Juliet McKenna: Northern Storm

‘You’re just trying to frighten me.’ Kheda shook his head to deny her words.

‘Is it working?’ Velindre shot back. He looked at her. The soft rush of surf and the scent of the midar flowers drifted through the tense silence between them.

‘You’re painting as black a picture as you can imagine,’ Kheda said at last. ‘I think the chances of such calamity are small. But I wouldn’t wager against some new danger coming out of the southern ocean.’

‘Then let me help you make ready for it,’ Velindre pleaded. ‘Yes, I have my own reasons for wanting to fathom this mystery and I don’t expect you to understand them. Does that matter when we both have much to gain as well as much to lose?’

‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend?’ Kheda quoted the old precept with a wry twist to his mouth. ‘In a pinch, perhaps, but such friends often prove faithless.’

‘What other choices do you have here?’ Velindre was unmoved. ‘Aren’t I the lesser of two evils?’

‘That’s what I thought about Dev,’ Kheda pointed out. ‘Our alliance may have benefited me but it hardly did him much good, did it?’

‘Aren’t we all responsible for the choices that lead us to our individual fates?’ Velindre countered. ‘You’ll be safe enough among the travelling scholars if you answer every question with another one.’ Kheda sighed and rubbed a hand over his beard, careful of the grazes on his face. ‘I’ll give you a token of safe conduct, so you can say you’re travelling in the islands under Chazen protection. Though I warn you, there’ll be plenty of domains where that’ll be of little worth. In return, I expect you to bring me any clue you discover as to where these savages live. You said something about using the clouds to trace this current of air that the dragons rode. I want to know if there’s any way I can read it in the skies myself, to know when we are in danger and when we are not.’

‘Fair enough.’ Velindre nodded.

Kheda forestalled her next words with a curt hand. ‘If you’re discovered to be a wizard, I shall not lift a hand to save you. I cannot imperil Chazen like that. I will forswear myself and give my oath you stole my token as well as deceiving me as to your sex and your unnatural powers.’

Velindre pursed her thin lips for a moment then nodded. ‘I can live with that.’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you were truly Aldabreshin,’ Kheda said swiftly, ‘lest there was an omen in such words.’

‘Should I hope so, or hope not?’ Velindre wondered dryly.

‘Go back to the residence.’ Kheda dismissed her with a curt jerk of his head. ‘We’ll sort out the details later.

Velindre studied him for a moment, then bent to pick up the box containing the casket with Dev’s ashes. ‘Till later.’

Kheda heard her slip in the loose sand as she climbed the long bank, muttering some incomprehensible oath as the stubborn midar plants scratched at her feet. Out across the water, he watched the rain clouds approaching.

The stars turn and bring rainy and dry seasons one after another. Every year the new-year stars return to realign themselves with the heavenly compass. Even the furthest jewels of the heavens eventually return to the same points, even if it takes an old man’s lifespan to see it. Everything is the same and yet everything is different. Everything is affected by what has gone before. Some sages say everything happens in the same instant, outside of time as we know it.

How could I have expected this to be an end of it all? There are no ends, any more than there are beginnings. Everything depends on everything else. These calamities depend on far more than I can see or hope to understand. What do I know of dragons or magic or these hidden wizards of Velindre’s? What do I want to know of such things?

So what are you going to do? Are you going to sit on your hands and lament your misfortune like some beggar or slave refusing to acknowledge the part he has played in his own fate? Or are you going to lose yourself in mystic contemplation of the infinite like some soothsayer starving himself to death for fear of making a wrong choice?

No man can halt the wheeling skies any more than he can stop the passing of the days and his life with them. All he can do is watch for the omens to guide him to better choices. Let’s see what lore Velindre brings back to show us some path to keep ourselves safe from these wild mages and their dragons. If she manages to make good on such a promise, won’t that be an omen, in itself?

He turned away from the uncommunicative sea and looked at the distant tower of silence.

In the meantime, I have offered up another innocent hostage to the future by getting a child on Itrac. I owe her the best future I can contrive, as my wife, as recompense for all she has suffered in the past, even if that was none of my doing. If I can do this, if I can see Chazen’s people set fair, perhaps that will balance the account against my involvement with magic.

If I can put an end to this magical danger once and for all, even if it means working with Velindre, perhaps that will outweigh the compromises I have made. Perhaps I can earn myself a better future. Perhaps I can earn the right to make choices for myself alone. Perhaps Risala will be able to wait for me.