Tundra

The stone was cold and ancient. It had absorbed many spells, and had a great many tales to tell. But right then, it might as well have been graveyard stone, because Aais had not come back. The dove I sent after him never returned. The hurricane spell brought Hackly, Eiron and I to the Tower, but out at sea, the battle still raged on. Turon was out there, as were the Seafarers. It was probably only a matter of time until they were overwhelmed. Eiron had only returned because he still deferred to me in all matters, claiming that his leadership would kill us. Through a telescope on the high up battlements of the Tower of the Art, the three of us watched the elder edging up the coast, heading broadly towards land.

‘I don’t know how we can stop this,’ said little Hackley in a timid voice. ‘This is a disaster.’

‘There must be something we can do,’ I resolved to keep believing. ‘Eiron, have the Seafarers ever faced anything like this before? Your people live on the ocean, surely they would have encountered these elders before?’

‘What?’ Eiron snapped. ‘Of course not. We need Aais for this. Why haven’t you tracked him down?’

‘It’s not that simple. I know where he is, but that’s all the rune of finding does.’

‘We could make a pact,’ Hackley suggested.

‘No.’ I shot her down. ‘No pacts. Unless you have a pre-existing deal we can take advantage of, we’re not doing that.’

‘I don’t,’ the girl said meekly.

‘Well then, we will have to try another sending.’ I stretched out my hand, asking wordlessly for her smaller fingers to intertwine with my slender ones. We whispered the incantation inside our heads, eyes closed, minds fixated on the rune we drew with our fingertips. A fresh dove appeared, wings flapping at the ready, and glided out of the window and across the tundra to the sea. As though it had been sent twenty minutes ago, or from an alternative universe twenty minutes ahead in time, the dove returned immediately. In the air above the lofty, exposed roof of the Tower, it combusted. Images shimmered into view as its feathers fell gracefully to the flagstones. Reigning over all other visions, the likeness of a fish-man spun itself out of the ether and addressed us.

‘That’s not Aais,’ Eiron said.

‘Surface-dwellers,’ said the stranger, through nasty, pointed teeth. ‘We have your friend. We will take him into the dark water and make him like us. There is nothing you can do to stop it.’

Then, with another gloating grin, the picture vanished.

‘We have to do something,’ said Eiron, who felt close to the fish-man since they had saved one another. ‘We have to help him.’

‘I agree,’ I said readily, ‘but how?’

‘Where is he?’ Hackley asked.

‘He’s underwater,’ I supplied hurriedly.’ That’s– actually, no, wait, I know what we can do. A second skin rune?’ I posed the question to my Apprentice.

Yes, that’ll work,’ she muttered thoughtfully. ‘I’m assuming a skin of air?’

‘Yes, so that he moves right. It’ll need to stretch to cover his weapons, so we’ll work a shifting rune into it…’

‘What are you talking about?’ Eiron demanded to know.

‘We will send you to get Aais back,’ I told him. ‘I’ll give you the runes you need to move about underwater unencumbered– a second skin rune means that you will be surrounded by a skin of air, so you can breathe and move normally.’ I found myself gesticulating wildly in the excitement of my new idea. ‘It’s a complicated spell, but between us we should be able to weave one that covers you.’

Eiron’s eyes had narrowed into suspicious slits. ‘Why just me?’ he asked. ‘Has it somehow escaped your notice that every time I try to do anything, it ends badly? That battle was a disaster.’

‘That’s on Turon. Not even on him, really – there was no way any of us could have known what would happen.’

‘Besides,’ my Apprentice chipped in, ‘I was on those ships. As soon as you attacked, I saw everyone follow you. It’s not your skills that are the problem.’

‘And besides which, I don’t think either of us,’ I cast meaningful looks over myself and the diminutive girl, ‘would do well in a fight.’

‘This is still a bad idea,’ Eiron insisted.

‘Maybe,’ I admitted the possibility, ‘but it’s the only one we’ve got.’

Scribbling on parchment again, Hackley and I both scurried to cast the new spells. She kept an eagle feather quill, a relatively rare item out on the tundra, tucked inside her robe. I wrote with one of the same blackened goose-feather quills I always used. It felt strange, that I was superior to she, yet that she had the better instrument to work with. At any rate, it was not long until our circle of sigils was complete. I was pleased to discover that my understudy needed very little prompting, even for such a complicated spell. Eiron now wore a bubble that encased his entire body, and was fitted to his shape. As a finishing touch, I gave him one of the sending stones I had given Aais.

‘Now, as soon as you find him and are safe, use this and we will come and get you,’ I instructed the burly Seafarer.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If I don’t come back, make sure the Cleaved Tide hear how I went out.’

‘They will,’ I promised him.

And with that, Eiron departed. A competent climber, he easily scaled the exterior fortifications of the castle. Soon, I knew, he would be on a stolen horse, galloping down to the sea. I breathed a sigh to fill the air with something as we saw the back of him, but I needn’t have wasted my breath. Almost as soon as Eiron vanished, another messenger from the nameless school appeared, making Hackley jump.

‘You are summoned.’ He recited the familiar line. ‘Do not make the mistake of ignoring us a second time.’