by Janny Wurts
Elienne felt despair. If Darion’s prophecy held the key, the Trinity’s meaning was irrevocably obscured; at the time of the Seeress’s appearance, the Prince had been been senseless, beyond reach of any spoken word. And even if, by some miracle, Darion was able to achieve his heirship, Elienne saw no future for herself or her unborn child in the court of Pendaire. “You may confide in my apprentice, Kennaird,” Ielond had said. But the man had not inspired her trust. Unable to voice her fears, Elienne set feet like numbed weights on the stairs. A misstep earned an impatient shove from Denji. Absorbed in her own misery, Elienne let the indignity pass.
A sharp, metallic clink and a heated expletive from Kennaird disturbed a tangle of echoes. Startled, Elienne looked up. Kennaird stood at the head of the stair, sweating in the spill of light from the open door beyond. Bright as new flame, Aisa’s shortsword rested against his breast. Each labored breath transmitted an orange flash of reflection.
“Godless bitch!” Slowly Kennaird bent. Darion slid, uncontrolled from his shoulders, and sprawled awkwardly on cold stone. One wrist tumbled over the lip of the top step and dangled. Aisa gestured curtly with her blade. “Father killers!” the apprentice shouted over his shoulder. A backhanded blow from Denji sent him stumbling down another stair. “Elienne, look after his Grace!”
Denji unslung her ax. With a rising sense of helplessness, Elienne watched as Kennaird was driven from the keep. Though the mute’s unguarded back invited a swift push from behind, Darion was her first responsibility. Elienne turned back in time to see Aisa’s booted foot roll the Prince, coarsely as a hunter’s kill, over the threshold of his own chambers.
Anger left no breath for insult. Elienne launched herself at Aisa, hands grasping recklessly for the knife that swung from the studded belt. Warned by movement, the mute whirled. Elienne’s knuckles bashed into an armored hip. Mailed hands caught her shoulder, sent her reeling sideways through the door. Her foot caught on Darion’s inert bulk. She fell clumsily across his chest. Above her, Aisa smiled. Elienne caught the oaken door and hurled it shut with all her strength. The bar fell with a dissonant clank, shutting the guardswoman out.
Elienne discovered herself shouting Cinndel’s name, and her rage suddenly broke before terrible, wrenching grief. Bruised, exhausted, and overwhelmed by all she had experienced since her arrival, the despair that had stalked her since the prophecy at last overcame her. Ielond had been a fool to believe she could be effective against Pendaire’s entrenched palace intrigue. Stripped of allies, she was left no defense, and no guide. Tears slipped unnoticed down her face, glittering like jewels on the gilt embroidery of Darion’s tabard. A faint sound echoed in the passage without; Denji bolting the outer door after Kennaird. His last shouts sounded distant, futile and thin as a child’s protest.
Elienne wept for a long time.
* * *
The savage thunder of the surf that pounded the reefs below the wall gradually lulled Elienne’s shattered composure. Her sobs quieted. Through swollen eyes, she took stock of her surroundings. The room had transformed since afternoon to a shifting sea of shadow. The candles guttered fretfully in the sea breeze, which slipped through the arrowslits. Ignited by flamelight, gemstones glittered, hot as sparks, from the ornamental gilt of furnishing and hanging, but the air was damp and clammy. Elienne shivered.
Darion’s face lay buried in chestnut hair. The gold fillet, symbol of his royalty, had fallen off. With hesitant fingers, Elienne pushed heavy locks, so like Cinndel’s, away from features inescapably different. The brow beneath was iced with sweat. Elienne froze, afraid. Her lapse into self-pity had been dangerously indulgent. Darion’s life, and her own security, depended upon her clarity of mind. The Prince required immediate care.
