by Janny Wurts
"Fires, it's sorcery all over again," someone yelled. "Kielmark'll chew bricks. Anyone want to wager?"
A screech of steel met his offer as Jaric caught his blade in a bind. He wrenched the weapon free. Behind him a spark stabbed the darkness. The lantern flickered, blazed, and shot the brush with sudden shadows.
"Merciful Grace!" Jaric whirled, overtaken. A half dozen sword points angled at his chest, red as blood by lanternlight, and the captain stood with a poised spear at his back. The ending was evident; still, for all their seasoned experience, no soldier present foresaw the final move.
"You'll be my death," the quarry whispered. "I never had a choice."
And with an expression of agonized despair, he rushed them. The captain reacted, barely in time. He lowered his spearshaft and cracked the intruder's head from behind. The blow buckled Jaric at the knees. Sword and dagger flew from his grasp. He tumbled gracelessly after them, into a sprawling heap among the thorn.
The captain stepped quickly to his side, blade drawn and ready to kill. When the trespasser did not move, he kicked him sharply in the ribs. "Get up."
Neither violence nor words raised any response. A gust rattled violently through the brush. But Jaric himself lay lax as a lump of dough beneath the folds of his cloak. At that, the captain yanked the helmet from his head and raked sweaty hair from his forehead. "Fetch the light, boys. He's unconscious."
He sheathed his steel. Shadows danced across the briars as a man brought the lantern. The captain seized the outflung wrist which extended beyond the edge of the cloak and yanked Jaric onto his back. The wind parted the light hair, tossed it back from a profile lean as carved teak. Blood threaded his collarbone above a coarse, handspun collar, and the hands showed glistening patches of raw flesh left from unrelieved hours at the helm.
"Kor." The captain grimaced in disgust. "Whoever he is, he needed landfall here rather badly. Look, will you? He's scarcely grown a beard." The man paused and wiped his palms, as if embarrassed by his duty. "Still, the Kielmark'll want him for questioning. Strap his wrists damned tight. Boy or man, he's caused us nuisance enough for one night."
A subordinate ran to the beach and presently returned with a length of line cut from Callinde's main sheet; he bound Jaric's limbs with thorough caution. Another sentry retrieved the boy's weapons. Then, with characteristic efficiency, the company rolled the trespasser in the storm-sodden folds of his cloak and bundled him off to the Kielmark.
XX
Captive
After nearly a fortnight's absence, Tamlin materialized in the grove with a disorganized flurry of feathers and beads. "Don't bother with the basin," he said quickly. "What has happened to Jaric?"
"Cliffhaven's sentries have taken him prisoner." Taen needed no words to elaborate. Since the day Tathagres upset Anskiere's geas, all Keithland's shipping had felt reverberations of the Kielmark's displeasure. As a trespasser brought in by a sorcerer, Jaric's very life stood in peril. At Tamlin's request, Taen cast her dream-weaver's perception northward with the direct force of a bolt shot from a crossbow. Within seconds her talents resolved an image.
High arched ceilings splintered brisk footsteps into echoes; a guard captain and two subordinates strode the length of a hallway floored with checkered tiles. They hefted an awkward item slung in cloth between them. Taen refined the focus of her perception and the object became recognizable as Kerainson Jaric, wrapped in his own green cloak and tied wrist and ankle with a length of salt-crusted rope.
The captain turned a corner, stopped and knocked loudly against a closed door. "Night watch reporting, Lord," he said clearly. "I bring a trespasser from the north strand."
A curse issued from the other side of the portal. Then the latch clicked sharply. Wrenched open from within, the panel swung with a chirp of hinges and the Kielmark himself beckoned the men at arms across the threshold. Clothed in a tunic of fawn velvet, he carried no visible weapon; but no man who served under him dared disregard his gesture of ruthless authority.
The guardsmen entered, bringing sand-caked boots and sodden accoutrements onto the carpets of Cliffhaven's formal library. Books lined the walls from floor to roofbeams and the mantel above the hearth was carved of rarest merl marble inlaid with silver knotwork; the air smelled of leather and parchment. A sly-faced trader in russet sat opposite a table half buried in charts. He looked on with curiosity as the men at arms carried the prisoner into the light.
