Stormwarden

by Janny Wurts

  Emien collapsed the glass with a snap and sprang back to the helm. Morra and her sister ship were doomed. Caught in the path of two fleets, Emien's sole chance was to turn west on a reach and sail for the open sea.

  The boy flung his weight against the oar. Callinde answered and headed off; wind filled the sails with a bang, jerked her into thirty degrees of heel. The cant of the deck tossed Tathagres limply into the bilge. Emien had no time to drag her clear. To port a brigantine peeled away from the pack and steered northwest to intercept him.

  Unlike a tiller, a steering oar could not be lashed to hold a fixed course. Emien cursed the fact while the sky off the bow darkened under an angry rim of cloud. Squalls threatened. A prudent sailor would shorten sail. But to heave to, even to reef canvas, would cause him fatal delay. Gusts whistled through Callinde's rigging. Spray rushed in sheets over the bow and the steering oar clunked and twisted under Emien's hands, difficult to control with so much sail aloft. He clenched his teeth, watching through slitted eyes as the brigantine closed on Callinde's port quarter. Raindrops slashed his face. Emien hoped the storm would hide him. He raised his head and shouted crazily at the sky. Clouds opened and Callinde drove, reeling, into the opaque flood of a downpour.

  Emien laughed and threw his shoulder into the oar. From where he stood at the helm the headsails where lost in murk. He headed off, saved from pursuit by gray curtains of rain. Rope burned through his fingers as he eased the lines, setting Callinde downwind to run with the squall. The Kielmark's fleet could never locate so small a quarry in such poor visibility; once the weather eased, he could put about to Elrinfaer where the power he ached to possess waited to be claimed.

  * * *

  The rain ended at midnight. Wind shifted to the north and clouds scudded across a burnished quarter moon. Needles of reflection gleamed over the wave crests as Callinde rolled on a broad reach, her wake a chuckle of foam astern. Cliffhaven had long since vanished behind the horizon. Secure enough to rest, Emien hauled the steering oar with chilled fingers. The headsails backed with a whispered flop. Hove to, Callinde drifted, silent and alone.

  In the aft locker Emien found a rigging knife. He slipped it quietly from the sheath and tested the edge with his finger. The steel was well honed. With the blade poised in his hand, the boy crept forward. Tathagres lay sprawled on her back, white tunic stained from the bilge. Her face seemed girlish and innocent in the moonlight. Tumbled hair sparked like frost over wrists so slim that Emien could encircle them easily with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. The mail over her breast glittered faintly. Disappointed to find she still breathed, Emien stole closer, fixed with predatorial intensity upon the thin gleam of gold at her neck.

  He stepped into shadow under the sail. Suddenly his foot turned on the ship's glass, left against a stay. Brass clanged loudly into wood and Tathagres opened her eyes.

  Emien froze. He buried the knife in his cloak with a whispered curse and bent with feigned concern.

  Tathagres regarded him, chilly awareness in her violet eyes.

  She spoke with languid unconcern. "Oh yes, you're very clever." Her smile held stinging viciousness. "But I fear not clever enough. We are pursued."

  Emien drew a frustrated breath. "I lost the brigantine in a squall line."

  "No." Tathagres sat up, her expression haughty beneath tangled hair. "Not the Kielmark," she said. "Your own sister would stop you now. Taen follows in a boat built for speed. Are you going to sit here waiting for her?"

  Emien jerked. Steel quivered in his poised fist.

  Unsurprised by the knife, Tathagres laughed with wounding scorn. "Fool. We lost Cliffhaven because Taen gained a dream-weaver's mastery from the Vaere."

  Emien's expression lay in shadow. But he listened; the hand which held the knife steadied until moonlight traced the blade silver against the darkness. Waves slapped Callinde's sides, jostling her tackle aloft. Tathagres judged her moment and resumed.

  "Your sister blinded the Thienz, tricked us all with illusion so the King would walk into a trap." The witch delivered her final line with calculated malice. "She intended you to die with them, Emien."

  Breath hissed between his teeth. Coiled dangerously on the edge of action, the boy lifted his head and looked northward. Faint as a spark, a light gleamed on the horizon, too orange to be mistaken for starlight.

