Kitabı oku: «The Curse of the Mistwraith», sayfa 7
Transgression
Lirenda, First Enchantress to the Prime, glared wrathfully at the junior initiate who sat across the worktable, her hands clenched and idle amid bundled herbs, glass jars and the mortar and pestle set out for the mixing of simples. In a quiet broken by the distant shouts of boys who raced to capture chickens for the butcher, the senior’s face slowly reddened beneath netted coils of black hair. ‘What misbegotten folly do you suggest now, miss?’
Elaira, whose bronze locks perpetually escaped even the stiffest of pins, stared stubbornly aside through rainwashed glass, though fog had marred the view since centuries before her birth.
Her senior ranted on. ‘Asandir rides the west road in haste. Every sorcerer in the Fellowship is alerted, and you tell me, “the second lane requires no watch duty.” A toad has better perception.’
Elaira transferred her gaze from the window to Lirenda’s livid face. ‘Sithaer take the second lane watch!’ She pushed impatiently at the half-made charm between her hands, this one a shepherd’s ward to guard young stock from the lung-sickness that stunted newborn lambs. ‘That’s not what I meant.’ She need not elaborate, that Asandir on the road with Dakar in tow could well indicate the resolution of the great West Gate Prophecy. If sunshine was restored, the diseases she mixed talismans to prevent would be banished along with the fog that had fostered them. Yet Koriani enchantresses had no oracle but guesswork derived from images. Recklessly rebellious, Elaira restated in bluntness beyond any tact to forgive. ‘Why shouldn’t we ask Sethvir to locate the lost Waystone? If we recovered the great crystal the Prime Enchantress would know what was afoot without this tedious idiocy of nitpicking details.’
Lirenda gasped and her smooth, porcelain face drained of colour. Elaira restrained a heady urge to laugh. Though she found the sight of her senior’s distress rare enough to be funny, she had already defied protocol by broaching the two most unmentionable subjects known to the Prime Circle.
Misplaced since the chaos of the Mistwraith’s conquest, the spherical crystal known as the Waystone could encompass the powers of one hundred and eighty Koriani enchantresses and bind them into a single force. Probably Sethvir knew the gem’s location, but the sisterhood by tradition regarded the Fellowship of Seven with deep and bitter resentment. Elaira despised her seniors’ silly pride, which forbade a request for assistance; but never until now had she been brash enough to say so. Through the hush while the First Enchantress recovered her poise, Elaira wished her impulsive words unsaid.
‘You’ll learn prudence.’ Lirenda tilted her head with the grace of a cat stalking prey. ‘Since you daydream through the task of making hearth-cures, and disparage your order’s means of tracking news, you will stand eighteen hours of second lane watch, without relief. If I hear any complaint from the senior in charge, I’ll take the matter before the Prime.’
Lirenda whirled and left the workroom, silk skirts rustling above the hammering fall of rain against the casement. Left alone with the fusty smells of herbs and old dust, Elaira cursed in frustration. Eighteen hours, and there would have to be a storm, she thought miserably; a pity her talents did not encompass all four of the elements or she might have performed her task in flame, warm and dry. But water minded her meagre skills best. Angrily leaving the candle alight, and the jars on the table untidied, Elaira yanked her cloak from its peg, kicked open the planked outer postern and stamped down worn steps into the chilly afternoon.
The slate of the old earl’s courtyard gleamed like steel underfoot, marred with moss-choked cracks. Low walls that once bordered flowerbeds now leaned under hedges of burdock and a rank explosion of briars burned brown by early frost. The sunless fogs clipped short the seasons, to the waste of the earth’s rightful harvest. The hardened black stalks of spoiled berries rattled wizened fists in the wind. A crow stretched dark wings over the dripping lip of a fishpool, then took flight at Elaira’s approach. Resigned, the enchantress perched herself in the space the bird had vacated. She gazed down into brackish, leaf-lined depths.
With trained resolution, she blocked the surface sensations of rain and chill and annoyance from her mind. The details of her surroundings receded, replaced by the poised stillness of perfect inner balance. Presently a thin, pulsating whine struck across her mind; Elaira recognized the siren song of the second lane, one of twelve channels of magnetic force which arrayed Athera’s world. She tuned her consciousness into harmony, then blended, ranging north pole to south, sustained by the current of the lane’s narrow band.
