by Janny Wurts
Yet Asandir did not act. Tall, somber as midnight in his cinder-burned cloak, he reset weary shoulders. His sigh of resignation reflected all the deep shades of sorrow born into the wide, tangled world. 'Knotted are the works of the great drakes, and painful the will they laid on us.'
When his regard returned to address the adept, he was himself: a ghost presence, shielded, the light in him mild as a lesser star, his leashed carriage so tuned into balance, not even a dust mote or a moth would be set off course by his breathing. 'Ath lend the Prince of Rathain grace and strength, and mercy, most of all.'
Arithon would be bound to thread the Maze of Davien. No power on Athera that observed the Major Balance might spare him that trial, or mitigate the perils to challenge his crossing.
Asandir weighed the scar left by King Kamridian's death. The likelihood that the last living s'Ffalenn prince might suffer the same fate transfixed him with distress. The air drawn into his aching, singed lungs cut his heart like obsidian glass. The Sorcerer held, though the stern courage that sustained him through the trials of two Ages had loosened to sand in his grasp. Fears loomed on all fronts. The Sorcerer strove to grapple their enormity, until the pearlescent glimmer of Athera's lane flux seemed branded within his fixed stare.
'Come.' The adept presumed, captured his worn knuckles in her smaller grasp and gently urged him away. 'Upstairs, my sisters have a heated bath waiting. None of your terrible worries will settle until you are refreshed and rested.'
Some other nuance remained that she still refused to address;
Asandir sensed the held tension behind her serenity as he followed her up the worn stairwell. He had the respect not to venture an inquiry.
Yet she was adept; the veiling shadow raised by his tact would show through every trapping of courteous privacy. 'Momentous events have occurred in your absence.' she finally admitted, forthright. 'Sethvir left you records impressed into crystal, and will convey recent details in person.'
* * *
Hours passed. The wheeling stars above Althain Tower marked the passage of midnight, their dance the interlocked measure of time. Sethvir's chamber was a wrapped well of gloom, the honey grain of the maple stand at the bedside lit by a flickering candle. Seated on a painted leather hassock once the gift of a Sanpashir Desert tribe's holy woman, Asandir laid aside the smoky quartz sphere that held the Warden's witnessed testament. He retied its shroud of silk wrappings, lifted shaken fingers, and nestled his forehead to his cupped palms to ease his explosive tension.
Since words were beyond him, a light whisper emerged from the pillows cradling Sethvir's head. 'You have come back to a world that still turns. We abide with the compact unbroken.' Drained by the constant, bleeding pull of four unbalanced grimwards, he lacked the resilience to express railing humor. 'As ever, I cannot decide whether to curse or rejoice in the bent of Davien's recent actions.'
Asandir raked back the singed ends of his hair. 'He's abroad in the world again, that can't be argued. If he helped right the imbalance that threatened Rockfell Peak, then we owe him sheer gratitude. None can deny his assistance was a necessity.'
There were no gentle words. 'But Davien made no direct intervention to resolve the crisis at Rockfell.' Sethvir's gnarled hands raked the coverlet in frustration, until his colleague offered an arm and lent him the strength to sit up.
'Then how in creation did we ever prevail?' Asandir encountered the Warden's stark weariness, flesh and bone reduced to the frailty of paper, and the bright spark of irony worn from lusterless eyes. Even their natural color seemed leached, battered to a dulled shade of slate.
Braced yet again for a frightening answer, the field Sorcerer showed disbelief. 'But your earth-sense imprinted in crystal reflected impossible odds.' The combined powers of Luhaine and Kharadmon, run through a mere spellbinder's flesh, had never been close to enough to forestall a cascading disaster.
The inevitable rupture at Rockfell should have called down a catastrophic chain of failures.
Sethvir's sigh scarcely ruffled the fall of his beard.
Asandir filled an unsettled pause, rearranging slipped quilts and piling up pillows for support, while Althain's Warden marshaled his anguished reluctance to speak.
The blow fell with utmost, stunning brevity. 'Kharadmon saved the wards by invoking the crown prince's tie to the land.'
Asandir snapped stiff. He turned his head, shocked, the silver-gray hair tumbled over his shoulders darkened by gloom to the grain of rough, filed iron. 'The world's fate was cast wholesale upon Arithon's shoulders?'
