Traitor's Knot

by Janny Wurts

  Voyager

  Janny Wurts

  TRAITOR’S KNOT

  The Wars of Light and Shadow

  VOLUME 7

  FOURTH BOOK OF

  THE ALLIANCE OF LIGHT

  For Diane Turner,

  close friend, sister spirit -

  with profound gratitude for returning

  the ‘two penny lecture’ at just

  exactly the right moment.

  Contents

  Fourth Book

  Story Time-line

  Part I - Wayfarers

  Chapter 1 - Binding

  Chapter 2 - Errand

  Chapter 3 - On Death and Banishment

  Part II - Excision

  Chapter 4 - Wakening

  Chapter 5 - Resolve

  Chapter 6 - By Land and by Sea

  Part III - Citadel

  Chapter 7 - Last Home-coming

  Chapter 8 - Home Port

  Chapter 9 - Incursions

  Part IV - Refuge

  Chapter 10 - Obligation

  Chapter 11 - Game-pieces

  Chapter 12 - Dispatches

  Part V - Convolutions

  Chapter 13 - Sword

  Chapter 14 - Embarkation

  Chapter 15 - Transits

  Part VI - Counterploy

  Chapter 16 - Assault

  Chapter 17 - Fiend Swarm

  Chapter 18 - Dusk to Dawn

  Part VII - Bind

  Chapter 19 - Rift

  Chapter 20 - Reversal

  Chapter 21 - Interludes

  Part VIII - Avenor

  Chapter 22 - Gambit

  Chapter 23 - Signatures

  Chapter 24 - Movements

  Part IX - Alland

  Chapter 25 - Vixen

  Chapter 26 - Wedding

  Chapter 27 - Entanglements

  Part X - Appeal

  Chapter 28 - Escort

  Chapter 29 - Infamy at Innish

  Chapter 30 - Links

  Part XI - Confrontations

  Chapter 31 - Stand Down

  Chapter 32 - Atwood

  Chapter 33 - Changes

  Part XII - Halwythwood

  Chapter 34 - Twining

  Chapter 35 - Severance

  Chapter 36 - Resolves

  Part XIII - Confluence

  Chapter 37 - Loyalties

  Chapter 38 - Bait

  Chapter 39 - Lines

  Part XIV - Sinkers and Hooks

  Chapter 40 - Catch

  Chapter 41 - Catalyst

  Chapter 42 - After-shocks

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  Books by Janny Wurts

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Story Time-line

  What Has Gone Before

  Third Age Year

  5637—The half-brothers Arithon s’Ffalenn, Master of Shadow, and Lysaer s’Ilessid, gifted with Light, exiled through West Gate, are met as they arrive on Athera by the Fellowship Sorcerer Asandir and Dakar, the Mad Prophet, whose West Gate Prophecy forecast the defeat of the Mistwraith, Desh-thiere, and return of the sunlight that had been lost to Athera for five hundred years.

  Arithon meets his beloved, Elaira, who is under a life vow of service to the celibate order of the enchantresses of the Koriathain.

  5638—The Mistwraith is contained at Ithamon by Lysaer and Arithon and driven into captivity through their combined powers of light and shadow.

  The Fellowship Sorcerers’ effort to crown Arithon as High King, and reinstate Rathain’s monarchy fails when the Mistwraith places the half-brothers under its curse: they will be enemies, bent upon each other’s destruction until one or the other lies dead.

  War follows. Lysaer, whose cardinal virtue is the s’Ilessid gift of justice, leads a war host ten thousand strong from Etarra against Arithon, who is backed by the clansmen in Strakewood Forest. Lysaer and Etarra lose eight thousand men, and the clans suffer the Massacre at Tal Quorin, when Etarran headhunters destroy their women and children to draw the fighting men into the open. To spare his allies, Arithon is forced to use his mage talent to kill. And in the aftermath of this massive insult to his royal gift of compassion, he loses access to all facets of his trained mastery. Survivors of the debacle made possible by his sacrifice include fourteen young boys, named as Companions, and Earl Jieret, twelve years of age, who becomes Arithon’s ‘shadow behind the throne’—or caithdein.

  Lysaer returns to Etarra to begin the alliance of town forces against Arithon and court his beloved, Talith.

  Arithon apprentices himself to the Masterbard, Halliron, and takes on the disguised persona of Medlir to deny his half-brother, and the directive of the curse, a fixed target.