Droplets beaded her hair and trickled icily down her collar. Elaira shivered, unaware. With the finesse of practised control she linked the deflections in the second lane’s resonance to a net between mind and water. A shadow appeared on the pool’s rain-pocked surface. The form sharpened, spindled, and resolved into an image; a silver-haired sorcerer and a fat prophet reined lathered mounts before the lichen-splotched arch of a World Gate. Elaira dutifully recorded their presence, and moved on…
Curse of Mearth
Tumbled past semblance of design, the ruins of Mearth thrust walls like jagged teeth through dunes of rust coloured sand. Lysaer walked into the shadows cast by lowering sunlight and wondered what manner of folk would build a city in a wasteland. Arithon remained largely silent, except to say that heat probably posed less danger than Mearth in the hours after dark. Accordingly, the half-brothers had left the grove under the full glare of noon, and exchanged small conversation since.
Arithon broke the silence. ‘Lysaer, what do you know of your gift?’
Braced for mockery, the prince glanced at his half-brother. But the Master’s gaze rested uninformatively on a gap in the crumbled brick rubble which once had been Mearth’s west postern. ‘How well can you focus light? I ask because we may be needing a weapon.’
Though Lysaer preferred to leave the question unanswered, the perils ahead forced honesty. ‘I had none of your training. Except for the practice of healing, the king banned the elder lore from court after his marriage failed. I experimented. Eventually I learned to discharge an energy similar to a lightning bolt. The force would surely kill.’
Years of solitary practice lay behind the prince’s statement. Control of his inborn gift had come only through an agony of frustration. That Arithon should absorb the result without comment roused resentment.
Lysaer considered the man who walked at his side. Delicate as his hands appeared, they bore the calluses of a master mariner. Wherever ships sailed, Arithon could earn a place of respect. Lacking that, his quick mind and enchanter’s discipline could be turned to any purpose he chose. If a new world waited beyond the Red Desert’s gate, the Master would never lack employ.
Lysaer compared his own attributes. His entire upbringing had centred upon a crown he would never inherit. As exiled prince, he would be a man with a commander’s skills but no following, and neither birthright nor loyalty to bind one. In peace, he might seek a servant’s position as fencing tutor or guard captain; and in war, the honourless calling of mercenary. Hedged by the justice demanded by fair rule and sound statesmanship, Lysaer shrank in distaste at the thought of killing for a cause outside his beliefs. Anguished by a gnawing sense of worthlessness, the prince brooded, studied and silent.
The sun lowered and Mearth loomed nearer. Centuries of wind had chiselled the defences left behind, until bulwark, wall and archway lay like tumbled skeletons, half-choked with sand. The citadel was not large; but the size of the fallen blocks from the gate towers suggested builders mightier than man.
Arithon crested the final rise. ‘According to record, Mearth’s folk were gem-cutters, unequalled in their craft. The fall of a sorcerer is blamed for the curse that destroyed the inhabitants. Beggar, tradesman, and lord, all perished. But Rauven’s archives kept no particulars.’ He glanced with fleeting concern at Lysaer. ‘I don’t know what we’ll find.’
Lysaer waded down the steep face of the dune. ‘The place seems empty enough.’
Remarked only by the voice of the wind, the half-brothers reached the tumbled gap that once had framed the outer gateway. A broad avenue stretched beyond, bordered by a row of columns vaulted over by empty sky. Nothing moved. The air smelled harsh from hot stone. Their shadows flowed stilt-legged ahead of them as they entered the city, breezes sighed across a thousand deserted hearth stones.
Arithon skirted the torso of a fallen idol. ‘Empty, perhaps,’ he said finally. ‘But not dead. We had best move quickly.’
Lacking a sorcerer’s awareness, Lysaer could only wonder what inspired the precaution. He walked at his half-brother’s side through a chain of cracked courtyards, past defaced statuary and fallen porticoes. Stillness seemed to smother his ears, and the whisper of his steps between crumbled foundations became a harsh and alien intrusion.
Suddenly the Master’s fingers gripped his elbow. Startled, Lysaer looked up. Broken spires thrust against a purple sky, rinsed like blood by fading light. Beyond rose the scrolled silhouette of a World Gate; a silvery web of force shimmered between its portal, unmistakable even from a distance.
‘Daelion Fatemaster, you were right!’ Elated, Lysaer grinned at his companion. ‘Surely we’ll be free of the Red Desert by sundown.’
Arithon failed to respond. Nettled, Lysaer tugged to free his arm. But his half-brother’s grip tightened in warning. After a moment Lysaer saw what the Master had noticed ahead of him.
