

“Maybe,” said Ghoran. “Maybe he scared I attack him. Lot people in Northland no like sun priests. Maybe he think I like that.”

It would not have troubled me if Ghoran had been like that. I was glad Ghoran that he had come to find me. It seemed as if he was looking out for me in his own way, and I resolved to do the same for him if the chance arose.

My mistress did not notice any disturbance on my part and for that I was glad. I did not know what I would say to her if she asked me about Frater Xander, but I feared it would be something mocking.

The soldiers’ good mood continued. They exchanged comments about what they would do when they saw Solsburg again. Spider looked troubled and rode up and down the line chivying the march into some sort of order, sending Vorster and his companions ahead to scout.

The monks walked along at the end of the line, chanting plainsong, muttering prayers. Frater Xander took time off to talk with Spider but mostly he stayed with his flock.

Red swooped around like a bird, ever more confident on his wings, hunting beside the road and disappearing for longer periods as he devoured his prey.

At first his disappearances troubled me, but I realised I could always tell roughly what direction he was in, and when he had decided to fly back. I sensed his small presence nearby and when I turned my head to look, he would be in that direction.

I tested this so often that my mistress noticed. She stopped studying her book and stared at me. “Why are you squirming all the time? Keep your eyes on the road.”

I told her of what I was feeling, and she immediately snapped the book shut, tapped her fingers on the drum and eyed me sharply. “Give me the reins,” she said.

I obeyed.

“Close your eyes.”

I did so.

“Now point in the direction you think your hatchling lies in.”

I pointed.

She repeated her commands for a space of ten minutes and then said, “Open your eyes.”

I hoped no one had noticed our odd performance. Then again, what was anybody going to say if the sorceress made her servant behave like a clown.

“There is some sort of link between you and the dragonling that is for sure. I suspected there might be, and you have confirmed it.”

“Is this a bad thing, mistress?”

“I don’t know. Many mages take familiars but not usually dragonlings. Mostly they bond with small animals like rats or weasels or cats. And normally there is a ritual involved. Spells are cast, blood is drunk. You have done none of these things and yet you appear to have a bond with Red that many a more experienced sorcerer would envy.”

“What would make such a bond?”

“Magical energy, the joining of spirits, the weaving of spells. I don’t know. I also don’t know of anyone who has hatched a dragon’s egg simply by walking up to it. You are a very powerful natural sorcerer, boy. Perhaps that has had something to do with it. Sometimes such a one can cast spells unconsciously. Perhaps that is what happened here.”

I blinked at her, a little shocked by her ignorance. She could see it written in my face.

“I am sorry to undermine your faith in my omniscience, but there are many things in this world that I do not understand. The links that can spring up between living things are not my field.”

“Can there be any bad side-effects of such a binding?” I asked. I was worried about Red, more about myself.

“It’s been written that in some cases, when one member of a bond is injured, the other one is too. In extreme cases, when a familiar has been killed, the wizard has died. That is one reason not all wizards take such familiars. War wizards in particular.”

“Does that mean I cannot become what you are?”

She laughed. “You will be what you will be. The power in you will not be denied. If you set your feet on the Path of Destruction, there can be no turning you aside. You will just have a vulnerability, a weakness an enemy can exploit.”

My face fell. I did not like the thought of that. I felt like a traitor to Red when I asked. “Is there anything can be done to break the bond?”

She shrugged. “Nothing that I know of, not without harming both parties to it. I fear that it has already grown so strong that you would be irreparably hurt by such a breaking. But, as I have taken pains to tell you, I am no expert on this subject.”

I was almost glad when she said this. Red had grown on me over the days we had been together. Something about his presence reassured me. I worried about him when he was not there. I was fond of him.

“And it is not all bad news.”

“Oh good, mistress.”

“You are being sardonic again.”

“I am sorry, mistress. Please tell me what the good part is.”

“The dragonling is just as bonded to you as you are to him. As he goes stronger you will have a bodyguard both physically and spiritually.”

“Spiritually?”

“The link will anchor you to this world, make it more difficult for the things of Shadow to touch you from the Mirk. The bond may make you stronger.”

“That is good to know, mistress.” I did not sound as if I believed it. I was still reeling from the thought that any harm that came to Red might also affect me. It would certainly explain why was so worried about him. To some part of me, it was like worrying about my own safety.

“Until we have a chance to find out more, say no word of this to anyone. It could be dangerous for you and your pet.”

I thought of her murdered apprentices, and I thought of Todd and Vorster and for some reason I thought of Frater Xander. He too was numbered among those I felt were threats to my well-being. That list was getting longer without much effort on my part.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

As we approached Solsburg the land became less populated, which struck me as unusual. I brought this up with Mistress Iliana.

“Sometimes the sea floods in here and the salt left behind makes the area difficult to farm. The land around the city is more populous as are the approaches from other directions.”

I thought about the bitter lands held by my family. This place did not look a lot worse. “Is that all?”

My mistress raised an eyebrow. It cracked the white makeup on her forehead. “The peasants believe the ruins on the coast are haunted.”

“Are they, mistress?”

She smiled malevolently. “You’ll be able to see for yourself. We will be camping there tonight.”

“Ruins, mistress?”

“The remnants of an old Solari fortress, destroyed in the ancient wars.”

“I am surprised it has not been rebuilt.”

“People avoid it, because of the haunting.” I detected a twinkle of humour in her voice. At least I thought I did.

“It’s not really haunted, is it, mistress?”

