The Curse of the Mistwraith

by Janny Wurts

  But the smell was forgotten as Lysaer, also, became entranced.

  The little vessel cleared the shoals of a clogged culvert, rounded and curtseyed over imaginary waves. Banners flying, she executed a saucy jibe and with the breeze now full astern, surged on a run straight for the mouth of the alley.

  Lysaer’s presence blocked her course. Caught by surprise, Arithon lost his grip on the complex assemblage of shadows that fashioned her planking and sails. His beautiful little vessel unravelled in a muddied smear of colours that dissolved half a second before impact.

  Heartsick to have spoiled the illusion, Lysaer looked up.

  To the children, his silks and fine velvets had already marked him for a figure of upper-crust authority. Huge eyes in gaunt faces glowered at him in accusation. Arithon showed a flat lack of expression. The moment’s overheard laughter now seemed passing fancy, a dream put to rout by abrupt and unnecessary awakening. Had Lysaer not sensed the entreaty most desperately masked behind each hostile expression, he might have felt physically threatened.

  One of the taller figures in a tatterdemalion blanket sidled away into shadow. A second later, running footsteps fled splashing through a side alley too narrow to be seen from Lysaer’s vantage.

  Trapped in the role of despoiler, he gave way to irritation. Although Arithon had not spoken to inquire what brought him, his opening came out acerbic. ‘Do you know I’ve been smoothing over your absence from the governor’s council all morning? The guild ministers here are slippery as sharks, and just as quick to turn. The commander of the guard and his captain would wind your guts on a pole for mere sport. There cannot be a kingdom where now there is discord if you don’t show them a prince!’

  ‘Such affairs are your passion, not mine,’ Arithon said in desperate, forced neutrality. Several more children bolted despite his denouncement. ‘Why ever didn’t you stay there?’

  He had not denied his origins.

  The accusing stares of his audience were quick to transfer to him. The girl nearest his side recoiled in betrayal, that the man who had thrilled with his marvels was other than the beggar he appeared. Arithon reached out and cupped her cheek. His attempt at reassurance was pure instinct; and remarkable for its tenderness since every other sinew in his body was pitched taut in unwished-for challenge.

  Rebuked by such care for the feelings of a vermin-infested urchin, Lysaer relented. ‘Arithon, these governors are your subjects, as difficult in their way to love as thieving children are to the wealthy whose pockets they pick. Show the councilmen even half the understanding you’ve lavished here and you’ll escape getting knifed by paid assassins.’

  Arithon abandoned his effort to hold his audience: their fragile trust had been broken and one by one they slipped off. Deserted in his squalid clothes amid a welter of stinking refuse, Arithon’s reply came mild. ‘This bunch steals out of need.’

  ‘You feel the governor’s lackeys don’t? That’s shallow! You’re capable of truer perception.’ Lysaer shut his eyes, reaching deep for tact and patience. ‘Arithon, these merchants see in you an anathema made real. Records left from the uprising have been passed down grossly distorted. Etarrans are convinced the Fellowship sorcerers mean to give them an eye for an eye, cast them from their homes and expose their daughters to be forced by barbarians. They need so very badly to see the musician in you. Show them fairness they can trust. Give to them. They’ll respond, I promise, and become as fine a backbone for this realm as any king could ask.’

  ‘Well, why come here and trouble me? You seem to understand everything perfectly!’ Arithon visibly resisted an urge to hammer his fist against a shanty wall. ‘You’ve stated my fears to a faretheewell, that this city will ingratiate itself to become my indispensable right hand.’

  ‘What in Athera can be wrong with that?’ Whipped on by Arithon’s expert touch at provocation, Lysaer lost to exasperation.

  This!’ Arithon gestured at the mildewed planks that enclosed the back of the knacker’s shacks. ‘You socialize amid the glitter of the powerful, but how well do any of us know this city: Did Diegan’s lovely sister tell you the guilds here steal children and lock them in warehouses for forced labour? Can I, dare I, stroke the Lord Governor and his cronies, while four-year-old girls and boys stir glue-pots, and ten-year-olds gash their hands and die of gangrene while rendering half-rotten carcasses? Ath’s infinite mercy, Lysaer! How can I live?’ The fury driving Arithon’s defence snapped at last to bare his nerve-jagged, impotent frustration. ‘The needs of this realm will swallow all that I am, and what will be left for the music?’

