Master of Whitestorm

by Janny Wurts

  For an instant Korendir was torn between rage and a fierce compulsion to laugh. Then his seriousness won out. "You understand me," he marvelled, his voice too quiet to be overheard. Then he did smile, teasingly. "You know you'll have to put a sleep spell on the dwarves."

  "Or they'll follow us, howling, I know," Ithariel nodded toward the fisherman who fidgeted to one side. "We'll be ready to sail with the tide."

  The enchantress turned in the circle of her husband's arms, her last instructions for Haldeth. "Fetch Korendir's black sword from the armory. Steel will be very little use against demons, but if his Lordship of Whitestorm crosses the sea without a dwarf-wrought blade, Nix will most cheerfully break my neck."

  * * *

  Mantled in pre-dawn gloom, the fishing boat bound for Illantyr hauled anchor and unfurled lateen rigged canvas. The folk who crewed her did not sing as their sturdy craft heeled with the wind. Mist overhung White Rock Head and blotted the fast-fading stars; the water under the keel swirled black, scribed with reflections from the tallix that glimmered through fog above the fortress. But Korendir of Whitestorm did not linger at the stern rail to watch his home shoreline recede. Instead he leaned against the head stay, his eyes trained intently to the west. Beyond the horizon lay the isle whose shores held the fire-charred stones of the holdfast where he had been raised. Now, in murk only feebly cut by the flame of the deck lantern, the terrors of that past and the murder of the widow who had mothered him seemed vividly close.

  Ithariel joined her man on the foredeck. She saw his tense stance, and did not touch, but settled instead on a bight of rope coiled behind his heels. Muffled to the chin in blue wool, she waited without impatience for him to break his silence.

  He spoke finally in tones pitched for her ears alone. "I never meant to go back."

  She heard the words, but sensed a more difficult concept behind; indirectly he tried to impart that her presence at Whitestorm had been enough. Ithariel spared him the need to apologize. "You've been your own master since the day you won free of the Mhurgai." After a pause, she qualified with the tough part. "Love by itself does not cancel obligation."

  Korendir turned his head from the sea and looked at her. "If I had a coinweight of sense, you wouldn't be here."

  Ithariel smiled exactly as she did when Megga tried her nerves. "If I had a coinweight of sense, I'd agree with you." Her eyes seemed very bright. Beyond her, the streaming mists lightened with the advent of sunrise.

  Korendir watched the wind play through her coils of dark hair. "We could go back."

  But the core of hardness had not left him and the enchantress was not fooled. "Go back?" She laughed gently. "To bed, I should think, and when you had loved me to distraction, you'd steal away while I slept?"

  He recoiled slightly, fingers tightened against the head-stay. "Witch. I should never have married a woman of spells."

  "But you did." Ithariel leaned her warmth against his shins. "For us, there can be no turning back."

  "No." Korendir looked at her intently, and shared an insight of a depth even she found surprising. "When I took contract for the Duke of Tir Amindel, I had already passed the edge. That little boy's life had become my last anchor for sanity. When I found the child could not be saved, nothing remained that held meaning." Here he paused and drew breath. "Lady, you should know. Majaxin's vengeance notwithstanding, my sole reprieve from madness was through your intervention."

  Unwilling to face the implications of why he should seek to free her conscience, and doubly aware of how near his losses at Shan Rannok threaded the surface of his thoughts, Ithariel resumed in dogged steadiness. She described what she knew of High Morien's towers, though little enough was recorded in the archives at Dethmark. The disaster had been started by a careless apprentice who opened a wizard's gate without safeguards. His meddling went awry, tore open the fabric of reality between Aerith and Alhaerie. Morien's council had heroically sealed the breach, but not in time. Entities from the otherworld had slipped through, ones with an insatiable bent for destruction. Defeat for the defenders at Alathir had been swift and utterly final, while the enemies which had annihilated them lived on unvanquished.

  Ithariel listed the demons' attributes, those that were documented, and although the sun struck gold through the mist when she finished, shadow seemed to linger on the decks. The boat that plowed through the new morning only hastened toward misadventure; for if the fishermens' tales were true, the Mathcek Demons had ranged south from Alathir's ruins and desecrated the outlying villages of Shan Rannok. No power in Aerith was great enough to stop them; only a foolish few farmers and three dozen hired guardsmen stood ground to contest their advance.

