Dakar swore. The truth raised his gorge and half-choked him, that both incidents in their way had been prompted by his own brash faults. Remorse followed, damning him in guilt: for far more than a shepherd child’s forfeited life, Arithon had forborne to condemn him. Glad for the night that masked his wretchedness, Dakar took leave of irksome company. The first servant he found he sent scurrying to fetch Lysaer’s strongest spirits from the hold.
The Mad Prophet crawled away with a cask and a jack and sat with his back against the chain locker. There, settled pounds of cold iron damped back the singing ache of Asandir’s layered defence wards enough to spare him the rank bite of nightmares. In stubborn pain, he applied himself to stun his busy conscience into oblivion with drink.
Like the draw of ebb tide, the stupor he desired slipped his grasp. Entangled instead in punishing insight, he pleaded aloud for escape. Despite hatred, through an unwilling service that encompassed several attempts at cold murder, the years he had suffered in Arithon’s company had irremediably changed him. Even sunk in his cups, he could howl for pure gall. His abrasive unhappi-ness yielded no ground to the blurring ambiguity of peach brandy.
Truth chafed through and sprang stark to the eye. Lysaer bound his following to love and devotion. He was the honed sword, the just light, and the high star to follow. Without the bedazzling example of his strength, like Lord Diegan, the company he gathered to his banner were as men lost. Dakar hiccuped behind a closed fist. He hated deep thoughts when his head pounded. But his maudlin mood kept its terrier’s hold; he could not shrug off his conclusion.
A puzzle of subtlety set in absolute contrast, Arithon rejected dependency, spurned even his sanctioned claim to royal ties. He discouraged without mercy the weak spirits who sought to cling. The likes of Jinesse and Thar-rick found their need turned around in painful, brisk handling that left them whole and contained in themselves; and enemies found their hatreds used against them.
The spirit who followed the Shadow Master’s course in the end acted by informed choice, freely sharing loyalty and respect.
As sorely as Dakar longed for the undemanding warmth of Lysaer s’Ilessid’s close company, his yearning came flawed as he played through the temptation of false steps. To take refuge with his friend was to embrace a wrong cause, and hunt down in turn another prince who was innocent at heart of self-blinded delusion. Desh-thiere’s curse had bent Arithon to private subterfuge and flight, not as Lysaer, to raise a public cry to take arms for a misdirected justice.
Long before the brandy cask was emptied to the lees, Dakar threw aside his cup, bent his head on soaked wrists, and wept. For the means to win Lysaer’s salvation from the blighting morass of Desh-thiere’s curse remained his, to use or discard as he chose. His augury at Vastmark held good. He need only stand aside and let an arrow fly its course, and leave Arithon s’Ffalenn to meet his fate.
The set hour for the princess’s ransom arrived like the crowning play of a chess match, each major piece allotted its place for a carefully arranged set of moves. Asan-dir and Luhaine kept Lysaer and Avenor’s royal galley swathed under wards at the quayside. The force of their labours skewed the eye and shimmered the outlines of rail and rambarde like heat waves. Passersby and tradesmen backed off in stiff fear, making signs against evil. Though the spellworks in no way upset the sensibilities of draught animals, commerce recoiled. Carters snarled the side streets with vehicles to avoid the avenue by the docks.
Arithon remained in King Eldir’s state apartments, Sethvir and Kharadmon in attendance.
Despite every safeguard and surety, each member of the Fellowship sensed the sliding, straining pressure as self-seeking energies within each half-brother strove to slip through restraint. Air itself held an unquiet tension. The limestone and brick of Ostermere’s keeps became wont to spring stress cracks in the old, crumbled mortar. The Sorcerers had long suspected no forcible separation of the princes could quiet Desh-thiere’s geas of enmity. Now, as they played subtle threads of constraint through layered curtains of spells to deflect the immediacy of its force, they saw their dread theory borne out.
‘There’s a radius of proximity, do you feel it?’ Kharad-mon fumed in the hour the royal galley tied up in Ostermere’s harbour. ‘Despite all our seals and protections, this curse is a self-aware thing. There’s a low-grade current that cross-links the princes beyond any power to subdue.’
