Stormwarden

by Janny Wurts

  The sentry's body twitched on the sand and settled finally, grotesque and still as statuary in the moonlight. Nothing moved on the beach but the tireless roll of the surf. Emien roused. Shuddering as if the frosts of winter clenched his bones, he started forward and stumbled to his knees in brine.

  But Tathagres was not finished conjuring. She lifted arms pale as bone against the rise of the dunes, and softly, too softly for natural hearing, whispered an incantation. The words pierced Emien's ears like a needle sharpened by longing; loneliness opened like a wound within him, until the woman posed on the shoreline framed his sole hope of redemption. But the song Tathagres sang was not shaped for him. Agonized by her rejection, Emien cried out, tasting salt. Only the bitter reflection of his own inadequacy made him hesitate. Her music became discord in his ears. No portion of his being could bend it to harmony, and the pain of that recognition was more than his spirit could endure.

  Emien crouched like a beast in the surf, at first unaware that a third guardsman emerged from the scrub, his fingers clamped around a drawn sword and his eyes dark hollows of desire.

  Tathagres arched her body, arms extended in welcome. Drawn by her movement, Emien looked up, saw a stranger approach her with the confidence of a lover. The man's muscles quivered under his leather tunic, and his breath came in labored gasps. He reached out and touched her bared shoulder, and the rapture in his face poisoned Emien with jealousy.

  Tathagres bent her head, murmured something into the hollow of the guardsman's throat. His fingers shifted, releasing the sword. It fell and struck rock with a sour clank. The man took no heed of his fallen weapon; discipline forgotten, he smiled as Tathagres melted into his embrace and knotted her hands with fevered passion in the hair which spilled over his collar. The man whispered hoarsely. His arms tightened around her slim shoulders. Driven by lust no human could deny, he sought her lips, kissed her deeply and long. Around him the very air quivered as her spell closed over his heart.

  Crazed by frustration, Emien hammered his fists against his thighs. He wept as though his heart would break, oblivious to the waves which broke behind him, sending foam swirling and splashing around his boots. Blinded by tears, he saw nothing as the guardsman's arms quivered and tumbled loose. Only when the man's knees buckled did Emien recognize the snare Tathagres had set to destroy the last of the Kielmark's sentries. Her victim swayed and spilled onto the sand. He sprawled dead in the moonlight; incoming tide lapped at his out-flung hands. Horror jolted Emien free of passion. He trembled while Tathagres retrieved the abandoned sword, and her laughter sickened him to the core of his being.

  The air crackled, scoured by a brief rain of sparks as the spell dispersed around her. Emien choked, doubled over with nausea. He jabbed his hands to the wrists in icy water, coughing and miserable, until Tathagres arrived at his side.

  When his equilibrium did not immediately return, she plucked insistently at his cloak. "I've brought you a gift."

  Emien raised his head, discovered the dead guardsman's sword posed above her outstretched hand like a needle etched in light. Though earlier he had craved a blade of his own, the offering appalled him, made him feel less than human. Still he accepted the weapon with unemotional practicality. Tathagres' tricks had eliminated the guards from the beach; but if anyone reported to the Kielmark at the time the pinnace was sighted, their present safety was not secure.

  Tathagres snapped as if she heard his thought, "You worry like a pregnant heiress. Get ashore. We have a task before us."

  Stung by her scorn, Emien surged to his feet. With his hands clenched tightly around the sword hilt, he sloshed through the shallows. Ahead of him, Tathagres stepped over the guardsman's corpse with barely a pause. Unable to match her callousness, Emien glanced down. Lifeless eyes stared skyward, as if a reason for mortal betrayal lay scribed in the depths of the heavens; the hands lay helpless and open, denied any vengeance for a death which held no honor. Emien regretted the fact that he had lingered. To recognize the guardsman's anguish and not act was to share the inhumanity of the crime.

  Shamed by the cowardice, he moved on without stopping to recover the sword sheath and buckler from the body. With the steel naked in his hand, he hastened across the strand, and for one reckless instant longed to bury the blade to the cross-guard in his mistress's back. Fear alone stayed his hand. For the guardsman's death, not even hatred of Anskiere could relieve his tortured conscience, and troubled by fresh guilt, the boy hurried into the shadow of the escarpment.

