An electrum sheen of moonlight glanced off the crown of antlers as the centaur tossed its forelock; neat, flat ears with pointed tips nested like shells amid the strands. 'Did he refuse you, I should give you the door myself. Yet hear warning, mortal daughter. Try entry against my will at the risk of life and limb, and that of each one of your companions.'
Its message finished, the apparition frayed at the edges, then dissolved like whirled flecks of salt.
Lirenda felt herself hurled out of altered vision. She knelt in crumpled skirts on a swathe of dank grass, broken and humbled and weeping. Such beauty as she had never imagined might exist drove her heart, thudding in bursts fit to bound through the walls of her chest. She struggled to compose herself, to shake off an awe that left her paralysed.
The Skyron crystal lay before her, stamped into scintillant reflection by the moon. She uncurled shaking fingers and reclaimed its dense weight. Time had cracked its unnatural suspension. The third lane's currents rang once again to the onrushing surge of coming equinox. Her confused, restored seniors crowded about her as she stumbled back to her feet. They asked, unaware why their circle of power had gone wrong. All were oblivious to Shehane Althain's hidden might, that for one perilous, hidden moment, had swept their breathing lives like cast-off thread cuttings into his realm on the spirit plane.
Lirenda clenched her jaw. She forced her spine straight, then clawed her hood up to hide the smeared tracks of her tears. Shamed and at a loss, she groped to find words to say why she had reason to dismiss the support of her colleagues, then stay on alone until Sethvir's return.
Morriel would be livid to know her successor had been forced to bend pride. Yet no choice remained. The latent power of one Ilitharis Paravian brooked no further argument. Lirenda must come to plead a sorcerer's indulgence, or else abandon her charge to return with the order's lost Waystone.
Ring Ripples
At Ostermere, ensconced in the royal kitchens over a plate of scones and jam, Sethvir pauses to chuckle over the success of his spell of illusion, that had tricked the Koriani First Senior to belief she had conversed with the spirit of Althain's dedicated guardian; her limited learning might never reveal the truth: that, had the tower's Warden lacked the foresight to beg a stay of tolerance, her meddling would indeed have raised the ward wrought from the bones of Shehane Althain, and neither she nor her ill-advised circle of accomplices would have escaped with their lives . . .
Over the coals of the bonfire lit to celebrate his wedding on spring equinox, Jieret s'Valerient, Earl of the North and caithdein of Rathain, stands with his bride to bid farewell to his war captain, summoned south to serve his prince in Vastmark: 'Be his shield, Caolle, and go with my blessing, for no other sword would I entrust to safeguard our liege in my place . . .'
Under a great cloud of dust, clan scouts sent out of Alland drive a great herd of cattle and horses across the Forthmark road; and bound into Vastmark in their company to recover the stowaway twins are the former guardsman and the widow who had fled Lysaer's grasp at Merior . . .
V. THREE SHIPS
Princess Talith weathered her forced passage to the Cascains with all the ill grace of a brooding goose in a pullet's crate. While she stayed immured in the stern cabin, her handmaid emerged at measured intervals for whining bouts that began with demands, and finished with piteous pleading. The Khetienn's brigand captain should order his vessel about and make port at Los Mar for the sake of her ladyship's health.
'She's seasick?' Arithon inquired. Poised at the mizzenmast shroud, his loose-fitted sailhand's shirt fluttered by the east breeze and his feet braced to balance the mild roll of the ship, he regarded the servant's hand-wringing affectations with rapt, disingenuous green eyes.
The recount of Talith's suffering filled a long and tiresome interval. At the finish, while the handmaid blinked in dewy-eyed expectancy, he shrilled a whistle through his teeth, then told the topmen who answered to break out staysails and flying jib. His brigantine came alive, slashing through the swell to a thunderous thrum of canvas, while the sheared spatter of spray sheeted rainbows off her sleek bow.
The princess's servant howled in complaint, and Arithon laughed, hands clenched to tarred rigging to ride out the buck of the deck. 'Be sure to take your ailing mistress my condolences. Tell her we'll make landfall that much faster.'
Dakar regarded this exchange with avid interest through the fringe of his dripping bangs. Curled like a damp hedgehog on a bight of rope, and determined despite his green face not to bolt for the leeward railing, he observed, 'You're a miserable, stone-hearted bastard.'