  Lysaer stared down at the dirty rings that crawled up his gold-sewn boots. ‘Forgive me.’ He allowed his contrition to show, for after all, he had been presumptuous. ‘I didn’t know.’

  Arithon’s sorrow subsided to a gentleness surprisingly sincere. ‘You shouldn’t want to know. Go back. I appreciate your help with the diplomacy, but this problem is mine. When I’m ready, never doubt, I’ll give it my best effort.’

  Indiscretion

  Dusk thickened the shadows over the forested roadway that led southward out of Ward. This stretch of highway, that snaked like a chalk scar over the frost-bleak hills toward Tal’s Crossing, was the dread of every Etarran merchant. Caravans passed between the northern principalities of Rathain heavily armed, or they failed to reach their destinations. Yet a raid by marauding barbarians seemed not to concern the solitary old man who guided his ponycart over the cracked flagstones laid down by the decree of long dead s’Ffalenn kings.

  His conveyance was open, low-slung and in sorry need of fresh paint: the beast between the shafts, a glossy buckskin with a tail like black wire and a feisty dislike of boy grooms. He carried his ears cocked back as if listening for excuse to flatten them down in displeasure.

  By contrast, the driver was ascetically thin. He sat atop his jolting board seat with a slouch that gave with the bumps; if his narrow face was creased by eight decades of life, the fingers laced through the reins were clean, supple and sure. He whistled between widely-spaced front teeth and his jaunty melody carried over the creak of harness and cartwheel to a pair of barbarian children lying flat in the brush above the verge.

  Twelve years of age and bold as coin brass, Jieret puffed a rust-coloured tangle of hair from his lips. He frowned in stormy concentration. Bored with long feasting, impatient since the returned sunlight had disrupted the passage of caravans to raid, he elbowed his younger companion. ‘Ready, Idrien?’

  The other boy shifted a sweaty grip on the stick he had sharpened for a javelin. Sneaking out of camp had been Jieret’s idea. When their play at scouting had surprisingly turned up a victim, the excitement of plunder and ransom somehow lost their dashing appeal. A touch scared, Idrien wished himself back at the feast, tossing out nuts to the squirrels. ‘You know, his relatives might not be so rich.’

  Jieret grinned through another unruly red curl. ‘You saw the topaz brooch that fastens his cloak. Are you chickening out on me?’

  Wide-eyed, Idrien shook his head.

  ‘Well, come on, then.’ Jieret wormed from the thicket, too brash to care if he snapped twigs.

  Idrien followed, cautious in his uncertainty. Appearances could deceive: the man’s jewel might only be glass. Yet already Jieret scrambled to his feet and charged full-tilt down the hillside. Clan honour demanded that his companion not shirk him support.

  Jieret slithered into the open roadway, hampered by a bouncing fall of stones. His jerkin had torn and slipped over one shoulder and his javelin wavered despite his determination to threaten the elder in the cart. ‘Halt, as you value your life!’ He shrugged up his deerskin to unburden his throwing arm, then fought for balance and decorum as Idrien plunged down the bank and crash landed into his back.

  The whistled melody ceased. Under threat of two sharpened sticks, capable hands tightened on the reins. The buckskin bared teeth and rolled eyes as it sidled and stopped between the shafts. Keeping tight hold on its mouth, the ra
id victim bent his light, startled gaze upon the dirty, briar-scraped pair of boys. His lips pulled crooked in a smile and silver-tipped brows twitched up underneath his hood.

  ‘Get out of the cart and disarm. Slowly!’ Jieret elbowed Idrien to take the pony’s bridle.

  The old man hesitated. Then he released the reins and stepped down carefully, the gold silk lining of his cloak a fitful gleam in failing light. As if ready for Idrien’s howl as the buckskin snaked its head down to nip, he shot out a fist and hammered the pony with an expert blow at the juncture of shoulder and neck. The creature grunted in curbed belligerence and sullenly shook out its mane. Its master, nonplussed, removed an ornamental dagger from his belt, turned the blade and offered the handle to Jieret. He stood quietly while Idrien’s grubby fingers rifled his rich clothing in a vain search for concealed weapons.

