TWOLAS - 05 - Grand Conspiracy

  'I meddled in nothing. You gave full consent.' The enchantress dismissed his accusation with a graceful, denigrating gesture. 'As for the sword, are you not wearing one? You've served your part well. Stand aside, boy. What better reward could you ask beyond this, to have helped with the capture of Arithon of Rathain?'

  'That's pure arrogance!' The prince's hand rammed the herdboy aside. "The blade was my gift, freely made without strings. And, indeed, have you accomplished anything near what you claim?' The quarry named as the enchantress's prize stepped forward, not cowed in the least by her spelled circle or its implied threat to his person. 'You've dared to address me by the s'Ffalenn royal title, madam. Will you deny that you stand in my kingdom, under my sovereign law?'

  'Your law, as defined by the Fellowship of Seven?' Lirenda laughed in astounded disdain, the lit spark in her manner excited to passion by a challenge kept simmering for years. 'Our order predates them. We answer first to our founding tenets. Those give clear priority to humanity.'

  'Now there, our points of philosophy differ,' said Arithon, conversational. One easy, neat stride carried him to the circle's edge, close enough that he could measure his Koriani antagonist in an unwanted, eye-to-eye intimacy. 'You've taken a boy, one of my kingdom's subjects, and made a mockery of his free will. For life, you have marked him. Wherever he goes, his face makes him bait for the unprincipled hate of my enemies. Where lies the humanity in the act of playing a live man as a decoy?'

  'One detail altered without harm to life or limb,' Lirenda countered. Her bared fingers remained clasped to her quartz crystal, steadfast in contempt as she held the spelled circle in balance. 'For your intervention, today, six men have died. Four others lie beyond our sisterhood's powers to heal. Your liberty kills, prince. With Tal Quorin and Minderl Bay and Dier Kenton Vale as your testament, you have no defense left to argue.'

  'Where are the friends at my back to speak for me?' Arithon's voice struck a note that, oddly, held truthful appeal. 'This is no fair trial of character, but only a raw bid to snatch power.'

  'What friend could stand surety for the madness the Mistwraith's curse has engendered?' Lirenda replied, assured in her righteous judgment. 'You are taken prisoner by Morriel Prime's will. Your fate lies at her disposition.'

  Arithon s'Ffalenn faced her, gone white to the bone. 'For my list of dead, I will answer to Daelion Fatemaster without anyone's appeal for intercession. Here, today, in Rathain, men have died for the cost of your political manipulation.' His bard's voice a textured tapestry of grief, he leveled his own accusation. 'As subjects of the realm suborned into treason, their offense becomes mine to answer. Beware, madam. If you act out your role as a Koriani cat's-paw, be careful of hardness of heart brought on by a flawed cause and shallow character. I swore a crown oath in mercy and compassion. Not even Morriel Prime can call me to heel like a dog and expect to receive meek obedience.'

  'You would resist?' Lirenda's surprise was a clear peal of scorn, raised to exultation for the stunning discovery that her wounding had struck to the core of him. 'Go on. Try and move.' The sensitivity of his bard's gift had once left her unmoored and helpless. Now, at long last, he would share that ignominy. 'See how far you get, belly down in the snow without control of your body.'

  Yet Arithon chose not to challenge the seals that gleamed sultry scarlet, held tuned and ready to fell him. 'I should fear, do you think?' Without words, soft as breath, he unfurled a small shadow. The understated finesse of his gift blanketed the quartz matrix the enchantress employed to maintain the trap's spell-turned focus.

  The circle that pinned him collapsed into sparks.

  'Run for the postern!' he urged Fionn Areth. Burst into a sprint, he did not look back. If by misfortune the gate was barred shut, he knew no more options existed. He and his double would be trapped like small game, snagged in dire spellcraft, or else brought to bay by the zeal of the mayor's armed lancers.

  No scrap of spun shadow could keep the enchantress cut off from the focusing properties of her quartz. He had bought but a handful of seconds. His tactic was surprise, and the shock of intervention, since the dampened vibration of the crystal would inflict dragging imbalance through even an instant of interruption. Longevity bindings would be held in abeyance; that debilitating upset at best might slow down the counterwards the enchantress required to dispel the masking veil of his gift.