Arithon showed no change in expression. 'Indeed. Only the cook doesn't think so.'
Thereafter, the handmaid presented her daily complaints to Dakar's listening sympathy. Given to a startling, selfless turn of subterfuge, he would pat her damp hands, soothe her fears, then assure her he would speak in Lady Talith's behalf. To his credit, he never claimed his word could sway the Shadow Master from pursuit of his demanding offshore passage.
While the sniffling maid crept below to attend her mistress, the Mad Prophet retired to the galley. There, much too quiet, he peeled onions for the swarthy little desertman who claimed double pay for the roles of cabin steward and cook. The fellow had a face as inscrutable as a walnut. If a whistling lisp left by five missing teeth made him closemouthed enough for Arithon to tolerate his service, he was an adroit hand with the stewpots. Eager to win the man's contrary confidence, Dakar outdid himself as an unctuous, smiling toady.
The cook simply sucked in his crinkled lips and kept on dicing salt beef with a nasty, hooked dagger he had won playing dice with a fishmonger. For all that extended passages were a rarity since Desh-thiere's mists had repressed the finer arts of navigation, the nomads born to Sanpashir's black sands were wizards at knowing which seasonings and spices could sweeten the taste of turned stores. Caught out in chagrin, again and again, Dakar found himself side-tracked from his probing to the chore of slicing lemons and garlic.
The cook was not forthcoming on his views of the Shadow Master's service. Exhausted from failed subtleties, Dakar lacked the nerve to ask outright. The princess herself was off-limits. His earlier brashness replaced by sullen wisdom, Dakar knew precisely when not to trifle with Arithon's affairs.
Lady Talith stayed belowdecks, supine and miserable and listless in her berth by the woeful account of her maid. The curtains across the stern windows were drawn closed night and day, until the sailhands grumbled for the need to ration lamp oil to indulge their passenger's overuse of stores.
Arithon silenced every whimper of complaint by meting out brutal work and sea drills.
By the energetic rush of feet across the deck, and the twanging clank of ratchets as the great arbalests were winched cocked and tested, Lady Talith was left in little doubt of the Khetienn's trim readiness for action. Never once did Arithon disturb her, or trouble himself to visit and inquire after her health. Throughout the four-week voyage, his sailhands acquired a dangerous, smooth efficiency, and sharp new respect for his temper. Nothing else changed but the weather. The brisk, pranking winds and leaden rains of early spring smoothed into blue waters, too cold as yet to be thrashed by the squall lines brewed up in the heat of high summer.
The eastern horizon glowed gold and pink as the lip of a conch shell on the morning the Khetienn nosed in at slack tide, over glassy black waters to seek anchorage. The rock cliffs that hedged the twisty, narrow channel loured, lidded in fog, above her mastcaps; her sails sliced rust-red reflections through the bubbled trail of her wake. No one troubled to inform the princess of the landfall. Her only warning the sour reek of weed washed up by waves upon the rocks, Talith arose and called her handmaid to attend her grooming. Etarran to her core, enraged to frozen spite, she regaled herself in the magnificence of her most imposing court velvets. None who beheld her would fail to mistake the significance of her station. Beside her state jewels and her stylishly rich dress, her husband's half-brother would appea
r the insolent saltwater ruffian.
Talith timed her appearance to mesh with the clanging descent of the anchor chain. She swept toward the main deck, sure her adversary would be caught in busy disarray, with tar rimmed black underneath his chipped nails as he sent his men aloft to stow sails.
Instead she found him ready at the companionway to escort her, clad in a green doublet of impeccable light silk and a shirt of unwrinkled, pale lawn. The sable hair worn to sea in a sailor's club had been freshly trimmed; his hands were manicured, and his smile, bright mockery amid the tanned planes of his face.
The setback did nothing for Talith's brittle mood. She hung back in the shadows and swallowed a public explosion better suited to a dockside harridan. More ways existed to jab a man's pride; no male alive had ever dealt the last word. Against this one, she would need all her claws.
