The final golden shimmers of the sun were scattered by a waterfall tumbling into a brook but everything else was muted to myriad shades of gray. Black as the night deepening under the surrounding trees, the shape of a man suddenly ran across the open ground to the hut, crouching low and moving swiftly. His yell ripped through the silence as a shock of lightning erupted from the ground beneath his feet, throwing him backward to scramble in confusion for the shelter of the trees. Smoke drifted away on the night’s chilly breath.

After a long still moment, two more figures slowly paced across the turf to vanish in the dark lee of the hut. A sudden flare of blue light outlined the frame of a window and startled curses were hastily hushed. After a tense pause a hooded individual strode boldly from the cover of the woods and stood in the middle of the grass, a handful of others respectful in his wake.

The stout wooden door exploded inward in a soundless shower of splinters and the black-clad men rushed inside, only the faintest gleams of starlight catching on their swords and one pale, uncovered head. Faint sounds filtered through the ruins of the door, the scrape of nailed boots on the floorboards, the heavy drag of furniture being hauled aside, crashes spoke of shattering crockery while a series of dull thuds suggested treasured books being tossed angrily to the floor. One liveried figure emerged from the door, head down and stooped shoulders betraying failure and fear. The hooded man crossed the grass with impatient strides and struck him with a gesture of disgust. The others emerged, one proffering something that stayed his leader’s punishing hand. With a sweep of his cloak, the hooded man led his troop away to melt into the forest night.

The pallid, wasted arc of the lesser moon rose over the sheltering crag. Slowly tendrils of smoke began to ooze from the windows and door of the cabin. Greedy flickers of flame began to lick around the timbers, startlingly orange against the deepening night. In an impossibly short time the roof collapsed in on itself and the red glare of the inferno defied the soft light of Halcarion’s crown of stars, now riding high and uncaring above the smoke. Feathery drifts of ash swirled across the glade as grass withered and the bare earth began to steam. Suddenly the fires melted away, leaving only a ruin of blackened wood.

A motley-colored cat made a tentative foray from the edge of the woods but something startled it and it dashed up a tree. On its second attempt, it reached the forbidding heap of charred timbers and paced cautiously round, sniffing and occasionally prodding with an inquiring paw. After a while, a second cat appeared, ears down and tail clamped close to its gray-striped side. The two animals explored the edges of the ruin for a while, the air around them shimmering oddly, the size and colors of the creatures shifting and altering until the spell faded away to reveal the wizards in their own forms. Neither man paid any heed to the magic unravelling around them and continued to search intently, pulling wreckage aside.

“Let me.” Shiv hauled a blackened beam aside to reveal the smashed and burned remnants of a trap door. Viltred pulled at a twisted tangle of wood and metal with an effort, struggling with a racking cough as the ash and cinders were puffed up around them both. Shiv helped him clear the choking debris then made to go down the rock-cut stair now revealed.

“No,” snapped Viltred. “This is still my home, what is left of it.”

Gathering his faded jerkin around himself, Viltred descended the steep steps awkwardly while Shiv waited, arms folded and one impatient boot raising little flurries in the soot as it tapped.

Viltred’s cough echoed harshly as he emerged from the cellar some while later. “Well, the Archmage is going to learn nothing new about these mysterious islands, their vicious peoples or their arcane arts from the few treasures I won from Azazir.” He spat into the dust and clinker. “They’ve taken every last piece, so where does that leave Planir’s hopes now, Shivvalan, tell me that!”

“Ryshad!”

I was so startled to be hailed by name on the deserted early morning road that I jerked my reins like a novice. The indignant horse skipped a pace forward, shaking its head with a rattle of harness rings and bits.

“Ryshad, over here!”

“Shiv?” I looked around to see the wizard waving at me, lanky and raw-boned as I remembered him, leaves stuck to his breeches as he emerged from a spinney I would have sworn was empty of anything larger than a squirrel. “What in the name of all that’s holy are you doing?”

A second, hunched figure appeared and Shiv turned to offer his arm. “May I present my companion, Viltred Sern. Viltred, this is Ryshad, the sworn man I told you about.”

A Prince’s man soon learns not to betray surprise so I bowed, expressionless, as I looked to see what manner of man had been apprentice to one of the most notorious and dangerous wizards that the hidden city of Hadrumal had ever produced. It was something of a surprise to see a tired old man with a ragged gray beard and sunken eyes, soiled and crumpled after what must have been a cold night out in the open. Still, it had been a generation or so since Azazir had been given the choice of banishment to the distant wilds of Gidesta or death at the hands of the Council of Wizards for his irresponsible sorceries.

“Shivvalan, I need warmth and food before my joints seize completely in this damp!” The old man scowled out from the moulting fur of his hood.

“What’s the story, Shiv?” I asked, concerned. “Why are you walking the road without so much as a bundle between you?”

Shiv shook his head. “I could only tell you half a tale at the moment. Let’s find somewhere with a fire and some decent ale.”

I let it go for the moment and dismounted to help shove the old wizard into the saddle, where he rode like a sour-faced sack of grain. “There was a decent-looking tavern not far back,” I suggested.

“Fine.” Shiv nodded. “We’ll be going south as it is. Take us there.”

I wondered if I would have to find a tactful moment to remind Shiv that, patron’s instructions or not, he had better not have any ideas of ordering me about. Messire gives me his commissions, but I’m used to plotting my own course.

We soon turned into the well-swept foreyard of the whitewashed tavern and Viltred struggled to get off the horse. Realizing he was older than I had first thought as I saw the grayness of his skin under his sparse and ragged beard, I offered him my arm. Accepting my help after a sharp, suspicious glance the mage stalked stiffly inside where Shiv was charming a pink-faced tap maid into letting us have the private parlor off the common hall.

Once we were seated in the snug room, which even boasted some well-polished wainscoting, I poured three tankards of the rich dark ale as Shiv drew the heavy oak shutters across the clouded glass of the small window. At a snap of Viltred’s fingers the candles sparked to life, outshining a faint glimmer of blue light spreading from Shiv’s outstretched hands.

“Now I can tell you what’s going on. We don’t want to be overheard,” he explained as the enchantment faded into the wood and plaster of the walls.

A sensible enough precaution, given that putting up the shutters would have aroused the curiosity of anyone who’d seen him do it.

“If you could manage it, Viltred, the augury would be the clearest way to explain everything,” continued Shiv.

The old man sighed but nodded. “Do you have a candle-end?” He took an oilskin bundle out of an inside pocket and unwrapped a crescent of hammered copper set on a little stand.

I watched, determined to keep my countenance. We don’t have much use or experience of wizardry in Formalin but I had seen it wielded to startling effect the previous autumn, when Shiv, Livak and I had been fleeing for our lives across the desolate wastes of the Ice Islands. I recalled Shiv was a wizard whose powers linked him principally to the element of water, an accident of magebirth that had played a crucial role in saving us from the merciless Ocean, thanks be to Dastennin.