Initiate's Trial

by Janny Wurts

  Tarens failed to muster the will to resist. Cold and agony drained the fight out of him. Curled up, half-unconscious and beyond helpless, he let himself be dragged to the river’s south-western bank. There, in the company of who knew what evil, he entered the proscribed free wilds: ruled under the barbaric tenets of old law, kept in force by the clan war bands of Taerlin.

  Winter 5923

  Repercussions

  The Warden of Althain pin-pointed the moment when Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn recovered the use of his elemental mastery of Shadow. As the blanket of dire darkness cold-struck the earth to an arctic freeze, and a river transformed on a breath to brittle ice, the tortured scream of the elements unleashed across Tysan’s winter landscape pocked a dense ripple across the night flow of the flux. Sethvir’s earth-sense tracked the cascade of response: as horses exploded into redoubled flight and careened between tree trunks and obstacles, and a Sunwheel war camp’s aroused pursuit changed pitch to fraught terror and panic. Worse than these, the rabid rebound to excitement, as the Koriani scryers assigned to the lane watch reported the outbreak of conflict, and the Prime’s shout of triumph called their best Senior talent to pin-point the cause.

  The event blazed the trail to pursue their lost quarry, stripped of his birthright and trained protections.

  Sethvir’s experience sorted past the flurry of resounded echoes. His split-second awareness captured the signal image that mattered: where a fire burned in the bleak patch of brush on the wild shore of the Silberne several leagues below Cainford. Two miserable fugitives huddled over the flames, drying wet clothes in a desperate bid for survival…

  Sound carried from the far side of the river, a tangled profusion of horn-calls and shouts punched through by the thud of galloping hooves, and the whined hiss from inbound flights of arrows shot blindly from extreme range. The barrage clattered through the dead brush and thumped into the dirt several yards short of the flames that exposed the runaways’ luckless position. No hounds bayed on their trail. If the brutal tradition of head-hunter trackers cut their dogs to run silent, no horse and no man could cross over the river: the tissue of ice finessed by the brief blast of Shadow already broke. Rickled into a jumbled mass, the pack parted under the shove of the current and swirled away downstream.

  Clothes steaming, his shuttered hands jammed to his face, the blood prince reduced to the diminutive, Arin, battled yet to stem the uprush of visions that confounded his grasp of the present. In spurts and surges, the nightmare relivings continued to stream through his tattered control. He fought, breath to breath, to restore equilibrium and seal the torn boundary between his inflamed instincts and the reason that measured sound choices.

  No lancers would die at this river, tonight. Unlike another, where a Sunwheel company ridden against him had perished almost to the last man. Under cold moonlight, those casualties had lain unmourned, limbs frozen and hearts stopped beneath the ice grip of implacable Shadow. The same crafted darkness just spun without thought shook off tonight’s hunt at the riverside.

  Arin reeled from self-revulsion and emotional shock, nakedly damned by the recall of his former atrocities. Ungrounded despite the support of firm land, he wrestled the spin of his unruly thoughts with the only inviolate truth he possessed: here and now, he had taken no life. His friend had not been left abandoned. That achievement mattered, while, moment by moment, the hectic clamour of fragmented identity threatened to break him.

  Tarens had no inclination to help. Angry, betrayed, his pummelled injuries aching, the big crofter lashed out with venomous blame for the terror of his predicament. ‘Who are you, really? Don’t try more deceit! I saw you work Shadow with my own eyes. Past question, I’d rather die as a mortal than fall under the vile usage of Darkness.’

  A shudder raked through the small, black-haired form clenched tight in distress by the fireside. ‘Swim back, then. Or run. Take your own path to suicide. I won’t lift a finger to stop you.’

  ‘You just did!’ Tarens argued. But self-honesty impelled the bitter acknow­ledgement. He would bear the brunt of an informed decision if he chose to walk away this time. Alive by the grace of a forced intervention, his bed-rock character still would not be silenced. ‘Answer me honestly! Who or what did I shelter beneath my family’s roof?’

  The moth-wing clasp moved. Bared by entreaty, Arin’s sidelong glance revealed only transparent sincerity. ‘I did not recall, then. Or forgive myself now for what seems like a planned deception. But until the hour I stepped into that war camp, I did not realize that I carried such a volatile past. There is no recompense for the fact I couldn’t remember. I’ve undone your home, and much worse, endangered you.’

