by Janny Wurts
That placed the threat of execution in a wholly different light.
Sworn to responsibility for the survival of Tir Amindel's heir through the advent of midsummer's eve, Korendir paced and sweated, enraged at the deceit set to trap him; for the plight of the child was hopeless. Fever had wasted the boy's body. Already his complexion showed a corpse's bluish undertones, and his pulse beat weak and rapid, erratic as the flutter of a night moth.
The only soul in the palace who refused to abandon faith was the duchess. Between noon and the evening meal, the nursery doors swung wide to admit the wrinkled, squint-eyed figure of yet another herb woman. The surcoats of the guardsmen stationed in the hallway were eclipsed by the voluminous brown cloth that swathed her from head to foot.
As the panels boomed closed, the veiled woman glanced briefly at the mercenary, then crossed to the child's crib. There she conducted a busy examination, lit her portable brazier, and began mixing possets as if the boy had not already faded beyond help.
The mercenary forced to share the deathwatch resumed pacing, while the nursery filled with the crushed grass scent of aromatic herbs; whatever the woman had mixed gave off a miasma of vapors. Their effect slowed the mind and caused an overwhelming sensation of drowsiness. Korendir moved toward the casement, his intent to trip the latch and let in the breeze to clear the air. A detail made him hesitate. Beneath the cloying medicines lurked another thing, not an odor at all, but a creeping, intangible force that prickled the flesh.
Korendir checked in suspicion.
Perhaps the duke's heir suffered no natural plague, but an affliction wrought of dark spells. Enemies might wish the boy dead. Not all mages held to principles as stringent as the White Circle; herb witches existed whose loyalty might be bought, and whose potions could poison and cause illness. Korendir spun between steps and studied the healer.
Her cheek might seem sagged and wrinkled, yet her body was too well formed for a crone. From the neck downward she was youthful, a fact cleverly obscured by stooped shoulders and layer upon layer of tawdry wrappings.
Korendir hooked his fingers beneath his sleeve and carefully loosened his dirk. He crossed the carpet like a cat, clamped a hand on the witch's shoulder, and whipped the blade to her throat.
The woman did nothing but mumble a guttural phrase; yet the posset on her brazier flashed light. The smell of restoratives seared away, leaving magic like the tang of sheared metal upon the air.
Korendir's awareness unravelled into dizziness. He tried to sink his blade into falsely shrivelled flesh, but the arm that gripped the knife went numb. Both reflexes and balance forsook him. Overcome in the space of a heartbeat, he toppled to his knees. Vaguely he felt his shoulder strike the floor; the clang of his fallen weapon and the herb woman's sibilant whisper pursued him downward into dark.
"What do you know of healing, mortal man? This posset will save life at a time when naught else could avail."
Korendir fought for words, for breath, for even the smallest shred of strength upon which to frame a resistance. Yet the spell overpowered him, utterly. Lost to the duke, incapable of attending the dying heir of Tir Amindel, Korendir knew nothing as the hands of the herb witch snatched his wrists and flung his body into oblivion.
* * *
The Master of Whitestorm woke to a chamber shadowed like dusk by hangings of royal blue and silver. Fine furnishings adorned a floor of checkered agate. The view from the central carpet revealed a spread of brocade upholstery and divan legs patterned with shell inlay. The air smelled cleanly of lilacs.
Korendir reviewed these details with wariness. No clue existed to inform how he had been conveyed from the ducal nursery to this new, unfamiliar site. He lay on his side, unbound, and lighted by tiers of candles set on a stand of spindled iron.
A woman observed him from the divan. She might have been a princess; her poise was that elegantly schooled, and her beauty stunned. Inadvertently Korendir caught his breath. Had he died, he could not have freed his gaze in that moment. Robed in dark satin, adorned with pearls, she had skin as perfect as her jewels, and a face that balanced high cheekbones and brows without flaw. Auburn hair encircled her head in twisted braids. Her eyes were gray as his own and as icily devoid of sympathy.
So might a goddess appear, limned in silent mystery. Unquestionably her aspect was remote as any star that ruled the night.
