by Janny Wurts
Water cascaded into the cave, a wrathful, rampaging torrent. It bounded from rock to rock like a demented animal, capped by slavering jaws of foam. Anskiere spoke, even as the water blinded him, and the temperature dropped at his command. Spray fell, rattling, transformed to pellets of ice. Anskiere spoke again, and the cold intensified. Waterfalls froze, arrested in midflight, and the current which curled over his knees crystallized, locking his boots in a grip of iron. Yet the Storm-warden did not relent. He drove the temperature down, and down again, until the stone snapped and sang, shackled by bands of frost. Ivain's tunnel became choked by a glassy, impenetrable bastion against which the frostwargs' razor claws scraped in vain. Sealed in by a solid mass of ice, they howled and gnashed their mandibles.
Above, enmeshed in the effects of his own defenses, Anskiere heard their enraged cries, and where Ivain might have cursed in self-reproach, he smiled. As the ice encased his limbs, he engaged the last of his resources.
Past the blocked mouth of the cave, the stormfalcon lifted barred wings and exploded into flight. Rising swiftly on the wind, she circled and turned eastward, away from Mainstrait, for the staff no longer ruled her homing. In her wake fluttered a tern whose form contained a ward of safety for a certain small girl. And lastly, locked living in a tomb of ice, Anskiere invoked the geas he had placed upon Ivain at the time of betrayal. The act was born of desperation, for, better than any, Anskiere knew his only hope of release lay in a Firelord's skills. And between the crisp crackle of frost and the shrieks of the frostwargs, he thought he heard someone speak.
"Truly, now I have triumphed," mocked a well-remembered voice, and the laughter which followed seemed to last a long time....
* * *
Exhausted by wind and rain, a guard captain banged at the entrance of the Kielmark's study. The door opened. He entered and saluted, dripping water.
Surrounded by his staff, the Kielmark straightened from a table draped with charts. Wet hair lay plastered against his cheekbones and the skin of both hands was abraded from shortening docklines against the gale.
"Well?" he said sharply.
"The storm is lifting." The captain leaned wearily against the wall. "The wind has dropped forty knots in an hour and the tower watch reports visibility to Mainstrait."
"By Kor." The Kielmark sat heavily in a chair, uncharacteristically withdrawn for a commander who had lost six moored vessels to the tide, and whose domain sustained an untallied toll of damages. "The Cloud-shifter kept his word then."
Relaxed by his apparent unconcern, the men burst into excited talk.
The Kielmark's great fist slammed into the charts. "Fires! Are we as impressionable as fresh maids? I want this entire island surveyed by nightfall and a list of losses, wounded, and dead, accurate to the last drowned hen. Am I clear?"
As the captain moved toward the door, the Kielmark's voice pursued them. "I don't want one of you back until your report is complete. And send a company to me at the south wharf warehouse. I'm going to clear it of tribute for use as a mercy shelter. Direct the homeless there."
Despite the severity of the Kielmark's orders, scarcely an hour passed before a rider clattered to a halt at the dockside with a dispatch. Summoned from the warehouse, the Lord of Cliffhaven heard the message and after a moment of silence dismissed the courier with savage discourtesy. The remainder of the afternoon passed without incident. By sunset each of the captains had reported, and were excused from duty with the praise they had earned. Only after the last one left did the Kielmark's attention return to the earlier message. He saddled a horse and set off across the twilit dunes toward the island's northern headlands.
The heavy clouds had parted. A star shone against the cobalt of the zenith, and angered, storm-whipped surf slammed beaches tumbled and darkened with sea wrack. The Kielmark reined his horse beside the bluffs overlooking the sea. Wind brushed his hair, his cloak, and the stiff mane of his mount. In silence, alone, the Lord of Cliffhaven beheld the phenomenon the courier had described, and confirmed every word to be true.
Spread before him, in high summer, stood a cliff ridged with ice. Gulls wheeled and called above perches silvered with frozen cascades. They did not alight.
The Kielmark shivered, gripped abruptly by intuition. Bitterness tightened his throat. Since Ivain Firelord's death, no sorcerer remained who could achieve Anskiere's release. "Old friend," he said to the air. "You spared us. Could you not also spare yourself?"
