Читать книгу Curse of the Mistwraith - Janny Wurts, Janny Wurts - Страница 18

The silvery sheen of West Gate rippled, broke and spilled two bodies into the foggy wilds of Athera. Blond hair gleamed like lost gold through the cross-hatched fronds of wet bracken.

‘S’Ilessid!’ Dakar’s exuberance shook raindrops from the pine boughs overhead as he swooped like an ungainly brown vulture to claim his prize.

The sorcerer Asandir followed with more dignity but no less enthusiasm. ‘Careful. They might be hurt.’ He stopped at Dakar’s side and bent an intent gaze upon the arrivals from Dascen Elur.

Dirty, thin and marked by cruel hardship, two young men lay sprawled on the ground unconscious. One fair-skinned profile revealed s’Ilessid descent. Though the other face was blurred by tangled hair and a dark stubble of beard, Asandir saw enough to guess the eyes, when they opened, would be green.

When neither traveller stirred with returning life, Asandir frowned in concern. He bent and cupped long, capable fingers over the nearest sunburned forehead. Misted forest and Dakar’s chatter receded as he projected awareness into the mind of the man under his hands. Contact revealed immediate peril.

The sorcerer straightened. Questions died on Dakar’s lips beneath the sheared steel of his glance. ‘They’ve been touched by the shadows of Mearth. We must move them to shelter at once.’

Dakar hesitated, his tongue stilled before a thorny snarl of implications. The shadows’ geas bound the mind to madness: already Athera’s hope of renewed sunlight might be ruined. Sharp words prodded the Mad Prophet back to awareness.

‘Attend the prince, or your wager’s lost.’ Quickly Asandir unpinned his cloak and wrapped the dark-haired man in its midnight and silver folds.

A pale, uncharacteristically sober Dakar did likewise for the s’Ilessid. Then he forced his fat body to run and fetch the horses from their tethers.

Asandir had requisitioned use of a woodcutter’s cottage the day before. Since the Mistwraith’s conquest of sky and sunlight, men shunned the old places of power. West Gate proved no exception; the woodcutter’s dwelling lay five leagues from the site, seven hours’ ride on mounts doubly laden, and night fell early over the fog-shrouded forest.

Dakar cursed the dark. Branches clawed him, wrist and knee, as his horse shouldered through trackless wilds. Rain splashed down his collar. Though chilled to the marrow, the Mad Prophet refrained from complaint, even though his cloak had been lent to another. The five-hundred-year hope of all Athera rested with the unconscious man in his arms. The s’Ilessid prince he sheltered was heir to the throne of Tysan, yet not so much as a hearthfire would welcome his arrival to the kingdom he should rule. The woodcutter was away to West End for the autumn fair; his dwelling lay vacant and dark.

Night gave way to dawn, cut by misty reefs of pine trees. Sorcerer and prophet at last drew rein inside the gabled posts of the dooryard. The cottage inside was dry and functional, two rooms nestled beneath a steep, beamed roof. Asandir placed the refugees from the Red Desert on blankets before the hearth. When he had a fire lit and water set heating in an iron kettle over the flames, he knelt and began stripping sodden clothing from the nearest body.

The door banged. Finished with bedding the horses in the shed, Dakar entered, his arms weighed down with a dripping load of tack. ‘Why didn’t you start with the Prince of Tysan?’

Asandir did not look up. ‘I chose according to need.’ Tattered cloth parted under his hands, revealing a chest marred across by an ugly scab. Older weals glistened by flamelight, and scarred wrists showed evidence of recent and brutal captivity.

‘Ath’s mercy!’ Bits jingled against stirrups as Dakar dumped his burden on the settle. ‘Why? Is he outcast or criminal, to have been punished like that?’

‘Neither.’ The sorcerer’s brisk tone discouraged questions.

Concerned, Dakar bent over the s’Ilessid. To his immediate relief, the prince had suffered nothing worse than desert exposure. With a feverish efficiency quite outside his usual manner, Dakar saw his charge bathed and moved to the comfort of a pallet in the next room. When he returned to the hearth, he found Asandir still preoccupied.