  5643—The Fellowship Sorcerers reinstate crown rule in Havish, under High King Eldir. In redress for irresponsible conduct, Dakar the Mad Prophet is assigned to Arithon’s protection.

  5644—Dakar tries to escape his charge and links up with Halliron and ‘Medlir’ on the westshore, whereupon his scapegrace behavior with town authorities in Jaelot leads to Halliron’s death and Arithon’s breaking his disguise as Medlir, then achieving the title of Masterbard of Athera.

  Arithon relocates down the southcoast, with Dakar’s escapades earning him the enmity of the powerful clan family of Duke Bransian s’Brydion of Alestron.

  Elaira receives her longevity from the Koriani Order for the purpose of keeping track of Arithon, since the sisterhood considers him a danger.

  Lysaer solidifies his alliance of town interests, rebuilds the ruined citadel at Avenor, marries Talith, and begins his manoeuvres to claim ancestral title to rulership of Tysan.

  Against the climate of building war, Arithon founds a shipyard in the fishing village of Merior, where he constructs blue-water sailing vessels with intent to escape to sea. He meets and befriends two fatherless twin children, Fiark and Feylind. He encounters Elaira, under orders from her Prime to involve herself in Arithon’s affairs. Their affection deepens when a joint attempt to heal an injured fisherman creates an empathic link between them.

  5645—Lysaer leads a war host to Rathain, with intent to sail south and crush Arithon in the fishing village of Merior. But Arithon hears, and uses wiles and shadow to trigger the Mistwraith’s curse beforetime. Inflamed to insane rage, Lysaer burns the fleet he intended to transport his war host, leaving his campaign stranded and delaying his assault through the winter.

  Arithon’s escape plan suffers a set-back when a rancorous, displaced field captain from Alestron burns his shipyard at Merior, with only one vessel left fit to be salvaged.

  5646—On the run as war builds, Arithon takes refuge in the strategically difficult terrain in Vastmark. Faced by a war host and impossible odds, he takes Lysaer’s wife Talith captive to stall the onset of open war.

  5647—Talith is ransomed by Lysaer, under auspice of the Fellowship Sorcerers and High King Eldir. Although she is safely returned, the experience leaves an irreparable rift in her marriage.

  Lysaer masses his war host, thirty-five thousand strong, and marches on Arithon’s smaller force in Vastmark. Arithon resorts to desperate measures to turn them, including the Massacre at the Havens, in which five hundred of Lysaer’s men are killed outright. The tactic fails, and is followed by the main engagement at Dier Kenton Vale, in which twenty thousand Alliance troops die in one day in a shale slide.

  The campaign fails at the onset of winter, with Duke Bransian s’Brydion of Alestron changing sides and forging a covert alliance with Arithon.

  Faced with a ruinous defeat, Lysaer decides to create a faith-based following and cast Arithon as evil incarnate.

  Arithon escapes to sea to search for the lost Paravian races, who, as Ath’s gift to redeem the world, offer hope he mig
ht break the Mistwraith’s curse. Feylind sails as his navigator, and Fiark is apprenticed with a merchant-factor in the town of Innish.

  The Prime Matriarch of the Koriani Order casts an augury showing that Arithon will cause her downfall. Since she is aging and has only one flawed candidate in line for her succession, and her death will cause an irreparable loss of the sisterhood’s knowledge, she becomes Arithon’s inveterate enemy.

  Still in love with Arithon, Elaira saves the life of an infant during childbirth in the grass-lands of Araethura. Named Fionn Areth, he owes her a life debt, and a prophecy entangles him with Arithon’s fate.

  Back at Avenor to rebuild his following, Lysaer sets the clanborn who refuse to join his alliance to eradicate the Master of Shadow under a decree of slavery. His estrangement with Talith leads to her incarceration.

  5648-9—For endorsing slave labor, Lysaer is cast out of the Fellowship’s compact, which allows Mankind the right to inhabit Athera.

  5649—The Prime Matriarch of the Koriathain confronts the Fellowship Sorcerers to lift restrictions imposed on her sisterhood and the use of their grand focus in their Waystone. The petition meets with refusal, sealing her determination to take Arithon captive and use him as leverage to force the Sorcerers to accede to her order’s demands.

