The Curse of the Mistwraith

by Janny Wurts

  ‘Extremists from both factions?’ Lysaer grinned. ‘That’s perfect.’ He laughed and turned shining, exultant eyes toward Diegan, who remained mystified, and Gnudsog, who kneaded the scars on his sword arm in fixed and unholy irritation. ‘Since your councilmen cannot act to calm their city, here is how we’ll do it for them.’

  They marched briskly and gained the square. Gnudsog formed his men into a flying wedge and bashed through the rioting apprentices from the rear. Swords and steel-shod halberd butts made short work of wooden staves; the dray with its spilled crates of melons and string-tied half-trampled chickens afforded only minimal delay. Gnudsog’s men used polearms for levers and had the vehicle set upright in a trice. By then, combatants on both sides screamed curses, united in common cause against the soldiers.

  While the fighting shifted focus, Lysaer mounted the unguarded stair, littered with torn-down snarls of bunting, and leopard banners that beleaguered torchlight re-rendered from s’Ffalenn green and silver to funereal black. Fired by righteous purpose, he paused to comfort a farm lad who knelt with his gashed cheek compressed with the wadded-up tail of a streamer. A word, a touch, a light joke, and the boy was induced to smile. Today’s ripped face would leave a scar that would win him no endearments from the tavernmaids. Another bit of ruin to swell an already vicious score. Unmindful that a curse drove his enmity, Lysaer reached the upper platform where a s’Ffalenn turned traitor to his birthright should have pledged Etarra his protection.

  The Fellowship had chosen a site of favourable visibility and acoustics. Lysaer paused between the stripped and splintered awning poles, given vantage to every corner of the square.

  Before him spread the city’s tragic turmoil. Picked out in pallid lanternlight, small episodes stood out: the screaming craftsmen who brandished tools and uprooted stakes from the awning ties; the drunken laughter and gyrating celebration of a raggedy band of looters; a woman clutching a torn dress. And an elderly burgher beset in extremity, his cane struck away, the rim of a broken flowerpot his last weapon to fend off his attackers.

  Misgiving for their plights dispelled the disorientation that lingered since Lysaer’s reawakening. Desh-thiere’s realignment of his loyalties was irrevocably complete.

  His hour under the wraith’s possession he now blamed on spells laid to daze and confuse him; that the Fellowship would act to abet Arithon’s escape was a foregone conclusion, since they had persistently refused to lend credence to any of his past crimes of piracy. That fallacy must no longer be allowed to hinder mercy. Neither could widespread riots be stopped through hard-edged action. Restored to compassionate perception, Lysaer saw he had been callous to presume that he could loose the full might of his gift and crack the pall of shadow from the sky.

  A populace driven by mass panic might well mistake a violent counterstrike for an attack by enemy sorcery; no act, however well-intentioned, must lend further impetus to panic. A subtle approach would encourage reason; light must flow gently as a balm over a city whose loyalties were ripped open like bleeding wounds.

  Lysaer raised his hands.

  His gift had become more malleable to his will through the months of battle against Desh-thiere; further, the hours spent working in partnership with Arithon lent Lysaer every confidence that he could plumb any weaving of shadow.

  The shouts, the screams, the crack of wood against steel as roisterers harried Gnudsog’s line of soldiers faded before deep concentration as Lysaer sent a subliminal tracer glow aloft. Quietly, subtly he tested the bindings of darkness the Shadow Master had set over the city.

  The probe was swallowed utterly. A dark inexhaustible as ocean, as seamlessly wrapped as a death caul seemed to make mockery of his effort. Lysaer clamped down on fresh anger. No pall could be infinite. Not even the Fellowship commanded limitless power. Lysaer turned reason and objectivity against the heat of his enmity. His next probe picked up the thread of magecraft cleverly intermeshed with the shadows. Not only had the illusion tricked him to assume the night had no boundaries, Lysaer exposed a second error of presumption, that Arithon must be inside city walls.

  Stay-spells anchored these shadows. A sorcerer’s training allowed the Master’s spun darkness to abide outside of his presence.

  Very likely the daylight had been banished to cover a bolt to escape. Lysaer found no cause to forgive, that the attack had not been turned in direct malice against Etarra’s citizens. Riots had arisen from the upset. By royal duty, the man who should have been first to keep peace had without scruple seized the most damaging means at hand to duck his responsibility.