Dakar pitched his bulk into the nearest chair and grimaced at the twinge of stiffened muscles. Chilled, damp and wearied through, he failed to appreciate why Asandir wasted time with a servant when the West Gate Prophecy in all probability stood completed by the s’Ilessid heir in the other room. After a brief struggle, impatience triumphed over prudence; Dakar interrupted. ‘Is he truly worth such pains?’

The sorcerer’s glance returned warning like ice-water. Apt to be maddeningly oblique, he said, ‘Did you notice the blade he carries?’

Dakar extended a foot and prodded the discarded heap of clothing by Asandir’s elbow. Frayed cloth tumbled to expose the smoky gleam of a sword hilt. Above the graceful curve of quillon and guard, an emerald glimmered in a setting too fine to be mistaken for anything crafted by man. Dakar frowned, more puzzled than enlightened. Why would a peasant carry a blade wrought by Paravian hands?

‘Why indeed, my Prophet?’ Asandir said aloud.

Dakar swore in exasperation. His mind was clumsy from lack of sleep. All three Paravian races, unicorns, centaurs and sun children, had vanished since the Mistwraith’s foggy conquest. The sword was an impossible paradox. With a sizeable wager and his most coveted prediction as yet uncertainly resolved, the Mad Prophet succumbed to annoyance. ‘Dharkaron take you, I’m tired of being baited. Can’t you tell me straight just once in a century?’

Incredibly, his outburst drew only silence. Cautiously, Dakar looked up and saw his master’s head still bent over the renegade from Dascen Elur. Firelight bronzed both figures like statuary. Shown all the signs of a long wait, Dakar settled back with a sigh and stretched aching feet toward the hearth. Practicality yielded better reward than prophecy and time, and since Asandir had chosen quarters of reasonable comfort for a change, Dakar refused to waste time fretting. With hedonistic simplicity, he nodded in his chair and slept.

When the first reedy snore escaped the Mad Prophet’s lips, Asandir’s forbidding manner softened. His fingers smoothed black hair from a profile all too familiar, and his smile widened with amusement. ’So, our Prophet thinks you a servant, does he?’

Sadness weighted the sorcerer’s phrase, even through his humour. How had a royal son of s’Ffalenn come by the abuse so cruelly marked into youthful flesh? The sight was an offence. Dascen Elur must have changed drastically in the years since the Fellowship sealed the Worldsend Gate for the cause of Athera’s drowned sunlight.

Asandir studied burned, peeling features and silently asked forgiveness for the past. Then he shut his eyes and focused his awareness to know the mind beneath. Swift, direct and deft as a surgeon’s cut, his probe should have pierced the surface layers of memory undetected by the will within. But against all expectation, the s’Ffalenn cried out. His body twisted against the sorcerer’s hold and his eyes opened blindly.

Asandir withdrew, startled. ‘Peace,’ he said in the old tongue. The word closed like a snare, blanketing all sensation of roused awareness. Intent as a falcon, the sorcerer waited until eyes as green as the promise of a sword’s emerald misted over and closed.

Calculation framed Asandir’s thoughts. Somewhere, this prince had received training in the arts of power: his mind was barriered, and his strength considerable if his defences extended beyond waking perception. Gently, the sorcerer straightened the scarred limbs. He had no choice but to break through, and not only to heal the damage wrought by the curse of Mearth. Upon this man, and the s’Ilessid heir with him, rested the hope of an age.

Asandir steadied himself and began again. He blended shallowly with the mind beneath his hands, as water might soak dry felt. Despite his subtlety, the s’Ffalenn scion noticed. Uneasiness transmitted across the link, and the sorcerer felt the skin under his touch roughen with gooseflesh.

‘Easy.’ Asandir kept his contact fluid, melting away whenever the mind he explored tried to grapple his hold. He did not possess, but waited, patient as stone. Eventually the man raised his own identity against intrusion of the unknown. Arithon; the word brought Asandir to sharp attention. Whoever had named this prince had known what they were about, for the Paravian root of meaning was ‘forger’, not of metals, but of destiny.

The sorcerer’s surprise roused opposition. Asandir dodged his charge’s challenge, shaped his will as a mirror and deflected Arithon’s defence back upon itself. The Master countered. Before the sorcerer could lose his awareness in a maze of reflected selfhood, he yielded to apparent passivity. But across his wary mind lay a will whetted keen as a knife. Against him, Asandir released a word tuned entirely to compassion. ‘Arithon.’

