The Sathid queried the sincerity of its victim's resolve, and abruptly found itself cornered. Jaric's immediate past held record of an incident when the boy had risked his neck to the Kielmark's sword, all for the sake of a principle. A limit existed beyond which he could not be forced, and the crystalline entity had unwittingly transgressed that point when it had first suggested threat to Taen. Now only one resource remained; to subdue the will of its host entity, the Sathid must re-create fear drawn from the earth-digger it had dominated first, then pitch the result in assault against the human mind.
The shift in tactics caught Jaric unprepared. Without warning, he plunged into dampness and dark. Smells of roots and soil filled his nostrils. Suddenly a shower of pebbles and loose dirt rattled down around his shoulders; a falling slide of dirt mired feet, then legs, then hands. Jaric struggled to free himself, to no avail. Unlike the digger, he had no claws to tunnel. Earth compacted his chest, then avalanched in a smothering mass over his nose and face as, with demoralizing accuracy, the Sathid re-created the digger's memory of a tunnel collapse.
Jaric repressed the instinct to panic. Tamlin had warned of this last, desperate trick of the Sathid's. Only wits and the paranormal perception of the link would help him now. Survival depended upon Jaric's ability to unriddle the secrets of earth before suffocation overcame him.
Ivainson ignored the bodily clamour for air. He turned his new awareness toward the soil that imprisoned his body; humus, pebbles, clay, and moisture, he assessed the content of the earth. Even as he groped for means to shift its mass, the Sathid goaded his nerves. Fear shattered his calm. He could not breathe! He would die here, entombed forever in an unmarked grave. Sweat slicked Jaric's flesh. He expended precious moments restoring equilibrium, then drove his perception into the dirt once again. This time he sought energy, a life force similar to the aura the trees possessed, which he might tap to save himself.
Yet the earth proved stubbornly inert. Sand and stones had never lived; except for the stirring of occasional insects and worms, particles of soil were comprised largely of dead things, or organisms too tiny to matter. Jaric checked in dismay. Unsure where to search next, he resisted the raking pains in his chest. He must not give in, or his will would be lost forever. Somehow, Ivain Firelord had untangled the secrets of earth and had won free before death overwhelmed him.
Dizziness wrung Jaric's senses. Again he drew solace from Telemark's advice; strengthened, he resumed with dogged and desperate concentration, and studied each separate particle. Stone seemed least promising of all; yet Ivain Firelord had been known to step through solid granite on a whim. Harried by a wave of faintness, Jaric attacked the problem. He hammered at dark, unyielding matter until his head ached with effort.
'You are losing,' the Sathid interjected. 'Shortly, your flesh will succumb from lack of breath. Before you perish, my victory shall be complete.'
'No.' Jaric resisted an impulse to curse. His head whirled unpleasantly, and his equilibrium was utterly disoriented. Only seconds remained for his bid to preserve free will.
'You struggle for nothing,' goaded the Sathid.
Jaric did not retort. Teetering on the edge of delirium, he strove to unravel the power within the earth. One instant he grappled with the particles that comprised the soil; the next, giddiness overbalanced his touch. The thrust of his thoughts slammed hard against the flinty surface of a pebble. Jaric had no reflexes left to brace and avoid impact. But the rock yielded. His astonished perception melted into stone with the ease of a fall into water. Here at last lay energy enough to move mountains, strung in symmetrical, glittering strands that awed the spirit with beauty. Inside each fleck of sand, each rock, each boulder, abided the strength of the earth. Like the Stormwarden's sources of weather and wave, an Earthmaster's dominion could never be exhausted. Jaric had only to apply his will to release the ties that defined the pebble's structure. The rush of freed forces would be more than ample for him to escape his prison of mud.
The process should have come fluid as thought. But smothered to the brink of unconsciousness, Jaric fought for clarity of mind. His lungs burned. Control eluded him; the energy strands within the stone slipped his grasp like broken chains of pearls. Even as he strove, and failed, pain lanced his body. His lungs felt wrapped in hot wire. And the waiting Sathid invaded, intending to secure control as he foundered.
Jaric recoiled. Stung into rage, he lashed back, forgetful of thoughts left joined within the structure of the stone. Lattices of matter splintered; energy roared forth with the coruscating fury of explosion. Stunned by a shimmering flash of light, Jaric cried out. He tumbled, twisting, on to green turf, then wept as a sweet rush of air filled his lungs.
