Stormed Fortress (20 page)

* * *

'
Stay with me, beloved.
'
The plea crossed the empathic link of the scrying. Elaira sighed as the intimate contact cradled her like a caress.

Such flooding tenderness melted her heart, but could not unstring her concern.
'
Could I do less? The High Earl who pads at your heels is not tame. If you fail to satisfy, his wolfish following will rip you down like staked carrion. At least I
'
ll know where to seek your remains. That
'
s assuming a dismembered corpse is left to require a memorial.
'

Arithon
'
s humour downplayed her fear.
'
If Erlien gnashes his teeth any harder, there won
'
t be a fang left intact for the ripe spree of slaughter.
'

'
Well, Kyrialt
'
s worried
'
Elaira pointed out.
'
Somebody ought to be holding his sword-hand. That
'
s if you don
'
t want to drive him berserk before he can sire hale offspring.
'

'
You
'
ve seen Glendien,
'
Arithon quipped in response.
'
She
'
ll set him a clutch. That
'
s the price of mating young oak with a fire-brand.
'

'
You say!
'
Elaira felt her cheeks warm.
'
Clear your business in Alland. I
'
ll make you a blaze to torch down stars and moon.
'

'
You have, love. Already. I
'
m branded, soul deep. If your meddling Prime Matriarch values her life, she
'
ll leap high and fast to dissolve every obstacle she
'
s raised between us.
'
Which framed his bald warning: Elaira could sense the shocking, grim force behind his bed-rock sincerity. Whether the trial ahead brought him triumph, or the bitterest, agonized failure, Arithon Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn desired her presence, spun through the weave of his heart
'
s hope.

Just now, threat to Alland commanded priority. At one mind with her living awareness, as he had not dared to indulge since Etarra, he baited Lord Erlien
'
s mettlesome scouts and lured them into the deeps of Selkwood forest. Throughout, he was chaffed for his frivolous errand. Others berated his untoward character with slangs and ribald aggression.

'
If you wanted the evening to tomcat, why couldn
'
t you tell us you itched for a wench?
'

'
No sweet pickings, there!
'
someone else quipped.
'
Not since Kyrialt
'
s hussy got her licks in first and declared he
'
s got ice cubes for bollocks.
'

Arithon laughed.
'
This happened
after
her fingers got singed?
'

'
Try harder,
'
jabbed Kyrialt in his wife
'
s defence. The lady
'
s equipped to pick her own fights. She
'
d hammer Dharkaron himself, just for sport. You lot would be spurned to bay at the moon and gnaw the shat bones of the hindmost.
'

Such boisterous by-play lasted until they reached the prince
'
s obscure destination. Broken out of the velvety murk of the pines, Arithon entered a clearing rinsed under starlight. Hush fell over the crowd at his heels. On stopped breath, their jeering stayed silenced. Ahead rose one of the
moss-capped, carved stones the Il
itharis Paravian guardians had laid down to demark the sanctity of Alland
'
s free wilds.

Elaira divined Arithon
'
s intent as he knelt to unwrap his fine instrument.
'
You plan to awaken the old centaur wordings and raise the arcane defences of Selkwood Forest?
'

'
I
will try,
'
returned Arithon, while around him, the scouts recoiled in shock as they also guessed his brash strategy.

'
Blessed Ath, you
'
re not serious!
'
Kyrialt gasped, afraid to speak over a whisper.
'
Your Grace, do you
know
what you dare? Is there language to chasten such arrogance?
'

For the brazen endeavour just claimed was no trifle. A crowned high king rightfully oath-bound to Shand, and attuned to the cardinal elements, would be loath to disturb the coils of quiescent Paravian enchantment. Such a mystical working must rival the reach and strengths of a Fellowship Sorcerer.

The forces laid down here could ignite mortal flesh or burn out the mind with insanity.

The bard spoke no word. He gave no apology. A slight figure merged with the stone
'
s looming shadow, he slipped the cover from his lyranthe. Silver strings flashed, needle-thin, as his deft fingers perfected the pitch.

'
Stand back!
'
murmured Kyrialt to the awe-struck scouts. Dread set him trembling.
'
We will observe from the verge of the wood, and woe betide us if tonight
'
s work destroys us for your act of invasive meddling.
'

'
Best beloved
'
sent Arithon.
'
Withdraw or stay, as you wish.
'

Crime or folly, no warning might tear Elaira away, as he settled himself to begin.

Stillness reigned, and unbearable tension. Athera
'
s Masterbard knelt with bent head, immersed into listening silence. The enchantress shared the moment of burning immersion, as his heightened awareness evoked his trained mage-sense. With him, she felt the night clearing dissolve, all sight and sensation of physical form redefined as a lacework of energy. Amid that sparkling lattice of light, form spoke as a singing vibration. The musician merged with that ripple of sound. His clear talent mapped the subtleties and embraced their ephemeral harmony.

Then he settled the strap of the lyranthe and stood. Erect, head thrown back, he set fingers to strings and opened the line of his melody.