A blot of living darkness slipped across the sand, uncannily detached from the natural shade cast by a fallen corbel. Even as the prince watched, the thing moved, shadow-like, along the crumbling curve of a cistern; the phenomenon was partnered by no visible object.
Arithon drew a sharp breath. ‘The curse of Mearth. We’d better keep going.’ He hastened forward. The shadow changed direction and drifted abreast of him.
Chilled by apprehension, Lysaer touched his half-brother’s arm. ‘Will the thing not answer your gift?’
‘No.’ Arithon’s attention stayed fixed on the dark patch. ‘At least not directly. What you see is no true shadow, but an absorption of light.’
Lysaer did not question how his half-brother divined the nature of the darkness which traced their steps. His own gift could distinguish reflected light from a direct source, flamelight from sunlight and many another nuance. No doubt Rauven’s training expanded Arithon’s perception further.
The shadow changed course without warning. Like ink spilled on an incline, it curled across the sand and stretched greedily toward the first living men to walk Mearth’s streets in five centuries.
Arithon stopped and spoke a word in the old tongue. Lysaer recognized an oath. Then the Master extended his hand and bunched slim fingers into a fist. The shadow convulsed, boiling like liquid contained in glass.
‘I’ve pinned it.’ Arithon’s voice grated with effort. Sweat glistened in streaks at his temples. ‘Lysaer, try your light. Strike quickly and powerfully as you can manage.’
The prince raised clasped hands and opened his awareness to a second, inner perception which had permeated his being since birth. He felt the reddened sunlight lap against his back, tireless as tidal force and volatile as oil-soaked tinder to the spark his mind could supply. But Lysaer chose not to redirect the path of existing light. Against the shadow of Mearth, he created his own.
Power rose like current to his will. From an inner wellspring beyond his understanding, the force coursed outward, its passage marked by a thin tingle. Aware of deficiencies in his method, but unsure how to correct them, Lysaer grappled the energy with studied concentration, then opened his hands. A snap answered his motion. Light arced, brilliant, blinding, and struck sand with a gusty backlash of heat. When flash-marked vision cleared, no trace of the shadow remained.
Arithon released a pent-up breath. The face he turned toward his half-brother showed open admiration. ‘You did well. That shadow contained a sorcerer’s geas, compulsion bound by enchantment. Contact would have forced our minds to possession by whatever pattern its creator laid upon it. Dharkaron witness, that one meant us harm. There’s not much left of Mearth.’
Warmed by the praise, Lysaer moved ahead with more confidence. ‘What makes the spell susceptible to light?’
Arithon lengthened stride at the prince’s side. ‘Overload. The geas appears as shadow because it absorbs energy to maintain itself. But the balance which binds its existence isn’t indestructible. A sharp influx of force can sometimes burn one out.’
Lysaer had no chance to ask what might have resulted had his handling of his gift failed them in defence. A pool of darkness, twin to the first, seeped from beneath a jumbled heap of masonry. After a moment, the thing was joined by a second.
Arithon aligned mastery with will and raised a barrier against them. Green eyes intent, he watched the blots of blackness weave against his ward. Even as he strengthened his defences, another trio stole around an overturned pedestal.
‘Ath’s grace, the place is riddled with them.’ Lysaer glanced nervously to either side, fighting to hold the calm necessary to focus his gift. Arithon said nothing. Although the Gate lay no more than a stone’s throw away, the distance between seemed unreachable. Pressed by necessity, the prince plumbed the source of his talent and struck.
Light cracked outward. Unexpectedly blinded by a flat sheet of radiance, Arithon cried out. Sand, barrier and shadows roared up in a holocaust of sparks. Wind clapped the surrounding ruins like a fist as hot air speared skyward in updraft. Stunned for the span of a second, Lysaer swayed on his feet.
Hard hands caught his shoulder. ‘Keep moving.’ Arithon pushed him forward.
Lysaer managed a stumbling step. When his senses cleared from the explosion, his eyes beheld a vista of nightmare. Arithon’s ward extended like a bubble overhead; shadows battered the border, licking and wheeling and insatiably hungry to pry through to the victims inside. The prince glanced at his half-brother. Tense, sweat-streaked features flickered as shadows crossed the afterglow of sunset. Arithon looked whitely strained. If he became pressured past his limit, Lysaer feared they might never live to reach the Gate. Second by second, the shadows thickened. At each step, his half-brother’s defences became ever more taxing to maintain.