‘Unnatural,’ Sethvir agreed, too immersed in defences to review the dire worry: that the passing of time intensified the danger. The princes’ opposed gifts of light and of shadow, the world’s best line of defence against the peril still active beyond South Gate, could not help but erode farther beyond reach of reconciliation through each successive encounter. The smallest mistake now would exacerbate the problem, until even Luhaine’s fussy nature did not argue with necessity.
The exchange of Lady Talith for her ransom must be handled with consummate speed.
The event took place without fanfare or ceremony in Eldir’s grand hall, the parquet floors cleared of carpets for the summer, and the galleries empty of curious courtiers. On the red baize dais, his state chair flanked by two dozen men-at-arms and six kingdom officials to stand witness, the High King of Havish presided. Ten coffers of gold lay piled by a counting table, where his caithdein, his royal seneschal, and the justiciar of the realm oversaw the tally of the ransom; then, the coin count confirmed, each box was set under lock and sealed with ribbon and wax impressed in Eldir’s winged hawk blazon.
The borrowed carriage and retinue to bear the princess pulled up under guard at the inner gate. Through another postern, unarmed and unattended, Lord Commander Diegan was admitted by the oldest of the royal pages. As Avenor’s ranking officer and Lady Talith’s blood sibling, he would stand through due process as Lysaer s’Iles-sid’s representative. Slitted light through the lancet windows by turns drowned and spattered the splendour of his white studs and velvet as he knelt by old custom and paid his respects to the high king.
On his carved chair, his knuckles splayed over the paired, crested heads of the gryphons carved rampant beneath his wrists, Eldir inclined his head. Composed as he seemed, he wished he were elsewhere, the princes departed, the startling blue snap of static that leaped off his fingertips from too close an acquaintance with ward fields banished from his city of Ostermere.
‘Lord Commander Diegan,’ he opened, ‘I ask your oath on behalf of your prince that no violence will be presented to Arithon s’Ffalenn inside the bounds of my realm.’
‘I so swear,’ Lord Diegan intoned. ‘Dharkaron as my witness, strike my liege dead if a sword under Avenor’s banner should be first to raise bloodshed.’
‘You have leave to proceed.’ Eldir signalled his page, who accepted a heavy key and unlocked the door to a side chamber.
Prince Arithon entered, Lady Talith on his arm. Before the blinding magnificence of her finery, his simpler dress seemed a cry of sheenless dark against a scintillance of gold and white silk.
The only glint of light about the Shadow Master’s person was the circlet of royal rank pressed over his black hair. He crossed the waxed floor in measured steps, Dakar at his shoulder, and Sethvir just behind in a new maroon robe banded in jet braid interlace.
Lord Diegan felt himself bristle, astounded to find how his memory had faded. Almost, he had forgotten the slight stature of Rathain’s prince, and the insolence the man flaunted toward propriety. Overwhelmed by the intensity of his desire for revenge, the Lord Commander had to tear his gaze away to spare proper attention for his sister.
Talith looked in good health, if a trifle drawn. Dark eyebrows and lashes framed eyes without artifice, tawny as glints off new brass. Her steps paired Arithon’s with unwonted deference, Lord Diegan noticed. Too haughty to be meek, her cream features did not soften to the slightest hint of welcome.
If her spirit was unbroken, her stay with the enemy had not left her unchanged.
Lord Diegan clenched his hands in weaponless, bou
nd rage for the misfortune which had turned his sister to a flesh-and-blood pawn, caught in the breach between enemies.
Then the party bringing Talith swept to a halt, the presence of the Master of Shadow scarcely a knife’s thrust away. Frigidly clear, green eyes flicked up and met Lord Diegan’s inimical features square on. ‘My lord, your lady sister.’ And he passed Talith onto the arm of her brother.
Her touch was ice, and her face, a marble mask. The cut glass brooch at her collar shimmered to her rhythmic breaths. Etarran to her core, her poise never wavered, yet her fingers on the sleeve of Diegan’s court finery bit a death grip into the damask.
Forced to stifle his simmering anger, Avenor’s Lord Commander delivered the message his liege lord had charged him to bestow on the Master of Shadow. ‘The fortune you receive for your unconscionable act is an ill thing for our people in your hands. Along with the gold you’ve extorted, my prince includes this small token.’ Diegan opened the wallet at his belt and handed over a slim leather packet.