He sat in the saddle and waited. No answer came. But long after dark, when he turned his horse to leave, the wind ruffled his hair like a brother.
IV
Summons
Far north of Cliffhaven, in the copy chamber of Morbrith Keep, a scribe's apprentice suddenly shivered. Though summer sunlight beat strongly across the trestle where he sat hunched over parchment and open books, Jaric was cold. His pen felt clumsy as a stick in fingers gone peculiarly numb. The boy hugged ink-stained hands close to his body and thought wistfully of the woolens packed into chests lined with cedar.
"Jaric!" Master Iveg rose from his desk and padded stiffly across the library. Stooped as an old bear, his shadow fell across the parchment Jaric had been lettering. "Are you dreaming again, boy?"
The master's tone was not unkindly. Yet Jaric flinched, and his thin frame shuddered afresh with chills. Immediately the master's manner changed from gruffness to concern.
"Jaric? By Kor, if you spent the copper I gave you on drink or women, I'll have you branded misfit."
Had he felt better, Jaric would have smiled. Unwatered wine made him fall asleep; and the coarsest trollop in Stal's Tavern invariably treated him with matronly kindness. Although he was nearly seventeen, he had the build of a sickly child.
Master Iveg leaned over his assistant, near-sightedly squinting. At length, he clicked his tongue. "Are you ill, then?"
Jaric blinked, suddenly dizzy. "Maybe." Through blurred vision he tried to read the line he had been inking, and saw his pen had dripped on the parchment. The blotch annoyed him. Unskilled at athletic pursuits, his sole passion was neat copy.
Iveg sighed. As Master Archivist to a busy court, he was reluctant to spare his most diligent pupil even for an hour. But the boy was obviously unwell. Long since resigned to his apprentice's delicate constitution, Iveg pushed a book away from Jaric's stained fingers and said, "Go outside. Sit in the sun for awhile. Perhaps a break and some fresh air will clear your head."
Jaric rose obediently. Careful not to trip, he caught the doorframe with evident unsteadiness. Aware the boy resented coddling, Iveg stayed by the copy table, his droopy hound's features lined with worry. "If you want, I'll send for a healer."
Jaric shook his head. "No need. I feel a little faint, that's all." And he passed quickly into the hall, fearful if he delayed longer his legs might fail him.
His boots echoed unexpectedly on stone. The carpets had been rolled aside, and a serving maid knelt industriously beside a bucket brimming with suds. She peered into Jaric's face as he approached.
"You going ta puke?" She gestured, and her sodden brush spattered soap against his shins. "If so, go elsewhere, d'ya mind?"
Jaric eyed the plump flesh which quivered beneath her blouse and said nothing. Dizzy though he was, nothing ailed his stomach. Accustomed to taunts, he crossed the puddle left by her scrubbing and marked unsteady footprints the length of the corridor.
"Kor," yelled the woman at his back. "Ya messed my clean floor with yer blighty feet, ya daisy."
With a grimace, Jaric caught the latch of the postern. The woman's insults failed to provoke. He was wise enough to understand she intended no malice. The fact he was small and awkward with weapons did not make him any less a scholar; if some women felt his dark eyes and fine hands should have been paired with more manly attributes, he refused to cloud what gifts he did possess with bitterness over his shortcomings. All the same, he longed to slam the door as he let himself out. Yet even so slight a rejoinder proved beyond his strength.
His cheeks tingled. The sage brush by his knee rippled as though stirred by current. Then his vision blurred and slid sickeningly into darkness.
Afraid he might faint, Jaric chafed his arms, unaware his nails gouged flesh. Though immersed in the heat of midsummer noon, cold clamped like a fist in his chest. He could not breathe. Trapped in a morass of confusion, he felt a compulsion rise up to smother his will. Desperate with panic, he resisted.
"Mercy!" The plea emerged as a pinched croak. Aware the force he wrestled was another's, Jaric tried again. "Let me be. I am blameless!"