Agonized and gasping, Keithland's newest sorcerer lay prone within the twilight of the grove. He waited, expecting the matrix to stir in his mind. Yet no whisper of dissent arose. He had battled the Sathid into submission. But its quiescence was only temporary; while Jaric rejoiced in his victory, a small digger screamed and died in an agony of flames. The Vaere recovered seed Sathid from the ashes. On the day the young master attempted the Cycle of Fire, the crystal he had subjugated would rouse to bond with the second. The paired Sathid would then seek domination with an exponential increase in power. Not even Set-Nav could prepare the heir of Ivain for such a trial. As they sought dual mastery, Tamlin had watched even the fittest aspirants die.
III
Return
Winter knifed across the barrens north of Felwaithe; wind sang mournfully over bare rock and winnowed the snowfall into ranges of sculptured drifts. This was a land of harshest desolation, but nowhere was the ice more bleak than on the crag where rose the demon fortress of Shadowfane. Snow did not settle there, but was packed by gales into hardened grey sheets, glazed shiny under the pale midseason sun. On just such a bitter day, a man clad in tattered sailcloth picked his way up the frozen slope. He moved cautiously, for the footing was treacherous, and the soles of his boots sorely worn.
Thienz sentries spotted him long before he reached the final ascent to the gates. Gabbling excitedly, they sent an underling to inform their senior. Yet this once, the presence of a human so far beyond the inhabited bounds of Keithland raised no consternation. The arrival of this particular man had been expected.
The Thienz senior instructed the messenger to return to its post with the sentries. Then, with a whuff of its gills, it scuttled quickly to inform Lord Scait that Maelgrim Dark-dreamer had returned from the south reaches of Keithland.
The sovereign of Shadowfane received the Thienz elder while still immersed in his bath cauldron. His eyes lit with keen anticipation, yellow as sparks through the steam that wreathed his scaled head. Since good news usually had a settling effect upon the Demon Lord, the Thienz elder stretched once and crouched, content to bask in the warmth and moisture; but this once it misjudged.
Scait waved away the spiny, six-legged attendants that scuttled busily about the chamber, stoking peat on the fires that kept his bath water boiling. To the bead-ornamented Thienz elder he said, 'Send the Dark-dreamer to the main hall at once. Have him await me there.'
The Thienz hesitated, reluctant to leave its comforts.
'Go now!' Scait snapped, his sending barbed with threat. As the Thienz started up and scrabbled off on its errand, the Lord of Shadowfane doused his narrow head one final time and stepped briskly from the cauldron. Droplets splashed from his scales, and struck with a hiss of instantaneous evaporation against the heated stone by the fire pit. Impervious to burns, the Demon Lord fluffed his hackles dry. As an afterthought, he sent a thought-image after the retreating Thienz. 'See the human's needs are met, toad. I will not love the delay if he faints in my presence from hunger or chill.'
* * *
The chambers comprising Shadowfane's interior were interlinked by a mazelike warren of corridors. Stairwells bent and spiralled between levels with the random twists of kinked thread. Human logic could decipher no pattern to aid in the memory of its array,
yet the eidetic recall of demons mastered such complexity without effort. Scait hurried from his bath chamber to the central hall on the upper level. He paused only to cuff at the black forms of Gierjlings whose entwined, sleeping bodies blocked his path. Lacking any overlord to animate them to purpose, the creatures were mindless as vegetables. They blinked eyes the lightless grey of grave mist, and moved cluttering from underfoot. Scait kicked the tardy ones aside. Unlike other demons, the Gierj were active and successful breeders; Keithland's climate gave their females and their fertility no difficulties. Lately there seemed to be even more of them underfoot than usual. Scait made mental note to inquire of the Watcher-of-Gierj whether their numbers were on the increase. Then, excited by the prospect of beginning his grand plan, and concerned lest one of his rivals should speak to the Dark-dreamer ahead of him, the overlord of Shadowfane's compact hastened with a faint scrape of spurs through the diamond-shaped lintels that opened into the central hall.
