Traitor's Knot (epub)

by Janny Wurts

  'How long do I have?' Prince Arithon repeated, and this round, no distraction availed him.

  'The first warning's already behind us. Lysaer suffered an incident on the moment when you first set foot in Alestron. The curse aroused, and the knife burned his hand. He's at sea, and quiescent, but depending on weather, he might make a landfall at South Strait inside of ten days.'

  'And we know from my disastrous affray at Riverton that the curse can be raised through the use of a fetch.' Arithon winced. 'Played that way, my half-brother would cast the knife off as black sorcery and not realize he had stripped his defences. But Jaelot's corrupt priest is a long way from the southcoast. Surely that leaves a wide margin to act?'

  Traithe shook his head. 'Sadly, not. You have three weeks before a messenger bearing a sun wheel seal calls upon Jaelot to muster. The Kralovir's influence must be routed out before next month's new moon. The afflicted in all three of Rathain's towns will need to be cleared and destroyed simultaneously. Luhaine and Kharadmon can time their strike to match yours. That intervention must happen ahead of the cult's opportunistic bid for expansion.'

  And again, with cruel sorrow, the Sorcerer watched prismatic far-sight impel the Teir's'Ffalenn to absorb the next shattering set-back: that no time could be spared for his planned stop at Tirans. His chance was lost, to enact the divisive subversion designed to sweep disorder through the Alliance's entrenched hold across the East Halla peninsula. The awful truth dawned, that the Light's sway in Melhalla was going to be left all too disastrously well organized. Twelve towns would be chafing for Lysaer's divine word, dry tinder stacked for the inevitable spark when the call came to raise arms for the cause.

  'This will doom Alestron,' Rathain's prince concluded. 'If the duke maintains his firm stand in refusal and will not abandon a futile defence, his citadel could face the ruinous consequence well ahead of next spring.'

  As Arithon's tortured awareness also encompassed the caithdein's distraught state, she addressed him with brusque directness. 'Whether the s'Brydion come through or not, you must go forward assured, your royal Grace. My clan chieftains will gather to shoulder what's left to be salvaged.'

  'My brave lioness!' Arithon exclaimed, fraught. 'Given the choice, I should have forgone the presumption of crossing your threshold. Surely you realize? This intervention to scour three strongholds of necromancy must incite another wave of raw fear. My hopes are as ashes. This act will force bloodshed. Etarra will be handed spectacular evidence. No matter how subtle the Fellowship's backing, the wholesale destruction of Rathain's corrupt priests is going to launch misguided fervour into explosion.'

  The Teiren's'Callient drew herself up straight, her dignity set into bed-rock. 'We will field this danger before facing worse.'

  Traithe intervened, before the flash-point tension incited more protesting argument. 'Your Grace! I will need to teach you the keys to work the Paravian circle that stands in the ruin of old Tirans. From there, you and Dakar will cross latitude to reach the focus at Caith-al-Caen.' Keen understanding acknowledged Arithon's speechless, swift gratitude, that he need not abandon his bound obligation to Jieret's widow at Halwythwood. 'Your crown right to clan backing will speed your journey northward through Daon Ramon from there.'

  Three days ride to the trade-road, a tight disguise, and a string of fast post-horses could see him through to the gates of Etarra. He must be there before the next dark moon, when Lysaer's curse-driven summons to arms would spur the cult's dedicates to bind its next string of picked victims.

  Arithon gathered himself to arise, then checked short, aware that Traithe's raven as yet made no move to return to the Sorcerer's shoulder. Stilled as carved onyx, the bird watched with jet eyes, chill affirmation that this devastating audience had not yet drawn to an end. 'We don't ride tonight for a lane transfer at dawn?' Now more than nettled, Arithon seized on the tepid wine-cup left untasted at the edge of the supper tray. 'That fails to explain the need for restoratives!'

  Traithe matched that edged challenge with sorrow. Since the harsh pain of his tidings could not be assuaged, he had nothing to offer but pity. 'Within Davien's library, you once refused to study the rites written inside the black grimoires.'

  Arithon stiffened. Pale before, now his skin drained utterly white. 'For the soundest of reasons.' Aghast horror lashed him onto his feet. Face on, he confronted the dark-clad Sorcerer, who wore the scars of a terrible sacrifice with a humility that burned for its seamless acceptance.