'You used lilac water,' Arithon admitted, amused by her venomous silence. 'My quartermaster's been fidgeting with his breeks all morning. He said his second-best mistress also favours that scent, and three sailors lost their month's wages at dice vying to be first to peer through the afterdeck hatch cover.'
Talith took his offered arm as though it were a snake, too urbane to rise to retort. No crewman had been spying, as Arithon knew best of any; else her maid's linen shift had gone to mildew for nothing, tacked up to block the gaps in the grating.
As she let herself be ushered into daylight, her captor made a study of her armour of velvets and jewels. A sardonic smile turned his lips. 'My dear, how lucky for you I keep such a tight rein on discipline. You might stall a man guessing to tell whether there's enough of you underneath to make the effort of stripping drapery worth a rape. But as you say, we're a desperate pack of thieves. If I ran my command like the Arrow, I'd break up a half-dozen fights just to see who got to cut your throat to loot your jewels.'
A matched glint of fight in the depths of her eyes, Lady Talith raised her chin another notch. The combed honey coil of her hair made her lashes and pupils seem a sooty, unnatural black. 'Trust a man to mistake discipline for crude intimidation,' she said. 'Am I meant to be impressed?'
'You're meant to be cowed,' replied Arithon, never more serious. 'But who expects that in a princess?' His critical regard raked her over again, to an exaggerated flick of amazement at the sparkle of her bullion chains, and the twisted strands of seed pearls caught like drizzle against the nap of her velvets. 'Are you truly as hot as you appear? At least shed your mantle. Indigo makes your colour look washed out.'
Talith returned a magnificent glare. 'Is my pallor not the fault of your beastly ship? If I'm kept in duress in trade for Tysan's riches, I'd expect you'd have some care for my well-being.'
Arithon handed her up the companionway. 'You'll have no pity from me for cooping yourself up like a broody hen. My cook assures me your appetite's been truly remarkable for an invalid. I scarcely need mention it's been calm enough for chess nearly every night you've been on board. Lady Talith, your beauty's enchanting, I admit. But you'll need to lie better to gain my respect for your wit.'
'I need no respect from a criminal,' Talith said, gratified now, in her element. 'Nor am I here for your coarse entertainment.'
They had reached the main deck. Several sailhands were staring. Talith swept past them as if they were insects. Dismay flushed her skin all the same; for the brigantine had made landfall upon no inhabited shore. The skyline meshed sheer into brooding cliffs, fretted in foam and dark water. No wharf and no gangway awaited. The rail lacked even a gate for the convenience of passengers in skirts.
Most maddening of all was the Shadow Master's wry joy at her side; then his words, touched in flint to spark her temper. 'My sweet sister-in-law, it's a delightful privilege.' His hands grasped her waist and slung her up in a frothed spill of petticoats until she rested face-down across his shoulder.
Talith jabbed her clenched fist in the small of his back and hoped her sharp rings tore his doublet. Burdened as he was, she could feel he was laughing. His hands through the muffling layers of her clothing fired outrage and thrilled her to tingling, combative heat.
'Damn you,' she whispered to the back of his belt. She thumped him again, then shut her eyes, dizzy, as he swung over the rail toward the longboat rocking below.
'Slippery as a marlin,' called the man at the oars. 'D'ye suppose she'll pinch?'
'Scratch, rather,' Arithon quipped back in good nature. He felt her fast snatch for the grip of his sheathed sword and jounced her weight onto her diaphragm. Her breath locked beyond speech, and the unsubtle, wrestler's twist to her knee brought a film of tears to her eyes. 'You don't want a swim in all these velvets, my dear. For the goldwork alone, you'd go down like a rock from a catapult. We'd have to drag the bottom for salvage.'
His foot touched the heaving gunwale and stepped down. There came a sinking jolt as he kicked to cast off. Then the princess was spun right side up and deposited in the stern like a muffled-up child in a bolster. Her coiffure had come loose. Through a wing of fallen hair and a jingling spill of diamond pins, she caught both hands to rough wood and waited for the jerk as four lout-fisted seamen slammed their full weight to the oars.
