Stormed Fortress

by Janny Wurts

  No hale officer could afford to stay idle, in fact. The sprawled factions of the Alliance war host struggled yet to treat their wounded. They still faced the rows of their unburied dead and a crippling morass of ruined equipment: holed tents, splintered siege engines and burned harness that could not be replaced. Stocks of food stores, weapons, and fodder lay in wreckage beneath the slagged walls.

  The unwieldy piles in process of salvage teemed like a hill of kicked ants. Whole companies languished to lick bleeding injuries while some rank-and-file dedicates sought to desert, and others affirmed their raucous survival on the hot flesh of the camp-followers.

  Faced by trauma on one hand, and the uncanny power wielded by Koriani, the distempered troop captains stifled their badgering. Far safer to redress their own human troubles than risk the affairs of the initiate sisterhood. If their avatar would tread on the Matriarch’s turf, he must go forward alone.

  Lysaer spared no glance at the retreating stragglers. His formal dress proclaimed his approach, a shout of authority that required no herald’s flourish. He passed the rampant swan banner, with its gold fringe and amethyst field. His direct step assailed the rush mat, then the runner of carpet before the canopied entry to the central hospice.

  A sister with coiled wheat hair and the grey robe of charitable service intercepted him at the threshold. A band of white ribbon bordered her cuffs, badge of her lowly rank as a first-level initiate. Despite common stature, she showed no deference to honour a state arrival.

  ‘How may my order grant service?’ The same address met every supplicant, or petitioners who bargained for talismans.

  Lysaer’s level survey matched youthful, clear eyes that overlooked magisterial splendour. His testing regard did not ruffle her poise. Patient as she seemed, she must be unaware of his past confrontations with the order’s senior authority.

  Therefore, his request was well-spoken and genuine. ‘Since your healers are consoling my critically wounded, and also attending my dead, I have come to express the Light’s gratitude. More, please offer your colleagues my help if there’s aught I can do to assist them.’

  ‘A worthy intent.’ The sister inclined her head, smiled, then blushed under his regard. ‘You are permitted to enter.’

  Lysaer followed her lead. A thicker, spread carpet absorbed his firm step. Softer lighting gentled his eyesight: not coarse candle-flame, but a steady glow that issued from crystals in gold-wire cages. The air smelled of herbals, and also the sharp, ozone tang that discharged with the use of strong spells.

  ‘You have asked to serve?’ This polite challenge arose from the left, the new speaker’s approach gone unnoticed.

  Lysaer paused. ‘Where need will allow, yes.’ His cool glance appraised the older initiate, seamed with years, and yet still supple in movement. Her austere robe bore three bands of rank, the glint of ribbon like moon-caught silver at sleeves and hood. ‘You are the sister in authority here?’

  ‘I am the ranking peeress, directing our mission to ease the afflicted.’ Her eyes were kindly brown, and her welcome, graciously honest. ‘Follow me, if you will?’

  She ushered him into a small, curtained alcove, where an injured man sprawled on a pallet. Two healers attended him: the first clasped his unconscious head between gentle hands, while the other probed an ugly wound on his thigh, the swollen flesh purpled around an embedded splinter of wood. Lysaer recognized one of yesterday’s casualties, dragged from the wreck of a siege engine.

  The peeress presumed, touched his wrist, and inquired, ‘We know you can manifest large-scale destruction. How finely can you control your given gift to raise light?’

  Lysaer searched her face but encountered no arrogance. ‘What are your needs?’ Gravely still, while only his diamond studs shimmered, he added, ‘I could illuminate your surgery, or provide warmth. Perhaps boil a cauldron of water, or ignite a lamp’s wick.’

  The peeress nodded, then invited the enchantress who frowned over the maimed leg to speak.

  The kneeling initiate never glanced up to acknowledge the imposing state visitor. ‘What about cautery?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lysaer lifted his opened, ringed hands. ‘I never tried. The skills of your trade could be learned?’ A touch on his shoulder, and the elder peeress departed, leaving him with the pair who tended the stricken soldier. Lysaer bent his knee and smoothed the prostrate man’s arm without squeamish hesitation. ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘you could explain how my gift might improve your prognosis?’

