Banners in the Wind Page 0,98

arcane scarlet flame. He brought his hands together until the magefire reflected in the polished silver plate. The Mountain mage concentrated on the mirrored glint. No longer leaf-like, it blossomed into a scarlet circle. The burning ring widened, a flicker of ruby brightness swirling round and around its outer edge. Beyond it, the silver shone, untarnished. Inside the magewrought circle the metal grew darkly opaque.

'Jilseth?' Sorgrad looked through the fiery ring. 'How are you this evening? How's the Aft-Winter weather in Hadrumal?'

'I am well enough and the fog is as thick as usual. I take it you wish to explain yourself?'

Branca shifted in hopes of a clearer view but could see no hint of the distant, waspish speaker beyond the sorcerous blackness.

'So she has been watching us,' murmured Tathrin.

'I have an invitation.' Sorgrad smiled charmingly into his spell. 'We would like you to help us persuade Emperor Tadriol not to send his legions into Lescar.'

'How often must you be told?' Incredulity strained Jilseth's annoyance. 'Every Archmage has forbidden the use of magic in the dukes' wars.'

'The dukes are gone, or as good as,' Sorgrad said crisply. 'We're not in Lescar now and I don't propose to use any more magic tonight. We have need of your particular talents.'

Branca missed Jilseth's reply as Gren growled under his breath. Charoleia held out her hand with a few words of his mother tongue. Gren went to sit on the end of her daybed.

Sorgrad was talking over Jilseth's objections. 'The argument against magic in Lescar has always been that it would make battles more lethal. You can use your craft to save countless lives. If the legions' campaign carries them clear across Lescar, how many hundreds of innocents will fall victim to winter's cold, to hunger, to sheer despair, never mind the bloodshed of battle?'

His voice hardened, striking a faint echo from the silver. 'How long before I find a family frozen to death in a ditch, their mouths full of dead grass? A father who's smashed his starving children's skulls before hanging himself from the doorframe? Shall I scry those visions for Planir and tell him you scorned the chance to turn such misery aside?'

'You wouldn't dare!'

But everyone heard the hesitation undercutting Jilseth's protest.

Sorgrad replied with low menace. 'Ask Usara what he thinks I'll dare.'

Branca couldn't place that name, though she thought she'd heard it before. Regardless, it clearly had an impact on Jilseth.

'We need not rouse him. Where are you?' she demanded. 'In Toremal? Tell me--'

'We're in Solland.' Sorgrad spoke swiftly over the magewoman. 'I'll come to Hadrumal myself and fetch you. Unless you're too much a coward to trust to my aberrant magic?'

'For a man who wants a favour you are abominably rude!' The scarlet ring of the spell flared with Jilseth's anger.

'Meet me in the Boar and Elder, just as soon as suits your convenience.' Sorgrad dismissed the spell with a contemptuous snap of his fingers.

Branca stared at the silver salver. She expected to see it blackened with soot, the surface irreparably distorted. But the metal shone, pristine, as if it had just left the inn steward's polishing cloth.

'I don't know how long it'll take her to find Planir.' Sorgrad was addressing Charoleia. 'She won't come without telling him that something's afoot. But I'll go now, to be sure I'm waiting for her.' He grinned suddenly. 'You never know what interesting gossip I might pick up in Hadrumal's best tavern.'

With that, he was gone. Branca had expected something akin to the blinding light that enveloped her when Sorgrad's magic had carried them away from Adel Castle. Instead, she was left wondering if she had imagined that azure flicker.

'Is everything ready?' Tathrin turned to the table with its curious collection of bottles and bowls.

'Charoleia explained what we would need.' Despite the cosiness of the room, Branca shivered. 'You've seen necromancy worked?'

'In Relshaz, once.' Tathrin hesitated, looking at Gren.

The younger Mountain Man sat hunched on Charoleia's daybed, looking mutinously at the carpet. She spoke soothingly in the archaic tongue of his people.

'What is his objection?' Branca asked quietly.

'I'm not entirely sure,' admitted Tathrin. 'He pays scant heed to his gods but Mountain folk set great store on bones being returned to their own soil.'

'I see,' Branca said, uncertain. Hadn't Gren dug up bones from a long-forgotten battlefield, to convince Duke Garnot that Failla had truly been kidnapped and murdered, to ensure he wouldn't pursue her?

Gren looked up and glared at them both. 'Only the sheltya should seek guidance from the bones of