TWOLAS - 05 - Grand Conspiracy

  'I expect to serve justice.' Prince Lysaer inclined his head toward the restive party of grooms and blooded horses. Over iron-shod hooves drumming thunder on the planked wharf, he said, 'Stay at my right hand.'

  While the displaced seneschal gave way with a sniff for losing his accustomed place, the Prince of the Light debarked, with his war commander fallen in step beside him.

  Raiett Raven strode forward. The incised flesh that bracketed his mouth described his rife impatience. 'Forgive our poor welcome. The Mayor of Hanshire is this moment at sea with our war fleet. He asked that I stay to greet you. If you will please mount? Our high council waits in the old city with news. You'll have comfort, with wine and refreshment.'

  'War fleet?' Prince Lysaer's bearing was magisterial silk, immune to such chivvying haste. 'My news at Avenor contained no detail. I know that four ships under my standard have foundered. How many good men were lost with them?'

  Already half-turned to wave the grooms forward, Raiett stalled in a swirl of dark velvet. 'Eight ships.' His correction came crisp. 'The others struck the rocks farther south. The misfortune was a conspirator's plot. Strategic attacks by barbarians made certain the news was delayed.'

  Lysaer endured through a penetrating glance from inquisitive peridot eyes.

  Then Raiett said, 'That's a total loss of your newly launched trade fleet, am I right? As to sailhands and officers, we hear there were drownings and injuries. Firm numbers aren't in yet. The council will give you what facts we can verify.'

  Lysaer raised his eyebrows, mild before that barrage of obstructive courtesy. 'What else are you keeping unsaid?'

  From Raiett Raven, a ferocious stillness to mask his keen-edged shift from managed diplomacy to respect. 'Hear the worst, then.' He, too, could be blunt. 'Your shipyard at Riverton has burned to the ground.'

  'Go on,' Lysaer said, his eyes glacial ice, while the leashed rage in him ignited like balefire and the gulls wove oblivious overhead.

  'The event happened days ago, but word just arrived in the night. Clan archers took down three messengers. The one who got through came in wounded. We have the man here. He was a laborer, and has sworn before our council as an eyewitness to events.' Raiett gestured again toward the grooms and readied mounts. 'You'll want to question him as soon as may be. He insists Mearn s'Brydion was implicated.'

  'And your brother's warships downcoast?' Lysaer interjected with the delicacy of jabbed wire.

  'Half went for relief of the seamen cast ashore. The others left not an hour ago to seek the s'Brydion state galley. Her flags were sighted off the Riverton estuary one day ahead of the fire. She'll be detained, once Hanshire's fleet finds her.' Raiett folded his arms. Fingers strong and supple as an owl's talons rested easy on obsidian velvet; his face wore its years of aristocratic power with a seamless and impenetrable reserve. 'Our magistrate believes she'll be lurking in the islets downcoast to pick up the shipyard conspirators.'

  'My ships, my men, and my forsworn allies,' Lysaer summed up. Through the calls of the inbound fish trappers, and the cries of street children, begging, which shrilled through the percussion of stamping of horseflesh, he concluded, 'My seneschal can treat with your council in my place. He's qualified to take down the witness's testimony. Please also extend my regrets to your town ministers. For if the s'Brydion clan name is tied in conspiracy with my master shipwright, then more than our cities in Tysan will suffer. A charge of such gravity might see us all hurled into war with the Spinner of Darkness himself.'

  Raiett was too much the man of decision to waste breath in useless argument. 'Then you'll sail south directly in support of my mayor's offensive?'

  'I can do nothing else.' Already Lysaer's thoughts ranged ahead. His dismissal of his seneschal to act as his envoy was peremptory and final. Since Raiett made no move toward the horses and escort, Avenor's prince flung back his last word in challenge. 'Stay and guard your fine city of Hanshire. Or come along with my ships like the crow, and stay at hand for the bloodshed as you please.'

  Raiett laughed. 'Couched in such terms, what else is left but to soothe down hackled feathers and accept?'

  * * *

  Under a gold sky and the diving flocks of gulls who scavenged the rocks at low tide, the livery mounts and grooms sent to dispatch Avenor's royal delegation to the beamed hall in the old city left the wharf with empty saddles. One groom and one gelding trailed after them, bearing the shrewd old seneschal, who would serve as Prince Lysaer's ambassador. The Mayor of Hanshire's full brother, Raiett Raven, boarded the Alliance flag galley. He perched at the rail, sharply watchful as his namesake, while Avenor's fleet of five cast off from the docks and cleaved their smoking-fast course from the harbor.

