Shadowfane

by Janny Wurts

  'Oh, aye, yer tamed pack o' wizards sent word. Came in the form of a wee box carved with runes, dumped in with the tribute off a trader bark from Telshire.'

  'A box?' Taen queried.

  She sensed Tamic's brows lift in reproof. 'Aye, a box, wench. As sorcerers go, the conclave's lot aren't stupid. If the Magelord or one of his minions dared the straits, Kielmark'd dice him up like stew meat. For what his conjurers did to Anskiere, you understand, and probably a bit on general principle. Hates sorcery of any sort, does the Pirate King, since it litters up his domain with powers he can't control.'

  'And the box?' prompted the Dreamweaver.

  'Kor.' Tamic paused. Carefully he excised from his reply those obscenities which might earn him the Dreamweaver's reprisal. 'That box had a message in it, all wrought of spells. Bad news by my guess, because the Kielmark hammered the table with his sword and gouged up a helluva splinter. Now there's activity in the harbour like sticks astirring through bee nests.'

  'Morbrith fell to Shadowfane,' Taen returned, 'that's why your Lord is distressed. When he's finished yelling, tell him I sail north on Callinde with the newly invested Firelord. Corley's with us.' She kept her sending terse, mostly as an excuse to end contact. Even disaster could not upset her judgement enough to deliver word of the fleet lost to the Gierj with the Kielmark in a killing fury. As she released her dream-sense, Tamic's humour transformed from sharp concern to wonder, that the small, diffident boy he had once dragged off the north shore in a storm had gone on to complete the Cycle of Fire.

  * * *

  Callinde sailed on through the Free Isles. Twice Jaric made landfall for supplies, at Westisle and Skane's Edge. Corley helped with the loading, but refused to show his face to the villagers. That none would know him as the Kielmark's captain, he worked muffled in Jaric's spare storm cloak despite the warmth of high summer. Only Taen understood why.

  'He fears to be used as a tool against Cliffhaven,' she confided to Jaric, who cursed in exasperation and worried the captain might collapse from the heat. That the Firelord's anger was rooted in grief helped nothing.

  Each day it seemed more certain that Maelgrim and Shadowfane had broken the spirit of a friend.

  Back at sea, Jaric flung open the locker nearest the helm, retrieved Callinde's last rigging knife and whetstone, and presented them to the captain. 'You can fashion a sheath from the leather I bought to make sandals,' he offered. 'Only stop moping in port like a priest losing faith at a heresy trial.'

  Corley accepted the gift, but did not sharpen the blade. Hour after hour his hands hung limp in his lap, except when Callinde required sails changed, or navigation, or repairs to worn rigging. Wind blew from the west, then the north, and slowly, shifted back due south. Following a stop at Innishari for water and food, fair weather alternated with two storms and a gale. The air grew sharp at night. Close to the first of autumn the sturdy craft neared the latitude of Cliffhaven.

  Twelve leagues offshore, with the watchtower not yet visible on the horizon, Taen entered dream-trance and contacted the Kielmark for the last time before Callinde reached port. She had informed him long since of Morbrith's fall, and the fleet lost to Shadowfane; but not until now could she bear to reveal the ruinous change in Corley.

  Seated in his library at the time, the Lord of Cliffhaven received her tidings with uncharacteristic equanimity. Taen suspected a more explosive reaction, perhaps held in check beneath his calm; but since he cut contact with more than his customary curtness she had no chance to read deeper. Though Callinde returned with a Firelord and hope for Anskiere, Taen roused feeling dispirited.

  She retired to the bow rather than disturb Jaric, who tended Callinde's steering oar with apprehensive thoughts of the ice cliffs, and the fact he must soon unravel the wards there with the same powers his father had used to betray the Stormwarden's peace.

  Corley leaned against the mainmast with his shirt laces open at his throat. He seemed asleep; Taen knew by her dream-sense he was not. She huddled against the prow, troubled by doubts of her own. How would Anskiere judge her brother, when he wakened to find Morbrith lost, and Marlson Emien the cause? The Dreamweaver brooded, while the bow wave crumpled into froth beneath the keel and day wore on to afternoon.

  Jaric's shout broke her reverie. 'Corley, no!'

  Taen spun in alarm, just as Ivainson sprang from the helm. He piled into the captain. Callinde veered sharply to weather; the shadow of the mainsail swung aft, and the Dreamweaver glimpsed a flash of sunlight on steel. Corley strove to sink the rigging knife into his chest. Only the straining hands of Ivainson Firelord prevented the blade from striking home.

