Tris was absorbed in a history of the Namornese empire when she realized it was stuffy in the small library she had settled in. Putting her book aside, she got to her feet and went to open a shuttered window. Leaning out, she smelled lightning mixed with water. In the distance she could feel a rapidly climbing build of wind. A storm! she thought, excited. And with so much water-smell to it, I bet it’s on the lake. I wonder if I can get a look—it’s worth the image-headache, to see a storm on the legendary Syth.
Her student Keth had described the lake’s storms to her so eloquently that Tris would even forego reading to watch one. She placed her book where she had found it, closed the shutters, and went in search of a view. Turning a hall corner, she nearly ran into the chief mage, Ishabal Ladyhammer.
“I’m sorry, Viymese,” Tris said. “I wasn’t looking.”
Ishabal smiled. “In any case, I was looking for you, Viymese Chandler. Her Imperial Majesty and the court are sitting down to afternoon refreshments, and would like you to join them.”
“Must I?” Tris asked, pleading in spite of herself. “I think you’ve got a nasty storm brewing in that oversized pond of yours, and I’d love to take a look at it. I’ve heard so much about them.”
Ishabal chuckled. “Our weather mages predict no storms for today.”
Tris straightened. It had been a long time since anyone had doubted her word on the weather. “Are they always right?” she asked coolly.
Ishabal raised black brows that made an odd contrast with her silver hair. “No weather mage is always right,” she replied in a tone that said this was a fact of nature.
“With normal weather, that’s untampered with?” Tris shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll come to these refreshments of yours once I’ve had a look at the Syth, if you’ll direct me to the outer wall.”
Ishabal covered a smile with one well-groomed hand. “I shall do better. I shall take you there myself.” She stopped a passing footman with a snap of the fingers and murmured something to him. As he hastened back the way she had come, Ishabal pointed to another hallway. “This way.” She led Tris down through the axis of the palace, into a wide room. It held an enclosed staircase that led onto the inner wall that surrounded the palace. From there they took an enclosed bridge to the outer wall that followed High Street on one side of the palace, and the cliffs on the other three sides.
“Don’t you like walking in the open air?” Tris asked on the bridge to the outer wall. “Why enclose your stairs and bridges?” She wasn’t exactly complaining. She could no longer simply let the open air pour over her at will, though sometimes she risked headaches and bewilderment in the open wind just because she missed it so much.
Ishabal smiled ruefully. “Why? The god Sythuthan will turn your breath into a frozen diamond necklace at winter’s height,” she replied. “We dare not walk outside up here at that season—these stairs and bridges are the closest we get. Fortunately, at that time the god himself, and the lake, are defense enough. No one has to die on guard on this open part of the wall.” They stepped through the doors on the far side of the bridge. Here was a walkway broad enough that three people could ride abreast on it easily. The whole of the Syth stretched out four hundred feet below at the foot of the crenellated wall. The young woman and the old walked some two hundred feet along the top, the wind pulling at their hair and gowns, until Tris halted in one of the crenels, or stone notches. She pointed to the gray mass of storm clouds some ten miles offshore.
“I spoke out of foolish national pride,” Ishabal said, leaning against the merlon at the side of the crenel. “The god Sythuthan is a notorious trickster with a nasty habit of hurling storms at us with no warning to our mages.”
Tris bit her lip. The wind showed her a sharp image of a distant scene that was just a blurred dot to her normal vision.
“I hope all the fishing fleet got back to shore,” Ishabal remarked worriedly. “The storms are infamous for the speed in which they appear.”
“They’re trying,” murmured Tris. The image of the fleet tore out of her hold. She closed her eyes and did a trick with her mind, shifting the shape of her eyes and of the power she slid in front of them. Carefully she removed her spectacles and tucked them into a pocket inside her overgown, then opened her eyes. Now she could see across the miles without being forced to rely on a windblown image. A small fishing fleet struggled to turn and race for the shore, caught in a crosswind that left it becalmed.
Ishabal’s hands were moving in the air. Suddenly everything in front of the wall rippled, and Tris’s view was ablaze with silver fire. “Ow!” she cried, clapping her hands to her watering eyes. “What did you do! That hurt!”
Ishabal, who had turned the air before them into an immense scrying-glass that showed them the fleet in exact detail, asked, “Hurt? What do you mean? Why do you hold your eyes—child, what did you do?”
Tris yanked a handkerchief out from under the neckline of her undergown. “What I normally do, prathmun bless it!” A blessing from the outcast prathmun of Tharios was no blessing at all. Tris wiped her eyes and changed her magic until her vision was normal, then returned her spectacles to their proper place on her long nose.
Ishabal clasped her hands before her as she watched the fleet struggle to move again. “If you may correct your vision as you like, why do you wear spectacles?” she inquired, her voice distant.