by Janny Wurts
‘Respect my free will,’ he husked through a throat skinned from incessant screaming. ‘I have not broken down in consent.’
Yet will by itself could not master the overwhelming weight of spent flesh. Beaten limp, rendered half-dead by the bleeding rags of s’Ffalenn conscience and the unruly drive of the curse, Arithon sank toward collapse. Pressed to the reeling edge of unconsciousness, he sprawled on chill stone, one aching breath drawn after the next. The sorry truth scourged him, that his last mustered strength seemed insufficient to drag himself back to his feet. A reviling shame, if Davien’s Maze claimed him with an unbroken will, through an outworn body unable to marshal the brute resource to stand upright.
Touched by the first sense of numbing diffusion as spelled powers crept through his being, beginning the process that would unspin his mind, Arithon extended his arm. He forced the lamed effort, wormed another inch forward on his belly.
‘That’s it,’ encouraged a vibrant male voice, just ahead of him. ‘Now reach!’
Arithon opened his bandaged right hand, strained outstretched fingers to their trembling limit.
A hard grasp closed over his blood-slippery wrist, stained wet from the killing at Vastmark. A man’s sure grip pulled, and the floor rolled underneath him, transformed at a breath from cold stone into sun-heated planks. The smells of warm tar and oakum rode the bracing east wind, salt tanged by the booming rush of blue water cleaved by a brigantine’s stem post.
Arithon shut his eyes, overwhelmed by sheer gratitude. The draw of filled canvas and the thrum of taut rigging bespoke the last freedom he owned in the world. The mercy of another unknown savior had delivered him onto the decks of his own vessel, Khetienn.
‘Sail with me,’ invited the speaker, a voice he recognized at last. ‘They say that Ath’s ocean holds all the tears in creation. Man need shed no more. Only allow the rocking of waves and the cry of the wind to ease the sore grief from his heart.’
Arithon unsealed shut lids and looked up, disbelieving. ‘Father?’
Spinning vision showed him Avar s’Ffalenn, his sturdy stance braced against the toss of the swell. Brash and bold as the day he raised Saeriat’s sails, charting the course that had carried a son from Rauven to a prince’s inheritance on Karthan, the sire did not appear royal born. Dark hair was tied back in a sailhand’s braid. A fighting man’s breadth of shoulder, as always, wore sun-faded linen spun from second-rate flax. The rough fibers would have been pulled and spun by Karthan’s women, who wrested their living out of the saltmarshes and bottomlands too poor for raising cattle or barley.
The gray eyes whose compassionate clarity had once won Talera’s love regarded the grown son, now sprawled on the planks at his feet.
‘Your Grace, why are you here?’ Arithon ground out. For this ocean voyage aboard Khetienn had not been launched on Avar’s homeworld of Dascen Elur. She had sailed the uncharted deeps of Athera in vain search for the vanished Paravians.
The pirate king who had once ruled in Karthan flashed a smile of even, white teeth. Laugh lines scored across the old scar of a cutlass and crinkled his weathered features. ‘I’m here because I fathered a man with great heart. You once renounced all the gifts of your upbringing to bring succor to a people who needed you. There is pride in the heritage of our ancestry. Will you stand for it? Or will you languish and let yourself die as a sacrifice to the cause?’
‘What cause was worth this?’ Arithon regarded his dripping hands, still wet with the heartsblood of the slain: both friend and enemy who had marched onto the field to die because he existed. ‘Some who paid sacrifice were my sworn liegemen, and mine, the cruel purpose that killed them.’
Avar raised dark eyebrows, gravely astonished. ‘The dead are beyond pain. You alone suffer, now.’ His grasp upon Arithon’s wrist only tightened. His seafarer’s strength raised his son up from prostration, with no thought at all for the bloodstains wicked up by his cuff. ‘Where is the evil? Show me one man you coerced into war. Find me one child you forced to wield the knife. Name the one enemy you killed out of hatred, or the one woman who was despoiled under your orders. Arithon, you never once compromised the first Law of the Major Balance. You have never misled friend or enemy, or beguiled them from free will.’
Arithon shut his eyes, the bile of self-hatred like a coal on his tongue. ‘I have done worse.’ Seared to a whisper, he added, ‘I have used magecraft to kill, not once, but many times.’
