Stormwarden

by Janny Wurts

  There Taen discovered a fair-haired boy about Emien's age, bundled to the neck in furs. His breath frosted on the clear winter air as he grunted, hefting a heavy pack onto the slim frame of a drag-sleigh. By the restless, self-questioning intensity of his thoughts, Taen knew at once she had found the subject of the geas' creation; this slim, unremarkable boy was the Firelord's heir and Anskiere's hope of deliverance.

  Bare-headed and with cheeks flushed from the cold, the boy never noticed the presence which observed his movements. He fussed irritably with a knot in the cord he had brought to secure the pack to the sleigh, hampered by gloved fingers and the whipping tug of the wind. Never once did he swear. In silence, he worked the tangle free, his brows drawn into a frown over dark brown eyes. Taken by his single-minded preoccupation with the task, Taen paused, her concern momentarily eclipsed by curiosity. She watched the boy lash the pack with painstaking care. He finished with knots as neatly done as any tied by a fisherman's son.

  The door to the cabin banged open. The boy looked up. A tall, lean forester clad in a cape of marten emerged, black hair streaked heavily with white tumbled across his shoulders. He crossed to the boy's side and knelt beside the drag-sleigh.

  With the caution of a man bred to the wilds, he tested the tension of the cords. Then he straightened, satisfied, and clapped the boy on the shoulder. "Fine job," he said softly. "Did you remember the striker and flint?"

  The boy tapped the pouch at his waist, and although he spoke no word, the shy smile which touched his features revealed feelings of fierce pride. The forester's praise was desperately important to him. Sensitive to the fact that the fate of Anskiere, Emien, and perhaps the well-being of Keithland itself depended upon this boy's uncertain shoulders, Taen reached out to sound his thoughts.

  Her entry was silent as an owl's flight and her quarry unsuspecting. Called Kerainson Jaric, the boy carried the mark of a recent and painful injury. He worked as apprentice to the forester, Telemark. A silent, earnest lad, Jaric took desperate care in his craft; he pushed himself ceaselessly, as if to overcome some greater deficiency than the weakness of convalescence. But when Taen sought the patterns of his immediate past, she encountered only emptiness and an anguished sense of shame. To her dismay, Kerainson Jaric possessed no conscious memory of his past or his parentage.

  His plight moved Taen to pity. With full command of her dream-reader's skills, she reached to find out why, and experienced a disquieting discovery. Jaric's affliction resulted from the combined damage of a head wound dealt by outlaws and the backlash of Tathagres' interference at the time she had disrupted the geas. The boy could be made to remember. But through one stolen glimpse of the past he had forgotten, Taen understood enough to know that restoration of his memory would be doing him no kindness. Yet lacking Jaric's inborn talent on the opposing side, the demons would surely triumph, Anskiere's imprisonment would become permanent and the Keys to Elrinfaer fall into Tathagres' hands. Taen withdrew from the boy in the clearing, troubled by the realization that his peaceful life with the forester was destined not to last.

  The instant the psychic net of Taen's awareness resumed normal proportions, the Vaere collapsed the time-differential which governed her, restoring the capsule which enclosed her to Keithland's main continuum. The girl within slept peacefully, her hair grown long and as glossy as the plumage of a raven through the lengthy years of her confinement; her body by now had fully matured. But the cycle of Sathid mastery had exacted a heavy toll upon the girl's physical health. The Vaere found her weight dangerously slight and much of her vitality depleted by exhaustion. Should Taen be removed from the capsule's protected environment in her current weakened state, there would be risk of disease; but her sleep patterns were normal. Rest would eventually restore her resilience.

  Yet the months to come would develop the prime factors which determined humanity's survival. The Vaere tinkered probability figures as if fretting. Taen had uncovered new information during her passage into mastery. Merged, the facts shaped a picture distinctly threatening. The Vaere computed a second set of extrapolations and deduced potential disaster from the figures; for it appeared that the demons had dared to meddle directly with human politics for the first lime since the crash of the Corinne Dane. If Taen's perceptions were accurate, the chief advisor to King Kisburn was almost certainly an alien shape-shifter. That posed immeasurable threat as Lord Sholl's influence could be seen behind the King's heated ambition and his decision to trust Tathagres. The Vaere perceived the entire campaign against the Free Isles as a plot to set the Landfast libraries into demon hands. If the Alliance fell, the heritage of humanity would be irreparably lost.