She relented. “I have not ever seen anything, and I have camped there many times. On a clear night you can see the beacon of Solsburg lighthouse. I doubt anything too malevolent would dwell so close to it.”

“So we’re almost at Solsburg.”

“Indeed, and you will be able to see your first big city, and your training will begin in earnest.”

“I look forward to it, mistress,” I said, and I tried to sound as if I meant it, although I felt some trepidation. Another thought struck me, “Where will I be staying?”

“The same place as me, in the Ducal Palace.”

My heart beat almost as fast as Red’s. I tried to imagine what a Ducal Palace would be like, but my imagination failed. All I could think about was the vast mansions full of treasure that the storyteller always talked about in Khorba market square. Red must have felt my nervousness because he squawked.

“A palace, mistress?”

“Close your mouth, boy. You sound like a girl wondering whether she has the right gown for the Prince’s ball.” Something about the savage emphasis she placed on those words made me wonder whether that was something she had worried about as a girl. I dismissed the thought. With my mistress that seemed most unlikely.

“Will I still be your servant, mistress?”

“You will be my servant until your contract of indenture runs out, but if by your question, you mean will everybody else think of you as such, the answer is no. The Duke and his advisers will need to know your true position, although it might be best if that knowledge was kept to as few people as possible.”

“You think I might be in danger.”

“No. Pointless secrecy amuses me.”

“Are you being sardonic, mistress?”

“No. I am being sarcastic.”

“What is the difference?”

“Doubtless, the Duke’s courtiers will teach you that. If not, you may soon learn to spot both for yourself.”

“I have the feeling you do not like many of the people at the Duke’s court, mistress.”

“I like many. I trust few, and you would do well to remember that. Some of them will attempt to befriend you when it becomes known what you are. Mostly they will try and use you for their own purposes.”

It struck me that I might become a person of some import, if only because of the relationship in which I stood to her. I thought of the way the soldier’s treated me, and I saw that the process had already begun.

“I will bear that in mind, mistress.”

“I hope you do. Still it is likely that you will be too busy studying to remember it at all. You have much to learn and the real process of educating you has barely begun. I am sure Master Lucas will want to have a look at you.”

“Master Lucas, mistress?”

“The Duke’s healer. No doubt he will be busy with Lady Alysia when we arrive but after that he will want to test you.”

“Test me, mistress? Why would he want to do that?”

“To see if your talents extend to healing as well as dragonling taming. If they do, he will be able to teach you much if he chooses to do so.”

“Am I to be his apprentice too?”

“No. You will remain mine, for the time being. It is possible that your skills will be more suited to healing though, in which case we may have to discuss a different arrangement.”

“What would we have to discuss, mistress?”

“You and I? Nothing. But Master Lucas and I would have much to talk about.”

I began to think of myself as a parcel being passed from hand to hand, or perhaps a slave to be sold. It did not make me any less nervous about our arrival in Solsburg.

“I do not think I want to be a healer, mistress.”

“You would prefer the glamorous life of a mercenary war wizard, eh? I can’t say as I blame you. Much better to be camped in deserts watching the vultures feast than sitting around in palaces ministering to the rich.”

That got my attention. “Healers are well paid then?”

“Probably the best paid of all mages, unless there is a war on and even then, their services will be in demand. Of course, if you are apprenticed to a healer, most of the money collected goes to your master.”

It seemed that taking an apprentice might prove to be quite a profitable proposition for a sorcerer. “That hardly seems fair.”

“The master will need to supervise you and it’s his or her reputation that will suffer if you blunder. Also, you complain now but, if you live long enough, you will be a master someday yourself. See if you still feel that way then, and if you do, you can always do something about it.”

That thought was appealing but it did nothing to cool my resentment. It must have been written on my face because Mistress Iliana said, “When you lived with your family, you looked after your father’s goats. Did he pay you when he sold them or for your work?”

“Of course not.”

“What did you get in return?”

“A roof, food, the knowledge that I was helping.”

“Think of an apprenticeship the same way. Believe me, it would be no different if you were a cobbler or a tailor or a… locksmith like your friend, Jay.”

She placed a strange emphasis on the word locksmith, almost as if she found the description distasteful. At the time, I had no idea why, and I was too caught up in my own sense of moral outrage to pay it much attention. “You have convinced me, mistress.”

“I doubt that, but it does not matter much since it is the way of the world. In other places, your apprenticeship would be far longer and harder and more dangerous.”

I had the feeling that she would explicate on this if provoked. “What places would those be, mistress?”

She glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. She paid particular attention to the direction of the monks. “At the Courts of the Moon, you would be a servant all your life. In the Shadow Kingdoms, things might go far worse.”

I wondered how she knew that, but I had enough sense not to ask. “I am your servant, mistress. In all ways.”

“Until the indenture is done, that is true.”

She fell silent, staring north towards the sea, lost in thought. I was not sure why, and what part of our discussion had provoked that, but she was still, and I thought perhaps I had offended her somehow. I did not pay it much mind. I had my own self-pity to indulge in. After all, I was going to be a servant for the next seven years.

The road dragged by for the next few hours, until Spider called us to a halt for lunch.

We stopped in an area that had clearly been used for the purpose many times. There were traces of old fires and refuse. The cook wagon stopped and Clarin produced hard tack and biscuits and water. Some of the soldiers went to beg the monks to broach their beer casks but they refused, and the soldiers did not try too hard. I saw Spider talking with Frater Xander and I wondered whether his words might have something to do with the monks’ restraint.

