by Janny Wurts
Anskiere lifted his staff. The blue-violet radiance of his weather mastery flared over the tunnel that led to the surface as, straight-shouldered, and clad in threads of tattered velvet and gold, he began the ascent. Jaric followed. Neither sorcerer spoke of the fact that the Stormwarden retained the Sathid crystals which underlay the powers of a firelord, as token of a trust dearly bought.
* * *
Torchlight and the pinpoint gleam of wax candles lit the great hall at Cliffhaven, though the hour was well past midnight. Clad formally in robes and myrtle circlet, Taen Dreamweaver perched on the dais to the left of the Kielmark's chair while a crowd dressed in brocades and livery milled restlessly below. Royalty, the elect of the Alliance, and an assembly of town mayors, complete with servants and attendants, squabbled over seating for the council called by the Kielmark. His unreasonable choice of timing had cut sleep and tempers short. More than one delegate examined the furnishings with displeasure, recognizing prized gifts claimed as tribute, or items pirated from vessels that had attempted to run the straits without acknowledging Cliffhaven's sovereignty.
Taen smiled as the mayor-elect of Telshire squeezed into a cushioned chair too delicate for his enormous girth. Close by, the youngest crowned head in Keithland vanished between two pages, a secretary in hot pursuit; King Kisburn's untimely death had left an heir of eight, and royal advisers had their collective hands full playing nursemaid. Fifteen council members of the Alliance clustered, stiff-backed and disapproving, before a doorway guarded by the Kielmark's sentries. Beside their weaponed presence, the dignitaries seemed palsied and grey. Never had Keithland's vulnerabilities been more evident than in the diversity of rulers gathered to formulate the defence, Taen reflected. Their bickering and disorganization might easily last until dawn.
The sovereign Lord of Cliffhaven entered, shirtless but resplendent in white breeches, sea boots, and a magnificent silver-hilted broadsword. Rubies sparkled above his bronzed and muscular chest as he strode to the dais, his senior captain in full dress uniform on his right. The buzz of conversation faltered, then renewed with a note of defiance as the Kielmark reached his leopard-hide chair. He rested crossed wrists on the back, and his voice boomed out as if he stood on a ship's deck. 'Kor's grace, some of the furnishings are interesting, even familiar, I admit, but sit down, all of you, at once.'
As if the words were a signal, the sentries at the door dressed weapons. The sharp, metallic clang stilled the crowd in the chamber; faces turned forward with resentment.
The Kielmark surveyed the officials and the royalty gathered in his hall. 'That's better.' With the passionless interest of a king wolf, he sat himself; and the sentries by the doorway sheathed steel to chilly silence.
Corley took the chair to the right. Bruises from a recent fight discoloured the skin over his collar. But the death wish that had troubled him earlier now seemed utterly banished; as the Kielmark opened council, his senior captain calmly took up whetstone and knife. The Dreamweaver closed her eyes with relief.
'I called you here for the purpose of defending Keithland against Kor's Accursed.' The sovereign of Cliffhaven paused and fingered his sword; and immediately the Alliance representative from Skane's Edge disrupted order. Bald, middle-aged, and over-dressed in a robe festooned with ribbon, the man sprang to his feet.
'Pirate! How dare you preside over honest men? Is it true a Firelord has returned to Keithland soil? Your kitchen scullion said a son of Ivain took shelter on Cliffhaven only yesterday.'
Uproar swept the chamber. Ivain's cruel exploits were remembered with resentment and fear, and news of an heir to the Cycle of Fire abruptly overturned propriety.
Yet the Kielmark ruled a lawless following. Within his halls he managed insolence with strength, brutality, or wolfish cleverness, whichever suited the moment best. Neither royalty nor the august peerage of the Free Isles merited exception. Before debate could organize to rebellion, the King of Pirates unsheathed his sword and bashed the flat of the blade across his chair.
'Silence!' The effect proved sufficient to intimidate. The councilman sat swiftly, and the noise subsided. The Kielmark rested his sword point against the floor and addressed the troublemaker in tones of blistering scorn. 'Do you rule by the gossip of servants, Eminence? The scullion you bribed suffered a whipping for his indiscretion.' Aware of a few sullen murmurs, the Lord of Cliffhaven inclined his head toward the captain seated to his right. 'Corley, deliver your report.'