  Tarens spat. ‘How do I know you aren’t spinning more lies?’

  ‘In my place, what would you have done?’ Arin opened his hands. ‘Was there any strategy I might have used to salvage the error that set you at risk?’

  ‘Does the answer matter?’ Tarens raged, flustered. ‘What harm has not been said and done already? When I cut you free, that action was witnessed. I’ve made myself the willing collaborator of who knows what servant of evil.’

  ‘You’d have been killed without quarter, thrown to the swords of that Sunwheel company,’ Arin reminded.

  ‘Maybe better off dead than damned on all counts,’ Tarens snapped in chill misery.

  ‘No.’ Arin’s level regard did not waver. ‘Because you’ve survived, there is a next strategy. I can give myself over. As a bound captive, you could turn me in and redeem yourself. Soon enough, two days at the most, the Sunwheel patrols will cross over by way of the trade bridge and run us down.’

  Which shocking suggestion undercut every righteous angle of argument. Tarens stared, speechless. He had never embraced temple doctrine, before, always had been quick to nap through the sanctimonious lectures of the Light’s priests. Undermined by tormented uncertainty, he found no foothold for comfort. Arin’s glib tongue and inventive cleverness gouged up the sharp echo of Kerelie’s warnings. Dread rode the memory of Efflin’s healing, since everywhere a strait-laced man turned, folk whispered of a fresh rising of Darkness.

  As if conflicted doubt could be read, Arin spoke. ‘Tarens! Take courage. Look at me straight on.’

  Wordless, Tarens glared back with his jaw clamped.

  He already knew he could not deny the being stripped to naked pleading before him. Arin seemed only human. He looked nothing else but sorrowfully thin, hunched in his wet clothes by the fireside. His wracked, flame-lit face still seemed that of a friend, faultlessly kind and gentle.

  At due length, Tarens responded, stung enough to nurse his cold anger. ‘If I tie your hands, how do I know you won’t resort to sorcery? Or strike back with Shadow and move against me when the moment comes to defend yourself?’

  Arin answered with delicate care. ‘If I was the fell creature your temple priests claim, surely I would have killed without pause for remorse already.’

  Such a massacre in cold blood would have happened had he engaged his talents with deadly intent. Grudging, the crofter conceded that point.

  ‘Think, Tarens, before you condemn me for past acts I don’t even know, yet. Tonight’s only casualty, acknowledged as mine, was a loose horse run afoul of a lancer.’ Arin tipped his head, wrenched by a shiver. Arms tightly clasped to his drawn-up knees, he also suffered the merciless ache of exhaustion. ‘If you find out otherwise and my word proves false, you still have the dagger I gave you. Hands bound or not, as friend or foe, you have my leave to make use of it.’

  ‘How can you trust that I won’t, regardless?’ Tarens snarled in cornered defeat. ‘I could turn in your corpse and still clear my name with about as much credibility.’

  ‘I believe in your goodness,’ said Arin, direct. ‘You need not decide, now. Get warm first. Weigh up the matter until our pursuit takes the roundabout route and comes after us.’

  On that steadfast statement, the world’s future hung. Back at Althain Tower, Sethvir held his breath. His
hands stayed tied to noninterference, even as his earth-sense disclosed the grim repercussions to come. That one brief burst of elemental Shadow would unleash an upheaval beyond any threat the beleaguered fugitives had scope to imagine.

  They had two days, perhaps less, before the thwarted Sunwheel troop overtook tonight’s trail and gave chase. Already the commander’s fastest courier galloped southward on the trade-road. The urgent word that Shadow itself moved abroad would shake Valenford before dawn. Terror would galvanize the town’s garrison. Armed pursuit raised in force would march out to broach the free wilds of Taerlin. Against Sunwheel dedicates mustered at strength, the furtive clan presence duty-bound to hold Caithwood was too thin on the ground. The defenders in place could never withstand a determined invasion.

  More and worse, the impact of tonight’s unmasking upset a volatile balance long held in abeyance. Sethvir sensed the start of the ugly cascade, and prayed the frail safe-guards set into motion would withstand the opening onslaught.