In any case, I did not want to get too close. I got the food for my mistress, made sure the beasts were hobbled and the wagon properly settled and then, with her permission, I went off to look for my friends. Red scampered at my feet, long neck snaking around, curious about everything at ground level.

I found Ghoran and Jay talking with Ruth. They waved as I approached. It seemed like Lady Alysia had a quiet morning and might have recovered slightly. Ruth looked relieved and the two lads did their best to do so. Ghoran held out his arm for Red but my pet descended upon Ruth’s shoulder. The Northlander pretended to be offended but I noticed he produced a piece of sausage and presented it to the dragonling. Red scarfed it down ungratefully.

Jay looked towards the beach and pointed to a cluster of rocks emerging from the sea. “You’ve got to see this,” he said.

“I can see it,” I replied. “It’s a bunch of rocks.”

“That just shows what you know,” said Jay. “Ruth, you must see these. They are worth it, honest!”

He walked towards the beach, enthusiastic as Red on the scent of food. Ghoran shrugged as if to say, why not, and followed him. Ruth and I exchanged looks then did the same. I would have rather we were on our own, but there did not seem to be any way of managing it, and, if I am honest, the prospect worried me as well. I felt very self-conscious about the idea of being alone with her. The thought of kissing her was on my mind.

Sand crunched beneath our feet. The sea was a brilliant blue. Jay kicked off his boots and paddled out into the water. “I saw these the last time we came this way.”

“I am glad the sight of rocks excites you so,” I said.

“They are not rocks,” he replied. “Look closely.”

He pointed as if he was revealing a treasure. A wave rolled past the stones and the water level lowered and suddenly I did see it. A huge eye looked at me out of the water. A nose was revealed and an ear, covered in the sort of green scum you see on seaside rocks. I was looking at the head of a fallen giant.

“It’s a statue,” Jay said. “Look! Look!”

Once you saw the head, it was impossible not to notice the rest. One of the huge rocks was a half-submerged head. The rest of the cluster was a shoulder. A small distance away was a hand clutching part of a sword. A massive statue had fallen into the water here. It bore a resemblance to the sentinels carved into the mountains, although it was neither so massive nor so enduring.

“It’s the work of the Solari,” said Ruth. “It stood on that plinth there.”

She pointed to a flat, rounded patch of stone that a rolling wave broke on as if it were the shores of an island.

“What could have toppled or broken it?” Jay asked.

“An earthquake, perhaps,” Ruth suggested. “Or a tidal wave. They sometimes happen around here…or so I have heard.”

“The last such was before my grandfather’s grandfather’s time,” said Jay.

“The Solari built the lighthouse more than three thousand years ago,” Ruth countered. “That’s a very long time.”

She seemed certain of what she was saying, and I wondered at the depths of her erudition. I was not the only one.

“How you know all this?” Ghoran asked.

“I read,” Ruth said.

“She does,” I agreed, “and she’s teaching me to.”

Jay looked jealous when he heard that. “I wish somebody would teach me.”

Ruth looked embarrassed about that. I felt triumphant. She preferred teaching me to teaching him was what I thought. Of course, it was egotistical of me. Perhaps she’d just realised that she did not like teaching at all. How was I to tell?

We give our attention back to the fallen statues, stood there contemplating them. They radiated age. Ruth’s talk of thousands of years infected my imagination. I knew there were older things. The mountains for example. The sea itself. But somehow none of those gave a sense of time’s passage the way this fallen warrior did. The fact that he had not endured contributed to that. He was more impressive in his ruin than if he had been standing upright in his plinth.

In that moment I had a sense of how alien the land I lived in was. We were not the first people here nor would we be the last. We were insects, crawling across the face of the world, here briefly and then gone.

Of course, I could not articulate this then, nor would I have wanted to, but the sense of it passed through my mind. And it gave me a foreboding of the way time would rush by. When I was young, it was a pleasant thrill. These days, it no longer seems so.

Ghoran said, “it remind me of head of Thrad in the Northlands.”

“I suppose that’s bigger,” Jay said.

“Yes,” Ghoran said. “Thrad head bigger than whole body of statue. We think body in earth beneath but now I no so sure.”

“Who made it?” Ruth asked. “The Solari never settled as far north as your homeland.”

“Old Ones build him,” Ghoran said. “Carving very different. It covered in runes and magic crackle from it.”

Ruth said, “I have heard that the Eldrim build in a very different style from us because their senses are so different from ours.”

Jay and I shuffled our feet uncomfortably and looked away. Discussing the Old Ones was not something that you did where I grew up. Showing too much knowledge of them or curiosity about them was frowned upon.

Ghoran did not seem dismayed. “So I hear. In Northlands they worshipped as gods still.”

The way he said it left it ambiguous as to whether he worshipped them or not. He had probably been brought up in the Old Faith the way many people in the Bleak Lands still were in isolated communities. It would not be politic him to mention that here. Particularly not when there were representatives of the Church within easy earshot. They were probably already suspicious of him. Then again, they seemed suspicious of everybody.

“Have you ever seen an Old One?” Ruth asked. She stared intently at Ghoran.

“Once, late at night, in the distance.”

Jay forgot to use his mocking tone. “What did it look like?”

We were all quiet now. Ghoran looked out to sea and his face was a mask as if he was trying to hide some deep emotion. “Like big bird.”

Jay laughed. “Maybe it was a big bird.”

“Maybe,” Ghoran said. “If big bird turn into most beautiful woman you ever see. Stark naked and glow with silver light like the moon.”