Moonless's former captain rose and, with a poise impossible an hour before, related the demise of his fleet of six. By the time he spoke of his experience with the Karas shape-changer, the assembly sat strained and disturbed. Corley ended, finally, to thick silence.
The Kielmark now had their attention. He sheathed his great weapon, and one by one called upon the rulers of Keithland to evaluate the status of their domains. Other than prowling bands of Thienz, most had little to contribute; sceptical expressions crept back until the Queen of Hallowild announced that her northern domain of Morbrith had fallen to the Dark-dreamer's influence. In a voice tremulous with sorrow, she told of fields and towns littered with corpses, and of caravans that ventured through Gaire's Main never to return. The Kielmark incisively pointed out that the timing of the deaths coincided with Jaric's destruction of the Gierj.
Corley sat with his whetstone clenched in whitened knuckles; and Taen wept, for the folk she once had defended were now bones rotting in the sun. Even the irascible King of Felwaithe sat silent in his chair; his lands lay closest to Shadowfane, and only the inscrutable caprice of Kor's Accursed seemed to have spared his subjects from ruin.
The Kielmark stirred, eyes gone cold as chipped ice. 'Plainly the demons challenge our borders once again. Landfast itself may be threatened. Any man who thinks our survival is not in peril may abdicate, now. Keithland has no leeway to spare for dissent.'
A murmur swept the chamber, ominous as the grind of storm surf over rock. Though every ruler present bridled at the Kielmark's assumption of authority, none dared arise in complaint. Forced to alliance by a common cause, Keithland's council tallied resources and argued strategies of attack and defence until well after dawn. Taen listened in silent distress. Her Dreamweaver's perception grasped the truth: neither weapons nor the bulwark of faith in Kor's canons could match the Dark-dreamer and his circle of Gierj.
Daylight spilled cold, grey light through the arches when the clatter of hooves echoed up from the courtyard.
Corley stilled his whetstone and knife. The Kielmark lifted his chin from his fist, eyes narrowed with speculation, as the great double doors burst open.
Two men entered, both of them ragged. The taller wore the remains of a blue velvet tunic; tangled silver hair streamed over the wool of a sentry's borrowed cloak. His lean features were hooked into, a frown, and he carried a sorcerer's staff capped with looped brass. As he strode past the guards, a hush settled over the council. The pale eyes, sure step, and stern countenance of Anskiere of Elrinfaer were known the breadth of Keithland.
The silence grew strained at the appearance of the Stormwarden's companion, a slight, blond man in singed linen whose eyes no man could endure without discomfort. But to the woman in Dreamweaver's robes on the dais, the sight of Ivainson Firelord brought joy.
'Jaric!' Taen left her chair running. Her myrtle circlet whirled to the floor as she hurtled the length of the hall into his embrace.
Keithland's newest sorcerer spun her around. Oblivious to propriety and the presence of royalty, he kissed her; and his exuberance shattered order within the council. Kings and council members rose, some in awe, others shouting imprecations. But louder than the din rose the Kielmark's rich laughter, and the voice of the King of Felwaithe.
'Hail Stormwarden! Hail, heir to the Firelord! Let Shadowfane rue this hour, and Keithland rejoice. For the victory!'
'For the victory!' echoed the elderly Queen of Hallowild, while, with a predatory smile, the Kielmark beckoned Stormwarden and Firelord to join him
on the dais. To the right of the leopard chair, Corley smiled grimly. Plans to wrest Morbrith from the Dark-dreamer could now begin in earnest.
XI
Crisis
The click of beads echoed across the mirror pool at Shadowfane as the Thienz bowed obsequiously, forelimbs clutched to its chest. 'Lord-mightiest, I bring news.'
Scait regarded the creature, his eyes already slitted with annoyance; earlier he had learned that two of the human children taken captive had died in training. A third had weakened to the point where it would not survive, and the advisers had begged to open it for dissection. Scait forbade them, though they grumbled; with only five human young left to be enslaved through a crosslinked Sathid, the Demon Lord gestured irritably for the Thienz to continue.
Beads clicked; the Thienz was young, an immature adult. It squirmed with reluctance, which meant that its message would be unwelcome. 'Exalted, the watcher sends word of a discovery,' it blurted in a rush. 'Gierjlings have gathered. They have chosen a lair in the caves beneath Shadowfane. A spore to form the Morrigierj is already spawned and growing apace.'
