The Curse of the Mistwraith (50 page)

She threw on her cloak. Outside, in solitude, she stared at the miracle of unveiled stars in an amazement that renewed with each passing moment.

The deep-bound silence of the fenlands that always before had oppressed her, now invited exploration of new mystery. Trees looked different, dappled in subliminal shadow and the fine-spun subtleties of starlight. Ice looked more silver than grey, and hollows soft in their shadows as rich men’s velvets. The amazing acuity of outdoor vision she absorbed in sheer delight. Other avenues of thought she forbade through brute force of will.

Discipline like iron let her look upon beauty and never once contemplate a desolate site in Daon Ramon, where a black-haired prince laboured with his half-brother to bring such a miracle to pass. Morriel’s warning was serious, and had in sober fear been taken to heart. For wholedays, Elaira had succeeded in allowing no chink for regret. She prided herself on unshaken performance through this supreme test, of bared skies and her first sight of stars.

She trembled, excited to imagine how untrammelled sunlight was going to look. Envy did not sting her as she realized that those sister initiates assigned the quieter duty of lane watch most likely already knew. Elaira wrapped her hands in her leathers. Contented despite cold and loneliness and the desolation of the marsh by midnight, she awaited the advent of dawn.

During that hardwon moment of balance, the message from the First Senior reached her. It smote her through the pulse of the second lane energies, and its directive shattered all peace:

‘To Elaira, revised orders from the Prime Enchantress: upon the Mistwraith’s defeat at Ithamon, the Fellowship of Seven has plans to arrange the high king’s coronation at Etarra. You are commanded to journey there, to bring back for Koriani scrutiny your most intimate insights into the royal princes’ characters.’

Guard, Ward and Bard

The gusts that sweep the broken outer walls of Ithamon join force with a second current, not natural, that twists the dead grasses and kicks up dry leaves in drifts; looking to the eye like a wind devil, the discorporate sorcerer Luhaine lays wards against Desh-thiere that cut across time as well as worldly dimension…

When sunlight breaks finally over Havistock, the sorcerer Traithe takes his leave of the craftsman who stands as fosterparent to the growing heir to Havish: ‘Prince Eldir will assume his inheritance after Rathain’s succession has been settled in Etarra. But let us be clear that until then, his studies continue. He is not to be excused from the dyevats…’

North, in the town of Ward, under skies still greyed by Desh-thiere’s mists, an elderly bard contains bitter disappointment as he rips down the message posted in bright hope the day before: ‘
Auditions for an apprenticeship to beheld, beginning the following noon. Apply to Halliron at the tap in the Straw Cock Tavern…
’

XII. CONQUEST

The change in season brought buffeting winds to Daon Ramon Barrens, even as every spring had before the loss of sunlight to the mist. In past years, turbulent gusts mingled the fragrances of wildflowers and sweetgrass that mantled the backs of the greening hills. Unicorns had rejoiced with the quickening earth. But that had been before man’s meddling had diverted the Severnir’s waters from their natural course, Asandir reminisced as he stood vigil under the lichened span of Ithamon’s wrecked southern gate. The valleys outside were robbed of their carpet of flowers. Saddened by the taint of mould and rot that Desh-thiere’s hold had lent to the seasonal breezes, the sorcerer trained his mage’s perception upon the land until physical form became overlaid by the vision of his innermind. Before him all things stood revealed in primal patterns of light.

Beyond the imbalance marked upon the landscape by centuries of warped weather, he sensed something else; a more subtle wrongness, built of pent expectation and a near to subliminal tingle, as if between air and the solidity of the earth, violence lay coiled in ambush. Asandir delved deeper. The anomaly faded before his probe, eluded him so thoroughly that for a moment he stood disoriented, unsure if he had chased some spectre of his own uncertain thoughts.

He released his focus, frustrated. His feet were clammy in dew that natural sunlight would long since have burnished dry. Asandir sucked in a deep breath. His fears loomed real enough, perhaps, to corrupt even true seeing. And yet he remained unconvinced that the sick things half-sensed between the shimmer of life-force were phantoms inferred by apprehension.

