by Janny Wurts
Then Vivet’s winsome joy appealed from the pillow, “I scarcely believed you would come.”
His reflexive compassion punctured self-possession. Where the lost recall of his true beloved would have unmasked her staged appeal, Elaira honoured her secret promise to stay out of jeopardy. Unchecked, the phantom imprint of her stolen signature set hooks in the trap that besieged his integrity.
She could but weep. In private, Arithon might repel the heightened draw of Vivet’s allure. But decency before her relatives begged his considerate kindness while she lay in childbed as his dependent. He bore up. Clasped her hand, as he must, braced to salvage appearances throughout the distasteful contact.
At Althain Tower, Elaira cried out, aware of the pitfall sprung by his sympathy.
The mistake opened the gate to disaster under the scrutiny of a shaman. While Vivet clung, the insidious glamour on her person shocked uncanny desire through Arithon’s defences.
Annoyed as his cheeks flamed, stung worse by her family’s salacious interest, he covered Vivet’s fingers, and with desperate embarrassment, hid the brute leverage that prised her grip free.
And again, the gesture of gallantry back-lashed: every concession in Vivet’s behalf redoubled the binding glamour. While Arithon wrestled his rocked equilibrium, the shaman attacked.
Elaira reeled in linked empathy as the ambush smashed Arithon’s guard. He staggered, dizzied by a star-burst of pain. Crashed to his knees beside Vivet’s mattress, he fought dissolution, while the startled matrons exclaimed. He felt their hands prop his frame in support. Heard their amused laughter, and worldly remarks over men who fell faint at the sight of a woman in childbed.
Then cognizance wavered. The overheated room frayed away, sensation sheared off as the brutal assault milled him under. Elaira’s connection unravelled as well, sundered by a fissure of darkness.
Spring 5924
Precipice
The severance jolted Elaira erect amid the fast stillness of Althain Tower. If the antique tea-cup broken at her feet had unsettled Sethvir, the wakened defences laced through warded stone would be tolling alarm through his earth-sense. He could not intervene. Would not, constrained to stand back while the shaman’s assault threatened Rathain’s crown prince. Whatever his greater vision perceived, the crafted protections that shielded Elaira from hostile exposure also doused her personal faculties. Thrown on her own merits, shaken and blind, she mustered her rattled discipline. Despite her panicked impression of ruthless invulnerability, the brutal strike must be parried. After she calmed and centred herself, she sought access to Arithon’s plight through her heart’s connection.
Yet no effort availed her. The tower’s mighty enchantments shredded her entrained concentration. The uncanny vibrations surged through flesh and bone, until the air drawn into her lungs crackled with overcharged power.
“Plague take the curse of cosseting safety!” At least alone in the wilds, Elaira had been able to risk the endangerment without hindrance.
Stranded instead before a carved table heaped with the dusty wisdom of opened books, she clawed under her collar and hooked the chain necklace that strung the signet of Rathain. She tapped into the ring’s emerald setting at speed, then launched her urgent appeal to reach Arithon as the designate guardian of a sanctioned crown prince’s heritage.
Whether for Athera’s need or love’s affinity, her frantic effort won through …
Arithon did not remain stranded beyond consciousness past the initial attack. Schooled reflexes conquered disorientation and recouped the first glimmer of self-awareness. He resurfaced into a landscape of dream, his naked skin mottled by the dappled shade of an ancient forest plucked out of his fragmented recall. He confronted a towering archway of oak. Perilous hush attended the moment where his due permission, commanded in form, had once granted his rightful access.
Yet the seductive impulse to retread that past step touched off an inchoate dread. Unease hackled his nape. A steadfast companion should stand at his shoulder: yet a search for the requisite, strapping young liegeman found no one backing his quest. Arithon frowned. A sinister sense of violation infused the frame of his private experience.
The suspicion raised gooseflesh, followed by an uncanny, fierce jab of compulsion. Not alone after all: some unseen entity riding him sought to harry him across the threshold to breach the veiled mystery beyond.
Initiate mastery rejected the pressure. Arithon blanked his mind and dispersed his cohesive awareness into a featureless void. That skilled reflex should have dislodged the invasion as the restructured memory collapsed. Divested of any internal foothold, the subversive presence ought to fade away.
