by Janny Wurts
'I stay at your side,' Kyrialt insisted, 'no matter where you dare to tread.'
Prince Arithon bowed his dark head in surrender. He accepted the wrist clasp. 'Then let us not live to regret.' His rare smile burst through, alive with the sudden, shattering warmth that stopped the breath for its heart-felt sincerity.
* * *
The gale broke, before daybreak. Its moist cover of cloud flayed away in brisk winds that scattered the wet like flung diamonds. The wood smelled of resin and fresh, rain-soaked earth, and Kyrialt awaited, as promised. He had dressed in tradition for the occasion. His leathers were masked by a heraldic surcoat, and the sword at his hip was an heirloom. Silver wire wrapped the shining, black grip. The pommel was inset with the chevrons of Shand, inlaid in fine amethyst and citrine. On the hour he presented himself before Arithon, his dark hair was rebraided in the s'Taleyn clan pattern, and his blue eyes were clouded to smoke. Apprehensive concern for his liege undercut the gravity of formal trappings.
'I have no intention of playing the fool,' Arithon reassured as he gestured his readiness to depart. 'I promise I'm not going to shame you.'
'Your Grace,' said Kyrialt. Nothing more. Though his swift, sidelong glance as they left the encampment reflected a tacit approval.
The prince he escorted showed proper humility, and came in accord with ancestral customs. Arithon had done away with scout's leathers and boots. Today, he wore only the sashed robe from Sanpashir, and thonged sandals, woven from sweet-grass. Those would be discarded, as morning wore on, and the threshold that demarked the subtle boundary between the free wilds and Selkwood's pristine, inner sanctum was crossed. Arithon walked empty-handed, as well. His lyranthe remained in the guest-quarters. Where Shand's ancient high kings would have shone with the circlet and crown jewels bestowed at their ritual coronation, Arithon wore no adornment at all, nor carried so much as a talisman. Unarmed and unheralded, he came with only the cloth on his back and the grace of hard-won self-awareness.
His slighter build seemed an unfinished child's, in the shadow of Kyrialt's muscle. Even so, his quiet presence turned heads. The stillness inside him towered. The light stride that ventured into the deep wood held the poise of the initiate sorcerer.
'You know we can't stop to forage at noon,' Kyrialt warned as they passed through the check-point, waved on by the scouts.
'I am meant to be fasting, though I may drink running water from any stream we may cross on the way.' Arithon smiled. 'Sethvir and Halliron between them made certain that I was well versed. Since I may not know eveiything that applies, here in Shand, your instructions aren't taken amiss.'
Kyrialt pointed towards the left fork in the trail. 'That way, liege.' His reluctance was palpable: plainly, he would give anything to avoid that particular turn in their pathway.
Yet the fickle fall weather gave him no excuse. The new day was a jewel, around them. Sunlight spun slanting beams through foliage lit like a riot of cut silk. Still sheltered from frost, the last, blooming asters flecked the clearings where deer had grazed off the underbrush. Tree branches rustled to the wing-beats of birds and squirrels at their nesting. The mud at the verges bore the flurried prints of mice, the pug marks of bobcats, and in velvet shade, the more secretive, southern lynx.
'Leftwards, again, by the leaning maple,' said Kyrialt. Speech seemed an intrusion against the hush, which gathered and built at each step. The path to the King's Glade did not lead them straight but bent into a spiralling curve, that closed with impeccable gentleness. The approach was a kindness. The slow, upward shift in the resonant flux allowed body and mind to acclimatize to the range of exhilarated sensation.
The expanded state of awareness caused thirst. Both men paused to drink at the rock-springs and streamlets. Their breathing deepened, although the terrain underfoot was not arduous. They walked steadily on, while the energies sang in ever-tightening bands, which thrummed solid bones and stretched ear-drums. Oppressed by the mantle of their human flesh, the two travellers exchanged no conversation. Shortly, without warning, Arithon bent. He unlaced his simple grass sandals. Though the morning was brisk, and the sky stretched above, windswept to a cold, cloudless azure, he must walk barefoot, henceforward.
Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn trod in the same steps, as those of Shand's ancestry had, before him.