  "The boat's name is Troessa," Tathagres added. "She was granted by the Kielmark as a reward for the ruin of Kisburn's men. Put up your knife. Else Taen will reach Elrinfaer before us and perhaps take your life."

  The blade flashed and lowered. Emien drew an uneven breath. Wrung by unreasoning rage, he spun on his heel. Returned to the helm, he jabbed the rigging knife into Callinde's sternpost. Then he grabbed the steering oar with a wrench that slammed the fittings and turned the boat southeast. Sails cracked taut against the blocks. The starboard rail lifted as Callinde gathered way and headed toward Elrinfaer once more.

  Highlighted like a cameo in the moonlight, Emien's profile was a mask of hatred as he steered to thwart the same sister he left Imrill Kand to save. Lost to his rage he paid little heed to the woman who watched from the shadows. Tathagres studied her squire, aware of his lethal edge. She smiled again, well satisfied. The boy would wait to murder until morning when he delivered her to the rock where Elrinfaer Tower rose from the sea.

  Tathagres settled back and closed her eyes, hands curved protectively over the black cube of rock which preserved the wards of Elrinfaer. After dawn the purpose of her demon masters would be accomplished; yet strangely as she drifted into sleep her limbs twitched as if her dreams held a nightmare of horrors.

  The night wore on. Even Kor's Accursed did not guess that Taen's talents sheltered another man from notice. Ivainson Jaric bent with dogged courage over Troessa's helm, his blond hair gritty with salt. Yet swiftly as the Kielmark's ketch could sail, Emien was the better seaman. Evenly matched, both boats plowed through the waves toward Elrinfaer.

  * * *

  The wind slackened to a mere whisper out of the north and by dawn fog smothered the coast, dense as oiled wool. Steering Troessa one-handed, Jaric reached across the cockpit and snuffed the lantern which had lit the compass dial through the night. Taen lay in the bow, collapsed in exhausted sleep, her hair spilled like a snarl of weed over her shoulders. Slim hands pillowed her cheek against the mild roll of the boat.

  In the half light Jaric could almost forget how thin she was; mist obscured the marks of fatigue beneath her eyes, softening the angles where the bones pressed sharply against her skin. The defense of Cliffhaven had worn her, body and spirit. For three days straight she had spun interlocking veils of illusion over the island, concealing the Kielmark's intentions from the Thienz while men fashioned facsimiles of brigantines from derelict hulls and half-rotted fishing vessels. She had engaged her talents in the very presence of demons, brashly sending and receiving messages from the Kielmark to his captains. All that she achieved was out of loyalty to Anskiere. The thought made Jaric feel inadequate. At the dockside when Troessa departed, the King of Renegades had sworn Taen an oath of debt, his surly features traced with tears.

  Asleep, her dream-weaver's robes soiled with dirt and salt, she seemed a fragile child. Nothing about her appearance suggested a Vaere-trained enchantress; innocent features reflected no trace of the courage which enabled her to pursue a beloved brother as an enemy.

  Sailing under a dank layer of fog, Jaric regarded the girl who had started out a lame fisherman's daughter from Imrill Kand. In her unremarkable beginning he found proof that strength could arise out of weakness. The realization lent hope that someday he might discover confidence and master his lot as Firelord's heir.

  An hour passed, then two. Mist clung dense as eiderdown over the face of the sea. Troessa ghosted forward by compass heading alone, and over the creak of her gear Jaric heard the distant boom of breakers. Unless their course had been spoiled by current, the shores of Elrinfaer lay ahead.

  Taen woke from
sleep with a sudden cry of alarm. She threw herself at the bow. "No! Emien, no!"

  Jaric leaped forward, caught her slight waist. His hands tangled in long dark hair as he dragged her back, shivering and weeping in his arms. "Taen, what's wrong?"

  Sails ruffled overhead as Troessa swung pilotless into the wind. Jaric cradled the enchantress against his shoulder and ached for the power to shelter her. Surf crashed, nearer and more distinct, over Elrinfaer's unseen shore. Taen looked up with anguished eyes. The dream link which woke her to nightmare ripped out of control and swept Jaric into rapport.

  Possessed by ice-edged hatred, Jaric gripped Callinde's thwart. She lay beached on the cream sand of a cove, her sails left carelessly sheeted. Yet the mishandling of the boat did not trouble him, since the emotions he experienced were another's; following the slender white-haired figure of his mistress, he leaped ashore in Emien's boots, fingers clenched round the haft of an unsheathed rigging knife.