'We were lost already.' Sethvir folded limp hands in the trough of his lap. The effort pinched creases across his pale forehead and drained his tired eyes almost lightless. 'Kharadmon knew as much. If the lane flux had destabilized the Skyshiel fault lines, added risk to his Grace was not going to signify.' Like a torrent bursting through a broached dam, the Warden dispatched sequential images unveiling the full course of events. Rather than reveal the onerous imprint of the crown prince's subsequent suffering, he summed up with impersonal speech. 'By the time Davien effected Arithon's healing from the energetic imbalance of backlash, Lysaer's Etarrans were too close. Escape to the coast of Instrell Bay was no longer a viable option.'
'Which left Kewar and the maze? Ath forfend!' Asandir thrust to his feet. 'I never imagined the hour straight weakness could leave us so desolate!' Needled at last outside disciplined calm, the field Sorcerer drove into a fit of long-strided pacing. 'Fire and frost! We stand here breathing each moment on nothing but borrowed time!'
'Then you noticed the eagle?' Sethvir broached, his whisper glass-edged.
'That the bird was actual bone-and-blood flesh, and not spun from etheric energies? Right away.' Asandir stalked to the table. The drawn jut of his brows seemed chipped out of obsidian, in the whirl and dip of the candleflame. Wolf gaunt and austere as his leather-clad form, his shadow swooped over armoire and clothes chest as he addressed the task of pouring the sweetened tea Ath's adepts had left on a tray.
He crossed back to the bed, the porcelain of an antique cup cradled like a songbird's halved eggshell in his welted, large hands. 'It's all right,' he assured as he settled the vessel into Sethvir's trembling grasp. 'I already understand that Davien has evolved beyond prior limitations. He has drawn Arithon to Kewar, if not through opportunity, then by crafty design. The question of why may well pack a bitter poison.'
Sethvir peered into the depths of his mug, as though some benign remedy for lethal secrets might reside in the rising, wisped scrim of steam. 'Why indeed?' He did not set speech to the shadow that hung, unmentioned in leaden silence: that King Kamridian had died, broken by the magnified burden of self-perceived guilt, as the royal gift of s'Ffalenn compassion entangled him in his conscience.
Asandir fetched a second cup for himself, swirling in a dollop of honey infused with ground cloves and cinnamon. He sat down again, his lanky legs folded, and his bent elbows braced on his knees. 'Where are the sureties? Unless Davien's gone insane, he would be mortified at the thought of retreading past steps and old ground.'
Sethvir sipped his tea, his glance fever bright with exhaustion. 'Well, since he chose not to open free dialogue, like beggars without coin, we can do very little but sit and wait on the outcome.'
'Not a comfort.' Asandir changed the subject, not thrilled by the fact that a blood oath sworn at Athir became the sole straw weighting a negatively tipped balance. 'What of the torn wards at Rockfell?'
'Almost back in hand.' Sethvir sent the sequence of patterned geometries that defined the ward rings in the mountain. The construct glowed blue, gold, and pulsating, soft purple, where light crossed the extreme edge of vision. At the heart of the shuttling play of live energy, an obsidian core had been wrought of a stuff beyond sensing. Asandir had worked wardings at the site many times. A brief glance assured him that the innermost guard ring was fully sealed, with work under way on the second. The runes of closure could stand complete in a day, maybe two, dependin
g on Dakar's stamina. The outermost ward on the entry itself would not take long after that.
Asandir settled back, the restlessness in him rechanneled to deep thought, and the piercing steel of his eyes masked by steam as he lifted his mug to his lips. Persistent aches gnawed his bones from prolonged exposure to the deranged resonance of the grimwards. No respite lay in sight. Despite sternest discipline, and the pungent, spiced warmth of the tea, disheartened sorrow wore the field Sorcerer through. He felt Sethvir's moth-wing touch brush his knee, responded with a nod, then received the swift stream of images that showed other incidents drawn from across the Paravian continent.
Not all the tidings were bad. A long shot had borne fruit, and Prince Kevor had survived; Elaira still claimed safe sanctuary with Ath's Brotherhood at Whitehaven hostel. Lysaer's Etarrans mustered for their march homeward, while the survivors of Rathain's clan war band limped back into Halwythwood in small groups, exhausted and hungry, bringing joyful consolation to some, and tears of bereavement to others.