The herb witch's potion left no weakness; Korendir recovered senses and memory without confusion. Although this lady was not the one who had worn the guise of healer, the mercenary held no doubt he confronted the mind behind her. He snapped his left wrist, caught his last dagger as it slid from the sheath beneath his cuff, and in a movement gained his knees.
Candleflame glanced off the knife's pitted blade, the same that Morey of Dalthern had hoped would end the Blight of Torresdyr. The steel was a fit weapon to present against a witch; one cut from its spell-tempered edge and the woman on the divan would die bleeding.
"Who are you?" Korendir demanded.
The lady inclined her head without alarm. "I am Ithariel, enchantress of the White Circle. And steel wrought by magic cannot harm me."
Her tone chased chills across his skin. Cornered by loveliness too potent to be natural, Korendir struggled to breathe. The lady's allure roused compulsion that obeyed no sane reality. Against overwhelming male instinct, he set the distrust that ran like a crack in crystal through every aspect of his being.
The enchantress spoke only words, and the dagger was all the weapon he possessed.
Ithariel sensed his disbelief. A smile crossed her lips; too swiftly for mortal reaction she sat forward and nicked her wrist across the blade.
Korendir recoiled, his gasp as her blood splashed the tile entirely involuntary and his face wracked by horror that escaped all attempt to conceal.
"You fear for nothing," Ithariel said quietly. "Raise your head and see."
The mercenary mastered his expression before he looked up. Wildly guarded, even braced as if threatened by assault, he discovered the lady's presence still taxed his concentration. She sat with her hand gripped around the wrist his blade had opened; but when she removed her fingers, only the skin was smeared red. No trace remained of the cut but a scar that faded even as he discerned its presence.
The Master of Whitestorm moved to his feet. He sheathed his dagger with a hand that trembled outright and said, "Had you deigned to do as much for a certain ailing boy, I'd be more impressed."
"If you refer to the duke's heir, there was no hope for him." Ithariel rose also. With a grace that could harrow a man's spirit, she crossed to a side table and rinsed her fingers in an ewer. The curve of the breast just visible beneath her gown shone soft and finely lustrous as her pearls.
Korendir ripped away his eyes. His groin ached. He dared not contemplate what he might feel if he touched her. Dizzied by desire, he strove to maintain detachment; she moved within layers upon rings of spells. Mortal beauty did not sear with such intensity. With every fiber of his being savaged by temptation, Korendir confronted the enchantress.
"Return me to the duke," he said finally. "If your talents cannot cure a dying boy, then my place is in Tir Amindel."
Ithariel gave him back the regard a player might hold for a chess piece. "The life that wanted saving was your own."
"Mine!" Korendir's exclamation rang loudly in the close room. "Take care how you meddle, enchantress. However unjust the circumstances, my fate at the hands of my employer is no concern of yours."
Ithariel returned a gesture of pity and contempt. "But the duke has cited your measure. You bear no lawful surname, Korendir of Whitestorm. You descend from no recognized father, and so can claim no true honor. Should your life be forfeit for an overlord's greed and a concept that doesn't exist? I say your services are better spent on another contract for me."
Hers were the scents of lilacs and rainwashed leaves. Pooled with reflected candleflame, her eyes were mist over ocean, blue gray wells of promise deep enoug
h to drown a man; and yet the mercenary escaped her. Some indefinable nuance had pushed him just fractionally too far. Stirred by fury near to madness, Korendir waited, silent.
At last, even as Anthei before her, Ithariel was forced to concede his victory.
But unlike an earth witch, a White Circle enchantress possessed other means to manage a recalcitrant mortal. "I know you," Ithariel said. "Even to the past you never speak of. I can describe the Mhurgai who despoiled your inheritance, particularly one with a scarlet sash who—"
Korendir's chin jerked up; both hands flinched into fists. "Enough!" His bleak shout defeated her words and still he did not succumb. His frame quivered but did not explode into violence. Winded as if he had been running, and glistening all over with sweat, he spoke past whitened lips. "Whatever sordid details your sight has raked up from Shan Rannok cannot force my cooperation."
"You are a mercenary," Ithariel stated. "You'll work for a price."