  For already a power awakened in back-lash: the cursed fury held in check by a thread, and the one man allotted the most fragile stay of them all…

  Asandir’s instructions had been unequivocal: ‘You will attend each state function and social if your Lord Mayor decides to appear.’

  As night blackened the shut casements and winter gusts battered the glass from outside the palatial grand ball-room at Etarra, the ubiquitous servants maintained the lit ranks of candles and glass chandeliers. The expensive wax flames warmed the vaulted room paneled with curly maple. Heat soaked the overcrowded air, while Etarra’s finest glittered and laughed, bedecked in their jewelled finery.

  Daliana perched on a stuffed chair at the side-lines, the voluminous lace sleeve foisted on her by fashion flapped one-handed to fan her flushed face. The conversation around her droned away, beyond tiresome. She had little patience for the cutthroat politics or trade, conducted by men lean and hard with ambition under their soft words and manners. As vicious, for spite, were the gossip and innuendo exchanged by the ladies. With painted eyes and sharp tongues, they stalked the carpet like predators, plumed in brilliant gowns and layered petticoats, and regaled in a bouquet of exotic perfumes.

  A languid fellow in peacock blue velvet approached with intent to engage her. Daliana arose. Adept, she side-stepped the unwanted advance and pursued the more daunting objective: the barbered blond head that gleamed like buffed gold amid a flock of fawning admirers. Etarra’s Lord Mayor, Lysaer s’Ilessid, was never a man to be cornered alone. He was the male prize, sought after and coveted, and also, for time beyond living memory, the peril gloved in urbane, handsome charm that led females to folly and downfall.

  ‘You remind him of someone,’ the Sorcerer had mentioned. But no one Daliana had asked knew the name of the woman the cryptic comment had referenced. The paragon whose wit and beauty might once have pierced Lysaer’s heart had not left any memorable trace of renown behind her. Elusive, her secret had died without record: the vital fact that might access Lysaer’s guarded vulnerability had been erased from history.

  Daliana gathered her elaborate, layered skirts. Trimmed with rosettes of gold-and-fuchsia silk, the style posed a stark hindrance, while steering an aggressive course through the packed social. Three rakish dandies tried to waylay her. Other sober citizens bent in pursuit of town ministers on touchy guild business turned in fuming annoyance as she brushed past.

  As swiftly, their sour frowns cleared as their avaricious eyes refocused upon her. More than the insolent sexual advances, such patronizing leers made her grit her teeth. Men tended to underestimate Daliana. Petite, beautiful, perceived first as an ornament, she sometimes mined that mistaken impression for the advantage. But on the morning her mother first marched her into the Lord Mayor’s presence for an introduction to Etarran society, her quickness had acknowledged a wary intelligence, unlikely to fall for the shallow bait of female entrapment. Lysaer s’Ilessid was no brash fool blinded by self-importance, or cocked up with the rife prowess to be nose-led.

  Then, Daliana had been pushed forward, naive. No armour of experience could have steeled her soul for a sensuous encounter fit to wrench any tender, young heart to palpitations. Attentive charisma and unparalleled beauty were endowed, in one man, to a radiant blaze of magnificence. Lord Lysaer was a vision to sear mind and spirit. Until his arctic blue eyes had stared her through with the acuity acquired through ageless centuries of state sovereignty.

  The memory still raked her. Daliana felt inwardly twisted in knots: for one breath-stopped instant, that needle stare had peeled away all that she was; then had curdled into a summary rejection of all else she might grow to become in the course of a lifetime.

  From across the thronged ball-room, Daliana suppressed her reflexive flinch. But she did not run or give ground before dog-fights. Fear, she held in contempt. More, she detested the contrary feminine weakness that raced her pulse. Dread would not shake her. Tasked by a Sorcerer, she must broach the impervious wall of this powerful ruler’s defenses.

  Yet before she could challenge her past brusque dismissal from Lysaer’s personal train, Daliana measured her tactical choice to breach his tight circle of sycophants and jealous admirers…

  * * *

  Back at Althain Tower, Sethvir might have rifled every strategy weighed by Daliana’s alert mind. He sensed the taut tremor, strung through the lane’s flux, as her stalker’s footfalls skirted the pitfalls stewed up by Etarra’s jockeying factions. Without effort, he tracked the acrid ambition that paraded in smiles and silks, and exchanged pleasantries with transparent aggression. Respect curbed him in her case. Daliana was a force in the world, a bright law unto herself. As Sulfin Evend’s acknowledged successor, Sethvir trusted her shrewd autonomy. His refined perception confirmed her timed move. Instinct prompted by true-born talent had sensed the percussive ripple, before the night’s shattering upset in Taerlin wore down Lysaer’s defenses.

