The Curse of the Mistwraith

by Janny Wurts

  Her warmth sparked sorrow from the bard, who seemed suddenly absorbed with savouring the taste of his wine.

  ‘No successor yet,’ the lady sympathized with an insight that tended to disorient grown men. She shared a quick glance with her husband, who knelt and tugged a fresh shirt from a chest alongside the wall.

  Halliron sighed. ‘Not for want of trying, lady. I’ve auditioned candidates by the thousands. Many had talent. Yet I was never satisfied. Something indefinable seemed lacking.’ He tried and failed to shrug off a bitterness at odds with a nature smoothed over by advanced years. ‘I’ve earned the reputation of an overbearing old crank. Perhaps justly.’

  But the bard’s face by candlelight showed only heartsore regret. Halliron’s the tragedy, Dania thought, that no apprentice had been found to inherit his title, perhaps the deepest regret of his long and gifted life.

  ‘Dania,’ Steiven said gently. ‘Bring out the telir brandy and refill the Masterbard’s cup.’

  The lady moved with the lightness of forest-bred caution to fetch the cut-crystal flask, while the bard’s attention strayed toward the shadows that dimmed the rear of the lodge. Lord and lady followed his gaze, to find Jieret slipped from his bedroll, the heavy curls that matched his mother’s tousled still from sleep.

  ‘Afraid of the lightning, are you?’ Halliron said in gentle satire.

  ‘Like Dharkaron he is.’ Steiven straightened up in annoyance. Muffled by a thick layer of linen as he belatedly donned his dry shirt, he said, ‘Jieret, haven’t you stirred up trouble enough for one night?’

  The boy licked his lips. As he took a hesitant step closer, the light fell full on him and revealed his alarming pallor. Shaking, he announced, ‘Father, I had a dream.’

  ‘Ath, it’s the sight,’ Dania exclaimed. Sequins sparkled like wind harried droplets as she sprang across the carpets and swept her young son in her arms. ‘Steiven, he’s cold. Find a blanket.’

  The bard was on his feet with a speed that belied his age. He flung the lady his own silk-lined cloak, then stood aside for Steiven, arrived in a flurry of untied laces. He lifted the boy from his wife and bundled him to the chin in rich black wool lined with silk.

  Halliron helped the shaken mother to find a seat upon the scattered cushions. ‘The forevision runs in your line, my lady?’

  Trembling now as violently as her son, a woman who was seasoned to disasters, and who had sword scars on her from past raids, gasped against the bard’s shoulder. ‘Steiven’s line. He has the gift also.’ She swallowed, her dark, fine eyes fixed worriedly on the crown of red hair that poked through the folds of the cloak. ‘The visions are too often bloody.’

  Halliron recovered his flagon, refilled it with brandy and pressed Dania’s icy fingers around the stem. ‘You need a blanket also.’ He fetched one, while the lodge poles rattled to a booming crash of thunder.

  Throughout, the murmur of Steiven’s voice never faltered. ‘What did you see? I know you’re frightened, son, but tell me.’

  Jieret answered unsteadily that he had seen the king ride from Etarra.

  ‘Blessed Ath.’ Steiven pressed his scarred cheek into his boy’s crown to hide eyes that flashed with suspect brightness. After a moment, muffled by fox-brush hair, he said, ‘And how did you know him for your king?’

  ‘He wore a silver circlet and a tabard with the leopard of s’Ffalenn.’ Ever an observant child, Jieret added, ‘His face matched the portrait of Torbrand that you keep in the cave with the sceptre.’

  Steiven swallowed. Fighting to keep his tone light, he said, ‘You’re a scout reporting for a raid. I want the particulars, carefully and accurately.’

  ‘His Grace was alone,’ Jieret said. ‘Armed with only a sword and shorter of stature than Caolle. He rode in haste. His horse was winded almost to death and by his handling of the reins, his right palm or wrist was likely injured. He was pursued.’ The boy stopped, wrung by a fresh bout of trembling.

  ‘Who pursued?’ pressed Steiven. He stroked the boy’s back with a firm touch but his eyes, when he raised them, were hard as rain-rinsed granite.

  Doggedly, Jieret finished. ‘Twoscore lancers, Etarra city garrison.’

  ‘That has the ring of true vision.’ Steiven set the boy back on his feet. ‘Did you happen to recall if it was raining?’