But no quarter was granted. The alien power gained intensity, stripping away his identity like flame-seared wax. Words died on his tongue. He felt himself falling, not into the familiar fragrance of sage leaves, but into icy, limitless space. Another reality flooded his inward eye, carved into ruthless focus. Like a scene viewed through a ship's glass, Jaric saw a promontory exposed to a thunderous clamor of surf. A vibrant red-headed man crouched against the rocks. His face contorted with hatred toward a second man, a gale-whipped figure with silver hair and ragged blood-stained clothes. Had Jaric been able to move, he would have shivered. But the image held him frozen as the second stranger raised his head. His features were as battered as the rest of him, yet he spoke with inhuman calm. And his words tore into Jaric with the fury of the wind, shackling his spirit bondage as absolute as death.
* * *
"Your offense against me is pardoned but not forgotten. This geas I lay upon you: should I call, you, Ivain shall answer, and complete a deed of my choice, even to the end of your days. And should you die, my will shall pass to your eldest son, and to his son's son's after him, until the debt is paid..."
* * *
"No!" Jaric shouted.
But, inexhaustible as the elements, the stranger's powers sealed him within ringing nets of force. Terrified, Jaric knew if he yielded, that other will would consume him. His entire existence would plunge into change. Ill-prepared for the world beyond master Iveg's study, he took refuge deep within his mind, where no light, no sound, and no sensation could reach him. Sprawled across the stair by the apothecary's herb garden, Jaric lay as though dead.
* * *
The night Crow made rendezvous, the King of Kisburn's war fleet lay becalmed fifty leagues from Islamere, easternmost archipelago under the Alliance's charter. Tathagres at last granted the crew reprieve from the blistering pace she had demanded since leaving Cliffhaven, and Crow's company rested gratefully. Crusted with the dried sweat of exertion, the rowers slept beside oar-ports left unsealed in the heat. The helmsman drowsed against the binnacle with the wheel clamped in the friction brake as the galleass drifted under the limp billows of her staysails. She scribed barely an eddy in the smooth face of the sea.
Curled in a berth in the forecastle, Emien lay awake, eyes fixed sullenly on the hammocks of his crewmates. Each morning he visited the hold, but Taen had not answered his call; two days without water or food should by now have driven her from hiding. Miserably, Emien recalled his promise to bring her safely home. He could send his mother and cousins the silver he earned to pay for the wreck of Dacsen, yet even Tathagres' largest amethyst could not atone for the loss of a sister. Emien stirred restlessly. Although the sorcerer Hearvin had recently forbidden him to enter the hold, he decided to try one last time. With no guards present, surely he could coax Taen to come out.
Emien rose grimly. He would lie, even bribe his sister with promises of Anskiere's release. Once she was found he would make her understand; the Stormwarden would be forgotten.
Emien's bare feet made no sound as he slipped through the rows of sleepers in their hammocks. The running lamps at bow and stern crosshatched the decks with shadow. Beyond the rail, the lights of the fleet were scattered like fireflies beneath a sky featureless and black as a pit. But Emien did not notice the absence of stars. Intent upon stealth, he slipped down the companionway. The sailor on watch lounged by the port capstan, cleaning his nails with a marlinspike. He raised no alarm as the boy crept past the galley and lowered himself through the hatch which led to the oar deck.
Emien descended the ladder, progress masked by the noisy snores of a slave. Dizzied by the odor of confined humanity, the boy waited for someone to raise an outcry. But the officer on duty had his back turned and the lantern guttered on its hook, nearly out of oil; the sooty flame barely glimmered through the glass. Emien groped in the gloom, caught the slidebolt which secured the lower hatch. He spat on the metal, careful to work the bolt gently before drawing the pin. The hinges smelled of grease. Sweating, Emien raised the grating, eyes clenched shut. But the hatch opened soundlessly. Damp sour air wafted from the hold.
Sails ruffled topside; Crow shuddered and nosed a ripple in the sea as Emien swung himself onto the ladder. But he had no chance to notice the fact that the terrible calm had ended.
Something scraped overhead, followed by a flurry of sound. Emien froze just as a white object plummeted from the beams of the oar deck. He waited, breath locked in fear. But the disturbance was caused by a bird. Feathers brushed past his cheek. Emien recoiled bruisingly into the ladder.