  Much younger, more volatile for the raw depth of vision that inflamed his innate compassion, Arithon pleaded. 'Such knowledge in my hands could be turned! Have you forgotten the reach of Desh-thiere's curse? Some risks,' he paused, cringing scared, and braced his fists on the trestle as the winds of probability whipped and screamed through his mind. Anguis'hed seconds passed one into the next, while the horrific images of a thousand posited massacres tore him to flinching ribbons. Arithon shuddered. 'Some risks run outside of all sanity. Spare me this burden! I beg not to bear the dread form of this knowledge.'

  'You do have a counterweight,' Traithe said with velvet-clad tenderness. 'Your royal gift grants you the soundest of safe-guards.'

  Arithon raised his eyebrows. 'Not enough! The Mistwraith's works made short shrift of the s'Ilessid endowment of justice!'

  'Lysaer had flaws of character to support that distortion,' Traithe argued back, unequivocal.

  'And I have none?' Arithon pealed. 'That's blind arrogance! No more and no less, I am human, just as prone to make errant mistakes!'

  'Free will!' cracked Traithe, sharp as adamant steel. 'Go in without knowledge and dare the alternative: a half-brother bound by geas, worshipped as a false avatar, and drawn under the abomination of the Kralovir's practice. His officers will fall first, then next month, or next year, such breeding horror will run rampant throughout the hapless ranks of the faithful. You face the choice, prince, for more than one kingdom, and for more than Athera's grand mysteries: to take your informed stand now, at the forefront, or to recoil and find yourself overtaken. I need not say what you already know. Only one of those paths is the master's!'

  'The mercy that kills!' Incensed, Arithon shoved off and paced. 'The Betrayer has hobbled your compact quite neatly.'

  Yet release was past reach. Having once touched the presence of a centaur guardian, he did not stand blind: the profound awakening of Paravian grace had changed his awareness forever. The flame born of that one glimpse of expansive love now seared mind and heart almost beyond self-preservation.

  To Melhalla's caithdein, whose tradition was maintained by rote, the yawning chasm of this prince's conflict could not be grappled. Her limited view would see nothing beyond the appeal to a crown prince's sworn duty. Yet the Fellowship Sorcerer, and the eyes of the raven, perceived what was actual and real: that no living experience could supersede the importance of preserving a greater beacon of truth, untarnished and free on Athera.

  No matter how clear the choice, or how shining the view revealed to the awakened visionary, the break with human ties could not be painless.

  Arithon wrestled the hurt of that severance. Entrapped between the dimmed frame of his past and the limitless light that posed all the hope of the future, he appealed, 'Who will explain to the brothers s'Brydion as the enemy rams their front gates? What about Erlien s'Taleyn of Alland? His clans are exposed, and already committed!' Since no answer met him, he flung out his hands, spurred by his flash-point frustration. 'Had Lysaer ever received the bare basics of training, he would have been given the fair means to stand guard for his birth-born right to autonomy!'

  Traithe sighed. 'So the Fellowship's augury foresaw, and I tried. Any one of us would have granted such learning. Yet Lysaer never asked. On the hour I snatched the opening to broach the first question, he gave me no foothold, not even the opportune grace of ambiguity. By choice and free will, your half-brother denied us the leave to pursue the first step towards a guided initiation.'

  'He was not proud,'
Prince Arithon insisted. 'Lysaer had a strict father who taught him, too early, that only a shameful king asks for help.'

  'Said is done,' Traithe said softly, while the raven looked on, black as a starless midnight. :¦

  Three sets of eyes shared the harrowing interval, as no less than Paravian survival swung in the trembling balance. While a desolate man wrestled to reconcile the decision laid onto his overtaxed shoulders, the woman charged to rule as caithdein of Melhalla was made to measure a dread that pressed caring resilience to the brink of rebellious, insane rejection. She found, after all, she could not bear to witness the force and breadth of such agony. Head bent, she stared without sight at her realm, reduced to inked lines on the map.

  Only the Sorcerer in his dark robes sustained the unbearable moment. Silver hair to tucked feet, Traithe held Arithon's eyes, as piercingly still as his raven.

  Rathain's prince spoke at last. At bay in the shadows, arms crossed at his breast, he found his Masterbard's poise inadequate. 'Fatemaster's fury! I swore a promise to young Fionn Areth regarding Tal Quorin's survivors.' The ache of his grief tore through his voice and his bearing as he accosted Melhalla's caithdein. 'Where is he? I'll need to explain.'