  Dania held her breath. Halliron reached out and patted her hand as the boy across the lodge tent frowned in tight concentration. At length Jieret raised eyes intent as his father’s and said, ‘Funny, that. I saw snowfall. But the trees were green with new leaves.’ His chin raised, determinedly defiant. ‘I’m not lying. What I dreamed was real.’

  ‘Then dress yourself and fetch Caolle,’ Steiven instructed his son. In response to Dania’s startled cry, he managed a bitter-edged smile. ‘Lady, would you have our king catch us sleeping? If snow is going to fall on spring leaves and Etarra’s guard fares out hunting, the future is going to bring trouble. Warning must be carried to Fallowmere and the scouts assigned road-watch must be doubled.’

  Introspections

  Lysaer jerked awake in a tangle of sodden sheets. The nightmare that had ripped him from sleep still lingered, a sense of terror just beyond grasp of his consciousness. He slugged a heavy feather pillow out of his face in a choked-back fit of frustration. Guard-spells set by the Fellowship might avert those threats that were tangible, but not the formless ills that harrowed his dreams. This was not the first night since Desh-thiere’s defeat that he had awakened to a pounding heart and skin running with sweat.

  Unsettled, caught shivering in the grip of reaction, he kicked free of his bedclothes. Though the casements showed no hint of brightening dawn, he arose and flung on yesterday’s discarded clothing. He needed to move, to walk; even veiled in darkness the close opulence of the bedchamber oppressed him. Having learned that one of the discorporate sorcerers maintained a guarding presence over the room at all times, he announced, ‘I’m going out. Into the garden, probably.’

  Luhaine’s reproving tone answered. ‘You’ll want your cloak. There’s heavy fog.’

  Lysaer raised his eyebrows in surprised question. ‘You’d allow dreary weather on the eve of Arithon’s coronation?’

  ‘There should have been rain,’ Luhaine admitted, a touch curt. Although he allowed for the need to avoid any sort of bad omen he liked disturbing nature even less. ‘But Kharadmon diverted the storm northward. The ground mist will burn off before noon.’

  As Lysaer fumbled a course toward the wardrobe he passed other beds in the chamber whose fur quilts lay undisturbed. Dakar would be out drinking. Despite his insistence that Etarrans brewed terrible hops he was willing enough to remedy the lapse with gin; and if the prince of Rathain chose to spend his last night before lifetime commitment to a troubled kingdom in his cups, no friends would fault him for indulgence.

  Still overheated, Lysaer tossed his cloak over one shoulder and quietly let himself out.

  The high-walled garden that adjoined the guest-chamber lay silvered and fringed with dew. Chilled to gooseflesh as dampness hit his wet skin, Lysaer sucked in a deep breath. The air brought no refreshment. The heavy oils burned in the street torches threw off dense smoke which stung his nose and throat. Mingled scents from the incenses used to mask the stench from the sewers also overwhelmed the natural fragrance of earth and unfurling spring lilacs. Two dogs snarled in the distance; a woman shouted shrill imprecations, while nearer at hand, running steps pattered ahead of a night-sentry’s tramp. Despite Lysaer’s preference for cities Etarra possessed an evasive, disturbing restlessness. The more determinedly he strove to grasp the deep currents of intrigue, to empathize with the needs of the guild ministers who held the reins of power, the greater his reflected unease. As little as he had liked Ithamon’s desolation, he felt still less at home here.

  He made his concession to the damp, finally, and flicked his cloak over his back. Where he had been overheated, now his discomfort derived from chill. Certainly, he held no envy for the
kingship that Arithon was pledged to inherit.

  Slowly, insidiously, Etarra’s corruption had grown to haunt Lysaer in ways that undermined his beliefs.

  Aching from too many sleepless nights, he parked his shoulder against a pedestal that supported the bust of a dignitary. Crickets cheeped in the flowerbeds; beyond them, the woman’s shouting faded and finally ceased. The distant dogfight dwindled to yelps and the sentry passed, grumbling, around the corner of the streetside wall. Lysaer absorbed the sounds of an unfamiliar world and bitterly reflected upon how deeply the children in the street of the horse knackers had upset his priorities.