Nothing happened. Taken aback, Asandir paused. This prince could not be other than mortal. Logic paralleled his initial surmise. Suffering could alter a mind, Ath knew, and Arithon had known more than any man’s share. With abrupt decision, the sorcerer pitched his second attempt with the force he would have accorded a near equal.

Resistance broke this time, but not as Asandir expected. The Master drove across his own barriers from within, as if recognition of his opponent’s strength inspired a desperate appeal for help. Through the breach stormed images poisonously barbed with s’Ffalenn conscience, and also, incredibly, s’Ahelas foresight, which linked cause to consequence! yet the revelation’s enormity barely registered.

Bound into sympathy with Arithon’s mind, the sorcerer knew a quarterdeck littered with corpses. Through a sheen of tears he watched a father’s streaked fingers worry at an arrow lodged between neck and heart. The laboured words of the dying man were nearly lost in the din of battle. ‘Son, you must fire the brigantine. Let Dharkaron take me. I should never have asked you to leave Rauven.’

Fire flared, crackling over the scene, but its presence seemed ice beside the cataclysmic rebuttal in the mind which guided the torch. ‘Fate witness, you were right to call me!’ But Arithon’s cry jarred against a canker of self-doubt. Had he avoided the constraints of Karthan’s heirship, he need never have faced the anguished choice: to withhold from misuse of master conjury, and to count that scruple’s cost in lives his unrestricted powers could have spared. Sparks flurried against his father’s bloodied skin, extinguished without trace like Karthan’s slaughtered countrymen.

‘Fire her, boy. Before it’s too late…let me die free…’

‘No!’ Arithon’s protest rang through a starless, unnatural night. ‘Ath have mercy, my hand has sealed your fate already.’ But rough, seaman’s hands reached from behind and wrenched the torch from his grasp. Flame spattered across the curves of spanker and topsail. Canvas exploded into a blazing wall of inferno, parted by a sudden gust. Debris pinwheeled, fell, then quenched against wet decking with a hiss of steam; but the mizzen burned still, a cross of fire streaming acrid smoke.

‘Move, lad,’ said the seaman. ‘Halyard’s burned near through. Ye’ll get crushed by the gaff.’

But instead Arithon dropped to his knees beside his father. He strove in abject denial to staunch the bleeding loosed by that one chance-shot shaft. But the same hands which had snatched the torch jerked him away.

‘Your father’s lost, lad. Without you, Karthan’s kingless. ’ Weeping outright, the brigantine’s quartermaster hurled him headlong over the rail into the sea.

There followed no respite. Guided by pitiless force, the scene began to repeat itself. Yet by then, Asandir had gained control enough to recognize the pattern of Mearth’s curse. Originally created to protect the Five Centuries Fountain from meddlers, Davien’s geas bent the mind into endless circles around a man’s most painful memories. The effect drove a victim to insanity, or, if he was rarely tenacious, to amnesia, since the only possible defence was to renounce recall of all but innocuous past experience.

Asandir snapped the cycle with a delicacy born of perfectly schooled power. Released, the mind of Arithon s’Ffalenn lay open to his touch. With gentleness tempered by compassion, the sorcerer sorted through his charge’s memories. He began with earliest childhood and progressed systematically to the present. The result wrung his heart.

Arithon was a man multiply gifted, a mage-trained spirit tailored by grief to abjure all desire for ruling power. Scarred by his severe s’Ffalenn conscience and haunted past healing by his mother’s s’Ahelas foresight, Arithon would never again risk the anguish of having to choose between the binding restraints of arcane knowledge and the responsibilities of true sovereignty. Asandir caught his breath in raw and terrible sympathy. Kingship was the one role Athera’s need could not spare this prince.

Descended of royal lines older than Dascen Elur’s archives, Arithon was the last living heir to the High Kingship of Rathain, a land divided in strife since the Mistwraith had drowned the sky. Although Arithon’s case begged mercy, Asandir had known the separate sorrows of generations whose hopes had endured for the day their liege lord would return through West Gate. That the s’Ffalenn prince who arrived might find his crown intolerable seemed tragic beyond imagining.