  Beside him, faced inboard with mailed elbows braced upon streaming, wet wood, Sulfin Evend lounged with the settled ease of close kin. Both men observed the unearthly transformation, as Lysaer in his stainless white-and-gold tabard walked among the sweating banks of oarsmen. After a night passed in killing exertion, he asked more: that they raise themselves to the task of overtaking the fleet which had departed from Hanshire ahead of them.

  'Impressive,' Raiett murmured, drumming his long fingers against the ruby-and-silver bracelets he wore everywhere as a talisman. 'So tell me, nephew. Since you've deserted your birthright for soldiering, is this Prince of the Light all he claims to be?'

  Sulfin Evend returned his enigmatic regard. 'What do you know?'

  'What I see.' Still entranced by the sacrificial dedication of the rowers, Raiett smiled. 'His Grace has an impressive style. His handling of men is extraordinary. The shipyard laborer who carried us word of the late conspiracy was drawn to turn informant on a master who trusted him.'

  Mail chinked, sullen, to Sulfin Evend's shrug. 'You aren't one given to belabor the quirks of a simple commoner's loyalty.'

  'Just as you weren't expected to cast aside the privilege of your family ties.' Raiett's gaze over the silver flash of his bracelet assumed the fixed focus of a cat. 'Your father asks why, since Hanshire has never favored Tysan's return to the outdated mores of a monarchy.'

  'What do you know?' Sulfin Evend repeated, while the sea heaved, rocking, under the keel, and spray thrashed and creamed to the redoubled pull of timed oars. The galley's wake streamed behind, white lace against indigo, erased by the indistinct pallor of mist as the fleet drew away from the shoreline.

  Raiett straightened, annoyed. He stabbed a closed fist into the rail as if his clasped fingers held steel. 'Very well. Forget social subtlety. We'll play instead for bare facts. Cattrick's a native Southshire craftsman with cousins and kin ties in Merior. The seer who advises your father's council links his betrayal of Arithon s'Ffalenn to the demands of a Koriani oath of debt. Since the shipwright's true loyalty might not ride on crown gold, the question begs asking. Why didn't Lysaer s'Ilessid prevent his defection? His Grace had to suspect sabotage before this. Why didn't he catch the flaw in the designs which saw his eight ships hit the rocks?'

  One stroke, two; the galley plowed through a stiffening cross-wind, flags cracked to the beat of her urgency. Sulfin Evend jerked his dagger from the sheath at his belt and presented the point toward his uncle. 'His Grace does not confide in me, ever. Nor would my counsel be fitting in his affairs.'

  'Ath!' Raiett's quicksilver explosion of frustration warred with his close-held restraint. He did not respond to the ritual opening offered by the bared knife. 'You can't believe the man is creation's divine gift to spare all Athera from darkness!'

  Hard gray to searching, pale green, the eyes of the two men locked. Still holding out the gleaming, sharp blade, Sulfin Evend looked away first.

  Raiett's utter astonishment woke disused lines of humor over his crag-thin features. When he spoke, he was gruff. 'Put up that steel.' He waited until the dagger was sheathed, made tactful at last by a dignity even his striking contempt could not shake. 'Very well. At least we know it wasn't the quarrel with your father that sent you off slumming with the guard into Rivert
on.'

  'I stand here alive,' Sulfin Evend replied, 'because I pursued the Master of Shadow through a grimward, and the Name of the Light and Lysaer s'Ilessid spared me from the horror which killed every man of my company.' His final pronouncement came chill as black ice. 'Every accusation of shadows and fell sorcery the prince charged of the enemy is true. These I have witnessed. The rest you must judge for yourself. Tell my father I have sworn life service to s'Ilessid. I won't be returning to Hanshire.'

  Beneath, on the benches, the oarsmen streamed sweat, driving heart and sinew to surpass the limitations of human endurance. Avenor's flag galley cleaved the wavecrests, sheeting spray, while astern, her sister vessels trailed in their frustrated effort to keep pace.

