The Curse of the Mistwraith

by Janny Wurts

  ‘Oh yes.’ Dakar launched off and rocked two tipsy steps across the threshold. ‘They’re here. Trust me. Sethvir just forgets to light candles.’

  Suspicious, still bristling from the force required to stand down Gnudsog and his squad at the ram, Diegan sniffed. An acridity like cinders yet lingered, as if a torch had gone out not long since.

  ‘There.’ Dakar swayed on braced feet, forgetful that darkness masked the area where he pointed.

  The space proved not to be empty. Clipped and grainily hoarse, Asandir said in ghostly rebuke, ‘You call this keeping Etarra’s captain of the guard under house-arrest?’

  Diegan nearly started out of his jewelled doublet.

  Dakar lost his balance and sat. ‘The wine,’ he admitted on the tail of a soulful grunt. ‘We drank both flagons, and Diegan pleaded. Where’s Lysaer?’ Then, as muddled wits or his eyesight recovered, he noticed the nearly subliminal glow fixed under ward before Sethvir. Dakar squinted, identified the configurations for a seal of imprisonment and inside, a whirling, twisted light that made his stomach heave. Not the after-effect of indulgence, this sickness, nor the clench of impending prophecy: his nausea stemmed instead from reaction to something warped outside of nature.

  Dakar’s stupor cleared. ‘You knew!’ he accused.

  Asandir’s correction was instant. ‘Suspected. Without command of Name we had no means to foresee how Desh-thiere’s harm would choose to manifest. And with your second bout of prophecy made in conflict with the first, we had no clear path to choose.’

  ‘I don’t even know my second prophecy.’ Deflected by personal injury, Dakar looked down as if to make sure of the floor. That led him to cast about for something solid to lean on, until sight of Lysaer on the pallet refuelled his disrupted train of enquiry. ‘So you did nothing,’ he berated his Fellowship masters, and rage bled away into a sorry, drunken grizzle. ‘Ah, Ath, like us all, Lysaer trusted you.’

  Through the cracked-open panels of two siege-doors beat the roar of an enraged populace, cut across by Gnudsog’s bellowed orders. Words carried faintly, reviling mages and royalty. The rabble had begun to chant.

  Against that backdrop of ugliness, Diegan confronted the two sorcerers. ‘So, will you also do nothing now?’

  Sethvir arose. At his wave, flames burst afresh from the torch stub. Hot light flooded across the armoury, snagged to sparks on the metal filings scattered in swathes from the sharpening wheel; on the racked gleam of blades that soon would run dull with new blood; and on the amethysts and diamonds sewn on Diegan’s doublet, which jerked to his passionate breaths.

  Mild as sunfaded velvet before the whetted weapons that ringed him round, the Warden of Althain blinked. ‘Do you wish our help?’

  ‘I wish Dharkaron’s curse upon you all, never more fervently than now!’ Diegan shoved briskly forward; bullion fringes snapped at his boot cuffs as he stopped and stared down at Lysaer. ‘What have you done to him? Killed him? Because he spoke out against your prince?’

  ‘They wouldn’t harm him,’ Dakar interrupted. ‘Lysaer’s gift of light will be needed to lift off Arithon’s blight of shadows.’

  ‘So, it’s true!’ Diegan’s black eyes flicked from Sethvir to Asandir. ‘The king you tried to foist on us is one of you, a sorcerer born and trained. You forced our governors to stand down, on threat of riots. Well, we have them now regardless. Guild houses are afire. The minister’s palace and governor’s hall are being stormed this moment by the rabble.’

  To every appearance unruffled by Diegan’s accusations, Sethvir fingered his beard. Of Lysaer he said to his colleague, ‘I do regret releasing him before we know Arithon’s fate.’

  ‘We don’t have any choice.’ Asandir set his hands upon the blond head of the prince on the litter and engaged a gentle call to wake. Sethvir’s appalling disclosure of one wraith’s botched humanity had overturned every priority. The disposition of Desh-thiere to safer captivity at Rockfell perforce must take precedence, and Etarra survive its own course. The Lord Governor’s standing had been undermined past the point where his authority could be salvaged. Lysaer alone could burn off Arithon’s stranglehold of shadows and stop the spread of panic and misdirected bloodshed; even if afterward Desh-thiere’s curse would drive him to turn the city garrison as a weapon against his half-brother.

  The strands, after all, had converged in this forecast of war.

  ‘You shall have what you asked for.’ Asandir met Diegan’s rancour with a calm made terrible by perception. ‘Battle, misunderstanding and a cause to perpetuate bitter hatred.’