Except the ephemeral vista did not dissolve into nothingness. The vision persisted, a frightening sign that the outside antagonist exploited the construct. Perception and thought remained embodied still, while the abdicate course of his counter-move buckled him at the knees. Snared captive inside of a stolen memory, Arithon sprawled helpless, unable to stir. An ominous wind swept the guardian oaks and rattled the branches above. The internal template he had relinquished in an unwitting surrender remained viable, while the enemy that stalked him as prey from the shadows uncoiled to lay claim, unopposed.
Peril struck, with Elaira snagged in the breach as the unforeseen eavesdropper, given mandated access through Rathain’s seal ring. She extended her consciousness from deep trance to contest the disastrous theft of Arithon’s experience. An aspect of her living will, self-contained and invisible, held the line before the gateway of arched oaks. The arcane web that sustained the uncanny projection was not unfamiliar: Elaira had once ventured into the Whitehaven sanctuary, sourced by the exemplary practice of Ath’s adepts. She knew the reactive existence was real, volatile energy structured by the imprint of Arithon’s emotional memory.
Yet this manifestation was not consecrated by the benign auspices of the White Brotherhood. Elaira broached a confrontation ruled by their rogue faction, sundered in exile. Ettinmere’s enclave commandeered the arena, first to expose Arithon’s core identity, then to ransack his guarded integrity.
The key to wrest dominance over him loomed ripe for the plucking inside the sentinel circle of oaks that defended the King’s Glade in Selkwood. There, Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn had engaged with Athera’s mysteries to heal the fatal flaw sown by Desh-thiere’s curse. Courageously vulnerable, in naked trust, he had given over his Name in surrender to the wisdom of Athera’s Paravians.
Exposed, that moment of unconditional disclosure would enable the abusive gamut of usage by Ettinmere’s shamans.
Their thrust to break Arithon’s autonomous will permitted no grace to prepare. The bolt-lightning charge they deployed outmatched Elaira’s resource. A direct challenge would invoke deadly force. The profligate might that had seized hallowed turf as a battle-field owned the main strength to destroy her at whim. Worse, Arithon’s compromised fate still required the secrecy of their relationship.
Elaira flung down the gauntlet, her bluff against desperate stakes reliant on bald-faced surprise.
“You shall not sow your havoc upon proscribed ground!” she denounced with ringing authority. “Defile this man’s free spirit at your peril, against my fair warning: I know who you are and from whence you came! Desist, or suffer in reprisal.”
Her startled antagonist recoiled, enraged. “How bold, to meddle in sequestered affairs beyond your rightful purview! Whoever you are, do you grasp the full scope of what lies at stake?”
Through a terrified pause, Elaira returned an impenetrable silence.
Unable to fathom the blank face of the obstructive opponent, the shaman flung back with blazing impatience. “If your claim carries weight, you’ll know why this foreigner cannot be permitted to flout our traditions! He will be curbed before his wilful prowess disrupts the balance maintained by our covenant.”
For the vast resource required to stabilize the buckling pressure of two major fault-lines was finite. Elaira held only that flimsy
card against Arithon’s ruin: the fact Ettin’s shamans lacked any means to replenish their reserve posed their only weakness.
Elaira risked all in one blazing challenge. “What is your aim, truly? Are you the steadfast guardians of Ettinmere’s legacy or venal practitioners, corrupted by self-importance and fallen to shady practice?” She withdrew, fast and clean, leaving the echo of the accusation like rolling thunder behind, inventively flourished by the colouration of Shehane Althain’s imperative warding.
Elaira roused from trance shaken, the clammy palm clenched around Rathain’s signet ring gouged by her terrified grip. Nor was she alone.
Sethvir sat across the heaped table, white hair nested with tangles and his eyes owlishly fixed. “My dear, whatever happens, your brave masquerade was pure genius.”
Elaira shivered. “The shamans have stood down?”
“Perhaps,” Sethvir allowed. “We’ll know very soon.” For of course, the breadth of his earth-sense still tracked the on-going reaction of Ettinmere’s enclave.
Elaira held on, bolt upright and afraid to breathe. No hope saved the fact her veiled innuendo was a fallacy, the teeth behind compact law hobbled since the moment the shamans compromised Arithon’s outer defences.