Ahead, still ahead, lay the field at Daon Ramon, and the passing of Jieret, who had been his sworn blood bond, and dearer to him than a brother.
‘The violation of murder is a human error.’ Avar gave him a slight shake, the censure a man might deal a beloved dog who cringed, expecting the whip. ‘A man wreaks harm because he forgets to love peace. He kills because of self-blinded fear, that imagines no other protection.’
‘I am cursed!’ Arithon cried. ‘Desh-thiere’s geas –’
Avar cut him off. ‘Arithon, no! To pronounce yourself condemned in this place is to die. Abandon your own grace, and the maze will tear you to pieces.’
‘What else is my life, but a cipher that upends the peace?’ Arithon locked stares with his father. Silver-gray as the luminosity of sunlight through fog, Avar’s direct gaze encompassed him. As Talera had done, just as anguished before him, he fell and fell, into those fathomless eyes. Their compassion absorbed his jagged-edged pain until the hurt was left no place to rest, except one.
‘I gave Karthan my pledge for peace, your Grace, and then watched you die of an enemy arrow aboard Saeriat,’ Arithon resumed, torn rough by his sorrow. ‘Your realm was abandoned, a kingless prize lying ripe for the vengeance of Amroth.’
‘Yes, I passed the Wheel.’ Avar shifted his grip, eased his son’s stumbling balance to rest against the support of the ship’s rail. The brigantine tossed, the frisky wind driving her close-hauled. Shearing foam boiled up from her rampaging passage. Leaping and splashing against Khetienn’s black strakes, the frothing blue swell of the Cildein carved up into lace and dashed foam.
As the healing of the elements worked its slow magic, Avar resumed the snagged thread of conversation. ‘Amroth’s arrow killed me, but Karthan was not conquered. After your exile, the high mage himself interceded. Rauven forced the peace. The treaties bear the seals your grandfather wrought of grand conjury. His mages came and saw your dream realized. Our island realm is made green again. That is the legacy you left Dascen Elur. In your memory, the heirs of s’Ahelas have pledged their trained talent to stand surety that the long feud with Amroth stays ended.’
As Arithon, who had thought himself emptied of tears, bent his head to crossed forearms and wept, he felt his father’s embrace cradle his shaking shoulders.
‘My son, you are loved. Accept the gift and find respite.’ Avar’s plea took fire, became passionate appeal. ‘Sail with me, prince. Celebrate life for the people of Karthan. They raise no more children, crying in hunger. Nor will they send brothers and husbands to sea, bearing a sword to win plunder.’
Time passed. The calming influence of spring sunlight, sea wind and spray worked their gentle restoration. Arithon settled. His legs bore his weight, and gradually ceased trembling. Uplifted by the surge of sail-driven wood knifing over the ocean, he straightened at last. He found that his fouled hands had washed clean. As he straightened to give thanks, he felt Avar’s steady presence fading to filmed smoke beside him.
‘Father,’ he pleaded, heartsore with regret. ‘Must you leave? I always felt as though I had just found you. If our days in Karthan were too brief, I would not stand here without you.’
The rough-cut s’Ffalenn king who had steered his last landward course smiled fondly. ‘On that point, my son, you are most wrong.’ His expression reflected a tenderness perhaps only Talera had witnessed. ‘Arithon, use your perception as you were taught at Rauven. You will then see the truth. It is I who would not stand here without you. My presence in this maze was admitted by yours. It is ever your own virtu
e that guides you. Remember that! You are your own lamp, through the darkness.’
‘Then what light will guide me past Caolle’s death?’ Arithon cried on a split note of dread. ‘Desh-thiere’s curse claimed my reason in that hour. Where will I turn if the drive of that binding grows too overpowering to control?’
Avar raised his eyebrows, his outline thinned to an iridescent shimmer. ‘Well, there’s one tactic left that you haven’t tried.’
Caught dumbfounded at the rail of his own command, Arithon stiffened. ‘Ath’s earth and sky! I swore my blood oath at Athir to survive!’