Asandir dissolved rapport and wearily settled on his heels. Years and wisdom lay heavy on his heart as he studied the dark head in the firelight. Arithon’s freedom must inevitably be sacrificed for the sake of the balance of an age. Direct experience warned the sorcerer of the depths of rebuttal a second crown would engender. He also understood, too well, how mastery of shadow, coupled with an enchanter’s discipline, granted Arithon potential means to reject the constraints of his birthright. Athera could ill afford the consequence if the Mistwraith that afflicted the world was ever to yield its hold on sunlight.

Asandir stifled the pity aroused by slim, musician’s fingers whose promise begged for expression even in stillness. Arithon’s fetter marks no longer moved him, awakened as he now was to the inconsolable grief of spirit engendered by a sandspit called Karthan. Asandir sighed. If he could not release this prince from kingship, he might at least grant peace of mind and a chance for enlightened acceptance.

‘Ath’s mercy guide you, my prince,’ he murmured, and with the restraint of a man dealing a mercy-stroke, he re-established contact with Arithon’s mind. Swiftly the sorcerer touched the links of association which made kingship incompatible with magecraft and set those memories under block. His work was thorough, but temporary. The Law of the Major Balance which founded his power set high cost on direct interference with mortal lives. Asandir controlled only recognition, that Arithon be spared full awareness of a fate he would find untenable until he could be offered the guidance to manage his gifts by the Fellowship of Seven.

Afternoon leaked grey light around the shutters by the time the sorcerer finished. The fire had aged to ashbearded coals, and Dakar at some point had abandoned his chair for a blanket spread on the floor. His snores mingled in rough counterpoint with the drip of water from the eaves.

Asandir rose without stiffness. He lifted Arithon and carried him to the next room where an empty cot waited. Sleep would heal the exhaustion left by the geas of Mearth. But Asandir himself was not yet free to rest. Directed through the gloom by a coin-bright gleam of gold, he knelt at the side of a s’Ilessid prince whose destiny was equally foreordained.

Dakar woke to darkness. Hungry and cold, he shivered and noticed that Asandir had allowed the fire to die out. ‘Sorcerers!’ muttered the Mad Prophet, and followed with an epithet. He rose and bruised his shins against unfamiliar furnishings until he located flint, striker and kindling. Nursing annoyance, Dakar knelt on the empty blanket and set to work. Sparks blossomed beneath his hands, seeding a thin thread of orange against the wood.

With bearish haste, the Mad Prophet moved on to the woodcutter’s root-cellar. He emerged laden like a farmwife with provisions; but the whistle on his lips died before any melody emerged. New firelight flickered across imperious features and the folds of a bordered tunic: Asandir stood braced against the mantel, imposing as chiselled granite.

‘Well?’ Dakar dumped cheese, smoked sausage and a snarl of wrinkled vegetables onto the woodcutter’s trestle table, then winced over the words uttered in bad temper only moments before. ‘How long have you been waiting?’

‘Not long.’ The sorcerer’s voice revealed nothing.

Dakar disguised a shiver by rattling through the contents of a cupboard. He knew better than to expect Asandir would forgive his latest slip of tongue. With obstinate concentration, the Mad Prophet selected a knife and began slicing parsnips. A second later, he yowled and pressed a cut finger to his mouth.

Asandir seemed not to notice. ‘Daelion’s Wheel, what a tangle your prophecy has spun!’

Dakar lowered his hand, startled. No hidden veil of meaning emerged to chastise his impudence. Complex and awesomely powerful as a Sorcerer of the Fellowship was, Asandir seemed wholly preoccupied. Too lazy to bother with amazement, Dakar dived in with a question. ‘Now will you explain why a serf carries a Paravian blade?’

Asandir’s brows rose in sharp surprise. ‘Is that all you saw? Best look again.’

Hunger forgotten, Dakar abandoned the vegetables. The sword still lay on the floor beside the hearth, the glitter of its jewel like ice against the rags. The Mad Prophet had not noticed the rune cut into the face of the emerald earlier. Now, the sight made his fat face crease into a frown. Absently blotting his bloodied thumb on his tunic, he moved closer. No, he thought, impossible. Anxious for reassurance, Dakar closed sweaty hands over chill metal and pulled.

The weapon slipped free of its scabbard with the dissonant ring of perfect temper. Flamelight sparked across the silver interlace which traced the blade; but the steel itself glimmered dark as smoked glass.