By design, its strings were not tied. A crescent edge of brass snicked a slice through the gloom as the wrapping fell open. The contents became exposed to the recipient in full public view of the court. Colour left Arithon’s face in raw streaks. He needed no second glance to identify the exquisite, engraved cross-staff last seen on the decks of the brig, Black Drake. Off Farsee, for repayment of passage, the instrument had been his free gift to Captain Dhirken. ‘You had better say quickly how you came by this.’
‘It tells its own story,’ Lord Diegan answered in soft malice. ‘Another of your collaborators was executed.’
‘By whose order?’ Too stunned for finesse, Arithon closed anguished fingers over the shining, fine lines of Paravian engraving. He seemed unaware, yet, of other eyes upon him, or of Sethvir’s sharp attention just behind. ‘Captain Dhirken owed me no loyalty. Her vessel was a hired charter I signed on for transport.’ Unable to contain his incredulous anguish, he ended, ‘As Ath is my witness, she’d have told you if she could. My affairs were never her sworn cause.’
‘She made that claim in the hour she surrendered her command. Mearn s’Brydion believed her, until your token gave the lie to her testimony. She meant something to you,’ Lord Diegan insisted, fired to elation to realize his liege had scored an astonishing victory. ‘Or why bestow so priceless an heirloom on a stranger?’
‘If I cared for her, your allies could have tested your case.’ Arithon looked up, his voice like ground glass against the stilled tableau of the chamber. ‘Mearn might have petitioned me for ransom. I could have brought evidence and witnesses to show the plain truth. Dhirken was not my close associate.’ The facile, glib sarcasm he used to buy distance this once seemed ripped beyond reach.
Talith looked on, startled to a horrified glimmer of epiphany; Dakar hung suspended, while Sethvir raised a hand to forestall King Eldir from a disastrous order to deploy his poised men-at-arms. Yet the ripples of unrest in the background scarcely touched the Master of Shadow.
‘I knew the Drake’s captain well enough,’ he admitted. The steel of his masterbard’s discipline unlocked his tongue at last; let him temper useless fury into sorrow. ‘If she surrendered her brig, she showed her good faith in the expectation of fair treatment. Your justice betrayed that trust. The ruling which condemned her lay outside of mercy. I repeat. Captain Dhirken had no cause to die for any hired charge I laid on her.’
The Lord Commander of Avenor inclined his head, the sheen of his hair like rubbed onyx in the flame glow and his expression alight in flushed triumph. ‘Then, your Grace, take care you befriend no more innocents.’
Diegan turned on his heel and departed, annoyed beyond words for the fleeting look backward his sister cast toward her former captor. For himself, he held no regret. Nor would he deny the implicit accusation, that Dhirken’s life had been claimed for no better cause than to inflict small revenge on an enemy.
While Arithon’s brigantine Khetienn slipped her cable and sped seaward before winds coaxed to favour by Khar-admon, Lysaer s’Ilessid accepted King Eldir’s hospitality to spend the night ashore in joyful reunion with his lady. The couple were given private chambers behind guarded doors, with Fellowship protections to shield them until the active threat of Desh-thiere’s curse dwindled back into quiescence.
‘Not just yet,’ Lysaer murmured in response to Tal-ith’s urgent need to speak. ‘Let me look at you.’ His warm hands roved over the lace that clothed her shoulders, then rose to cup the slant of her jawline. He tipped up her chin and trained a devouring gaze on her face. ‘You’re more lovely than I ever remembered.’
A tear swelled and slipped through the fringe of her lower lashes. Lysaer caught it on his knuckle, then began in awed reverence to explore the shorn ends of her hair. Strand after gilt strand sifted through his fingertips, to frond the smooth skin of her neck.
Talith began, ‘I should never —’
Lysaer stopped her words with a brush of his lips. ‘What’s past is done. Don’t trouble with regrets.’ He closed his fingers over her nape and drew her into his kiss.
The months of separation had been too long, too strained; emotion charged the moment beyond bearing. Talith locked her arms around her husband for fear her knees might give way. ‘My love, forget Vastmark. Leave the pursuit of useless war. I beg you instead, return home. Let us build a sound kingdom on the city you’ve raised at Avenor.’
Lysaer stroked his thumbs through the silky, short locks that curled against her temples. Temptation beckoned him. Her warmth in his arms made him feel restored, as though every fissure in his life could be closed into balance by the simple balm of her presence. ‘My lady,’ he answered in heartsore regret, ‘there can be no peace anywhere until my warhost in the south ends the life of the Master of Shadow.’