  Justice would be served, Lysaer vowed. For each life lost, for each hurt caused by negligence, Arithon s’Ffalenn would be brought to account.

  The dark-ward must be lifted straightaway. Lysaer extended his arms. A glow bloomed upward. Golden as late-day sunlight on an autumn meadow, the halo he cast from his person could never be mistaken for torchlight.

  Across the rush and tumult in the square, through the barricade of raised polearms wielded by Gnudsog’s guard, eyes turned toward that source of indefinable illumination. Etarra’s traumatized citizens saw one man casting brave challenge against the dark.

  Someone shouted. Hands raised in the press, pointing toward the glow that spread from the lone blond figure on the dais. The fighting nearest Gnudsog’s embattled lines faltered. Farmers stared, bricks and cart-axles torn out for bludgeons dangling forgotten in their hands as belligerence gave way to wonder. Rough men who prowled to steal and pillage spun from doorways suddenly rinsed clean of shadow. Stripped of their cover, they dodged away into side-streets to avoid arrest by the watch. Guild bands of more directed hatreds paused on their way to disadvantage rival factions. Least brazen, the craftsmen and the shopkeepers clustered in their fearful bands cried out at the rebirth of the light that would spare their property and livelihood. ‘We are saved!’

  Lord Diegan answered from the dais stair. ‘By the grace of Lysaer of the Light, our city shall recover prosperity!’

  ‘Lysaer of the Light!’ hailed a mason with roughened hands. His chant was taken up, until the central square of Etarra rang to a thousand raised voices.

  The golden circle widened, waxed brighter. Lysaer’s hands seemed bathed in a fountainhead of gilt sparks. Light burnished his hair like fine metal and glanced off the tinsel stitching banding his lace cuffs and pourpoint. The face tipped upward under that swathe of illumination showed no change at the clamour of the crowd. Fine-chiselled in concentration, the lord from the west who wrought miracles seemed an angel sent down into squalor from the exalted hosts of Athlieria.

  Even Gnudsog was inspired from dourness. ‘He has the look on him, like a prince.’ Eyes dark as swamp-peat swivelled and fixed on Lord Diegan. ‘Don’t let your ninnies in the council be handing him a crown in silly gratitude.’

  Not entirely mollified as the chanting swelled to rattle the farthest windows of the square, Etarra’s Lord Commander gave back a grim grin. ‘What Lysaer wants for his service is the head of the prince of Rathain.’

  ‘Good.’ Gnudsog smiled. On his grizzled features, the expression made no improvement; the scars and chipped teeth from past scraps made him baleful enough to inspire prayers of deliverance from a headhunter. ‘For that, on my sword, he’ll have my help.’

  The subject of Etarra’s adulation alone remained oblivious; Lysaer’s engagement with Arithon’s sorceries required total concentration. Even under barrage by pure light, the shadows proved stubborn to shift. Like inkstains set in pale felt, they resisted with a fierceness that at times made them seem to push back. Again, Lysaer stepped up his countermeasure. Time passed. As the light poured steadily from him, he tracked only the retreat of the dark. Blind to all else, deaf to Diegan’s encouragement, he missed the exultant moment when Etarra lay lit from wall to wall by the fiery glow of his gift. Lamps and torches brightened even the dimmest back-alleys where Gnudsog sent patrols to quell any unreformed rioters.

  By afternoon, the merc
hants unlocked their mansions. Drawn by wild rumours and by the burning, continuous flow of light, people from all quarters of the city reemerged to pack the main square. The chanting subsided and later died into an awe-struck silence.

  Locked in his private crusade against the dark, Lysaer did not stir when the city governors reawakened to discover their council hall doors were fastened closed by nothing beyond everyday bolts and latches.

  At some point, unseen, the sorcerer Traithe had departed.

  Humbled as they heard of the s’Ilessid prince who had shouldered their cause against monarchy, Etarra’s high officials gathered on the dais. Amid splintered laths and ripped silk, they stood in vigil at Lysaer’s side.