In that wry, vicious cunning that had endlessly confounded Amroth’s best-outfitted fleets, Avar laughed. ‘Oh, but death is too obvious, a coward’s trick well beneath your s’Ffalenn name and lineage! Are you not my son? Did Karthan’s outmatched plight teach you nothing?’ The last trace of the pirate king’s form wisped away, leaving only his voice, a challenge flung back on the wind. ‘Desh-thiere’s spells wage a feud, boy! Don’t rely on control! Can’t fall back and negotiate! Take hold of the hell-spawned geas that gnaws you. If you cannot run, you must master it!’
Arithon stared, sightless, at the rolling swells, surging unbroken toward the horizon. ‘Master the curse? Merciful maker!’
For if means existed, why had the combined wisdom of Fellowship spellcraft not found the path to release?
Arithon jabbed savage fingers through his hair, goading his stumbling intellect. The maze collapsed time, caused memories to flow one into the next without regard for scale or proportion. Davien had designed this trial to test a man’s conscience. The thrust of spelled seals held no investment in reward. The victim who had lived all his days in tranquillity could pass through at one stride, without suffering.
The snags came where willed choice threw the mind out of balance. Restored to a measure of healed equilibrium, Arithon felt the respite of seafaring drain away. Now, when he most needed a clear interval to think, vision faded. The confines of the tunnel closed back in. Another breath, one last kiss of sun and salt wind on his cheek, and he faced the inevitable step that must carry him into the reliving at Riverton.
No mercy would be shown, should he stall to think. The maze would allow him no planning. No choice, but to apologize through hard-shut teeth, begging grace from the shade of his father.
Arithon strode forward.
His foot came down, setting him back into the blustery chill of that fateful westshore springtime. Again, he played as the bard in residence at the Laughing Captain Tavern. The languorous days spent winding lyranthe strings, and the deeper threads of subterfuge laced through the works of Tysan’s royal shipyard, were not seen as harmless, in retrospect.
First came the fever-bright dreams, running tracks through his restless sleep. He had tossed in damp sheets, plagued by suggestive whispers, or lured into visions of blood and killing. The nightmares had eluded precise waking recall, eroding his spirit like slow poison and leaving him snappish during the days. Next came the tossing, wakeful nights, battling down the sweating desire to bolt, sword in hand, for the stables. The hours in solitude when he burned like vengeance unleashed to ride flat out toward Avenor. He had flinched like a man ambushed at queer moments, when Lysaer’s image fleeted into his thoughts, striking him to rage like the brutal, swift jab to a nerve.
He quelled the spurious flare of such feelings. Dismissed the stray incidents, or shoved them down. Absorbed in single-minded determination to wrest away Tysan’s ships and spare the clan bloodlines of Camris, Arithon lived and acted his belief that the drive of the geas could be managed.
He rationalized. He argued with Dakar. The Alliance advance guard would not guess his identity. In all of Riverton, only three others knew that a screening of shadow had altered his natural face. The subliminal friction relentlessly mounted, until that last evening, two days before the planned launching.
Again, Arithon sought his bed, dressed to ride. He kept Alithiel at hand, grimly prepared for the possibility he might need to take evasive action. Against the restive pull of the curse, he trusted his fast wits, his hard-set self-control, and his absolute commitment to winning the clans their chance to secure their survival.
In hindsight, he watched the seductive, slow dance, while the curse’s manipulation played him straight into vulnerable blindness.
The maze held to that damning course of events. Arithon struggled to stem rising panic. No power could answer his need for more time. Too soon, his doom overshadowed him. Night led in the fogbound hour before dawn, bringing the Mad Prophet to his bedchamber door. The spellbinder slipped the latch, inflexibly drawn by self-righteous belief that Desh-thiere’s geas had already laid claim to the Teir’s’Ffalenn’s mind.
Too driven to sleep, caught fitfully pacing, the Master of Shadow again took his quiet stance behind the door panel, now swinging open. His ambush, and the bared blade of his sword touched against Dakar’s nape: the damning, first pieces fell as they must, into refigured alignment. Another step down the tunnel unfolded the burgeoning tension as Arithon sought to recover the broached grace of his privacy. Alone, undistracted, he could yet subdue the building force of the curse’s raised currents.
