Traitor''s Knot (epub)

  'I would save the embarrassment,' Lysaer said without heat. Then, 'You didn't come here, or strip to the skin to retread the threats posed by necromancers. Nor have I given you reason to doubt my intent to stay clear of the morass surrounding Etarra. My recruiting will be confined to the south. Have I wakened suspicion to question this?'

  'Not yet.' A man not sworn to the cause of the land would have let matters rest, strongly warned. Sulfin Evend assessed the dangerous, male creature whose innate majesty could not be trusted, then said, 'You did not disclose the contents of those dispatches. Your seneschal has not seen them either. If you want my backing, you will not conceal pertinent documents from your high council.'

  Lysaer's tempered poise kept its mildness. 'You would dictate terms?'

  Sulfin Evend sucked a reflexive, quick breath. 'I would order the ship you board sunk at the dock before I set sail for a falsehood.'

  'A death warrant, for the men who obeyed you,' said Lysaer. He did not seem perturbed, a signal red flag. 'How dare you enact the presumption?'

  'If you've nothing to hide, I don't have to.' His courage a brazen act of imprudence, Sulfin Evend held firm. 'Don't try me. If you win, the regret would become your destruction.'

  'How dramatic' Lysaer tipped back his soaked head, the picture of congenial amusement. 'You would have applauded my guileless grace if I had exposed names for your uncle's close contacts?' Highly placed, inside officials employed by town mayors had sold themselves as Raiett's spies. 'A self-righteous, clean breast on that score would have earned us some interesting enemies.'

  Mockery won no ground from Sulfin Evend. 'How can you be sure that Raiett's contacts aren't compromised?'

  Lysaer's indolent eyelids swept down, his careless posture as relaxed as his hands, laced at his knee under the water-line. 'The dispatches included bonded copies of state documents from Kalesh and Adruin. As s'Brydion enemies, both towns detain inbound ships at the mouth of the inlet. Inventory in the holds, cross-checked against lading lists, shows an interesting trend of ore imports. The duke's foundries are busy. His shipyards have been building more vessels outfitted for war. The other significant news was sent from a clairvoyant who works out of Spire.' The faint smile that followed showed a rancorous edge. 'Apparently, your precious Fellowship Sorcerers have seen fit to install my wife under sanctuary inside Ath's hostel.'

  Sulfin Evend tested that ground like thin ice. 'If so, they can't hold her against her will. The adepts will not sanction coercion.'

  Had those imperious eyes not been shut, their gleam would have been hardened enamel. 'I will not accept your rote suppositions. Avenor's princess has forsaken her vows as my wife. I would hear that betrayal from her own lips, since judgement is rightfully mine to bestow should the charge of abandonment lead to a sentence of treason.' Lysaer added, 'No less than seven town mayors in Shand have petitioned the Light for an intercession. If I sail back home without granting their hearings, I should be accused of false cause, if not justly defamed as a covert clan sympathizer.'

  'That excuses Shand,' Sulfin Evend allowed. 'Perhaps. My gut says you haven't begun to come clean.'

  'My examiner should put you to trial for a rogue seer!' Lysaer retorted with venom. Eyes flicked open, unmoving, he counter-thrust without pretence. 'While we're in the south, you'll recruit in my name. Fail me there, and your officers could come to face your worst fear. For Etarra has been industriously training new troops since the losses were read for Daon Ramon. Your covert nest of necromancers stand to inherit a war host raised in support of the Light. Should your faith in a Fellowship intercession prove misplaced, we risk opposing our own banner on the field. What if our northern stronghold turns suspect? For all we know, their high command may already be swayed by the first taint of corruption.'

  The least chance that Shand's garrisons might be called to battle a troop turned by necromancy cast chills, even through the heat of the bath. 'All right,' Sulfin Evend was forced to concede. 'I'll grant you Shand as a political necessity. But what do you have on Alestron? Your cited case of collusion with Shadow had better rest upon something more than lading lists and one renegade shipwright who fled for the chance to snatch amnesty.'

  'Cattrick?' Lysaer's reply held that lazy disinterest that set every instinct at guard point.

  Sulfin Evend persisted, 'The man is a valuable craftsman, enough that any shipbuilding ally would be tempted to overlook his past record. He's no cause for war. Not against clanblood holed up in a citadel designed on a scale that guts armies.'

