Читать книгу Curse of the Mistwraith - Janny Wurts, Janny Wurts - Страница 19

With an expression abstract as a poet’s, Sethvir of the Fellowship sat amid opened piles of books and penned perfect script onto parchment. Suddenly he straightened. The quill trailed forgotten from his hand and his cuff smeared the ink of his interrupted sentence.

I send word of the Mistwraith’s bane. Asandir’s message bridged the leagues which separated Althain Tower from the forests in Korias near West Gate.

‘Words alone?’ Sethvir chuckled, rearranged the contact and drew forth an image of the clearing where Asandir stood, heavily cloaked against the damp. Dakar waited nearby with two others of unmistakably royal descent.

The blond prince raised one arm. Light cracked from his hand, sharp-edged as lightning. As the mist overhead billowed into confusion a black-haired companion raised darkness like a scythe and cut skyward. Fog curdled in the shadow’s deadly cold. Flurried snow danced on the breeze.

The Mistwraith recoiled. Murky drifts of fog tore asunder and revealed a morning sky streaked with cirrus. Sunlight lit the upturned faces of sorcerer, prophet and princes, and for an instant the drenched ferns under their feet blazed, bejewelled.

Then the Mistwraith boiled back across the gap. Light died, pinched off by miserly fingers of fog.

Sethvir released the image and absently noticed the remains of his quill buckled between his fists. ‘Have you mentioned anything of the heritage due s’Ffalenn and s’Ilessid?’

No. Reservation hedged Asandir’s reply. Dakar had a premonition. The princes derive from a background of strife which may lead to trouble with the succession.

‘Well, that tangle can’t be sorted in the field.’ Pressured already by other troubles this further complication would not speed, Sethvir buried ink-stained knuckles in his beard. ‘You’ll be coming to Althain, then?’

Yes. Asandir’s touch turned tenuous as he prepared to break rapport. We’ll travel across Camris by way of Erdane. The perils of an overland journey will give the princes a powerful understanding of the problems they must inherit before sovereignty clouds their judgement.

Sethvir drew the contact back into focus with a thought. ‘Then you think the heirs are worthy of kingship?’

Asandir returned unmitigated reproof. That’s a broad assumption, even for you. Gravely serious, he added, Difficulties have arisen that will need tender handling. But yes, if their past history can be reconciled, these princes might mend the rift between townsman and barbarian.

Concerned lest any former rivalry should imperil the suppression of the Mistwraith, Sethvir absorbed the spate of fact and speculation sent by his colleague across the link. Behind eyes of soft, unfocused turquoise, his thoughts widened to embrace multiple sets of ramifications. ‘Mind the risks.’

The words faded into distance as Asandir’s contact dissolved.