The self-discipline learned at Rauven remained; but to the craft he had mastered, his senses had gone dumb and dead. Arithon sought the essence of the trees and the air but perceived only as other men saw.
Grief remained, of a depth he could share with no one. Not for the first time since his choice to pursue his s’Ffalenn inheritance, he missed the counsel of the cantankerous s’Ahelas grandfather who perhaps still lived in Rauven’s master tower. Dascen Elur with its wide oceans lay behind, forever lost. Here spread a land whose sky, hills and rivers held secrets only partially studied. Cut short in the midst of discovery, Arithon felt deprived of an arm or a leg; or as an artist suddenly blinded to colour in a hall filled with masterworks.
Across the glen, through the sun-dappled pillars of lichened trunks, the layered harmonics of a lyranthe being tested for pitch threaded the forest. As personal as written signature, Halliron’s favourite tuning phrase spattered fifths like a running spill of coins. Each note pierced Arithon’s perception, separate as the impact of small darts. As if in counterbalance to reft senses, his awareness of sound had grown acute. Birdsong never rang so pure in his ears, and the clang of pickaxe and steel as graves were covered over never clashed so wincingly dissonant.
Still on his knees, Arithon stabbed Jieret’s knife into dirt. He bowed his head. As he had the past night laid hands to cold flesh, today he touched his palms to old stone and stilled his inner awareness. He had personally accomplished the ritual to free the sundered spirits of these, his lost friends. Something of residual peace should emanate from the bones now embraced in quiet earth.
Nothing; he felt nothing at all.
Arithon sighed, a tightness to his shoulders the only sign of the ambivalence that wrenched him. Even the cairn stones were mute. Where the least fleck of sand from the creek bed should ring in its essence with the grand energies that defined all existence, these disparate rocks gave back the scrape of rough edges against the uncalloused burn barely scarred over since Etarra. Left only memory, Arithon touched nothing of the true reality known to mages at all, but saw only the flat spectrum of visible light. The ghostly resonance left on this land by Paravian inhabitance, that Asandir had attuned to his being in the hills of Caith-al-Caen, would neither thrill nor harrow him, now. If he wished he could walk Ithamon’s ruins and not be haunted.
Mastery of his shadows remained; but no knowledge to suggest whether time would heal his other gifts.
‘They’re starting.’ Jieret touched his prince’s wrist to rouse him. The shadows had moved. An interval had passed that Arithon found difficult to measure. Deshir’s survivors at some point had set aside tools to gather into a circle for the rite to honour their dead.
Arithon recovered Jieret’s knife from the earth and straightened up. ‘I’ll listen from here.’ He began to return the small blade to the boy, then impulsively hesitated. ‘Let me keep this,’ he asked. ‘As the steel we used to swear bloodpact, I’d like to have it. To use. To have you know that I think of you often.’
‘You’re leaving us.’ A statement; Jieret did not sound surprised. Not yet a man, more than a boy, he had too much pride to ask why. In a manner that reminded painfully of Steiven, he said, ‘You forget, I think, that I offered you that same blade already.’
Arithon tossed it, absorbed by the flash of the river pearl handle as it turned and landed with a slap in his palm. ‘When I’d finished the tienelle scrying. I remember.’
‘That’s a good knife for carving willow whistles,’ Jieret said. ‘I shan’t be needing it any longer.’ And he gestured toward its replacement, a narrow, quilloned main gauche he wore strapped to his belt. ‘Ath go with you, my prince.’
Arithon tucked the little knife into the tight-laced leather that cuffed his shirt. Then he pulled Jieret to him and exchanged a fierce embrace that he broke with a quick push to send the boy off toward his people.
Within the latticed sear of strong sun that striped through branches singed of foliage, Deshir’s clansmen in their war-stained, ragged leathers joined hands. Their circle parted to include Jieret, then unravelled a second time as a stocky figure in studded belts and black bracers broke away. Caolle, Arithon identified by the vehement thrust of the man’s stride. The clan captain had keen intuition, but in the absence of Dania’s sisterly intolerance, he retained all the style of thrown brick.
At the centre of the circle, incongruous in the slashed elegance of black silk and gold, Halliron stood in the restored splendour of his court clothing, his lyranthe tuned in his hands. He called.
