Sorcerer's Legacy (3 page)

Ielond placed his hands on Elienne and gently pried her away from his chest.

With his eyes caught on her tear-streaked face, he said, “What in the Name of the Most Holy is a
mervine?
”

Elienne stared back, blank with shock. Then her thin face transformed and a broken laugh escaped her throat. “It’s a relative of the weasel.” She caught her breath. “And more properly phrased as a creature of Hell. The dominant offspring of each litter consumes its siblings at maturity. If the surviving kitten is male, it will also couple with its own mother before leaving the nest. Have you no
mervine
in Pendaire?”

“We have Faisix and a very corrupt Grand Council,” said Ielond. “That is share enough of the Devil’s handiwork.”

Elienne closed her eyes and shuddered. “What are we going to do about them?” Her voice still sounded strained, but there was a fresh spot of color in her cheeks, and the set to her lips proved she had spirit still in reserve.

“Ma’Diere’s Saints!” The light about Ielond’s shoulder lit his sudden smile. “We’re going to change history, my Lady, and send Faisix to his Damnation. But it cannot be done from here.”

“Then Faisix was wrong. You’ll not be dead on Summer’s Eve,” said Elienne quickly.

The Sorcerer’s smile faded at once. “Summer’s Eve in Pendaire is the locus of my true death.” His tone was suddenly clean of inflection. “Every action has its consequence, Mistress. That is one I cannot change if my Prince is to survive to claim his heirship.”

Elienne shook her head vehemently. “But if you died in Pendaire, how can you be alive in this place? Your words are like riddles, impossible to understand.”

Ielond placed an arm around Elienne’s shoulders. “Walk with me, and I’ll explain.”

Chapter
2

Icebridge by Sorcery

IELOND
took
a long stride forward. Imprisoned by his physical hold, Elienne had little choice but to follow. The Sorcerer had promised her understanding of facts that appeared to conflict without compromise. Worn thin by the weariness that dragged at her body and mind, Elienne resolved that such explanation had better satisfy her beyond all doubt. Life and Death by Ma’Diere’s Law were profound and final opposites. If in Pendaire the law of mortality was so fluid as to be reversible, she knew she could never endure such a place. Why seal herself in marriage to a stranger if Cinndel could be restored to life by a Sorcerer’s touch?

Ielond interrupted Elienne’s thought. “I must begin with the Prince. His fate brought us both to this place. When he was still a child, his royal parents died in a fire, and, following custom, the Grand Council of Pendaire appointed a Regent and a Guardian. The offices are separately held by law, lest a single man be tempted by his power as Regent to lessen his responsibility as Guardian.

“Faisix took the Regency of Pendaire. I was given charge of Prince Darion and his elder sister, Avelaine.”

Ielond paused. The coarse crunch of ice crystals crushed by his boot soles accentuated his silence until Elienne gave way to curiosity.

“The Prince has a sister?” she said. “Then will the girl not inherit in his stead, since the Council has ruled him unfit for the succession?”

“Avelaine is dead.” Ielond spoke abruptly, his voice suddenly roughened with grief which had slipped restraint. “An accident with a horse took her life at the age of fifteen.”

Bitterness touched the Sorcerer‘s face. “The Grand Justice himself ruled her death a mishap. Yet, Eternity witness, treachery claimed her. Avelaine could ride the black Damnation itself, had it come shaped as a horse.”

“You had no proof,” said Elienne in sudden sympathy.

“None.” Ielond fell silent again, and this time she did not interrupt. The wind sighed over the ice, chasing loose crystals ahead like sand. The scratchy whisper of their passage set Elienne’s teeth on edge. When at last Ielond resumed, the sound of his voice made her start.

“The loss of Avelaine alerted me to the possibility Prince Darion might likewise be threatened. He was then twelve years old. Every protective ward in the spectrum of White Sorcery did I cast about his person. Ofttimes the boy complained the lights of my enchantments kept him from sleep. Yet I dared not dilute the potency of my work.

“For five years the wards remained untampered. Then, the day of his seventeenth birthday, Darion returned home stripped of all protection.”

Ielond stopped in his tracks. His pale eyes seemed to stare through Elienne, and though darkness obscured his face, his words were forced as steel forged over a flame of anguish.

“The Prince’s clothes were streaked with blood. He said he had gone hunting with his cousin Jieles, and that they had made a fine kill. But he could remember nothing of the beast he chased, and his knife was clean in its sheath. His very aura rang with the reverberation of Black magic. When light was brought by my apprentice, my worst fear was confirmed. The bloodstains formed recognizable symbols, evil ones, and I knew if I probed their origin, I would find them to be the heartblood of a maid.”

