Temar glared at the closed door. “I want to know how Shiv’s men are getting on.”

“Sorgrad and ’Gren have been fighting for more years than you’ve been living.” Saedrin curse it, I sounded more patronising than reassuring thanks to my own apprehension. The runes can always roll wrong, no matter how much skill my friends might have to weight them. “Oh, come on then.”

Temar took time to smile and wave reassurance to curious sailors, as nobles always seem to, no matter how fast the ground’s crumbling beneath their feet. I knocked a brisk double tap on the door.

“Come in.” Allin sounded contemplative and sad but that was better than outright anguish. She sat scrying at a table hanging from the beams of the deck above. Its raised wooden rim and a dampened cloth offered her bowl some stability but pools of fading radiance showed where ensorcelled water had slopped over the edges.

“So much for me trying to make sure you got some rest,” I chided her. Next time I’d empty the cabin of anything she might use for magic. Then she’d probably go back to scrying in the butt of water kept on deck for the sailors’ refreshment. She’d only stopped when she realised none of them wanted to drink from it, even if all she were using was citrus oil.

“How goes it to the north?” Temar twisted his hands absently together.

“It’s all over bar the grieving.” Eerie reflections turned Allin’s sombre face into a mask of light and shadow.

I looked into the scrying bowl to see a triangular cove between two spurs of brittle grey rock where even the hardiest plants were defeated by the combined assaults of wind and wave. Temar’s pennant was waving on the roof of a sizeable if crudely built hut tucked beneath a crag. Bodies lay among the stumps of a recently felled grove of trees.

“Kellarin’s writ is in force on this islet at least,” said Temar with satisfaction.

“It’s a start,” I agreed. An important one; Shiv’s scrying had detected a sizeable outpost of pirates on this jagged diamond north of Suthyfer’s westernmost isle.

Allin looked up. “If you want me to bespeak Usara, I’ll have to give up the scrying.” A gleam betrayed the sorrow brimming in her eyes.

“Don’t waste your tears on these vermin,” Temar said severely but he gave her half a hug for comfort.

I tried to pick out familiar outlines among the anonymous figures looting the bodies, a yellow head bent over a dead man’s hand. ’Gren, surely? I bent closer but stepped back with an oath as a sudden conflagration erupted on one side of the cove.

A smile teased Allin despite herself. “Is that your friend Sorgrad?”

Sure enough, I saw a blond man warming ostentatiously casual hands at the blaze. “It is, and burning longboats by the look of it.” He looked small within the miniature world of the scrying, more so beside a hulking figure that could only be Darni. I still felt a sour resentment as I looked at the big warrior. I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t blackmailed me into working for Planir. All I’d wanted was to sell the bastard a valuable piece of silver before its unpleasant owner realised it was missing, but Darni had recognised it and my cooperation had been the price of staying out of irons. Still, I reminded myself, reverse those runes and I’d never have met Ryshad. That put me ahead of the game, didn’t it?

“None escaped?” Temar’s voice was tight with concern.

If they had, our venture wasn’t exactly sunk but it would be taking on water fast. To beard this pirate captain in his lair, we needed to attack from both ends of that crucial inlet dividing the two main islands of Suthyfer. We had to know nothing lurked behind us ready to stab us in the back.

“No one got away.” Allin gestured and her spell swooped backwards over the water to show the pirate fleet’s pinnace prostrate in the surf, barnacles and green fouling on her shallow hull exposed to derision from the deck of a tall three-masted ocean ship drawing close to the wide beach.

“That must be the Maelstrom,” breathed Temar.

“Something to show for Ryshad’s coin,” I commented. Shiv and Usara had found a ship easily the length of the pirate predators, more heavily built with higher sides and deck castles but rigged for sailing just as close to the wind. As we watched, it anchored well clear of the pinnace’s three mastheads now digging deep into the pale sand and the tangle of sodden ropes and sails on useless spars. Corpses bobbed among nameless flotsam and the beach sand was stained muddy red with the blood of those few who’d made it to shore.

“Whose work was that?” asked Temar with admiration. For myself, I was none too keen to see how easily a ship could be knocked on its beam-ends.

“Larissa and Shiv between them.” Allin gazed into the bowl. “I wish I had such power.”

“When you’re working your own element, you do.” Guinalle was lying on one of the cabin’s bunks with a damp cloth on her forehead. I’d thought she was asleep.

“Feeling better?” Temar’s eyes stayed fixed on the scrying bowl.

“No,” replied Guinalle curtly.

“Can I get you anything?” I was glad of the distraction. The way the scrying was swaying at odds with the motion of the Eryngo made me distinctly nauseous.

Guinalle managed an infinitesimal shake of her head, mouth tight.

“I wish you’d try some of Halice’s tincture.” They say let a lame dog that snarls well alone but my beloved might need this stubborn girl up and ready to hunt. I looked at Temar. “Shiv used some sorcery to cure me of seasickness once. When we meet up, he can treat Guinalle to it.”

The demoiselle flapped an impatient hand, which at least proved she wasn’t entirely incapacitated. “All I need are some of the right herbs fresh picked.”

“Have you managed to sense anything of Parrail?” I wondered if Temar’s neutral tone masked a mutual irritation with Guinalle. Sympathetic as I was to her seasickness, I found her manner increasingly irritating.

Guinalle swung her feet down from the bunk and sat up, putting her cloth carefully in a lidded jug. “He’s hurt his arm. I can’t tell how badly.”

“So the chances of working Artifice between you are on a par with me winning a game of Raven against Livak.” Temar’s rueful attempt at a joke fell flatter than my baking.

Guinalle coloured furiously. “I have done the very best—”

“Have you any idea if Naldeth’s hurt?” Allin interrupted with what was either supreme lack of tact or the precise opposite.

Guinalle visibly reined in her emotions. “I’ve no sense of that.”

“It shouldn’t matter.” Temar patted Allin on the shoulder. “We’ll have them out soon enough to heal any hurts.”

Allin looked up at Temar with irritation. “Wizards in pain or delirium often have trouble controlling their influence on their element. They work magic without meaning to. That’s what set Planir looking into Soluran healing traditions in the first place.”

Which were based on fragments of aetheric lore. Which had set the Archmage on the trail first of Artifice and ultimately the lost Kellarin colony. I wondered if Planir felt like a man at a Solstice fair who’s seen his winnings doubled and redoubled in a series of lucky bets at the racetrack. Or did the Archmage know the hollow disbelief of walking away from a gaming table with cumulative losses to indebt his unborn grandchildren?

“While we who use Artifice find ourselves entirely unable to work enchantment if pain distracts us,” Guinalle commented sourly.

“Things bursting into flames all around him will betray Naldeth as a mage at once.” I’d bet enough loot to gladden ’Gren’s heart that things would go badly for the wizard after that.

“The sooner Shiv and Usara can lift them out of there, the better,” Allin breathed fervently.

“We just have to get close enough,” agreed Temar.

Running feet sounded on the deck outside. “Messire!”

Temar only got to the door before me because I was the wrong side of the table.