Scait gouged spurred thumbs deep into the stuffing of his throne, while at his feet the Thienz cowered and shivered. No news could have been worse.
This setback made other difficulties pale to insignificance. The master plot to conquer Keithland hinged upon expendable human pawns to focus the Gierjlings' killing powers; but a Morrigierj was the creatures' rightful overlord. This advent of a spawning was centuries premature, and a perilous upset, for the naturally focused forces of the Gierjlings were mightier by far than the combined powers of the compact. Shadowfane itself might be threatened. Scait snarled at the Thienz. 'You are certain of this?'
The messenger bobbed, exuding a stink of nervous sweat. 'Mightiest, the Watcher-of-Gierj itself sent me.'
'I come at once.' Human hide tore beneath Scait's claws as he thrust himself abruptly to his feet.
The Thienz scrambled to complete its bow, then scuttled off like a whipped dog. Normally the Demon Lord sent underlings upon those errands to the catacombs beneath Shadowfane. But with all hopes, even continued survival, ultimately dependent upon conquest of Keithland, the possible development of a Morrigierj became a priority concern. Inwardly as distressed as the Thienz, Scait strode from the hall without pause to call a lackey to replace the rent limb of his throne arm. While the Thienz scrabbled clear of its master's feet, the Demon Lord descended the spiral stair that gave access to the lower levels of the fortress. From there he traversed a mazelike chain of corridors that altered, in subterranean depths, from pillared construction and hexagonal brick to the uneven contours of a cave. Dampness streaked walls stained rust red with mineral deposits. The enclosing confines of rock seemed suffocating, a barrier impervious to the finely developed psychic sensors of most demons. Scait hissed uneasily. He blinked glowing eyes in the gloom and chose his path with caution. At length, on the heels of the Thienz, he arrived at the chamber the Gierjlings had chosen for their lair.
The underling scrabbled aside and fled. The Demon Lord it had escorted ducked through an archway into darkness studded with the yellow-green glimmer of eyes. Gierj were there, numbering hundreds or maybe even thousands, jumbled one upon another like a mat of living fungus.
Jostled by wiry, furred bodies, Scait snapped his teeth in displeasure. The creatures eddied away with a clicking of claws and an occasional whine of protest. Presently the Demon Lord gained an unobstructed view of the spore, a stonelike sphere nested in a depression in the floor, black and dull, and protected by a shell of insurmountable hardness. Scait already knew that no force possessed by the compact was capable of destroying it; memories-of-ancestors ascertained this fact beyond doubt. The only way to kill a Morrigierj spore was to launch it into the heart of a star. Lacking ships, such remedy was impossible; but space communication and transport might not prove beyond reach, should Corinne Dane's Veriset navigational module be recovered.
Scait blinked, and opened his retinas to their widest aperture. Normally a spore should take a decade to mature, but past data offered no reassurance. Keithland's magnetic fields must be differently tuned from those of the home star where Gierj had evolved. Plainly, the natural rhythms of the cycle were upset. The spore that Scait regarded should not have been spawned for another two thousand years.
'Other things than nature might stir the Gierj to a spawning.' The sending originated from a hulking form that shuffled down the corridor beyond the Gierj-lair.
Scait stiffened, irritated that his guard had been breached. Only one being in Shadowfane would dare his anger; that one was very old, and far too wise to offer reckless challenge.
The Watcher-of-Gierj sent again with a note of driest acerbity. 'Your rivals will claim that misuse of the Gierjlings given over to Maelgrim served to hasten the breeding cycle. Whatever the cause, Lord-exalted, this spore in all probability will hatch prematurely.'
Scait required no warning of the Morrigierj's pending development. His eyes had fully adjusted to the dimness.
Now that his sensors had acclimatized to the unaccustomed restrictions of stone, he, too, felt the flare of primal awareness that stirred beneath the spore's surface. Spider-limbed Gierjlings rustled restlessly in the dark. Their zombie eyes burned balefully while the Demon Lord sorted ramifications.
'The compact is thwarted, now.' The shuffling step drew nearer. Presently the nasal voice of the Watcher sounded from the doorway immediately behind. 'Morrigierj will upset all plans.'