Ielond’s hand tightened painfully on Elienne’s shoulder, yet she did not shrink from his touch. “Then Black Sorcery made your Prince sterile?”

“Just so,” said Ielond. “There was only one in all of Pendaire with both power and motive for such an act. Faisix of Torkal. It was he who possessed the horse that killed Avelaine. And now, if he has his way, the Grand Council of Pendaire will murder the Prince lawfully without his needing to soil his hands a second time. Jieles will assume the crown in Darion’s stead, and as ready a pawn for Faisix’s hand was never conceived in human form.”

“Could you not lift the curse, Gifted?” asked Elienne.

Ielond’s hand fell from her shoulder, and he resumed walking. “I could. But to do so I would have to transgress Ma’Diere’s Law. Only through Black Sorcery may the Prince’s affliction be reversed. The counterspell would require the death of another virgin.”

“You would be twice Damned,” said Elienne softly, and expected silence to follow her comment. But Ielond’s response was explosively swift.

“I’d suffer Damnation gladly, Mistress, if I could spare Darion! But my Prince forbade me permission to work the darklore. He would not have me take a maiden’s life to save his own, Eternity take his courage.”

Impulsively Elienne reached for the Sorcerer’s hand. His grasp was light, almost hesitant. Plainly, he held himself responsible for the fates of both of his wards. Elienne suddenly understood his lack of sympathy for her own grief at the loss of a husband, motivated as he was by the anguish generated by such inner guilt.

“Then you think Cinndel’s child can be passed for Darion’s own,” said Elienne at last, hoping to draw Ielond from his brooding.

The Sorcerer’s hand tightened on hers. “Yes. But it’s hardly so simply arranged. First, since I am Darion’s Guardian, it is my charge to present the Council Major with a candidate for betrothal. They, in turn, will establish the fact she is not pregnant, and virgin, by sorcery. Following their endorsement, by written law the Prince has until the end of his twenty-fifth year to get her with child. Royal marriages by tradition follow conception.”

Elienne stopped cold. Her fingers went lifeless in Ielond’s hand. “I can’t help your Prince. I wouldn’t pass a blind midwife’s examination for virginity. And you told me I carry Cinndel’s child.”

Ielond was at once clinically brisk. “Virginity can be re-created with a simple healer’s spell. As for your pregnancy, I have spent years at a stretch studying the process of conception. I have learned things about the body of a woman only Ma’Diere would remember from Her Creation. Mistress, it will be another two days before any Sorcerer in Pendaire could detect Cinndel‘s child, and that is all the time you will have to establish paternity.”

Elienne found herself trembling in the grip of fresh anger. The idea of false virginity was abhorrent, and thought of strangers, Sorcerers, scrutinizing her body made her flesh crawl. Was there no end to the indignities she might have to perform over Cinndel’s grave?

Ielond grasped her shoulder and lightly shook it. “Have a care, Mistress. Another outburst from you will bring Faisix back. I doubt we could stand against him a second time.”

Elienne opened her mouth to utter a heated protest, but Ielond cut her off with rebuke.

“Should my Prince die for your dignity, Mistress?”

Elienne’s temper dissolved into tears. She had no spirit left for resistance. Ielond drew her close in his arms, and emotional exhaustion overtook her at last, like a wave dashed ragged against rock. Stroking her smooth hair with his fingers, Ielond said in her ear, “Lady, I have been seeking you through Time and Space, for thousands of years. Know that I cherish you as I would a daughter, and strive for understanding. My actions are those of a father whose only son is threatened, for I love Darion as a son.”

Elienne’s head spun. How could any man, Sorcerer or otherwise, live for thousands of years? Her mind was too numb to grapple with impossible concepts.

“I’m tired,” she said simply.

“Rest, then.” Ielond traced a symbol over her forehead with his thumb. Sleep rose in a dark tide, drowning the well of Elienne’s thoughts. She sagged against the Sorcerer’s shoulder and, hoisting her like a child, he took her up into his arms and began to walk.

* * *

Elienne dreamed. She knew a place of moonlight and rocks. The sky was starless, black as Eternity, and against its featureless, velvet expanse a crescent moon gleamed like Ma’Diere’s Scythe, the one She carries in Her Left Hand to gather in the Dead.

Elienne stood alone in that dream place and silently waited. Her body gradually assumed the fixed patience of the stone under her feet, and her mind became balanced on the needle-fine instant that comprises the present. All thought was fenced by an implacable cage of discipline and, moment to moment, she was able to contemplate only what was.