  Shown such living proof of the prince's inspired leadership, Raiett chose the grace of retreat. 'If you won't come back, at least lend your family the continued benefit of your judgment. You've always had a fine touch for state intrigue. Don't waste that gift in stubborn silence.'

  'You always make the loose stones roll your way.' Sulfin Evend drew breath, the hooked curve of his brows knit through a moment of revealing, self-searching thought. 'Very well. I see a prince with a vision beleaguered by our political ploys and mean bickering. He fears for us all. His mission to defend humanity's cause is made vulnerable through our petty differences. Since you ask, yes. I believe his Grace saw the flawed ships' plans at Riverton for what they were.'

  'Damn you, give us particulars,' Raiett snapped.

  Again goaded to challenge, Sulfin Evend gripped the rail until his sword-hardened strength scored nail-bitten crescents in the varnish. 'All right. I can speculate. His Grace didn't expose Cattrick, because Mearn very likely noticed the selfsame discrepancies in the drawings. Add on the persistent frustration, that the wild clans won't be suborned from the Shadow Master's influence. Since they die for their causes, Lysaer sought to intimidate them. But his effort to break their heart by enslavement has backlashed, and the Fellowship's intervention with Caithwood's trees surprised and outflanked him. Repercussions from that have mangled his sea trade, an ill turn, unless Tysan's prince seeks a grand cause to unify. Then he might let such a friction raise a force of ill will to eradicate the old bloodlines. Bleed the towns into fighting, he'll gain troops and funds. For that, I would say he has gambled his ships. Today, perhaps he has won.'

  For if Mearn s'Brydion had been left the temptation to collaborate in treason with Cattrick, and Duke Bransian had dispatched his state galley in support, then a just retaliation must follow. A campaign in the east to lay siege at Alestron could be used to marry Lysaer's support in Tysan with those towns in Melhalla which had not yet suffered a hardship to align them with Alliance interests.

  'He needs a clan war to build on, I thought so!' Raiett slapped his knuckled fist into his palm, the unformed suspicions of recent years distilled to a crystalline certainty.

  'Aren't we a trifle premature?' said a voice. 'Mearn's guilt isn't proved, but still only hearsay.' While Sulfin Evend faced seaward, flushed and hot with embarrassment, Raiett lifted his head. He turned just in time to see Lysaer s'Ilessid step up from the oar benches onto the raised deck by the rail.

  His Grace seemed unoffended, the ingrained reflex of royal bearing unfazed by gossip or criticism. The blue eyes were wide-lashed, clear as the spring sky that brightened like new satin over the misted horizon. 'To convict Mearn s'Brydion of treason, or establish his innocence, he must first be found. Then he must be taken into safe custody to stand trial.' To Raiett, poised as a leaned sword against sea swells that came and went through the late-breaking fogbanks, Lysaer posed the conversational question with the same forthright edge. 'If I could ask an opinion in exchange for the ones volunteered by my Lord Commander, do you think your mayor's fleet lies under the command of reasonable men?'

  Raiett shrugged. His dark mantle snapped to a sudden gust. 'What's reasonable?' He elaborated, soft as the first testing tap of a sword point. 'If our slave-driven galleys stay disbarred from King Eldir's ports, and none of your promised sailing vessels survive this disaster to replace them, more than your merchants in Tysan will see ruin. Mearn's head on a pike would salve pride, if naught else.' Sarcasm thinned into velvet-clothed challenge, Hanshire's First Counselor finished. 'If you preferred his skin living, I wonder why you didn't trouble to remand him into secure custody sooner?'

  'For trust of his older brother, who gave me true service at Vastmark.' Lysaer settled between the two men, eyes lucent as cut aquamarine, while the oars clove dark waters, ripping up rooster tails of spray. 'Do you think my flag vessel can overtake Hanshire's war fleet?'

  'I cannot speak for Hanshire,' Raiett said, his appraisal revised since the wharf. The stark edge of his profile showed hollows like scarped granite in the breaking ale fall of sunlight.

  'Then speak for humanity and justice instead.' Lysaer stripped away pretense. 'Even conspirators deserve a fair hearing. If we fail to catch up with your mayor's galleys before Alestron's state vessel is boarded, do you think there will be an accused man left alive to receive the grace of a public trial?'

  'No.' Raiett laughed. 'Not a prayer. And you can't overtake, though you burst the hearts of your best string of oarsmen by trying.'