  Ithariel regarded the husband who stood still as a carven figurehead upon the bow. He sailed out of duty to the widow who had fostered him, but the foe he opposed was far older. The Mathcek Demons were second of the Six Great Banes. They would recognize High Morten's heir; unwitting last survivor of Alathir, Korendir would be mercilessly hunted from the moment he offered challenge..But Ithariel knew the futility of trying to deter him with the certainty he was fated to fail. Knowledge of his father's doom would but commit him to action more firmly. By her oath to Telvallind Archmaster, Ithariel kept that secret unbroached.

  * * *

  Five days later, lit by the sickle of a fading quarter moon, Korendir regarded the land which bulked black against a misted, predawn horizon. The fishing boat rolled at her anchorage, a cove on Illantyr's eastern shore sheltered from the westerlies by the ridge which thrust from the isle's central plain. The fishermen slept in hammocks slung from the rigging on deck, while Ithariel occupied the stern cabin. Soft lights burned within, and scrawled pearly reflections on the wavelets beneath the counter; the enchantress used her arts to scry out the danger before their planned landing in daylight.

  Korendir scanned the decks. Nothing stirred but one fisherman who snored and twitched in a dream. The boy who shared anchor watch sat beneath the deck lantern, whittling toys for his nephew. He glanced off the stern from time to time and studied the wave crests guardedly, unconsoled by Ithariel's insistence that demons never crossed water. The thought did not occur that the mercenary from Whitestorm might wish to.

  Despite the chill, Korendir had not worn boots. He shed his cloak and sword belt with a predator's stealth, then pulled off the tunic beneath. Clad in leggings and shirt, he re-buckled his baldric across his shoulder. The scabbard and crossguard he secured with a length of twine filched from a net float. Lastly, cat-silent, he cleated an end of the jibsheet to a belaying pin and lowered himself over the rail.

  A wavelet slapped his ankles. Korendir repressed a shiver and let the line burn through his fingers. He slipped without splash into the icy embrace of the sea. The swim to the shores of Illantyr was close to half a league; Ithariel had insisted they anchor well out, to avoid risking notice by demons. Korendir floated quietly until the current carried him beyond earshot, and the flicker of spells in the stern windows diminished to a dull spark of light. Then he struck off with overhand strokes for the shadowy shoreline to the west.

  Daybreak found him stretched full length on sands packed firm by breakers. He rested long enough to catch his breath, and to ponder the dangers ahead. The enemies he proposed to challenge were nothing like wereleopards, which had been loosed by a meddling wizard who crossbred desert wildcats with creatures from Alhaerie. The demons which victimized Illantyr were directly transported from the otherworld. More than shapechangers, they could take any form, or none; on the effort of a single thought they could alter the landscape into any appearance they chose.

  "Humans are endowed with like powers beyond the wizard's gates," Ithariel had explained during the crossing from Whitestorm. "To imagine a thing is to create it, fully formed from the void. A portion of Alhaerie's existence unravels to supply mass and energy. And so it is with outworld beings who trespass Aerith. They can shape into form whatever dream they desire, but our flora and fauna and soil sustain unto
ld damage in consequence."

  Korendir flexed tired muscles and rose from his hollow on the beach. He dusted sand from his skin. Shivering in his salt-spangled shirt, he drew his dirk and cut the lashings on his sword. Sunrise bronzed the ocean at his back as he struck off, barefoot, for the hills.

  High Morien had met demons with spell-craft, and lost; it remained to be seen what a mortal without magic could accomplish.'

  * * *

  Just past full daylight, Ithariel stepped from the stern cabin clad in a man's boots and tunic. The clothing was unbleached linen, but cut to her size, and bordered with leaves and birds in rust thread. Her eyes were reddened, result of a night spent scrying, and her braids were pinned back in a fashion more practical than pretty. The frown that leveled her brows was one men cared not to cross. She inquired after Korendir from the boy who whittled by the sternsheets, went forward, and discovered the decks empty; except for a tunic and cloak in a discarded heap by the rail.