Soon enough, the path led to the pair of live oaks, that Paravian hands had braided into an archway as saplings. Ancient now, streaming moss and speckled with lichens, the twined trees carried living awareness as sentinels.
Through their wakened gateway, no man might pass, except by rightful purpose and with due permission.
Arithon touched Kyrialt's forearm and stopped. He had sworn not to spurn the old ritual. Committed, still steady, he loosened his sash, then slipped his robe free, and left the cloth in the trembling grasp of his liegeman. Naked as birth, he must enter the glade, as every crowned sovereign before him. Yet where those past supplicants had held the jewels of s'Ahelas heritage to protect, and act as a beacon before them, Arithon brought nothing else but his voice, and the frame of his human intention.
He advanced, flushed to sweat, but not frightened. His step made little sound in the carpet of leaf mulch. Up to the knotted, black portal of branches, he made his way without flinching. There, on his feet, his hands loose at his sides, he looked upwards. Dwarfed by the boughs of centuries-old oaks, he drew breath and uttered his Name.
Wind arose, on a breath. The first, breezy overture built, then screamed, wrapping his form in a whipping, tight gyre, until his exposed flesh became scoured. The force could have hurled him onto his knees, thrown him down and smashed bones in reprisal. Arithon braced his stance. Eyes shut, determined, he held his footing. The gale slashed his hair, stung his skin to red gooseflesh. Upright, though the buffeting shoved him left and right, he staggered a step, and recovered. He did not give way, though his frail body shivered, ripped through by a chill that could kill if he stayed without respite.
Then the tempest parted. The twisting, last gust chased leaves down the trail. The dry grasses rippled beyond the oaks' arch in a capriciously mild invitation.
Arithon had received leave: the way to the King's Glade lay open before him. Kyrialt took the liegeman's place at his back. As the Teir's'Ffalenn crossed through the portal, the youngest son of sTaleyn followed, remarked by no more than a whisper of air through the rustling leaves overhead.
Whether or not the cold posed a hindrance, Arithon showed no hesitation. He walked upon ground that had known no man's step since the death of the last King of Shand: a boy crowned one generation after the uprising, at the tender age of eighteen.
The ancient path meandered. It traced the earth as the barest, single-file indent, overgrown with flowers and myrtle, and bird-scavenged stands of wild oats. The ivied trunks of the pines and the spreading, grand crowns of the oaks cast their shade, dusted by motes of sunshine. Breeze frisked the foliage and scattered the seed down of paint-brush and late-blooming hawk's eye. Midday had passed. The air was alive with the chatter of sparrows and the lilting cry of a falcon. Kyrialt moved as though wrapped in a dream, sucked into light-headed vertigo. What Arithon experienced could not be guessed, exposed as he was to the land's direct energies, barefoot upon the warmed soil. Here, where the tides flowed as a palpable force, the mind and the heart sensed the pulse of the flux. Mortal flesh shuddered, wrung into ecstasy by the effervescent cascade.
The pervasive presence that rang through this place was not fashioned for breathing humanity. Kyrialt walked at Prince Arithon's heels, his unstrung nerves lulled beyond sense. The danger stayed real: madness, addiction, or unrequited longing afflicted those who experienced the wakened mysteries for too long.
Sundown approached, a lit glory of gold, when the path reached its end, and the King's Glade lay unveiled before them.
The hollow encompassed a gently sloped mound, ringed by the hoary crowns of twelve live oaks. The trees were old, their twined roots overgrown by dry grass. The ti
pped seed-heads lapped at a weathered stone slab, where the bared bones of the rise jutted through. The rock was laced round by a tangle of wild rose, still bearing the reddened hips of the late blossoms. Kyrialt trailed Arithon up to the crest. No spoken word passed, between them. In time-honoured custom, he spread the shed cloth of Arithon's mantle over the mossy face of the granite. Here, where Shand's former high kings had petitioned the Paravians to answer the needs of the realm, a prince who was not the land's titled sovereign presented himself, just as naked in supplication.
The sentinel oaks that had granted him entrance made no guarantee for his safety. Unattuned to the role of his Shandian ancestors, Arithon dared to invoke the wild powers, for a consequence beyond precedent.
Here, at the crux, Kyrialt forced speech through the blaze of his scattered senses. 'Nothing I say can dissuade you from this?'