One note sheared the air, aching with a stark purity that framed the essence of solitude. The bard came alone. His phrase began an appeal to a force that stood beyond mortal knowing. He showed no contrition for his brazen nerve. His intrusion was not masked in blandishment. He brought the living cry of his need in a tone that stung flesh for its vibrancy.

Against the single struck string, he built dissonance: a snarling, discordant plunge that enacted the ruinous fury of war. He played destruction, hatred, and hurt, that smashed like a breaker of fury and ebbed into desolate grief. To the shattering vista of sorrow, carved by howling chords of unreason, he added his voice, and shaped the savagery born out of geas-bent madness.

He sang Desh-thiere
'
s curse. All who bore witness recoiled with shame. The watching clansmen cringed with betrayal. The storm he built raged on without quarter, until the glen
'
s silence was made utterly violate. The bard did not relent. The brutalized horror of ruin was unveiled with unvarnished honesty.

'
Ath wept, he
'
ll be killed for this,
'
somebody gasped.

No others could bear to comment. They only wished the harsh moment undone. To a man, they wept in bitter remorse, that the bard they had brought used his gift to rape a peace they were sworn to hold sacrosanct.

Cold as struck iron, the musician who wielded the lyranthe did not recoil. His art refused pity. The face of cursed war was forged into a harrowing challenge: as the aimed sword might thrust for the viscera, he did not pull his stroke. With a brilliance past mercy, the discord he played shaped the very wreckage of hope.

The crescendo reprised the unbearable pain, bleak beyond reach of requital: except for the last line, which hung on a pause, with one note struck through as a question. One note, and one man, left the horror unfinished, a raging query demanding an answer.

The bard
'
s voice rang out and sustained,
and then became partnered.

But this time, not by his hand on the lyranthe. The dormant power in the Paravian marker stone aroused and shaped his response.

A shimmer of light appeared like a star. At first, little more than a gossamer flicker licked over the ancient, carved patterns. Then rock itself chimed. A swelling chord sounded. The tones met and meshed with the bard
'
s strain of chaos, and matched him in straight opposition. Where his measures cried violence with barefaced appeal, the circle now became closed. Light brightened and blazed, as the guardian spells countermatched agonized ruin with the outpouring of unconditional tranquillity. Wholeness resulted. From horror and destruction came the exquisite freedom of unbridled peace, the harmonic dance as death was rebraided into the dazzling glory of rebirth. Grace resounded. The dark and the light were not separate, but
one,
reforged in dynamic balance. Where calm, of itself, must engender stagnation, the exuberant range of
all
possibility turned the symmetry of Ath
'
s creation.

Power exploded. The stone lit, then burned, an exaltation that overwhelmed sight and creased the night sky as a beacon . . .

* * *

Far north, still wrapped in trance state in the brush, Elaira experienced the chord raised in Selkwood, at one with Arithon
'
s mind and emotions. The bursting flare impelled her love beyond ecstasy. At his union with the Paravian magic, purity illumined
all that he was, and all that he held in connection.
Vision exposed her heart
'
s tie to his being, and more: the lines of affection Arithon held for all his friends and associates. Elaira saw the blue steel of the attunement wrought on him by the Fellowship
'
s oath of crown service. Above that eightfold pattern, scribed in binding fire, lay the promise once sworn in behalf of Earl Jieret
'
s dying request:
the mage
'
s vow, sealed in let blood, that granted his binding protection to Jeynsa s
'
Valerient until his last breath.

Elaira
'
s scrying through water showed where that oath led, terrible as a cry of despair in the darkness. The bolt of discovery brought Sidir
'
s ruthless palm, smashing the delicate web of her trance as he stifled her agonized scream.

'
Lady! Elaira! For mercy, be still!
'
The Companion
'
s concerned glance pierced hers, as her shattered senses regained distraught focus upon her surroundings.

At once, the clansman
'
s harsh grasp released. The arm that pinned her quivering shoulders gentled with sincere distress.
'
I could not withhold,
'
he exclaimed in apology.
'
The least noise will alert our enemies.
'

'
Jeynsa!
'
Elaira gasped with alarm.
'
She
'
s gone to Alestron. Joined her headstrong intent to back Bransian
'
s ill-starred defence of the citadel.
'

No fool, Sidir grasped the unconscionable gist.
'
She
'
d dare twist her crown prince
'
s oath, force his honour, and draw him into the conflict?
'
The liegeman shivered, unnerved by dismay. He had stood steadfast at Arithon
'
s side through the horrific tactics that once brought Lysaer
'
s war host to a stand down at Vastmark. One of a privileged few, he understood how desperately near the experience had come to destroying his crown prince.

'
Dharkaron Avenger avert!
'
he wrung out.
'
The girl must be stopped! She
'
ll seed a disaster beyond all imagining. We must drag her clear, no matter the stakes. Until the hour we have her secure, his Grace must never discover her whereabouts!
'

Elaira permitted Sidir
'
s urgent grip to haul her onto her feet. Her trance was disrupted: she could not be certain. Yet the empathic link she held with her beloved could not mask her jagged unrest. Arithon owned the rogue Sight of his s
'
Ahelas forebears. Joined with her heart, the dictates of his talent meant
he probably already knew.