"Excuse the interruption," said the Kielmark to his guest. He blotted ink-smeared knuckles on a sleeve already stained, and pointed to the middle of an exquisitely patterned rug. "Dump him there. And pull that cloak off him. I want a look."
The men lowered their burden to the floor. When they tugged the wool from beneath his body, the captive rolled limply onto his stomach; turned toward the firelight, his face seemed that of a starved child. For a moment even the Kielmark stared in surprise. Then with a surge like an electrical current, Taen felt his distrust resurface. The Lord of Cliffhaven bent briskly to examine the unfortunate who had dared trespass his domain.
Taen steadied the dream link, gently widened her touch to include Jaric, then transmitted her findings to Tamlin. "He's unconscious, not dead. A sword grazed his shoulder when they took him. The cut is shallow, nothing serious. The bruise on his head is worse, but not so severe as the injury he suffered in Seitforest."
The Kielmark caught Jaric's shoulder and turned him, astonished to discover the blood streaked across the pale skin of his neck. "He gave you trouble, then! How much?" As he spoke, he tore the boy's collar aside and probed the injury beneath with blunt fingers. "You had better report in full. How did he come here?"
"Alone." The captain's armor squeaked as he shifted his weight. "The boy sailed in, on a ratty antique fishing vessel rigged out with a steering oar, one headsail, a square main and a right damned clunker of a spanker."
The Kielmark's hands paused on Jaric's shoulder. He looked up, light eyes gone dangerously direct. "He landed that, in this storm? Fires! He's a madman. No doubt he attacked you in the same vein of idiocy?"
The guardsmen shrank in the shadows, while their captain gripped his buckler with tense discomfort. Every soldier on Cliffhaven recalled the Kielmark's anger and the oath he swore on the morning the witch left his island besieged by the gale. Sprawled helplessly before the fire, Jaric's slim form aroused no other feeling but pity.
Taen felt the captain's dread through the dream link as he resumed his report. "Perhaps not. The boy came ashore armed but not expecting company. When we challenged him, he claimed to be under the summons of Anskiere of Elrinfaer."
At the Stormwarden's name, the Kielmark froze. Massive wrists flinched taut, straining the fabric of his embroidered cuffs. "Anskiere! By Kor, not again."
Bound by the dream link, Taen caught her breath in the clearing of the Vaere. Overturned by the fierce current of the Kielmark's rage, she dared not intercede, even to secure Jaric's safety. The man's distrust made him unstable to the verge of madness; should he discover his inner mind had been breached by a dream-weaver's powers, his reaction would bear little relation to reason. Careful to preserve his equilibrium, Taen braced herself to drive him unconscious, should he move upon Jaric; but his savage outburst ended swiftly. The Kielmark bridled his anger in cold reason, dark brows laced into a frown.
Taen shivered with released tension as his bunched fists eased, and he motioned curtly to the captain. "Continue!"
The man stared at the rug rather than meet his lord's gaze. "The boy kicked the lantern over, rushed us with a sword and dagger. There came a flash of light; one man claims he saw the stormfalcon's image appear. The rest of us were too busy to notice details. Lord, if the work was sorcery, it harmed no one."
The Kielmark rose with deadly grace. "Did you recover the weapons?"
The request was routine; one of the men at arms promptly produced Jaric's sword and dagger. The Kielmark accepted them. Without comment he removed himself to the candelabra which b
urned on the mantel. Flamelight shed bronze highlights over his dark hair as he bent his head, treating the steel to a lengthy inspection. Sensing him absorbed in concentration, Taen tentatively tried to ease the man's antipathy toward trespassers. With delicate precision, she extended her dream-sense, sent calm to blunt the edges of his urgency. But the Kielmark's mood proved resistant as tempered steel. Taen pitched her powers to the very edge of compulsion, but her efforts seemed futile as trying to stay an avalanche with thread.
Thoughtfully the Lord of Cliffhaven fingered the edge of the sword blade. Then he requested the conclusion of the captain's account, and once the tale was complete, deposited both weapons on the table alongside the green cloak.
