TWOLAS - 06 - Peril's Gate

  Lysaer jammed rigid hands through his hair. As though the strain all at once overwhelmed him, he demanded, 'How do you know this?'

  By well-established fact, though for years the remembrance has fallen into obscurity. Dark spellcraft can use ready fear as a weapon. Now the victim of their own paranoid silence, most town councils have long since forgotten.' Granted the nod of permission he required, Sulfin Evend dug the tin flask from the saddle pack. In straightforward competence, he set about mixing a soporific he kept at hand to speed healing. Storm filled the interval as he arose. Shrieking gusts deadened the grunting scuffle as he forced the bitter draught upon the captive.

  Returned to the fireside, the Lord Commander piled more evergreen onto the embers. Smoke boiled up, pricked sultry with sparks, as the resinous flames flared and crackled. 'It's a close-kept secret,' he began, 'but my family carries the strain of an ancient bloodline from Westwood. Not prevalent, mind. We've had generations of outbreeding since the ancestor who got a child of rape on a captive. But now and again the traits of that heritage resurface, sometimes in force. You've admired Raiett Raven, even leaned on his talent. The most prosaic Mayors of Hanshire have ruled by uncanny instinct. We still retain a Koriani seeress to advise our high council.'

  Lysaer's rapt regard became piercing to sustain. 'You yourself bear more than a trace of the taint?'

  'The old lines breed truest,' Sulfin Evend admitted. Restless or self-conscious, he reached, caught a pine bough, and cracked off needled twigs with brisk fingers. 'In the first years of the compact, the clan forefathers and mothers were selected for talent. A sworn covenant with the Fellowship has kept their marriages all but pure for a span of five thousand years.'

  'An inhumane practice, the controlled breeding of dynasties,' Prince Lysaer said, thoughtful. A fresh tremor shook him. 'No wonder the citizens revolted.'

  But Sulfin Evend jerked his chin in rebuttal. 'When outcrosses happened, there were no reprisals. The myth may persist, but actually, the archives that survive attest that no babes were ever put to death.' He tossed the stripped handful of fir needles in the flames, his hawkish features branded in flaring light as he qualified. 'If the town parent raised the offspring, quite often the Koriathain claimed the girl children for training.'

  Lysaer stirred. The soaked gilt braid on his surcoat threw off a subdued glitter as he brushed settled snow from his lap. Sharpened to insight, he ventured, 'Is that why relations with the sisterhood soured?'

  'Not at all. To become an oathsworn initiate in past years was considered the highest honor.' As though the conversation nipped close to the bone, Sulfin Evend busied himself, rummaging through the supplies in the saddle pack. He pulled out a linen-wrapped packet of flour and two leathery strips of dried meat. Their midwives keep meticulous records of birth, evep now. They must snatch their girl novices as they can, from the pool of available throwbacks. Oh, never doubt, the witches still know which gifts the clan lineages foster.' He paused, hissed an oath against Shadow, then lamented, 'The flat griddle's lost with the pack train. We'll have to fall back on the headhunter's practice of toasting salt bannocks on the tread of a stirrup iron.'

  Not deflected one whit, Lysaer levered off the saddle he employed for a seat. Snow spangled his shoulders like gemmed lace, and his leather-gloved fingers shook alarmingly. He masked the infirmity abetted by the covering darkness as he fumbled to unfasten the cold buckles. The gusts hounded his effort as he pried the damp-swollen leather from the tangs. Unwilling to attract a measuring survey of fitness from his Lord Commander, he passed over the freed stirrups with the provocative comment, 'What became of male children left at large in the towns?'

  'Most returned to the clans. A partbreed of any generation could bid for reacceptance, had he the courage to test his inherited talent.' Sulfin Evend scooped out a pannikin of flour. He drew his belt knife and stirred in a dollop of snow, then shaped the thickened dough with the same fussy concentration that made him a superior marksman. 'In fact, all clan children underwent the same rite of passage, to ensure that their lineage bred true.'

  Sulfin Evend cast about, but found no object handy to dangle the stirrups over the fire pit. He rejected the convenience of using a sword blade, since heat could spoil the steel's temper.

  'Never mind. I'll take my bread blackened.' Lysaer snugged his forearms under the blanket, then pursued the original topic. 'What was the trial?'