  The ice cliffs towered above, terraced against the dark sky. There Tathagres halted and peered upward.

  "Wait," she commanded, and set her hands to the gold band at her throat.

  Emien leaned against a rough shoulder of rock. Huddled in the wet wool, he propped the sword near at hand and blew on his knuckles while Tathagres cast magic about her like a net. Soft violet light haloed her form, then widened like a corona until it thinned to invisibililty. Emien felt a tingle of heat fan his flesh. From the hollow by the dunes, a nightbird startled into flight with a soft whir of wings. Its melancholy calls faded in the darkness, and the warmth of the spell fled with it. The ice radiated cold like the deepest heart of winter. Chilled by more than frost, Emien sifted through the noises of the night, listening for the faint telltale chime of metal which might herald the arrival of a patrol. Should the Kielmark's guards encounter them now, the cliffs would block any chance of escape.

  But no men at arms arrived. Presently Tathagres stirred. She lifted her head. The magic she had cast forth dispelled with a snap, and for a second the wind wafted the acrid smell of brimstone toward the waiting boy.

  Tathagres turned from the cliff. Her brows knitted with frustration, and the gesture she directed upward delineated vivid anger. "The Stormwarden is there, inside, and certainly trapped." She chewed her lip, irritated by the discovery. "Boy, fetch my cloak from the beach. I wish to know more, but I cannot risk a deep trance here. This place is dangerously exposed. We must climb higher."

  Sullen and silent, Emien collected his sword; at least his mistress had spared a moment to consider caution. The moon hung dead overhead. Shadow spread like soot beneath Emien's boots as he walked back to the water's edge. Ebbing waves had ribbed channels the breadth of the beach. Tathagres' cloak still lay at the edge of the tide mark. Wise enough not to leave unnecessary evidence for the Kielmark's patrols, Emien retrieved the garment and dragged the hem over the tracks marked by his passing. Although the dead guardsmen lay exposed, already stiff, and blatant as a scream of warning to any arriving scout, corpses were more than the boy could bear to handle alone. His weakness made him fretful. Guards would certainly come. Tathagres' confidence made her careless to a fault.

  But he mentioned nothing of his uncertainty when he returned the cloak to Tathagres. With a brief nod, she pulled it over her shoulders and tucked her hair out of sight beneath the hood. Then, without asking whether Emien would follow, she began her ascent of the cliff.

  The boy set foot in her tracks, his heart hardened like ice in his chest. The sword dragged at his wrist, forcing him to grip with his free hand to steady himself. Cold burned his flesh, bitter as venom, and his boots slipped treacherously, as if apparently solid footing were an illusion born of the powers which bound the ice, hostile to intrusion and dangerous to scale. Emien toiled upward grimly. The memory of Taen in the Storm-warden's arms robbed any threat from a fall; and three dead guardsmen on the beach below diminished the meaning of all else. Now he might feel insignificant as a leaf tossed before the winds of a storm; but one day he vowed his fate would no longer be commanded by the whims of enchanters.

  The black wool of Tathagres' cloak veiled her features from view. Emien could not see the smile of cruel satisfaction which curved her perfect mouth. Absorbed by the perils of the climb and dizzied by the sweep of the waves over the rocks below, he never suspected his anger awaited her purpose, volatile as tinder to her hand. By the time Tathagres halted beneath a natural overhang of rock
, the expression she presented to the boy was concerned, even friendly.

  "We shall pause here," she announced. "The trance I must employ to trace the Stormwarden's presence may last several hours. If you stand guard, do you think you can stay awake?"

  "If I sleep I'd freeze." Emien hauled himself onto the ledge beside her, weary and displeased by the place. The terrain was rough, buffeted by wind, and framed by an archway of frozen cascades. Anyone arriving below would sight them easily. Yet the boy offered no complaint, for here where the cold rose like blight from the bared bones of the rock, he would at last know Anskiere's fate.