The bedchamber door lay beyond a wide expanse of carpet, cluttered still by the trap of obstacles she had contrived earlier. The servants had long since departed. Aching with stiffness, Elienne rose, hooked her arms beneath the Prince’s shoulders, and attempted to raise his torso from the floor. Silken cloth rucked beneath her hands; the royal head lolled back and thumped into the rug. Elienne swore. Gracelessly straining, she hefted the Prince higher and tried to drag him, but the carpet’s thick pile resisted her efforts, and after barely a yard she was forced to stop, panting. Why couldn’t Aisa have left the Prince his dignity and allowed Kennaird to desposit him on the bed? Elienne lowered Darion back onto the rug. Bereft of intelligence, his hard, swordsman’s body became an awkward parody, and she would see herself damned before she allowed those mervine who guarded the door the satisfaction of finding the Prince on the floor in the morning.
Elienne left Darion where he lay, and with ferocious energy began to move furniture. Careless of sweaty fingerprints or chipped inlay, she labored until the wall beneath the arrowslits was as untidily stacked as a junk merchant’s stall. Elienne cleared a path up to the bedchamber door, then crumpled the rug and left it heaped by the hearth. Bared and gleaming in the candlelight, a well-oiled expanse of parquet stretched between Darion and the bedchamber door. With quick hands, Elienne plowed sheets, pillows, and coverlet away from the bed. The mattress was horsehair quilted with down, luxuriously costly. She hauled it onto the floor and by the fire fixed a makeshift bed. The delicacy of the silken coverlet was too flimsy for her intentions, and she searched the room for a substitute. A tapestry from the next room, torn from its hanging, better suited her purpose. Elienne bundled the Prince’s senseless body onto an exquisitely stitched falconry scene, then seized one edge and pulled. Darion slid easily on his improvised sled. Callously deaf to the scraping rebuke of the gemstones scratching into wood, Elienne dragged her burden from sitting room to bedchamber. More effort saw Darion transferred onto the mattress.
Elienne removed his heavy jeweled belt and gold-stitched boots. The tabard gave her difficulty. The garment had no fastenings, and the stiff, decorative fabric had been snugly tailored to fit shoulders broader than Cinndel’s. The comparison rose unbidden. Hot and tired, Elienne blinked back fresh tears. She wrestled the tabard over slackened limbs and with renewed gentleness began unlacing the lawn shirt beneath. The Prince lay like a corpse beneath her touch. His skin was gray with pallor, his breathing barely perceptible. Elienne’s own breath caught in her throat; Darion’s condition had worsened considerably since the banquet. The drug might easily kill him. With growing apprehension, she recalled Taroith’s mention of overdose.
Elienne seized a limp wrist, horrified by the touch of flesh as moist and chill as autumn earth. The pulsebeat was weak and erratic. Pity wrung her heart, followed by fear. What could she do for his Grace except try to warm him? Kennaird had offered no advice, and Taroith was imprisoned, beyond reach.
Darion’s chest heaved as Elienne removed the damp shirt. The stag medallion he wore glanced in the flamelight, red as a gate to Hell. Elienne smothered it with her hand, unwilling to face any more omens of death.
“Ielond gave his life to save you,” she whispered, and paused, arrested by the sight of a silky tangle of white hair twisted in the links of the medallion’s chain. A memory from the mirrowstone surfaced: Taroith, raising his head from examination of the Prince, hair snagged in the ornament; the impatient gesture that had jerked it free.
Elienne gripped the Prince’s shoulder hard. Hair, Ielond had said, bound the interface that allowed her contact with Darion through the mirrowstone. If the stone were unset, and the Prince’s hair exchanged for Taroith’s, might she be able to reach the Sorcerer by means of the same enehantment? Kennaird had said the cell that confined Taroith was warded. Elienne wondered whether its defenses would exclude a force applied from without. She looked at the mirrowsone, hesitant. She had little knowledge of lore, even from her own time. Meddling might well destroy the spell that bound the stone’s function. Elienne touched Darion’s lifeless cheek, suddenly firm in her resolve. The Prince’s condition would not wait; and if he died, the jewel’s linking properties would be useles
s anyway. With trembling hands, Elienne untwisted the hair from the chain. Then she covered the Prince well with blankets and seated herself by the single candle left burning on the nightstand.
The thin gold of the mirrowstone’s bezel yielded easily to the cuticle knife’s edge. Elienne tasted sweat on her lips as she pried the gem clear of its setting. Half-braced for the dazzling flare of a broken spell, she sat rigid as the stone tumbled into her palm. But the crystal only flashed with reflected light, teardrop cool and inert in her hand.