‘He’s not worth your pursuit,’ Talith murmured. ‘His associates are craftsmen, sailhands, a half-starved band of shepherds. They support him for no grand cause.’
‘My enemy would have you think that.’ Lysaer disen-twined his fingers from their sleek netting of hair, took her hand, and drew her across the floor, a mosaic interlace of dolphins and sea foam in shades of pastel blue and grey. A bed with silk hangings and blankets of spun cashmere had been left turned down by the servants. To one side, a table inlaid with lapis lazuli held wax candles in stands carved of sandalwood, a tray of sweet grapes and white wine. Pink roses shed fragrance from a vase. No need or small comfort had been omitted.
Lysaer swept his beloved in his arms and enthroned her amid the scented sheets. Neither drink nor fresh fruit were half so tempting as what swelled to each breath beneath the laced closure of her gown.
The prince decided to make a ceremony of her undressing, and assuage their need to talk through the process. His unhurried hands began to unstring gold eyelets, while his eyes, shaded turquoise, drank her form. ‘You weren’t at Merior to see, my beloved. But a widow there had her twin children stolen away. A guardsman who lost his rank in the destruction of Alestron’s armoury was held captive and horribly tortured. This Master of Shadow you wish to pardon used heated knives to mark his victim.’
‘But I did meet Tharrick.’ Talith could scarcely forget the scars. ‘He told me himself. Arithon had no hand in what befell him.’
A bow slithered undone under Lysaer’s ministrations. He worked a finger beneath the fabric and stroked. ‘Enspelled by the snake, does the mouse tell the truth? We speak of a sorcerer who corrupts little children and lures them away from their mothers.’
‘You speak of Jinesse’s twins? Fiark and Feylind?’ Talith sat up, the sweet, languid shudder coaxed from her by dalliance cancelled out by distress. ‘But Arithon was right. The woman lost her husband. For need and for grief, she wanted her children tied to her apron strings.’
A small thread of chill curled through Lysaer’s happiness. He propped his weight on one elbow and regarded his wife, whose allure left him breathless in her unstrung billows of dress lace. ‘Lady, beloved.’ He s
ighed, his forbearance framed in gentle patience. ‘The Prince of Rathain is nothing if not subtle. You must recall as much from his byplay in Etarra. As well, he’s a master at appearances. In ways without parallel, his wiles draw people in.’
Talith let her bodice slide from her bare shoulders. She shrugged the ribboned cuffs off her wrists. ‘His mind is difficult to fathom. I’m not convinced he’s a criminal.’
They were going to want the wine, after all. Lysaer fetched the carafe and filled two crystal goblets. He closed his lady’s fingers upon the stem and watched her drink, his sapphire eyes dark with sympathy. ‘I was taken in myself once, almost to my ruin. I never told you what I saw in a poor quarter alley the day before the Fellowship Sorcerers tried to crown the man as high king.’
Lysaer set his back against the headboard, then drew her to lean on his shoulder. The hand not tied up with the wineglass cupped her hip as he rested his chin on her crown. ‘Arithon once built a miniature ship out of shadow to amuse a pack of knacker’s conscripts. They were children, underfed and ill-used. His clever little sorceries made them laugh. I was led to believe he thought no one was watching, and his pity for the young ones made me love him.’
Lysaer spun the fluted crystal in slow turns between his fingers, his eyes fixed in memory, and fine sweat on his brow for a burden that still held the power to chafe him. ‘The mask was designed,’ he said, deadened by remorse. ‘We marched into Strakewood and were slaughtered by traps, by subterfuge, by unspeakable nets of black sorcery. The killing was started and finished by children. They were the bait by which seven thousand townsmen came to die. Too late I understood how this Master of Shadow played upon my sympathies. In deliberate purpose, he made me believe he had a heart and a conscience. Then when the time suited, he used me as a dupe to further his bloody-handed slaughter.’
Talith set aside her emptied goblet. Silk slid on silk as she nestled against her husband, her hands working through his shirt to ease the tense muscles in his chest. ‘There’s a chance your intuition wasn’t wrong,’ she suggested, haunted to self-honesty by thought of Arithon’s blanched features as the mask had slipped, once before Jinesse, again for Sethvir; and not least, today in the public presence of an enemy upon the hour he heard news of Captain Dhirken’s death.