Jay’s laughter died in his throat. “You saw this?”

“Yes. She dance across ridge in light of stars. Sing too. I hear in the distance. I lucky. Many men hear song, follow and never come back.”

I had a sense that he was not telling us everything.

We were silent for a moment. The waves crashed against the shore. Jay walked along the beach and jumped onto the body of the fallen stone giant. He ran up onto the shoulder, showing a sense of balance you would not have expected in a boy so chubby.

It struck me then that he too was not what he appeared to be. He looked like an overweight friendly lad, but he was prepared to kill people with his crossbow or his blade if need be.

I wondered about the way my mistress had mentioned locksmiths when she talked about him. It seemed as if she knew something about Jay that I did not.

Jay stood on the crumbling shoulder and jumped up and down and waved at us like a child at play. Ruth laughed.

Ghoran stooped and picked up a stone from the sand and tossed it in Jay’s direction, not trying to hit him. I did not doubt he could have done that if he wanted to. Instead he sent it ricocheting off the stonework near enough to be frightening.

“Hey, cut it out,” Jay shouted. Ghoran bent down and picked up another stone and tossed it. Jay pretended to wobble on his perch. He was very convincing but somehow, he never fell.

Ruth kept laughing. I wasn’t tempted to throw stones myself. I didn’t want to see Jay fall into the water. I had no idea how deep it was and whether there might be more of the statue hidden beneath it.

From behind us, came a call from one of the soldiers, telling us it was time to get back, that the caravan was going to move off.

The four of us looked at each other. We were happy, smiling. Something of enchantment clung to this place. Jay was right about that. He made his way back to the beach and we trudged up the sand back towards the caravan to which we belonged.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. I cannot pick out many details of that afternoon from my memory. Just a vague impression that it was warm, and the sky was a clear blue and seagulls flew overhead cawing.

My dragonling screeched back at them and flapped his wings as if he was tempted to pursue but he never did. Perhaps it was all for show. He was simply preening himself and preparing for the life of a hunter. My mistress must have read her book. That’s what she normally did as I guided the cart.

It’s funny how memory slips away. Some things about that day I can recall more clearly than events that happened this morning. Most of it has gone now, slipped away down the stream of time, going wherever our memories go, lost with everything else I have forgotten. I wish I could remember it all. I wish I knew a spell that would let me do so but I don’t and so I must rely on my own imperfect recollection. And that is one of the sadnesses of life, even for wizards.

Chapter Thirty

In the distance, the ruins my mistress had talked about hove into view. Once they might have been a palace or fortress or some combination of both. Whatever it had been, it had long ago crumbled. It was in the same Solari style as the fallen soldier on the beach, made from the same stone. It had the same colour and the same sense of time having eroded their shape. The years are hungry beasts and they devour everything in the end.

The soldiers stopped singing. Desultory conversation echoed down the line. The scouts raced ahead to check out the ruins. Despite my mistress’s reassurances, I wondered if they were haunted.

Mistress Iliana surveyed the stonework lazily, like someone who has seen a thing a hundred times before then her eyes returned to the text in her hand. It was covered in strange runes. They were not the ones that Ruth was teaching me. They did not have the look of the magical symbols that encoded her spells either. I was tempted to ask what she was reading but I knew she would not thank me for the interruption. A frown of concentration cracked the paint on her brow. What could have been that was so important? I swore that one day I would find out. I would find out everything.

Huge walls lined the top of the ridge but much of the stonework had crumbled, leaving only massive blocks buried in the earth. Scrub grass grew around them. Once again there were signs of the passage of other caravans. Some people might have been frightened of this place but clearly merchants and others used it as a stopping off point.

We drew up within the ruins. Spider rode around giving orders to set up camp. Everyone had a lazy relaxed feel about them. The more relaxed they got, the more worried Spider looked. I suppose it was his job.

The monks arrived last along with their cart. They were unusually quiet as they surveyed the ruins. Perhaps this had been a holy place once, a monastery or an abbey. Perhaps it had some religious significance. That was one secret I was not so keen to learn. I wanted to have as little as possible to do with Frater Xander and his brethren. Perhaps it was the fact that I was a sorcerer that made me feel that way. I’ve certainly met priests enough who would have said that. But I think it was something else. I simply did not trust the man and, by association, those who accompanied him.

In any case camp was made and servants cooked after fires were lit.

Many soldiers climbed the broken walls, all staring out towards the sea in a specific direction. It was as if they expected to witness something.

I mentioned this to my mistress.

“There are watching for the glow of the lighthouse,” she said. “It will be visible tonight. The sky is clear.”

I began to think that perhaps I should go and join them. I asked her if I could.

“I would not deny you the first sight of that wonder, boy,” she said. I thanked her and raced off to see if I could find Ruth.

The gloom gathered as twilight came on. The large tent was already set up and it seemed as if Lady Alysia was settling in. Ruth emerged with her wax tablet and stylus under her arm, and she smiled when she saw me.

“You are keen for your lesson,” she said.

“I thought we could go and look at the lighthouse first. Everybody else seems to be doing it.”

“Of course,” she said. Perhaps it was my imagination, but she did not seem as keen on it as I would have liked. It did not stop me from guiding her through the camp towards the towering partially tumbled wall.

As we went, I saw a long line of soldiers had drawn up near the monk’s wagon. The clerics had broken out the ale once more to celebrate the coming end of the journey. Jay was in the queue though Ghoran stood apart. I did not want either of my friends joining us, so I slipped along in the shadows as much as I could.