  Lost to their presence, bathed in a blinding dazzle, Lysaer wrestled the frustration that Arithon’s greater training had defeated him. Determination held him steadfast. Etarra’s plight would be spoken for until his last strength became spent. The shadows by now were beaten back outside the walls. Beyond hearing that the bloodshed had ended: driven past the point of caring by the curse-born obsession to obliterate the works of his half-brother, Lysaer hammered out light in singleminded ferocity.

  Diegan was closest when the wide-spread arms began to shudder. The light-rinsed hands finally spasmed to fists in the extremity of advanced exhaustion, and a tremor racked Lysaer’s body. He swayed on his feet, and there at his side was Etarra’s Lord Commander to lend him support as he crumpled.

  Lysaer’s eyes flicked open then, agonized in abject defeat.

  Moved to compassion, Lord Diegan said, ‘Lysaer, it’s all right. The riots are ended. You’ve done well enough to stop the bloodshed, and the shadows are cleared past the gates.’

  ‘All is not right!’ His next line a whisper of unrequited fury, Lysaer collapsed in Diegan’s arms. ‘Nothing is ended. Neither dark nor the prince of darkness shall rule in Rathain while I live.’

  Spoken from the dais where a crowned king should have sworn oath to uphold the royal charter, the acoustics arranged by the Fellowship picked up the softest words. The passion in Lysaer’s promise carried clearly to the edges of the square.

  Silence reigned for perhaps a dozen heartbeats. Then air itself seemed to shatter as the gathered mass of Etarra’s thousands released its pent breath and cheered in full-throated approval. The roar of the accolade shook the earth. Yet the prince who had won their reprieve from pure terror heard no sound at all, having fainted in Diegan’s embrace.

  The shadows set over Etarra by Arithon s’Ffalenn cleared shortly after midnight of their own accord. By then, the populace had become enamoured of the hero in their midst; rumour attributed deliverance to the blond-haired prince from the west. The last band of looters languished in irons. Too taciturn to show satisfaction for a long day’s work well done, Gnudsog sat enthroned in the windowseat alcove of Lord Governor Morfett’s best guest suite.

  He looked out of place as a botched carving amid violet and gold tassels and amber cushions. Stripped of his field gear, clad still in the sweaty fleece gambeson he preferred to wear under chainmail, he slugged wine from a huge brass tankard. His peat-bog eyes watched, brooding, as the city’s governing elect crowded the rest of the room’s furnishings and argued in overheated elegance over disposition of his troops.

  Their wilted ribbons and sadly creased sarcenets lent the chamber the feel of a second rate bordello. Couched in their midst, resplendent as any in his velvets and the frost-point fire of his sapphires, Lysaer s’Ilessid lay unconscious or dead asleep in the aftermath of exhaustion. The healer who had examined him said to let him rest, then left without daring a prognosis.

  Apt to be ambivalent over fine points, Gnudsog drank. He cracked his knuckles in impatience. The cant of the councilmen irked him. Repeated searches had established beyond doubt that every Fellowship sorcerer appeared spontaneously to have vanished; squads had turned the warehouse district inside out, to no avail. The meat knacker’s conscripts had scarpered. Little further justice could be done until one shadow-bending criminal could be traced in his flight and eventually arraigned for execution. To which end, Gnudsog ran the house steward’s pages breathless, sending dispatches to his lieutenants and to his far-flung network of scouts.

  When the long-sought news came back to him, along with incontrovertible proof that Arithon’s trail had been picked up, no one heard him through the din of raised voices.

  Gnudsog lost his temper.

  He cracked his tankard down with such force that wine geysered over the brim. Silence fell. The governing elect of Etarra turned heads, balding, curled, and hatted with felts pearled and feathered, to glare down superior noses at the author of untimely poor manners.

  Sublimely untroubled by protocol, Gnudsog wiped his stubbled chin on the back of one hirsute wrist. ‘As I said, he is found. Your shadow-meddling little sorcerer has fled down the north road. By now, he has five hours’ lead, on straight course for the clans of Deshir.’

  The pronouncement launched the room into uproar. The minister of the dyers and spinners guild fired off into maundering monologue, while the mayor of the south quarter flailed his chair arm with his bonnet in a vain attempt to recall order. His thumps were overwhelmed by an excited jabber of speculation, shrilly over-cut by the governor of trade’s expostulation. ‘Ath preserve us! We are lost! Against sorcery and shadows, our best troops will be cut to bleeding dogmeat. What use are good swords, unless the Prince of Light can be convinced or coerced to give us aid?’