  'Exposure to the living presence of the Paravians.' Sulfin Evend placed two bannocks on the bars of the stirrups, then nested the precarious array amid the coals. When he looked up and caught Lysaer's sheared gaze still upon him, he bristled, 'What other test would be valid?' It went without saying that those lines kept purest posed the least risk of breeding up aberrant stock.

  'What was the penalty for a failure?' Lysaer pressed, not about to back down before the bent of his inquiry was satisfied.

  'Madness. Or a yearning of spirit too overwhelming to remedy, that would waste the flesh unto death.' Resigned as he watched the wind-ripped flames lick their meager dinner to carbon, Sulfin Evend shrugged muscled shoulders. 'The insane could take charitable refuge in the towns. Others found peace in Ath's Brotherhood. Those branch lines died off, as a rule. Even today, the adepts shun the attachment of children.'

  'Powers of Darkness!' Lysaer shoved to his feet. 'Are you suggesting the rogue mage talents that riddle our society all originate through the inherited taint of clan forebears?'

  Sulfin Evend hefted his knife, stabbed up a burned bannock, and extended the smoking morsel as offering. 'Even so.' His flint-pale eyes nicked with reflected firelight, he added the razor-edged irony, 'You never wondered why Hanshire's mayors don't fraternize with Erdane's council? Or why High Priest Cerebeld and his acolytes are decidedly unloved by the secret factions who pressure town politics? Their flow of gold helps proliferate the leagues of headhunters, and their sworn purpose is to hound the old blood to extinction.'

  'I won't traffic in prejudice,' Lysaer said, firm.

  And Sulfin Evend snapped back, 'You already have.' Confronted by Lysaer's inimical outrage, the Lord Commander had no choice but to outline the truth. 'Erdane is a stewpot of secretive, old hatreds. Best look to the men who come to your court smiling, and bearing gold as ambassadors.'

  Chilled as the impersonal mask of vested sovereignty shuttered Lysaer's blanched face, Sulfin Evend risked his life for addressing sedition: he set brazen truth before nicety and ripped the decorum off the underlying canker of his doubt. 'The cream of your priesthood is already gifted. If you want spells and sorceries expunged from Athera, you'll one day be faced with turning on friends and cleansing an innocent populace.'

  Lysaer sat back down. Even in rage, civil grace did not leave him. He accepted the bannock, halved its crumbling crust, then loosed a startling, sharp gasp of laughter. 'You and Raiett have the testing guile of snakes. Is this your latest attempt at persuasion? If I don't plan to stamp out all the offshoots of talent, you want me to use fire to fight fire?'

  'You'll have to,' Sulfin Evend forced out, his throat bound in desperate tightness.

  Lysaer flicked crumbs from his glove, his fastidious gesture at odds with the fury forced into civilized speech. 'You think I should found my own coterie as a weapon of self-defense and hurl enemy sorcerers to perdition?' He bit into the charred gob of dough, his glance like honed steel, and as dangerous.

  Sulfin Evend could not match that damning, bright gaze. He speared the other bannock, then selected his words with the care of a man crawling headfirst down a wolf's den. 'An assault by shadows and black spellcraft has just slaughtered our company to a man. If we join the Etarrans, what good can that do? How else can you hope to stop the same evil from destroying their best troops tomorrow?'

  'Light prevails over darkness,' Lysaer reminded. 'By my law, which is just, only those born with talent who practice their craft upon innocents need fear the sword and the fire. My priests, who are trained, use their skills for the purpose of tracking t
he Master of Shadow. If they might one day raise wards to protect, the first guiding rule cannot change. Their oath to the Light is made punishable by death, should they stray and use magecraft for harm's sake.'

  Sulfin Evend expelled his pent breath. Versed in hard statecraft, war trained to respond under pressure, he moved deliberate, swordsman's fingers and rolled out another wad of dough. 'Then you won't raise a campaign of extirpation to cull all trace of talent from Athera?'

  'You fear I would put all your relatives to the sword? Surely not.' Lysaer tossed the gritted crumbs of the bannock into the heart of the fire. His expression stayed graven with offense as he said, 'I am the Light and the just arm of defense sent here to protect the innocent. Whether or not the Paravians ever return, whether mankind could be driven to madness among them, as you claim, I would not see born talent wantonly slaughtered. Quite the contrary. Those gifted with mage-sight who embrace the Light shall be nurtured. When the minions of Shadow are cast down in defeat, we'll need their help to break the yoke of the compact. Our people must stand to enforce their right to claim the free wilds for their children.'