  At length, threatened by his own knife as well as the brace of whittled sticks, he offered up ringless hands. ‘Whose captivity have I the honour of accepting?’ His voice was pleasantly pitched, unmarred by the quaver that characterized the very old.

  Jieret scowled. Hostages ought to show fear, not make genial greetings. Since the pony was demonstrably nasty-tempered, he settled for binding its owner’s hands with the reins, then made him lead the miserable beast. He and Idrien clambered onto the buckboard and directed their mismatched draft team to haul the cart off the road.

  The boys punched each other’s sides, intoxicated by their success. A man taken for ransom; the clanlords would surely praise their prowess! The stranger might fetch the price of a sword, or better, a horse. Then, in consternation, the raiders recalled they had neglected to choose cover beforehand.

  ‘Stupid,’ Jieret whispered, crestfallen at the lapse. ‘We can’t drag a cart through the forest.’

  Idrien sucked his lower lip. ‘Drive to the dell and unhitch?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Jieret nicked bark off his stick in serious thought. ‘Wind smells of rain. Our booty could get a good soaking.’

  At this point, the captive good-naturedly interrupted. ‘A storm won’t hurt. The tarps are new enough not to leak.’

  ‘Quiet!’ Idrien glanced around in fresh worry. ‘Too much chatter will fetch the scouts.’

  Their captive considered this, his long, lean legs quick to compensate for the buckskin’s short-strided trot. ‘Young raiders don’t have their own scouts?’ He might have been laughing; or not, dusk had deepened too much to tell.

  Jieret skinned his knuckles in a belatedly frantic search, but found neither socket nor driving whip. He tried to hasten the pony’s pace by flapping his arms. The buckskin snapped up its round quarters. Hooves banged vengefully against the buckboard. Smacked through the soles of his boots, and stinging mightily, Idrien scowled.

  Jieret clung grimly to propriety. ‘Our scouts are off to find other marks,’ he lied grandly. ‘If you hope to stay alive to be ransomed, keep silent.’

  For all their unplanned excitement, the boys guided the little cart swiftly through the darkness. In a natural declivity between chalk bluffs they ordered the pony unhitched. Idrien held the old man at stickpoint, while Jieret piled brush to conceal their booty. Then, smothering back whoops of exhilaration, the boys chivvied their captive through the forest to the clan gathering they had forsaken to seek adventure.

  Control broke on the camp perimeter. Jieret burst into shouting, while Idrien startled the dancers into uproar by casting his toy javelin straight into the central fire. Sparks flew; the celebration unravelled in confusion as leather-clad scouts scrambled to grab weapons, and others on guard patrol converged from the wood with drawn steel.

  Blinking against the shifting glare of torches, the captive stumbled to a halt. Jieret braved the buckskin’s teeth to grasp a fistful of black and gold cloak and drag his catch a reluctant step closer to the fires.

  ‘Here!’ He waved to the tallest of the approaching men. ‘A sure ransom we’ve brought, father, and a pony for Tashka.’

  Steiven, reigning regent of Rathain, was a hard man to miss, even in uncertain light amid his pack of leather-clad scouts. Lanky, dark headed, he ran with the grace of a deer. His eyes, deep hazel, were wary as any forest creature’s whose kind has been too long hunted. His hands were large and strongly made; his clean-shaven chin was square. The bones of his face hinted at a rough-cut, handsome beauty, an impression spoiled at first sight by a scar that grooved his cheekbone and jaw to end in a ridged knot of flesh above his collarbone.

  A wild boar’s tusk might have ripped such disfigurement; in fact, Steiven’s looks had been ruined by a harness buckle heated red-hot by a caravan master when, at ten years of age, he had chased the wagon that carried his brothers’ scalps for credit as a bounty hunter’s kill.

  He had been fortunate to escape with his life.

  The sight of his half-grown son gambolling into camp with a captive clad in town clothes gave Steiven a start that had much to do with memories that recurred in nightmares. Yet he was a man for listening before action; half a lifetime of chieftaincy had taught him to be exactingly fair. Though his heart beat too fast and he wanted to strike his boy for this latest insanely foolish prank, he forced himself to think and to walk; and then the captive raised his head. Spaced front teeth flashed in a smile and a snag of white hair escaped his hood.

  Steiven stopped cold, the drift of Jieret’s chatter disregarded. His fists uncurled. ‘Bare your head,’ he commanded.