  Lights glittered like stars on the consoles as the Vaere sequenced equations. Now more than ever before, Taen's talents as dream-reader were needed; she alone could challenge an alien shape-shifter and disrupt its influence over the affairs of the men it had selected as puppets. But her mastery of the Sathid also left her vulnerable. The Vaere knew that the frail girl its capsule sheltered would be ruthlessly destroyed should the demons discover her existence. Only two held power enough to protect her; the Stormwarden, still helplessly enmeshed in a defense spell to contain the frostwargs, and the untrained heir of Ivain Firelord.

  The Vaere drew conclusions from its calculation with something akin to emotion. Taen would need to spend most of the winter inside the capsule recovering her physical strength. During that interval, she must engage her dream-reader's powers, restore Jaric's memory and drive him over the Furlains to the village of Mearren Ard. Once the boy made contact with the sea, Anskiere's geas should begin to resume its effect. The Vaere balanced the odds and found the margin for error nonexistent. Even pressed by the geas' cruel directive, Jaric could not possibly sail for Cliffhaven before spring; by then the armies of Kisburn would already have left for the Straits, with the Kielmark's defeat all but inevitable.

  The issue at stake was no longer limited to Taen, or even to the uncertainty of Anskiere's rescue. By the Vaere's analysis mankind's very survival depended upon Kerainson Jaric's potential mastery of the Cycle of Fire. And should Lord Sholl learn from Tathagres that Ivain had left an heir, the demons would hunt the boy down and kill him.

  Had the Vaere been human, it might have despaired. The balance of the boy's future rested within Taen's influence as dream-reader and a race against the exigencies of time. For the facts converged with ruthless persistence. Should Jaric fail his inheritance, the demons would achieve their final vengeance against mankind. And the stakes which the Vaere surveyed reflected all the uncertainty of a horse race. Since humanity's preservation lay in Jaric's hands, plainly Taen must send him to the ice cliffs and to Anskiere before Kisburn's armies arrived.

  * * *

  The straps of the drag-sleigh cut deeply into Jaric's shoulders as he yanked it clear of a thicket. Snowfall dusted his hair and melted flakes dripped unpleasantly through his fur collar. Yet Jaric never thought to complain. By midwinter, drifts would lie thick and soft beneath the trees, burying obstacles which now hampered the drag-sleigh's runners. Jaric looked forward to the time when Telemark would lift the oiled frames of the snowshoes down from their peg in the loft. The gap in his memory distressed him less when he had a new task to master.

  The forester moved through the snowbound forest with practiced silence. Jaric followed, towing the drag-sleigh gracelessly over a fallen log. The straps bit into his hands and runners grated over bark with a dry metallic ring. Once again the packs snagged on a branch. Snow showered down wetly over Jaric's neck. He paused to shake the ice from his shoulders.

  Telemark stopped and glanced back. "Here," he said as the boy labored to catch up. "Let me pull the sleigh for awhile."

  Ashamed, Jaric shook his head.

  The forester regarded the boy, a stern set to his weathered features. "Jaric," he said at last, "there are rules a man does not break if he lives in the wilds during winter. The first is never to deplete any resource unnecessarily."

&nb
sp; Telemark reached out with startling speed and clapped Jaric on the shoulder. The blow was not rough. But it caught the boy squarely and painfully on muscles already worn out by the weight of the sleigh, and he flinched reflexively.

  "You're tired." With gentle sympathy, the forester pulled the straps of the drag-sleigh free of Jaric's grip. "If you push yourself to exhaustion, who will help me set camp and build the fire?"

  The boy sighed and nodded. He stepped aside while Telemark tugged the sleigh clear of the log. Although the man's face was averted, Jaric understood the forester was still concerned over the fact that he seldom spoke since his recovery from the accident. Occasionally disappointment showed in the forester's manner, though he never troubled to mention the subject.