  'Taen, help,' gasped Jaric. Corley's sweat slicked his palms, and his hold slipped. The blade dipped, quivering, and nicked into skin.

  The Dreamweaver gathered power and slammed hard into the captain's mind. His limbs sagged with paralysis, and the knife tumbled, clanging, into the bilge. Jaric caught the unconscious man and eased him awkwardly to the floorboards.

  'Kor's mercy!' Taen reached the captain. Corley breathed as if asleep, except that beads of crimson seeped through his shirt front. Taen bent and tugged the linen from his shoulders. Only when she proved the wound was a scratch did she start to quiver with shock. 'What would make him desperate now, after all these weeks?'

  Jaric did not answer. Instead he delved into an opened locker for the ship's glass, balanced himself against the roll of the swell, and scanned the eastern horizon.

  Presently Taen saw his mouth flinch into a line. 'Here's why.' Ivainson lowered the glass with what seemed like annoyance. 'There's a sloop out there on a broad reach. with one man aboard. Corley guessed who before I did. The Kielmark sails Troessa to meet us.'

  Untended, Callinde jibed with a thunderous bang of sails. Jaric leapt to slacken lines. Only when he had finished did Taen realize his curtness was rooted in distress. Corley lay sprawled on the floorboards, strong hands outflung and empty and his face untroubled in sleep. He might have been napping; except his friends remembered he never quite abandoned tension, even during rest.

  'You did your work well, little witch.' Jaric knelt, recovered the rigging knife, then wedged it out of sight behind a water cask. 'He'll not wake if we move him? Then let's get him up.'

  Built light and lean to carry dispatches, Troessa raced down upon the ungainly Callinde with what seemed uncanny speed. Taen had barely made Corley comfortable in the bow when the small sloop rounded to weather. She drifted on Callinde's windward side, sails slatting loose in the breeze. Jaric sprang and caught the line thrown by her helmsman.

  The Kielmark paced with impatience while his craft was made fast to a cleat. Ebony hair ruffled against sky as, with astonishing agility for a man burdened with broadsword, boots, and crossbelts jingling with throwing knives, the sovereign Lord of Cliffhaven leapt the gap between boats. He landed sure-footedly on the thwart. Callinde rocked sharply, canvas flung into a jibe. Forced to duck the swing of the headsail, Taen sensed rather than saw the Kielmark check. Eyes pale as ice chips fixed on Corley's bloody shirt.

  'Kor's Fires, what's happened to him?' Enormous in Callinde's cramped cockpit, the Kielmark reached for his steel.

  'That's a scratch!' Taen supplied hastily. 'Corley's alive, and well, but not stable. He tried to take his life when Troessa breasted the horizon.' She engaged her dream-sense and tried vainly to soften the impact of the news.

  The Kielmark tensed at her touch. The ruby torque flashed at his neck as he whirled around, knuckles whitened on his sword hilt. Should he follow through with his draw, he could not help but slash stays and bring down the mast; but temper left him wild enough to strike without thought of consquences. 'Take Troessa and see to your Stormwarden, enchantress. I'll look after my captain.'

  The Kielmark turned on his heel. Charged with threat like a thunderhead, he reached Corley in the bow, plainly intending to move him. When Jaric hastened to help, Taen restrained him with a dream-touch.

  'Don't. His Lordship is
dangerously upset.' She caught Jaric's wrist and held on as the Kielmark lifted Corley in his massive arms. Contact seemed to reassure him; the mad edge softened from his temper as he bore his captain aft.

  The King of Renegades settled Corley in the stern seat, then positioned himself by the steering oar. 'How long will he sleep?' he demanded of Taen.

  'Well past nightfall, unless you wish otherwise.' As the Kielmark's mood eased, the Dreamweaver sensed that his temper stemmed from more than Corley's straits. The tension probably rooted in the conjurer's message concerning Morbrith, but now was a poor moment to press the issue. Again urging restraint upon Jaric, Taen waited by the mast.

  The Kielmark threw off baldric and crossbelts. Stripped to boots and leggings stamped with silver, he spoke with his gaze trained on Corley's still features. 'Jaric, you must free Anskiere directly. If the wind holds, Troessa should bear you to the ice cliffs before sundown.' He paused, raked sweat-damp hair from his temples, and looked up. 'Every sovereign ruler of Keithland and all the council members of the Alliance await you at Cliffhaven. Return there when you can.'