But with Steiven dead and himself left trustee of the clans Caolle deferred to no one. He stamped across the churned ground with his bootcuffs slapping and his shoulders hunched up, and his whiskered chin jutted for argument.
Behind him, somebody said something commiserating and the clansmen quietly closed the gap.
Craggy from strain and sleeplessness, grazed by brush burns and patched red from accumulated midge bites, Caolle looked ready to murder. ‘You’re leaving us,’ he accused.
Suppressing a wince as his tone grated against an almost painful sensitivity, Arithon felt no answering anger. ‘I must.’ He looked back in forceful directness that forestalled Caolle’s bluster. Across the thicket the soft, sad notes of Halliron’s lyranthe gentled the quiet: the opening phrases of the ritual to sing Deshir’s dead into memory. This was the first open sentiment any clansman had shown, and would firmly and finally be the last.
The flight to take refuge in Fallowmere would begin immediately following the ceremony.
Caolle waited, fumingly impatient. Then as the poignance of Halliron’s playing touched even his bearish mood, he hooked large-knuckled thumbs in his swordbelt. ‘You can tell us why.’
Unflinching, Arithon continued to regard him. ‘I think you know. Where I go, Lysaer’s armies will follow.’ He drew a breath.
As though daring insults or evasions, Caolle clamped his hands under taut forearms. He was a man who liked his clothing loose and his belts tight; the blades that were visible on his person drew all the quicker, while the invisible ones stayed unobvious. He regarded his silent liege lord, his black eyes inimical as shield-studs.
The Prince of Rathain gave no ground. Sincere where before he had been secretive, he said, ‘I can neither repay nor restore your losses. Nor would I cheat you with promises I’m powerless to uphold. You gave me life and offer a kingdom. Your lord shared a friendship more precious. In return I give my word as Teir’s’Ffalenn that I won’t squander these gifts.’
That softness covered a will like steel wire, as Caolle had cause to respect. Touched by an uncharacteristic patience, he recalled the ballad of Falmuir and the uncanny tableau up the grotto. Forbearance allowed him not to rise to the hurt, that even after Etarra’s armies, this prince seemed too reticent to place his full trust in the clans.
In the clearing, at the centre of the circle, Halliron raised voice in cadenced expression of pure sorrow. Laid bare by the music, Arithon lost all composure. His throat closed and he half spun away, ashamed of the tears he could not curb. The music broke his will and his feelings for these stern, unbending people undid him. He felt Caolle’s hand close on his shoulder, as it had many times to comfort Jieret.
‘You could be my bastion,’ Arithon admitted, rarely vulnerable. ‘Except for Lysaer. Any who shelter me will become target for his armies. I would not see your great-hearted clans exterminated for my sake. And so I ask your leave to depart, unsupported and alone until such time as I can return and fulfil your cherished hope, to rebuild a city in peace on the foundations of old Ithamon.’
‘I’ve misjudged you.’ Caolle withdrew his gruff touch, and for a long minute the rise and fall of Halliron’s beautiful voice resounded through wood and clearing. Both men listened, each haunted by different regrets. Then Caolle raked back his scruffy, iron-grey hair. ‘I’ll do so no more. But in return, I ask your sanction to raise the clans of Fallowmere, and after them, clansmen the breadth of the continent.’
‘I’m against it.’ Arithon spun around. If his eyes blazed through a sparkle of unshed tears, the force in him was that of a sword unsheathed. ‘I wish no more killing in my name.’
Caolle’s stiff stance rendered the short silence eloquent.
And Arithon gave a sigh that seemed wrung from his very depths. ‘My wife and children were not murdered by headhunters.’ Gentled in a way Caolle would once have disparaged, the Prince of Rathain traced the rune on the clan chieftain’s marker with fingers too fine for the sword but that could, and had, killed in battle. ‘My losses are as nothing to yours. I say that raising an army begs a repeat of this tragedy. But I’m not cold-hearted enough, or maybe I’m no true king at all. I haven’t the nastiness to refuse you. My blessing is yours, if not my approval. Go in grace, captain. Care for Jieret, whom I love as my brother.’