  Sulfin Evend yanked back singed fingers from the coals, too incredulous to pause for a lapse into carelessness that may well have blistered his sword hand. 'You would take arms and challenge the might of the Fellowship Sorcerers?'

  Sugared snow flew as Lysaer resettled his tucked blankets. 'For the welfare of civilized settlement, yes, I will wrest those proscribed lands out of sanctuary.' His back braced against the saddle to doze, he shut his eyes, and said, sanguine, 'Lives must be held sacred. No farmsteader will freeze for want of cut wood. I would see no child starve for the sake of a grasslands that could have been plowed up for barley.' The crowning point was delivered with astonishing assurance. 'Today's losses will fire outrage. Enough outcry will finally mow down the objections and reverse the town councils' distrust of magecraft. Never fear, Once the mayors prove ripe for acceptance, my high priests will have their skills ready.'

  'We adapt in reaction.' Sulfin Evend said, bitter, his strategist's instinct for constructive aggression given no outlet to vent his frustration. 'Are we always to lag one dance step behind the enemy's deadly innovation?'

  Lysaer shook his head. His expression of repose unmarred by the rancor that had, seconds past, made him dangerous, he offered his startling confidence. 'The man who learns by example never turns. Our enemy has no scruple, and his clan following is bound to his cause by survival. Set against such dedication we need an Alliance annealed beyond reach of politics. I will match that challenge. At my back, I will have total commitment, an unbreakable unity forged by a threat irrefutably defined in blood and lives, as need be.'

  Then the wounding retort, as Sulfin Evend's weary grief ripped restraint. 'Then I can no longer shoulder this command!'

  Unspoken, the censure he had carried since the dark night in Camris, when he had witnessed the unsuspecting inhabitants of Avenor cast into jeopardy as a ploy to loosen the purse strings of frightened guild councils.

  'My foresight proved sound.' Lysaer opened his eyes. Their blue depths were terrifying for their serenity, and the confidence self-contained in his presence, a force to leave lesser men cowed. 'No trade ministers were browbeaten. The coin that will fund our future campaign will be freely given, not pried from tight fists by a tax.'

  Wildly angry, Sulfin Evend stood his ground. Although Avenor's merchants had been hazed into emptying their coffers for the cause, today's fallen had been thrown to the mercy of poor planning. Their families deserved honesty, first, and a better memorial than a ploy to recast them as victims of abstruse manipulation. 'Well, I'm tired of seeing red-blooded men killed for the sake of arse-kissing politics!'

  That snapped Lysaer's patience, though his resting hands kept their stillness under the blanket. 'We are all no better than game pieces given the illusory power of choice.' His censure held no rage, only a wretched weariness that seemed sprung from the marrow of his bones. 'If you think you are different, or you know a better way, then walk in my shoes! Tomorrow, the Etarran troops will be yours. Command as you please. I will follow. Let's see you bring the Spinner of Darkness to his knees by the vivid heat of mortal inspiration.'

  While Lysaer settled into an exhausted sleep, Sulfin Evend paced the camp, attending small chores to stay wakeful. He repacked the saddlebags. Since thick snowfall now blanketed the available fodder, he poured out a ration of grain for the horse. Last, he checked on the prisoner. Each small move he made was marked by the eagle, unseen and still perched with unnatural vigilance on the cragged root of the deadfall.

  The great bird watched with the vision of a Sorcerer, which saw beyond form and shadow.

  The electromagnetic surge of the storm filled the air with sparkling currents. Against the bright, static spray of falling snow, the warding circle traced out by the oak branch cast a faint lavender glow, smeared dark where the Lord Commander's busy footsteps had crossed its ephemeral boundary.

  The eagle shifted weight from one mailed foot to the other. He clashed his armored beak, impatient, until the Koriani enchantress whose consciousness partnered him posed her perplexed observation. 'Why should you want him to refresh his scribed line? He's not trained to the discipline of focused intent.' Her disparagement stemmed from the fact that the warding raised by Lysaer's officer could deflect very little beyond a hedge witch's charm of ill favor.