'No harm dwells here,' Arithon replied at a whisper. 'Sleep, if you can. The dream-state will lift the stress from your mind, and protect you from suffering withdrawal' As the young man took issue, he added, most firm, There's no need for you to stand watch, in this place. The initial danger is already past. Or I would have been flensed skin from bone on the moment I queried the trees at the gateway'
'You addressed the sentinels?' Kyrialt asked in surprise.
Arithon drew in a bracing, quick breath. 'No. I gave myself over. As I will again. If I live to return, and the forces that quicken their being decide to let go and release me'
His bid had been cast. He could not turn back. No matter what fate should await him by night, Arithon stayed resolute. He climbed onto the slab. Though the breeze that riffled across his stripped skin fore-promised a vigil of misery, he prepared to lie down for the consequence.
Kyrialt wrestled the salt prick of tears. 'My liege' he gasped, helpless.
But naught could be done. Words of disharmony lost their edge, where the flux burned flesh and blood with the volatile fire of unworldly majesty. Kyrialt assumed the caithdein's post at the feet of his sovereign lord. He seated himself on the ground by the slab, torn by the shame of frank cowardice.
After all, he could not bear to watch, as this uncrowned descendant of Shandian royalty surrendered himself to the glade. Arithon would be at the mercy of who knew what powers, with the Paravians gone from the land, and the old ways all but lost to the discord of strife, desperation, and short-handed neglect.
* * *
Sunset came and went, a raw glory of scarlet that faded away through the black silhouette of the oaks. The breezes stilled. Dew fell, moist and cold as beaded quartz on the lichened face of the slab. Arithon lay on his back. The desert robe gave no more than a thread's width of comfort, beneath him. He had been trained. Rauven's schooling let him abide in-deep stillness and sustain the relentless chill temperature. He could not withstand such cold for too long. Not without taking sustenance, after the day's rite of fasting depleted his reserves. He settled the unquiet fields of his aura and held on to the calm of deep centring. Mage-taught discipline must see him through until sunrise if he was not to burden his trustworthy liegeman with arranging a funeral.
Stars burned in the cobalt sky, their magnificence only slightly dimmed by the ascent of the last quarter's moon. Arithon had chosen his timing with purpose: the flux lines ran thinnest, poised between the nadir at dark face, and the white tides that blazed highest, at the full. Even still, the scald of the currents by night laced his nerves with the rush of their passage. The memory still hurt, of past crisis at Rockfell, when the surfeit of lane flow he had sustained had all but torched his breathing flesh.
Arithon viced his errant thoughts still. Whether he left his eyes open or shut, mage-sight unveiled the King's Glade about him, ablaze with the glory of life. Here, the whisper of grasses spoke out loud. The chorused chord of the trees formed the bass notes that anchored the harmony of the risen stars: voices that presaged the onset of winter, and that stone recorded, eternal.
Wide open to nuance, Arithon lay quiet, every part of him listening. His masterbard's ear for subtlety plumbed the glade's stillness to fathom its pulse and gather its rich lines of melody. Time passed. The heavens spun. While the pole-star glimmered above the north axis, the icy half-moon passed the zenith and sank towards the west. The trees spilled their plinking mantles of dew. An owl called, hunting mice. Deer crossed the glade, twice. Antlered bucks sniffed the air and stood guard, while the does and weaned fawns grazed the grasses.
Arithon poised, suspended in mage-sight, waiting for song amid silence.
On the far side of midnight, the whisper of mystery plucked his poised mind like a quivering string. He experienced, past sound, what ears could not translate: the swell of the grand chord that ranged the realms past the veil. He saw beyond vision, engulfed by the scalding light struck through the unseen deep. Shuddered to ecstasy, Arithon fought the pull of sublime desire. He had to hang on, stay grounded to the stone that supported his prostrate frame. Gently still, he regarded the forest, and looked for what eyes could not see: the path, that would leave its etched imprint in time. He sought the way that the centaur guardians had used, when their grace was petitioned to act in behalf of the realm.
The place where the majesty of Ath's living gift had stepped from the deep wood, and communed with the waiting, crowned kings.