Elienne released a pent-up breath. Coiled tightly against the gold backing lay a strand of chestnut hair. She tipped it carefully onto the table and laid the silvery thread she had robbed from Darion’s chain in its place. When she returned the mirrowstone to the setting, the gem’s glassy depths clouded instantly.
“My Lady?” The voice was Taroith’s!
Elienne flinched, startled. Jerked by its tether of chain the mirrowstone’s setting tore from her grasp. A winking arc of light marked the jewel’s fall, extinguished at once by the table’s shadow.
Elienne swore, bent, and groped across the carpet until her fingers touched ice. Prepared now for the unexpected, she retrieved the stone and set it back into place over Taroith’s hair.
“Elienne?” The inquiry this time was gentler, less surprised. “In the name of Ma’Diere, who taught you the art of mindspeech?”
The jewel’s interface worked, then, on a mental level. Elienne released her hold on the mirrowstone, rewarded by a view of a narrow, stone cell lined with closely spaced iron bars. Taroith sat on a wooden bench, white head disheveled and ascetic brows raised in astonishment.
Reluctantly, Elienne covered the gem with her finger. “Gifted? I’ve had no training. Only a jewel Ielond left to allow me contact with his Grace.”‘
Elienne felt rather than saw Taroith’s nod. “A mirrowstone? I understand. But how did you alter the interface?”
“Never mind that.” The words sounded sharp, even to Elienne’s ear. “Forgive me. Darion is very ill, perhaps dying. The guardswomen would not allow Kennaird to treat him.”
“He hadn’t the skill, in any case.” Taroith rose and paced the cell. “I have been consumed with worry ... Elienne, you must explain how you changed the mirrowstone’s interface. The precise nature of the enchantment is crucial if I am to help the Prince. And you are right, without care he might well die. Nairgen was recklessly heavy-handed with the drug.”
“I used hair,” Elienne said, and added a concise account of her deductions.
Taroith shook his head, bemused. “I have to concede Ielond’s judgment, my Lady. You have been admirably resourceful.” The Sorcerer paused with clasped hands. Framed by the bleak, barred expanse of cell wall, his face looked lined and weary. “Tell me how his Grace fares.”
“Not well, Gifted.” Elienne described the Prince’s condition ignoring her own self-doubt. Even with Taroith as consultant, there seemed little she could do to relieve the Prince’s condition. Yet when she released the mirrowstone, the Sorcerer had summoned his soulfocus. The cell’s close confines blazed with the blue-white brilliance of a lightning flash, and Taroith’s features carried a hammered look of determination.
“Lady, there is only one course of action open to us.”
His evident apprehension made Elienne’s stomach tighten unpleasantly, but she held her questions. Taroith’s gaze caught her through the mirrowstone. “I can—possibly—escape the prison’s ward if I transmit myself, in spirit, across the jewel’s interface.”
Elienne fought dismay. The linking enchantment was surely too tenuous to act as a bridge for anything more complex than words.
Taroith understood her concern. “There is danger. But Ielond’s work was exceptionally thorough. I trust his hand better than my own.”
Though intended as reassurance, the carefully measured phrases implied a risk all the greater for being left unmentioned. “Gifted, no!” At once ashamed, Elienne wished the words unsaid.
Taroith was patient. “Have courage, my Lady.”
“Courage!” Elienne shook her head. She swallowed, half-sickened by fear. “Then, I beg of you, be cautious.”
The Sorcerer returned a quiet smile. “I shall be, for Darion’s sake, as well as my own.” His face sobered as he explained how the transfer would be effected. “Lady, are you ready?”
Elienne forced herself steady. A large measure of Taroith’s safety rested in her hands, and his confidence wrenched at her heart. She laced the mirrowstone’s loosened setting securely between her fists and nodded.