Lysaer gathered strength and lashed out. Light flared, blistering white, and seared the horde of shadows to oblivion. The prince trod over ground like heated metal. Determined to escape Mearth’s sorcerous threat he ran, narrowing the distance which separated him from the world portal. At his side, Arithon erected a fresh barrier. For still the shadows came. From cracks in stone and masonry, from chinks in the sand itself, the scraps of darkness poured forth. Forced back to a walk, the brothers moved within a vortex of flitting shapes.
Breath rasped in Lysaer’s throat. ‘I think the light energy draws them.’
‘Without it, we’re finished.’ Stripped to bleakness by fatigue, Arithon missed stride and almost stumbled. As if his loss of balance signalled weakness, the shadows closed and battered against his barrier with inexhaustible persistence.
Lysaer caught his brother’s wrist. He gathered himself, pressed forward, smashed back. Mearth shook with the blast. Stonework tumbled, glazed with slag. Desperation drove the prince to tap greater depths. Light hammered outwards. Sand fused into glass. Winds raised by the backlash gusted, howled, and flung Arithon like a puppet against his half-brother’s shoulder. Their next step was completed locked in mutual embrace.
‘Sithaer, will they never relent?’ Lysaer’s cry burst from him in an agony of exhausted hope. Though the Gate lay a scant pace ahead, his eyes discerned nothing beyond a horrible, flittering darkness. Pressed on by the awful conviction that his banishment rendered him powerless, Lysaer took a reckless step and channelled the whole of his awareness through his gift.
Arithon caught his half-brother at the moment of release. ‘Easy, Lysaer.’ He tempered the wild attack with shadow, but not fast enough to deflect its vicious backlash.
Light speared skyward with a report like thunder. Sand churned in the fists of a whirlwind and scoured the surrounding landscape with a shriek of tormented energy. Lysaer’s knees buckled. Arithon caught him as he fell. Barriers abandoned, he locked both arms around his half-brother and threw himself at the bright, mercurial shimmer of the Gate.
Darkness closed like a curtain between. Conscious still, Arithon felt icy chills pierce his flesh. Then the geas snared his mind. A shrill scream left his lips, clipped short as the white-hot blaze of the Gate’s transfer wrenched him into oblivion.
Predators
A man traverses a misted maze of bogland; slime pools ripple into motion as he passes, and footfalls pad at his heels, yet he pays no heed, prodding the hummocks as he steps with a staff of plain, grey ash…
Clad in leather and fur, a band of armed men lie in ambush beside a bearded captain, while a packtrain laden with silk and crystal emerges from a valley banked in fog…
A black, winged beast narrows scarlet eyes and dives off a ledge into cloud, and a long, wailing whistle summons others into formation behind its scale-clad tail…
IV. MISTWRAITH’S BANE
The silvery sheen of West Gate rippled, broke and spilled two bodies into the foggy wilds of Athera. Blond hair gleamed like lost gold through the cross-hatched fronds of wet bracken.
‘S’Ilessid!’ Dakar’s exuberance shook raindrops from the pine boughs overhead as he swooped like an ungainly brown vulture to claim his prize.
The sorcerer Asandir followed with more dignity but no less enthusiasm. ‘Careful. They might be hurt.’ He stopped at Dakar’s side and bent an intent gaze upon the arrivals from Dascen Elur.
Dirty, thin and marked by cruel hardship, two young men lay sprawled on the ground unconscious. One fair-skinned profile revealed s’Ilessid descent. Though the other face was blurred by tangled hair and a dark stubble of beard, Asandir saw enough to guess the eyes, when they opened, would be green.
When neither traveller stirred with returning life, Asandir frowned in concern. He bent and cupped long, capable fingers over the nearest sunburned forehead. Misted forest and Dakar’s chatter receded as he projected awareness into the mind of the man under his hands. Contact revealed immediate peril.
The sorcerer straightened. Questions died on Dakar’s lips beneath the sheared steel of his glance. ‘They’ve been touched by the shadows of Mearth. We must move them to shelter at once.’
Dakar hesitated, his tongue stilled before a thorny snarl of implications. The shadows’ geas bound the mind to madness: already Athera’s hope of renewed sunlight might be ruined. Sharp words prodded the Mad Prophet back to awareness.
‘Attend the prince, or your wager’s lost.’ Quickly Asandir unpinned his cloak and wrapped the dark-haired man in its midnight and silver folds.
A pale, uncharacteristically sober Dakar did likewise for the s’Ilessid. Then he forced his fat body to run and fetch the horses from their tethers.
