The Curse of the Mistwraith

by Janny Wurts

  Brandy vanished down the Mad Prophet’s gullet in prodigious swallows, and this time Asandir’s best cloak did not escape usage as a napkin. ‘Ah well,’ sighed Dakar. ‘It means that our arrogant Master of Shadow can never escape his nature.’

  This time Lysaer wrapped his arms around his knees, content to let the spirits work their magic. The breeze whispered softly over the terrace and the terrible, alien constellations burned fiercely through the interval that followed.

  In time, Dakar took another pull from the flask. He peered mournfully into the dregs. ‘Torbrand s’Ffalenn was a man of natural empathy, a master statesman, because he could sense what motivated his enemies. He ruled as duke in Daon Ramon, and the compassion of the Riathan Paravians formed the guiding light of his policies. Which means, my friend, that Arithon will forgive the knife that kills him. He cannot do otherwise. To understand and to sympathize with the needs of every living thing is his inborn nature, the forced gift of the s’Ffalenn line as bequeathed by the Fellowship of Seven.’

  Lysaer took a moment to sort a cascade of revelations. This penchant for s’Ffalenn forgiveness explained many of the quirks of his half-brother’s personality; behaviour he had considered wayward, until he was given a key to understanding. It explained why Arithon would be vicious in contention up until the moment of defeat; how he could effortlessly shed any grudge for his balked desires, to embrace a crown he absolutely did not want without sign of bitterness or rancour. Lysaer stared at his hands, which were cold beneath their dressings. The blisters throbbed, but he had ceased to dwell on their discomfort. He badly wanted to beg back the flask of telir brandy, for in a heartbeat, his cheerfulness had vanished. Yet courage in the end became his failing. He had to ask. ‘And s’Ilessid? What gift from my ancestor do I carry?’

  Morose, Dakar said, ‘You will always seek justice, even where none can be found.’

  A moment later, Lysaer felt the flask pressed back into his poulticed hands. Careful not to fumble through his bandages, he swallowed brandy in gulps. For abruptly, his euphoria over Desh-thiere’s defeat had faded. Now he wanted to get drunk, to embrace the oblivion of forgetfulness before his busy mind could exhaust itself in perverse and futile review of past events. He could study a whole lifetime and probably never determine which actions were of his choosing and which others may have been influenced by those virtues bound by magecraft to his bloodline.

  ‘Arithon was wise to seek his bed,’ the prince concluded. ‘I’m certainly too tired for this.’

  Generously leaving the last of the spirits for Dakar, he set the flask clumsily on the flagstones, rose to his feet and took his leave.

  Dakar remained, solitary. Night breezes worried his unkempt hair, while he picked in turn at the immaculate wool of Asandir’s cloak. The Mad Prophet could wish until his heart burst that the flask by his elbow was still full; or that he knew a spell to conjure rotgut gin out of air. Any crude alcohol would have served to get him drunk enough to forget the nerve that had made him question the burns on Lysaer of Tysan’s hands. Maybe then he could sleep with the knowledge Asandir had revealed, in the hour before his departure.

  Dakar shut his eyes, before the stars his prophecy had seen restored could blur through a welling flow of tears. ‘Daelion Fatemaster take pity! Why, Lysaer my friend, did you have to be the one used to block the Mistwraith’s assault bare-handed?’

  But Asandir on that point had been unequivocally clear: in the hour of final conflict, when Desh-thiere had threatened to break free, Lysaer had been Kharadmon’s selection for the sacrifice. Dakar still agonized over Asandir’s heartless assessment, after the irrevocable event: ‘Dharkaron, Ath’s Angel of Vengeance may damn us for the act, but Dakar, what else could be done? Of us all, Lysaer was least trained to the mysteries. If contact with the flesh allowed Desh-thiere’s wraiths to access the mind, which of worse evil could we allow? To let such beings touch knowledge of true power might have led them to threaten all the universe. Sad as it is, tragic as the future must become, Lysaer’s exposure offered the lesser risk. Weep with us all, the decision was never made unmourned.’

