Traitor's Knot (46 page)

This time, Vhandon's muscle jerked Talvish short. ‘Let the grass-lander go. He's confused enough. How will he ever learn who he is? With that face, he'll probably never find means to stand clear of the royal shadow.'

The arrow shoot lasted until the sore losers decided that Arithon was safest pried loose from the bow and tucked back amid their musicians. There, Rathain's prince chose to entertain himself further by trying their wind-instruments one
at a time. For each slipped mistake, he downed a neat draught of claret. Vhandon refused to place silver with Talvish, that his Grace would become last man standing.

To their novel astonishment, the musician's quick fingers tripped less, as the effects of hard drinking undid him. If his eyes brightened, and his speech blurred, his wit remained stinging, and his music retained the ache of its vibrant clarity. Swaying, abstracted, a carved flute in hand, Arithon wove melody with the crystalline tang of frost on the grasses of autumn.

He refused the lyranthe until the last. Just after the traditional wedding at dawn, he retuned the silver-wound strings and delivered a performance that surpassed the predecessor who had taught him. The net of matchless harmony spun through the mist silenced even the most raucous reveler.

Dakar lay snoring, his cheek mashed on the trestle; Vhandon and Talvish stared at their fixed hands. Glendien turned her face into her husband's braced shoulder, and Lord Erlien openly wept.

No one, grown man, woman, or child, escaped the tug of the melody's lyrical passion. No eyes looked up, or noticed the eagle perched amid the stilled pines overhead. None moved or spoke, through the seamless delivery, and none sighed, till the final note faded.

When Arithon finished, those who knew him best realized he was not sober. He still slipped his admirers with casual ease. His leave-taking granted their stamping cry for an encore no shred of satisfaction. While daybreak speared through the crowns of the trees, and the torches smoked, spent to cinders, Vhandon and Talvish arose together and saw their sworn liege off to bed.

Lord Erlien, watching, was shocked to discover his stiff beard was dampened with tears. To Kyrialt at his side, and the scarlet-wrapped bride, the High Earl observed with scraped grief, ‘It's a straight violation of Ath's grace to set such a talent at risk for a war. That man should never have touched killing steel!'

Kyrialt shut his eyes against more than the night's chill. His clasped arms tightened over his shivering wife while, in the grey flood of light, he returned a low snarl of rage. ‘If that accursed s'Ilessid pretender succeeds, and his upstart religion takes root, we'll see that rare gift forced to battle for nothing else but survival.'

Erlien responded, cold as the fog that purled like ghost shades through the forest. ‘Then by Dharkaron Avenger's Black Chariot, we had better fight to make certain the false doctrine withers.'

Overhead, still unnoticed, the perched eagle unfurled broad wings. Its pinions hissed down as it launched and soared, then vanished amid a pale shower of sparks that could not be seen, but by mage-sight.

Spring 5671

Cold drizzle falls on the morning that Arithon leaves Selkwood for Telzen; behind, he leaves Kyrialt s'Taleyn with a penned sheaf of orders, eighteen bolts of white silk, and the tribute gold taken to sow conflagration amid the new legions of Light; with him go his double, the Mad Prophet, and two liegemen, bearing between them a borrowed lyranthe and a chest of poached amethysts to be restored to the reigning
caithdein
of Melhalla…

Past the waning fury of the equinox storms, as a trade galley leaves the shelter of Eltair Bay to ply southward, an initiate courier bears a wrapped packet containing Elaira's personal quartz crystal to Ithish port, where it will see transfer to another enchantress bound overland to the Forthmark sisterhouse, and final delivery to Selidie Prime…

At the edge of the wind-swept wastes of Atainia, the Warden of Althain dreams: of a sinister figure riding the Camris road, and black webs of horror spinning cold shadows in Jaelot, Darkling, and Etarra; and the clean, searing line of his summons arcs out, touching a distant shade, a raven, and in tenuous plea, an eagle that soars on the icy winds of high altitude…

Spring 5671

T
wo nights after the wedding in Selkwood, the ice point blaze of the spring constellations glinted on jet above the slate peak of Althain Tower. Their silver light fell as a gossamer whisper through the opened east casement, where the Warden reclined, head propped on a padded chair, awaiting the late rise of the moon. A blanket the colour of wine warmed his limbs from the breezes that fluttered the candles. The frail lids of his eyes remained closed, while a dark-skinned adept trimmed his unkempt hair using the knife he kept sharp to cut wild goose-quills for pen nibs.