In token of friendship, Caolle offered his palms and accepted the prince’s double handshake. Across their clasped grip, while the song of lamentation spiralled and dipped through the greenwood, he gave his liege a voracious appraisal. The small build and fine bones, the green eyes with their depths and veiled secrets; both harboured deceptive strengths. Nearly too late Caolle had discovered an integrity that admitted no compromise. He would never in words be forced to admit that this scion of Rathain was both perfectly suited and tragically paired with a fate that must waste his real talents. ‘One day you’ll be grateful for our support, your Grace. We lend ourselves gladly. One could say it’s not meet for Maenalle s’Gannley in Tysan to swear fealty to s’Ilessid unwarned.’ He released Arithon’s hands and stepped back. ‘Ath keep you safe from all harm.’
‘And you.’ Arithon’s mouth bent, a softening just short of warmth. ‘We’ve been adversaries. I’m not sorry. If I had my choice, your sword would go rusty for want of use. Hate me for that all you wish.’
Caolle’s chin puckered. For the sake of the mourning song still in progress, he coughed back a raw burst of laughter. ‘My sword,’ he said firmly, ‘will only get rusted when I’m dead. Dharkaron break me for idiocy, how did I come to swear fealty to a dreaming fool?’
‘You were duped.’ Arithon grinned. ‘Lord Steiven did that to both of us.’ He turned and, with quiet lack of ceremony, strode away from the riverbank.
Caolle watched him go, narrow-eyed, tightness like a fist at his throat. As Halliron struck chords for the lamentation’s final stanza, the war captain of Deshir’s clansmen whispered, ‘Go in grace, my prince.’
The song dipped and mellowed, softened through its closing bars to a brushed note that quavered and trailed away into the rustle of flame-seared leaves. By then the Teir’s’Ffalenn in his tattered black tunic had vanished from sight. Whether trees had hidden him, or some trick of shadow, Caolle found impossible to tell.
Dusk settled over Strakewood. In clear silver light, under trees like cut felt against cobalt, Arithon sat on a beech log. His tucked up knees cradled folded arms. His cuff laces dangled over hands without tension as he listened to the first, uneven chorus of frogs in the marshes. He savoured the quiet as day ebbed and softly surrendered to nightfall. The first star appeared, a scintillating pinprick between the pines; he looked on its solitary beauty without mage-sight to unlock its mystery.
Later was soon enough to decide where to go. This moment content to hang his thoughts on the sweet descending triplets of a woodthrush, he closed his eyes and lost himself in the abiding whisper of pine tassels stroked by the breeze.
He had no one to answer to. Nothing burdened him but a scorched conscience and a sword he would have given sight to have exchanged for the lyranthe left in Etarra.
Absorbed and relaxed, Arithon suspected nothing until a stick snapped loudly behind his shoulder.
He shot spinning to his feet and came face to face with a figure picked out in sparkles of gold chain and jewels.
Halliron Masterbard stood still decked out in his topaz studs, sure sign he had ended his stay with the clans. The fine buttons that fastened his cloak and hung his beautifully cut cape sleeves swung and glittered even in failing light.
Serene, his veined hands folded on the strap that slung his lyranthe, the Masterbard said, ‘It’s a poor time for solitude, your Grace.’
Arithon bridled. ‘It’s a worse hour for companionship with close to eight thousand lives done and wasted.’ Since the bard had presumed he was brooding, he would foster that impression to be rid of him. ‘I didn’t ask for sympathy. I thought I made my wishes clear to Caolle?’
Halliron clicked his tongue behind spaced front teeth. ‘No need to raise your temper.’ Unwilling to accept such short shrift, he seated himself on the log the Master of Shadow had just vacated. Against his dark doublet, his pale hair spread over his shoulders like watered silk. ‘I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask whether you’d join me on the road. Fallowmere holds little to attract me. I’ve lingered overlong in the north.’
Nettled now deeper than artifice, Arithon recoiled backward. ‘Ah no.’ He sounded as if somebody had hit him, or as if he shied off from hidden fear. ‘I’ll be no man’s company after this. You of all men should best understand my motive.’
‘You’re not the first prince to take your oath through times of strife.’ Gold chains shivered in reflection as the bard shrugged. ‘Daelion knows you won’t be the last. And you won’t, though you try, put me off through a show of self-pity.’