  ‘Unmourned, by Ath that’s not enough!’ Alone on the windswept terrace, Dakar reached in sudden fury and hurled the flask and its priceless dregs away. It smashed against the wall, an explosion of flying shards that raked through air and settled to unsatisfying stillness. The events of the Mistwraith’s confinement would never on a prayer end in bloodless quiet in Ithamon. Reproached by the sweetish smell of telir that evaporated away on the wind, Dakar buried his face in dark wool and wept until his chest ached. ‘You heartless, unprincipled bastard!’ he shouted finally, in a vicious hope that Sethvir would overhear and channel all his rage straight back to his Fellowship master.

  For the seeds of evil had been sown, well and deeply. All the telir brandy in Athera could never soften the chaos still to be reaped at the ill-omened coronation in Etarra.

  Insurrection

  True sunlight blazed down upon the city of Etarra, whose squat red walls and square bastions had known only the grey dankness of mist since the day the first footings were raised.

  The merchant guilds hailed the event as catastrophe.

  Trade stalled, from the moment the lampblacks raced yelling to the watchkeeps with word that the east sky dawned red like running blood. Sentries reported the same from forsaken posts of duty on the walls. Terrorstricken citizens huddled indoors waiting to die of Ath-knew-what sort of sickness, as day brightened to a fearful white dazzle. The phenomenon had to be sorcery: the sky was blue and the light burned harshly enough to make the eyes ache. Rumours ran rampant and legends from the time before the uprising were whispered behind shuttered windows stuffed with blankets. By night the city apothecaries opened their shops and fattened their purses on profits wrung from unguents to ward off blindness. When by the next day the herders holed up in their crofts failed to drive livestock to the butcher, city-folk went hungry. Flour ran short. The rich resorted to bribes until the enterprising poor began to rifle guild warehouses.

  Nobody died of exposure.

  The meanest of beggars suffered no impairment of vision, though the burglaries were accomplished in streets ablaze under sunlight. Ministers whose guilds suffered losses howled for justice, while dispatching assassins on the sly; trade consortiums took advantage of the chaos to bash rivals, and given no lawful satisfaction, robbed merchants resorted to lynchings.

  Already corrupt, Etarra grew dangerous in unrest.

  Since the uncanny sky showed no sign of clouding back to normal, Morfett, Lord Supreme Governor, prepared with a martyr’s stoicism to restore order and industry to his city. He dug out from under a massive heap of quilts, shed the clinging arms of his wife and forced his trembling, weeping house-steward to press his collar of state. When a morning spent sweating under the naked sun failed to inspire warring factions to resume commerce, he called Lord Commander Diegan to muster the city guard. At lance-point the most recalcitrant citizen would be forced to accept the risk of roasting under the Sithaer-sent scourge of harsh sunlight.

  For some days, awnings sold at a premium.

  Still, bribes were needed to get the crofters and the caravan drovers to brave the open country. The tax coffers dunned for the headhunters’ bounties by the end of that fracas stood empty. Lord Governor Morfett bolted comfits to ease his agitation. Pounds settled on his already ample girth and added pouches to his layers of sagging chins.

  On the brink of restored equilibrium, worse happened.

  A Fellowship sorcerer appeared on the city’s inner battlement.

  No one had admitted him. He simply materialized, robed in maroon velvet, his eyes mild as pondwater over a beard like frizzled fleece. The last thing he resembled was a power remanifested out of legend. The duty-guard mistook him for somebody’s misdirected grandfather until a kindly effort to offer an escort home earned him a list of outrageous amendments to be appended to the city’s ruling charter.

  Summoned in hast
e from his supper, Lord Governor Morfett stood thunderstruck in cold wind with his napkin still flapping in a tuck behind his collar ruffles.

  ‘You will also air out the guest suite reserved for state visitors,’ Sethvir said with an aplomb that disallowed reality; the Lord Governor had already repeated that his first petition was preposterous.

  ‘If it’s lodging you want,’ Morfett protested; and stopped. The words he had intended to utter concerning dispensation of charity were forgotten as the napkin in his collar suddenly seemed to bind up his throat.

  The sorcerer said nothing, but gave back a maddening, poetic smile that somehow looked slick as a cat’s.

  And though he insinuated himself into Morfett’s private dining-hall for the duration of the Lord Governor’s lunch, of a sudden everything went wrong. The crofters locked themselves indoors all over again; naturally without offer to return the city’s funds. The trade-guilds set up a yelping chorus of accusations and touched off repercussions like a fall of political dominoes. The poor in the streets threatened riots. Morfett only belatedly discovered that two more sorcerers had joined the first. More guest-rooms were aired in the Lord Governor’s private palace. His kitchens were cast into turmoil, and upon inquiry his own house steward informed him that his cooks were ransacking the larder in preparation for feasting royalty.

