Traitor's Knot (Light & Shadow 07)

by Janny Wurts

  'Oh, aye,' the mate said, easy candour restored. 'The boys just sent word. Our ballast's restacked. Give us a fresh breeze, we've just got to bend on the canvas.'

  In fact, the brig's keel rode trim again. Her hull settled tight in the water as ever, except for a stripped patch of sheathing.

  'Welcome back, ladies,' said Arithon s'Ffalenn. He glanced briefly downward, as though something pained him: and the eye of the scryer, far distant in Forthmark, spied the green edge of metal, pinned underneath his placed foot.

  All the while, the active sigil of tracking had been removed from its original fastening. Under the opportune gift of a calm, shifting the brig's ballast had raised the watermark high enough to let a swimmer down on a rope. Short work, from there, to spring the fastening nails and pry off the thin sheet of copper. The inscription had not been disrupted, or destroyed. Pressed flat to the decking, unremarked until now, the aggressive sigil now covered a second inert inscription fashioned from charcoal.

  Bound into live scrying, the Koriani observer had barely that moment to ponder the cipher's significance. The mark bore no trace of resonant power. Masked out of view, obscured by the Prime's sigil, its form became vexingly hard to discern. Since the figure was copied, it might be recognized as Selidie's own construct, lately used to incite a rank plague of fiends. The slight caveat distinguished: that this configuration had been reversed, line for line executed in mirror image.

  Arithon, meanwhile, had not paused to laugh. He now sang a lyrical phrase in Paravian. Two days in recovery, his clear tones struck the air and revived the remembrance of flame: and a coal, once reduced from a living tree's heart-wood, retired to the call of the element. The charcoal mark quickened. Held in passive contact, pressed overtop, the copper-scribed sigil captured the pattern in resonant sympathy.

  The Master of Shadow seized the moment and flipped the bright fleck in his hand. 'Well, ladies, you've had more than plenty of warning to let go and back off your damned spying!'

  He flattened his palm. This time without pause to temper his thought, he tore off his stayspell of shadow. The iyat he held unfurled and reclaimed its lost freedom. Gifted the limitless bait of live charge, it darted straight down, drawn first by the brightened promise of fire, then hooked by the vortex of the active sigil, still linked through the Waystone's roused focus . . .

  Lirenda possessed no resource to break off the scrying's engaged connection. Denied personal autonomy, she could not frame a banishment or disengage the great amethyst. No critical step in evasion was possible without orders, made on the Prime Matriarch's initiative.

  Then the moment flashed past. The iyat crashed in like a vengeful, shot arrow, consuming the energies of every last stay laid down for guarding protection. Unable to warn, Lirenda suffered the burn of wild forces as the fiend snagged the raised field of the Waystone. Chaos erupted. Sucked down, whirled under, then punched blind and witless, Lirenda lacked voice for her agony. She could not breathe, could not think, could not feel her own heart-beat. A whisker from death, she raged, helpless.

  Then the Prime's shriek of fury shattered the dark. Alt!'

  Lirenda snapped free. Dropped limp on the carpet, wrenched dizzy and heaving, she regained a grip on her up-ended senses. Prime Selidie stood above her, wrestling to quell the raging might of the Waystone. Her mastery was contested with virulent force. The loose fiend inside had no mind to relinquish a feast of near-limitless power.

  Its fight was not scatheless. As energetic contention flared and whirled through the jewel and torqued the spin of its axis, a sawed note of vibration ripped through structured quartz, chopped short by a spang like snapped wire. A crack sheared one side of the great jewel's matrix, spreading a crackle of craze marks that threatened to shatter the sphere.

  'Alt, damn you, Alt!' the Matriarch howled, desperate. Splashed by filth as Lirenda spewed on the floor, she rammed through the last sequence of ciphers.

  The stone's power doused. Just shy of disaster, its aligned focus slammed shut. The invasive fiend stayed locked inside, trapped as a fly caught in amber.

  'Damn the man, damn him!' Prime Selidie gasped. Shaking, drained white, she dropped in a limp huddle onto her chair. Her shocked eyes regarded the gossamer smoke that dispersed off the stress-heated crystal. 'Cursed seed of wild talent, what have you done?'