  The healer beside him owned three bands of rank, though her rolled sleeves were damp and her pink wrists flecked with blood. She had rich brown hair, but pulled back and pinned with an unbecoming severity. When at length she looked away from the leg wound, she lost her breath, as most did in Lysaer’s close presence. His fair-skinned, male beauty was not contrived but a natural force to stun thought.

  She shut her eyes, shivered, then rallied her discipline. ‘The sliver has split.’ More effort still, and she steadied her voice. ‘If we try to draw it, the fragment will tear the artery. Removal by surgery could damage the nerves. Blood loss stays problematic. Hot steel to stop haemorrhage will leave intractable scars. At best, if he lives, your soldier will limp for the rest of his days.’ Regret raised a tired shrug. ‘If only we could have attended him yesterday, before the tissue became congested –’

  ‘Others you saved had more critical injuries?’ Lysaer clasped her stained fingers. ‘Wars force hard choices.’ His comforting squeeze flared to a dazzle of rings, then withdrew. ‘How may I help?’

  The healer lifted her chin, now determined. ‘If you sourced us your light, subject to our sigils, I could burn that wood out. A stay spell could contain the applied energy to the torn muscle that’s in direct contact. The cauterized wound might then cleanse itself. We can induce a select amplification to spur the body’s reflex to regenerate. Could you grant us the bale-fire use of your gift and entrust us to channel by spellcraft to achieve what’s necessary?’

  Lysaer smiled like sunrise. ‘Lead on, enchantress. My talent is yours to be guided.’

  All business, despite her embarrassed blush, the Koriani sister directed the initiate who cradled the prostrate man’s head. ‘Hold your trance, keep him under. I’ll need the small copper coil, and a few minutes to align the appropriate crystals. If this should work –’

  The hope that blazed after her unfinished sentence flushed indelicate heat to her cheeks.

  ‘You have other cases as difficult as this one?’ Lysaer asked, despite himself moved.

  ‘Many.’ The healer delved into the satchel at her hip. ‘Some who are worse off.’ Despite discouragement, her movements stayed crisp as she handled the tools of her trade. ‘I’m called Samaura, and if you are willing, we could keep you busy all night.’

  ‘Then we have all night.’ Lysaer fielded the woman’s surprised glance, amused.

  She pursed her lips and tried not to grin back. ‘Why are the Koriathain led to believe that Avenor’s state policy condemns the practice of spellcraft?’

  All white elegance blazoned in Sunwheel gold, Lysaer s’Ilessid stayed unoffended. ‘My examiners burn rogue talent that defies a just law. To that end, I will bear no exceptions.’ Against ultimatum, he added, precise, ‘This man fell at war against Shadow. Any who act for his benefit will receive the Light’s gratitude and support.’

  ‘Will you recognize the possibility, yet, that such cause may pose the common ground to extend your alliance?’ The intrusive, cultured voice that observed arose from the main tent behind.

  Although taken aback, Lysaer kept his poise. The two healer initiates owned no such grace: without regard for the fact he stood witness, they abandoned the hurt soldier and bent prostrate in supplication.

  ‘Your will, Matriarch,’ they declared, unimpeachably obedient, and prepared to forsake their suffering charge on the instant.

  Prime Selidie enforced her due claim to such service. ‘Carry on as you are by my will, and none
other!’

  Despite the sudden, electrified atmosphere, Lysaer turned not a hair. ‘My pledged word is never subject to interdict.’ He did not turn from the soldier before him, but with calm disdain, ignored the haughty authority crowding his back.

  His comment raised no disturbed rustle of cloth; no hiss of breath, or rebuttal. Yet the enchantress who minded the wounded man’s trance blanched with near-paralyzed fright. Her sister initiate trembled, bobbed her head, and murmured, ‘Prime Selidie, forgive this man’s ignorance.’

  Yet the white-clad avatar brushed off her plea. ‘I am no supplicant!’ he chided, his goodwill toward the attending sisters still without due regard for the peremptory presence behind him. ‘Nor shall I take pause for your Prime’s dispensation, if my loyal men become compromised. Their lives are not tossed as bargaining chips into the arena of politics. My wounded have come seeking help in good faith. Your order chose to admit them. If my offered talent can spare even one, or renew the least hope of hale function, then your Matriarch had best heed the judgement I laid upon each of her two former messengers.’