  ‘In your forefather’s name, my dear, pay attention!’ But the Sorcerer’s ­exhortation stayed muffled behind the hand clenched in his beard…

  The harpy with the gilt-dusted eye paint surveyed Daliana from head to toe. ‘Girl,’ she dismissed with arid contempt, ‘your betters are occupied, and certain to flay skin for the bumptious offence if you elbow into their company.’

  ‘Lasted no more than a single night, did you?’ Daliana cut back with scorn. ‘Don’t presume because I came unescorted. Not everyone aspires to stoop for a steamy roll in our Lord Mayor’s sheets.’ She slipped past as the woman drew herself up and ducked fast enough to evade the poisonous retort.

  One snappish, court lap-dog left behind, with the jostling thick of the pack yet to go, Daliana assessed with barbed humour. The lift of her chin tossed the horse’s tail of hair, spilled from a coronet of tight braid and fastened by mother-of-pearl pins. She measured the bodies next in line to displace, from the plump middle-aged and skeletally worn, to the young, done up in flounced lace and extravagant, jewel-toned eye paint. Candle-flame glowed on skin like sateen velvet, or underscored the matte gypsum and rice powder caked over aging wrinkles.

  Etarran society was vainly intoxicated on the peacock display of its wealth. The dazzle of sequined fringe, the flare and glitter of sapphire, emerald and ruby as ever lay thickest around the charmed presence of Lysaer s’Ilessid.

  Yet before Daliana advanced on that bastion, movement rippled the ranks. The fair, golden prince couched in their midst took his precipitous leave. His closed circle unravelled like jerked crochet as he broke away for a sudden departure.

  Daliana found herself smack in his path.

  The formal scarlet-and-gold blazon of his Etarran office was garish enough to overpower ethereal colouring. Lysaer posed the striking exception. Blessed with the unstudied grace of born royalty, he was tall but not massive. His poise lay in quick, precise movement. Although the harsh tabard made gilt hair look pale, the sculpted symmetry of his features prevailed. Pretentious fashion fell into his shadow
. His vivid attentiveness could overturn sense and derail the most seasoned ambassador.

  Yet not today. His eyes, still that piercing, chill blue, were turned inward and opaquely preoccupied.

  Daliana realized he did not see her. An abnormal distress drove his hasty steps towards escape. Whether by opportune indecision, or the inspired art of pure genius, she curtseyed and let his distracted state cause a collision.

  Both parties were adroit enough to salvage the silly embarrassment. Neither fell sprawling onto the carpet. Each clutched the other as athletic reflex snatched a recovery out of rocked balance.

  Daliana captured the crisp impression of disciplined fitness beneath his tailored sleeve. His clothes had no scent. The flat belly, blundered briefly against her, recoiled with a tiger’s self-aware reflex.

  Lysaer, in turn, met youthful effrontery with nettled annoyance. As he disentangled his long legs from her skirts and withdrew the ring snagged in her hair, he identified her for the under-age girl that his word once had dismissed from his court.

  That signal displeasure caused him to snap, ‘What are you doing here?’ while the gentleman’s manners that were second nature clasped her waist and more graciously steadied her.

  Daliana looked up. Subject to a frown that brave men could, and had, sacrificed their lives to appease, she cringed, almost cowed.

  Nothing in life prepared her for the impact of him at close quarters. Nor had the women tumbled to captivation been the dizzy fools unkind gossip assumed. Before thought, all but fatally moved by attraction, Daliana clung to his arm as if loath to relinquish the beguiling contact.

  His expert touch moved. Masterful at avoidance, he would smooth her mussed dress. Truesighted instinct forecast his recovery: in the breath-stopped instant while her knees weakened, he would draw her nerveless hand free, clasp her elbow, and assert seamless charge to be quit of her. Daliana forestalled him and tightened her grip. To free himself, Lysaer risked tearing his sleeve. He knew as much. The massive seal ring upon his right hand flashed to the tension of his checked gesture.