“Could you tell us where currents might have carried them?” Temar looked to Allin.

“The Tang will discover its fate.” Casuel spoke over her with irritating condescension. “Naldeth’s on board. I warned him Den Harkeil’s arrogance would doubtless lead to disaster.”

“The Tang? Den Castevin’s ship set sail?” Temar waved everyone else to silence. “When can we expect that?”

Casuel looked affronted. “They left on the 37th of For-Spring.”

“Just before the full of the greater moon.” Ryshad narrowed his eyes. “They should make landfall any time in the next ten days.”

“The lesser at dark won’t have been a problem, not with a mage aboard.” Halice was doing her own calculations.

Allin didn’t look so sure. “Naldeth’s affinity is with fire, not air or water.”

“Parrail’s on board as well.” Casuel’s dismissiveness made my palm itch to slap him. “One of Mentor Tonin’s pupils. He has sufficient Artifice to assist.”

“Thank you for this news, Esquire D’Evoir, and for your time. We need keep you no longer.” Temar nodded to Allin who snuffed the candle with a prosaic puff. Casuel’s obsequious farewells dissolved like the thread of blue smoke unravelling from the wick.

Temar rubbed a hand through his close-cropped hair, leaving it in unruly black spikes, his blue eyes haunted. “Dastennin forgive me but I could almost hope Den Harkeil’s ship has foundered.” He wasn’t invoking the god of the sea out of habit or hypocrisy.

“They knew the risk they were running.” Halice was no more inclined to sympathy than me. “Folly’s generally a capital crime sooner or later.”

Ryshad moved away from me towards a half-completed map of the coast between Vithrancel and Hafreinsaur. “Where do we suppose they might land, if they’re looking to set up their own standard?”

Halice twitched the map out of his reach. “We’re only guessing till one or other ship turns up. We’d be better off organising ourselves so we’re ready to meet any challenge. Temar, you’re calling yourself Sieur; it’s time you started enforcing your writ. If you’re going to do that, we need to know where it runs.” She grinned. “Which is what I came to discuss in the first place. Are you going to claim fealty from any of my lads who throw in their lot with colony families. Are they going to get the restraint they need if you do?”

“What’s brought this up?” Ryshad sat on the edge of the table, dark eyes alert. He knew the value of discipline among fighting men and had suggested more than once it was time Temar swore men to his own service in the manner of Messire D’Olbriot’s militia. Temar kept avoiding the issue, claiming he didn’t understand the customs that had been devised in the uncertain days of the Chaos.

I sat on Ryshad’s abandoned stool and took out my belt knife, idly cleaning my nails as Halice explained about Deg and Catrice. Temar rallied his wits and proposed reviving some of the ancient customs his grandsire had relied on. Ryshad advised a few modifications in the light of the greater independence Tormalin princes allowed their tenants these days. Halice grudgingly approved a few changes he suggested to the rough and ready sanctions she used to keep the mercenaries in line. Even Allin ventured a few hesitant observations on Hadrumal’s parallel systems of influence and power.

The only interest I’ve ever had in justice is keeping well clear of it. In some towns that means playing an honest game, watching my manners and trusting to Halcarion to keep my luck polished up. In other places it means taking every chance that offers and making my own besides. Sometimes, you just have to trust to a fast horse waiting to take you out of reach when some fool with an empty purse goes crying to whoever thinks they’re in charge.

I pared my nails and wondered if it mightn’t be more interesting to go home and wash the bed linen.

To Cadan Lench, Prefect and Mentor of the University of Col,

From Aust Gildoman, Registrar to the Magistrates of Relshaz.

Dear Cad,

You asked me to keep a weather eye out for any news of interest in aetheric magic hereabouts. Don’t think this counts as interest, exactly, but I thought you’d like to know how high some people’s feelings can run.

Your friend, Aust

Every clear-thinking man has rejoiced in this generation’s rise above the falsehoods and myths that so encumbered our forefathers. The pernicious influence of wizardry over the fearful is finally quelled just as the malign grip of religion upon the credulous has been broken. Now we must take a stand against insidious new fables as we are assailed by a mendacity combining the worst elements of magic and dogma.

Aetheric magic, also called Artifice, is noised abroad as the answer to every woe that afflicts the feckless. It will bring bread to the idle, succour those suffering through their own debauchery, and provide undeserved wealth for the inadequate. If half the powers ascribed to this ancient lore are to be believed, Artifice could bring the very moons down from the heavens. It takes but a little rational thought to see all such hopes have no more value than the silver of moonshine reflected in the gutter. Those few with any knowledge of these supposed enchantments are far from our shores and Tormalin nobility besides. Whatever slight benefits might accrue from their lore will inevitably be reserved for those born to rank and precedence. The commonalty is offered mere garbled cantrips barely understood by priests eager to snare the gullible once more with the comforting deceptions of piety.

Counter such folly with insistence on the study of the tangible. Remind any friend tempted by lies and half-promises of the proven benefits accruing from advances in every field of natural philosophy. We must not return to those naive days when the study of proportion was the realm of the mystic rather than the objective man, when anatomists were shunned for encroaching on Poldrion’s privilege and alchemists and apothecaries won only derision for their pains. Let us look forward to the advantages we will secure through rigorous application of the intellect explaining the richness of the living world, unlocking the secrets of death and disease, charting the cycle of the heavens and seasons and answering a myriad other questions besides.

Magic of whatever nature promises unearned boons but let us never forget the heavy price paid in the past by those succumbing to such temptations. No rational student of history can deny the Chaos enveloping the Old Empire must have been less comprehensive in its destruction, had not ignorant rulers summoned the unprincipled powers of mages in undisciplined pursuit of selfish aggrandizement. Malevolent magecraft wrought misery through every land from the ocean shore of Tormalin to the Great Forest beyond Ensaimin. No renewal could begin until amoral wizardry was driven from our shores, exiled to that isle where the mage-born skulk to this day.

Artifice may not offer such dramatic distortions of air and earth but its insidious threat is no less ominous. Consider the testimony of this Temar D’Alsennin, lately feted in Toremal. He tells of enchantments woven into every aspect of governance. Their false promise encouraged the Old Empire to spread ever further, ever thinner, relying on frail cords of Artifice to link all together. There was no understanding underlying this magic. In using enchantments to attack an enemy rather than honest strength of arms, D’Alsennin’s ignorant sorcerers cut the bridge from beneath themselves as well as their foe. With one thread cut, the web of Artifice unravelled throughout the Empire. The seeds of the Chaos were sown, ready for the fire and water of heedless mages to bring them to full bloom. D’Alsennin credits aetheric magic with his salvation and that of his people without ever acknowledging that same sorcery held them all senseless beneath the earth for more than twenty-four generations. This was not salvation but mere cowardly postponement of an evil day. What rational man would ever consider such a fate preferable to an honest death?