‘You know your best asset is north-bound towards Telzen?'
The whisper threaded the empty air, not a handspan from Sethvir's left ear.

‘Was,'
the Fellowship Sorcerer responded in silent reply to the unseen arrival. One whose presence escaped an adept's tuned awareness, a feat of unrivalled astonishment.

But then, only one busy mind on Athera pried into the mysteries with such startling invention. To the shade, whose stealth wore the fierce tang of the magics imbued by the drakes, Althain's Warden proffered the image of Arithon s'Ffalenn, his cloaked figure in the company of the Mad Prophet, disguised as a button seller. The errant pair made their way westward on foot, down the Southshire trade-road. Sethvir added,
‘Did you think me behind on current events? The ruckus at dawn could have called up the dead, never mind the display that stamped warding patterns into the lane flux.'

Fionn Areth, Talvish, and Vhandon had fallen asleep to the memory of Arithon tuning the lyranthe bestowed as a parting gift by the clansmen. After
their night of oblivious sleep, they awakened to the stunning discovery that prince and prophet had gone. A note was left tucked with the strong-box of amethysts. Arithon's script directed them northward to keep the planned rendezvous in Atwood. Fionn Areth was placed under Rathain's crown protection, the bold lines of writing assured; Koriani interference should pose them no difficulty. Sethvir's earth-sense had captured the binding involved when Arithon invoked his initiate awareness and sealed the penned note with his Name.

Since Vhandon and Talvish knew charter law well enough to grasp the full implications, Althain's Warden finished his thought with disingenuous calm.
‘The young double ought to be safe for the nonce.'
Prime Selidie dared not try the Waystone before she reconfigured her sigils to match the crystal's changed resonance; and Arithon's signature enabled a crown obligation, leaving the clear-cut grounds to allow a Fellowship intervention.

‘Flawed logic,'
the subtle intruder responded, a flow of consciousness slipped through the sussurrant snip, as fine steel sliced through hanks of white hair.
‘Without Selidie's impairment, whom could you send?'

Sethvir was too enervated to argue. Particularly since the Fellowship's short-handed state had invited the mocking exchange in the first place.

Aloud, he said, ‘Welcome to Althain Tower, Davien.'

The startled adept flinched. The knife flashed, and a cut fleece of hair drifted down and strewed the wax shine of the floor-boards. ‘Your colleague is
here?'

‘As he wishes, he could be.' The Warden's mouth turned in tacit acknowledgement of the adept's contrite touch, lamenting the gap just razed through his beard. ‘My dear, no apology. My roof sparrows will use the spare wool for their nesting, and my vanity shall mend, over time.'

The adept set down the knife. Her other palm pressed the Warden's frail shoulder, the brief contact a warning to guard his wracked strength. ‘Call as you have need.' Her passing shadow darkened the lacquer-worked clothes-chest as she departed and latched the door shut at her heels. Left to resume his discussion in privacy, Sethvir opened forthwith, ‘I sent because I would ask for your help.'

Behind closed eyes, he unreeled a string of images winnowed from the ongoing stream of his earth-sense:
of Raiett Raven, at Etarra, lying in wakeful dread of the coercive voices that riddled his sleep; of the subtle ties, spun like lead foil and shadow, that streamed from his tainted aura and afflicted others of his acquaintance. Of a spy network, compromised by insidious forces, and of officials in three of Rathain's northern towns, slowly bent to embrace an inexorable dance with corruption invited by their blinkered prejudice. Vision revealed the first cobweb strands of the ties that might one day solidify into a network that fed upon torture and death. Althain's warden foresaw the thousands of afflicted spirits burning in their torment. The auric force woven from their captivity flickered at nightfall like candle-flames and cast a shadow deep as the abyss.