  Fishermen from Illantyr never wore black on shipboard; the color begged Neth for a funeral, they claimed, and only the daft tempted fate.

  But Korendir remained as impervious to superstition as to his current rejection of plain sense. Ithariel's shout brought the ship's company bounding up the companionway from the galley.

  These included three brothers, captained by a spry-tongued grandfather who was creased like old leather from seafaring. He had seen two sons die of foolishness; the significance of Korendir's empty clothing registered in less than a breath.

  He regarded the outraged enchantress with keenly considering eyes. "You'll be going after him, then." He did not wait for reply, but ordered his grandsons to unlash and lower the jolly boat.

  Ithariel clenched her hands on the rail and stared toward the land which bulked to starboard. The horizon above the hills rolled black under dense blooms of smoke. Whether a village or some farmer's field was ablaze hardly mattered; her scrying showed demonsign everywhere.

  "We'll find him," the old man assured her. "I and my grandsons will help."

  Ithariel picked a stray thread from her cuff. As if the captain had not spoken, she said, "I should have suspected all along when he failed to try me with arguments." A stitch gave under the persistence of her worry, and a wisp of embroidery unravelled; one of the little birds was left wingless. "Damn." The enchantress clamped her hands on her forearms just as a clamor arose from amidships.

  "Neth, will you look," shouted the youngest boy to his grandfather. "Block 'n' tackle's been got at, and the line's fouled."

  "Oh damn him!" Ithariel hammered her fists on her sleeves. "Of course! He would have laid plans to delay us." She turned bleak eyes to the captain. "Old man, forgive my stupidity and inspect your ship. For as I know my husband, we've seen just the first of our troubles."

  The fisherman glanced back in bright anger. "We'll see about that." He nodded to his eldest, who whirled at once to comply.

  Ithariel joined the search, and almost immediately snagged her frayed seam on the dagger sheathed at her belt. Wholly impatient with trivia, she ripped free, drew the offending blade, and hacked off her shirt cuff, fine embroidery notwithstanding. Then, fighting tears, she bent to inspect the ship's rudder. All the pins but one had been neatly removed from their seatings.

  Her man was nothing if not thorough; even should the fishing boat sail with intent to run aground on the beachhead, little could be accomplished in a westerly without steerage except a downwind run back to Whitestorm.

  "I'll break your ugly clever head myself," Ithariel threatened to the empty air. She choked back a cry of frustration.

  The diligent boys and their grandfather disclosed the rest of Korendir's sabotage inside a quarter of an hour. The list was impressive, from sprung planks in the jolly boat, to a weakened splice in a halyard concealed near the top of the mast. This not being enough, the mercenary had purloined the jollyboat's rowlocks, and cut all the hanks from the headsails. None of the damage was permanent. But the ship and her single tender were dependably crippled through a day or more of repairs.

  Ithariel loosed an oath of aggravation. "Is there anything my curse for a husband failed to think of?"

  There was not; the youngest of the grandsons wormed out from beneath the tender and announced two missing pairs of oars.

  No one bothered to check on the spares stored in the aft locker. Korendir would have seen those the past morning when he fetched out the buckets to swab the decks.

  Ithariel glared landward at the forests where her man had ventured without leave. "I can still swim," she whispered in defiance. Oblivious to the stares of captain and crew, or the heated blush of the youngest, she began to strip off her tunic.

  Beneath her bustle of action, her heart knew a crushing end of hope. She could not possibly make landfall before noon. By then, her arrival would be too late. Her man had gone ahead of her, into dangers he lacked training to comprehend. The only protection he carried was his marriage ring, a band with a cut tallix setting. The wardspell laid into the crystal was nothing more than a token, a charm to heal cuts and abrasions, and a luck-bane against broken bones.

  Ithariel wound her arms around her shoulders as if racked by a terrible chill. In trying to spare her from risk, Korendir accomplished nothing more than certain doom for them both. No comfort could be wrung from his courage. Even had she broken her vow and revealed the perils of his parentage, Korendir's thrice-cursed honor would remain. His absolute disregard for danger would have dictated his behavior to the end.