A stair ran from the foot of the ruined wall to the top. It looked old and rickety but it was clearly the only way to get up unless we planned on climbing. I led the way and Ruth followed. Red flapped along above, catching the excitement in the air.

We reached a ledge that might have been the remains of an old floor or perhaps a buttress for the planks of a high wooden ceiling. Soldiers crowded there and stared into the distance but there were fewer of them that I had seen earlier. Many had been lured down by the prospect of free beer.

I glanced back. The crowd was thicker. Fires burned. The cook hunched over his pots. Cowled figures moved through the camp. Frater Xander talked with Vorster and his friends over by the horses. The monk seemed to be feeding them sugar lumps. The thought disturbed me. It was out of character for the man although I could not say how. He had not struck me as one to be kind to animals.

I was going to say something, but Ruth tugged my arm. I turned and looked in the direction she was pointing. A second dawn threatened to break over the horizon, a golden glow to the north-east, slowly intensifying, then vanishing and returning.

It reminded me of the flicker of lightning, but it was much slower, and the light was golden, not the brief actinic glare of the thunderbolt nor the silver of moonlight. There was a strangeness to it unlike anything I had ever seen.

We remained there so long that the others left. It was almost as if we had planned it. I knew I should return to see to my mistress, but I was determined not to leave this spot until Ruth did. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and I was overwhelmed by the sense of her nearness.

“What is the glow?” I asked eventually. I did not really expect an answer.

“It is the lighthouse,” said Ruth.

“Why does the light come and go in such a way.”

“There are four stones at the top of it, mounted on a rotating platform. At night, an ancient engine causes the platform to go around so that the light can be seen in all directions.”

I looked at her and smiled. “How do you know so much?”

She looked upset.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s because…” Red chose that moment to squeak loudly and flutter his wings. I don’t know what upset him, but he could not have picked a worse moment. Ruth looked as if she wanted to tell me something important, but his sudden plea for attention distracted her, or perhaps gave her the excuse to keep quiet. It was as if a veil suddenly dropped over her face.

“What’s wrong?” I repeated.

She looked at me with her large brown eyes and said, “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. You are upset.” Something in my tone put her on the defensive.

She sighed. “I have been happy these past days in a way I should not have been with…with Lady Alysia so sick. I have been free in a way I have never been before and likely will never be again. It’s all ending now. We are almost at Solsburg. And I must go back to my old life. That’s what that glow means.”

What she was saying did not make much sense to me then. “I’ve been happy too,” I said. “Happier than ever I expected to be. Because you were near me.”

My heart was pounding, and my mouth was dry and what I said felt extraordinarily bold. We had turned to face each other. Our hands touched, and a spark passed between us as powerful as that of any spell. Neither of us really knew how to deal with that. I looked at my feet.

Red screamed again and beat his wings frantically. I almost cursed him. He was ruining the moment whatever it was, but then I noticed what he was trying to draw my attention to. It was quiet, very quiet. There was no singing. There was very little sound of movement beneath us. I looked down and saw figures sprawled.

“It looks like everyone has fallen asleep,” said Ruth.

“That can’t be right,” I said, starting to get nervous and guilty. Mistress Iliana would be looking for me now, and I might be in trouble. At the same time, the hair on the back of my neck prickled.

“Not everybody’s asleep,” said Ruth, “I can still see some people moving down there. Monks maybe. We’d better get back. We’ve been up here a long time.”

Disappointment, nervousness and a strange mix of emotions warred within me. Red screamed again as if he agreed with her. I would have been happy to stay up there all night, and it was not just because I wanted to be with her. I felt as if something was wrong down in the camp, and by staying up here we might avoid whatever it was. There was a tension between my shoulder blades now. I checked at my belt and found my father’s dagger was still there. The feel of its hilt was reassuring in my hand.

Ruth had already started down the stairs, picking her way carefully, one hand on the wall. I followed her down into the oddly quiet camp.

Soldiers sprawled on the ground, quiet as if they had fallen into an enchanted slumber. I wondered if that was what it was. Was there something about these ruins that affected people. I had not felt any magic at work.

Some men stood near their companions, talking to them, asking them what was wrong, wondering whether they sick. I heard someone say that Mistress Iliana should be sent for. I saw Ghoran sitting beside Jay, axe in hand. Jay’s eyes were wide, and he was babbling as if feverish.

Before we reached them, the Northlander got up and picked his way through the camp in the direction of Mistress Iliana’s tent. Part of me wanted to go with him, but part of me also wanted to make sure that Ruth got back safely. There was still that odd tension in the air, a sense of weird menace. Red screeched again and fluttered his wings. He flapped over to where Jay lay and began licking his face.

“There you are,” said Jay. “Where is that big northern bastard? Snuck away again. I don’t feel so good. Must have been something I ate. Always knew Clarin’s cooking would get me one day.”

Ruth bent over him and touched his brow. “He’s sweating, and he feels feverish.”

She must have had plenty of experience of that looking after her mistress, so I was prepared to take her word for it. “It looks like there’s been an outbreak of sickness. Maybe bad water from the spring.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Must be plenty bad judging by the number of men who have gone down with it.”

I stood up and looked around. It seemed as if more than half the soldiers were sick, and the other half stood over them looking more and more worried as men will when they are concerned about their friends and fearing that they might go down with something themselves.

Ruth said, “I don’t think he’s going to die, but there’s definitely something wrong with him. I’d better get back and check on my mistress.”

I wanted to wait with Jay, and I wanted to go with her. Jay must have noticed the expression on my face for he said, “Go. I know you like her. I’ll be fine.”