  Jaric bit his lip, watched Telemark haul the drag-sleigh with what seemed careless strength. Yet his rhythmic stride and the unbroken swish of the runners reflected more than years of accumulated skill; the man's haste described frustration. Jaric hated to distress the forester who had granted him shelter and healing; still, he avoided speech. Words disturbed him, created interference patterns whose echoes would not be stilled, as if they represented more than the simple sound of their pronunciation. To speak was to become disoriented, lost in the blackness of the void where memory ended and where the unknown tantalized him endlessly with unanswerable questions. Like a mariner cast adrift in fog-bound waters, Jaric clung to the particulars of the moment. In silence he listened for the marker which would guide him back to the past he had lost.

  The weather worsened as afternoon progressed. Blinded by the thickening fall of flakes, Jaric stumbled often into branches and his boot cuffs became packed with ice as he waded through freshly drifted thickets. The terrain grew rougher, sliced by steep-sided gullies and the black unfrozen sheen of running water. Yet the boy pressed on without asking for rest. Telemark halted well ahead of sundown beneath a high shelf of rock. The wind drove the snow in smoking clouds off the exposed crest of the ridge and flakes tumbled, hissing, through the bare poles of a lean-to beneath.

  With his back to the rocks, the forester set his boot on the drag-sleigh and leaned crossed arms on his knee. "Do you think you can set up the shelter?"

  Jaric smiled, at home with the silent snowbound forest and the prospect of making camp as he never could have been before leaving Morbrith. But no memory of his former helplessness returned to trouble him as he knelt and set his hands to the cords on the sleigh.

  Telemark laughed and bent to assist him. "Let me have my bow and two beaver traps. Do you suppose I can lay the traps and bag dinner before you can make camp and start a fire?"

  Jaric grinned, yanked off one mitten with his teeth, and tore industriously into the knots.

  "Right, then, it's a race," said Telemark. "If you win, I'll begin to teach you the quarterstaff. The wind keeps the snow thin on the bluff. The footing there should be adequate."

  The forester unlaced a bundle and pulled forth two steel traps, each with a length of chain ending in a forged ring. Then he strapped on his quiver of arrows, took up his bow and his axe and disappeared silently into the wood. Jaric barely noted his departure. He unloaded the drag-sleigh with exuberant haste and tugged the patched sail-cloth shelter free of its ties. Snow cascaded down his cuffs as he tossed it over the poles of the lean-to, and an icy wind billowed the canvas while he fought to lash the lines to secure it in place. But Jaric was exhilarated by the contest and barely noticed the discomfort. He spread the drop-cloth and stacked the supplies safely inside. Then, running and sliding in the fresh fallen snow, he pulled his mittens on again, seized the straps of the drag-sleigh and went off in search of firewood.

  He returned with a full load, breathless and laughing. Warmed by his exertion, he stripped off his mittens and went to work with flint and striker. Falling snow dampened the shavings. Jaric cupped his hands, huddled against the wind, but the spark fizzled again and again into frustrating curls of smoke. The boy glanced over his shoulder, certain Telemark would arrive at any moment. But when at last he coaxed a small flame from the chips, the forester had not yet returned.

  Jaric stacked logs over the blaze with miserly care. Then, elated by his accomplishment, he settled on the empty frame of the drag-sleigh and stretched his boots toward the fire. As the glow of the flames deepened to ruddy gold, the boy listened with every muscle strained taut for the sound of Telemark's step. Snow fell, hissing into the flames like the whispered secrets of ghosts; the birch logs crackled and popped, blackening into ash, while beyond the circle of firelight live branches creaked under winter's burden of ice. The wet patches on his leggings steamed and slowly dried. Jaric pulled his cloak hood over his head and tried not to worry. Often Telemark moved with such quiet that wild animals themselves did not hear him. If he was delayed, chances were the storm had made the game scarce.

  But the first logs crumbled into coals without his return. Daylight slowly failed and twilight shrouded the wood beyond the ring of firelight. Jaric rubbed his mittens restlessly across his knees, felt the sting of heated cloth as his leggings pulled taut across his shins. Nightfall was imminent. Telemark should have come back by now. With the excitement of the contest forgotten, Jaric stared off into the gloom and considered the ugly possibility that something might have gone amiss.