Dakar’s cheeks went white. ‘No!’ Outrage, then disbelief crumbled as he read the characters engraved on the crossguard. Confronted by undeniable proof he spun and faced Asandir. ‘Ath! That’s Alithiel, one of the twelve swords forged at Isaer from the cinder of a fallen star.’

Asandir stirred. ‘That should not surprise you. Arithon is Teir’s’Ffalenn.’

Stunned by the translation, which meant successor and heir, Dakar said, ‘What!’ He watched accusingly as the sorcerer pushed tangled bridles aside and seated himself on the settle.

‘You might at least have told me. If my prophecy’s disproved, I’d like to know.’

‘The Prophecy of West Gate is valid.’ Asandir loosed a long breath. ‘Blessed Ath, quite more than valid.’ This time, Dakar managed restraint enough to stay silent.

‘You predicted the Mistwraith’s bane, surely enough, but only through an aberration of every law designated by the Major Balance.’ Asandir looked up, bleak as spring frost. ‘Our princes are half-brothers through s’Ahelas on the distaff side. The affinity for power Sethvir once nurtured in that line has evolved unselectively on Dascen Elur, to the point where direct elemental mastery was granted to unborn children, all for a bride’s dowry.’

Dakar swallowed and found his mouth gone dry. Sworn spellbinder to Asandir, he had trained for half a century before learning even the basic craft of illusion. Elemental mastery lay beyond him still, for such power was limited only by the breadth of a wielder’s imagination. ‘Which elements?’

‘Light,’ said Asandir, ‘and shadow, granted intact upon conception. That’s enough to destroy the Mistwraith, but only if the half-brothers work jointly. I’ll add that our princes are opposites with a heritage of blood feud between them.’

Sensitized to the cold, deadly burden of the weapon in his lap, Dakar shivered. ‘Do the princes understand their gifts?’

‘One does.’ A log fell. Sparks flurried across an acid silence. Then Asandir reached down and tested the sword’s cruel edge with his finger. ‘Athera’s sunlight might be perilously bought.’

Suddenly stifled by the uneasy, hollow feeling that often preceded prophecy, Dakar surged to his feet. Steel flashed, fell, struck stone with a belling clamour which shattered the very air with discord. Dakar turned widened eyes toward the sorcerer, beseeching reassurance. ‘Have we any other choice?’

‘No.’ Asandir lifted the sword. Emerald light spiked his knuckles as he restored the blade to the sheath. ‘Man’s meddling created the Mistwraith. By the tenets of the Major Balance, mortal hands must achieve its defeat.’ The sorcerer set Alithiel aside, his bearing suddenly gentled. ‘The risk is not without counterbalance. The royal lines retain their founding virtues, despite five centuries of exile on Dascen Elur.’

Dakar managed a wry grin. ‘Teir’s’Ffalenn! I must have been stone blind.’

‘Hasty,’ Asandir corrected. ‘Some days I fear Dharkaron’s own vengeance couldn’t make you notice what’s in front of you.’

Arithon returned to awareness in the confines of an unfamiliar room. Burned low in an iron bracket, a tallow candle lit a shelf jumbled with whittled animals; a badger’s muzzle threw leering shadows across walls of rudely-dressed timber. Rain tapped against shingles, and the earthy smell of a packed dirt floor carried a sickly tang of mildew.

The Master stirred. A wool coverlet pricked unpleasantly at his naked, half-healed flesh. Lysaer lay on an adjacent cot. Cleansed of dirt and dust, blond hair fell like flax across a sun-darkened cheekbone. Arithon shivered, but not from chill. He threw off his blanket and arose.

Someone had laid out clothing on a chest in one corner. Arithon fingered linen cloth and frowned; such generosity seemed at odds with the poverty evidenced by the cabin’s rude furnishings. As a penniless exile, Arithon wondered what price might be demanded in exchange. The thought raised recollection of Mearth and nightmare; and the fearfully focused mastery in the hands which had restored his troubled mind. Recognition of power greater than any he had ever known stirred the hair at Arithon’s nape. He dressed swiftly in breeches and shirt too large for his thin frame.

Lysaer stirred while he fussed the laces tight. The prince opened blue eyes, gasped and rolled over. Startled by his surroundings, he drew a quick breath.