But the longboat glided shoreward like spilled oil on silk. Unresigned, prepared to lock wills with a master player, Talith rescued jewelled pins one by one from their slide toward the bilge. While the gulls screamed and shuttled in raucous patterns overhead, she hardened herself to cold cause. Born an Etarran, weaned on merciless intrigue, she would inveigle some way to thwart Arithon's bid for her ransom. For his slights to her pride and his callous turn of boldness, she would draw blood as she could, and see him humiliated before King Eldir and the Fellowship. However backwater the outpost where he had chosen to sequester her, he would find himself empty-handed when his vaunted exchange was set to occur at midsummer.
Talith clawed the last pin from her hair and smoothed wind-flicked strands from her lashes. Her velvets weighed her shoulders like cloths dipped in lead in the heavy, humid airs. A trickle of sweat licked her neck. She endured in damp poise while the bronzed and grinning oarsmen rowed the longboat through a notch like a gateway between islets. The splash of each stroke threw back glassine echoes; no sound of inhabitance cut their rhythm. Scarps of rock jutted on both sides like storm-chiselled barbazons. The breaking mists overhead framed a vista of desolation ruled by black and white birds and ragged clouds. Talith refused to give way and inquire where she was amid the wilderness.
Arithon took grave pleasure by informing her. 'These are the Cascains, off Vastmark, just east of South Strait inlet. Your stay won't be long and provisions have been made. Your handmaid will come ashore later with your boxes. She's already been told that you won't be quartered in the open.'
But despite this reassurance, the only human sounds issued from behind, where the brigantine's indignant cook shouted lists of provisions to the crew who launched the second longboat. His thick desert dialect mixed with Dakar's deeper threats, should the craft be launched shoreward without him.
The argument fell away into distance as the craft bearing Talith rounded the spined jut of an outcrop. Along with screeling bird cries came the faint ring of mallets, and through them, with earsplitting clarity, a child's treble shout from a dory that bobbed among the rocks. 'The Master of Shadow is back!'
'Welcome to my den of iniquity,' Arithon said with a wicked, lazy grin.
The mallet strokes went ragged and died away, replaced by loud talk, then a man's whoop, followed by laughter.
'By Ath, he's snatched her after all!' someone pealed in an accent from Southshire's quay shanties.
Talith shut her eyes. Her hands clenched down on her cache of rescued pins until the gems pebbled marks in her skin. She endured while the longboat grounded with a grate on sea-washed stones. Cumbered in state velvets, she could not escape another round of ignominy as Arithon scooped her up like a trophy. He waded ashore and set her down for inspection before the uncouth pack of craftsmen on the strand.
> His outpost held little beyond a scraggle of tents strung between what looked like the yard of a furniture shop. Small stools and benches and a vehicle that looked like a dogcart lay scattered about in various states of completion. The shoreline was littered in shavings of yellow pine, and the fishy, sour smell of the natural air twined through a cloying reek of resin. The chips were going to cling horribly to velvets.
Silent in distaste, her head still giddy from too many weeks on shipboard, Talith tried a mincing step. The narrow kidskin slippers on her feet were fashioned for carpets and paved walkways. On the rough ground, they slipped and wobbled. The flounces of her skirts obscured her footing. Unless she wished to walk like a crofter with her petticoats kirtled up, she would have to lean on Arithon for balance. Mortified that the sole slight in her power was to treat his courtesy as if he were a servant, Talith ground her teeth in forced patience. For the first time in her life, she wished to bundle her face behind her cloak as every sweating, shirtless labourer leered at her in wolfish interest. One or two with the shame of chastised boys dusted shavings off their forearms and chests.
Low and to the sidelines, somebody whistled. A man tried a coarse remark.
Arithon clipped through the lewd comment with a line like a forge-heated blade. 'May I present her Grace of Avenor. She is a princess, as you see. Every man in her presence may bow with the courtesy due her station, or else answer to me later for his insolence. And docked pay for all, a day for each minute the last of you stands idle.'
The gawking line of men melted clear of her path. They snatched up their tools to a few scattered laughs and a mild exchange of bluster. 'Kneel on such rocks, and ye risk a burst kneecap. Me, I'll take my blisters in the sawpit.'
A barrel-chested joiner spat sideward and chuckled. 'Man, don't fool us! Ye're old lady'd lash you to blisters wi' her tongue, did she hear you'd lost yer wage to ogle royalty.'