  'Add treason,' stated Lysaer, uncowed. 'Misappropriation of funds. Let's not omit piracy, hand in glove with the Riverton sabotage, which also took lives acting in the Light's service.'

  A tactical commander could not afford to stay silent. 'Challenge Alestron, you will stir a wasp's nest better off left unmolested. At least bide until your troop rolls are back to full strength and brought to the peak of their training.'

  'Wait,' Lysaer said, 'and we will face an insurgency under the sway of the Spinner of Darkness.'

  'Why now?' Sulfin Evend held out. 'Cattrick's malfeasance was eighteen years back. I also know you've been hoarding sealed proofs of his perfidy since your priest reported last autumn!'

  Lysaer arched his back, hands clasped at his nape. 'Well, this news is fresh. The heart of all evil was admitted through the gates of the s'Brydion citadel only last night.'

  'You know this for certain? This wasn't a cult predator, deliberately baiting a hook to waylay you?' Too late, Sulfin Evend awoke to the danger: his query was seen as obstruction.

  Already that hostile, fixed stare had hardened in glacial splendour upon him. Tn nightmares, at times, I can hear the footsteps where my half-brother treads on the ground.'

  Sulfin Evend ceased breathing. Confronted by the horrific change that presaged the Mistwraith's curse, he feared to move, feared to speak. The wrong word now could launch madness.

  Yet fraught stillness compounded his deadly mistake. His alert tension itself framed resistance. Ungoverned insanity supplanted reason: Lysaer's sprawled frame recoiled and sprang.

  Caught weaponless, Sulfin Evend snatched up the sponge. He hurled its soaped pulp into Lysaer's face and dodged the hands that grappled to throttle him. A wave slopped from the tub. The flood hissed across the tile mosaic, and slapped, echoing, into the benches.

  Lysaer dropped his throat hold. On driven impetus, he ploughed his shoulder into his liegeman's solar plexus.

  Shot halfway out of the water, scrabbling to regain his feet, Sulfin Evend slammed into the rim of the pool. Impact knocked him windless and stunned nerves in his spine. As his body subsided back towards immersion, he recalled the stone-knife. That redoubled threat spurred his desperate recovery. He rolled, spiked an elbow in useless evasion, unsure which peril would take him first, a drowning in soapy water, or a stab through the neck or the heart.

  His hair was seized. A shove slammed him under. Still shocked by hazed pain, Sulfin Evend hit back without decency.

  Lysaer scarcely flinched. A creature lashed into curse-bound rage, he lunged again, strikes with fists and knee aimed with feral violence.

  Sulfin Evend submerged, let the water sap the force from the blows. Since the bruise to his back still impaired his reflex, he thrashed in retreat until the far wall of the bath held him at bay. This time, his groping heel met the stair. A hard thrust let him spring from the water.

  Streaming, Lysaer surged after him.

  The contest emerged onto the slippery tile, a battle closed in wet flesh and harsh breathing. Blow and counterblow were marked by the slap of clenched fists. Vicious grunts and gasped curses tagged each exchange, torn short by the bruising falls that pulped muscle, and smacked bone, and smeared blood like plumed dye in the puddles.

  Sulfin Evend could not fight to kill. That sore disadvantage hampered each move. The holds that might cripple had to be tempered, where Lysaer's possessed fury sought murder. Hurled head over heels, kicked and slammed on splashed floorin
g, then pummelled against marble furnishings, Sulfin Evend wrestled in tortured evasion. His drive to win clear and snatch for his sword brought a club on the nape that dizzied his senses. Through a swelling bruise that slitted one eye, he sensed Lysaer loom over him. Fair features were wracked into a rictus of nightmare. The driven intent in those glass-hard blue eyes exposed something worse than ferocity. Sulfin Evend struggled to throw off his numbing fear. This was no clash born of heated blood, but the cold-cast embrace of damnation: the same manic focus that had torched his shot arrows, one after the next on the practise field.

  Not the knife, after all; Sulfin Evend cried out.

  His shout raised the guards left behind in the ante-room and brought them pounding against the locked door.

  Before they broke through, Lysaer's light burst and burned. The white-out levin-bolt blinded sight and scalded wet tile to shrieking steam. Target of a blast that should scorch him to cinders, Sulfin Evend felt the wild strike slam his chest. Knocked off his feet and bowled over backwards, he struck the wall, gasping and bruised, but alive; the awareness broke through, that he had to be shielded. Lysaer's crazed attack was being intercepted by a starred pulse of silver-white spell-craft.