  For the massive amethyst had been pressured too far. Not only flawed, not only polluted by an embedded fiend, its clear purple heart was streaked through: intense heat had feathered a raw streak of citrine across the jewel's dark center. The irrevocable change would alter the quartz matrix and shift the sphere's frequency and alignment.

  Struck dumb by the penalty of her morning's work, unable to measure the damage done to the order's most irreplaceable resource, Prime Selidie pounded the scarred stubs of her hands in wordless, ferocious frustration. While her spoiled slippers and soaked hems chilled her feet, her tears fore-promised a vengeance beyond words upon Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn.

  Late Winter 5671

  Interludes

  By the lamp-lit glow of Evenstar's chart desk, Arithon prepares a packet of dispatches for Feylind to sail on to Southshire; and to her sharp protest, he answers, unswerved, 'Your delay will be passed off as damages caused by a natural storm. I shall be gone, with the four in my party well away aboard Khetienn. A snared fiend can be dispatched to summon her north and arrange for an off-shore rendezvous . . .'

  With Lysaer s'Ilessid bound upcoast by galley, along with his remnant war host, High Priest Cerebeld meets with Avenor's high council, elated by news just arrived from Raiett Raven's suborned spy ring: 'A colossal mistake has just turned in our favour! Once the Divine Prince receives King Eldir's sealed dispatch, the hard proof that set his princess to flight will lay the ground for our opening to break him . . .'

  Immersed in the earth link, the Warden of Althain dreams a thread of interlinked possibilities: of an enchantress at Ath's hostel, now fated to shoulder a perilous journey; of a flawed amethyst and a Prime Matriarch hobbled; an eagle whose mettlesome impulse has seeded a whirlwind whose harvest will reap bitter fruit, followed hard by the telling, first link that forges the chain into ill-starred event: a vivacious, laughing carrot-haired bride is promised a bolt of scarlet silk for her wedding . . .

  Winter 5671

  VIII. Avenor

  Sulfin Evend had never been dazzled, first hand, by Avenor's former princess from Etarra. Her fabled beauty and her fiery wit were volatile subjects, wisely avoided in his liege's presence. Since her death had occurred before his appointment to rank, the repercussive response caught him off guard when the dispatch set under King Eldir's seal reached the hand of the Blessed Prince. The packet exposed an

  intractable truth, backed up by names and hard proof. Talith's murder, concealed by a conspiracy as suicide, sparked off an explosion that smashed the restraint of eight months of sensible planning.

  Every painstaking, laid strategy became swept aside.

  The insane speed at which Lysaer put his galley to sea and on scorching course for Avenor pitched his Lord Commander at Arms to a state of stripped nerves without precedent.

  'You are taking an unmentionable risk, and for what? A woman whose demise happened years ago! Another month, and you'll have our new recruits behind you. Go forward with less than five companies at your back, and you won't have enough strength to cordon your gates. Who knows what evil might slip through the breach? This rush to move now is stark madness!'

  Lysaer s'Ilessid chose not to reply. His stance on the deck was as steel, utterly set against reason.

  Sulfin Evend had known he might face his own death; peril in war was his venue. Yet at the end of the galley's drenching run north, tied up at the dock at Avenor, the dread that reamed chipped ice through his veins outstripped every concept of fear. He had argued himself raw, held his ground like scraped flint, that Fellowship counsel gave short shrift to the folly of standing untrained against necromancy.

  No adamant word change
d the outcome. The party of picked officers gathered on deck, resplendent in parade arms, and glittering braid, and immaculate sunwheel surcoats. Sulfin Evend shut his eyes against the stabbing glare, while the clammy sweat trickled under his mail coat and gambeson.

  'You are the right hand ofjustice,' addressed a taut voice at his side. 'More than Tysan's people rely on the justice we march to enact here, today.'

  'I would be elsewhere,' Sulfin Evend replied. A kind hand clasped his shoulder, provoking recoil. He opened his eyes before thought.

  The vision that met him was substance: Lysaer s'Ilessid regarded him, clad in white silk clasped with abalone shell buttons, and without other jewel or ornament. The only gold accent was his bright hair, feathered in the light riffle of sea-breeze; the only intense colour, his glacial blue eyes, which matched worry with magisterial candour. 'If I had any-one else, on my word, your desire would be made true. Is this so very bad for you?'