  Arithon flanked Fionn Areth in headlong flight to snatch back his last hope of safety. Faced ahead, thinking fast to match opportunity with circumstance if a garrison patrol should add threat of armed force to the setback, he plunged into the yawning gloom of the archway. The smuggler's gate loomed in the echoing dark, concealed in the stone of an archer's nook.

  Exhausted, played to the end of an endurance that had seen him through twenty-four razor-edged hours of risk, Arithon was nakedly unprepared for the last, diabolical cruelty set by the order to break him.

  Yet another enchantress awaited before the latched postern, and escape. For his sake, and in forethought, she had a torch ready when the flurried echoes of running feet pattered toward her, snatched through with the extended, fast breaths of two men pressing the limits of exertion.

  She used a spelled sigil to ignite the pine brand. Its first, struggling flame cast her face in pale gold, the sweet curve of each feature remembered in love and framed by the wisps torn loose from a braid of unruly auburn hair.

  The sight of her presence struck like a shot arrow, straight through to his unshielded heart. 'Ath, oh Ath, lend me mercy!' Arithon cried. 'You've been here all along as a game piece?'

  The impacting force of her living presence was too much, too soon, the nerve ends of separation ripped raw with the bonding renewed through the course of Fionn Areth's healing. Her name was wrenched from his throat, the galvanic, blazing joy of recognition transformed to a cry of drawn anguish, 'Elaira!'

  Years and distance had not changed the unbearable quandary. He still could not touch her, could not lay claim to his freedom and pass. Not without breaking her life vow of obedience to the Koriani Order.

  'Elaira, beloved.' Hands outflung, at a loss, he ran dry of words. Every stricken plane of his face matched her tormented dismay. She had been most ruthlessly used, Lirenda's spelled circle no more than an opening ploy of diversion. The wretched truth of his integrity imprisoned them both, that this, the insidious last coil of conspiracy, could not fail to unbind the magnificent strength of his will.

  Of all things he could be asked to endure, he could not face himself as the cause of Elaira's destruction. Nor could she endure to let him stand steadfast. Arithon saw through to her most naked self, that neither could she shoulder the grim stakes her Koriani service had bequeathed her. He read like plain text the split-second hesitation that spanned her impulsive decision. She would move, grasp the bar, force the sacrifice herself. If he stopped her, oh, he knew, if he yielded to Morriel's captivity with Fionn Areth's life cast into the order's control as a pawn, Elaira could not withstand the burden of guilt. Her eyes pleaded. Clouded conscience came at too high a cost for her true woman's heart to support.

  And so he must stop her, who loved her beyond the breath and life he had sworn his blood oath to the Fellowship Sorcerers to preserve, no matter the means or the cost.

  'Don't speak,' he gasped, the necessity of plain speech an effort that required a reserve of deep strength he never knew he possessed. The tenderness he preferred resurged by reflex as, even under the extremity of pressure, he admired the straight honesty of her stance. 'No, don't speak.' Such courage could humble, that she did not shrink or flinch through the crux of harsh circumstance that could smash like glass the priceless trust held between them.

  Unaware of Fionn Areth's presence as witness, Arithon found the bravado to match her. 'For my sake, sweet lady, I beg you! Don't raise the bar. If I pass through that door, on my word and my honor, we shall both share the moment in triumph.'

  In the heightened fragility of the moment, Elaira dared not e
ven blink. Her gray eyes held dammed rivers of tears; the torch in her closed fingers trembled. 'What other card is between us to play?' She swallowed, shaking harder, her fierce desperation cutting with pain to unman him. 'Don't presume I am innocent. Whose memory was used to transform Fionn Areth? Take the release I can offer. Go free. Let one less poisoned weapon reside in the Koriani arsenal.'

  Arithon shook his head in violent rejection. 'Don't speak! You can't turn my heart that way.' Mind within mind, they knew each other too well. Lies and half-truths made too lame an effort to blind and deceive and win distance; that gift, at least, he could grant her, born from the bonds of indelibly shared understanding.

  'Lady, beloved, you are as myself. No matter what happened, there has been no betrayal between us.' In the confines of damp stone, pinned inside Jaelot's walls, Arithon stepped forward, that the light would fall on his features. 'Shall I prove out my faith in you?' She could not but look at him. In his wide-open eyes, by his self-contained dignity, she must read his forthright plea of intent.

  His gaze matched to hers, that fought against tears, he gave her in snatched phrases the re-created template of logic that had framed her decision fifteen years ago. 'Between your life and the change to Fionn Areth's face, you weighed all the options. At the crux, I believe this, you chose for the best.'