  Under his ministrations, Lysaer stirred and moaned.

  Diegan knelt quickly and shook the s’Ilessid prince’s arm. ‘Are you all right? Friend, did they hurt you?’

  Lysaer opened his eyes. He looked lost for a moment. Then he turned his head, frowned, and focused clearly upon Asandir.’ Ath forgive me,’ he whispered. ‘I had a nightmare. Or is it true, that I smashed Elshian’s lyranthe?’

  Asandir all but flinched; his glance of inquiry hardened to misery as, from the sidelines, Sethvir gave sad affirmation.

  Pity roughened his words as he said, ‘Whatever you recall was no dream. Etarra has been driven to riot. Since your actions have discredited Rathain’s prince, your talents are needed immediately to restore the city to order.’

  Only then did the grinding noise of the mob reach Lysaer’s notice. He sat up, saw Diegan, then flushed as other memories flooded back. ‘Arithon. Whatever I said, he’s caused mayhem, set shadows and terror in the streets.’ Then, his inflection so changed that it jarred, he added, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘You speak of your half-brother,’ Sethvir rebuked, hoping against chance to shock back some buried spark of conscience.

  But Desh-thiere’s curse had imbedded irrevocably deep, and old malice resurfaced in force. ‘He’s bastard-born, and no relation of mine.’

  ‘Ill-feeling cannot alter fact, Teir’s’Ilessid,’ Asandir cracked back. ‘You go to spill a kinsman’s blood.’

  Lysaer was unmoved. ‘I go to redress an injustice. Mark this. When I find your lying get of a s’Ffalenn pirate, I’ll see him dead and thrown in pieces to the headhunters’ pack of tracking dogs!’

  ‘Then we have no more to say.’ Asandir arose, cold to his core. He stepped over Dakar, who drowsed in an inebriated heap.

  Lord Diegan, commander of Etarra’s garrison was first to move toward the door the sorcerer swung open. Tight-lipped in vindication, he said to Lysaer, ‘I admire your ambition. But first, my friend, we have to hunt down this prince of shadows.’

  ‘He’s prince of nothing! And finding him should be simple.’ Lysaer matched step beside the elegant Lord Commander. Urgently speaking, he departed without a backward glance.

  From the wardroom, Lord Diegan’s shout cast back echoes. ‘Gnudsog! Forget about the spare arms. Assemble a patrol double-quick! Dispatch them to the warehouse district to scour the alleys. If fortune favours, the Master of Shadows will be there. Hustle, and we’ll take him in the act of freeing convicts!’

  The wardroom doors boomed closed. Shut off from the din in the streets, a contrary draught eddied between bowstaves and halberds and showered red sparks from the torchflame. Left amid crawling shadows and the slow-falling dust of the armoury, Asandir sat on a shot cask. The glance he cast after the vagrant breeze was balefully focused and grim. ‘Arithon’s been and gone from the warehouse quarter, I trust.’

  Luhaine’s staid tones answered. ‘I couldn’t be sure. The child convicts were released within the hour. The locksmith and the waggoners hired to free them were paid off with gold acquired from pawning a crown emerald. The gem took some trouble to recover.’

  ‘The children?’ Sethvir cut in. For a fast check into the district had revealed the same wagons overturned by the fury of the mob.

  ‘Dispersed. They’ll hide like rabbits, then bolt for open country as they can.’ Luhaine resumed his report. ‘Arithon’s horse is gone from the stables. A half-caniste
r of the narcotic herb tienelle was taken from Sethvir’s saddle-packs.’

  The Warden of Althain brightened. ‘Let Arithon keep it. He’s not unschooled in its use, and against Etarra’s armed garrison he’s going to need every advantage.’

  ‘So I thought, also.’ Luhaine paused. ‘I contacted Kharadmon.’

  ‘To reverse the storm?’ Sethvir sucked in his cheeks to stifle a harried, madcap smile. ‘But that’s brilliant! If Diegan’s going to roust out the garrison, let his search-parties rust their gear to a fare-thee-well in a cold northeasterly downpour.’ Next moment, his expression distanced into self-satisfied relief. ‘Bless Ath, he’s shown sense.’

  ‘Arithon?’ Asandir cut in. ‘You found him?’

  No small bit irked, Luhaine said, ‘How? Where?’