If marauding Khadrim still flew and slaughtered in Tysan, Prince Arithon's spectacular orchestration of grand confluence had rebalanced the lane flux enough to bring in the spring thaw in the east. Fields could be sown in time to stave off widespread famine. Asandir stretched out a cramp in his leg, then set his empty mug aside.
'At least Davien left Prime Selidie in a state where she's unlikely to become an immediate stone round our necks,' Sethvir said, raising the kicked ghost of humor.
'I could wish the galley that bears her would founder on its coast-hopping run down to Ithish,' Asandir replied with bad grace. 'The Great Waystone could certainly benefit from a permanent dousing in seawater.' Having just shared the unsavory details concerning the Koriani Matriarch's succession from Sethvir's recorded testament, he looked ready to lapse into venomous temper. 'You could have informed me of Morriel's possession of Selidie sooner than this.'
Althain's Warden glanced up, his eyes the limpid blue of a robin's egg, gilt touched in the uncertain candlelight. 'What could you have done?'
'The same thing I'll do now. Go to refound the seals on the next grimward her mad bout of meddling left deranged. I'll be away just as soon as the dawn tide fires the Paravian focus.' Asandir stood, still bristling, though his touch stayed unfailingly gentle as he lifted Sethvir's finished cup from slack hands. 'Which of the damaged ones drains you the worst?'
'Haspastion's, in Radmoore.' The Warden seemed suddenly dwindled, a wisp of starved flesh tucked amid a bastion of pillows and quilts. 'Though your journey from Methisle could entail complications. Traithe had to take work with a farmer near Ganish to earn the price of a skiff.'
Asandir laughed. The free-ringing sound filled the close chamber like the brisk clash of sword steel in challenge. 'The mud pots of Mirthlvain will be thawing, of course. A few methspawn, poisonous serpents by the vile dozen, or fifty thousand hatched karth-eels with sharp fangs, those plaguing ills I can handle. In fact, after Morriel Prime and Davien, I'll find them a welcome diversion.' Any crawling horror seemed more inviting than standing slow vigil, wondering how Prince Arithon fared, entrapped in the maze under Kewar. 'I'll lend Verrain what help I can as I ride the mire's west border. He'll manage until Traithe comes, rest easy on that.'
'Mind your step on the wall,' Sethvir bade him. 'The harsh winter set frost that has loosened the stone.'
'Isfarenn will look after me.' Asandir bent one last time, laid a hand on the bone-thin shoulder beneath the muffling blankets. 'I'll try to return before the spring orchards reach flower.' The trace flush raised by his brief mirth had faded, erased by concerns he lacked any resource to lift. 'You'll be all right, here?'
Sethvir's eyes drifted closed on the offered imprint of the entangling, stopgap diversions Kharadmon had left spun outside the perimeter of the star wards. The imminent threat of invasion from Marak still dangled, unbroached and dangerous beyond measure. 'Once Rockfell is sealed, I'll have too much help,' the Warden of Althain complained in flippant, brave parting. 'Or do you think a few wraiths can make Luhaine and Kharadmon cease their incessant brangling?'
'Summon Davien,' said the Fellowship's field Sorcerer, spurred on to stabbing, wry irony. 'Sit him down in between, and if we're lucky, that feuding pair might rip him to shred pie instead.'
Early Spring 5670
Sunrise
At Rockfell Peak, daybreak streaks the high clouds in bright crimson; and exposed to the freezing winds on the ledge, Fionn Areth shivers in the whipped folds of his cloak, waiting for the Mad Prophet and two discorporate Sorcerers to complete the harsh wardspells that drill ranging vibrations in waves through his bones, and burn him to raging headaches . . .
At Methisle, roused out of sleep when the Paravian focus flares white, the master spellbinder Verrain descends the dank sandstone stair with a fluttering rushlight in hand, to be met by the scrape of a stallion's shod hooves; then the dark, cloaked presence of Asandir stops him short with a cry of relief, 'Oh bright Ath! Let this not be a figment of dream, here and then gone to leave me alone with the horrors of a waking nightmare . . .'