  Asandir's mark warded more than his spirit from necromancy. Its etheric imprint also bestowed an unlooked-for defence from the gifted powers suborned by Desh-thiere's curse. The working in fact had not transgressed free will.

  'How strong are you wanting to make these protections?' the Sorcerer had inquired in due course of obtaining permission.

  'Strong as you know how to make them.' Sulfin Evend had said, more than anxious to give the matter his brisk quittance. 'I'm no use to Lysaer if I should fall short. Just act as your wisdom sees fit.'

  Spared now by the grace of the Sorcerer's foresight; he had a scant instant to order his wits. The dire onslaught of light spent itself and snuffed out. The glass floor tiles were melted to smoking slag, with Lysaer's manic fury still rampant. Blows resounded: the diligent guardsmen were breaking the door. Their forced entry was going to happen too late. The s'Ilessid had finally drawn the stone-knife. Assault followed with curse-bound ferocity.

  Unlike the past trial on the dungeon stair set off by the meddling of necromancers, one man became the singular target for the raised bloodlust of Desh-thiere's curse. Talith's memory had lost any power to save. This time, a son's death could not be invoked to shift blame, or deflect the attack and wake reason.

  Bare-handed, Sulfin Evend fought for his life. The stabbing knife met his sharp parry. Once, twice, he fended the thrusts that darted to cripple and kill. The third barely missed opening his guarding forearm. Sulfin Evend scrambled backwards, recovered, but lost his purchase upon the scorched tile. He skidded, lurching sidewards to dodge as the razor-edged weapon bore in. Knapped flint scored his flesh, a shallow scratch. Except wounding contact woke back-lash: a blade that desert shamans had ritually fashioned to enact a warding defence drew blood through an act of unbridled hatred.

  The virulent sting spurred Sulfin Evend to outcry as arcane forces whirled into recoil. The snarling confluence of violence and wronged spell-craft raised a wild burst of elemental Fire. The force that endowed both creation and destruction responded in kind to the fury that impelled the knife's wielder. Lysaer screamed as the red blaze of the handle seared the skin on his palm and fingers.

  The spelled knife clattered out of his blistered grip, just as the roused guardsmen breached the lock and shouldered the burst panel inward.

  Sulfin Evend barked out a command to hold hard. His grazed throat seized up. The shout he required came out mangled, barely louder than a scraped whisper. The men did not hear. Past recourse, their commander scrambled, found his feet, and slammed headlong into Lysaer. Since failure meant death, he rejected'nicety. A clipped blow to the nape dropped the Blessed Prince in a senseless sprawl in the puddles. Sulfin Evend pounced and snatched the flint knife. One fist in gold hair, he clawed for the neck cord, then rammed the blade back into its soaked deer-hide sheath.

  Frantic shouting drowned out his string of voiced orders. Aware of the men charging past the sloshed bath, Sulfin Evend snapped his discarded belt from the bench. He had Lysaer's arms halfway noosed when the guards' disconcerted rush hammered into him.

  Their mailed fists crashed him full length and pinned him face-downwards on the splashed floor.

  Lysaer was dragged clear, while merciless hands crushed Sulfin Evend prone, and a trio of swords pricked his neck. The wrecked room reeled and tilted. Steamed air reeked of blood, spilled scent, and spent carbon, which ripped battered senses to nausea. Worse, several towel boys already gaped at the view through the smashed doorway.

  'Get them out.' He ripped a hitched breath, forced clear thought, tried again. 'By my life, which lies at your mercy,' he gasped, 'keep my liege restrained until he finds his way back to sane consciousness.'

  'And we should trouble to obey an assassin?' The guard sergeant jammed a boot in his prisoner's back and flattened Sulfin Evend's grazed chin to the floor-tiles. 'My lord, what fell working possessed you?'

  The Lord Commander squeezed his eyes shut. Aching and bloody, seized by the throb of every blackening bruise, he spoke with adamant clarity. 'As your titled officer, I ask for your trust. The scene you just witnessed was not an assault. No matter how grim the manifest evidence, my loyalty has not been compromised.'

  More steps pattered in through the splintered entry.