  For answer, the old man half-turned.

  The clan chief’s ruddy complexion turned pale. ‘Dharkaron, forgive us.’

  At his tone, Jieret faltered into silence. Sweating, aware he had earned himself a hiding, he stared wide-eyed as his father drew his dagger and with shocking diffidence toward a townborn, cut the ties from the captive’s wrists.

  The elder raised his freed hands and pushed back his hood. Black cloth lined in yellow silk fell away to expose a knife-blade nose and a spill of shoulder-length silver hair.

  ‘Grant us pardon, master,’ Steiven said softly. Then he rounded in fury on his son. ‘You captured no merchant, foolish boy! Shame you’ve brought your clan, not ransom. You stand before the Masterbard himself.’

  ‘Him?’ Jieret’s insolence rang defensively loud as he gestured with his sharpened stick.

  Steiven ripped the makeshift weapon out of his child’s hands. ‘Didn’t you find the lyranthe when you reviewed his possessions for arms?’

  Jieret started to tremble.

  ‘Ah,’ said Steiven. He caught the Master bard’s desperate attempt to hide amusement, and regained his own equilibrium. He effected a ferocious scowl anyway. ‘Not only did you raid the wrong man, son, you also kept slack discipline!’

  Somebody giggled on the sidelines; Jieret’s older sister Tashka. Humiliation would serve the boy better than a strapping in private. Steiven decided to pass off the affair as a stupidity beneath the notice of grown men. ‘Apologize at once and offer Halliron your hospitality. Or else amend your insult by meeting his demand for honourgift, and give him escort back to the road for the stupid bit of nuisance you’ve caused.’

  Jieret looked wildly around but Idrien had seized his chance to vanish. Crestfallen, but still brazenly unapologetic, he straightened before the tall minstrel.

  ‘Don’t speak,’ Halliron said with a wicked twinkle in his eyes. ‘Instead, I’ll thank you to care for my pony and fetch back my lyranthe from the cart.’ Solemnly, he surrendered his buckskin’s hacked-off reins into the hands of the miscreant.

  At Jieret’s first tug at the headstall, the pony snapped back black-tipped ears. A forehoof flashed up in a snake-fast strike and the boy, yelling curses better suited to a caravan drover, jumped back to escape getting whacked.

  ‘He can handle cross-grained horses, I trust?’ said Halliron to the father, only to find the huge man sitting down without warning in wet leaves. Steiven’s arms were clutched to his ribs as though he might tear a gut stifling laughter. ‘Fair punishment,’ the regent of Rathain snorte
d between wheezes. ‘A pony for Tashka, indeed! That creature would as likely rip his poor sister’s hand off.’

  ‘Probably not.’ Halliron smiled, watching thoughtfully as bystanders scattered and the buckskin’s striped rump bucked and sidled through the leaping ring of torchlight. ‘The little imp only hates boys. And, truth to tell, I’m not sorry. A storm rides the wind, can you smell it? Not even an initiate’s hostel graces this stretch of forest. I expected to endure a nasty night.’

  When the weather finally broke, young Jieret was hours in bed and Halliron comfortably settled on cushions in the lodge tent of the regent of Rathain. Although no one had asked the Masterbard to perform he had generously offered his talents to the clan chieftain’s family until nature’s fury defeated even his trained voice. The storm struck Strakewood from the south, battering with windy fists and rattling rain over oiled hide with such force that the crack and roll of thunder could barely be heard above the noise.

  Steiven came in wet from helping the scouts secure the horse lines. ‘Strange,’ he mused as he peeled his sodden jerkin and swiped dripping hair from the unmarred side of his face. ‘We don’t often get squalls from the south. Usually they spend themselves over the Mathorns and rattle the mansions in Etarra.’

  ‘Greater changes are afoot than mere weather, since the return of true sunlight.’ Halliron hooked the final ties on the fleece-lined case that protected his lyranthe, and took wine from the hand of Steiven’s lady. ‘You’re too kind,’ he thanked her, and raised the flagon in tribute to clan hospitality.

  Clad in rare finery, her magnificent, heavy russet hair braided with sequins worn for dancing, Dania shone with pleasure. ‘We’re blessed. Your singing is a treasure unequalled.’