"What sorcerer would carry Corlin steel?" he observed drily. "And at the end, when he was desperate, that boy should have cast weapons aside and used magic." Rubies sparkled at his collar as the Kielmark folded massive arms across his chest. "The boy's name seems to be Kerainson Jaric, unless he stole the sword, which I doubt. It suits him too well for size, and the steel is newly forged into the bargain."
Cliffhaven's sovereign paused, his expression drawn and tense with thought. No man present moved a muscle, and in the grove of the Vaere, Taen held her breath. At last the Kielmark stirred and studied the boy upon the carpet with eyes narrowed in speculative calculation. The captain noticed and relaxed visibly. Had reprimand been forthcoming, the Kielmark would already have delivered it. Unaware such forbearance might have been induced by a dream-weaver's presence, he watched the Lord of Cliffhaven rake his knuckles through his beard and at last deliver judgment.
"Lock the prisoner in the east keep dungeon. He's no sorcerer. But he could easily be connected with one, and a storm-falcon may be the reason for the current foul weather." The Kielmark stepped back to the chart table, preoccupied and irritable. He delivered his final instructions with his back turned. "Call a healer to dress that shoulder wound. When the boy rouses, see that he gets food and drink. Send word to me afterward. I want to question him, but I won't like the delay if he arrives in my presence hungry. Take no risks. Post two armed sentries by the cell and replace those ropes with iron."
The guardsmen saluted. They collected the prisoner from the floor. Still wary of the Kielmark's frame of mind, they removed Jaric from the library with dispatch. The latch clicked under the captain's hand; he swung the door closed with preternatural caution.
But the Kielmark paid scant heed to the trespasser's departure. As he leaned over the topmost chart, Taen felt his thoughts turn jagged with concern. Presently he slammed his fist into the inked outline of Mainstrait, and raised cold eyes to the trader in russet. "I don't like your news. It makes no sense. Why would Kisburn send a force consisting of three ships against Cliffhaven? There must be a missing factor." His tone turned grim. "I had better learn the answer before this gale lifts. If troops sailed at the time you suggest, the only thing holding those ships from running the straits is this hell-begotten west wind."
For long hours, the sovereign of Cliffhaven glared at the charts. He brooded as if his question waited to be read in the parchment under his hands, while on a table at his back the abandoned folds of Jaric's cloak dripped salt water onto his priceless carpet.
Taen dissolved the contact and directed a stricken appeal to Tamlin. She avoided speech, choosing to clarify Jaric's situation directly through her talents. Unaware that the boy sent to his dungeons was Anskiere's sole hope of release, the Kielmark permitted Jaric to live on the chance the gale was connected to his presence. As long as the motivation for Kisburn's aggression remained unknown, he needed the storm to aid Cliffhaven's defense.
"Jaric is in jeopardy." Taen searched the seamed brown features of the Vaere for some trace of emotion. Finding none, she elaborated. "I cannot control the Kielmark's actions from a distance. His will is much too defined."
She did not need to emphasize that Jaric's imprisonment could not have occurred at a worse time. His resilience had worn away through long days of passage; the moment he recovered awareness in the Kielmark's prison, the pressure of the geas would resume with intolerable force. Denied the freedom to appease its pull, Jaric might well lose his reason.
Tamlin puffed stolidly on his pipe, motionless. Smoke curled through his mustache and eyebrows and lazily circled his beaded cap. "You must go to Cliffhaven," he said simply. "There is no other alternative."
Taen sprang to her feet. She upset the crystal basin in her haste, and water soaked the grasses in a silvery flood. "How can I? The crossing would take days, and I have no boat."
The grove's enchanted silence swallowed her distress without echo. Tamlin blew a smoke ring; his feathers hung without a quiver in the still air. "I can send you in a matter of hours, never doubt." He lifted the pipe from his teeth and regarded his charge with unwavering black eyes. "Free Jaric if you can. But you must promise one thing in return: leave the island before Kisburn's ships breast the horizon, else risk your life as forfeit. Tathagres knows of your mastership; and Lord Sholl the shape-shifter has sworn to achieve your ruin."
Taen stared at her hands, pricked by apprehension. Often during training she had resented her confinement; now the grove which preserved the heart of Vaerish mystery seemed a precious and peaceful haven, far removed from the strife of mortal realms.
"Do you understand?" said Tamlin sternly.