  'Bide with me.' The eagle roused his feathers to dislodge tickling snow, then surveyed the campsite, first through his right eye, then through the left, his avid analysis a clear indication the changed viewpoint carried significance. 'The circle's potency scarcely matters. My purpose requires only that it should exist.'

  Less given to patience than to the intuitive hunch that she had been subtly warned off, Elaira shied from disturbed recollection: of the Sorcerer's gaze, meeting hers in Ath's hostel. His eyes had been shadowy, fathomless brown, their secretive depths well beyond her Koriani skills of analysis. Elaira quashed back her insatiable urge to ask questions. Her word had been given. She had sealed her commitment. For the sake of Rathain's caithdein, she had chosen to follow a Sorcerer's lead into the irrevocable unknown. If she would unmask the Betrayer's intent, she must stay the course of unfolding event.

  No change seemed imminent. Storm lashed the night with a hag's chorus of wind and a torn lace curtain of snowfall. The drifts sifted deep in the lee of the rocks. A whiteout blanket smothered the char in the valleys. An hour crawled past, while Sulfin Evend scrounged more fuel to nurture his lagging fire. He sat down and meticulously oiled his sword, then secured the salvageable parts of his crossbow, and in due course progressed through a lethal collection of knives. The white horse dozed with its head down. Lysaer stirred in and out of unsettled dreams and broken sleep.

  Daon Ramon's stark savagery relented for no man. If peace could be garnered amid the rampaging splendor of the elements over untamed landscape, the invasive certainty that the Master of Shadow lurked abroad stalked the heels of each unguarded thought.

  Sulfin Evend exhaustively polished his weapons. He wiped down the horse harness to the last strap, then cast about for something else to occupy purposeful fingers. By that hour, the blizzard had started to slacken. Lysaer, between dozes, raised the suggestion that his Lord Commander would spoil his judgment by morning unless he stood down to rest.

  Gray, falcon's eyes swept the golden-haired prince in the blankets, meting out critical inspection. 'You're not fit to keep watch.'

  Lysaer rolled onto one elbow and gave a suggestive shrug. 'Against what? If the Spinner of Darkness ventures this way, my inner guidance will warn me. Should barbarians ambush, the snow cover's too thick to hear their murdering footfalls. The horse will smell the presence of enemies before we do, and the fire can be left to burn out.'

  'Sunrise can't be far off.' Sulfin Evend measured commonsense wisdom against the clamor of his strategist's instincts, and gave in. For far too long, he had battled the depleting fog of deep
weariness. Since the gale was relenting, he appropriated one of the prisoner's blankets, then recovered his oak stick and recast the circle around his immaculate campsite.

  Earl Jieret lay motionless as before, his form cut outside the ephemeral tracery, faint as a ribbon of lavender foil dropped glimmering over the snow.

  'Now, we play chess,' the eagle pronounced on a devilish frisson of pure joy. He did not wait for Sulfin Evend to lie down, but unfurled broad wings in the darkness and launched himself off his perch.

  'Now, in truth,' echoed the Koriani seeress. Stationed in the Prime's private chambers at Highscarp, she tracked the same scene, avid as any huntress set after cunning winged prey with poisoned bait and a net. She stroked her quartz scrying sphere, teasing out the full range of its virtues, then scribing fresh sigils to fine-tune her surveillance to utmost, ruthless clarity. 'The Betrayer has started making his move.'

  As the night advanced, more than the sisterhouse peeress stood attendance on Selidie Prime. Now the chamber accommodated a joined ring of twelve seniors, already settled into deep trance where they knelt in formation on the wooden floor. Inside their linked circle, the parquet had been chalked with a massive array of twined sigils. Their combined force sustained an inner quadrant demarked by four more enchantresses, stationed at the cardinal directions. The least of these wore four bands of earned rank on her sleeves, colored scarlet to denote their administrative service. Each clasped an enabled quartz wand the length of a tapered candlestick.

  Prime Selidie crouched at the center of the conjury, a gown of eggplant purple puddled over her slippered feet. Her blonde hair had been braided into a rope, laced with lavender ribbon. Immersed in a state of forbidding concentration, she completed the lines of an elaborately protected squared circle. She exchanged the white chalk for a black wax stylus, then laid down the eightfold sigils of binding at each corner. To the enchantress on vigil at the scrying sphere, she announced, 'The trap is almost complete.'