He closed his eyes and began to snore. I wondered where Ghoran was. Some of the monks were moving through the camp. They bent over some of the sleeping soldiers, and loudly pronounced it was Umbral fever. It was not a disease I had ever heard of, but they seemed to know what they were talking about.

Somewhere in the distance, a horse neighed. I thought it belonged to our riders although the direction seemed wrong. I told myself that one of the horses had probably broken its tether and gone for a wander, but my uneasiness was growing.

Ruth looked in the direction of the coach and the white pavilion and looked at me. “I had really better go,” she said. “Lady Alysia still needs me.”

I nodded and followed her. The tent was quiet, and the usual guards were nowhere to be seen. I said, “Where are the sentries?”

Ruth stepped inside the tent. I took a last look around and followed. A moment later I heard a muffled gasp. I tripped over something on the floor and hit the ground hard. It took me a moment to realise I had stumbled over a body.

I lay on the ground, stunned by fall. Red flapped over me. Another body lay close and I crawled over to it. I found I was looking into the face of Lady Rebeka. The floor under my hands felt sticky in the darkness. I raised them to my face. They smelled of blood.

I pushed myself to my feet and took in more details of the scene within the tent. Lady Alysia lay on her mattress, a dagger protruding from her breast. Another servant sprawled on the floor, a dark patch stained the back of his robe where a blade had obviously gone in. Ruth had her back to the wall and Frater Xander advanced on her, knife in hand.

For a moment, I wondered what he was doing standing there with bloodied dagger in his hand, with him being a monk, but then the knowledge slowly percolated in that he was not a holy man at all.

“Leave her alone!” I shouted. Red screamed defiantly. Frater Xander turned his head to look at me. His eyes narrowed. His lips compressed.

“Get out, boy!” he shouted. “If you want to live.”

“Leave Ruth alone,” I repeated. I tore my dagger from its sheath and brandished it.

Xander smiled. “You’re not even holding that correctly. It should be like this.”

He stabbed at Ruth who leapt to one side.

I raced at him and he twisted with unbelievable speed and tossed his dagger at me. It flew straight and true and would have taken me in the gut had not Red flapped into the way. The little dragon squealed as the knife punctured his breast and flopped to the ground, wings twitching. A stab of pain in my belly almost dropped me.

Xander shook his head, like a man contemplating an unfortunate turn of cards, glanced at Ruth and then at me, trying to decide which of us to kill first. He did not give the impression of being terribly impressed by the fact that I held a weapon, and I strongly suspected he was right not to be.

“Help! Help!” I shouted, hoping that Spider or Ghoran or my mistress might be within earshot.

He lashed out with his hand and caught Ruth on the jaw. Her head snapped back, and she tumbled to the ground. Red screamed in high-pitched agony nearby. I felt his pain as if it were my own. It burned in my chest.

“No one is coming to help you, boy. Just shut up and I won’t kill you.” Something in his eyes told me that he was lying. He advanced towards me confidently. He had the same air of menace that Ghoran sometimes revealed, only in him it was augmented by the coldness of his expression and the calmness of his voice. He talked about killing me in the same tone another man might have talked about buttering his bread.

He sprang. I stabbed upward but he swept the knife aside with a swift movement of his arm, grabbed my wrist with his left hand and my throat with his right. His fingers were like bands of iron. I tried to move my knife hand but could not. I reached up with my left hand to pull his hand away and could not. I tried to shout but no sound would emerge from my mouth.

He pushed my knife hand back until it was pinned against the wall of the tent. He leaned forward so that his dark eyes glared into mine. They were cold as chips of ice and death was in them. “That was stupid, boy, and now you are going to die.”

He was certain of that. His hand was immovable as a mountain. I tried to dig my nails into the skin of his wrist, but it was like pushing against iron. My vision darkened. Red squealed and fluttered into the air, trailing blood and then flopped down onto the bed. I thought I heard something moving behind Xander, but I could not be sure. I hoped it was Ruth crawling away.

His fingers tightened on the wrist of my knife hand. Agony surged along my arm. The weapon dropped. For a second, I thought he might stoop and pick it up and I braced myself to try and spring at him when the opportunity presented itself. He did not move. He increased the pressure on my throat. His breath was warm on my face. There was a hint of garlic in it.

Strength drained from me now. My life was over. So quickly. I was going to die. Red was going to die. Ruth was going to die. Alysia was already dead. Xander had succeeded in his goal after all my mistress’ efforts to keep her alive. From outside came the sounds of fighting and burning.

I tried to shout for help again but no words came. My heart pounded against my chest. My lungs screamed for air. I closed my eyes. Lights danced in the darkness behind my lids. Sparks, stars, I don’t know what. It made me think of something.

A word. In Eldrak. I thought of the pattern I had seen on the stone when I had first come into my power and thought that I might live to become a mage. The swirling dots seemed to form into that pattern.

“What the…” Xander muttered. My eyes opened. A faint illumination lit the room, centred on me. Xander’s hand relaxed for a moment and I almost managed to force some air into my lungs. He glanced at the door, perhaps afraid that my mistress would appear through it. No one was there. His grip tightened again, and the pressure increased.

I closed my eyes. The pattern was still there, burning, but it would not make any difference. I had finally managed to call forth light, but it could not save me. My first conscious casting of a spell was going to be my last. It was not fair.