  The heads swivelled back, belatedly covetous of the jewelled asset ensconced in their midst. Only now, the blue eyes were opened. Lysaer had wakened to their bickering.

  Gnudsog chuckled at the speed with which Etarra’s high officials rearranged themselves in solicitude. The most prideful and disdainful of pedigreed high-bloods bent to their knees at the side of their intended saviour.

  Amused a bit by their pandering, Lysaer sat up. Thoughtful, frowning through dishevelled gold hair, he said seriously, ‘My support was never in question.’ Declaiming voices stilled to listen. ‘You have my help, as long and as much as you need it. But Etarra must act without hesitation. There will be war, if Arithon survives to win allies. With the northern clans behind him, he could escape justice altogether.’

  ‘The barbarians may be troublesome but they can’t mount a serious threat,’ interjected Pesquil, sallow and lean in the sable sash that denoted top rank in the northern league of headhunters. ‘Our city garrison could wipe out the clans. That much was never at issue. For years, we’ve mapped the campaign. We know the barbarians’ campsites, their bolt-holes, even the location of their caches. What was ever and always the deterrent was allocation of funds to send troops.’

  Lord Governor Morfett blotted streaming temples on the draggled lace of his cuffs. ‘After today’s display of sorcery and shadows, I much doubt the treasury will stint.’

  As the minister of city finances cleared his throat to argue, Lysaer s’Ilessid arose. ‘Ath spare us the war, why wait?’ He caught Diegan’s nod of approval, and added, ‘Strike now with a mounted division, and we might need nothing more than a block and a scaffold for execution.’

  ‘Twenty lancers already ride.’ Across the chamber, Gnudsog was smiling as the officials again heeded his presence. ‘They left the north gate half an hour ago.’

  Lysaer regarded the grizzled captain with engaging concern and respect. ‘Your city could be indebted for your foresight, but lancers might not be enough. Arithon s’Ffalenn is as wily and ruthless as the pirate who fathered him. The more time he gains, the more dangerous he becomes. If we are not to be taken unaware, we must assume now that he will evade your patrol and reach the northern barbarians. Gentlemen, for all your safety, I urge your city to muster immediately for war.’

  ‘We have a quorum!’ Diegan cracked out from his perch of cat-comfort amid the fur quilts. ‘Shall we take the issue to vote?’

  Hands were raised, a count taken and Gnudsog’s smile became voracious. He redirected the outgoi
ng stream of pages to scare up scribes and ink. The city seals were sent for as an afterthought. Within the hour Morfett’s ornamental tables were pressed into service as desks and Gnudsog’s horny fists became weighted with requisitions for provisions, arms and draft teams. Throughout, Lysaer paced the chamber, consumed by restless passion, haranguing reticent officials and cajoling the minister of finance to yield up the keys to the treasury. ‘Strike thoroughly and at once,’ he stressed. ‘Or I can promise you’ll have trouble on a scale your histories have never seen.’

  In all of Athera, he was the sole man qualified to measure the damages that s’Ffalenn wiles could inflict. His greatest fear was in making the Etarrans understand just how perilous an enemy they had against them.

  Just past dawn, Gnudsog’s troop of light cavalry clattered into the citadel’s north bailey. Tired riders dismounted amid the noisy, uprooted industry of a city arming for war. By then the governor’s council looked toward one saviour for guidance. The patrol’s weary officer was sent apace to Lysaer with news that his riders had failed in their mission to capture Arithon.

  Presented across a table littered with crumb-scattered plates and charts spread helter-skelter with the inked-over marks of evolving strategy, the young lancer finished his report. ‘We could not overtake him, my lords. The Shadow Master had a wide lead already, even without Sithaer’s own darkness and a cold that dropped snow to hide his tracks. When we learned he’d snatched a remount from a caravan, we had no choice but turn back. To continue was useless, with our horses winded near to foundering.’

  Sunlight slanted across creased layers of parchments that crackled as Diegan leaned on them; that sound, and the rasp as Lord Governor Morfett scratched his fleshy, stubbled jaws filled an interval of stillness. None of the men had slept or refreshed themselves throughout a night spent planning.