  As prince on Dascen Elur he had held his people’s trust. Their needs had become one with his own, taken into his heart as fully as he had striven to embrace understanding of Etarra’s governor’s council. The high officials were responding; even Lord Commander Diegan had softened his stance to proffer an easy friendship. Confidence in his ability to mete out fair treatment had always before given Lysaer the focus to satisfy his inborn drive to seek justice.

  Up until today, honour had seemed a tangible, changeless absolute, that made each choice clear-edged.

  The urge to pace, to storm across the dark garden to escape the entanglement of some unseen trap became nearly too strong to deny. Lysaer forced himself to stillness. He sucked in the perfume of the lilacs and made himself examine why five minutes in the poor quarter should shatter his viewpoint’s simplicity. The dilemma held multiple facets. One could not serve the guilds without destroying the children enslaved in the workhouses; the merchants’ rights to safe trade could not be enforced without condoning headhunters and the butchery that visited bloodshed upon the woodland clansmen.

  Whose cause took priority? In this world of divisive cultures and shattered loyalties, no single foundation of rightness existed.

  The Fellowship sorcerers withheld opinion. They would use their formidable powers to set a prince on a throne and yet would enact no judgement; they did not guide or expect, but encouraged their chosen royal heir to rule by his gifts and his conscience.

  That stock of responsibility became suffocating. Lysaer laid his head against the stonework that supported his shoulders and agonized over a justice no longer obvious. Principles were what a man made them. Sheltered since birth by the cares of a straightforward kingdom, he found himself painfully lost at formulating law for himself. Etarra tormented him by ploughing up doubts and possibilities: his own lost realm of Tysan might bear equal measure of thorny, insoluble suffering. He had been taught his statesmanship there and had perhaps never seen beyond the walls of his palace to notice.

  ‘Daelion Fatemaster, what a muddle!’ he exploded in tight frustration.

  He believed himself to be alone. When a woman’s voice answered from the gate trellis, he started and banged his shoulder against the scrolled beard of the statue.

  Surprise caused her words to escape him. ‘What? Who’s there?’ He looked, but saw no one in the foggy murk between the topiary.

  ‘Not an enemy.’ Her voice was cool and pleasantly modulated, her crisp accent, other than Etarran. She moved, appeared out of the mists on the path as a silhouette muffled in cloaks; not elderly, by her grace, but impossible to judge as to age.

  ‘Who are you?’ Vaguely familiar as she seemed, Lysaer could not push past recent memories of Talith to place where he may have encountered her.

  ‘We’ve met, but so briefly you might not recall. In the house of Enithen Tuer.’ She had better night-sight than he; at least, she sat without groping on a stone bench set invisibly in a cranny beside the hedge. A passing dray’s lantern shot fuzzed diamonds of light through the latticed gate. Stray beams brushed copper glints in the hair that trailed loose from her hood.

  ‘The enchantress,’ Lysaer said in recognition. He added, accusing, ‘But Arithon knew you better than I.’

  A night-time visit to the hayloft in the Ravens Tavern hung unmentioned between them. Elaira tucked her hands beneath her cloak, that Lysaer might not see how her nerves had been shaken. ‘You don’t approve of your half-brother’s midnight excursions.’

  Her guess was accurate; also, on the tail of his self-examination, hurtfully near the meat of his recent uncertainties. Unsure whether she toyed with him, Lysaer pushed away from the pedestal. He crossed the gravel path to gain a better view of her features. The layers of her hoods kept her veiled. He decided to risk honest answer. ‘I’m not sure. Arithon takes unconscionable risks, looking for pearls among beggars. I prefer the simpler reality, that the means to uplift the unfortunate are better controlled from the council chamber. A man can feed the hungry and clothe beggars all his life and not change the conditions that make them wretched.’

  The lady considered a moment then offered, ‘Your vision and Arithon’s are very different. As a spirit schooled to power, his perception stems from one absolute. Universal harmony begins with recognition that the life in an ordinary pebble is as sacred as conscious selfhood. Both views are equally valid.’

  Lysaer responded in stifled antagonism. ‘And just what’s your stake in all this?’ He felt hagridden enough, without her unasked for exploration of his conscience.

  She was stung; her sigh was drawn out and hinted at diffidence. Still, she did not shy back from the truth. ‘I was sent. Direct orders from my superiors: to seek out the princes given sanction to rule and to interact enough to test their mettle.’

  He stepped back, felt the dripping lip of a second stone bench and sank down facing her. Fiercely he said, ‘What have you found?’