  The torch wavered in her tortured grasp.

  'Oh, yes.' A hitch, a caught breath. 'Yes, I know you!' As the tears, too long held, spilled ribbons of lit gold down her cheeks, Arithon reined back the violent urge to press forward and gather her into his embrace. All he owned, he would give, just to lend her the warmth of his comfort. Wrung to the marrow by a need that matched hers to close final union between them, he poured heart and spirit into the words that were all he could give her in safety.

  'Elaira, sweet lady, keep faith in my character. The boy's freedom of choice, in my hands, will stay sacrosanct. I swore a crown prince's oath to Rathain. His plight is the charge of his liege to redress! His maligned fate is the insult to my name and birthright, and a flagrant breach of charter law. You were right to entrust me! I ask you, hold firm. On my own merits, I must be left my sovereign right to win free of this coil of conspiracy!'

  The blind hope held no substance. She would know he was hamstrung; and yet, cornered, desperate, he was Torbrand's lineage. He would not back down. Even possessed by the Mistwaith's insanity, he had never yet conceded defeat in good grace.

  Nor was Elaira without the stark grit to encourage, and receive the forgiveness he offered. Through salt tears, her mouth bent in that wry smile she saved to level his deepest defenses. 'You have boneheaded stubbornness. Is it true, what I heard, that Parrien s'Brydion once broke your leg to restrain you from misguided loyalty?'

  'Well yes,' Arithon admitted, contrite. 'But let's not omit facts. I'd had the bad manners to make splinters of the salon in his brother's state galley, beforehand.'

  Elaira laughed. 'The wasp hazing the bull? I ought to have guessed.' She mopped her damp chin with the back of her sleeve, then said in apology to Fionn Areth, 'This is a man who can't ever admit the hour he's been fairly beaten.'

  'That's likely to change,' a chill voice intruded. Disheveled, short-tempered, no longer possessed of her seamless coiffure or composure, Lirenda arrived like the shadow of bane in the open mouth of the archway. 'Or will you see Elaira made into a mindless husk just to maintain consistency?'

  Arithon whipped around like a wildcat to face her. 'Keep the lady's name out of this!' His eyes, brilliant green, matched that tone of chill hatred with a hot-blooded, furious challenge. 'If you would claim the victory for Morriel Prime, then sully your hands, bitch. Come take me.'

  Lirenda flicked a fallen wisp of black hair from her face, her vindictive triumph made all the sweeter by years of deferred anticipation. 'What, no begging for me?' She advanced, the assured clarity of privilege etched into each mocking consonant. 'No princely gallantry? Shall I have no soft word of forgiveness? Or are my vows any less binding than Elaira's when enacting our Prime Matriarch's given will?'

  Braced in vised stillness, prepared to draw steel, to use any and every unforgivable expedient to defer his inevitable defeat, Arithon s'Ffalenn ceased breathing. His head tipped a startled fraction to one side. As if through his bard's sensitivity he could hear and interpret some subtext layered through Lirenda's fierce joy in his downfall, he suddenly straightened and laughed. 'You believe your heart's fiber is made sterner than hers? Oh, madam.' He flung off his cloak. 'Shall we take the issue to trial?'

  'How far you have fallen, how desperately you grasp at straws.' Flushed to wicked enjoyment, Lirenda advanced. 'Will you stoop to try steel against spellcraft? A dog shown the collar and leash can but bark. Do go on. Discard all the pride of your training along with the manners of your royal birthright.'

  Lit to reckless delight, Arithon did not appease her taunt with the obvious. His quick hands stripped off his gloves, then followed with sword and dagger. In a debonair abandon, he tossed the sheathed weapons and clothing into the startled arms of Fionn Areth. Still regarding Lirenda, he raised both dark eyebrows. 'Sword steel can but kill.' His expression was poured honey stirred through with malice, and his voice, the lightning bright cadence of satire. 'Madam, did you know Caolle?'

  Thrown off her stride, Lirenda stiffened. 'What? Do you think to enact some petty revenge? Yes, I knew him. He died as my captive.'

  As Arithon advanced, unarmed, toward her, she fell back an unthinking step.

