by Janny Wurts
Through the passage, Sethvir re-set gates and defence-wards with the motions of long habit, while Traithe regarded the statues commemorating old-race heroes of a past that now seemed febrile as a dream, though the jewelled settings were polished bright and the caparisons on the centaurs hung rich as if fresh from the loom. ‘However the world comes to suffer, the sanctity of Althain remains unbreached. Your wardenship rests lightly, here.’
Mildly pleased, Sethvir returned a vague gesture. ‘The upstairs is shambles. If you ask for tea, we’ll need to scrounge for clean cups.’
Traithe made his way in halting steps toward the stairwell. ‘Well, you do have more on your mind than all the rest of us put together.’
‘Sometimes.’ Pursued by echoes, forgetful of lamps, the Warden of Althain began the ascent. Through the pause as Traithe deposited his horse gear in the armoury, he added, ‘Right now, just Mirthlvain.’
Traithe tripped on a door-sill, and not because of his limp. For Mirthlvain Swamp to command his colleague’s undivided attention meant trouble of fearful proportions. The raven resettled disturbed balance with an indignant ruffle of feathers while, worn from travel, and oppressed by the mists, Traithe felt the frost go through to his bones. He fumbled at his belt, hooked the thong that hung his flint striker and seeded a spark in the sconce by the storage level.
In the sulphurous flare of new lamplight, Sethvir’s gaze glinted hard and immediate as chipped glass. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘The tea must wait. Meth-snakes have bred with cierlan-ankeshed venom and Verrain has just now sent word: there are many of them, and a mass migration is imminent.’
Unsurprised that a disaster of such shattering proportions should be announced in the midst of banalities, Traithe said,’And the others?’ Worry eclipsed his weariness. If these meth-snakes spread beyond Mirthlvain, countryfolk from Orvandir to Vastmark could be decimated in a matter of days.
‘I’ve called them.’ Sethvir’s voice seemed to echo beyond the confines of Althain’s stairwell, to bridge the wide leagues that separated the far-scattered members of the Fellowship.
‘Well, at least I’m at hand to be helpful,’ Traithe added, and this time his bitterness showed.
Still focused and fully attentive, Sethvir surveyed his companion from lined, dark eyes to scarred hands, to the limp and travel-stained cloak that the raven had torn threadbare at the shoulders. ‘There was never a time that you failed us, old friend.’
Then, as if Desh-thiere’s desecrations were trivial and large-scale catastrophe from Mirthlvain did not threaten the Kingdom of Shand, the sorcerer clapped both hands to his temples in contrition. ‘Dear me. There must be a thousand or so books heaped in the upper library and Ath’s own jumble of inkwells lying about without caps. By nightfall, we’re going to be needing the table underneath.’
‘Well,’ said Traithe benignly. ‘Between you and the spawn of the methuri, we’ve got a dashed handful to tidy up.’
‘Mess?’ Fixed on the underlying concept, Sethvir raised bristled eyebrows. ‘There’s really no mess. Just not enough corks for the inkwells, that’s what drives me to chaos.’ He whirled and rushed up the stairs.
Traithe followed. In the deliberate, sure-footed manner that masked the worst of his infirmities, he lit sconces the entire height of Althain Tower. Asandir might not need them, nor would Kharadmon and Luhaine; but two princes arrived from Dascen Elur were bound not to welcome a mage’s disregard of the dark.
Summons
Far off, where daybreak has long since brightened Desh-thiere’s oil-thick murk, cold winds whip across the grass-gowned hills of Araethura, stirred by the essence of a sorcerer who whirls his way south in grave haste…
South and west, with the ease of an entity long discorporate, a second sorcerer once called the Defender rides the force of the flooding tide in response to distress call from Althain…
Under gust-swept peaks in Camris, wrapped in dawn-lit mist, the sorcerer Asandir pauses as if listening on the threshold of his quarters in the barbarian outpost; a moment passes, then he whirls at a run for the guard post to prepare for immediate departure…
IX. ALTHAIN TOWER
Accustomed to threats and fast action, Maenalle’s scouts had horses saddled and provisions secured on the pack pony only minutes after the urgent summons from Althain Tower reached the west outpost and Asandir. Lysaer emerged from his quarters looking hollow-eyed. Secretly relieved to be quit of the company of subjects he found disturbing, he remained in flawless command of his manners, a trait young Maien admired as he held the stirrup for his prince to mount. Not all men would be so pleasant to serve after being rousted at dawn on the heels of a rowdy celebration.