She stepped around the candlestand. As if he were a caged animal, she appraised his person at a glance. "You are dressed meanly. You have lost the sword newly forged by your companion, and your horse was slain by wereleopards."
Left no expedient except false denial, Korendir followed her with his eyes. She had touched a nerve in her reference to his past; he dared not answer thoughtlessly for fear his voice might betray him.
Ithariel reached out; her slim-fingered hand spun the candlestand, and the chamber whirled with starred spokes of shadow. "Accept my bidding, and the following are yours: first, a cloak, hose and surcoat that befit your reputation."
Korendir loosed a ragged laugh. "The last witch who offered that lies dead."
"Fine clothing is least of my gifts." The candles turned above fingers that no longer seemed to move. "You shall have mail crafted by the dwarf armorers of Emarrcek. The sword and the helm forged to match shall be wrought of blacksteel, and enspelled beyond strength of mortal weapons. Thirdly, from the horse lords of High Kelair, I offer a stallion fleet enough to keep pace with a wereleopard."
Korendir's sarcasm cut through a kaleidoscopic whirl of shadows. "No horse alive can match a wereleopard."
"You doubt me?" Ithariel tossed her head, the motion like spilled ink and moonlight behind streaming tails of candleflame. "You shall rue that mistake most sorely, prideful man."
The candlestand spun faster, and yet faster still, until the chamber seemed drowned in a revolving blur. Korendir felt his eyesight wrested out of focus; hangings, walls, and enchantress dissolved like a scene distorted through shallows. Plunged headlong into giddiness, he groped for a table, a chair back, any solid object he might grab to steady himself. Yet the fingers he closed over wood passed through with less resistance than fog.
He blinked to shake off confusion. When his eyes snapped open, he stood alone.
No chamber with tapestries and candles surrounded him. His feet trod a floor transformed to the chalk-pale sands of Ardmark. The plain cloak and tunic on his shoulders stood replaced by a glittering weight of chain mail and a black and gold surcoat fit for royalty. The scabbard at his side held a sword, dark as ancient iron, and set with a topaz at the junction of quillon and grip. The fingers that had reached for the table were fisted round the reins of a gray stallion whose tail and mane blew like combed brass in the wind.
Korendir dared not pause to marvel over wonders. Magic had cast him into Ardmark with all the terror of a nightmare. Gusts snapped at his cloak hem. Overhead, the sky brewed a witch's cauldron of clouds; a storm threatened with intensity enough to drive every wereleopard in the waste out to stalk for the savage thrill of slaughter.
Korendir took to the saddle, every nerve end alive to danger. If he could reach the escarpments to the east, he would survive, as wereleopards held no tolerance for mountain altitudes.
The stallion sidled restively, then broke to a spirited trot. Korendir knotted the reins. He guided the beast with his knees and drew the black sword from its scabbard. Surely as rain, he would be attacked; around him, the first drops struck with small explosions into the dust.
The horse shied. His breath ripped through widened nostrils, and his eyes rolled rim-white with fear. Yet he did not bolt.
"Good man," Korendir crooned. He steadied his mount with a touch and sought after whatever threat the stud had sensed before him.
The wereleopard shot from a cover of briar. Its diamond-spotted pelt gleamed like gilt; green eyes turned in its tufted face and fixed on horse and vulnerable rider.
Korendir leveled the sword. Startled by a balance that seemed at one with the sinews of his hand, he revised his initial defense and decided to impale the fey killer as it sprang. But the stallion curvetted sideways. Muscle bunched under Korendir's thighs; the stud's quarters thrust like a battering ram and catapulted into a gallop.
The wereleopard swerved and matched pace. It charged at the stallion's shoulder, its fangs dripping venom.
Korendir attempted a cut. The leopard twisted sinuously aside and lost ground with a snarl.
Rain fell harder.
They raced, rider and horse in the lead, and one stride behind, the hunter coursing with narrowed eyes and a tail that streamed through clods gouged up by flying hooves.
Korendir let his mount choose direction. He gripped the sword with his breath grown tight in his chest, and his concentration fixed on the killer that skimmed on his trail.