  ‘And that would be?’ The slim figure swathed in the Matriarch’s purple mantle sounded no more than amused. Yet the avid peeresses arrived with her presence caught their collective breath: they were of the order’s Prime Circle, invested with the red bands of senior rank.

  Lysaer inclined his head, and said, frosty, ‘Honour the dignity given in trust. These men are under my oath-bound charge. Fail their genuine need at your peril.’

  Prime Selidie smiled, only the curve of her coral lips visible under the shadow of her hooded cloak. ‘You presume. In your arrogance, did you believe I had come to brangle over the sick? Our order has provided charitable service for millennia before your first forebear set foot on Athera. Royals leave guildsmen to oversee trade. While you might play at slumming alongside my healers, I am no shopkeeping merchant. Should I trifle with you as you kneel in the dirt? Or fiddle with verbal contests of power concerning the devotion you wield through your followers? You are mistaken, son of s’Ilessid. I am not to be measured, based on your encounters with underlings.’

  Lysaer’s quiet pause gained a spark of grim irony. ‘You’ve come to defeat the Master of Shadow for the greater good of humanity?’

  Yet if his challenge matched the Matriarch’s intent, the overture was refused. The hanging ruffled. A rustle of withdrawal, as silk slid on silk, and the Prime’s haughty entourage had departed. The man hailed as the Light’s avatar was abandoned to fulfil his proud promise and soil his hands with the infirm.

  For a suspended instant, Lysaer s’Ilessid regarded his clenched knuckles, lined in the merciless sparkle of rings. Then his poise broke. The untoward explosion arose from his belly, and swelled into full-throated laughter. He clasped his gold head, disarmingly helpless. ‘Blinding glory!’ he gasped. ‘By all means! Let us keep our caring for others off the administrative chess-board, and past the reach of such bitter authority!’

  Lysaer flashed a dazzling grin to the pair of enchantresses, left at a loss by uncertainty. ‘Proceed. I’m not leaving until your last needs are met, and no stricken casualty inside your hospice requires the light of my gift.’

  Haplessly trapped in the wake of her Prime, the enchantress deposed from past rank as First Senior also pondered the barbed sally just exchanged with Lysaer s’Ilessid. Lirenda remained forbidden to speak unless she received dispensation. Her spellbound will still stayed subject to the extreme punishment that tied her in mute subjugation. She held no authority beyond the pawn’s chores, tasked to her from moment to moment.

  Today, she was handed the menial assignment of unpacking the sea chests brought by cart from the wharves of Kalesh. Lirenda curtseyed in slaved acquiescence. The wisp of black hair that tickled her cheek could not be shoved back, without leave. Sealed in silenced rage, she could not spare her wretched, plain hems from picking up stains from the trampled earth floor of the half-pitched pavilion. The unkempt state of her person and dress ground her down in humiliation.

  She retired to refresh the Prime’s wardrobe, all but colliding with the two boy wards unfurling the lavish carpets. More unsworn novices scurried to heat mulled wine and tea and arrange for the Matriarch’s bath. Lirenda turned her hands to a maidservant’s duty and unlocked the sea trunks. She shook out and aired the Prime’s jewelled robes and lace finery. Once the filled buckets and coals for the hot iron arrived, she finished off with a laundress’s work and pressed the wrinkles from the ceremonial gauze veils.

  Those lavish trappings should have been hers, had she not been cast out of favour as the Prime’s hand-picked successor. Lirenda fumed, beyond consolation. Selidie would never restore her to liberty within the foreseeable future.

  The twelve ranking seniors still rumpled from travel, also stayed unexcused from their Matriarch’s presence. They flocked like ruffled hens around her great chair by the brazier, crowding to warm out the miserable damp inflicted by salt-fusty clothing. Unlike Lirenda, whose lips remained sealed, the inner circle lived unaware of the terrifying fact that the woman who ruled the Order of the Koriathain was a spirit locked under possession. To escape death in office, the former Prime had invasively supplanted a younger protégé as her living vessel. Now, above all suspicion, the creature walked obscenely clothed in an innocent’s purloined flesh.

  While Prime Selidie perched in cosseted comfort, her train fussed over the testing by-play just exchanged with Tysan’s regent pretender.