  Long used to untwisting the myriad affairs of five kingdoms, the Warden of Althain tugged out a tangle he found in his beard. ‘There’s but one dun mare in this region with a white splash marked on her neck.’ Then, in delight undimmed by the reproof of expectant colleagues, he answered the original question. ‘She’s past the main gate, and driving at speed down the north road. Which means Arithon eventually must ride into the patrols of Steiven, regent of Rathain.’

  ‘That’s no good news,’ Dakar grumbled from his pose of flat-out prostration.

  Luhaine was swift in agreement. ‘Steiven has just one ambition, and that’s to collect every Etarran guildmaster’s severed head.’

  Sethvir threw up his hands. ‘Bloody war’s a fine sight better than the s’Ffalenn royal line cut dead by a sword in an alley!’ He subsided in belated recollection that Luhaine was yet uninformed; the renewed priorities forced on them by the Mistwraith’s warped ties to humanity had yet to realign his opinion.

  While Asandir in tart chastisement jabbed a toe in the ribs of his apprentice, who seemed inclined to drop off snoring. ‘Arithon dead, don’t forget, would doom your Black Rose Prophecy to failure.’

  ‘You want Davien back?’ The Mad Prophet opened drink-glazed eyes in martyred affront. That’s fool rotten logic, when his betrayals were what dethroned your high kings in the first place!’

  Muster

  Shadow lay thick over Etarra’s streets, the torches in their rusted brackets smothered to haloes of murky orange. The strife, the cries, the clash of steel weaponry and Gnudsog’s gruff oaths sounded eerily muffled; as if the unnatural darkness lent the heavy air a texture like wet batting. Kept insulated from the jostle of the mobs, embedded like fine treasure amid the fast-striding tramp of armed escort, Diegan regarded the ally but lately forsworn from the Fellowship sorcerers’ grand cause.

  Lysaer looked angry-pale: white skin, gold hair, bloodless lips. His expression remained remote as smoothed marble as they passed some rich man’s door-page being bullied by ruffians from the shanties. The curve of Lysaer’s nostrils did not flare at the stench of spilled sewage that slimed the cobbles. His wide, light brows never rose at the measures the guard escort took to clear a rampaging gang of masons who had smashed a butcher’s door to steal cleavers. Torches and halberds reflected in those eyes; but their gem-stone hardness stayed untouched.

  From a side-alley too squalid for lanterns a woman cried entreaties. A man’s bellowed curses ended with the sound of a smack against flesh, and a cur with raised hackles raced into the vanguard ranks, caught a boot in the flank, and tumbled yelping. The advance guard turned another corner in their progress toward the town hall, and Lysaer stepped over the crippled dog with barely the flicker of a glance.

  Diegan fastened his braided cloak ties against a shiver of discomfort. ‘Is it true?’ he asked softly.

  That splintered sapphire gaze disconcertingly turned on him. ‘What?’ Lysaer blinked, and seemed partially to come back to himself. ‘Is what true?’

  Cold eyes, warm voice; Diegan steeled himself. No coward despite his dandy looks, he forced the necessary enquiry. ‘Your lineage. Are you royal? Does that sorcerer’s upstart really share your blood as half-brother?’

  Lysaer’s look went straight through him. ‘Would you claim kinship with a byblow forced upon a queen by abduction and rape?’ The little falsehood came easily, that his mother’s flight to embrace her s’Ffalenn paramour had never extended through a year of willing dalliance. A frown marred Lysaer’s features as he wondered upon the memory that, he would once have spoken differently; that he had in some other time challenged his royal father to intercede for the pirate bastard’s comfort.

  That event seemed distant, as cut off as a stranger’s memory. Brave, Lysaer had seen himself then; honourable and just. Now, his past pity seemed the puling naivete of a fool, to have invited his own downfall and thrown away heirship in Amroth for adherence to one painful truth. A lie cost so little, in comparison; and by today’s outcome, his losses being permanent and Arithon having shown his true nature, the fib to Diegan might as well have been the plain truth. Feeling giddy and light, as if the burden of heaven’s arch had been unyoked from his shoulders, Lysaer almost laughed.

  ‘You’re royal as he, then,’ Diegan murmured in dark conclusion. He caught Lysaer’s fierce flare of mirth and reassessed: both hysteria and the queer lack of emotion were quite likely the effects of profound shock. Moved to sympathy, the Lord Commander softened his accusation. ‘That’s difficult. Most awkward.’

  ‘Not at all.’ The next lie came easily to Lysaer’s tongue. ‘I may be a king’s son, and legitimate, but not on Athera’s soil. What inheritance I could claim by birthright lies beyond the span of a worldgate, unreachable, reft from me by the doings of s’Ffalenn.’