Arithon sat his dun looking murderous. He had not rested. Neither had he been so far into his cups the evening before that indulgence should have spoiled his sleep. As Asandir swung into the black’s saddle, the Master said, ‘I should have liked to ask for audience with Lady Maenalle.’
The sorcerer adjusted his reins without reply; and while the wind chased a cloak-snapping blast of cold off the heights, his reason for silence became apparent.
‘If you wanted to speak for young Grithen, spare the trouble,’ announced Tysan’s lady steward, present all the while as observer. Dressed like her scouts, her hair bundled under the hood of a sewn-hide cloak, she had passed unnoticed in the bustle.
Grudging to show surprise beyond a fractional rise of one brow, Arithon greeted her. As close to apology as Lysaer had ever seen him, he said, ‘Surely I have reason to plead the man’s case.’
Maenalle’s features stayed hard. ‘Tysan’s scouts do not act for personal vengeance. No matter what the provocation, they are forbidden to take hostages. We are not like Rathain’s clans, to extort coin and cattle for human lives. For breaking honour, Grithen must answer. The fact he was invited into his temptation, and that his action also threatened his liege bears very little on his punishment. The code that condemns him is one that upholds clan survival.’
The dun sidled under Arithon’s hand as he fielded the nuance in challenge. ‘You disapprove of your counterparts to the east?’
Maenalle’s lips tightened. Though aware that the dun’s combative crabsteps reflected the mood of the rider, she responded in the bluntness that abashed the most brash of her scouts. ‘Unlike your subjects in Rathain, my following need not contend with the trade city of Etarra. Feud between clanborn and townsman is pitiless there. In the eastlands the governor’s council can execute a man for the offence of singing the wrong ballad. Play your lyranthe in those halls with caution, young prince.’
The Shadow Master said, ‘Spare the title, lady. I might never acknowledge any claim to the city you speak of.’
Maenalle stood braced against a vicious blast of wind. ‘Would you risk the perception that inspires your talent by hardening your heart against need?’
And Arithon suddenly laughed, his anger absolved by admiration for her unflinching toughness. He bent in his saddle, raised Maenalle’s hand and kissed her sincerely in farewell. ‘Were you caithdein of Rathain I might find myself sorely oppressed. Dare I suppose that Etarra’s governors would also find their ways compromised?’
Strikingly free of vindictiveness, Maenalle said, ‘If you want my earnest opinion, there can be no remedy for Etarra, except to raze it clean to the ground.’
Piquant as her remark was, the chance was lost to pursue it as Dakar emerged from his cabin, stumbling in the grip of two scouts. They had needed to shepherd him into his clothes, for his voice arose in complaint that his breeches were laced inside out, and both his boots on wrong feet. His keepers only smiled at his protests and hoisted him toward his waiting horse. Maenalle disengaged her hand from Arithon’s grasp and took hurried leave of her sovereign. If Lysaer’s response was cool with propriety, the reason became lost in the rush. The instant the Mad Prophet’s bulk was stowed astride, Asandir wheeled his stallion and urged his party to the road.
‘Ath’s mercy,’ Dakar cried
in vociferous injury. ‘What disaster brings this uncivilized change of plans? I thought I could nurse last night’s hangover under dry blankets for a change.’
Asandir answered between the snow-muffled thunder of hooves. The words ‘Mirthlvain’ and ‘meth-snakes’ carried forth with incisive clarity and Dakar’s recalcitrance withered.
Lysaer observed this. Despite an ambivalence resharpened by last night’s ballads, he spurred abreast of the dun mare. If the unaccustomed rub of Maenalle’s lyranthe left the creature wayward and edgy, the Master was seasoned to her tricks. Aware his half-brother would respond though his hands were full, the prince called over her rebellious snorts. ‘The page who wakened me said our sorcerer had received emergency summons from Althain. What horror in this land do you suppose might be worse than Khadrim?’