Scait spun around as the creature's domed hulk crowded through the arch. Hunched and armoured like a scavenger beetle, it picked at the carcass of a fish. Cartilage crunched delicately as it cleared its mandibles and qualified. 'Even fully bonded-to-Sathid, your talented litter of humans dare not contest the sovereignty of the Morrigierj. Most-jealous-of-masters, its vengeance would surely be bloody.'
Scait's lip curled and bared rows of sharpened teeth. 'What will that matter? Take Set-Nav, and we can escape this planet. Then let the retribution of the Morrigierj fall and wreak death upon mankind.'
The watcher crunched a last bite of fish. 'But Set-Nav's location is not known to us. The Sanctuary Towers at Landfast no doubt hold the key. Except they are guarded by priests, and the most secure of arcane defences. The captive manlings bonded to Sathid will never mature in time to spearhead your assault against Keithland.'
The Demon Lord shrugged with malevolent displeasure. The Watcher was the last of its kind; it had no ambition for power. If he slew it in a fit of defensive rage, its skills could not be replaced. 'I will grant Maelgrim Dark-dreamer a Gierj circle of sixty, and permission to enslave all of humanity.'
'Gierj power on that scale will ruin the boy's health quickly,' scoffed the Watcher. 'That he would be dead long before Landfast's securities could be broached is a foregone conclusion.' It blinked tiny, wise eyes and waited, but its overlord whirled and strode from the chamber, kicking Gierj from his path with more than his usual viciousness. The Watcher sighed with resignation. Patiently it combed fish oil from its quills, while the Gierj closed like a living blanket around the black spheroid of their spore.
* * *
Keithland mustered for war. On Cliffhaven, where armoury and warehouses were stocked with weapons for every contingency, the Kielmark ordered the forges lit to benefit those domains less well prepared. The clangour of his armourers' mallets rang night and day over the fortress, while ships came and went in the harbour, delivering dispatches and transporting men. The vessels sailed always with fair wind and full sails. Recovered from his prison of ice, Anskiere of Elrinfaer served as weather warden. Between time, he began instructing the Firelord to refine control of his mastery. The Kielmark observed Jaric's progress with narrowed eyes, then immersed himself in strategy and planning. Even the defences of Vaere-trained sorcerers had limitations. Force of arms must not be neglected in preparation for battle against Shadowfane.
The south-shore kingdoms and the Alliance archipelagoes prove
d woefully under equipped; Kisburn's troops were still depleted from an ill-fated alliance with Tathagres, which left the northshore garrisons maintained by Hallowild and Felwaithe. The Kielmark detailed captains to evaluate them; then, clad in the white breeches he had not taken time to change since the council two days past, he sent for Deison Corley.
The first captain was slow to arrive at the study. His smudged hands and tunic showed that summons had reached him at the waterfront, where he laboured with the dock workers to black down the rigging of the brigantine commissioned for his command. Both sleeves bore stains at the wrists from the tanner's oil that softened a new set of knife sheaths.
The Kielmark analysed such details at a glance; judging his captain well recovered from the incident with the Karas, he made a decision and spoke. 'The sorcerers and the Dreamweaver sail for Morbrith with the turn of the tide.'
Corley crossed the carpet, sat, and stared at his boot cuffs as if the leather desperately wanted mending. He showed no surprise. 'Then you'll order me north to Cover's Warren, to muster the patrol fleet and guard Felwaithe?'
'No. Tamic's doing that.' The Kielmark watched, muscles coiled like a snake's, as his first captain shot up straight with a screech of chair legs. For a moment blue eyes locked with ones of cinnamon brown.
Then Corley said, 'Why?' A stranger would not have noticed his hurt, that his Lord had sent another, perhaps steadier man, where once he would have gone himself.
'Because I'd never trust Tamic to keep order in this den of outlaws.' The Kielmark rested his fists on the table; rubies flashed like blood at his neck as he leaned forward. 'We'd have mutiny and murder within the hour Ladywolf sailed.'
Corley blinked and slowly turned white as the name of the brigantine registered. Ladywolf was the Kielmark's personal command. 'You'll be going yourself, then, with Taen and the rest?' His brows peaked in disbelief. Through fifteen years of service he had never known the Lord of Cliffhaven to leave his island fortress.