  Words failed her, then. As the stout woman lost her nerve, unable to spare the least of the blows that fell in her presence that night, Dakar responded, unasked and unnoticed, arrived in silence through the flapped entry.

  'The task must be left to Vhandon and Talvish. I'm sorry. The north is too volatile. Fionn Areth's better off kept here, inside clan protection in Atwood.'

  * * *

  Summer 5671

  Changes

  Beset by rain, a drifter woman kneels in soaked grass, attending a foaling mare; shown two tiny front hooves, she peels the caul from a coal-black head and reveals a ghost eye, pale as aquamarine glass in the lantern-light, 'Isfarenn!' she gasps through the drumming downpour, 'Merciful grace! Asandir's horse has sired his successor . . .'

  At sunrise in Atwood, Vhandon and Talvish receive word from Melhalla's caithdein that the s'Brydion alliance has been dissolved by Prince Arithon, with his Grace departed at speed for the north without sending summons or word; stunned by the wrecked plan to disarm East Halia, the forsaken liegemen depart to stand with their duke, and outraged to be served with a broken pledge, Fionn Areth leaves with them . . .

  At sea off the coast of Carithwyr, Lysaer s'Ilessid states the emphatic terms of his disputed landfall at Spire to his recalcitrant Lord Commander: 'I will not be seen to strike my banner or skulk for the sake of a high king's crown edict! If Eldir has disbarred my sunwheel standard, we'll put into a cove on the coast of Radmoore, and finish the journey to Ath's hostel by land . . .'

  * * *

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  Summer 5671

  XII. Halwythwood

  The clan enclave deep inside the free wilds of Halwythwood was forewarned of the royal arrival about to occur at Caith-al-Caen. News came with the Koriani enchantress who had just finished a term of sanctuary at Ath's hostel. She had left Eastwall and crossed the free wilds of Daon Ramon Barrens on foot, without asking the auspice of clan escort. The connection she claimed to Prince Arithon, and her relayed word, that his Grace meant to fulfill his belated acknowledgement of the past winter's harsh losses, prompted Barach, as Earl of the North, to grant her the crown's hospitality. At Feithan's insistence, Elaira accepted guest welcome under the roof of the s'Valerient lodge tent.

  Yet when the fated arrival drew nigh, the enchantress announced her decision to make herself scarce. 'Your crown prince is going to ride in exhausted, and in raw straits from a harsh set-back. Let him unburden himself, first. My near presence would only place strain on his focus, no boon to the delicate handling he'll need through the course of his feal obligations.'

  'Such love as you bear him should back his male strength,' Feithan felt moved to point out. Insistently busy, she rammed her awl punch through a new set of leathers, and bestowed a wise smile upon the bronze-haired enchantress who helped split the sinew for lacing.

  Elaira set down her sharp knife and blushed. 'Not this time.' Her wry grin threatened laughter. 'Believe me! I know him. When Arithon's heart is clear of his sworn duty, I will be at hand to receive him.'

  'You can't know what you're missing.' Feithan winked back. 'Sure as rain falls, if my Jieret were living, I could not greet him with such virtuously staunch restraint!'

  Yet no man alive trod the thicket of thorns imposed on the Prince of Rathain. Few women allowed him the space for his needs, and none with Elaira's perception. She chose to slip off and joined an out-bound party of hunters on the excuse to replenish her herb stores. The scouts did not forbid her outsider's presence. Her time with Ath's adepts had graced her with an inner knowing tuned into accord with the land's voice. Left to fare as she pleased, this enchantress could be trusted to respect the ancient ground of the dancers' glade and its spring beneath Thembrel's Oak. Her successful traverse of Daon Ramon Barrens already had proven she knew not to intrude on those sites where the great mysteries abided in solitude.

  Against Eriegal's complaints that the rough gaits of ponies chafed his shorter legs raw, he, Sidir, and Braggen, as the Companions at hand, rode out to the Paravian circle to meet their returning prince.

  The caithdein's successor, who should have gone with them, remained in the camp by the Willowbrook. Jeynsa's flagrant rebellion had not softened. She would not back down and accept her investiture, despite Braggen's exhaustive exoneration of the prince she had been Named to serve. Since her rejection was still flaunted by her bristle of close-cropped hair, her brother's direct order disbarred her from joining the welcoming party.