  5652—Arithon fails in his search for the Paravians. He returns to the continent and discovers Lysaer is enslaving the clanborn. This leads him to infiltrate Lysaer’s shipyard at Riverton, to steal vessels and assist the clansmen in their effort to escape the persecution of Lysaer’s Alliance by fleeing to sanctuary in Havish.

  5652-3—The Prime Matriarch of the Koriathain sets a trap to take Arithon by suborning his covert colleagues at the Riverton shipworks, only to have her grand plan undone by ambitious meddling on the part of her sole candidate for succession, Lirenda. The trap springs, but Arithon escapes into a grimward, chased by a company of men allied with Lysaer, under the captaincy of Sulfin Evend.

  5653—Lysaer’s wife Talith is murdered by a covert conspiracy in his own council, with her death made to appear as a suicide. Sulfin Evend survives the grimward and is appointed to the rank of Alliance Commander at Arms.

  The Koriathain fail to forge an alliance with Lysaer against Arithon, and in disgrace for her meddling, Lirenda decides to use the life debt owed by Fionn Areth to Elaira. The child is shapechanged to mature as Arithon’s double, to be used as bait in a second, more elaborate trap to achieve his capture.

  5654—Of their own accord, the Duke’s s’Brydion brothers, against Arithon’s better judgement, decide to avenge the mishap at Riverton. When their argument leads to injury, Arithon is awarded the service of two trusted s’Brydion retainers, Vhandon and Talvish.

  5654—Lysaer marries Lady Ellaine as a political expedient. On the day of the wedding, the s’Brydion vengeance plan destroys Lysaer’s fleet and his shipyard at Riverton. Sulfin Evend’s uncle, Raiett Raven, joins Alliance service as Lysaer’s advisor and is eventually appointed as High Chancellor of Etarra.

  5655—Lysaer and Ellaine’s child, Prince Kevor, is born.

  5667—Ellaine learns that her predecessor, Princess Talith, died as a victim of murder, arranged by Lysaer’s council at Avenor.

  5669—The Koriani plot to trap Arithon using Fionn Areth sends the boy into the town of Jaelot, where he is taken and condemned to death, mistaken for the Master of Shadow. Arithon is drawn ashore to prevent the death of an innocent accused in his stead. On winter solstice day, Fionn Areth is snatched from the scaffold. The Koriani conspiracy fails, with Lirenda disgraced and Elaira exonerated.

  Now desperate and dying, with no available successor, the Prime Matriarch seizes her moment and distracts the Fellowship Sorcerers by inciting a sweeping upset of the energetic balance of the world. Although she fails to take Arithon captive, she successfully resolves her predicament by taking over a younger candidate, Selidie, in possession. As ‘Selidie’ assumes the mantle of Prime power, the Sorcerers’ hands are tied. The upset has left the Mistwraith itself on the verge of escaping from containment, and other, equally dangerous predators left by the absent Paravian races pose further dangers.

  As the terrifying portents unleashed by Morriel’s meddling cause sweeping panic, young Prince Kevor settles the riot that erupts in Lysaer’s absence at Avenor. The brilliant statesmanship earns the young prince the love of the populace and the undying enmity of Lysaer’s High Priest, Cerebeld.

  5670—Fionn Areth’s idealistic belief that Arithon is a criminal spoils the free escape from Jaelot. Alone, under pursuit by Alliance troops and Koriathain, Arithon is set to flight over the mountains and into Daon Ramon Barrens.

  Young Prince Kevor is entrapped by the machinations of High Priest Cerebeld, and although he survives to become an adept of Ath’s Brotherhood, his presumed death sends his mother Ellaine into flight to escape Lysaer’s corrupt council at Avenor.

  While Dakar and Fionn Areth are diverted to Rockfell Peak to assist the short-handed Fellowship Sorcerers’ recontainment of the Mistwraith, the clans of Rathain, under Jieret, are left to face the combined Alliance war host, under command of Lysaer and Sulfin Evend. With their help, Arithon escapes the troop cordon that has closed to take him, but at cost of seven Companions’ lives and Jieret’s capture and execution by Lysaer.

  To evade capture, Arithon is driven into the dread maze under Kewar cavern, built by the Sorcerer Davien the Betrayer, whose hand originally caused the uprising that unseated the high kings and heated the conflict between town and clanborn. Arithon survives the arduous challenge of the maze, achieves mastery over the Mistwraith’s curse, and recovers his mage talent. He takes sanctuary there, under guest welcome of Davien.

