Shadowfane

  'Well,' said Taen, her most irrepressible smile creeping through, 'we'd better go and meet him. The defences won't admit him without our help, and his tampering is raising merry hell with the wards.'

  XV

  Border Wilds

  The wards over Morbrith keep crackled and collapsed with a flare of intense light. Anskiere observed with his brows lifted in reproof as orange sparks trailed from the gate towers to settle and die as they lit on the cobbles beneath.

  'We didn't need protection that strong, anyway,' Taen said in belated justification. 'If demons send anything more against us tonight, they're going to catch me sleeping.'

  'Just so the work was yours, little witch.' The Stormwarden shrugged his creased robe a little straighter and stepped into the bailey. 'Right now I've no stomach for facing a Magelord who is capable of arranging an unbinding on that scale.'

  Taen gestured rudely, a hand-sign the Imrill Kand fishwives used to express withering disdain. 'Was there ever any doubt the work was mine?'

  'Not much.' Anskiere shook his head, amused; as Taen had hoped, he relaxed his inner discipline and finished with his first smile in days.

  The break in his composure was the last anyone was likely to see. Beyond the arch, His Eminence the Magelord of Mhored Kara stood with a fixed frown. His mouth gaped open in perplexity, while the incomplete spell he had intended for the purpose of breaking Taen's wards drifted aimlessly over his hands.

  'Your mischief has left our visitor somewhat vexed,' the Stormwarden observed. Then, discomfited himself by the unanticipated arrival of an adversary, he indulged in a rare display of power, and kindled the wards in his staff to light his steps through the arch.

  Blue-violet illumination seared away the dark. Beyond the gate, the Magelord spun around as though slapped. The spell over his hands flashed out. The next instant a force slammed Taen's awareness that was vicious in its intensity. Startled off her guard, she stumbled backward and cried out.

  Anskiere caught her. He guided her so that his body shielded her from harm and, with no break in motion, raised his staff. Wind rose at his bidding. It cracked across the cobbles like a living thing, making the Magelord's robes snap with whipcrack reports. The frail old conjurer could not stand upright against the force of the gale. Neither would he abandon dignity and crouch. Forced back one step, two, then three, he ended awkwardly spread-eagled against the gate tower.

  Taen spoke the moment she regained her breath. 'His Eminence was only testing to see whether I had sent an illusion.' But Anskiere's winds snatched her words away.

  His face stayed set with anger as he strode from beneath the arch. Once clear of the stone, the ward haloes threw etched light across his prisoner's helpless form. The Magelord blinked in discomfort.

  Yet as if pity was a stranger, the Stormwarden addressed him. 'What discourtesy is this? To wield power in uncalled-for aggression is an act of rank ignorance, and to try the Vaere-trained worse folly still. Taen Dreamweaver this day spared all of Hallowild from suffering the fate of Morbrith. To subject her to truth-spells is an abuse you will answer for. Speak quickly, for my patience is spent.'

  The Magelord raised his chin against the confining pressure of the wind. His eyes stayed hooded, dark with ancient malice, and the sigils tattooed on pale cheeks seemed grotesque as knotted spiders. 'Your Dreamweaver sent illusion to our towers. Knowing our beliefs, is that any less a discourtesy?'

  Anskiere said nothing. The light from his staff shone steady as a star, but blindingly bright; only the wind relented ever so slightly.

  The Magelord's purple robes settled around his thin ankles. As if the effort pained him, he pushed away from the gate tower and querulously yielded. 'I have come to propose an alliance.'

  The Stormwarden allowed the wind to die, but not the wards. He waited without speech for the Magelord to continue, while unspoken between them rose the tension and the memory left by Anskiere's imprisonment at the hands of Kisburn's conjurers on Imrill Kand.

  Taen edged out from behind the Stormwarden to better follow the exchange. The Magelord spared her a glance, but did not apologize for his aggression. Irked that Anskiere expected him to explain himself, he gripped ringed hands about the bag of amulets he wore knotted to his belt. 'There have been portents.' His voice turned gravelly with annoyance. 'The compact at Shadowfane has brewed mischief, with worse yet to come. My seers have foreseen the wholesale destruction of Keithland.'