Asandir had requisitioned use of a woodcutter’s cottage the day before. Since the Mistwraith’s conquest of sky and sunlight, men shunned the old places of power. West Gate proved no exception; the woodcutter’s dwelling lay five leagues from the site, seven hours’ ride on mounts doubly laden, and night fell early over the fog-shrouded forest.
Dakar cursed the dark. Branches clawed him, wrist and knee, as his horse shouldered through trackless wilds. Rain splashed down his collar. Though chilled to the marrow, the Mad Prophet refrained from complaint, even though his cloak had been lent to another. The five-hundred-year hope of all Athera rested with the unconscious man in his arms. The s’Ilessid prince he sheltered was heir to the throne of Tysan, yet not so much as a hearthfire would welcome his arrival to the kingdom he should rule. The woodcutter was away to West End for the autumn fair; his dwelling lay vacant and dark.
Night gave way to dawn, cut by misty reefs of pine trees. Sorcerer and prophet at last drew rein inside the gabled posts of the dooryard. The cottage inside was dry and functional, two rooms nestled beneath a steep, beamed roof. Asandir placed the refugees from the Red Desert on blankets before the hearth. When he had a fire lit and water set heating in an iron kettle over the flames, he knelt and began stripping sodden clothing from the nearest body.
The door banged. Finished with bedding the horses in the shed, Dakar entered, his arms weighed down with a dripping load of tack. ‘Why didn’t you start with the Prince of Tysan?’
Asandir did not look up. ‘I chose according to need.’ Tattered cloth parted under his hands, revealing a chest marred across by an ugly scab. Older weals glistened by flamelight, and scarred wrists showed evidence of recent and brutal captivity.
‘Ath’s mercy!’ Bits jingled against stirrups as Dakar dumped his burden on the settle. ‘Why? Is he outcast or criminal, to have been punished like that?’
‘Neither.’ The sorcerer’s brisk tone discouraged questions.
Concerned, Dakar bent over the s’Ilessid. To his immediate relief, the prince had suffered nothing worse than desert exposure. With a feverish efficiency quite outside his usual manner, Dakar saw his charge bathed and moved to the comfort of a pallet in the next room. When he returned to the hearth, he found Asandir still preoccupied.
Dakar pitched his bulk into the nearest chair and grimaced at the twinge of stiffened muscles. Chilled, damp and wearied through, he failed to appreciate why Asandir wasted time with a servant when the West Gate Prophecy in all probability stood completed by the s’Ilessid heir in the other room. After a brief struggle, impatience triumphed over prudence; Dakar interrupted. ‘Is he truly worth such pains?’
The sorcerer’s glance returned warning like ice-water. Apt to be maddeningly oblique, he said, ‘Did you notice the blade he carries?’
Dakar extended a foot and prodded the discarded heap of clothing by Asandir’s elbow. Frayed cloth tumbled to expose the smoky gleam of a sword hilt. Above the graceful curve of quillon and guard, an emerald glimmered in a setting too fine to be mistaken for anything crafted by man. Dakar frowned, more puzzled than enlightened. Why would a peasant carry a blade wrought by Paravian hands?
‘Why indeed, my Prophet?’ Asandir said aloud.
Dakar swore in exasperation. His mind was clumsy from lack of sleep. All three Paravian races, unicorns, centaurs and sun children, had vanished since the Mistwraith’s foggy conquest. The sword was an impossible paradox. With a sizeable wager and his most coveted prediction as yet uncertainly resolved, the Mad Prophet succumbed to annoyance. ‘Dharkaron take you, I’m tired of being baited. Can’t you tell me straight just once in a century?’
Incredibly, his outburst drew only silence. Cautiously, Dakar looked up and saw his master’s head still bent over the renegade from Dascen Elur. Firelight bronzed both figures like statuary. Shown all the signs of a long wait, Dakar settled back with a sigh and stretched aching feet toward the hearth. Practicality yielded better reward than prophecy and time, and since Asandir had chosen quarters of reasonable comfort for a change, Dakar refused to waste time fretting. With hedonistic simplicity, he nodded in his chair and slept.
When the first reedy snore escaped the Mad Prophet’s lips, Asandir’s forbidding manner softened. His fingers smoothed black hair from a profile all too familiar, and his smile widened with amusement. ’So, our Prophet thinks you a servant, does he?’
Sadness weighted the sorcerer’s phrase, even through his humour. How had a royal son of s’Ffalenn come by the abuse so cruelly marked into youthful flesh? The sight was an offence. Dascen Elur must have changed drastically in the years since the Fellowship sealed the Worldsend Gate for the cause of Athera’s drowned sunlight.