  No reply served. Sulfin Evend did not wish to speak of the spirits, swirling like silver and gossamer foil on the surrounding air. His recent, night ride through the free wilds to reach Hanshire had shown him enough of such things to unsettle his peace for a lifetime.

  ' The seers of s'Gannley do not view the course of the future,' Asandir had explained on the hour Sulfin Evend had honoured his full commitment to Enithen Tuer. ' Their gifted talent encompasses truth and reopens the gateway to what has passed. If you take oath for the land under Fellowship auspices, I must warn: the ritual will awaken that latent cognition. I cannot make the process selective or reseat your eyes should you live to regret. Nor would I, if the choice left the option. Every resource you have will be needful.'

  Too late now, to revoke the binding done in the King's Chamber at Althain Tower. Too late as well, to curb Lysaer's impatience. Outside, the deafening noise at the water-front revealed a populace gathered to witness their idol's return. That such an effusive celebration should turn out to greet an unscheduled arrival boded no earthly good.

  Sulfin Evend regarded the white-clad figure before him, solid and warm; too hurfully vibrant against the

  wisped ghosts of the sorrows left imprinted upon the site of Tysan's crown capital. Grey-eyed and mortal, he granted his liege his scorchingly brutal response. 'Sight or not, I am no trained talent. Being able to see beyond time is not the same thing as a guarantee of protection.'

  Lysaer lashed him back with incensed conviction:' I will not suffer the murder of innocents!'

  'You feel that your victimized subjects are due your sovereign protection,' Sulfin Evend restated. 'Then for their safety alone, I should force you to run!' Against jingling noise as the armed escort prepared to form ranks, he added, 'Since you can't embrace reason, you won't leave this ship, that I do not stand at your shoulder. You're wearing a mail shirt and the Biedar knife?'

  'Here.' The Divine Prince tapped the breast of his doublet, a quilted garment of satin-stitched silk that shimmered like mother-of-pearl. 'I'm determined, not foolish.'

  A rumble signalled the gangway, run down, then the milling tramp as the men-at-arms debarked to assemble on the cleared dock. The standard-bearers fell in at the fore. White-and-gilt icons, they unfurled the state banners to stream in the wind: the Alliance sunwheel, opposed by the crown-and-star blazon of Tysan agleam on its field of deep blue. Arrayed five abreast in two parallel squares, fifty of the elite royal guard stood for their field captain's inspection. Their spired helms gleamed, and their war-sharpened weaponry hung parade-ground precise. Today, with no spare attention for oversight, Sulfin Evend was compelled to turn out his most reliable veterans. After Daon Ramon, the necessity galled him: against irrational odds, he knew that he risked the most steadfast core of his troop.

  'I will not cower,' Lysaer insisted, stonewalled by his Lord Commander's resistant silence.

  No option remained, except to bear up and issue the order to march.

  'Positions!'

  The troop captain took his place at the avatar's back, along with the muscled bursar and two petty officers. Whichever men carried the forged silver shackles, the fine cuffs and thin chains were well muffled and hidden. The Divine Prince's party assumed their place with the escort, whose smart columns wheeled and faced straight ahead. Sulfin Evend covered his liege's left flank. His finest point-men strode at right and left, bearing the fringed royal banners. The finials on the standards had forge-sharpened points. Steel chimed to each step: the advance herald's tabard concealed enough weaponry to stand down an assault at close quarters.

  Against arrows, or cross-bows, Lysaer wore only mail, and the birth-born power of elemental light. 'This is as it must be.' His quick glance showed confidence to scald the raced heart. 'I am in the best hands. Carry forward.'

  'On my mark!' shouted the troop captain.

  The baton fell, and the ranked squares marched shoreward, with the world's divine saviour a white diamond clenched in their armoured midst.

  A wall of sound met them. Although the s'Ilessid regent had not entered Avenor for over a year, his magnanimous presence had made itself felt on the heels of defeat in Daon Ramon. Through summer's famine, his tireless work on the coast had seen laden galleys and supplies routed north. His draft teams had braved the clogged roads, and his war host had stooped to guard caravans. Beset by the torrential lash of the rains, their trained strength had battled the flood, slogging the relief carts through cresting rivers and sucking mud that wore the hearts out of men and horseflesh. No village had starved. Packed against the breakwater and along the warehouse sheds at the harbour front, Avenor's populace shook earth and sky with their cheering.