This day began the chain of events that must culminate in a s’Ffalenn king’s coronation at Etarra. During the next hours, and spanning the course of several weeks to follow, Desh-thiere’s meddling would skew the world’s fate beyond reach of augury or strands to reflect any certain outcome. With luck and persistence, these hills could be restored to their former fairness. Yet although the moment had come to complete the Mistwraith’s defeat, Asandir remained grim. Contrary to nature, his cloak hung in straight folds off his shoulders: winds that should have whipped in off the downs to strafe the ruined wall walks were this moment quelled by a barrier ward fashioned by his discorporate colleagues. When complete, the spell worked by Luhaine and Kharadmon would be a masterwork that twisted even time to subservience.

A catspaw of air through the archway sent a dry leaf scratching. Aware the disturbance marked an arrival, Asandir drew breath and addressed, ‘Ithamon is secure?’

Kharadmon replied from the mist-murky shadows, a sulky note to his tone. ‘Luhaine’s not satisfied.’ A pause ensued. ‘There’s clear sunlight not a dozen yards above the mists at the outer walls.’

Asandir flicked back damp cuffs to chafe blood back into cool hands. ‘So Lysaer said. He sensed as much through his gift. That excited him to the point where he took himself off to practise sword forms. Dakar is still finishing the breakfast the others were too tense to eat.’

Amid stillness, and a chill that gripped more than cracked stonework, Kharadmon’s amusement whetted to anticipation. ‘You want your apprentice rousted from his comforts?’

‘Not by your methods, ghost.’ In a lighter moment, Asandir might have chuckled. ‘I’ve no patience today for soothing prophets with bruised dignity, particularly one griped by a bellyache brought on through overindulgence.’

‘And Arithon?’ The discorporate sorcerer’s sarcasm blurred in reverberation through the gateway.

Asandir broke his pose of quietude and strode up the vine-tangled avenue that led to the inner citadel. Ahead of his step, leaves rustled in a burst of agitation as an iyat skulked out of his path. ‘Right now, the Shadow Master’s tuning his lyranthe with an intensity better suited to a man whetting steel for bloody vengeance. You’re welcome to provoke that one by yourself.’

Kharadmon barked a laugh and kept pace, an unseen flow of cold air. ‘A formidable weapon, Elshian’s lyranthe.’

‘In Arithon’s hands, not just yet,’ Asandir snapped. Then he sighed. ‘You’ve caught me as testy as Luhaine, this morning.’ But the wards by themselves were enough to have done so, without Kharadmon’s provocation. Since the effectiveness of any arcane defence stemmed from Name, no spell could perfectly thwart what lay outside of the grasp of true seeing; to balk an essence wrought of mist and multifaceted sentience posed a nearly impossible task, like trying to fence darkness with sticks. Despite the combined efforts of four sorcerers, Asandir could not shake a sense of helplessness. The strands had augured for failure. The strongest of conjured defences might well prove inadequate to contain Desh-thiere’s many entities. Its mist might be confined and Athera’s weather restored only if nothing went wrong; only if the princes who centred the hope of two vital prophecies could be protected through the wraiths’ final binding.

Not so preoccupied as he seemed as he picked steps over fragmented friezework, Asandir pursued the topic sidelined earlier by his colleague. ‘Luhaine’s not satisfied, you say.’

Cold air became a snap of frigid wind near in vehemence to an oath as Kharadmon said, ‘Last I saw, Luhaine was upending rocks in the rivercourse and rousting up salamanders in droves.’

‘Would that were all,’ cracked a rejoinder from the entity Kharadmon’s blithe tones just maligned. Arrived in time to defend himself, Luhaine said indignantly to Asandir, ‘We can’t make a ward to plug every Ath-forsaken bolt-hole in the earth!’

‘Meaning?’ Asandir frowned toward the matrix of energies that mage-sight picked out as the essence of the spirit he addressed.

If Luhaine intended answer, Kharadmon stole the initiative. ‘Even spread over three acres, Desh-thiere’s concentration of malice is the most powerful threat we’ve ever handled. To pare it down further will add to its unpredictability. What happens when the princes cut it to a scrap, a shadow, small enough to scatter and hide?’

Asandir spoke the unpleasant thought outright. ‘Nameless, it cannot be traced.’ His mouth thinned. ‘Find another choice, I’d embrace it.’

Kharadmon returned no glib comment. Luhaine lost his inclination to expound upon the nuance of every risk. Today, and until the upheaval augured for the time of Arithon’s coronation, perils could not be avoided. All things, including lives, must be considered expendable, except one: the continuance of the great mystery imbued in earthly form, the survival of the Paravian races. The silence of Asandir’s discorporate colleagues stretched the more ominous, in the absence of the seasonal winds.