  Sulfin Evend shifted a hand to arise. The jammed pressure of sword steel redoubled at once. His least movement was answered with vengeful zeal, while the boot on his back cramped his breathing. 'Man that doorway, at once!' he snapped in hoarse rage. 'At least spare the court from the sordid gossip that's going to be spread by the servants!'

  'Not to fear,' soothed a calm, older voice, just arrived. 'I've sent the towel boys off to the kitchen with the promise they'll starve if they loosen their tongues.'

  Sulfin Evend peered askance at two frail, slippered feet, and gratefully recognized the sound sense of the royal valet.

  Once again, the staid servant stood his brave ground before the armed fist of authority. 'I beg you,' he entreated. 'Hear your Lord Commander. His intervention today was an act of necessity, called for through delicate circumstances. His Exalted Grace sometimes suffers from bouts of stressed nerves, a fact he prefers to keep shielded. Your senior officer knows the malady well. He's helped with such violent outbreaks before. By grace of your loyalty, let him up. You will do the Light's avatar no service at all if you don't cool your tempers and hear us.'

  The bared swords did not lift. Sulfin Evend forced patience. Listening with every strained sense he had left, he picked up a low moan, from the bench: already, Lysaer stirred out of his stupor, braced up by a stalwart sergeant.

  'Leave us!' snapped the valet, fired desperate with outrage. 'All of you. Now! Are you brutes, to so wound a man's dignity? Divinity walks among you in the flesh! But that privilege does not strengthen your ranks without cost. Such a prodigious gift must set strain on the vessel endowed beyond human frailty!'

  'Prince Lysaer was born of a man and a woman joined in an ordinary marriage. He told me,' Sulfin Evend backed up with scalded exasperation.

  The grinding weight of the boot lifted off. The instant the bearing sword pressure wavered, Sulfin Evend rolled out from beneath the held points. Snarling obscenities for each fresh, gouging cut, he snapped to his knees and shoved upright.

  Gasps met the sight of the mark on his chest. Like an uncertain swarm, the armed guardsmen closed in, unsure whether to skewer him as an unnatural creature touched by some unknown work of spell-craft.

  Naked, near pulped, his balance unsure, their commander was too thrashed to care if their hysterical fear would see him run through. He turned his back on their weapons, propped a hand to the wall, then sent the valet for dry towels. 'His Grace had a robe laid out for his bath? Then let's see about getting him into it.'

  Such care for the ordinary outf
aced the raw threat. Sulfin Evend limped towards the confused guardsman who supported the Blessed Prince. 'His Grace is unhurt? Then lay him down.'

  Bent, his scuffed fingers exploring the slack limbs for hot swelling or sign of snapped bones, Sulfin Evend glanced up as the towels arrived. He held Lysaer's wrists, while the valet rubbed him dry. Together they folded the sumptuous robe over his marked arms and shoulders. While his eyelids fluttered, they used the sash binding and secured his elbows in a gentle knot of restraint.

  Sulfin Evend draped the used towel over his streaming neck. Then he bade the nervous sergeant to assist, since he could not trust his balance to hoist Lysaer's weight without help.

  Hostile eyes watched him at every move. Whispers trailed after his footsteps. He sensed each levelled sword-blade trained on him from behind, as he picked his way through the burst door-jamb. Across the carpet, with no sideward glance, he saw Lysaer installed on the bed. While the valet fussed over pillows and blankets, then soaked linen to make a cold compress, Sulfin Evend dragged up a brocade chair. He perched on the seat with complete disregard for the fact he was bloodied and breechless.

  'You will all stay present,' he commanded his guards. 'I'll need you to bear witness as Lysaer awakes. For if this trip to Shand must go forward in state, there are going to be imposed limits. Given the hair-raising shambles today, you must see that I can't field my duties alone any longer.'

  The burly sergeant dispatched a man to secure the entry to the royal apartment. Still wrestling his conflicted loyalty, he said, 'With due warning, my lord, I don't like what I see. That mark at your heart looks like spell-craft. If you've played us false as the agent of darkness, my blade takes your life straightaway.'

  Too sore to take issue with risks that no less than a Sorcerer's wisdom might argue, Sulfin Evend met the reproachful distrust of his elite sentries head-on. 'No less than dire spell-craft can help against necromancy, and despite public faith, Lysaer's gift of light does not make him omnipotent.'