  Livid could barely describe Morfett’s reaction. He had eaten too much for days and now, under pressure, regretted it. His throat swelled, his lungs filled and his fat jiggled as he prepared to countermand everything. But rage rendered him incoherent a fatal second too long.

  Two more sorcerers materialized at his elbows, one portly and bearded, the other green-clad, elegant, in his eyes an unrighteous gleam of amusement. Before Morfett could recover speech he found himself whisked without benefit of doors or stairs to his chambers.

  There, Sethvir politely offered him cold tea and with perfect diction recited the list of Morfett’s titles, a feat the city herald managed only occasionally without mistakes. Morfett choked. There was ice in his goblet, the crystal of which was finer than any piece in his wife’s dower cupboards. As three sorcerers regarded him with the piercing interest a bug netter might show a rare insect, he sketched a sign against evil and collapsed in a faint upon the carpet.

  ‘You’d think there’d need to be a backbone to support such a grand weight of lard,’ Kharadmon said tartly.

  He ignored the black look shot him by Luhaine; while Sethvir by himself lifted a Lord Governor better than twice his size and weight and deposited his unconscious bulk upon an equally overstuffed sofa.

  From his labours, the Warden of Althain raised eyes sparkling with glee. ‘Be careful. When Morfett recovers his wits he has a fast and crafty knack for hiring assassins.’

  Kharadmon gave back a toothy grin. ‘Then, colleagues, we have every sane excuse to keep him flustered.’ Devilish in speculation, he said, ‘Do you think him a match for Arithon s’Ffalenn?’

  Sethvir laughed. ‘We’re going to find out all too quickly.’

  Upon his awakening, Morfett was told that he would be swearing fealty to a s’Ffalenn king within a fortnight, and that governance of Etarra would be made to conform to Rathain’s original royal charter.

  The Lord Governor’s pouched eyes narrowed. ‘Over my dead body.’

  ‘If need be,’ Kharadmon said, unblinking.

  Acute enough to differentiate a threat from a promise Morfett gave unctuous agreement, then launched on a vicious course of subterfuge.

  Two days of intrigue yielded no satisfaction. Bribes failed to budge even the greediest factions. Worse than implacable, the farmers had somehow become obsessed by the idea that guild overlords no longer owned land-rights. They bandied legalities like barristers and backed their petition with threat of strikes. When hired assassins failed to silence their spokesman, Morfett discovered why. A soft-spoken stranger who wore a black hat had sown insurrection among the country folk with a tact that confounded. The city seneschal inscribed a writ for the man’s arrest, only to find that he was a sorcerer also.

  The incident left the Lord Governor indisposed.

  He lay ill on silk sheets while, in disregard of politics or loyalty, his wife and daughters surrounded themselves with seamstresses who laboured over sarcenets, brocades and pearl fringework to create a whole wardrobe of new gowns.

  ‘But this is the sensation of the season!’ his wife shouted indignantly through the bedchamber doorway. ‘If we’re going to be hosting blooded royalty, everybody important shall come calling. This prince might be welcomed as the devil but your daughters would surely become laughingstock were we all wearing last spring’s fashions!’

  Morfett clapped his hands over his ears and groaned. His city and his household had slipped his control. Held miserably supine by his churning stomach, he concluded that Etarra’s citizens had been bewitched: only foul sorcery could corrupt them from five centuries of crownless rule. Storms, strikes, a plague of fiends, even the manifestation of Dharkaron’s divine chariot would have been kinder than this infestation of mages. The thought of kneeling before royalty caused Morfett to howl at his body-servant to attend him at once with the chamberpot.

  He got instead the imposing, blue-clad sorcerer, Asandir, who cured his upset stomach directly and sent every servant within earshot scurrying to fetch official clothing.

  ‘Get up!’ This mage evinced none of Sethvir’s vague charm. ‘The council and trade ministers are convened in the oratory, and most of Etarra’s populace crowds the trade square in hot anticipation of your speech.’