A gully yawned underfoot. The horse broke stride to gather its hocks and jump. Given warning, the wereleopard negotiated the obstacle more smoothly. The grace of its leap closed the gap, and immediately on landing it sprang.
Korendir raised the sword and rammed the point down the gaping mouth. Teeth clicked on steel and venom sprayed droplets in the wind. Claws raked the mail-clad wrist behind the quillons, and sound became swallowed by the wereleopard's near-human scream. The beast fell back, cleared the obsidian length of the blade, and tumbled in spasms upon the ground, spotted fur dulled by clinging dirt. Blood soaked into thirsty soil until only stains remained.
Korendir soothed his mount to a trot. He did not circle back, but waited with his blade angled for the inevitable retaliation that must come from the slain killer's mate.
The sky opened. Rain streamed down in torrents that filled his eyes and drenched him. The storm closed down in opaque curtains that interwove and shifted, and then spun to a texture that more resembled the flickering of candleflames.
Without warning Korendir found himself gone from the gray's soaked saddle. Restored to the enchantress's chamber, he shivered and realized the waxlights no longer whirled in circles. As their flames steaded and lengthened, he made out the form of Ithariel standing still by the candlestand, her eyes all secretive shadows.
Yet not everything remained as before. Korendir still wore the dwarf-mail, and a cloak that shed rainwater in pools onto polished agate. His grip stayed glued to a black hilted sword by runnels of his own hot blood; between the twining of realities, the wereleopard's dewclaw had carved a gash in his wrist.
"Your experience in the wastes was quite genuine," Ithariel ventured across silence. "Give me your service, and the fine things you sampled shall be yours."
Korendir's head jerked up. His look went flat as drenched slate and his manner radiated fury. "I've already refused. Did you think if you toyed with me I'd submit?"
Ithariel sighed. She spun precipitously away, and something about her seemed to shrink. At first Korendir assumed she wrought another spell; but when she looked back to him, she showed a face very human with chagrin. Immediately he realized she had dispensed with the glamour that made her irresistible.
Small things became visible that the potency of magic had obscured. She was small, fine-boned to the edge of fragility. Her chin had a dimple. The hair folded into its braid gleamed russet, too heavy for the constraint of jewelled pins; and the skin like perfect pearls was rosy now, as if touched to a blush by wind. Korendir stared, lost in admiration that no amount of spellcraft could achieve. Ithariel
in her natural state was stunningly, immediately real, and he found himself challenged on a front he had no resource left to guard.
His breath bound up in his throat. Desperation warred with longing, and his mind tangled in a morass of ancient fears.
Yet the enchantress failed to detect his turmoil. Caught up in embarrassment of her own, she said, "Regretfully, I seem to have misjudged. By the accounts, I would have thought the reputation matched the man." She ended with a glance that searched in a manner quite terrifying for its mildness.
Korendir blocked her by turning aside. Prepared to lash back in self-defense, he was set off balance by the presence of a being who perhaps might consent to be reasoned with. Afraid to expose his vulnerability, he sought the ordinary and raised his arm to sheath his weapon.
Ithariel noticed his bleeding. "Oh, Neth, what a nuisance, you seem to have gotten yourself hurt." She crossed to his side, confidently prepared to have a look.
Korendir's uncertainty coalesced to immediate reflex. The black sword whipped up to fend her off.
Ithariel stopped. She went very suddenly white and her brows gathered into a frown. "Put that up, foolish man. Do it fast, or I'll be forced to consign a very treasured artifact to oblivion."
Korendir turned the hand that held the sword. His eyes mirrored the reflections that skittered like sparks down the blade. "Does that matter, since I've refused your offer?"
The enchantress repressed an obvious impulse to stamp her foot. "It matters," she said, and then qualified. "You seem more particular than most, but find the right price, and all men can be bought."
"After I've finished my contract with the duke," Korendir snapped. "Then, only then, we'll talk price."
"Your contract with the duke will kill you." Daunted by what seemed blind obstinacy, Ithariel showed exasperation. "The blade is yours for blood debt, if you like. But only if you care for that gash."