  Deadly, silent, he coiled his body and sprang. Steel gleamed in the fog. Consumed by poisoned triumph, he raised his arm and buried his blade to the crossguard in the woman's defenseless back.

  Tathagres staggered and fell, pale hair scattered across unmarked sand. Her beautiful features twisted in agony as Emien tore her collar aside, reaching with bloodied fingers for the band of gold beneath. He caught the necklace, twisted fiercely. The metal proved hollow; it crumpled and split, spilling dark liquid over Emien's knuckles. Scalded by caustic reaction, his skin blistered and bled. Emien cried out. He jerked back, just as something other stabbed his mind like hot wire.

  The contact broke. Wrenched back to Troessa's gentle motion, Jaric stared in horror at the dream-weaver who lay against his shoulder.

  Surf boomed loudly, dangerously close. Taen heard, pushing free of his hold. "Sail!" she said frantically. "Tathagres is dying, and Emien has the Keys."

  Jaric stumbled over Troessa's stern seat and threw his weight against the tiller. The ketch swung, maddeningly sluggish. Her canvas ruffled, flopped and drew taut in the wind. Sudden thunder shook the air. Wind sprang up. A gust tore shrilly through the rigging and Troessa jerked sideways onto her thwart.

  Taen clung gamely in the bow. With small desperate hands she clawed the jibsheet free. Canvas banged, frayed to tatters by the gusts. Spray dashed madly over the bow. Half-blinded by salt, Jaric fought for control of the helm. Ahead the mist streamed and parted. Hard alee lay a shoreline of terraced rock, and the windowless spire of Elrinfaer Tower raised like a spoke against the sky.

  Troessa lifted, flung on the crest of a breaker. Jaric leaned forward, jerked her leaded swing-keel up into its casing. The wave broke with a rush, hurling the boat toward the shore. Jaric caught a hurried glimpse of Callinde, pressed flat on her side against a white crescent of beach; then Taen loosened the mainsheet also. The boom swung, blocking his vision. But Jaric needed no sight to confirm the small still form which sprawled beyond, under the edge of the rocks.

  Troessa grounded with a scrape. Taen leaped the bowsprit and splashed calf-deep into the cold flood of the sea. Jaric followed. Foam swirled over his boot tops as he yanked a line from the bow. Emptied of weight, the light boat slewed sidewards as the following wave crashed around her rudder. Jaric leaned into the rope, grateful not to be wrestling the heftier bulk of Callinde. By the time he crossed shallows to the tide mark, Taen had gone on ahead.

  Lightning laced the sky and thunder rumbled. Jaric thrust his hands into Troessa's forward locker and pulled out dagger and sword. Wet leather sloshed against his feet, which became caked with dry sand as he ran up the beach. Ahead, lit by a savage flash of lightning, he saw the dream-weaver crouched over Tathagres' crumpled form.

  "Stop Emien!" she shouted over the rising fury of the elements. "I'll stay with her."

  Jaric hesitated. Dwarfed by forbidding rocks, he touched his sword hilt with uncertain hands, and wondered what Telemark had felt when he had killed as a mercenary in the Duke of Corlin's army. The thought raised every self-doubt which had poisoned his childhood at Morbrith.

  "Go!" Taen's plea was a ragged peal of anguish. "Emien seeks to break the wards over the Tower."

  Thunder slammed the air. Jaric shivered. With short sharp motions, he unsheathed sword and dagger. He discarded sword-belt and scabbards in the sand and sprang toward the rocks. Once in Seitforest he had surpassed his limits when Telemark's life lay threatened; now to spare Taen the horror of confronting her brother, he would face Emien with steel, and stop him if he could.

  * * *

  Taen watched through a blur of tears as Jaric vanished up the slope, torn by the insufferable fact that his success depended upon the loss of her only brother. But now was no time to indulge in useless emotions. Mastering herself with iron bravado, she mustered her powers as dream-weaver and centered her thoughts on the woman beneath her hands.