  ‘… such cheeky nerve!’ huffed a withered seeress, nursing her aching joints. She could not sit down: the hastily erected pavilion was not yet furnished, beyond the appointments to honour the Matriarch. ‘An upstart, and a supplicant under our roof! To have addressed our Prime with his royal back turned! He asks to be served a sharp lesson!’

  Another senior with five bands of rank laced her fingers in superior censure. ‘Your predecessor would never have stood for such insolence!’

  Selidie Prime tossed back her hood. The imperious lift of her chin raised a stinging glitter of gemstones: pins set with rubies and amethyst tamed her netted coil of blond hair. Yet no finery could ease the deformity of her ruined hands, mittened in fur in her lap. ‘Lysaer is no supplicant,’ she corrected, while a hustling page unclipped her frogged fastenings and slipped off the weight of her mantle.

  She was not perturbed. As Lirenda accepted the cast-off garment to be brushed out and retired, the Prime’s unflushed skin and pale eyes displayed no rancour.

  When the prim senior bristled to argue, Selidie snapped her off short. ‘No Prime of our order would sink so low, trading slangs in a public display.’

  ‘The charitable sisters won’t grant proper respect for such tolerance,’ another enchantress felt moved to point out.

  Selidie said nothing. The refreshment tray arrived in the hands of an awe-struck child. Rather than risk her gown to a spill, the Matriarch beckoned to Lirenda.

  The debased enchantress was forced to step down from the wardrobe and wait the Prime’s table. Lirenda filled the cups, as though she had never possessed a true talent, or been born to a moneyed family. She dispensed spice and sugar to the Senior Circle, mocked by their gloating, ambitious eyes, and snatched what sour comfort she could by tracking the close conversation.

  ‘I will have what I wished through my scryer,’ Selidie declared in due course. Where her predecessor would have snapped fingers, she must exert command through commonplace speech. ‘Saysha? You engaged a sigil of rapport over Lysaer and carried out my instructions?’

  The slender initiate bearing one scarlet band stepped forward and gracefully curtseyed. ‘My Prime, yes, indeed. Your quarry was most easy to read, his steadfast nature all but transparent. Bank on the fact he will stay the course and not lift his siege under pressure. He may guess at our motive to break his half-brother. Yet he does not suspect we have an enchantress already placed in the citadel.’

  Elaira, cast into the fray as the irresistible lure to draw Arith
on, and whose tender love would deliver him into the Prime Matriarch’s grasping hands.

  Sunk in turbulent thought, Lirenda lifted the heated pot. She dispensed tea and spooned honey in dutiful servitude. Amid the taut quiet, civilized by the sweet plink of spoons and fine porcelain, she veiled the blaze of anticipation in her tawny eyes, as she considered the upstart sorcerer and masterbard whose interference had seeded her shameful downfall. She, more than any, awaited the day Arithon’s captivity became the wedge used to drive the Fellowship Sorcerers onto their knees.

  ‘Our hook is well-set,’ said Prime Selidie, well content to shrug off improprieties. ‘Lysaer’s grating manners are not worth correction. Let our sisters in grey treat his grievously wounded. Embrace him and smile, knowing his pompous cause and his war host will be played as the pawns to corner our prize for the taking.’ From Lirenda’s hand, the Prime accepted the mulled wine her maimed grasp could never manipulate. ‘To the ruination of the compact, and to Davien’s defeat!’

  While the Senior Circle shared her spirited toast, the Koriani Prime Matriarch sipped her spiced drink, replete with satisfaction. ‘Where my predecessor failed, I will force the victory and raise our order back to due prominence.’

  She had but to wait for Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn to take her laid bait, then jerk the puppet strings tight at the opportune moment.

  Lysaer s’Ilessid did not finish his work with the injured, or leave the Koriathain until almost noon the next day. His rich surcoat and poised elegance were no longer faultless when he finally emerged. Paused just outside the dimmed quiet of the hospice tent, he snatched a moment to straighten his shoulders. His rumpled white silk was marred by flecked blood and water-stains. A tarnish of stubble roughened his chin. Except for gold trim, which the sunlight burnished bright as his fair hair, he could have been mistaken for one of his war-harried senior officers.