Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) Read Online Free PDF Page A

felt lighter, relieved of those burdens of his oath and his servitude.
    He was done with the gods and goddesses and their deceits and uncertainties. Now it only remained for him to cut Halferan’s last ties to wizardry and be free from the perils of consorting with mages.
    More than that, for his dead lord’s sake and with the help of Baron Saldiray and Baron Taine, he’d see all of Caladhria guarded against Hadrumal’s influence before this midwinter parliament dissolved.

 
    C HAPTER T HREE
     
    The residence of Mellitha Esterlin, Relshaz
    Winter Solstice Festival, 3rd Day
    In the 10th Year of Tadriol the Provident of Tormalin
     
     
    T HE ARM-RING LAY in the centre of the rosewood table. A gaudy ornament, it showed its age in its florid styling as well through evidence of hard wear. Several of the rock crystals studding the circle were chipped and the inner surface had lost its gilding, the silver dull with scratches.
    ‘What did the boy Hosh say to you about his experience of its ensorcellement? His exact words if you please, Velindre.’ The oldest of the four wizards seated around the table looked intently at the tall, blonde magewoman sat opposite.
    ‘Forgive me, Madam Mellitha, but what is the point of this?’ the youngest of the four asked curtly. ‘We have been striving all afternoon with nothing to show for our efforts.’
    ‘Merenel?’ Jilseth looked at her friend with concern. She could feel the warmth of Merenel’s fire magic fading from the arm-ring.
    The nexus which the four magewomen had wrought, in hopes of penetrating the silver gilt ornament’s secrets, was already unravelling. Jilseth would never have imagined such a thing when she and Merenel had perfected their skills with Tornauld and Nolyen, the two other wizards handpicked by the Archmage to learn quintessential magic’s secrets alongside them.
    It was all the more puzzling since Merenel’s ability to work individual fire spells seemed largely unaffected although her skills with quadrate magic, combining all four of the wizardly elements, had become markedly erratic.
    ‘We know that this trinket bestows a stoneskin spell on whoever wears it. Granted, that’s no trivial wizardry but any of us could work it if we wished.’ Merenel ran a hand through her curling black hair. The Tormalin magewoman’s olive complexion was sallow with exhaustion and her shoulders sagged beneath her long-sleeved crimson jerkin.
    ‘Stoneskin isn’t the only enchantment instilled into the thing,’ Velindre observed. ‘No mundane born who wears it can remove it. Doing so requires a mage’s touch and I would very much like to understand that spellcrafting.’
    ‘I wish to understand how an inanimate object can still confer such benefits when the mage who first wove that wizardry is ten generations dead,’ Mellitha added.
    ‘Then I suggest that you find another mage to make up your nexus.’ The Tormalin wizard stood up and left the elegant sitting room. As she slammed the door to relieve her frustration, the angry draught stirred the long velvet curtains shielding the tall windows.
    Hearing the clack of Merenel’s boot heels retreating down the marble floored hallway, Jilseth wondered if she should go after her. She knew something of such distress; of being suddenly unable to rely on the magic which one had so carefully nurtured and studied ever since that first manifestation of one’s affinity, thrilling and terrifying in equal measure.
    Though their situations weren’t wholly the same. In that last desperate defence of Halferan Manor as the corsairs attacked, Jilseth had feared for her own life as much as anyone else. She had willingly poured her strength of mind and body into her innate link with the elemental earth, to harness the complex spells which Hadrumal’s great mages had devised.
    Merenel had been given no such choice. She had been swept up in the Archmage’s magic, unable to resist as Planir had woven fifteen other wizards’ power