  'Caolle died free, avenged by his own hand.' Smooth in grace, possessed of a calm to outwear chiseled granite, Arithon s'Ffalenn raised his bare hands, palm upward. 'You once bound him like a calf, to draw me to slaughter. What's wrong? Can you not bear to shackle me in turn?'

  Unprepared for the presence of him at close quarters, Lirenda retreated a second step on stunned reflex, her golden eyes wide in the flood of Elaira's held torch.

  'Go on,' prompted Arithon. His smile opened into a genial invitation, he lilted a stunning, light phrase of clear melody.

  Lirenda snatched a swift breath. Her hand closed in involuntary defense and shielded the quartz at her breast. 'Don't. Not again.'

  'Oh, madam,' provoked Arithon in virulent good humor. 'Can it be that I know you?' He sang another line. His flexible voice used the acoustics of closed stone and magnified nuance to a spellbinding presence woven of unfettered sound. His intimate words fell too softly for any but Lirenda to overhear. 'What is a vow, after all, but a snippet of wind hobbled in words without meaning? Your heart knows a truth that your mind would deny.'

  He reached her. Framed in the velvet shadow of twilight, he extended a bare hand and entrapped the fist she held cupped to her quartz. 'I'm no cipher, but a living man. Would you know me?' A tug drew her to him. His second, swift move snatched the bone pin that fastened the tightly bound length of her hair. The jet coils spilled free. The long, straight length cascaded down her back, catching small snowflakes like diamonds.

  Lirenda could not pull free. His gentleness disarmed, waking passion and need where she had no armor of experience. No weapon she owned could match his compassion; no power of denial could heal the breach of a lifetime starved of affection.

  The gift of his intimacy was no dry barb of intellect, but a breathing force that stripped away pretense and cared. Against the sure truth of his masterbard's empathy, she stood emotionally naked.

  'What principle stands in the absence of love?' Arithon drew her closer, then stroked her cold cheek with a touch to wake fire from frost. 'Nor are you Morriel's bloodless instrument, after all.'

  He caught her chin, turned her face. 'Lirenda?' He laid his lips upon hers, kissed her until he unchained the torrents of passion she had mistaken for the surrogate of ambition. She found the cradling support of his arm and gave way, swept into a spiraling sweetness of ecstasy beyond any dream to fulfill. When she lay in limpid surrender against him, he unclasped the hand tucked through her black hair.

  The ple
a escaped before thought. 'Don't leave.'

  'I must.' Then the parting line, shaped in a pity honed like a knife thrust. 'Tell me again, what's the worth of a vow? If you would use loyal hearts for your weapon, pray don't forget how the experience feels.'

  Stunned beyond thought, beyond reason, beyond poise, Lirenda sensed nothing else but the surgically brisk withdrawal of Arithon's embrace. The impact of his absence left her unmoored. She scarcely heard his purposeful step, retreating back into the archway.

  As though the script had been written and played behind a liquid shimmer of tears, she saw Arithon reclaim his cloak and his weapons from Fionn Areth's numbed hands. Then the Prince of Rathain stepped to the postern, where Elaira patiently waited.

  He gave her a gallant's smile that burned for the gentle regard that was genuine. Nor was his voice either polished or suave as he stood inside arm's length, without touching. 'Beloved, forgive me.'

  Elaira regarded him, her staunch pride expressed in the bracing wit that had never yet failed to salve the agony from his stripped nerves. 'Were you going to tell me you usually kiss your one-night trollops in private?'

  He laughed. The free-ringing sound held a spark of pure pleasure, unforced and rich with surprise. 'I don't kiss them at all, that they don't wear your face in the sanctity of my thoughts.

  Now tell me the truth. Will your senior peer's profligate romantic indiscretion be enough to shield you from blame?'

  For indeed, he had managed the miracle of creating a cunning double blind. Lirenda could not reveal Elaira's collaboration in Prince Arithon's escape. Not without laying bare the glaring weakness Morriel was least likely to forgive in a successor.

  'Go safely, both of you.' Elaira stepped aside, allowing clear access through the postern.

  Arithon gestured for Fionn Areth to pass first. While the herder set his strong shoulder to raise the bar, the Prince of Rathain paused, one hand raised. While the door hissed open with the oiled ease kept for Jaelot's wealthy smugglers, and sleet swirled cold through the gap, he traced the determined lift of Elaira's chin, then cupped her face with a tenderness no one else living could match. 'You are as my life, lady. Never forget that.'