  The thought caused him great distress, that the only living person he had known since his accident might be threatened. With the wind getting stronger, he dared not sit waiting any longer. Jaric rose and entered the lean-to. He pulled a twist of oiled linen from the supply pack. His hands shook as he wound the cloth around the end of a stick and secured it with wire. Yet he completed the task with the exacting care the forester had taught him, now acutely aware the winter weather would not forgive ineptness. Then he thrust the stick with its linen wrappings into the fire.

  The oiled cloth caught and flared, shedding a brilliant wash of light across the campsite. Jaric buckled on Telemark's spare knife, shoved a dry cloak under his arm, retrieved his lighted torch and stepped beyond the safe warmth of the firelight into the icy blackness of the night.

  Snowfall had all but obscured Telemark's trail; only slight, rounded depressions remained of his footprints, and where the brush grew sparsely, drifts had already covered all trace of his passing. Jaric suppressed the temptation to hurry. If he made a wrong turn in the dark, he might never regain the forester's path. And the wind was rising. The torch flame guttered, streaming oily smoke into the boy's face. He blinked stinging eyes, thrusting the stick at arm's length. If Telemark had been injured, there was a very real chance he might freeze to death before Jaric found him.

  The boy pushed through a stand of young pines, guided by the fact that the branches had recently been swept clean of snow. On the far side the ground dropped off into a steep-sided ravine. A stand of saplings cast long, weaving shadows by the light of the torch; sheltered by the bank, snowflakes whirled, glittering with diamond-chip reflections. Jaric ducked under the fallen branch. Withered clusters of oak leaves raked his cheek and his boots slid in the uncertain footing. But as he progressed down the slope the wind dwindled; here where the snow accumulated more slowly, Telemark's tracks were more distinct.

  Jaric squinted through the storm. Open water glinted at the bottom of the embankment, black against the reflective white of the shore. The brook was wide and deep enough for beaver trapping; the boy proceeded with caution. The ground was treacherously obscured by snow and a misstep could end in disaster. Despite his care, Jaric slithered down the final slope, whipped by the trailing tendrils of a willow tree. The torch threw off sparks like midsummer fireflies as he flailed his arm for balance. His boot splashed into the shallows. The water showed treacherous furrows of current between its bed of snowcapped rocks. Jaric caught a branch and barely prevented a fall. He paused, breathing hard, and waited for the flame to steady. Upstream he heard the faint rush of falls. Telemark's footprints led in that direction.

  The boy turned along the stream. He made slow p
rogress. The terrain was icy, crisscrossed with fallen trees jammed in haphazard array against the sides of the ravine. Jaric stumbled clumsily over dead branches. Worse, the torch showed the first flickering signs of failure. The boy cursed himself for neglecting to bring along an unlit spare. Telemark's footprints proceeded through the darkness ahead in a seemingly endless row; if he returned for a fresh light, all of his search might be in vain.

  The splash of the falls grew louder. The flame sputtered against the wind, reduced to a sullen red glow. Through the shimmer of falling snow, Jaric made out the densely piled twigs of a beaver dam. The sight encouraged him. Telemark would have selected such a location to set beaver traps. Sheltering the light with his body, the boy hurried anxiously forward. The tracks ended by the edge of an eddy pool. There the ground lay strangely disturbed, as if a pine branch had been used to sweep the snow smooth. Jaric drew closer and saw a freshly cut sapling angled downward into the water's icy depths. He recognized the configuration of a freshly set beaver trap, and gave the area wide berth. The trap itself would be set on the stream bottom, its steel ring affixed to the pole well beneath the surface of the water. But any scent of man's presence would warn off the intended prey.

  Stumbling over the uneven ground, the boy worked his way past the dam. The bank on the far side lay smooth and white, unmarred by traces of man's presence. But an exposed band of wet mud showed darkly at the water's edge; the level of the pond had recently been lowered. Jaric frowned and retraced his steps. Probably Telemark had pried a break in the dam, then left the second trap set in wait for an animal to come and mend the damage.

  The boy drew abreast of the dam. In the uncertain glimmer of flame which remained of his cresset, he studied the glistening cross-weave of mud and twigs which spanned the throat of the gully. The hole, if any existed, was lost in darkness, and the tangled interlace of branches visible near at hand offered perilous footing for a man with unreliable light. Jaric assessed the situation and saw he had no choice but to return to camp for a fresh torch, then seek a safer crossing downstream.