And there, to the south, like a wisp of caught flame that shimmered indigo in the darkness, Arithon read the trace that he sought. The remembrance, where an exalted presence had walked, the brush of its passage etched like hazed phosphor beneath the shadow of the eldest oaks. Memory remained, stamped in pebble and earth: the key to the mysteries lay open before him, who had asked without raising his voice.
Arithon arose. Weak at the knees, he swayed and stood upright. Leaving the mantle on cold stone behind him, and skirting Kyrialt's tucked form, he strode from the low mound and ventured the forbidden deeps of the night forest. Where no man had gone, this one dared to tread. Bare-skinned, on naked feet, he entered the path towards the heart-wood that was the sole provenance of the Paravians: once sent to Athera as Ath's living gift, in flesh-and-bone congress with powers beyond the pale of mortal imagining.
Where, behind, the flux had surged like live flame, now the currents roared through like a tidal bore. Arithon moved, lashed and winnowed by storm. As though lifted by tienelle, he fought the flare of his initiate sensitivity, reamed wide open and drowned to immersion. Yet where the drug's nonselective effects hurled the mind to explosive, raw chaos, this shift was ordered, a ripple of subtlety fit to unstring the frail bounds of the flesh.
Arithon reeled. Scarcely able to set one tender footstep after the next, he had no choice but to lean on the trees to stay upright. Light and sound swelled into a bone-shaking chord. Mage-sight unravelled to wonder. Ripped ragged by overlaid layers of perception, he went with closed eyes, and sensed his way forward. The play of the mysteries scalded his heart. Desperate, but not frightened, he held on to his boundaries. Used discipline to keep his aura in place, with the utmost, aware care and tenderness. He battled to hold to his human separation, as the stones and the plants and the teeming of life threatened to unstring his whole being with welcome.
As he moved, one fraught pace to the next, he understood that the sacred glade was not passable to flesh-and-blood form. For his kind, the place would react as a portal, that led to the realms past the veil. Long before he reached the heart-wood's surrounds, his firm substance would sublimate, absorbed by the greater chord of Ath's mystery into spirit, then streaming consciousness. The thought seemed detached, and the peril, unreal, that he might pass too far to return.
Only mage-taught purpose sustained him, a ghost pattern of embedded reason. To survive in this place, all thought must be leashed. The chance slip, and the unbridled fire of mind would react like volatile flame. Here, the least inclination of will could ignite the live flux to explosion. The tiniest whisper of wrongful intent could seed discord, and touch off unravelling damage and shattering harm.
Arithon went forward, too aware of the penalty he might invoke, inadvertently. His brash, human trespass could blight the clean flow of Selkwood's inviolate balance. He inched onward. Another step, trembling, until his overstrung mind and assaulted senses dissolved at the boundaries of dream. Neither waking, nor sleeping, he stopped at that point. Gently, he moved to the verge of the path and set his back to the first mature tree. Stilled once again, he held, poised as silk, his masterbard's heritage open and waiting.
Black-out claimed him, perhaps. He could not track time. The white burn of the flux, and the shattered rainbows of energy that strung the web-work of all solid form lured the mind, and wore the will towards an unwary peace. Glassy-eyed, sated, enraptured past thought by the ringing chime of the mysteries, Arithon drifted. He sat finally, unmoored, the plumes of his breath silvered by the last glow of the moon's light.
There, like the gossamer cascade of sweet harmony, he heard the first notes of a crystalline flute.
The sound tore his heart. Brought tears to his eyes, for its exquisite tones of enchantment. The pure melody rushed his nerves and blazed through his bones, and rocked through his quivering viscera. He listened, struck helpless by cascading joy, as the sunchild stepped from the wood.
She was delicate, tiny, a sprite no more than a cloth yard in height. Her lucent skin seemed fashioned of mother of pearl, agleam in the soft, phosphor moonlight. Her step made no sound. Her least movement suggested the grace of a dance, spun from the moving breath of the wind and alive as the sparkle of gemstones. She had small, song-birds' feathers caught in her long hair; slanted eyes, porcelain ears, with cheeks and fingertips brushed with the delicate tint of blush coral. She approached through the trees, ablaze with her own light, while the quartz flute rang and trilled an exalted response from the ether. Then she lifted the instrument from her lips.