  'Councilmen of the Alliance!' Jaric broke in. 'How did you ever prise them out of Landfast?'

  The Kielmark's teeth flashed in an expression not quite a smile. 'I sent ships and men at arms to collect the first two. Then one day their conjurers told them that Morbrith's citizens had dropped in their tracks like carrion. After that, their eminences came flying like sparrows chased in by a gale.' Pointedly not looking at the Dreamweaver, he leaned forward, caught the trailing end of the jib sheet and hauled in the sail. 'Go now. Time is critical.'

  Canvas filled with wind, and Callinde bore off. Jaric squeezed Taen's hand, released her, and stepped around the mast. He flipped Troessa's line from the cleat. Tanned from seafaring, and clothed in a sailor's linen tunic, he hardly appeared the master of a firelord's powers as he leapt lightly on to the gunwale. But when the Dreamweaver hurried to join him, he paused, poised like a cat. 'You sail with Callinde.'

  Taen stiffened to argue. 'Where you go, I go also.'

  'No,' said Jaric. 'Not with frostwargs unleashed.' He spoke quietly. But his voice carried an edge that made the Kielmark start at the steering oar. Ivainson was a lad no longer. On Callinde's rail stood a sorcerer charged with ringing nets of power. His hair might be sun-bleached, his hands worn with sailing; but fire would blaze at his command, and the ordinary brown of his eyes reflected mysteries deep as earth.

  'Stay,' said Ivainson Jaric to Taen. His tone gentled. 'I'll return with Anskiere, and meet you at the fortress.'

  He sprang into Troessa and cast off. Taen did not try to follow, but hung on the thwart as the sloop caught the wind and bore off northeast.

  The Kielmark hardened the sheets. As Callinde steadied on course for the harbour, he looked up and noticed the Dreamweaver's expression. 'Enchantress,' he called grimly from the helm, 'quit fretting. I'll be sending a patrol to the north strand with horses. You can go and meet your man. But first you'll help sail this bucket to shore. Are we agreed?'

  'Horses!' Taen returned a brave but weary smile. 'I sail a boat with far better grace than ever I sat a saddle.'

  * * *

  Jaric landed Troessa at sunset. Slanting light tipped the topmost crags of the ice cliffs with rose and gilt; below, breakers crashed and threw smoking streamers of spray, tinged ice blue in shadow. As always, Anskiere's prison overwhelmed the eye with beauty. But the Firelord charged with the Stormwarden's deliverance felt no confidence as he beached his small sloop on the strand. He had no experience battling demons, and scant knowledge of the frostwargs he must subdue; far more than a sorcerer's survival rested on his success.

  The air blew chill off the heights. Jaric shivered in his thin tunic and squared his shoulders to climb. Ice and rock had contained the frostwargs since Tathagres' sorcerers had provoked their escape; presumably fire would control them. Ivainson set his hands to the rock. Contact with the land proved a revelation after lengthy weeks at sea; stone and soil seemed alive, responsive to his Earth-mastery. Unlike his previous climbs, the cliff face welcomed his presence, yielding footholds and fissures to his inner awareness. Jaric smiled with self-revelation; on a whim he could mould the rock face into stairs to ease his ascent. But caution and his own reluctance to wield power caused him to climb without enchantments. Later, against the frostwargs, he might need every available resource.

  Twilight dyed the sea indigo beneath a violet arch of sky. Dwarfed by cascades of ice, Jaric set foot on the uppermost tier of the ledge. With closed eyes he extended his senses and mapped the tunnels carved by Ivain to contain the frostwargs. Sealed off by the cold, the entrance angled steeply beneath the headland. Passages bored deep into rock, linked by chains of caverns and buttresses of chiselled stone. The upper levels were choked with spellbound ice; below, closed in fetid darkness, lurked the frostwargs. Though the creatures preferred live prey, they could also draw sustenance from soil and rock. They did not breathe; water could not drown them, nor would flame consume their shells. Only extreme heat could cause them temporarily to shift form.

  Surrounded by the smells of sea and tide wrack and the sour cries of gulls, Jaric laced his fingers together. He honed his will to a pinpoint of force, stepped forward, and sank straight down into rock. The stone flowed around him, thick and turgid as quicksand. Though his eyes were utterly blind, his Earthmaster's vision saw vistas: quartz like jagged veins of frost, crystals, and rust-dark ores, and a thousand textures of mineral. Down Jaric plunged, past level upon level encompassed by Anskiere's wards. With his heart pounding from tension, he emerged at last on a ledge just below the ceiling in the cavern confining the frostwargs.