  ‘A prince in exile, then?’ pressed Diegan.

  Lysaer’s smile was sudden as spring-thaw. ‘No prince at all, friend. I was formally disinherited, a victim of sorcerer’s wiles, as you are. Etarra’s people shall have my help for their own sake. Rest content. I find just vengeance sufficient.’

  They passed the juncture of another alley; Diegan scanned the cross-street out of ingrained habit: such sites were prime places for high-bred officials to be ambushed. ‘Then your mother was not s’Ffalenn?’

  ‘No, can’t you guess?’ Lysaer grimaced on an edge of pain deep buried from childhood. ‘My mother, may Dharkaron Ath’s Avenger visit judgement on the seed of her shame, was the sadly ravished queen.’

  Ahead loomed the market square, its arched entry ghost-lit by the lamps. In the strange and strangled light, the luck-shrines tucked under carven gables were grotesquely clotted with wax from the candles left lit by ambitious merchants. The little tin talismans that should have jangled to warn of iyats hung silent, gripped fast in the windless dark.

  The mob pressed thicker, where farmers won over to the cause of restored monarchy hurled insults and loose bricks at guild tradesmen. Now and again the crossfire of debris would clang off the face of a targe. More soldiers had bolstered Diegan’s escort. These newcomers brought the fire-caught glint of gilt trappings and the weapons they brandished were still streamered with ceremonial colours. Drawn from the squads originally posted to keep order through the coronation processional, their splendid appointments lent Gnudsog with his scars and nicked field-gear the hard-bitten look of a felon.

  Disturbance ruffled the ranked columns. A messenger in governor’s livery burst through, breathing hard, his cheek disfigured by a bruise. He cried above the din for Lord Diegan.

  ‘Here’s news!’ bellowed Gnudsog to his commander. ‘You can’t want it now, lord. Better to hear inside sanctuary, after we reach the council hall.’

  ‘No!’ The courier’s voice cracked in terror. ‘Not there! The hall’s been locked fast by fell sorcery.’

  ‘Traithe,’ Lysaer said tersely. At Diegan’s taut-jawed flare of outrage, he raised a placating hand. ‘The ministers inside won’t be harmed.’

  Amethysts and diamonds spat glints through murk as the commander of the guard spun around. ‘Send the man through. I’ll hear him now.’

  Soldiers gave way to admit the courier. His shirt was torn a
t the shoulder, and the knuckles of one hand were skinned raw. ‘I’m lucky to have reached you at all, lord. Looters have kicked down the lamp-posts for quarterstaves, with three city aldermen battered dead.’

  ‘You have news?’ Diegan yanked the man up by his collar.

  Just then aware of who attended his Lord Commander, the messenger gasped and flung away. ‘But my lord! That blond man is lackey for the sorcerers!’

  High tempered, about to hail Gnudsog to end the fool’s dithering by blows, Diegan started at a touch upon his arm. He swung, restrained by the steady gaze of Lysaer.

  The prince who had abjured all rights to royal rank said gently, ‘No. After Arithon’s betrayal, any man’s enmity is fair. Let me prove myself worthy of trust, his, yours, and Etarra’s.’ The prince in his tinsel velvets showed a proud, unpractised majesty, and the result of unprepossessing humbleness clothed in grace and shining wealth combined to powerful effect.

  The messenger was moved to stand down. ‘Your pardon, great lord.’ He bent to touch his forelock and stopped, aghast at his dripping knuckles.

  Lysaer startled him from embarrassment with a kindly clap on the shoulder. ‘Forget titles. Against the Master of Shadow, we are equal in station, you and I.’ Then, as if screaming, rampaging mobs were not being thumped by Gnudsog’s soldiers, as if no darkness choked sight, he probed with gentle questions for information.

  Diegan watched, awed, as the messenger stopped quaking and answered. Very quickly they learned that Traithe’s spells disbarred the council lords from action. Surly as an old, scarred tiger, Gnudsog allowed that while his squads could batter down doorpanels well enough, wards of sorcery were another matter.

  ‘Then we won’t use force,’ Lysaer said equably. To the courier, he added, ‘You’ve crossed the main square by the council hall. What’s become of the grand dais built for the s’Ffalenn pretender’s speeches?’

  The courier rolled his eyes. ‘Rioters been having at it, sure enough. A pack o’ guild apprentices came with prybars and staves to tear it down, but farmers with drays blocked it off, flying leopard banners and swearing they’ll enforce the crown charter for their land rights.’