  Tathagres settled herself cross-legged at the juncture of the ledge and the ice. She braced her back against a buttress of stone, touched her necklace with her fingertips and closed her eyes. This time Emien saw no flare of light. Her spell of summoning took effect with a thin whine of sound, and a tracery like engraving flickered across the band at her throat. The characters glared red against the band's polished surface. Consumed by curiosity, the boy edged nearer.

  Careful not to disturb her concentration, he leaned close and examined the ornament which controlled Tathagres' spells. Wrought as a seamless ring, the metal was as thick as his forefinger, and deadly plain when not in use. But now while Tathagres engaged her powers to tap the depths of Anskiere's sorcery, runes blazed, etched in light across the surface of the gold. Emien could not read. But he had seen trader's lists often enough to recognize a scribe's hand; the writing on the band described no human letters. With a sharp chill of foreboding, Emien drew back.

  Once on Imrill Kand, a severe storm had washed a bit of wreckage ashore beside the rotted pilings of the fisher's wharf. Emien had been there when the child who found it burned his fingers to the bone trying to pick it up. The object had borne markings similar to those on Tathagres' gold collar. Anskiere had destroyed the artifact the instant he saw it, claiming it bore runes of power no human should know. No villager on Imrill Kand questioned the sorcerer's wisdom; plainly the object was crafted by demons. And though Emien had repudiated all belief in Anskiere's doings, the possibility Tathagres' magic might be founded by the works of Kordane's Accursed had never before entered his mind.

  Troubled, he seated himself on a shelf of rock, balanced the sword blade across his knees and regarded his mistress. Her angry violet eyes were closed. Moonlight rendered her form in silver, lovely as the icon Emien recalled from the shrine by Kordane's Bridge. From the smooth skin of cheek and brow to the finely sculpted wrists resting in her lap, her pose seemed the image of peace and perfection. Wrung breathless by an unexpected rush of desire, Emien clamped his fist on the pommel of his weapon. Surely Anskiere was wrong. Not all demons were evil. Perilous, surely; in ignorance, the child of Imrill Kand had touched their formidable powers and been harmed. But Tathagres controlled similar forces as effortlessly as breathing.

  Emien perched his chin on his knuckles, teeth clenched against the cold. Any enemy of Anskiere's was an ally to his cause, a hand to lend impetus toward vengeance for Taen's death. Why should he be troubled to know the source of Tathagres' powers? But the bleak mood which accompanied his discovery persisted.

  Emien stared morosely over the sea but saw no horizon. Images of the guardsman's fatal embrace returned and haunted him. Wind pried at his clothing, sharp with the coming frosts of autumn, and the breath of the ice pierced the very marrow of his bones. Poisoned by the knowledge of his own mortality, Emien dreamed hungrily of power. His thoughts dwelt deeply and long upon Tathagres' gold necklace as the moon wheeled across the sky to its setting. If somehow he came to possess such an object, he could be secure from the meddling of men and sorcerers forever after.

  * * *

  Fog moved in at sunrise. It beaded Emien's cloak and lashes and sword hilt with droplets, and coiled like wraiths over the ice cliffs; surf boomed and echoed invisibly off the rocks, eerily amplified. As the first gulls took flight over Cliffhaven, Tathagres stirred from her trance. In the half-lit gloom while night yielded to daylight, Emien saw her eyelids tremble and open. She stretched, showing no trace of stiffness, a secretive, self-satisfied expression on her face.

  Chilled and disgruntled, the boy waited for her to speak. Finally, after seven weary weeks and an unpleasant night-long vigil, he would learn what befell the Stormwarden whose meddling had stolen Taen's loyalty and whose tempest had taken her life. Bitter as spoiled wine, Emien thumbed the bare edge of the blade on his knees. When Tathagres at last met his gaze, he barely curbed an outright demand for the result of her search of the ice cliffs.

  His tension appeared to amuse her, which annoyed Emien further. With his knuckles whitened against the chased steel of the crossguard, he glared in furious silence. Like a coquettish high court lady, Tathagres tossed her fine white hair and laughed.

  Emien sprang halfway to his feet in a moment of wild anger. Then he realized her caprice was caused not by him, but by Anskiere. Unable to restrain his own fierce smile, he settled back.