Reeling through that horrific future, where the practice of necromancy spread like a plague on the false sacrament of the Light, Sethvir resumed his strained plea. ‘I can send a discorporate to clear the corruption in Jaelot and Darkling.'

Davien leaped ahead and captured the gist.
‘Etarra requires an incarnate presence. How inconvenient, with you and Asandir caught busy as jugglers, with your hands full of imbalanced grimwards.'

Sethvir added nothing. The conclusion was obvious. If the cult incursion stayed unresolved beyond the next winter's solstice, its extended roots would establish tight bolt-holes, and finally become entrenched. ‘That city already traffics in child conscripts,' he rasped. ‘Before those unfortunates are ritually bound and put to use for abomination, the compact demands our response.'

No Fellowship awareness could evade that glaring truth. Such horrific rites, done in that trammelled pass, must disrupt the resonance of the fifth lane and finally unbalance the seat of grand confluence that anchored through Ithamon itself. The sharp shift in frequency would wreak permanent change; the heart of Athera's greater mysteries could not do other than falter beyond recovery.

‘You have not abandoned your care,' Sethvir added. ‘Or why else did you break your sealed silence in Kewar? Why, on the very moment that Lysaer s'Ilessid first let his blood with a tainted bone-knife?'

That perceptive statement caused the tight-knit thread of contact to resolve into a standing figure. One with flame-and-salt hair tumbled over proud shoulders, and clad in a tunic of russet, accented with sable embroidery. Davien's long stride brought him up to the colleague who sat tucked as an invalid in the stuffed chair.

‘Your words are too generous,' the renegade Sorcerer said. Flesh and blood, breathing, he stood his cold ground with authority, but not repentance. ‘Who could defy the charge that we seven stand guard for?'

Eyes still closed, although the live flame of his visitor's aura beat against his exposed skin, Sethvir smiled. ‘You cared too much, rather.' A raw effort of will, he turned a rested hand palm upwards: no reconciliation, but a gesture of bare supplication. ‘In fact, what has changed? The Kralovir hope to root a cult branch at Etarra. Their dedicate cause to eradicate clanborn will move forward under the sunwheel banner. One might hope your concern will prompt you to assist. Or else why respond to my summons?'

Davien stared downwards, eyes hard as lacquered walnut. ‘I left you a capable weapon to address this. You do have the means to respond.'

‘Arithon!' Sethvir's lids flicked open. He stared back, incensed. His failing frame might be swathed in a blanket, yet that burning gaze masked the power of nova and cataclysm, leashed quiescent by an endurance that ran beyond time. ‘Ath's grace on earth! Will you never stop your invidious scheming?'

‘A double jeopardy throw,' pronounced Davien. ‘Let's see which priority rules your choice this time. Our binding made under the will of the dragons
to preserve the mysteries for Paravian survival, or else the bleeding-heart clemency that gave rise to the threat allowed in by the compact.'

Ingrained beyond words, the contention that had chafed to unreconciled argument, then the wounding fracture that had rocked the world to the brink of disaster. The silence cut, while the far-distant stars spun their undying splendour across the black arc of the deep.

‘We both care,' admitted the renegade Sorcerer, first to snap off that locked stare. ‘But we do not agree.' Restless as a wind-driven leaf that crossed and recrossed the smooth floor, Davien paced. ‘Not over the risk of a human presence kept within bounds through your vaunted charters. We've been through this before. Shall I try again? Your system of clan intercession, based in a law administered by the high kingships, is unstable. I have no desire to labour for ages, with failure the axe blade poised over my neck.'

Sethvir sighed. ‘Are you angling to shatter our ties with Athera? If so, at what price? Beneath all the layers of gimmick and subterfuge, do you actually wish to be finished, or are you just yearning to snap the drakes' hold on our hearts and go free?' Althain's Warden stirred, closed his fingers until the knuckles gleamed bloodless as ivory against scarlet wool. ‘Would you abandon the grace of the mystery that gave us our release and redemption?'

‘Would? Or could?' The glance that Davien shot over his shoulder revealed peaked eyebrows and a piquant irony. ‘The question beckons, Sethvir, does it not? Can you say in the depths of your tormented dreams you have not pursued the temptation? To just walk away? Cross Fate's Wheel and be done? Leave Athera's fate to fall or to languish—why not let the flow of the mysteries fail? Death is the mask that drives the illusion. Why not let the darkness unveil its own light, and resurrect its next hope of salvation?'