Arithon dropped his half-tied points and stopped the prince’s outcry with his hands. ‘Speak softly,’ he warned in a whisper.

Past his initial shock, Lysaer ducked his half-brother’s hold. ‘Why?’

‘Whoever gave us shelter does so for more than kindness’ sake.’ Arithon dumped the second set of clothes on his half-brother’s chest.

Lysaer shot upright. He snatched with both hands as neatly folded linen toppled. ‘How do you know?’

Arithon shook his head. He stared unseeing at the wan flicker of the candleflame. ‘Our benefactor is a sorcerer more powerful than any on Dascen Elur.’ One strong enough to found a World Gate, or bind added lifespan arcanely into water; but Arithon shied from voicing the thought.

Alarmed nevertheless, Lysaer shoved out of bed, disturbing an avalanche of cloth. Arithon stopped his brother’s rush with forceful hands. ‘Bide your time! Power on that scale never moves without purpose. We have no choice but to act carefully.’

Naked unless he accepted the clothing at his feet, Lysaer battled his pride. Suspicious of sorcerers and bereft of kingdom and inheritance, he misliked the thought he must rely on charity and a former enemy’s judgement. ‘What do you suggest?’

Arithon considered his half-brother’s dilemma and tried through his own uncertainty to ease the damage tactless handling had created. ‘Power without wisdom eventually destroys itself. This sorcerer is old beyond estimate. At present, I think we might trust him.’

Lysaer retrieved the fallen shirt. In silence he rammed taut fists into sleeves plainer than those he had known as crown prince.

Arithon watched, mildly exasperated. ‘Since neither of us has suffered any harm, I advise caution. Maintain your manners at least until our host reveals a motive.’

Lysaer paused, half-clad. ‘I hear you.’ The glare he turned upon his half-brother all but made the s’Ffalenn flinch, so clearly did the look recall the unpleasantness of Amroth’s council chamber. A moment passed, charged with tension. Then the prince swore softly and some of the anger left him. ‘By the Wheel, I’m tired of being shoved in beyond my depth!’

‘Your judgement isn’t lacking.’ But Arithon averted his face lest his expression betray the truth: Lysaer’s ignorance was insignificant, and all of Rauven’s learning a fevered dream before the presence which resonated against his awareness. Hounded to restlessness, Arithon paced to the door.

Orange light gleamed between crudely joined panels. The Master pressed his cheek to the gap and peered into the room beyond. Stacked logs cast drifts of shadow against mud-chinked walls. Herbs hung drying from the peaked beams of the ceiling, their fragrance mingled with woodsmoke. Before the hearth, on a stool of axe-hewn fir, a short man stirred the contents of a kettle; a rumpled tunic swathed his bulging gut and his hair was a nest of elflocks.

Arithon shifted, his hands gone damp with apprehension. On the settle sat a second man, so still his presence had nearly been overlooked. Silver hair gleamed against the curve of a grindstone wheel. A log settled in the fire; light flared, broken into angles against the man’s face. Arithon glimpsed dark, jutting brows and an expression of unbreakable patience. Though lean and stamped by time, the stranger himself defied age. Touched again by the impression of power, Arithon felt his breath catch.

‘What do you see?’ Lysaer leaned over his shoulder, expectant.

Unready to share his suspicions, Arithon stepped back from the door. Nothing could be gained if he allowed his mage-schooled perception to overwhelm his wits with awe. He shrugged to dispel his uneasiness. ‘The plump fellow will probably do the talking. But watch the other.’

Yet quietly as the Master raised the door-latch, the bearded man noticed at once. He looked around with the alertness of a fox and his plump hands paused on the spoon handle. ‘Asandir?’

The older man lifted his head. Eyes light as mirror-glass turned upon the two young men in the doorway. ‘Be welcome. Your arrival is the blessing of Athera.’

He phrased his words in Paravian, known to Dascen Elur as the old tongue. Lysaer frowned, unable to understand. But at his side, Arithon gasped as if shocked by cold. The sorcerer’s scrutiny caught him with his own awareness unshielded, and what self-possession he had left was rocked by a thundering presence of leashed force. Control failed him. Firelight and solid walls dissolved as his perception imploded, pinpointed to insignificance by the blinding presence of the infinite.