  The prescience must have been dire to induce this sour old man to abandon ceremony. Aware of nothing from him beyond bitterness for the Stormwarden's harsh treatment, Taen watched Anskiere shift unadorned hands on the wooden grip of his staff. For a while no sound intruded but the conjurer's quick breaths, and the crickets singing in the weeds beneath the gate towers.

  'They could not have acted without your sanction,' observed the Stormwarden of Elrinfaer at last. He did not refer to demons. Through dream-sense, Taen knew he spoke of the past, and the contention that remained unresolved since Kisburn's conjurers had tried to coerce Anskiere to free the frostwargs for the purpose of conquest and greed.

  The Magelord knew also. He snapped his teeth shut in offence and squared his shoulders. 'My conjurers lost their lives. Was their end not enough to redress the mistake?'

  Anskiere went very still. 'Have you ever seen a frost-warg dismember a town?'

  Aware, abruptly, that he was on trial, and that his reply would be judged, the Magelord assumed the defensive. 'My successor, Hearvin, was sent to assess Kisburn's ambitions. He was a true master of the seven states of reality, and never a man to approve of rash action.'

  Again Anskiere said nothing.

  The Magelord squinted under the painful glare of the wards; and in a moment of sharpened insight, Taen perceived what Anskiere had suspected all along: jealousy had motivated the Mhored Karan wizards in support of King Kisburn's plot. They knew well the vicious nature of the frostwargs. Secretly they had hoped to arrange Anskiere's downfall. The lengths to which spite had driven them appalled Taen to outrage. She had not guessed, when she had asked the Magelord to send her message to the Kielmark, that she had dealt in confidence with a den of serpents. In retrospect, she saw she had been fortunate to emerge without trouble.

  The Magelord did not speak.

  Never looking away, the Stormwarden slowly slid his hands over the staff until his knuckles met. 'You never considered, did you, that Tathagres would use children in her attempt to force my will. Only one accepted my protection. She stands beside me, much changed, and never again a carefree girl. The brother who felt too threatened to trust me fell to Shadowfane and caused the wasting of Morbrith. Who will answer for him.

  Kethal? Your last offer of alliance was nothing but a misguided bid for power. The result cost Keithland dearly.'

  Dawn had begun to silver the mist beyond the ward light cast by Anskiere's staff. A bird twittered sleepily from a treetop, soon joined by a host of its fellows. Yet the keep behind stayed eerily silent and dark, except for the sheen of last night's dew. The Magelord regarded the Stormwarden with bleak antipathy. His ringed hands hung loosely from the gold-banded cuffs of his sleeves; yet now and again the fingers twitched, as if he longed to shape spells.

  'You did not have to submit,' Kethal finally accused.

  And this time Anskiere bent his head. Dream-sense showed Taen his thoughts, that a man might misjudge many times in the course of a lifetime; but for a sorcerer, mistakes claimed innocent lives. Had he not yielded his powers for Kisburn's conjurers to bind, the villagers of Imrill Kand would have attempted out of loyalty to defend him. They could only have failed. Any man who offered Anskiere protection would have been slaughtered by king's men, not cleanly, but for sport.

  The Dreamweaver refused the implication, that Anskiere might be counted guilty for Emien's defection and the larger disaster at Morbrith. Their earlier melding of minds had shown the opposite. Beneath his stern exterior lay a heart incapable of cruelty; his powers and responsibilities a
s Stormwarden stood in ruthless conflict with his sensitivity. The deaths in his past haunted him past memory of peace, and here the Magelord's envy found endless opportunity to inflict pain.

  Taen was driven to interfere. She lashed out with her dream-sense, and caught the Magelord unprepared. Behind his guard in one swift thrust, she recoiled from what she encountered; Kethal's mind was a snarl of thwarted desires and ambitions. Through his years he had accumulated layer upon layer of achievement around a core of deepest mistrust. He called no man friend. Altercations with other mages were never settled until he had subjugated any who came against him. Only the Vaere-trained had balked him, and for that, they and every principle they upheld had earned his undying hatred, until now, when the conjury of Mhored Kara's master seer had placed this petty old man in stark fear of his life. More ruthless than was her wont, Taen peeled away Kethal's framework of excuses and justifications. She made of her talents a mirror and showed the Magelord of Mhored Kara the unadorned image of himself.