‘Ciladis could not,' Sethvir whispered. Anemone pale in the thin flood of starlight, he kept up his laboured speech. ‘After one armageddon and its cost of deliverance in slaughter, I believe he would finally go mad.' Older than the drakes' dream of summoning, the Seven's ties of sworn fellowship:
not to risk another division of forces or a parting of common agreement.
One such failure had brought downfall to a mighty civilization, strung between far-flung worlds. ‘Would you finally tear us asunder, Davien, and seal this planet's entropic destruction?'

‘Ah, that's too weighty an anguish, my friend. No grandiose causes, please. We're past dealing.' Stopped short with his artisan's fingers flattened against the stone window-sill, Davien finished his thought. ‘Let in the bad cards, I always argued we'd lose the first hand. Scrub the second, then the third, perhaps sweat through a fourth, a protracted game makes no difference. We'll
still
wind up forced to destroy the rag-tag remnant of humanity, instead.'

‘We are not discussing the fate of mankind,' Althain's Warden reminded. ‘The matter is necromancy and our destined charge of attending Paravian survival.'

Davien spun on his heel, cat fast, now offended. ‘For that, you have Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn, trained and fit.' His citrine setting flared as he capped his flourish with the low parody of a performer's bow. ‘A transcendent initiation in the maze under Kewar, and a year of erudite knowledge have prepared him. Have I not answered? Your crown prince has been formidably well groomed to take up your thrown gauntlet at Etarra.'

Sethvir's sorrow filled all the room, which tonight might as well have stayed empty. ‘You are no friend to his Grace, if that's your best answer. One last time, I will ask. Why not make the choice to assist us?'

But Davien shoved away from the casement, his mercuric rejection recalcitrant to the bone. ‘Why now? Give me one sterling reason!'

With this colleague, Sethvir was wiser than to tender his argument straight on. ‘Of us all, Asandir has the most cause for resentment. Now his life's in jeopardy once more. He's had to restabilize four grimwards without any thought of rhetorical hesitation.'

‘Spare me your line, that he just soldiers on! You've leaned on our knowledge for your ends before.' From the far wall, turned on his heel once again, Davien cracked from behind, ‘Why should I change principle and come back to heel now?'

Althain's Warden regarded his ringless, thin hands. ‘To spare Arithon.'

‘For what?' Davien's stinging mockery came back, untamed. ‘Pray tell, Calum Kincaid,
for what?
A future that brings us mankind's execution? Armageddon,
again
, because the drakes chose us for the staggering task of lifting their legacy of remorse?'

Turquoise eyes slipped into far-sighted distance, until snow-white lashes swept down and veiled them. Images unreeled behind Sethvir's closed lids. The dizzying array of mapped possibility revealed the structured course of the war host now re-forming under the sunwheel banner. The Sorcerer's awareness discerned the raising of two armed forces. One inspired by the fervour of false faith, arising out of the west, and another, more sinister, about to be birthed through the pull of cult influence, that would sow the whirlwind by storm in the east.

Etarra, not Avenor, would shape the policy that sharpened the lethal edge on the axe.

The sole path to disarmament lay in Arithon's guile: and the intricate, visionary plan he had forged to defuse fanatical conflict.
A course one man could never hope to accomplish without the full backing of a Fellowship intervention.
A Sorcerer's hand would be required to clear the Kralovir from Etarra.

‘The Teir's'Ffalenn must not be asked to exert his trained strength in the open,' Sethvir finished in toneless exhaustion. ‘Such a move, even made for expedience, would destroy his intent for a bloodless denouncement. Ask him to strip the mask off the Kralovir, and all of the north will be driven to recoil! Misguided terror will only spark a more vicious persecution.'

Sethvir foresaw the site where the hammer would impact the anvil: where the fury and blind fervour would ignite into flame and strike against the immovable pride of Arithon's staunchest supporters. Afraid for Alestron, the Warden's final line of appeal remained his implacable silence.