Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

“Planir tells us Ilkehan’s dead,” Pered explained.

“Wizards.” Guinalle clicked her tongue with irritation. “They couldn’t wait for me to make sure their path was clear?”

“No one wants to overtax your skills,” said Pered diplomatically. “Everyone’s aware how much your duties ask of you.”

Guinalle smiled into her cup of aromatic tisane. “Shiv’s a lucky man.”

Pered’s smile couldn’t rise above the apprehension plainly weighing heavily upon him. “We don’t know exactly what’s happened in the Ice Islands.”

“So Temar wants me to find out.” Guinalle reached for his blunt and ink-stained hand. “Let us see together.” She drew him into the frowsty gloom and set her cup down on a cluttered board resting on two trestles. “With a love such as you share to guide me, I could find Shiv in the Wildlands beyond Solura.” She murmured a soft incantation.

As a sudden vision of Shiv crouching in a thorn bush surprised her, Pered’s fingers tightened on her own. “He’s hiding? Are they in danger?” She felt unimaginable pain edge the artist’s unspoken thought. “Something’s wrong.”

“It’s all right.” Guinalle spoke directly to his common sense to answer the fears of his imagination. “Whatever they’ve been doing, it’s worn him out but rest will restore him. He seems well content with his work.”

“Where is he?” Pered wondered without speaking and the thought rang in the silence they shared within the bounds of enchantment.

“I cannot tell.” Guinalle shook her head. “But he feels safe.”

Pered understood her double meaning without need for explanation. Shiv believed himself to be safe and Guinalle sensed no immediate peril threatening him. “Are they all safe? Livak? Ryshad?”

“As far as I can tell.” Guinalle frowned; it was always so hard to read a mage’s thoughts unless they were actively working their own magic. She might be less confused about Usara if she could sense a little more of what he truly felt for her. Then she might not have to rely on someone like Pered to anchor her with his commitments and affections. She hastily set that irrelevance aside before Pered could pick it up and then a flood of images assailed her.

A grief-stricken woman hid hysterical tears behind bloodstained hands and long, tangled hair. Her wild emotions struck Guinalle like a slap in the face. Horror at the death of her protector was twisted by guilty relief that her life would no longer be a nerve-wracking dance around his whims and cruelty. A new brutal truth assailed that scant comfort. Without Ilkehan, who might claim her? If she avoided enslavement or concubinage, how would she eat?

Ruthless, Guinalle broke free of the woman’s incoherent thoughts, pulling Pered with her. Noiseless voices and half-glimpsed faces came and went. What manner of Artifice did these Elietimm learn, if they had so little discipline, so little self-control? Theirs was a brutal, caustic art, shocking reactions from people and using such self-betrayal to another’s undoing.

As unrestrained Artifice carried emotions hither and thither, Guinalle saw a balding man with solid, wind-scoured features determined to defend his land and people from whatever might follow from Ilkehan’s long-hoped-for death. A younger man saw his flank exposed by the loss of his ally. The image in his mind’s eye of an undefended keep on an exposed sandbar shifted into a more immediate terror of his own nakedness beneath a descending blade. Vivid imagination saw shining steel cut into white and trembling skin, blood scarlet on the silver blade, flesh and sinew parting. Fear liquefied his belly as he realised no one would care that he had yielded to Ilkehan only to save himself. Guinalle was startled to feel her own bowels gripe in sympathy.

Pered gasped. “I can’t do this, my lady”

Of course, he was far more susceptible than she. That was why she was so shaken. “Stay with me.” Guinalle wove an incantation to give him some surcease from the hubbub of emotion. She bolstered her own defences as hopes and fears and guesses and memories swirled through the aether, battering her self-control.

A woman’s face creased with age exulted at the death of her enemy. Now she could die content. A younger woman close by was furious with something or someone, struggling against some constraint Guinalle couldn’t comprehend and for an instant she saw bars striping that drawn and intent face. Her desperation was her undoing, Guinalle realised with pity, resentment at her situation driving her to impossible pining for what had gone and could never be restored.

The shock of seeing the woman so confined by her regrets distracted Guinalle and she felt the passing brush of a powerful intellect so chilling, it raised gooseflesh on her arms. The impact of this cunning mind swept away all the other whispering emotions and Guinalle hastily shrouded herself with every art that she’d been taught. The questing thought moved on, man or woman Guinalle could not tell, but avaricious, darting from hidden deliberation to masked ambition, eager to take every advantage from this turn of events. Whoever this might be was as well schooled in secrecy as any adept of Ostrin’s shrine.

“A face hid from everyone.” With that conclusion Guinalle retreated carefully down the regular paths of rhythmic incantation and led Pered away from the trackless mire of grief, confusion and anticipation. “Ilkehan’s death has caused more chaos among the Elietimm than kicking over an ant heap.”

Pered opened his eyes, and rubbed at stiffness in his neck. “As you say, my lady.” He winced ruefully. “I feel as if I’ve spent half a day bent over a copy desk.”

“That’s a fair comparison of the concentration required.” Guinalle gestured to her array of cures, their bottles arranged by height and colour. “If you’ve a headache, I can mix you a draught.” It was a shame she had no tincture to still the trembling she felt in her own wits.

“I’ll be fine, thank you all the same.” Pered stood rubbing his neck, eyes inward looking. “That was a remarkable experience, even more so than last time.”

“Guinalle!” Temar’s voice startled them both and they turned to see him beckoning her impatiently to the door.

“In a moment.” Guinalle dismissed Temar with a flap of her hand. “When we have the leisure, you should learn a little Artifice. I believe you could become quite an adept.”

“It’s a shame I didn’t think of learning such skills before.” Pered didn’t bother hiding his bitterness. “Then I might be of some use here.”

“You can be of use to me and to Naldeth, if you’ve a mind to it,” Guinalle said with sudden inspiration. “Ostrin be thanked, his wound is beginning to heal and he has youth and strength to support him while it does.” She spoke in low, confidential tones, gathering up fresh dressings, a pot of salve and a small bottle of dark brown glass from the trestle table. “What he lacks is the will to live. He believes he has failed his calling, his teachers, Parrail and every other unfortunate lost to the pirates.”

“He’s woken?” Pered was visibly taken aback.

“Barely, but I have the arts to hear his thoughts.” Guinalle had to bite her lip at the recollection. She really must get a good night’s sleep as soon as possible. Being with Pered was tempting her to weakness as well; his open friendliness disarmed more people than her, after all.

Pered shook his head vehemently. “Their blood’s on Muredarch’s hands, not Naldeth’s.”

“I cannot convince him of that,” sighed Guinalle. She led the way carefully through the pallets to a bed at the back of the hut.

Pered followed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Talk to him. He can hear you despite his pain and the medicine dulling his senses.” Guinalle laid a hand on Pered’s arm. “Remind him of all there is to live for. Love, beauty, friendship, honesty striving against all that is false.”