  XXI. Mathcek Demons

  "Lady, no." The oldest of the brothers reached out and tried to catch her wrist; too late. The enchantress shucked her shirt without pause to acknowledge, and his fingers collided with bare flesh. She wore no other undergarment. Her skin in the morning light shone pale and translucent as abalone, and the form it described was breathtaking.

  The brother snatched back as if burned. Scarlet as his sibling, he doggedly resorted to speech. "We can have that jollyboat patched within an hour."

  Ithariel never glanced at him, but reached down to unlace her hose. "What'll you row it with, spoons?"

  Her tone was shrewish, but concern drove her too hard to care. The higher the sun rose, the greater her peril; if she was going to die because Korendir went before her, she would rather the end overtook her alone in open water. The fishermen would never understand.

  The older boy watched her tear at her points, and his throat tightened uselessly. Only the elderly captain regarded her beauty with impunity, and that because he had seen naked women by the dozens in whorehouses through the years he had sailed out of Fairhaven. With less fuss than he employed to unhook a flipping mackerel, he caught the enchantress's wrist and spun her around to face him.

  "Daft as your man, you're being!" The anger in his eyes, or maybe the overpowering smell of fish on him forced her to take notice and listen. "That launch can be rigged to sail in less time than you might think. You'll reach the beach safely that way, and be rested enough to continue. If you go now, I promise, you'll throw your last chance to the winds. Tide's turned, can't you see?

  Current's in flood and pulling north at five knots faster than you can swim."

  The old man paused in his tirade. He glanced aside at his boys and sent them to work with a barked command.

  Then he released the enchantress with a fatherly pat on the shoulder and left her to retrieve her shirt, which fluttered across the deck on the verge of being snatched by the breeze.

  "May not be such a fool, your man," the captain concluded. He fixed faded, squint-wrinkled eyes on the ripples which scoured past the counter. "Sure picked his moment, and rudder pins? What a right bitch of an embarrassment! I packed spares. Neth, in these waters, all us south coasters do. But damned if your bronze-headed gallant didn't ask which locker, one watch a ways back 'midst the straits. Claimed a pin was fixing to crack, when I knew myself they'd been replaced the last time this bucket got careened."

  Ithariel's reply came muf
fled through linen as she dragged her shirt over her face. "Cleverness won't save him from demons, more's the pity."

  Her tousled auburn head emerged from the collar, expectant; but if the captain agreed, he kept silence.

  * * *

  The jollyboat was prepared in less than the promised interval, but her design was not so easily compromised. Never intended to carry sail, she lacked keel, and her improvised rig made her clumsy. Worse, the prevailing westerlies had picked up. Harried by current, and forced to tack, the craft made marginal headway. Caught between views of a landmass that promised doom, or the wake which curved behind and displayed their disastrous set to leeward, Ithariel crouched with her forehead braced on frustrated, white-knuckled fists as the sun climbed inexorably higher.

  The grandfather seemed sublimely unconcerned. He and his relations worked their boat with their accustomed sarcastic banter all the way to the shore.

  The jarring impact of landing threw Ithariel bodily from her seat. One brother caught her as the craft rolled in the waves, while the others freed sheets and leaped the thwarts to steady against the pull of the surf.

  Helped ashore by the old man, Ithariel murmured thanks and stepped out onto blinding white sand. The blot of shade beneath her feet was alarmingly small. Caught by immeasurable dread, she squinted toward the captain. "I'll need you, and one of your crew that's unmarried."

  "Oleg." The grandfather hailed the brother whose hair was bound with a twist of red wool.

  He was not the oldest, nor even the one of middle years. Ithariel regarded the boy's cheerful features with no end of trepidation. "I'm sorry," she said, touched by misgivings that echoed the captain's. "Trust me, I'll skin my husband the mercenary, if we ever recover him alive."

  The wind carried a smoky taint over the fragrant resin of pines. Worn with nerves, and guilty for the dangers she must impose upon a kindly old man and young boy, the enchantress made her way inland at a pace that promised blisters. The grandson followed at her heels, while his elder delayed briefly to shout orders for the brothers who remained.