The one who had once been Marlson Emien, brother to Taen Dreamweaver, sat on the stone by the mirror pool chewing on smoked fish. His birth name no longer held meaning for him, if indeed he recalled his life with a human family at all. Since the day he had been renamed by demons, the mind of Maelgrim Dark-dreamer had become a warped snarl of hatred and passions, controlled by a Thienz-dominated Sathid-bond. He might retain the shape of a main, but his thoughts and his desires were Shadowfane's.
Since his return, his clothing of ill-sewn sailcloth had been discarded for a tunic of woven wool. No other amenity had been granted by the Thienz who had escorted him in. The fine cloth caught and clung against his unwashed skin, mottled still with the ravages of frostbite and cold. Maelgrim's black hair hung lank with tangles, and a three-month growth of beard matted his chin. Still, though his body had been starved and depleted by the abuses of weather, the awareness within was not dull. Maelgrim looked up at Scait's entrance, his ice-blue eyes unblinking as a fanatic's. In silence he prostrated himself before his overlord.
Scait noted the sincerity of the obeisance with keen satisfaction. Here at least was one pawn who could never betray his loyalty. Snarling at thoughts of other factions who might, the Demon Lord leapt on to the dais. He seated himself with a predator's grace upon his throne. and since in this case he need not intimidate to maintain supremacy, he allowed his servant to rise.
Maelgrim straightened, half-squatting on his heels. He lifted a fleshless hand and resumed gnawing his meal. The fish head he spat into the mirror pool, a transgression Scait forgave. The Dark-dreamer was more than a pet. He was a weapon exquisitely crafted for carving out vengeance upon the human inhabitants of Keithland.
Scait established his opening in words, that his finer concentration be available to sample Maelgrim's inner thoughts. 'You have been long in returning.'
The Dark-dreamer answered around a mouthful. 'Winter in the north latitudes doesn't favour passage, far less with a boat whose sails are ripped to shreds.'
Scait's mental probe sampled the truth of the words, and Maelgrim stiffened, very still with the awareness of his overlord's scrutiny. He waited, eyes fixed blankly on the morsel of fish in his grasp, while the master's presence explored; the weather had been terrible, storm after storm battering down upon an already sprung and leaking sloop. Only a fisherman's upbringing had permitted him to bring the boat safely in at all. Maelgrim had done well to achieve landfall at Northsea, but for resentful reasons of his own he had not hurried once he gained shore. As Scait rummaged through his memories to divine the reason, the Dark-dreamer flashed thought across the link. 'Thienz could have killed him at Elrinfaer, and didn't. Why not?'
Awareness interlinked with the human's, Scait required no guesswork to answer. 'The Firelord's heir possessed rare potential, and talents that might have been exploited for the benefit of Shadowfane's compact.'
'But now he is free!' Maelgrim's hand clenched angrily, crushing the carcass of the fish. 'Like my sister who was beguiled, and even as his father before him, he has gone to the Isle of the Vaere to be trained.'
Scait's hiss of irritation caught Maelgrim's protest short. 'Alive, Ivainson Jaric could have been compelled to betray Keithland. Now, with his Firelord's potential lost to us, your own talent as Dark-dreamer becomes of paramount importance.' The Lord of Demons paused and rubbed scaled hands together. The plan he had devised surely would wring admiration from even his bitterest rivals. All in the compact were aware that the wizards at Mhored Kara conscripted paranormally gifted children for training. That they culled their apprentices from families in the towns and villages of the southern kingdoms and the Free Isles' Alliance was also known fact, but what of the north? Parents there might breed equal numbers of exceptional offspring; except in the backlands, perhaps these children passed unnoticed. With keenest anticipation, the current ruler of the compact intended to correct this oversight.
Scait extended a spurred hand toward the human crouched at the foot of the dais. 'Maelgrim, by my command you will engage your powers as Dark-dreamer. Seek among men, and the children of men, for ones born with talent that any who go for training with the Vaere must possess. Find these gifted ones, and call them hither to Shadowfane. I shall reward them generously, and see that they receive instruction befitting their talents.'
Maelgrim swallowed a bite of crushed fish, then licked at the oil on his fingers. Black hair veiled his eyes as he pressed his forehead to the stone before the dais. 'Your will, mightiest Lord, but humbly I offer warning. The plan you suggest has flaws.'
Displeased, Scait cupped his chin in flinty claws. 'Name them.'