Though the hold was a cavern of darkness, he saw the creature clearly. Traced by a faint halo of blue-white light, it drifted on slender wings. Emien felt blood leap in his veins. The bird was surely Anskiere's. Certain it had come for Taen, the boy hooked an elbow over a rung. No longer concerned with silence, he snatched the dagger from his belt, clamped the blade in his teeth, and hurled himself downward.
That moment, wind arose over the sea like a howl of outrage. Someone shouted topside. The sails jibed, then crashed back onto starboard tack with a bang that rattled the chainplates. Over-canvassed, Crow rolled violently on her side. Emien was tossed backward into the ladder. The fall spared him; a crate overbalanced and tumbled across the deck where he had stood a moment before. It crashed heavily into the timbers between the galleass' ribs.
Emien heard a sickening splinter of wood. Water fountained through the breach. Above decks, another gust shrieked through the rigging. The headsails flogged and thundered taut, and stressed lines whined as Crow heeled, oar-ports pressed remorselessly to the waterline. Mired by the broad yards of her staysails, the galleass began to drink the sea.
Emien grabbed the ladder and took the knife from his teeth. "Taen!" His shout blended horribly with the screams of oarsmen chained helplessly to their benches. Emien heard a mounting roar. Water dashed like a spillway into the bilge. Across the bulk of stacked cargo, he saw the tern alight with a flutter on the rim of a cask.
The ship lurched. Emien knew fear. If the galleass pitched any further, her ballast would shift. Iron bars would tumble like battering rams, slivering the contents of the hold to wreckage. Desperate, Emien shouted again.
"Taen!"
A snap sounded aloft, followed by the whipcrack report of torn canvas. Emien swore with relief. A bolt rope had broken. One sail, at least, would spill the murderous burden of wind which held the vessel pinned. Emien clung to the ladder as the galleass ponderously answered the helm. Water sloshed. Crow began to head up.
Emien peered across the hold. The tern still perched on the cask, wings outstretched for balance as the ship slowly righted. The halo shone like ghostlight on frail bl
ack-tipped feathers. Carefully Emien gauged the distance and aimed the knife.
Abruptly the aura around the bird brightened to a hard-edged ring of force. Emien tensed to throw. The tern cocked its head and regarded him with a bright unwinking eye. All at once the bird seemed to contain everything he had loved and left behind on Imrill Kand. Arrested by a sense of poignant loss, the boy hesitated. He forgot his hatred of Anskiere. His impulse to murder withered before a beauty so clean it made him ache.
Emien's hand trembled. The weapon suddenly burdened his arm past bearing. He longed to cast the steel aside to follow the bird toward a destiny that rang bright as music in his ears. But the memory of his oath to Tathagres left echoes which spoiled the harmony.
Slapped by the waves of a roused sea, Crow rounded into the wind. Water sloshed coldly over Emien's ankles. He felt nothing. Oblivious to the shouts of the officers and the storm-ridden chaos aloft, the boy stood torn by indecision, his mind wrung by promises of laughter and life, and his cheeks drenched with tears. He did not see the lanternlight which struck down from above. Neither did he notice the sorcerer who descended the ladder, robes the red of new blood in the flamelight.
"Boy!" Hearvin's voice was curt with annoyance. "Boy!"
Emien did not budge. Shadow flickered across his face. Absorbed by the tern, he let his hand loosen. The knife dropped into the bilge with a splash. "Taen?" Bemused as a dreamer, Emien stepped forward.
Hearvin sprang from the ladder and grabbed the boy's wrist. "Idiot! Are you mad?"
He jerked Emien back. The boy stumbled clumsily. Hearvin yanked him around, and the lantern lit the shining streaks of tears on a face unnaturally fixed in tranquillity. The sorcerer understood the cause. Anskiere had engaged the power he had recovered, and tried to form a geas to summon the children. Hearvin's fingers knotted savagely in the boy's sleeve. The girl was still missing, but apparently the attempt had found the boy susceptible; Tathagres was going to be distinctly displeased.