  He quivered as the import struck him. Rings flashed as he raised his hands, but not to shape conjury. Instead the old wizard covered his face to hide shame. For the first time in life he understood the guilt borne by Anskiere of Elrinfaer.

  The effect catalysed change, marked him too deeply to shelter behind his accustomed mask of lies; no longer could he find solace in spite, or in the belief that the Vaere-trained held arrogant power that deserved to be taught humility. Forever after, even until death, the Magelord would suffer remorse for the fate of Morbrith, and for depriving Keithland, even temporarily, of her most powerful sworn defender.

  Taen relented only when the aged ruler of Mhored Kara had bent his stiff back. As he fell to his knees on the dusty cobbles beneath the gate, she addressed him with uncharacteristic acerbity. 'If you come here for help, Your Eminence, then ask.'

  The Magelord lifted a face traced silver with tears. Revealed by brightening daybreak, his purple robes were travel-creased and worn. Left only desperate rags for decorum, he seemed somehow diminished. 'You demand difficult terms.'

  'Fair ones, I think:' Anskiere's voice was only slightly unsteady; but his hands clenched white on his staff as he released his defences. The wards snapped out with the speed of a lightning flash, leaving the grey weariness of his face exposed in the half-light. 'Name me your portents, Kethal.'

  Without asking, Taen stepped forward and helped the ancient wizard to his feet. He spoke then, in dry, measured phrases, and described a course of ruin that made the destruction of Morbrith look petty by comparison.

  'Morrigierj,' Anskiere concluded when the Magelord completed his account. Neither he nor Taen need question that the conjury of Mhored Kara's seers was accurate.

  'The threat is perhaps much closer than our allies the Llondelei expect.' The Stormwarden's lips thinned grimly, and he nodded to Taen. 'Show the old one in, little witch. There seem to be things we'll need to discuss with him after all.'

  * * *

  While Taen, Anskiere, and the Magelord held council to negotiate terms of alliance with the wizards of Mhored Kara, mist settled silver in the hollows east of Morbrith. Jaric eased his horse over rocky ground, cautious of a misstep that might bring lameness and delay. The Kielmark rode ahead with his great sword slung crosswise over his back. The black that bore him walked with its head held low, stockinged legs buried to the hocks in fog. Both horses stumbled with fatigue; neither beasts nor riders had rested since leaving Corlin the night before. Yet the need to travel in haste could not be denied. Shadowfane held the last of the Llondelei Sathid; if children stolen from Morbrith survived to replace the Dark-dreamer, the well-being of humans and Llondelei lay in jeopardy.

  Daylight brightened, catching dew like jewels in the grass beneath the horses' hooves. Jaric resisted the need to collapse in sleep on his mount's neck. His knees ached. When he freed his feet to relieve cramped muscles, his stirrups banged painfully into his ankles. That discomfort kept him alert until the Kielmark called a halt at noon. Pausing only long enough to refill the water flasks and eat journey bread and sausage from the stores in the saddlebags, pirate and Firelord rode on until shadows slanted toward late afternoon. Jaric unsaddled his horse, his only comfort the fact that Taen need not share the peril of his journey; in the company of Anskiere, she would return to Cliffhaven on board Ladywolf, for the straits offered the only defensible position should a Morrigierj arise and drive its minions to invade Landfast.

  The horses were utterly spent; unbridled and turned loose, they grazed without inclination to wander. The Kielmark stretched out with his sword ready at hand. Nearby, cushioned by the damp wool of his saddle blanket, Jaric slept dreamlessly on the grassy verge of a stream.

  The following days passed alike, landscape alternating with the reed-choked banks of an uncountable succession of fords. Orchards gave way to wilderness and the terrain grew rough. The appearance of the riders became raffish to match, as they slept in thornbrakes and thickets and once on the dank floor of a cave as rain hammered the earth in angry autumn torrents.

  The Kielmark's black threw a shoe. Progress slowed for two days, until they traded fresh mounts from a remote camp of clansfolk. Dunmoreland stock was prized by the hilltribes; formal in a headdress of mules' ears, the chieftain finalized the exchange without spitting on his knife, meaning no vengeance would be exacted if the beasts proved unsound. But his less trusting wife watched the strangers off with an expression like sunbaked clay. Jaric was glad to ride briskly after that.