The Master grinned back in speculation. ‘We do seem in a hurry to find out.’ He did not add that Maenalle’s scouts had shown him maps: Althain Tower lay ninety leagues distant, a six-day journey over roads sparsely stationed with posts for adequate remounts. Yet Asandir spurred toward the foothills at a pace not intended to spare horseflesh.
After scrambling descent of a rock-strewn slope, the riders clattered onto a level stretch flanked by wind-stunted cedars. The footing softened to frost-crusted mud, safe for a prudent trot. Asandir shook his black to a canter, and conversation dwindled before the need to duck clods spattered up by its hooves.
The peaks lost altitude as the sorcerer’s party progressed. Under muted daylight, the heavy snows of the passes thinned to slush sluiced by ribbons of run-off. Lowland damp blunted the cold to a miserable ache and the horses streamed lathered sweat. The dun abandoned her antics, her wind and energy consumed entirely by running, and still Asandir pressed on, the stride of his rangy black unflagging through league after passing league.
‘By the Wheel,’ Lysaer called in distress. ‘Is he going to run our horses till they founder?’
Dakar roused from his misery, surprised. ‘Asandir? Never.’ Morosely, he added ‘one could wish the sorcerer spared some pity for the aching head of his apprentice.’
‘Magecraft,’ Arithon explained as Lysaer questioned such unnatural display of endurance. ‘Touch your horse and you’ll feel the energy.’
Lysaer stroked his chestnut’s steaming neck, and snatched back from the tingling warmth that surged in a wave from his fingertips. Nettled to be alone in his ignorance, he glanced across whipping strands of mane. ‘Could you make such a spell?’
Arithon regarded his brother with eyes unnervingly thoughtful. ‘Not for so long, and not without harm. A balance must be maintained. If the horses don’t suffer, the sorcerer must stand as their proxy.’
Curiosity overshadowed Lysaer’s distrust. ‘Then Asandir depletes himself to replenish the strength of our mounts?’
‘In effect, yes.’ As if reluctant to elaborate, Arithon faced forward into the wind as they thundered on into the lowlands.
Morning wore on toward noon.
The countryside steadily flattened and the road improved to a span of stone paving scored white by the passage of cartwheels. Asandir pressed the horses to gallop through gentle hills and vine-tangled orchards, stopping only once at a wayside tavern to buy raisins, sausage, bread and spirits for refreshment. While his companions ate and swallowed dry whisky, horseboys towelled lather from the horses and checked their hooves for loose shoes. Within minutes the company were back in their saddles, still cold, still sore, but none more haggard than the sorcerer, who seemed a figure pinched out of clay as they clattered back onto the thoroughfare.
‘How much longer can he keep this up?’ Lysaer asked as his horse picked up a brisk trot. The pause at the tavern had not refreshed him. His muscles had stiffened, wet breeches had chafed his knees raw and he owned no mage-trained detachment to set such discomforts out of mind.
Dakar glanced wistfully over the gates of a farmstead; smoke from the chimney carried an aroma of roast ham. Lighted cottage windows glimmered through bare trees and birch copses, their cheery shelter as useless as mirage to travellers harried by rain and mounts hard-driven over slate grey and glistening with puddles. When Lysaer repeated his query the Mad Prophet shrugged like a sodden crow. ‘Who can fathom the limits of a Fellowship sorcerer? I’ve studied for centuries and I daren’t.’
Lysaer was too spent to question whether magecraft or lying obstinacy gave rise to the Mad Prophet’s claim to unnatural longevity.
Cantering again, they crossed a blacksmith’s yard. Blocked by a packed herd of sheep across the roadway, Asandir wheeled his black into the weed-choked ditch by the wayside. His party followed, raked by branches, while the ewes beaded up in alarm against the far bank and the abused shepherd’s shouted invective faded behind.
The rain fell harder and farmsteads thinned away into wilderness before the sorcerer at last drew rein. Engrossed in miserable discomfort, Lysaer jounced against the chestnut’s crest as it clattered to a halt underneath him.
‘We leave the road here,’ Asandir called while Dakar and Arithon pulled up. ‘Dismount and stay close. Every minute counts.’