Lamely, the Master struggled to speak. ‘Lord, we thank you for shelter.’

‘The cottage does not belong to me,’ Asandir rebuked; but his expression reflected amusement as he rose from his place at the settle. ‘I hold no land, neither do I bear title.’

Dizzied to faintness, Arithon responded the only way he could manage. ‘I know. I beg forgiveness.’ He knelt abruptly and his following line struck through a stunned and sudden silence. ‘I had not intended to slight you.’

‘Arithon!’ Lysaer’s exclamation was followed by the clatter of a wooden spoon upon the hearth. Unable to contain himself, the fat man capped the uproar with an astonished yell. ‘Dharkaron!’ Then he clamped both palms to his mouth and blanched like a split almond.

Asandir gave way to laughter. ‘Have you all gone mad?’ In a stride he reached Arithon’s side and firmly raised him to his feet. ‘You must forgive Dakar. Your arrival has fulfilled his most important prophecy. Though he’s wagered enough gold on the outcome to founder a pack mule, I’ve forbidden any questions until after you’ve had a chance to eat.’

The sorcerer paused, embarrassed by Lysaer’s blank stare. He shifted language without accent. ‘Come, be welcome and sit. We’ll have time enough for talk later. If our greeting lacks courtesy, I hope our hospitality will remedy the lapse.’

Relieved not to be excluded from conversation, Lysaer relaxed and accepted the sorcerer’s invitation. He pulled out the nearest bench and seated himself at the trestle. But beside him, the Master hesitated.

Dakar swung the pot from the fire and began to ladle stew into crockery bowls. From tousled crown to boots of crumpled leather, he looked more like a village tavernkeeper than a gifted seer. Yet the curiosity which simmered beneath his unkempt appearance whetted Arithon to fresh wariness. He took his place next to his half-brother with carefully hidden foreboding.

Dakar’s interest suggested higher stakes than gold at risk on a wager. Unsettled by evidence that supported his initial concern, Arithon responded with firm inward denial. Karthan had taught him a bitter lesson: his magecraft and his music would not be sacrificed to the constraints of duty a second time. Though sorcerer and prophet held every advantage, Arithon intended to keep the initiative, if only to cover his intent with distraction. With the food yet untouched in his bowl, he caught the sorcerer’s attention and asked the first question that sprang to mind. ‘Who is Davien?’

Dakar gasped. He froze with the ladle poised over air and broth dripped unnoticed on the clay brick of the hearth. Lysaer looked on, stiff with uncertainty, as tension mounted round his half-brother like a stormfront.

Asandir alone showed no reaction. But his answer was sharp as a rapier at guard-point. ‘Why do you ask?’

Arithon clenched his jaw. Luck had provided him opening; he had not guessed his query would rouse such a disturbed response. Though he had urged Lysaer to avoid confrontation, he recklessly snatched his chance to provoke. ‘I think you already know why I ask.’

The stewpot clanged onto the boards. ‘Daelion’s Wheel!’

Asandir silenced Dakar’s outburst with a glance and turned impervious features upon Arithon. ‘Davien was once a sorcerer of Athera’s Fellowship of Seven, as I am. Contrary to the rest of us, he judged mortal man unfit to reign in dynastic succession. Five and a half centuries ago, Davien stirred the five kingdoms to strife, and the order of the high kings was overthrown. There has been no true peace since. By his own choice, Davien was exiled. Does that answer you?’

‘Partly.’ Arithon strove to keep his voice level. Though he knew all pretence was wasted on Asandir, Dakar observed also, rapt as a merchant among thieves. The Master spread his hands on the table to still their shaking. Prophecies rarely centred upon individuals with small destinies. Arithon gripped that fear, voiced it outright as a weapon to unbalance his opposition. ‘Are Lysaer and I promised to restore the prosperity Davien destroyed?’

This time Dakar was shocked speechless. For a prolonged moment the curl of steam rising from the stewpot became the only motion in the room.

Throughout, Asandir showed no surprise. But his economy of movement as he sat forward warned of ebbing tolerance. ‘A Mistwraith covered all Athera soon after the fall of the high kings. Its withering blight has sickened this world, and no clear sky has shone for five hundred years.’ The fire’s sibilant snap dominated a short pause. ‘A prophecy as old tells of princes from Dascen Elur who will bring means to restore sunlight to heal the land. You and your half-brother are that promise made real. Does that answer you?’