'Human parents differ from those of demons.' Here Maelgrim abandoned language and engaged his Dark-dreamer's skills to impart his concept intact. Humans lacked the treasures of eidetic memory; to them, the past, and the histories of the dead that were of such vital significance to demonkind, came second to the young whose future had yet to be written.
'My kind will fight the loss of their children, mighty Lord. They will send armies to claim back their young.' A gleam of calculating hatred spiked Maelgrim's words of conclusion. 'After the first shock of surprise, the humans will organize. They will guard the children of Keithland beyond reach of my probes and my lures, for the Vaere-trained Dreamweaver who was my sister is capable of unravelling this grand plan. She is bound to defend Keithland from the designs of demonkind, else break her oath of service to the Vaere.'
Scait growled low in his throat, for Maelgrim was wiser in the ways of mankind than any demon at Shadowfane. A canny ruler must heed the human's counsel and look beyond for means to turn detriment to advantage. Scait pondered a moment, yellow eyes closed to slits. Then he straightened with a leer of satisfaction. To Maelgrim he commanded, 'You shall study the ways of power, and be granted control in mind-meld with the Thienz, that you can draw force from their link to augment your own. When you have mastered these skills, come to me, and we will plot. For I think that humans might be distracted from noticing those few among their young that we summon. The Dreamweaver is only one girl. She may be lured, and captured, and perhaps forced to Sathid domination as well.'
The one who had been born her brother licked lips that glistened with fish oil. He smiled and fawned on the floor in abject gratitude. Twisted in ways no human could imagine, Maelgrim relished the assignment of creating his sister's demise. Taen's downfall would be all the sweeter if the Stormwarden were to be rescued by Keithland's new Firelord, only to discover his other protege lost in thrall to the enemy.
'Your will, mightiest Lord.' Maelgrim arose with joyful, overweening malice and tossed the remains of his meal into the mirror pool. As he departed, Scait caught a last glimpse of his eyes: frost-blue, and alight with hatred like a weapon's polished edge. The boy Emien had been manipulated into absolute subservience quite satisfactorily, except that his eating habits were irritating in the extreme.
Distastefully, Scait Demon Lord regarded the half-chewed fish tail that drifted, spreading an oil slick on the surface of the
water. The next rival who crossed him would find itself wading to scoop out the garbage. This settled, Scait's thoughts ranged futureward and preoccupied speculation gave way to desire fierce as greed. The finding and enslavement of gifted human children must proceed without setbacks. Once Shadowfane had developed a collection of such changelings, they could be set loose for the destruction and the extermination of mankind. Then would Scait's sovereignty be secured beyond question. The way would be clear for the compact to reclaim Veriset-Nav from the ocean and summon rescue from their homeworlds in triumph.
* * *
Winter was all but spent on the day the peace was disturbed in Keithland. High in the tors of Imrill Kand, the sister Maelgrim Dark-dreamer plotted to ruin sat amid the cropped grass of a goat pasture, soggy skirts gathered about her knees. Her cloak was pinned tight at her neck; hair black as her brother's coiled damply over her shoulder, and her slim woman's hands twisted restlessly in her lap. Though the sleet that fell at dawn had ceased, the morning remained unbearably bleak. Fog curled off dirtied patches of snow, and last season's grass lay flattened and brown against soil still rutted with ice. Taen Dreamweaver shivered. Sick with horror, she covered her eyes and tried to subdue the grief in her heart. Always, she had known this moment would come, but never had she guessed that its impact might cut her so deeply.
Ivainson Jaric might have offered comfort. But he was beyond reach on the Isle of the Vaere, training for his final ordeal, the Cycle of Fire that had driven his father to madness. If he survived, he would emerge forever changed, and no succour would he then owe to anyone. Taen lowered her hands. She stuffed reddened fingers into the cuffs of her shirt, an oversized garment of unbleached linen and silver-tipped laces she had won in a bet with a pirate captain. The fabric was dry but offered no warmth. This day the brother lost to Shadowfane had turned his demon-inspired malice against Keithland, and though Jaric's sacrifice might someday put an end to such atrocity, the sting brought on by the loss of his company only this moment struck home. The bare, ice-rimmed tor became more than a landscape ravaged by winter; some of its bleakness turned inward and invaded Taen's spirit.