then did Colrean remember the Grannoch had said a true wizard was on the way.
Surely not an oath-bound wizard, though, for there had not been time for anyone to come from the closest cities. Besides, this one was riding a peggoty, a made horse, a thing given a semblance of magical life for a short period. A peggoty was fashioned from green sticks of willow, mud, and the blood of no less than seven mares. Such mounts were accordingly very expensive to make, they took a great deal of power to create and not much less to maintain, and were difficult to ride. But they were much swifter than a horse.
Making things like the peggoty was forbidden to oath-bound wizards. It was blood magic, requiring a great deal of often slow and painful killing, and its practitioners invariably ended up having no concern for any lives but their own.
Sure enough, up alongside the Thrake-Seyam wall came a strutting mount of sticks, with a cloaked and hatted figure on its back, a staff held negligently in the rider’s hand. Colrean could not see the face of the wizard, shadowed under the brim of the hat, but he already had an inkling of the rider’s identity just from the silhouette and seat. He knew that rider.
She—it had to be she, if he was right—stopped the peggoty a little ways off, and dismounted onto the stone wall. Unlike Colrean, she did so with nimble grace, and there was no danger she would fall or stones dislodge. Her hand waved, moonlight catching several sorcerer’s rings upon her fingers, not a meager single ring as Colrean had possessed. With that wave, the peggoty collapsed into its component parts, its work done.
Colrean caught a whiff of the horrible charnel stench of decaying blood and tried not to breathe it in.
He still couldn’t see the wizard’s face, but he was sure now. He did indeed know every movement of her slender body, the shape of those elegant hands.
“It’s been a long time, Naramala,” said Colrean, his voice loud in the silent night.
The wizard tilted her head back, perhaps in surprise at hearing his voice, though probably not. He could see her face clearly now. Beautiful Naramala, the woman he had once thought sure to be the great love of his life.
“Coltreen,” she said, her voice musical and lovely, even more lovely than her face and body. It was her voice he had fallen in love with first, hearing her unseen in the university library, undeterred by the shushing and hushing of the proctors.
“I am called Colrean now,” he said quietly. “The Islanders cannot pronounce hard t’s. It seemed easier to let it go.”
“The Islanders?” asked Naramala. “Is that where you went? But then why are you here now, so far from the Cold Sea?”
She walked along the wall now, toward copse and rowan and Corner Post. And Colrean. She held the staff like a rope-walker, across her body, as if for balance, though he knew she had no need to do so.
“I live nearby, these two years past,” said Colrean, gesturing with his right hand, the moonlight catching on his own ring. “I had enough of the sea, the cold.”
“And you made your ring, after all,” said Naramala. She stopped several feet short of the farthest-reaching branches of the rowan and stepped lightly down from the wall, bringing her staff vertical. “I did wonder what had become of you. And why you left so abruptly, without a word. Indeed, I was quite hurt.”
“I saw you with Alris,” said Colrean.
Naramala laughed, an easy, carefree laugh. Even now, knowing what he knew, Colrean felt an ache when he heard it. Such an easy laugh, so warm and inclusive, with her eyes widening that little bit and her mouth twitched just so—
“Oh, we were students then and carefree! How was I to know you would be so jealous of some simple pleasure? Or was it because she was a woman? So rustic, Coltreen! I suppose these barley fields suit you better than the streets of Pran.”
“It wasn’t jealousy, though I will admit to that. I saw you kill her,” said Colrean flatly. “Strangled with her own scarf. And you took her bracelets, the proof that won her the first place.”
Naramala didn’t answer for a moment, then she laughed again. A little laugh, very different in tone. One of cold amusement, not for sharing, and her eyes became colder still.
“How ever did you see that?”
“There was a cat,” said Colrean. “I was practicing watching through its eyes. It chanced to alight on your windowsill, and … I saw.”
“Only four of us were to be allowed to try for our sorcerer’s rings that year,” said Naramala conversationally. “Alris might have got my place. Though your leaving made it easier still. Were you afraid I would kill you, too?”
“No,” replied Colrean. “I was afraid I might kill you. I couldn’t bear … everything, I suppose. The disillusionment, the despair. I decided to go as far away as possible. I was young, rash, and judgmental. Of myself, more than anything. How could I have ever loved a murderer?”
“I thought true love would transcend mere murder,” said Naramala. She looked up at the rowan’s branches, many of them now leafless, the bark shredded from its combat with the Grannoch. Giving the tree a wide berth, she circled around toward the stone, tapping the ground with her staff as she walked, her gaze never quite leaving Colrean. “If you ever truly loved me, you would understand why I had to kill Alris. Wizards are not to be judged as normal people, Colrean. If you had stayed to make your staff, you would understand this.”
“So you are beyond me, and my judging?” asked Colrean. “Or that of anyone, save other wizards?”
“I am beyond their judgment too,” answered Naramala. “Or I will be, once I take the staff in that stone for myself.”
“You are not oath-bound?” asked Colrean, though he already knew the answer from the mere existence of the peggoty. “How so?”
Naramala smiled. “Let us say I crossed my fingers,” she said. “I found a way to loose the coils. The oath could not hold me, not beyond the passing of a dozen moons. I pretended it did, of course. The old fools have no idea.”
Colrean lifted his eyebrows to show his amazement and shuffled around the rowan a little as Naramala edged closer to the stone.
“Are you going to try and stop me, Coltreen?” asked Naramala. “Indeed, I am puzzled why you are here at all. Sorcerer you may be, but you could no more draw that staff than you could stand against me.”
“That is as may be,” said Colreen. “But you will not take that staff. Nor could the Grannoch who came before you.”
Naramala tilted her head slightly, those beautiful pale-hazel eyes weighing up Colrean. He knew she was taking stock of how he leaned upon the tree, his right foot planted too heavily, knee at an odd angle, his left foot drawn up to try and soften the pain of his wounded sole. The single gold band upon his finger, that doubtless she suspected no longer held any reserve of magic. The lack of a staff, and no other obvious articles of magic, no sword or knife or wand. All in all, he must look a posturing fool to deny the wizard Naramala, in all her majesty and power.
“A Grannoch? I wondered what strange corpse was immured below. But any power you did have must have been spent to slay such a thing. I hazard you are empty now, of all but words.”
“I am not,” said