Arithon caught his breath. ‘Not directly. No.’

Amazingly, it was Lysaer who slammed his fist on the table with such force that stew splattered from the bowls. ‘Ath’s grace, man, did you learn nothing of diplomacy as heir of Karthan?’

Arithon turned upon his half-brother. ‘The lesson Karthan taught me—’

But the sentence died incomplete; a gap widened in the Master’s mind as Asandir’s block took him by surprise. Memory of Karthan’s conflict dissolved into oblivion. Puzzled by quenched emotions, Arithon pursued the reason with full possession of his enchanter’s reflexes.

Haziness barriered his inner mind. The Master drove deeper, only to find his self-command stolen from him. The anger which exploded in response was reft away also, numbed and wrapped against escape like an insect poisoned by a spider. Arithon lashed back. The void swallowed his struggle. Brief as the flare of a meteor, his conscious will flickered into dark.

Arithon woke, disoriented. He opened his eyes, aware that Lysaer supported his shoulders from behind.

‘…probably an after-effect from the geas of Mearth,’ Dakar was saying. Yet Arithon caught a look of calculation on the prophet’s features. The platitude masked an outright lie.

Lysaer looked anxiously down. ‘Are you all right?’

Arithon straightened with an absent nod; confusion ruled his thoughts. He recalled Mearth’s geas well. But strive as he might, he found nothing, not the slightest detail of what had caused his momentary lapse in consciousness.

‘You had a memory gap,’ said Asandir quietly.

Arithon started and glanced up. The sorcerer stood by the fire, his expression all lines and fathomless shadows. ‘You need not concern yourself. The condition isn’t permanent. I promise you full explanation when our Fellowship convenes at Althain Tower.’

That much at least was truth. Arithon regarded the sorcerer. ‘Have I any other choice?’

Asandir stirred with what might have been impatience. ’Althain Tower lies two hundred and fifty leagues overland from here. I ask only that you accompany Dakar and myself on the journey. Firsthand experience will show you the ruin caused by the Mistwraith which oppresses us. Then the destiny we hope you’ve come to shoulder may not seem such a burden.’

Arithon buried a reply too vicious for expression. The room had suddenly become too oppressive for him to bear. Stifled by dread of the sorcerer’s purpose, the Master rose and bolted through the door. Stout planking banged shut on his heels, wafting the scent of wet autumn earth. Lysaer stood, visibly torn.

‘Go to him if you wish,’ said Asandir with sympathy.

Shortly a second bowl of stew cooled, abandoned on the table. When the Mad Prophet also moved to follow, the sorcerer forbade him. ‘Let the princes reach acceptance on their own.’

Dakar sat back against the boards, his restriction against questions forgotten. ‘You placed the s’Ffalenn under mind-block, or I’m a grandmother,’ he accused in the old tongue.

Asandir’s eyes hardened like cut-glass. ‘I did so with excellent reason.’

His bleakness made the Mad Prophet start with such force that he bruised his spine against the planking. Unaware of the anguish behind his master’s statement Dakar misinterpreted, and attributed Asandir’s sharpness to mistrust of Arithon’s character.

The sorcerer startled him by adding, ‘He didn’t like it much, did he? I’ve seldom seen a man fight a block to unconsciousness.’

But with his dearest expectations thrown into chaos by intemperate royalty, Dakar was disgruntled too much for reflection. He seized an iron poker from its peg and jabbed sourly at the fire. ‘They’ll come to odds, half- brothers or not.’

Asandir’s response cut through a spitting shower of sparks. ‘Is that prophecy?’

‘Maybe.’ Dakar laid the poker aside, propped his chin on plump knuckles and sighed. ‘I’m not certain. Earlier, when I held the sword, I had a strong premonition. But I couldn’t bear to see five centuries of hope destroyed on the day of fulfilment.’

The sorcerer’s manner turned exasperated. ‘So you dropped Alithiel to distract yourself.’

‘Dharkaron break me for it, yes!’ Dakar straightened, mulish in his own defence. ‘If they are going to fight, let me be the very last to find out!’