  Too proud not to live by her heart, Jeynsa rejoiced in her banishment. First, she renewed the fletching on her deer arrows. Then she whetted her favourite skinning knife, and tested the edge by carving a decorative relief into a strip of boiled hide.

  Mourning the loss of her father, each breath, she cursed the name of the Sorcerer who had marked her as caithdein's heir within days of her birth. Soon to confront the uncanny creature whose defence had divided her family, she awaited her inevitable clash with crown protocol in combative anticipation.

  The journey to Caith-al-Caen and back to the secure encampment in Halwythwood required three days, unless pressured circumstance demanded speed. Jeynsa's hostility kept her uninformed of the crisis that hastened the timing. The lapse came at high cost. She was not absent stalking, as she had planned, on the hour of the prince's arrival.

  Instead, the event caught her drowsing behind the great trestle at the back of the s'Valerient lodge tent. Inbound voices aroused her, Eriegal's, raised to an untoward pitch of excitement, and Braggen's, dour with sarcasm. Jeynsa started awake where she slouched, propped against a grass-stuffed hassock. She was still seated cross-legged on the packed-dirt floor, well sprinkled with shavings of leather. A lowered light burned past the privacy flap. Her mother was wakeful, although the hour was well after nightfall.

  The tallow-dip on the bench had gone out. Lapped in dense shadow, the Teiren's'Valerient groped in her scrip for her flint. Dame fortune betrayed her: the darkened wick proved to be already spent, too short for her to rekindle.

  Jeynsa swore. Caught at odds while the fast-moving band of Companions strode up to the curtained entry, she recognized Sidir's bass tone, giving guest welcome.

  The ritual reply was delivered in a stranger's exquisitely cadenced Paravian.

  She was trapped in the lodge. Furious that her brother had left her unwarned, and blindsided to face this encounter, Jeynsa froze. To bolt now would seem the act of a craven. She dared not slink into her mother's quarters. Feithan would just dress her down like a child, then march her back out on the force of parental authority. Denied every option to salvage her gaffe, unable to shed rage for diplomacy, Jeynsa gave rein to her mannerless impulse. She scrunched herself into the bulk of the hassock, entrusting the shadows to hide her.

&
nbsp; The door flap slung back. Sidir poised at the threshold, his tall frame half-turned, the sable gleam of his braid and white temples distinct against starry darkness. 'Come in. Take your ease.'

  While another mantled form filed past, too short to reveal a clear silhouette, Sidir ducked under the lintel, still speaking. 'I'll strike a fresh light. Once you're both settled with cups and a flask, we'll bring Feithan to greet you.'

  Moving through gloom with the ease of a woodsman, Sidir flipped open the lodge tent's stores chest, while the others entered behind him: a stout man with thumping steps and a wheeze, hard followed by Eriegal's clipped stride. Braggen came last, his muscular tread picked out by the gleam of his weapons. Then the hide flap slapped shut. In the dark, the heavy-set new-comer advanced with intent to park at the trestle.

  Too late, Jeynsa realized her fateful mistake: the spellbinder Dakar accompanied the prince. No cover of darkness was going to withstand the talented range of his mage-sight.

  Nor were his keen attributes blunted by drink: he had needed to assist with the lane transfer. The scouring, strong forces had left him honed sharp, if disgruntled from hours of hard riding. 'My throat's parched enough to cure bacon,' he grumped. Plonked down to a squealing creak of stressed wood, the Mad Prophet encountered Jeynsa's tucked boot, then her shrinking presence, jammed into the shadow.

  No slacker, he ventured a warning, 'We're not alone.'

  The other's light tread had crept up undetected: the response came back all but on top of her.

  'I was aware.' The sorcerer who was the Crown Prince of Rathain added with slicing contempt, 'We won't know, now, will we, what measure of welcome eavesdrops in the crannies to meet me?'

  The insult whipped Jeynsa onto her feet. The razor-edged knife lately used to incise decorations slithered out of her lap. She snatched, recaptured the dropped steel by reflex, while the cumbersome strap of boiled hide thumped to earth at her feet, wrapped her ankles, and tripped her. She crashed into the trestle. Her left-handed grab saved her from a fall. But no timely reaction could salvage her livid humiliation.