Arithon stiffened. ‘I think you’ve said enough.’ The words were a warning, which Halliron ignored by remaining in unbroken tranquillity on the log. In the forest, the wood thrush had silenced. More stars burned through the branches, and the frogs sang their rasping bass chorus. The balance had fled; twilight had ebbed unnoticed, and the gloom now swallowed even the brittle spark of the topaz studs.
The veneer of peace so thinly established shattered suddenly beyond recovery. Into a silence that reproached, Arithon said in breaking anguish, ‘Ath help me, I had to stay. Without conjury or shadow, do you think any clansman would have survived to hear your lament for Deshir’s dead?’
‘Well, that’s now behind you,’ Halliron said placidly. ‘Guilt is no use to anybody. The only thing a man gains from his past is the power to ensure his future. You can see the same circumstances are not permitted to happen again.’
‘I was doing just that, I thought.’ Arithon’s anger intensified to a level that admitted only pain. The moment still haunted and cut him, that Lysaer’s death and an end to Desh-thiere’s geas had been balanced by Jieret’s life. His voice skinned and raw, the Master added, ‘Will you leave? I’m quite likely to survive without counsel.’
‘Well that may be. Except that I was the one come begging.’ The Masterbard folded his supple hands and maddeningly, solemnly regarded the ground between his boots. ‘If you’d unstop your ears and still your infernal s’Ffalenn conscience, you’d see that I’m an old man. I need a strong shoulder on the wheel when my pony cart mires in these bogs, and somebody ought to partner my rambling on the nights when cold rains drown my fire.’ A mischievous tilt to his lips, he looked up. ‘Never mind that your talents need schooling. If those fingers of yours are ever to shape more than promise, I’m offering the lowly station of minstrel’s apprentice, your royal Grace. Will you accept?’
Arithon stared at him, his rigid bearing abandoned and repudiation stupid on his face. He sat down on the deadfall, banged his elbow on a branch and tangled his calf in the sword-scabbard he had forgotten he still wore. Faintly breathless, he cursed.
Mildly amused, and also queerly tense and vulnerable, Halliron chuckled. ‘The choice is that awful? You can’t pretend to be surprised.’
‘No.’ A choke or a strangled phrase of laughter twisted in Arithon’s throat. ‘Does the minstrel Felirin have prescience?’
‘What?’ The Masterbard lost his composure. His heart in his eyes, and his knuckles clamped together in white knots, he radiated panicked trepidation.
Arithon looked back at him and grinned. ‘Well, it’s simp
le. Felirin forced me to a promise once should you ever come to offer me apprenticeship.’
‘And?’ Halliron sounded smothered. He had raised both hands to his throat as if he needed help to keep breathing. ‘And?’
‘I shall have to accept,’ Arithon said. ‘I’ve been party to all else but oath-breaking, these days. My score with the Fatemaster’s bad enough.’
‘You devil!’ Halliron shot to his feet with a force that jostled a thrum of bass protest from his soundboard. ‘You let me think you’d turn me down!’
‘Well, you let me think you’d come to lecture.’ Arithon laughed now with a bursting joy that dissolved the last of his antagonism. ‘Fiends take me, I wanted to kill you for that.’
‘Well you lost your chance. You carry the greatest blade in Athera and never once thought enough to use it.’ Halliron started walking decisively. ‘My pony and cart are hidden in a brushbrake somewhere up the Tal Quorin. Once we find them, I’m fixing a strong pot of tea.’
Then he stopped with a suddenness that caused Arithon to narrowly miss crashing into him.
‘No,’ said Halliron, his expressive voice queerly jangled. ‘No. I’m needing no tea. The truth is that’s not what I’m wanting at all.’ There and then in the darkness, he unstrapped his bundle and tugged off oiled leather coverings. ‘Play me that tune I once asked for.’ Not waiting for answer he thrust his beautiful instrument into the arms of his apprentice.
Arithon caressed the scrolled soundboard, drew a breath that smelled of wax and resins and fine wood. He could not speak. He feared to move, lest he disturb the frailty of his happiness. Halliron Masterbard had laid a lyranthe between his hands and offered his heart’s whole desire.