  The prince must have known the assessment of Hanshire's counselor was accurate, for as sun razed through the last layers of mist, the wind would stir brisk from the west. Any galley southbound would roll on her keel, to the detriment of her oarstroke. 'You'd have to summon a gale from behind in order to sight their masthead banners by sundown.'

  Lysaer s'Ilessid measured the oarsmen, streaming sweat in the extremity of effort. 'I thought so, too.' He straightened, the riffling breeze entangling gold hair with the ruff of his ermine collar. 'Then we'll just have to serve your mayor an unmistakable message to wait for due process and the administration of my royal justice.' He raised his locked hands, faced toward the galley's bow, then straightened his arms over his head.

  Sulfin Evend knew enough to mask his face.

  Raiett Raven caught the searing, fireball blast full in the eyes, as the power exploded from Prince Lysaer's shut fists. The light bolt sheared a terrible, spitting line of fire across the pale arc of the heavens and vanished away to the south. Its aftermath left a slamming, rumbling crash of concussed air that slapped the galley like a toy, then eddied away into thunder.

  'Let that be the portent to inform of my coming,' Lysaer pronounced through the creak of stressed lines and the sullen flap of furled canvas. He left the open deck to the stupefied stare of Hanshire's First Counselor, whose widespread fame had been built and made on his reputation for unflappable decorum.

  Spring 5654

  Pieces

  At Avenor, aching inside and out as she sits before her mirror in the empty opulence of the royal suite, Princess Ellaine regards the hollow-eyed image of herself, then shouts for her maid, the beaten defeat of her pride snapped to rage; spurned once as chattel, she will not stand down before Lysaer's callous handling without giving the spirited protest of a fight . . .

  Leagues southward, at Innish, Fiark pores over charts and sorts lists of lading, fingers thrust through his spun gold hair; and the letters he writes in the secrecy of late-night candlelight arrange, like a delicate web, the supply routes of the provisions that will keep Prince Arithon's small fleet safely at sea, beyond reach of Lysaer s'Ilessid and the curse of Desh-thiere's machinations . . .

  In a closed, curtained chamber scented by a birch fire, Lirenda of the Koriathain clasps shaking hands around the returned chain of her quartz focus; the first scrying she effects on the lost keys of restored power frames a sleeping herder boy in Araethura, whose round, child's face has begun to firm with the first hint of angularity set in train by her spells of transformation . . .

  Spring 5654

  VII. Premonition

  The spellbinder's call reached Althain Tower just past nightfall on the same day that Lysaer's light beacon flared down the Korias coast. At that hour,
Sethvir sat tucked in his breakfast nook mourning the demise of his favorite buskins. After countless years' service, the soles were too thin to last through another season. The fur had rubbed off. Only odd tufts remained, clinging between shiny patches of leather so worn, it dissolved into cobweb under the efforts of needle and thread. The prime black wolf hide had been the gift of a Camris trapper who now lay five decades dead. Sethvir sighed, while the spring drafts teased his bare toes and ankles, and the earth link channeled the events of the world through the limitless vaults of his mind.

  Then one fragment snagged.

  . . . a thousand leagues east in the Cildein Ocean, a chip of stone taken from the Khetienn's ballast sank through clean brine, trailing the sultry heat infused by flame, and a distress cipher scribed in fresh blood . . .

  Althain's Warden picked a wisp of shed fur from his beard. He blinked misted eyes. Disgruntled as a roused owl, he narrowed the thundering span of his vision and touched the source of the conflict knotted into the stone's ritual sinking.

  Its signature Name speared a chill clear through him.

  Through the torchlit beat of a galley's sped oars in the night spread over Tysan; between the padded steps of a forest cat hunting the wilds of Deshir; across the knifing flight of a bat over Lithmere, the Warden of Althain retrieved the steel needle which had failed to revive his aged footwear. The sharpened tip served him in place of the chalk left upstairs with his books in the library. He shoved his cold tea mug aside, rammed buskins and spooled thread out of the way to clear open space on the tabletop. An ink flask tipped over. Oddments of paper scribbled with notes flew airborne and scattered about his bare feet.

  Sethvir paid no heed. He scribed a swift circle in the wood of the trestle, then summoned to invoke the powers of the elements. Air and water responded to urgency and need. A line of fine energies shimmered through his demarked geometry and bridged him a merciless focus.