The moon traced a low arc above the horizon, dragging dawn after its lower limb. The sun rose, hot and white as the Seed of Life Ma’Diere holds in Her Right Hand, and still Elienne waited.

Her body seemed to melt and flow, conjoining with the barren gray rock. Muscles, sinews, and joints became as rigid as statuary, enduring as the stone itself. Unburdened of its transient, mobile casing of flesh, Elienne felt her mind free itself and expand. She beheld the plain where she stood as part of a round, spinning planet. The sun swelled into sphericality, and Elienne’s perception broadened further, until it embraced the stars in their multitudes and encompassed the Pivot of the Universe.

Elienne felt herself merge and become one with the vast ebb and flow, Ma’Diere’s Right and Left sides that balance Life with Death. Still she waited, until her concentrated thought honed itself into a weapon and finally shattered the taut pinpoint of the present. Consciousness broke through. Time became visible, a shining white ribbon that streamed before her across the void, until perception became dimmed by incomprehensible distance.

The stonelike rigidity released Elienne’s flesh. Compelled by impatience, she stepped onto the path of Time and began to follow its track. Her mind restlessly overtook the plodding of her feet and roved ahead, gathering speed until space, stars, and universal reality whirled past as a featureless blur. Time spun onward, sweeping Elienne’s awareness with it like thread cast haplessly from a spool. Aware its nether end passed straight through the Eye of Eternity, beyond which lay the heart of Ma’Diere’s mystery where no mortal may enter, Elienne tried to brake, to slow the rush of thought. But the effort only served to reunite her sluggish flesh with her mind.

Flung beyond control, Elienne glanced back, frantically searching for sanctuary. But instead of a haven, she found a wide, light sky peppered black with shapes. Hell’s Demons were extended in full pursuit. Beneath the straining pinions of their wings, claws and fangs gleamed like steel polished in anticipation of blood and killing.

Elienne yelled in stark fear and stumbled. Faisix and his snake-scaled horse led the Hell‘s Horde, and the creature’s forked red tongue tasted her presence. It quickened pace.

Elienne screamed again. Terror froze her thoughts. She forced herself to run. Time unreeled futureward under her, but its course was no longer straight.

Cut, spliced, and rewoven repeatedly, the Timepath’s clean line had been altered to the point where the eye could scarcely follow its spiraling tangle of convolutions.

Elienne had no chance to wonder whose hand had meddled with the thread of natural progression. Her pursuers drove her forward without mercy. She fled over the first splice in the Time-track, her only thoughts of escape.

The universe splashed into fragments. Darkness reigned between one step and the next. Reality re-formed as Elienne’s foot came down, but its shape was unrecognizable, utterly changed. Hardly had her senses encountered an impression when a second junction came upon her. Another void opened underfoot, replaced by yet another sequence of existence. But the alien reality of that Time-borne place held no comfort to human perception, and it was shortly spliced away in favor of still another.

Elienne glanced behind, saw Faisix and the Horde had fallen back. More junctions passed beneath her step. Time-track interwove with Time-track in blinding progression, until each successive reality fell into the next like a toppling row of dominoes whose faces defied counting. Then, without warning, Time’s line straightened out.

Elienne knew a world, a land with customs separate from any she had ever known, and in that place a woman. Almost it could have been herself, so fresh in the stranger’s mind was grief for a lost husband and ruined home. Elienne felt herself sift through the woman’s existence, body, mind, and emotions, striving to match character and circumstance with a pattern she found embedded like a signpost along the path she traveled. The woman failed to fit, and Time bucked underfoot, spliced into change with unarguable purpose.

A second woman waited on the other side, and beyond her, women by the thousands in tireless succession. Each had suffered the recent loss of home and lover, and each carried a newly conceived child. Elienne entered the lives of all of them, mercilessly driven by the meddler who had carved Time to fit his purpose and left his pattern at every turn.

“Release me!” she wanted to scream, yet she knew such outcry would be futile. Faisix and the Hell’s Horde were still behind, and she could stop only when a woman was found whose character and circumstance meshed with her predecessor’s requirements.

She traversed mind after mind. Her nerves became frayed by others’ pain until humanity itself wearied her, and the lives she experienced became numerous and petty as the movements of insects. Yet pursuit denied her a second’s rest.

Elienne felt her feet become heavy; every mortal instinct balked at the distance she had wandered from her proper Time. She glanced often over her shoulder, each time horrified to discover that Faisix and his Hell’s Horde had gained.