At Avenor, clad in his robes of high ceremony, and surrounded by twelve of his acolytes, Cerebeld, High Priest of the Light, enters the square and pronounces the Spinner of Darkness driven into the dark maze of Kewar, where no mortal man might walk with impunity, but where a demon might consort with fell powers of sorcery, and emerge with yet more fearsome strength . . .
Early Spring 5670
XV. Peril's Gate
Arithon awoke untold hours later. Featureless darkness met his opened eyes. His ears felt stuffed in a black-cotton silence, and the absence of wind abrading his skin made him feel entombed alive. No trace remained of the portal that admitted him. The smooth-polished stone supporting his body felt chilly, but not winter cold, and the air held no scent at all.
Prickled to a crawling stab of disquiet, Arithon rolled onto his elbow. He sat up. The movement disturbed his unsheathed sword, which loosed a clangor of echoes. As he groped left-handed to recover the hilt, he discovered more: every ache and bruise, scraped cut and strained tendon seemed erased from his body. Leaving the weapon untouched where she lay, he explored his bound hand, but felt only minimal discomfort. Only the knot of lumped proud flesh let him know the disfiguring wound still existed.
Grief cut to the quick for the ruin of his music, the blight of lost hope most cruelly resharpened by that isolate, black well of stillness.
To forestall self-pity, Arithon rose to his feet. His joints were all limber, his mind clear and rested. The neutral stillness around him did not smother, but instead seemed to feed his heightened state of awareness. He listened, unbreathing, but could not detect any lingering vibration from the subtle spellcraft that must have combed through his being as he slept. That singular fact spurred his rising uneasiness. Whatever the potentized forces at work, that gloved, quiet power also muted Desh-thiere's curse. The geas seemed a lodged stone in his gut, unmistakably there, but reduced. Its inert, weighted presence did not wear him with pressing compulsion.
Left with no explanation but his unquiet breaths, and the pounding rush of his pulse, Arithon knelt and swept the featureless floor left-handed until his questing touch encountered his sword. He closed his fingers over the wrapped leather grip, and froze.
The Paravian starspells imbued in the steel came alive at his touch, a living thrum of aroused vibration that razed through his bones to the wrist. Light followed, a hazing of actinic flame that licked down the silver-laced runes. For no reason under sky he could name, that pallid glimmer gouged his sight like the vicious stab of a levin bolt.
Arithon gasped. Still poised on one knee, he averted his eyes before he went blind, wincing as busy needles of pain rained length and breadth through his aura.
Yet where was the enemy? Unease consumed him. Never before this had his vision been bothered by the ancient blade borne by his forebears. Arithon squinted, avoiding the disquieting dazzle of the blade. Nothing else st
irred in the darkness.
He sensed no one near. The sword's slowly waxing, silver-smoke glow burnished the stone floor, a smooth-polished slate with a merled grain configured into a spiral. The shape snagged his attention, was in stunning fact not natural. Arithon examined the rippled striations scattered into gray stone like sparkling grains of cast salt. Distinct as a touch, icy fear lanced him through; he was staring at minuscule runes interlaced into thousands of braided chains, and binding who knew what spell-charged directive.
Sweat sprang out on Arithon's skin as he realized the place where he slept had crossed the centerpin of the gyre.
He bit back his impulse to plead for Ath's mercy; stamped back futile longing for unimpaired use of his mage-sight. Sorely as he wished for his sundered gifts, no flicker of talent would answer. He could not pierce the blank barrier imposed by the bloodshed once wrought by the river Tal Quorin, although his life might rely on such access.
Arithon gathered his shaken nerves, forced his trembling legs to bear weight. Standing erect, he lifted Alithiel high overhead, using the brightened flare of the runes to survey his surroundings. As he first suspected, the archway that admitted him had erased, melded back into walls of wild stone. The layers were ribboned with ancient striations, where eons of fire and sediment had birthed their early formation. Arithon turned a full circle in place. No opening appeared. No crack broke the rock, not even a cranny to admit roosting bats or the wings of a night-flying insect.
Yet the place was not sealed, despite seamless walls that appeared to entrap the unwary spirit who trespassed. At each move he made, Arithon sensed the rising tickle of power playing across his damp skin. The sword in his fist waxed brighter, second by second, until he was forced to shield his eyes with the back of his bandaged hand.
'Mercy,' he whispered.