  A strident whistle slashed his ears. Jaric's skin tightened with gooseflesh. The calls of frostwargs grew nearer, threaded by a scraping and scrabbling of claws. Then the creatures scented the presence of prey and burst into a full-throated ululation.

  Sweating, Jaric snapped a flame out of air. It flickered from his fingertips, weak red in the oxygen-poor atmosphere of the cavern. In baleful, bloody light, the Firelord sought his enemy. Ivain had floored the cave with a forest of sword-thin crystals; a thousand edges of reflection stabbed Jaric's eyes. Creatures scuttled between on segmented legs. Their carapaces were jointed like insects', ending in arched tails tipped with spikes. Eyes glowed violet in the dimness, speckling highlights over terrible, curved mandibles and razor sets of foreclaws that gnashed air with tireless ferocity. Stabbed by dread, Jaric saw frostwargs hurtle across the cavern and continue, straight up rock walls toward his feet.

  He had no moment to think. The demons moved with terrifying speed. Claws snicked scant inches from his flesh, even as he set his hands to rock and transformed earth energy into fire. Light and unbearable heat exploded over the cavern. Shells clicked on rock, and whistles blended into dissonance. Pressed against stone, Jaric struck, and struck again. Sparks flared in his hair and clothes; cinders bit into his skin but he barely noticed pain. Over and over he discharged power, until the whistles faded and died amid a roaring avalanche of flame.

  At length, weak-kneed and weary, Jaric permitted the fires to dwindle. The cavern below lay awash in golden light, details mantled under steam which drifted from the ice at the far side. Jaric searched carefully, but saw no trace of movement. Scattered amid the topaz sparkle of crystals he found black, spiny spheres, each one a dormant frostwarg. No sooner had the Firelord identified the objects, when the nearer ones began to change form. Smoky shell shifted texture, turned mottled in patterns of mustard and ink.

  Appalled to discover how swiftly the horrors could recover, Jaric acted instantly. His Earthmaster's vision sounded the depths of the shaft, and encountered a circular pit at the bottom. Ivain had not carved deep enough. Shaping powers of fire and stone, Keithland's new Firelord shattered the roof of the cavern, then ignited the rubble and smothered the frostwargs' seed-forms in seething magma. The air shimmered with heat. Fumes roiled up, stinging his eyes. Jaric raise
d his hands and struck deeper. Energies crackled across rock. A chasm opened in the floor, spurting lava like a sword wound. Jaric gathered himself and struck again. Ivain's crystals melted and ran, while the base of the cavern softened, slithered, then collapsed with a roar over the brink, bearing the shells of the frostwargs deep beneath the earth. The lava would finally solidify, shackling the demons in stone until such time as the mountain itself crumbled away.

  X

  Ice Wards

  The cavern of the frostwargs smouldered like a counterpart of hell. Awash in ruddy light, Jaric crouched with his head in his hands, eyes stung to tears by fumes thrown off from the magma. Coughing poisoned air, and sapped by exhaustion, he struggled unsteadily to his feet. Although he had raised heat enough to sear solid stone to vapour, the ice imprisoning Anskiere remained imperviously shrouded in fog. Without stirring from the ledge, Jaric sensed that the weather wards that preserved the barrier held firm. The Stormwarden was prisoner still.

  Though confrontation with the frostwargs had left him taxed and shaken, Jaric descended through a defile. The force of his defences had ploughed the cavern floor into a tortured maze of rubble; lava puddled and spilled through the rifts, radiating sultry highlights over pinnacles and arches of slagged stone. Jaric picked his way cautiously between, his skin flushed ruddy by the fires of his handiwork. Heat charred the soles from his boots as he walked; compelled to pause and engage mastery to prevent burns, he yearned sharply for his days with the trapper and the snow-bound silence of Seitforest. But Keithland's need would not wait for daydreams. Jaric moved on, his ears tortured by the hiss of calderas and the crack and boom of settling rock. The groan of the ravaged earth inflamed his inner senses like pain. Unable to escape the proof that he had inherited the destructive stamp of his sire, the Firelord reached the mist that cloaked the ice wall. Saddened, and weary beyond thought, he stepped forward without taking precautions.