Sethvir disagreed. “Brave lady, your ploy was impeccably founded. Roaco’s unlikely to sanction a foray stacked with the potential to drain his cabal’s hoarded strength.” The Sorcerer leaned forward, scavenged the forlorn shards of her cup from the floor, and spoke in actualized Paravian. As though the restoration of pulverized porcelain was ordinary, he refreshed the tea gone cold in the pot, poured, and passed her the steaming restorative.
Elaira accepted the courtesy, fraught over the prospect a rogue faction might grasp how thoroughly Prime Selidie’s settlement tied the Fellowship’s hand. “They can threaten a royal lineage without hindrance. Nothing stands in their path if they choose to destroy my beloved or damage his spirit.”
“Not today,” Althain’s Warden made haste to confirm. “You have secured a reprieve in the moment. The tide’s turned. The enclave is cautious by nature. Roaco won’t rush to confront the unknown or engage while his footing is tenuous.”
But hesitation was the sole stay in restraint. Elaira could not rest on the Warden’s dissembling complacency. “Ettinmere’s shamans will only regroup. They’ll pry at Arithon’s temperamental resistance until they seize their satisfaction.”
“Then better your prince should remain running scared!” Sethvir snapped, perhaps gadded by her restive fear as the immediate crisis lost impetus. “Count your mixed blessing. His Grace has stayed unaware of whose help just rescued him from the pitfall. Recovery will find him scatheless in fact though he won’t know for certain his being has not become compromised.”
No other palliative existed, where the probable futures converged without recourse. Under siege as Arithon was from all quarters, his movement was going to stay hounded.
Elaira watched the Sorcerer rise, undeceived as the tension quarried into his face softened into his usual daft air of reverie. When he left, the leaden quiet of Althain Tower’s protections gave her no peace. Tea-cup shoved aside, the enchantress firmed her resolve and engaged her own resource once more.
Sethvir’s counsel had not misled her. Arithon still rested before the oak portal. But the oppressive gloom of the storm front had lifted. Sunlight winked through the crowns of the trees as the outside influence bled away. Elaira maintained her vigilant watch until dissolution leached through form and colour, and the half-world plumbed from Arithon’s recall faded back into the void.
Arithon roused back to embodied awareness, collapsed onto his knees with his shoulder propped against Vivet’s bedside. He retained nothing. No recollection of what had occurred since his defensive retreat caused a black-out faint. He wrestled a galvanic surge of self-doubt, unsure whether the hostile attack had downed him in defeat.
Assessment suggested he suffered no injury. By the cramped complaint of his folded legs, he had been unresponsive for hours. The thick reek of blood and the drone of mingled voices informed him Vivet’s labour meantime had birthed a live infant. Someone with a fist like a maul cuffed him in congratulation. A jubilant matron shrieked in his ear. Through a shocking clangour of cymbals and drums, he gathered the babe delivered to his household was a healthy son.
Arin struggled erect. He managed the aplomb to stay upright, despite sucking vertigo and a skull that felt packed with cotton. A wave of fresh nausea wrung him to pallor. He swayed, to an outburst of female laughter. Rocked by additional, boisterous back-slaps, he gritted his teeth, while the facetious comments of Vivet’s kinfolk belittled his squeamish male nerves.
Like a coal burning holes in his back, the shaman’s glare measured his artless distress.
“Buck up, young man!” An aunt, or close cousin grappled his arm, her inbred Daldari features too nearly alike for his swimming perception. She dealt his woozy frame a rousing shake. “Moment’s come for the blessing. Do you understand?”
Tugged forward, he confronted Vivet’s achievement. The chapped hands of a smiling midwife presented a squirming mite, nakedly wrinkled and glistening wet and howling with indignant fury. Tiny heels lashed the air, shocked by the transition into tumultuous life.
The shaman shoved to the fore, hostile as an ill wind as he whispered, “Do you know what you ceded to us in the dark?” Then, by Ettin’s custom, he raised a smeared finger and streaked Arithon’s cheeks with the birthing blood. “The babe’s life is sacrosanct by your oath. He is yours to name, outlander, though take due care. The life granted rides upon your integrity.”
The warning ran chills down Arithon’s spine. The Ettin enclave clawed for leverage against him, whether Vivet’s child was his natural get, or an unknown stranger’s.