Asandir studied burned, peeling features and silently asked forgiveness for the past. Then he shut his eyes and focused his awareness to know the mind beneath. Swift, direct and deft as a surgeon’s cut, his probe should have pierced the surface layers of memory undetected by the will within. But against all expectation, the s’Ffalenn cried out. His body twisted against the sorcerer’s hold and his eyes opened blindly.
Asandir withdrew, startled. ‘Peace,’ he said in the old tongue. The word closed like a snare, blanketing all sensation of roused awareness. Intent as a falcon, the sorcerer waited until eyes as green as the promise of a sword’s emerald misted over and closed.
Calculation framed Asandir’s thoughts. Somewhere, this prince had received training in the arts of power: his mind was barriered, and his strength considerable if his defences extended beyond waking perception. Gently, the sorcerer straightened the scarred limbs. He had no choice but to break through, and not only to heal the damage wrought by the curse of Mearth. Upon this man, and the s’Ilessid heir with him, rested the hope of an age.
Asandir steadied himself and began again. He blended shallowly with the mind beneath his hands, as water might soak dry felt. Despite his subtlety, the s’Ffalenn scion noticed. Uneasiness transmitted across the link, and the sorcerer felt the skin under his touch roughen with gooseflesh.
‘Easy.’ Asandir kept his contact fluid, melting away whenever the mind he explored tried to grapple his hold. He did not possess, but waited, patient as stone. Eventually the man raised his own identity against intrusion of the unknown. Arithon; the word brought Asandir to sharp attention. Whoever had named this prince had known what they were about, for the Paravian root of meaning was ‘forger’, not of metals, but of destiny.
The sorcerer’s surprise roused opposition. Asandir dodged his charge’s challenge, shaped his will as a mirror and deflected Arithon’s defence back upon itself. The Master countered. Before the sorcerer could lose his awareness in a maze of reflected selfhood, he yielded to apparent passivity. But across his wary mind lay a will whetted keen as a knife. Against him, Asandir released a word tuned entirely to compassion. ‘Arithon.’
Nothing happened. Taken aback, Asandir paused. This prince could not be other than mortal. Logic paralleled his initial surmise. Suffering could alter a mind, Ath knew, and Arithon had known more than any man’s share. With abrupt decision, the sorcerer pitched his second attempt with the force he would have accorded a near equal.
Resistance broke this time, but not as Asandir expected. The Master drove across his own barriers from within, as if recognition of his opponent’s strength inspired a desperate appeal for help. Through the breach stormed images poisonously barbed with s’Ffalenn conscience, and also, incredibly, s’Ahelas foresight, which linked cause to consequence! yet the revelation’s enormity barely registered.
Bound into sympathy with Arithon’s mind, the sorcerer knew a quarterdeck littered with corpses. Through a sheen of tears he watched a father’s streaked fingers worry at an arrow lodged between neck and heart. The laboured words of the dying man were nearly lost in the din of battle. ‘Son, you must fire the brigantine. Let Dharkaron take me. I should never have asked you to leave Rauven.’
Fire flared, crackling over the scene, but its presence seemed ice beside the cataclysmic rebuttal in the mind which guided the torch. ‘Fate witness, you were right to call me!’ But Arithon’s cry jarred against a canker of self-doubt. Had he avoided the constraints of Karthan’s heirship, he need never have faced the anguished choice: to withhold from misuse of master conjury, and to count that scruple’s cost in lives his unrestricted powers could have spared. Sparks flurried against his father’s bloodied skin, extinguished without trace like Karthan’s slaughtered countrymen.
‘Fire her, boy. Before it’s too late…let me die free…’
‘No!’ Arithon’s protest rang through a starless, unnatural night. ‘Ath have mercy, my hand has sealed your fate already.’ But rough, seaman’s hands reached from behind and wrenched the torch from his grasp. Flame spattered across the curves of spanker and topsail. Canvas exploded into a blazing wall of inferno, parted by a sudden gust. Debris pinwheeled, fell, then quenched against wet decking with a hiss of steam; but the mizzen burned still, a cross of fire streaming acrid smoke.
‘Move, lad,’ said the seaman. ‘Halyard’s burned near through. Ye’ll get crushed by the gaff.’
But instead Arithon dropped to his knees beside his father. He strove in abject denial to staunch the bleeding loosed by that one chance-shot shaft. But the same hands which had snatched the torch jerked him away.