  In forests and moonlight and cloudy dark, Firelord and Kielmark crossed the northern tracts of Hallowild. On a windy morning, they broke through the scrub to dunes, and the wide white beaches of the coast. There they dismounted and cut brush for signal fires until their palms blistered on the hafts of their daggers.

  The Kielmark maintained an outpost on the isle of Northsea for provision and repair of his fleet of corsairs. Few beside his captains knew the location, which was healthiest for the peace of mind of Keithland's merchants. The sloop that answered his smoke-fire summons was lean and efficient, and bristling with armed men who easily preferred battle to bedding a wench.

  The boatswain at the helm landed singing, until he noticed who waited on the strand; his stanza ended in a curse of embarrassed surprise. He mastered himself with striking aplomb. After loosing the horses to fend for themselves, Kielmark and Firelord boarded with no more than wet boots, despite the heave of strong surf.

  Jaric endured a jostling crossing. After weeks in the saddle, with fire-charred fish or the stringy meat of skulk-otters for fare, the smoky shacks that comprised the Northsea garrison seemed the height of luxury. At a scarred board table in the kitchens, he dined on bread and mutton and wine, while the talk of the men swirled around him.

  'Cap'n Tamic's in at Cover's Warren.' The officer in charge had a broad south isles' accent, but there was nothing lazy about the way he answered the queries of his sovereign. 'Shipyards there been aslacking, and he poked in to shake things up.'

  The Kielmark scratched his moustache, which had grown like wire over the hard line of his mouth. Idly he retrieved the knife from his plate and began to hack at the bristles. 'Does Corley know?'

  'Oh, aye.' The officer grinned. 'Said he'd spit the foremen, one after another, if Tamic reported loose ends. Meanwhile the fleet's at sea, sweeping the bay for demon-sign, as ordered. You wantin' a boat to go across?'

  The Kielmark stabbed his blade into the boards. 'Tomorrow. But we won't put in at the Warren.'

  'Where, then?' The officer twirled his tankard, sobered and suspecting trouble.

  But the Kielmark refused to reveal their destination, even to a trusted captain. Too much stood at risk should Shadowfane gain wind of his purpose. He closed the topic with a banal change of subject, and presently announced his desire to rest.

  Bathed, shaved, and for once unmolested by insects, Jaric slept solidly in a bunk in the officers' shack. But respite from the rigours of travel proved brief; a sailhand shook
him awake in the grey light of dawn. Feeling muzzy, the Firelord donned breeches, boots, and shirt. He hurried down to the landing by the harbour with his sword belt dangling from the crook of one elbow.

  The Kielmark waited, boisterously impatient, his foot braced on the gunwale of a lean grey yawl. 'There's hot bread and bacon waiting, if you're quick at setting sails.'

  Jaric stowed his sword in a locker, eyebrows raised in reproof. 'That's no incentive. I could make hot bread in a blizzard.'

  'Oh, sure. Like charcoal,' needled the Kielmark. He stepped aboard and reached to cast off docklines.

  Jaric clambered into the bow and began to sort hanks on the headsail, more to keep from thinking how much he missed Taen than from any sense of urgency for Keithland. By sunrise the yawl sheered on a reach around the cliff heads of Northsea, toward the shoal-ridden islets of Wrecker's Bay. Beyond lay the borders of Keithland, and Shadowfane itself.

  Clouds rolled in by noon, ragged black and swollen with rain. The sea heaved leaden and dark, knifed to leaping spray by a series of rocky promontories. Gusts hissed in from two directions, battering the yawl like fists, and tearing at Jaric's clothing as he rose to reef sail.

  The Kielmark shouted over the slap of canvas. 'Leave her be. There's no room to run in this pocket. We're safer on the beach if it squalls.'

  Jaric eased sheets for a run, then sat and braced against the mast. Outlined by storm sky, the Kielmark's profile seemed hammered out of rock. Muscles bulged under his sleeves as he manhandled the tiller to hold course toward land.

  The centreboard banged up in its casing, and the yawl grounded on gravel with a lurch. Jaric freed the sheets and leapt into a boil of foam. Icy water poured into his boots. Then the sky opened, deluging rain. Half-blind in the torrent, the Kielmark wrestled the sails down. Together the two men dragged their boat onto the strand. Behind them, the channel became a smoking cauldron of spindrift as the squall struck full force.