The infant’s appearance did not settle the question. He had a newborn’s unfocused blue eyes, his smudged hair a whorl that would dry to wheaten fluff. His bruised features were too undeveloped to reveal the traits to emerge with maturity.
“Say his name and be quick, before bad spirits enter!” snapped the Daldari matron.
“Let him be called Valien,” declared Arithon, sick at heart and worried in fact, that the shaman’s hovering spite might afflict the lad’s future. He recommitted his given word of protection, stumbling as the women prodded him backwards and shooed him out. This was not the moment to sort his unease or test whether the sanctity of his autonomy had been breached by the enemy while he was slumped senseless.
Spring 5924
Culprit
The Mad Prophet lost his last, lame excuse to defer travel to Ettinmere when spring’s thaw mired the trade-roads. As the shrunken rime of the drifts sprouted jade shoots of fodder, he dragged his heels with dazzling invention. Clan sentries collared him when he sidled away to desert. Dragged back under protest, he promptly fell sick. Griped and bemoaning digestive disorder, he raised havoc until the camp herbalist suspected self-poisoning and tossed out his stash of emetics. Cosach and Tarens put an end to his stalling, strapped him, protesting, onto a horse, and prodded the laden beast over the Arwent before the melt-waters frothed the ravine to an impassable spate.
Progress only blistered Cosach’s impatience. Once the bogs dried and the grass greened in earnest, The Hatchet would muster his idle troops, parade them on gleaming display for the faithful, then march them out, duly blessed by the priests for a campaign of red slaughter. Every lost hour jeopardized lives, further delayed as the perils of Athili swung their route into the open plateau.
Moving by night, they freed the gelding to fend for itself. While a south wind pelted rain in their faces, they slept in their cloaks and hunted the winter-thin bucks, and ate roasts barely seared over frugal fires. Dakar’s choppy stride laboured to keep pace across the matt burlap downs. Lag behind, and by the caithdein’s decree, he forewent his dinner and suffered from shortened sleep.
Which draconian measure lasted until they approached the shore of Daenfal Lake, where T
arens’s preference to visit Backwater’s market for news and provisions locked horns with the caithdein’s wary distrust.
“Better for clanblood to pilfer a boat, then row like the furies by dark.” Anxious over the bottle-neck crossing, Cosach argued with venom until he noticed Dakar’s furtive disappearance. “Slinking weasel’s scarpered into the country-side.”
Tarens chuckled. “More likely he’s nestled in Backwater’s stews, tight on beer and burrowed like a tick in a brothel.” He yanked the last haunch of hare off the spit, tossed the portion to the fuming caithdein, then licked his blistered fingers. “Go on, find your boat. Fight the wind at the oars. I’ll rest here and do you the favour of flushing the spellbinder out in the morning.”
The chieftain tore a savage bite off the bone, eyebrows arched in the glare of the cookfire. “You’ll try that wearing a clansman’s leathers?”
“Not quite. Certain risks can be measured.” Prudent enough to douse his amusement, Tarens tucked into his mantle and slept.
Awake before daybreak, he set off alone. A clammy breeze that fore-promised drizzle swept the bog taint off Silvermarsh, tinged by the tannin of oak logs burned in the outlying smoke shacks. The scent guided Tarens to a muddy trail, chopped by goats, which he followed until sunrise unveiled Backwater’s blocky silhouette, stepped against the pewter sheen of the lake.
Once before, out-bound from Lithmarin, he had restocked at the trader’s market. The giant guard with the rumbling laugh still minded the gate. Tarens answered his challenge and shared a lewd joke in a bumpkin’s drawl. Bespattered with mud, his oiled-wool mantle and stag-hide boots indistinguishable from a farmer’s, he entered the town’s central thoroughfare.
His ruddy complexion and unkempt, fair hair turned no heads as he dodged the wheeled drays and rattling hand-carts. Above him, Backwater’s lichened, square houses reared three storeys high, gabled and shingled with slate. Tarens strode through the fragrance of birch fires and hot buns, wafted from the tea vendors. The river-stone cobbles were swept. Painted eaves sheltered the zigzag board walkways, humped with the railed bridges that funnelled pedestrians past the snug craft shops that spun finished yarns and cured the pelts purchased raw from the trappers. Araethura’s silky-haired goats, and the expertise of the furriers loaded the mule trains bound over the Skyshiels to the deepwater harbour at Jaelot.