Saddle-galled and sore, Lysaer managed not to stagger as his numbed feet struck ground. He swiped back wet hair and surveyed a site that seemed unremittingly desolate. ‘Here?’
Asandir turned the black’s bridle and shouldered without reply into holly and briars that hooked and snagged threads from his cloak. A stone’s throw back from the verge the brush subsided. Trees eaten hollow by age choked the light and faint depressions and upthrust stone kerbs revealed the ruin of an older road. Asandir pointed out a canted megalith traced over with weather-worn carving. ‘That stone marks the third lane, one of twelve channels of earthforce we will tap for swift travel to Althain. The soil itself sings with power, here.’ As if the land’s living pulse could also be drawn to sustain him, the sorcerer quickened pace.
Forced to keep up, Lysaer and the others stumbled over lichen-capped stones and splashed through bogs, their road-weary mounts trailing droop-tailed and tired over hummocks browsed short by deer. The failing day dimmed the mist in louring veils, broken ahead by a wall that once had been dressed white marble. The eroded pillars of an arch yet stood where the way had originally passed through. Beyond, patched with bracken and a criss-crossed stitchery of game trails, the land sloped into a bowl-shaped hollow too symmetrical to be natural, and ringed by oaks scabbed over with ancient blotches of lichen.
Footfalls silenced by wet leaves and moss, the party moved through the green-tinged twilight of the grove. In places of thinned vegetation, iron-shod hooves clanged across weathered black agate. Runes were inset in the half-bared slab, fashioned from a light reflective mineral. Passing seasons had matted debris across the design, but the artistry in those fragments left visible roused an uncanny prickle across the skin.
Lysaer tugged his wet cloak around his shoulders, while Arithon scuffed away sticks and leaves to lay bare the ringed pattern of a cipher. ‘A power focus,’ he mused in an awed whisper.
Asandir stopped his horse. ‘Yes. We stand at the centre of the Great Circle of Isaer, built in the First Age to channel earthforce to guard the halls of the earliest Paravian kings. Those defenceworks are long vanished, yet the Circle itself was maintained, at least until the conquest of Desh-thiere.’
Arithon passed his reins to his half-brother and took an entranced step forward.
‘Don’t stray,’ Asandir cautioned. ‘In fact, you might wish to rest. This will be your last chance before we relocate to Althain Tower.’
Arithon regretfully contained his curiosity. ‘Are there any Paravian cities left standing?’
Sorrowfully the sorcerer shook his head. ‘Unlike mortal men, the old races seldom built, and then only through necessity. What holdfasts remained from the First Age were laid waste in the course of the rebellion, except the towers of the citadel at Ithamon. Those stand protected by mighty wards, and the armies who came to desecrate could not enter.’
&nb
sp; But mention of the city ruled by s’Ffalenn ancestors withered Arithon’s interest. He retrieved his horse and subsided into thought while Asandir fetched a flask from his saddlebag and offered a round of strong spirits.
Too late, Arithon noticed Dakar’s unusual abstinence. He ran his tongue over his lips, but detected no trace of an aftertaste, nor any sweetness that might mask the suspect taint of drugs. His knees turned weak despite this. He had time to see Lysaer slump forward before his own senses whirled into vertigo. In the maddening space of a heartbeat, and despite his most desperate anger, he collapsed on wet stone in an oblivious heap beside his brother.
‘That was a dirty trick,’ Dakar observed.
Asandir shoved the stopper in the flask of ensorcelled spirits, his eyes steely with urgency. ‘Necessary, my imprudent prophet. Meth-snakes are stirring across Mirthlvain even as we speak, and I need you to quiet the horses.’
Dakar caught the reins the sorcerer threw him, then haltered the drifter-bred chestnut. Pale from more than his headache, he coaxed four lathered mounts into a huddle, then squeezed his eyes stoically closed while the paint rubbed her headstall against his chest, and the insolent dun lipped his cloak hood. ‘Keep doing that,’ he murmured, over and over like a litany. ‘Just keep on, and pay no mind to the wizardry.’
The last time he had been told to steady horses through the topsy-turvy disorientation of a lane transfer, he had suffered a dislocated shoulder. Unless Sethvir had much changed his ways, there would be a dearth of hard spirits in Althain Tower’s cupboards, even for medicinal emergency.