Taen nodded, fighting an unreasonable urge to weep.
"Kneel, then." The Vaere gestured at the grass, his pipe oddly missing from his hand.
Burdened by responsibility she could not refuse, Taen did his bidding. The fate of Jaric and Anskiere and perhaps all of Keithland rested on her shoulders. She trembled, feeling bereft of courage, while Tamlin raised his arms above her head. Bells shivered in the air as he clapped his palms together. The grove whirled and vanished; Taen's senses were driven from her, and she plunged headlong into night.
* * *
The capsule which housed Taen was designed for mobility, though it had not traveled from its cradle for close to a quarter century. Switches tripped and closed in the Vaere's vast databanks. Mothballed machinery responded. Systems powered up in preparation for launch to Cliffhaven; electrical impulses flickered through circuitry as instruments checked operational. Servo mechanisms unsealed the capsule and labored to ready Taen's body for consciousness. Her limbs were clothed in a dream-weaver's robes, made from cloth which had no visible seam. The colors ranged from misty gray to blue-violet as light played across the folds and hem, cuffs and collar were bordered in gold. As a final touch, a robot pressed a circlet woven of myrtle over her dark hair.
Despite painstaking adherence to the details of a mythology the Vaere itself had originated, its plan held a serious flaw. The capsule was a clearly identifiable relic from the Corinne Dane's support systems; derelict, it could never have remained functional so many generations since the crash. Demons possessed eidetic memory, passed on intact through each generation. Should the capsule be sighted during Taen's landing, the enemy might discover evidence that the Vaere still survived. If that occurred, the computer's presence would be hunted more fervently than Landfast's records. But no other option remained if Taen was to reach Cliffhaven in time to help Jaric. Mechanically dispassionate, the Vaere wired a detonation cap into the guidance systems. With luck, Taen would debark unobserved and the capsule would not be noticed until the self-destruct signal fired off the explosive. The Vaere entered Cliffhaven's coordinates with unerring precision. Following one last check on the drive systems, it sequenced the capsule for ignition.
Deep underground, on an islet mantled by a trackless wilderness of cedar forest, a silvery object shot from a tube hidden beneath the surface of the sea. It sliced through the water with a muffled whine of turbines and blazed northward, scattering a trail of phosphorescent bubbles in its wake.
* * *
In the still hour before dawn, an ear-splitting bang rattled every pane in the casements overlooking Cliffhaven's harbor. Roused from his s
leep, the Kielmark leaped out of bed in a ferocious temper. Cloud-racked skies glowed dull orange beyond his window, silhouetting the roofs of the warehouses against the landing. Naked except for his ruby torque, the Kielmark bashed open his chamber door.
"Fetch the saddled horse and bring it to the west postern!" The sentry posted in the corridor vanished down the stair. Without further delay, the Kielmark grabbed breeches, boots and swordbelt from his bedside. He bolted from the room without pausing to dress. Time enough to don clothes while he waited by the postern for his mount, which at best would be an interval of seconds; every hour of the day or night, one horse in Cliffhaven's courtyard stood saddled and bridled, ready at an instant's notice.
The Kielmark sprinted across the outer bailey, sword sheath and belt buckle clanging between his knees. The glow above the harbor had already faded to dull crimson. Cursing, the Kielmark yanked his breeches over his thighs. A shout hailed him through the mist, punctuated by the staccato ring of hooves over cobbles. A groom appeared running; a hammerheaded gray trotted beside him on a leading rein, its stirrups already swinging free.
"To me!" The Kielmark grasped mane and vaulted astride before the animal came completely to a halt. Abandoning his boots in the courtyard, he clapped bare heels to his mount, sent it careening into the gale-torn darkness beyond the gates. He took the stair beyond at a canter.
Shod hooves rang like hammers striking sparks from the stone at each stride. The Kielmark yelled, flicked the reins on the horse's neck and recklessly made it gallop. At the first bend in the stair, he whirled the animal off the path and plunged downslope amid a bouncing rattle of rocks. Brush lashed his arms and thorn branches raked his bare toes; but the Kielmark made no allowance for discomfort. He reined his sweat-soaked mount down twisted streets to the dockside barely a minute after the blast.