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

seas.
    Aquamarine mist thickened over the remote waters and foaming crests surged across the bowl to vanish into the scrying spell’s emerald rim.
    Velindre withdrew her hands, sitting back. ‘Nothing has changed as far as I can see.’
    ‘Jilseth?’ The green magelight striking upwards deepened the fine wrinkles around Mellitha’s grey eyes.
    Jilseth focused her concentration on the scrying and then reached through the ensorcelled water to assess the swirling confusion of the elements in those distant seas where the corsair island had been.
    As she touched the bowl, her innate tie to all things born of the earth recognised the essence of elemental silver. Its touch soothed and strengthened her wizard senses. It seemed absurd to recall that not so long ago she had feared that her affinity was crippled beyond recovery. Now she must concentrate on curbing powers awakened by the shock of being caught up in Planir’s assault on the Mandarkin mage. Where Merenel’s wizardry had been thrown into confusion, Jilseth had discovered myriad unsuspected facets of her affinity to explore.
    Infinitely careful, she threaded her wizardry through Mellitha’s scrying and sought any sorcery swirling through those remote waters scanned by the scrying spell. Tangled amber magelight surfaced briefly amid the roiling waves. The amber skein unravelled and sank away.
    ‘Is that something new?’ Velindre leaned forward.
    Jilseth shook her head. ‘Nothing prompted by wizardry. Just currents of molten rock shifting beneath the seabed.’
    The sweetness of the oils blended with the scrying perfumed the room as though the bowlful of water was being warmed by that distant heat under the southern sea. Mellitha’s spell didn’t falter, unruffled by the elemental fire’s antipathy to her water affinity. Jilseth marvelled, not for the first time, at the serene magewoman’s skills.
    Velindre contemplated the shadowy vision, her eyes hooded. ‘Elemental upheaval still lingers even after a full quarter of the year.’
    Jilseth was still waiting for the right time to ask these eminent magewomen what they thought of Planir’s actions. Had they agreed when the Archmage and Stone Master of Hadrumal had declared the Mandarkin mage guilty of the most heinous crimes against wizardry? Had they concurred when the Element Masters of Cloud and Hearth and the Mistress of the Flood had agreed that Anskal’s abuses of those mageborn whom he had enslaved mandated his death?
    Had anyone foreseen the consequences when Planir had woven his first nexus with Rafrid, Kalion and Troanna? Did even the most revered among Hadrumal’s Council know how mercilessly the Mandarkin Anskal would be confined by their quintessential magic? That his belligerent magecraft would merely rebound from that implacably constricting barrier? That his struggles to escape this incarceration would only hasten the moment when his control over his innate affinity failed? That his unbridled wizardry would be lethally destructive trapped within the adamant prison woven by the Archmage’s nexus?
    Jilseth longed to ask Planir when he had realised that even this initial union of Hadrumal’s greatest wizards wasn’t going to suffice. That the Mandarkin was calling on some vile unknown sorcery; a spell to suck all elemental strength from those enslaved mageborn, to add their power to his own, not caring that he would kill them.
    When had Planir decided to abandon Hadrumal’s original hope of rescuing at least some of those mageborn captives by confining their wizardry in less lethal fashion until they surrendered to judgement?
    When had the Archmage realised that only the unprecedented four-fold nexus could possibly defeat the elemental maelstrom whipped up by the Mandarkin? Had Planir hesitated for even an instant before risking the lives, the sanity and the affinity of those wizards whom he had summoned to work with him, by weaving their elemental powers inextricably into his elemental