  "Anskiere is a fool," Tathagres said softly. Above her shoulders the mist swirled like smoke over the blocky spine of the ridge, and for a second weak sunlight struck through, striking gold highlights against the ice. Paler than usual and obviously cold, Tathagres rearranged her cloak over her shoulders. "When the frostwargs wakened, the Stormwarden sealed them behind a wall of ice. But he could not free himself. The ice imprisoned him as well."

  Emien raised the sword, saluting her triumph. "Then the Stormwarden is dead."

  Tathagres tilted her head, gazed in speculation through the thinning veils of mist. Her reply held dreamlike tranquillity. "He's alive but in stasis, a trance so deep he lies a hair's-breadth from death. He cannot last indefinitely in such a state. He believes he will be saved."

  Emien lowered the sword, black brows gathered into a frown. He began a vehement protest, but Tathagres stopped him sharply, violet eyes widened with murderous intent. Her expression froze the breath in Emien's chest and he clenched his teeth to keep from quivering like a terrified child.

  "The Stormwarden has unleashed his curse upon Ivain Fire-lord." Tathagres shaped her words with harsh, incredulous fury. "He trusts a geas and a stripling boy to spare him from the frostwargs' ferocity." She laughed again, but her mirth sounded forced, as if some inner plan had been thwarted.

  Cued by a leap of intuition, Emien said quickly, "You can't touch him." The thought sparkled resentment.

  "I can't touch him, true." Tathagres leaned forward, dangerously rapt. "I don't need to reach him. His fate is sealed already, with no help from me. Look, I'll show you."

  She reached out and caught the sword. Emien relinquished the weapon, reluctant, yet also determined to share her discovery. He crouched, braced on one fist, while Tathagres turned the blade point downward and scratched a triangle into the ice between her knees.

  She rested the tip of the sword on the apex, then touched the worn pommel to the gold band above her collar.

  "Ivain's heir is a half-wit weakling." Her lip curled in scorn. "See for yourself."

  The lines scored in the ice blazed with sudden violent light, followed by scorching heat as the sorcery took hold. Ragged drifts of steam rose and mingled with the mist. Emien braced his body, mistrustful of the sorcery, yet unable to tear himself away. Before his eyes the ice melted and an image from a place far distant reformed on its surface. Inside a neat, single-room cabin, a boy sat propped in a wicker chair. His body was half buried under woolen blankets, though sunlight spilled warmly through the open window beside him. Framed by a straggle of mouse-colored hair, his features were blanched by ill health and the fingers resting across his knees were fragile as spring twigs. He appeared asleep. On closer examination, Emien noticed the boy's eyes were open but vacant, as though bereft of intelligence. Yet even as Emien watched, the brown eyes lifted. For the space of an instant, the boy in the cabin seemed to focus directly upon him.

  Touched by foreboding, Emien flinched and flung back. "Kordane's Fires, who is he?"
/>
  Tathagres withdrew the blade with a coarse scrape. The image spattered into sparks. She regarded Emien with a strangely guarded expression and said, "Who? He is named Kerainson Jaric, and he is Ivain Firelord's heir. But he will never survive to rescue Anskiere, even if he did possess a constitution sturdy enough to achieve his father's prowess. The initiation process, the Cycle of Fire, itself engenders madness; Ivain suffered as much. His heir is already damaged, a half-wit, couldn't you see? The Vaere would never accept him for training, and without the skills of the father, Anskiere is doomed."

  Emien sucked fresh air into his lungs. Harmless as Kerainson Jaric appeared, something about his presence touched off an instinct of warning. Born and raised a fisherman, Emien preferred never to ignore hunches, however illogical they appeared. Yet his island superstitions seemed foolish beside Tathagres' worldly sophistication.

  Embarrassed by his premonition, Emien accepted the sword from Tathagres' hand. An equally heavy weight seemed to settle on his heart. For at last he correctly interpreted the cause of Tathagres' brittle temper; with the frostwargs confined and the Stormwarden beyond reach of her command, she could not claim the Keys to Elrinfaer from her King. The setback galled her. Judging her pique, Emien guessed the powers of her neck band were still no match for the forces which bound the frostwargs behind their bastion of ice. Anskiere had bested her in this contest of wills, even if he had forfeited his own life in the accomplishment.