  The Lord Governor hauled his bulk upright and found himself stuffed unpleasantly fast into an embroidered shirt with gold clasps. He might have feigned the return of his cramps had Asandir’s steely manner not been impervious to falsehood.

  Regaled in tasteful colours for the first time since his birth, Morfett, Defender of Trade, Protector of Justice and Lord Governor Supreme of the Northern Reaches, lumbered like a disgruntled bear from his lair to initiate due process to re-establish monarchy in Rathain.

  Overviews

  In a hall of gilt and alabaster, Lirenda, First Koriani Enchantress, delivers her report to the Prime: ‘Desh-thiere’s remains have been sealed under ward and imprisoned in the caves at Skelseng’s Gate. This disposition is intended to be temporary. When royal rule is re-established at Etarra, the Fellowship will transfer the Mistwraith to a place of more permanent captivity. We might learn then why they faltered at the end and preserved the fell creature alive…’

  Under Strakewood’s evergreens in the northern reaches of Rathain, the clan gathering to celebrate new sunlight extends for a fortnight; bored with the feasting, too young yet to dance, a pair of barbarian boys break away from the festivities to play at raids on Etarra merchants…

  In a tavernyard shadowed by the snow-capped peaks of the Mathorns, Elaira waters her bay mare while the horsemaster offers well-meant advice: ‘If it’s on to Etarra you’re bound, let the cook fill your saddlebags. Provisions are scarce in the markets there. The postriders all say the same. Farmers won’t sell to the townsmen and talk of sorcerers and monarchy has the trade-guilds lathered into an uproar…’

  XIII. ETARRA

  The Lord Governor Supreme of Etarra was never a man to worry off weight in a crisis. On the morning the royal heir was to arrive he found his carnelion studded belt pinched his waist. His best boots were tight around the calves and the bunions on his feet grown much worse. Small annoyances became major aggravations when one was forced to stand on display under sunlight too warm for brocades. Jostled by anxious city ministers who crowded the road and the verges before Etarra’s southern gate, Morfett squeezed another sigh past the constriction of his pearl-studded collar. Today, the sorcerer riding herd upon his obligations was Sethvir. Offended that the Warden of Althain should flaunt his own demands concerning finery by wearing a robe as threadbare and ink-stained at the cuffs as the one he had first appeared in, Morfett silently fumed. His head ac
hed, made worse by the nuisance that his gold-sewn scarlet clashed offensively with maroon.

  At least the post was not filled by Asandir, who was altogether less forgiving over matters of personal sensitivity.

  ‘Asandir will be escorting the prince,’ the Warden of Althain announced in uncanny response to private thought. He turned dreamy eyes upon the fidgeting person of the Lord Governor. ‘The ballads from times before the mists name him Kingmaker because every royal head in the history of humankind has been crowned by his hand.’

  ‘How uselessly sentimental.’ Morfett tugged at his jacket, the buttons of which pinched his breath.

  The outer gates of Etarra overlooked a steep slope, the city itself wedged across the gap between the Mathorn’s eastern foothills and a west-jutting spur of the Skyshiels. Accessed by five roads, the approach from Daon Ramon was a switched-back conglomeration of mud bricks and shoring that broadened the original pack trail enough for the passage of wagons. What level ground remained before the gate turrets was already uncomfortably crowded, a forced stir through packed bodies indicating the arrival of still more city officials. The turnout commanded by the sorcerers was thorough enough to impress. Beside guild ministers, trade officials and council governors, many had brought along their perversely curious wives.

  Still sore in the throat from the shouting required to keep his spouse and daughters properly at home, Morfett said, ‘The governor’s council will never acknowledge your pretender’s right to rule.’

  Sethvir gave back his most wayward and maddening smile. ‘Give them time.’

  Somebody coughed. Morfett twisted around and saw a lady in pearls and a gown edged in snow lynx raise a quick hand to her mouth. Her tissue-clad shoulders still shook, which betrayed her smothered laughter. At her side, cloaked in white ermine and official city scarlet, and bedecked with a dazzle of diamonds and gold chains, her brother Diegan, commander of the guard, looked stiffly furious. Oh no, concluded Morfett, neither time nor bloodshed would soften his city’s stance. The prince Etarra’s governors had been rousted out to greet was going to be driven from his attempt to restore the monarchy with tucked tail like a mongrel cur.