  Tathagres lay on her side, hands outflung and still. Her bracelets had carved half moons in the sand under her wrists, and grit clung to her back and shoulders, darkened by spreading blood. Emien had withdrawn the knife and an ugly reddened tear showed through tunic and mail beneath. Taen brushed back a silky fall of hair, baring features whose pale delicacy remained beautiful, even approaching death. For all her Vaere training, Taen could do nothing to save her. But for the sake of her brother, she sent her dream call into the faltering mind beneath her hands.

  "Merya?"

  Tathagres' lids trembled and opened, baring violet eyes to the sky. Wax-pale lips trembled and almost smiled, for the name Taen used was that given by her mother. Blackness leached through her mind. With a sigh of painful weariness, Tathagres gave in to the ebbing tide; the memory lapsed.

  Dream call wrenched her back. "Merya! What has Emien taken?" Desperate to know, Taen caught the fading image of a forest where once a father had forbidden a small girl to play. But the child disobeyed. Laughing, breathless, Merya skipped under the trees on the edge of summer twilight, enticed by the notes of a flute. But the musician ran merrily ahead, ducking through thickets and branches, perpetually out of reach. Suddenly darkness claimed her. Kor's Accursed fitted the collar to her neck, and thereafter she served as Tathagres, her human family forgotten.

  Taen clamped her will around the threads of deteriorating life. She forced a desperate question. "The collar. Did it hold crystals from the Sathid?"

  Merya/Tathagres quivered. Thoughts flurried like sparks in shadow as she strove to answer the dream-weaver's call. Emien, warn Emien. The collar's legacy was misery; woe to the mortal who touched it, for his will would serve the powers of Kor's Accursed without hope to the end of life. Warn Emien, Merya sent, but her breath stopped before the message was complete.

  Left no answer but the limitless night of the void, the dream-weaver shivered, wakened to grief and poignant revelation. Freed by death, the woman's peaceful pose suggested the humanity she might have had if her life had been her own. Taen saw that she and the child Merya were more alike than different. Each had been gifted since birth with sensitivity deeper than most human perception. Sheltered by Anskiere, Taen had been sent safely to the Vaere. But Merya, and now Emien, had not been as fortunate.

  * * *

  Lightning snaked across the rocks but no rain fell. Taen raced over sharpened outcrops of shale. Wind rattled the branches of scrub and thorn and thunder shook the ground under her feet. Certain the disturbance in the weather was caused by Emien's meddling with the wards, Taen climbed with desperate haste.

  She paused, searched the barren heights, but saw no trace of Jaric or her brother. She engaged her talents to seek, but her dream search was overrun by churning fields of power. The wards over Elrinfaer were stronger than any sorcery in Keithland, Tamlin had said. The Mharg-demons confined there were dangerous enough to destroy all life. Now Emien tried to free them.

  Taen plunged over a rise. Breath burned in her lungs. Forbidding against cloud-racked skies, Elrinfaer Tower dominated the ridge beyond a boulder-strewn ravine. Blue-violet light flared across
the heights and lightning lanced the ground, set off by discharged energy as the Keys set forces held stable for centuries into flux.

  Taen ran, buffeted by a heated backlash of air. Over the rumble of thunder she heard a thin chime of steel. She swerved toward the sound, oblivious to the briars which ripped her shins. Sped by understanding of Merya's possession, she battered her way up the slope. If Emien had succumbed to the powers which had claimed Tathagres, Jaric's fine scruples would prove no match for the black hatred of Kor's Accursed.

  Taen dodged past a leaning boulder and crashed into brush on the far side. Steel flared through the branches, lit by a flash of lightning.

  Thunder drowned the clang as a dagger glanced off a sword edge. Jaric staggered off balance and caught the riposte on his crossguard. Emien advanced. Faced in reality by the willful evil of the brother she had loved on Imrill Kand, Taen stopped, unable to react.

  But Jaric recovered. Slighter, faster, he managed a feint and sprang clear. Gravel slithered under Emien's boots. He parried Jaric's dagger, then thrust. Steel screeched, stopped against the crossed fence of his opponent's blades. Emien leaned, tried to break the bind with brute strength. Jaric threw him off. Through the savage exchange which followed, Taen saw the match was not even. Neither boy was experienced. But Emien had eight months training under Kisburn's royal swordmasters; Jaric had spent most of the winter tending traps in the snowbound wilds of Seitforest. Emien lunged. Jaric missed the parry, twisted, and crashed shoulder first into a thorny clump of brush.