I tried to clear my mind, to ignore the hammering of my heart, the bursting of my lungs. Everything slowed. Sounds receded. My mind felt unnaturally clear. I looked upon the pattern of light and for a moment I felt I understood its meaning completely, totally, utterly.

I saw it for what it was, a representation of one of the primal powers of the universe, a means of focusing it and drawing on it, of manipulating it. If you moved that vertex, it would concentrate the light. If you foreshortened the rune there and added a line across here the power would be directed thus…

I remembered my mistress saying that the light could be used as a weapon. I understood what I needed to do. I opened my eyes and gazed upon Xander’s smiling face. He was enjoying himself. He could have beat me to death or killed me with a blow of his hand, but that would have been too quick, and he would not have been able to relish the sense of power it gave him.

I superimposed the rune over his face, shifted the lines as I thought they should be shifted. The light blazed brighter than an exploding firework, bright as the sun seen at noon, brighter.

Xander shrieked and reeled backwards, blinded by the flash. The pressure on my throat vanished but the pain remained from the bruising. I knew I had but a moment. If only I could reach down, pick up the dagger I might yet save myself.

Then I saw Xander’s mouth was open and his eyes were wide. Spittle emerged from his lips and he stumbled forward to fall at my feet. Ruth stood behind him, eyes wide, fear etched on her face.

I stared at her uncomprehending for a moment then I saw that the blade was gone from Lady Alysia’s chest and I knew what had happened. She must have crawled over and picked it up and stabbed Xander when he reeled away blinded.

Just as that thought crossed my mind, a hand grasped my ankle and Xander looked up at me, lips twisted in a rictus of pain. He was still alive.

I brought my boot down on his wrist and his grip relaxed. I kicked him in the face and his head snapped back. I reached down and picked up the dagger. It felt cold in my hand.

I saw Red still on the bed and Lady Alysia and the sentry motionless, I saw the bruise on Ruth’s face and felt the mark of Xander’s fingers on my throat. I fought the urge to lean forward and stab and stab and stab. My heart raced. Fear and hate filled my mind urging me on. I saw a vision of my face, pale-white, red-haired and filled with darkness. It took everything I had not to plunge the dagger down into Xander’s heart.

From outside came the sounds of battle, and it seemed to me as if I could see through the silk walls of the tent. A gigantic four-legged serpent of fire crawled through the camp, devouring men as it went, filling the air with the sick, sweet smell of burning flesh. Beside it a skull-faced woman killed with a gesture. A red-haired man with an axe slew everything that came close to her, moving like some warrior god of legend.

The vision held me for a moment, then the doorway of the tent, opened and I saw Mistress Iliana was there, Ghoran beside her, axe dripping. The drum was empty. Behind her, a gigantic thing of flames and terror loomed. It was all too much.

I tumbled forward into darkness overcome by pain and a sudden flood of exhaustion.

Chapter Thirty-One

I woke in an unfamiliar place, feeling awful. Something sharp edged lashed my face. When I opened my eyes, a small red dragonling crouched next to my head. His chest bandaged, his wing patched. He squealed when he saw me awake and then snuggled down against my ribs.

“Good morning,” said a voice I recognised as Mistress Iliana’s.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“The Ducal Palace in Solsburg,” she said.

“What happened to me?”

“You have been unconscious for several days. We feared you would remain in a coma for good, but your little friend there brought you back.”

“I mean what happened back in the camp?”

I tried to sit up, but the room reeled. I took in thick hangings on the windows, a strange four poster bed, a quilt on which was the symbol of the Duke of Solsburg. Red squealed and scampered away from his perch, glaring at me as if I had betrayed him. He had just started to get comfortable.

“I am sure you can work it out for yourself.” Mistress Iliana’s voice was cold, but there was a slight crack in it, as if she was trying to keep her emotions under control.

“The monks were assassins.”

“Very good.”

“The beer was poisoned. They used it to eliminate most of our men.”

“Yes. Keep going.”

“It was the Crimson Brotherhood. They got Lady Alysia after all.”

Mistress Iliana’s face drifted into view, a white moon, cratered by black eyes.

“No. They did not. You saved her.” The voice held the same authority as always, and the same doubts. And her eyes were the same, calm and measuring and cold.

“She was dead. I saw it. Ask Ruth, she was there.”

“Ruth is gone. Forget her.” There was an awful finality in the way she said it. Sadness was written on Mistress Iliana’s face, and sympathy of sorts. I felt tears well up in my eyes.

“That can’t be, mistress. She was alive when I saw her. What happened?”

“I said she was gone. I never said she was dead.” I wondered if this was some new form of magician’s quibbling. I did not want to hear it. I was still trying to adapt to the news. There was so much that I had wanted to say and now would not get the chance to.

“What do you mean?”

“You will find out for yourself soon enough. Lady Alysia wants to thank you in person. She left instructions to be called as soon as you were awake.”

“Wonderful,” I said. I could not keep the anger or disappointment out of my voice.

“The gratitude of the nobility, although likely to be short-lived is not to be sneered at,” Mistress Iliana said. “It’s something that may stand you in good stead in the months to come.”

“I will try and look suitable grateful,” I said.

“You are a remarkably sullen boy,” Mistress Iliana said. I waited for the lash of her words. “But I am glad you are all right. Now I hear footsteps approaching so I shall leave you to your other visitors.”

Her last sentence left me so shocked that I paid no attention to the two figures who entered the room. One was a slim looking young woman in noble garb. The other was a tall, thin elderly woman who looked very much like the witch that everyone thought Mistress Iliana was.