  That Etarra offers entanglement enough to torture any man and suffering very clearly bares the spirit. As a prince must, you place love and care for the masses before individual suffering.’ Her hood moved; perhaps she looked down in embarrassment for her snooping. Arithon trapped under such scrutiny would have cut off further inquiry through sarcasm; Lysaer more civilly chose silence. Drawn to shared sympathy by his tact, Elaira said, ‘I saw your half-brother earlier, when he made ships out of shadows in the knackers’ alley.’

  Lysaer could not stem his curiosity, nor did he hide his concern for the strain on Rathain’s prince that even the sorcerers could not ease. ‘Arithon spoke to you then?’

  ‘No.’ She was sharp. ‘I dressed in disguise as a lad. He was never allowed to see my face. And please, I would mind very much if you told him.’

  The vehemence she could not quite curb sparked Lysaer to exclamation. ‘You were the lady he acted to defend when Koriani scryers tried to spy out our affairs in Ithamon!’

  ‘I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.’ She forestalled his impulse to explain, angry, or intensely afraid. ‘Keep still. If it concerns the Koriani Senior Circle, I’m far better off left ignorant.’

  ‘Arithon cares for you,’ Lysaer said, his first impulse to soften her distress.

  ‘He weeps for the grass that he treads on.’ Elaira stiffened, indignant at his solicitude. ‘You should know, as a scion of s’Ilessid, that the s’Ffalenn royal gift is forced empathy!’ She stood in a reckless haste that showered dew from the bushes as her cloak caught. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘But your errand.’ Lysaer stood also. Effortlessly considerate, he bent and unhooked the snagged cloth without touching her. ‘Surely your purpose is incomplete?’

  Elaira shook her head as he straightened. The dark had begun to lift with the earliest glimmer of dawn; the eyes that met his from under voluminous layers of clothing sparkled, filled with tears that only magnified their intensity. Yet when she spoke, her voice was hammered and level. ‘I have what I came to this garden for. You do not, if you left your bed to find calm.’

  Lysaer gently took her arm. ‘I’ll see you to the gate,’ he said politely.

  Relieved to discover he was gentleman enough not to pry, she smiled in piercing gratitude. In a sympathy tuned so closely to his inner dilemma that this time no sensibilities were offended, she said, ‘Speaking strictly for myself, I would spill blood to release those clan
children from slavery in the knacker’s yard. But then, female instinct drives me to condemn exploitation of the young. A man might arrange his priorities differently.’

  Lysaer steered her past the spears of the spring’s sprouting lilies, his hand warm and sure on her arm. ‘It is not what you would do, or what I would. Pity Arithon, for as he said, tomorrow Etarra becomes his problem. I only pray that the guildsmen don’t murder him before he’s had his chance to act at all.’

  They had reached the gate. Lysaer’s touch dropped away as he raised the latch and opened the panel to let her through.

  Elaira passed beneath the trellis. ‘What this realm will kill for certain is your half-brother’s musical talent. Mourn that.’

  And then she was gone, a shadow vanished into foggy streets that no lantern could fully illuminate.

  Preparations

  As dawn silvers the cloud-cover above the forested hills of Deshir, relays of barbarian couriers race at speed through thinning rains bearing the call-to-arms for clan encampments to the north and east…

  Guarded from outside interference, sealed in a seamless stone flask, the uncounted entities that comprise the Mistwraith, Desh-thiere, brood upon two half-brothers whose gifts have seen them doomed to oblivion…

  Grey seas heave off the north coast of Fallowmere, where a rainstorm spends the torrents that should have fallen upon lands far south; while skies brighten flawless aquamarine and citrine above the square bastions of Etarra, the sorcerer responsible for nature’s violation touches runes of well-binding upon plants, soil, and wild creatures, and begs their forgiveness for his act…

  XIV. CORONATION DAY

  At the hour past sunrise on the day appointed for Arithon’s coronation, the door to Morfett’s guest-chamber banged open. Dakar sallied in from the hallway, his head and torso eclipsed behind a towering mound of state clothing. He tottered across the tile floor, shed his armload across the nearest divan and announced, ‘These are yours. Asandir’s orders.’ Gloating, insouciant, rumpled from a night’s hard drinking and the full- blown effects of a hangover, he added, ‘I’m told to watch you dress to make sure that you leave nothing out.’