  Defeated, since none dare follow Arithon’s passage through the maze, Lysaer and the disheartened remains of his troop depart for Avenor.

  After the successful reconfiguration of the wards containing the Mistwraith, Dakar and Fionn Areth resume their trip south to rendezvous with Feylind’s ship, with intent to sail and rejoin Arithon’s retainers, Vhandon and Talvish, who await them at Duke Bransian’s citadel at Alestron. The year is Third Age Year 5670.

  Late Spring 5670 If feet that marched the earth to war could count their wounds by steel, and blood that scorched clean ground in gore could speak in words that feel, the cry would ring forevermore for mercy and repeal!—Masterbard’s lament for the widows of Dier Kenton Vale Arithon s’Ffalenn, Third Age Year 5652

  I. Wayfarers

  Inside the Kittiwake, randiest of the dock-side taverns in Shipsport, two hunted men were unlikely to find the space for anonymous privacy. Raucous sailhands and sweaty stevedores jammed every nook, accosted by swindling tricksters, and the steamy blandishments of the whores. Rumours and gossip spread faster than plague. If the venue posed risks, Dakar, the Mad Prophet, need only eavesdrop to learn that the merchant brig, Evenstar, had weighed anchor from Tharidor and resumed her run down the eastshore last fortnight.

  ‘Well, what did you expect? We’re a month overdue.’ Fionn Areth shoved back from the trestle, chafed raw. One shout from a sailhand might see him exposed. The wide-brimmed hat just acquired from a riverman scarcely masked his striking, sharp features and black hair. The prospect of extending their journey for two hundred more leagues, over roads mired to mud by spring thaws, would but worsen his already desperate straits. ‘We should be leaving. Now.’

  Yet the spellbinder stayed planted in moon-calf complacency. Slumped in his uncivilized, travel-stained jerkin, a pitcher of beer tucked in hand, Dakar crossed his mud-caked boots at the ankles. His stout bulk stayed wedged between a soused party of chandlers and a tattooed longshoreman amused by two doxies, who both vied for a perch in his lap.

  Their giggling raised Dakar to soulful envy. Lacking the coin to indulge his male itch, but with no dearth of copper for drinking, he tugged his snarled beard. The cinnamon strands now showed silver roots. He would soon be grey-headed. The legacy of his trials on Rockfell Peak: a harrowing entangl
ement in Fellowship magecraft that five brimming tankards still failed to erase from recalcitrant memory.

  Already busy demolishing the sixth, Dakar swiped foam from his moustache. His jaundiced attention refused to acknowledge the anxious companion across from him.

  Fionn Areth’s impatience exploded. Above the tap-room’s racketing noise, he let fly in his broad moorland accent, ‘If Evenstar’s gone, then where in the name of thrice-coupling fiends do we go to seek news of your master?’

  Heads turned. Laughter, dart games, and ribald conversation faltered at the teeming trestle. The Kittiwake’s roisterers were always impressed by the prospect of a picked fight.

  A fool’s move, to draw notice, since the subject just broached involved a despised royal fugitive. The towns feared Prince Arithon of Rathain as a sorcerer who practised fell rites and dark magecraft. On suspicion, his associates were likely to burn, condemned out of hand as collaborators.

  ‘Want to visit Sithaer’s eighth hell without setting foot out of Shipsport?’ Dakar gripped his tankard. He gulped down the contents, then topped up Fionn Areth’s half-pint. ‘Drink,’ he urged, hoping the young idiot would take the safe hint and succumb to a glassy-eyed stupor. ‘Trust me on this! You don’t want to risk disrupting the peace. The shoreside magistrate’s got a dungeon more wretched than anything you saw back in Jaelot. Spring tides flood the cells farthest down. You haven’t touched misery until you’ve languished neck deep, with hordes of rats scrambling onto your head to save themselves from a drowning.’

  ‘Given the untrustworthy company you keep, should I be surprised that you’ve sampled every Ath-forsaken gaol on the continent?’ Fionn Areth shoved the filled vessel aside. ‘As for Sithaer’s favours, I’m not getting sotted. Keep on as you are, and your fat skin could be stewed into soup grease right where we sit!’ The moorlander caught hold of Dakar’s moist wrist. ‘I’m using the good sense my grandame taught the goatherd. Will you haul your arse up and get out of here?’