There was something oddly familiar about the younger woman, but it was the voice that shocked me. “I am glad to see you are all right.”

“Ruth?” I studied her face beneath the veil. The lines looked the same.

She shook her head. “I am Alysia, daughter and heir of the Duke of Solsburg.”

Her eyes narrowed and she glanced at the old woman chaperoning her. There was some sort of warning in her eyes, but I was not sure what it meant. “Then who was Lady Alysia?”

“My cousin, disguised and masked by a spell of illusion placed by your mistress. She threw herself between me and the assassin’s blade in that Cathedral in Solsburg. Mistress Iliana decided that the safest way of bringing me home was to disguise me as my cousin and have the wounded woman take my place. She dyed my hair and wove illusions around poor Ruth.”

“Lady Alysia,” said the old woman disapprovingly. “This is not a matter to be discussed even with a trusted servant in private chambers. The less reference to it the better.”

Ruth, for so I still thought of her, looked at her chaperone and said, “I owe this young man my life and an explanation is the least he deserves.”

There was a lash of command in her voice that would have made Mistress Iliana proud. I saw Red had scampered into a position where he could study her and had now pounced forward to drag at the sleeve of her dress. If looks could kill the chaperone’s glare would have sent him from the place a corpse. Ruth gently disentangled him, and he scampered up her arm and began investigating the hair beneath the head scarf. It was blonde.

“How?” I managed to croak.

“How did we get away with the switch? My lady in waiting assisted and such servants as knew were bound to secrecy by Mistress Iliana. There was a strong resemblance between my cousin and I.” I thought of some of the things she had said when we had talked, and pieces of the puzzle fell into place. She studied me, head tilted to one side.

“I was not the only one who practised deceit.” She sounded almost angry.

She was staring at me now and I wondered what she meant. Red was on her shoulder, hissing at the chaperone. It appeared he disliked the old woman as much as she disliked him. Ruth reached up with one hand and placed him gently beside me on the bed.

“You did not tell me you were Mistress Iliana’s apprentice,” she said.

I wondered why she sounded so offended by that. I was busy reviewing things I had noticed about her on our journey. The amulet I had sensed magic in. Had it been to aid the deception or was it some sort of protection. I focused my attention on her. I did not sense its presence now.

She kept staring at me, obviously expecting an answer. “I too was sworn to secrecy. Mistress Iliana’s previous apprentices had been murdered by assassins.”

As I said it, other pieces of the puzzle slid into place. I turned them over in my mind, appalled by the thoughts that were suddenly there. My expression gave me away.

“What is it?” Ruth asked.

I considered telling her my suspicions but what good would it do? I thought about the murdered lady in waiting who had stood in for Ruth or Alysia as I must now learn to call her. I thought about the soldiers who had drank the poisoned beer. And I wondered if all of this had been part of a bigger scheme, to draw out the assassins, and slay them. Was my mistress capable of such a thing? I already knew the answer.

“I was wondering about the soldiers who were poisoned.” The lie came easily and then it turned to truth. “Jay and Ghoran.”

“They are alright, most all of them. The drug made them sleep, and some of them very sick. One or two died. They choked on vomit or had some sort of reaction to the drug, according to Mistress Iliana and Master Lucas. Ghoran was with Mistress Iliana. He stood guard over you and Jay the whole way here.”

“I would like to see them if I may.” I wondered at the barrier that had dropped between us. She was the Duke’s heir now. I was apprenticed to one of the Duke’s retainers. It changed things. She knew it and I knew it, and I wondered what would have happened really if I had been bolder that last night on the high walls as we watched the lighthouse glow break the darkness.

“That’s a very sad smile,” she said.

“I was thinking about the ruined monastery and the lighthouse,” I said.

She laughed, and I thought I saw the servant girl again briefly. “I was too.”

The chaperone sensed the shift in our attitudes, and she did not like it. “Milady, it is time to go. You have an audience with your father and this young man must be allowed to rest.”

“Of course,” Lady Alysia said. She inclined her head. “We will speak again soon.”

“I hope so, milady,” I said.

“Oh we will,” she said. “Count on it.”

I watched her depart and Red snuggled down beside me, ready to sleep once more. I lay there and stared at the canopy above my head and wondered what my life was to become.

That was the start of it all.

To get your free copy of Flesh to Shadow (containing the first three Kormak sword and sorcery novels) sign up for my mailing list. You’ll also get free short stories, special offers and learn about my latest releases. Join now and get your free ebook!

Copyright © 2019 by William King

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

About the Author

William King lives in Prague, Czech Republic with his lovely wife Radka and his sons Dan and William Karel. He has been a professional author and games developer for over a quarter of a century. He is the creator of Gotrek and Felix for Black Library. He is also the author of the World of Warcraft novel Illidan. Over a million of his books are in print in English.

He has been nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award. His short fiction has appeared in Year's Best SF and Best of Interzone. He has twice won the Origins Awards For Game Design. His hobbies include role-playing games and MMOs as well as travel.

You can find out more at www.williamking.me

He has been short-listed for the David Gemmell Legend Award. His short fiction has appeared in Year’s Best SF and Best of Interzone. He has twice won the Origins Awards For Game Design. His hobbies include role-playing games and MMOs as well as travel.

His website can be found at: www.williamking.me

He can be contacted at bill@williamking.me

If you would like to know when the next Kormak book will be released , as well as get free ebooks and special offers, please sign up for the mailing list. Your details will never be shared. Subscribe now.

Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review, even if it's only a line or two; it would make all the difference and would be very much appreciated.