The battlement atop Kieling Tower stayed wrapped in the same dire stillness when Asandir took stance alongside his discorporate colleagues. Voices echoed from a stairwell near his feet: Lysaer’s, raised in some jocular quip, and Dakar’s reply, hotly truculent.

‘First, they don’t
have
telir brandy in Etarra. Mention spirits distilled from fruits that the mist has turned sour for centuries, and the governor’s minister of justice will howl, then see you staked through the arse. They’re hysterically scared of hearing legends.’ Dakar paused to puff. The stair was very long and steep. Still bitter, he added, ‘Sorcerers are regarded even worse. Admit you ever saw one, and they’ll roast you whole without a hearing. I’m bored of this wasteland as you are, but damned if I’m eager to rush on to that stew of corruption and prejudice!’

‘Well then,’ said Lysaer, stubbornly and spiritedly agreeable, ‘when Desh-thiere is vanquished, and we get there anyway, I’ll buy the beer till you’re passed out in your cups.’

‘You can
try.
’ Dakar’s tousled head emerged into the mist, twisted aside for rejoinder down the stairwell. ‘First, when it comes to knocking back drink, I’ll have you under the table, prince. Next, Etarrans don’t brew beer worth pissing. They like gin, from which half the populace gets headaches. You’ll find their governor’s council badtempered.’

Lysaer trailed Dakar onto the battlement, saw his half-brother already poised between merlons with his knees tucked under folded arms. He called greeting. ‘Let’s hurry and set the last of this fog under a cork.’

Arithon nodded absently, then addressed what seemed like vacant air. ‘We’re not going to finish this here, are we?’

Blocked by Lysaer’s shoulder, Dakar craned his neck to follow this exchange until something unseen in between prompted a string of fervent curses.

Caught in the crossfire, and unconvinced that epithets which mingled blasphemies with the properties of fresh cow dung should be rightfully applied to his person, Lysaer said, ‘I seem to be missing some point.’ His good nature remained stiffly in place as he rounded to face his tormentor. ‘Could you stay the abuse until after you’ve explained?’

Dakar rolled his eyes; while behind Lysaer’s back the ghost-silent images of Luhaine and Kharadmon manifested upon the battlement. Each in their way looked inconvenienced: Luhaine’s rotund figure and schoolmasterish frown at perpetual odds with Kharadmon’s cadaverous slenderness.

Still puzzled, Lysaer turned around again, to find himself confronted by strange sorcerers. Only royal poise curbed his startled recoil. Creditably courteous in rebound, he said, ‘We’ve not been introduced, I believe.’

Kharadmon raised tapered fingers and flipped back his hood. Streaked piebald locks tumbled over his caped cloak as he swept through a courtier’s bow. ‘My prince, we are colleagues of the Fellowship, members in spirit since the day that flesh suffered mishap.’ And he arose, confronting Lysaer with cat-pale eyes that studied in sardonic provocation.

Luhaine tucked his thumbs into a belt stout enough to halter a yearling bull. As flesh, he had always been careful to regale his portliness with restraint; as spirit, he forwent adornment as a frivolous waste of conjury. Against an appearance unrelentingly prim, his words seemed weighed like insult as he said, ‘The buffoon who speaks is Kharadmon, your Grace of Tysan.’

‘Buffoon?’ Kharadmon curled his lip. ‘Luhaine! Can your wit be that tired, to find you floundering for epithets?’

‘After two ages suffering your lame taste, such failing would carry no shame.’ His eyes joylessly reticent, Luhaine measured the blond prince whose dignity made light of unpleasantness. Given Lysaer’s staunchness of character, it seemed unnatural that the strands should unremittingly forecast war. Aggrieved that such beautifully trained poise might come to be channelled toward deceit, Luhaine turned sharp. ‘You think we should get on with defeating Desh-thiere?’ He flicked a thick finger in reproach. ‘I say it’s a fool who would rush to meet danger.’

Taken aback, Lysaer flushed. Asandir set a hand on his shoulder and spared him from further embarrassment. ‘Kharadmon and Luhaine have worked nightlong to establish protections.’ He shot a pained look at both spirits. ‘Excuse their rudeness, please. Their labours have left them disagreeable.’

Motionless up until now, Arithon abruptly stood. He did not speak and Lysaer, unsmiling, found grit to ignore Kharadmon’s challenging regard. ‘Since the last attack by Desh-thiere’s aspects, I thought your Fellowship determined its hostilities couldn’t be warded?’