Then the watershed moment arrived: Dakar’s fateful, brash courage as he stood stubborn ground sparked the s’Ffalenn gift of compassion. For the one, fateful instant, Arithon saw himself waver. His resolve became flawed, to wrest back the clarity of solitude. Deflected by the Mad Prophet’s earnest concern, diverted to a self-doubting review of his intact defenses, he had lapsed. The spelled pressure of the geas was left unwatched for only an instant. Yet that mental misstep opened a chink through Arithon’s tight-kept inner guard.
Compulsion closed on him with wrathful force. Then that strike was lent impetus by Dakar’s disastrous challenge: ‘I won’t move aside. To get past, you’ll just have to kill me.’
On that fatal split second, Arithon confronted no one else but the enemy.
Spelled forces consumed him in a red tide, snapping through all conscious ties except one: he had been forced into thrall, not claimed by willing consent. That grace alone let him cling to survival. Where the grim past at Riverton had seen his defeat, in present reliving, he suffered the event as observer, beset: for the curse woke in resonance. Its active bid to claim mastery set him under redoubled attack. Only now, stirred by the stress of his passage through Kewar, the spelled cords through his being noosed tighter, invincibly strengthened by the insightful course of retracing each prior event.
Arithon had already plumbed the extent of his mage lore trying to seek mitigation. He had savaged the uttermost depths of his spirit, breaking more of himself at each trial. Since the initial defeat at Etarra, he had attempted a thousand combinations of tricks. Neither cleverness nor strength had affected the outcome. Always, he lost. By inexorable increments, the Mistwraith’s geas drained more of his will to resist.
Only one wild-card tactic had not been tried. Arithon had never attempted the unconscionable risk of a passive retreat, made to seem like surrender: to give with the storm as the willow will bend, yielding rather than break.
Driven down by main force as the geas tore into him, already cornered beyond remedy, Arithon measured the abyss. The course he confronted seemed little different than an outright plunge into suicide. No advance assurance, that he owned the resilience to snap back from the dangerous brink; no way to measure whether the curse would simply snatch its opportune opening to grind him down into oblivion. He might be crushed outright. Worse, he might find himself caged inside the ring of his shrunken defenses. The husk of his awareness might stay imprisoned, helplessly pinned under siege.
He held nothing beyond the sorrowful list of past failures. Rather than tread a known path to defeat, Arithon chose not to fight. He tapped every shred of wise training from Rauven, casting himself into a diffuse passivity that would appear to spring from exhaustion. He yielded, becoming the emptiness of vacuum, or the mirror-clear reflectivity of stilled water
, smoothed under rippleless air.
He had no instant to reconsider, no second to reset flattened barriers. The force of the curse leaped howling through the breach. Uncontested, the channels of his mind became thrashed into a thousand smashed fragments. His foothold for cohesive resistance ripped away, dissolved beyond hope of salvage. Arithon let his dispersed identity drift free. Passive, inert, he dared not draw notice. Nestled amid the false semblance of vacancy, he could do nothing else now except wait. The next minutes would resolve his hung fate. Either he would stay lost, bearing the burden of Elaira’s death to the scales of Dharkaron’s reckoning, or his field of sealed quiet might see him through and buy him a desperate reprieve. He had only to pass unnoticed amid the harrowing of Caolle’s downfall.
Arithon stamped down every flicker of distressed thought. A man walking the razor’s edge, he dared not glance right or left. He must suffer the coming reenactment, unmoved by the horrors Davien’s Maze would configure to provoke his revolted senses. With wide-open heart and unshielded mind, he must endure without flinching as Desh-thiere’s workings inflamed him. As the fires of spell-turned, bridleless hatred drove him to insanity and murder, he must raise no resistance. Nor could he succumb to distressed emotion. To express any human feeling at all would expose his unconquered awareness.
False hope could not comfort him. To accept the atrocity of his own warping madness must demand the most callously rugged endurance. Arithon faced the truth. The ruthless detachment this trial might demand could well prove impossible to reconcile. All too likely the compassion aligned through the s’Ffalenn bloodline would outmatch his most desperate will.
Then the next stride was upon him. The powers of the maze unfolded the shift in ruthless detail, and Arithon saw himself on that past night at Riverton, reforged to the Mistwraith’s laid pattern. The caring light of perception left first, chilling his eyes to the gleam of snap-frozen ice. His expression hardened over to unprincipled ferocity as he firmed his grip on his sword.