  Sulfin Evend moved into that welter of noise, nerves keyed to unbearable tension. Lysaer's step beside him stayed measured. The caparisoned horse sent from the palace to bear him was refused with lordly disdain. Whether that shocking departure from form had been done for courage, or arrogance, or spurious whim, the act already lay beyond salvage. The avatar's will was no man's to question.

  Past the rebuffed consternation of the grooms, and the prance of retreating horseflesh, Sulfin Evend pressed the company ahead through the clouding swirl of the spirit imprints. Unseen by his men, they hovered and danced, ethereal as dusted silver wherever the land held a confluence of lane force. Avenor had once been a Second Age stronghold built by Paravian founders, each of its laid stones aligned into harmony with the tidal flow of the mysteries. The earliest structure had not been ornate. A narrow, walled keep had once crowned the rise, overlooking a coast-line left wild.

  Lysaer's restored rule had dismantled that ruin in defiance of ancient history. Now, square brick towers supplanted the tumbled remnants of the foundations. Warehouses and wharves jumbled over a shore-line opened to bustle and commerce. The slab that remained of the Paravian landing had been smashed, its mossy, whorled carvings and rusted spikes for ring moorings reduced to sunk rubble in the green surge of the tide. Yet if the granite that had received the law-bound step of past high kings lay fallen, the magics instilled by the centaur guardians were not wont to yield their reach lightly. Power yet flickered like undying light, spun off as the lane flux caressed the crushed shards that retained a tenaciously living awareness. Where currents snagged through those caught bits of held memory, sorrow still spoke with a subtle dissonance. The burning flow of subliminal forces, snapped and snarled off course, retired the forgotten past. Sunchildren sang, their heads crowned with garlands, while wraith-frail boats carved into bird forms and fish crowded to launch for the seasonal water festival. Echoes once sounded by crystalline flutes plucked the heart-strings and closed the throat.

  Overwhelmed from the moment he stepped on dry land, Sulfin Evend lost his footing and stumbled.

  An anchoring clasp closed over his wrist. 'You look like a man on a march to the scaffold. Is this regret?'

  The Alliance commander turned his spinning head and regarded the grave countenance of the man he had sworn an irrevocable oath to defend. 'At Hanshire, my life was never my own. This at
least is a path I have chosen.'

  Lysaer's answering smile both dazzled and blinded. 'You have not let me down even once under fire.'

  The flame of s'Ilessid regard stole the breath, raised a swell of fresh pride to lull caution and flatten resistance. One might live for such favour. One might die to answer the unearthly craving instilled by this prince's affections.

  Before the wreck of the campaign in Daon Ramon, Sulfin Evend would have gone forward to bask in that addictive radiance. Afterward, he had braved Althain Tower to prevent the same brilliance from falling enslaved. A knife's edge had severed that piece of himself, which could have gone forward, self-blinded. His pledge to a Sorcerer had, now and forever, torn off the glittering veil.

  Today, he held firm to keep such rampant charisma from carving the less-ordered world into chaos. Seen beside the exalted, clean grace of the spirit forms, or the spun dream of a sunchild's flute, Lysaer's grace was exposed as gilt over clay: all promise, without truth as substance.

  'My trust is unshaken,' Avenor's regent insisted. 'Who else but you could walk steadfast beside me?' 'Better me than another,' Sulfin Evend replied, surprised to be galled by that irony.

  Lysaer's friendly touch fell away, scalding far less than the afflicting, sorrowful silence left by the Paravian ghosts. Sulfin Evend pressed on, rocked to reeling grief. Over the site of the Second Age wall, the unquiet onslaught intensified. Awake at the threshold that opened the gateway to perceive Athera's live mystery, he walked the duality behind Asandir's warning fully and finally at first hand.

  Attack, if it came, would not find him prepared. The fell workings of necromancy unravelled the shining law that had once given these spirit forms breathing substance. The core harmony sustained by Athera herself shrank before the wounding blight of cult practice, that ensnared the living, then para-sitically fed on trapped agony to crystallize flesh into an unnatural state of longevity.