Taroith set his soulfocus, first to trace and define the construction of Ielond’s spell. Physical sensation failed Elienne from the first instant of contact, and, despite all previous warning, the sudden plunge into black, weightless silence came as a shock. Blinded, deaf, and adrift in what seemed oblivion, she strove to regain the attitude of calm Taroith required, but her fear fed off that unnatural night, enfolding her like the wings of some monstrous creature. Just when she thought she would suffocate, a pinprick of light appeared.
Watch. Taroith’s thought reached Elienne, strangely disembodied. Every Master’s work is unique. Ielond’s sorceries were wrought with indescribable beauty.
The light source waxed brighter, acquired a bluish tinge. Elienne recognized Taroith’s soulfocus. Where it moved, she saw a thin needle of luminosity scribed against the gulf of negative space. Elienne seized the distraction hypnotically, following the focus’s progress as it shuttled to and fro, tracing out—curve and countercurve—the path of Ielond’s artistry. A structure gradually took shape. Awed, suddenly, by recognition of geometrically perfect symmetry, Elienne forgot herself. The spell’s pattern extended delicate as interlaced threadwork, line for line a harmonic consummation of balance.
Taroith patiently mapped an interlocking mesh of circles. Elienne wondered at the delicacy of his touch, until a flat, angular flash of reflection caught her attention. Intricate as glass lattice, a crystalline array of planes appeared across the spell.
The mirrowstone’s matrix, Taroith sent. The enchantment passes through the stone near the origin. You may experience a sensation. Keep steady, whatever happens.
The master pattern narrowed, converged into a series of straight doubled lines. Elienne sharply recovered awareness of her body, as an alien touch hooked the vitals behind her heart. There followed an uneasy feeling of tension. Elienne fought revulsion. The sorcery tugged like fish line. Gooseflesh prickled her neck and arms.
I have crossed the prime command. Taroith’s soulfocus drifted, separated at last from the softer luminescence of the spell. As I thought, Ielond aligned the interface outward. Lady, you are the source. The mirrowstone will activate for communication to your touch alone.
Which reduced the risks to Darion, Elienne knew. But the success of Taroith’s transfer would rest all the more heavily upon her. If she lost contact with the stone while he crossed the interface, the dissolution that would result might well carry his spirit with it, since his entire awareness would be attuned to the link. Elienne battled fresh fear. When the interface assumed a psychic burden beyond its intended capacity, much of the stress would be transferred directly to her. And however soundly Ielond had wrought, the strength of his original handiwork was limited by her own frailty.
Taroith tried to encourage her. Lady, Ielond had faith in you. My safety is in good hands.
But Ielond surely had not known of the Seeress’s prediction of failure. Elienne’s grip on the mirrowstone was slippery with sweat.
Let me know if the discomfort becomes more than you can bear. Elienne nodded with false bravado.
Before her, the spell’s linear pattern blazed to blinding brilliance as Taroith left his physical body and merged conscious awareness with his soulfocus. The result shone with the solitary splendor of an evening star, framed by the ingenious subtlety of Ielond’s interfac
e. Yet the display’s raw beauty escaped Elienne entirely. As Taroith’s spirit began the journey across the net, the physical pull within her increased to a searing pain.
Elienne cried aloud. Her hands clenched convulsively over the mirrowstone. The ornamental setting bore deeply into her palms. For long, agonized minutes, unfamiliar forces closed over her with the cruel bite of trap jaws. Breath dragged in her throat. She tried to call Taroith’s name, and found speech impossible. As a whirlpool of dizziness sucked at her consciousness, Elienne clung to her ebbing senses with an animal’s blind instinct.
The crippling sensation suddenly ceased. Elienne slumped forward onto the table, drained and shaking. Something strangely insubstantial touched the fingers still fisted around the mirrowstone.
You may relax, Taroith assured her gently. My release is accomplished.
Elienne looked up, eyes assaulted by doubled images. The Sorcerer stood beside her in spirit, a luminous figure bound into existence by the pattern of the interface, which glittered like shot-glass thread through the bedchamber. Solid as a beacon, it seemed, while candlelit furnishings and stone walls wavered as though diffracted by water.
“But I won’t hear you if I let go of the stone.” Elienne transferred the jewel to one hand and pushed a damp lock of hair from her face. “And how else will you reunite yourself with your body in the cell?”
