TWOLAS - 06 - Peril''s Gate

  Into the wondering triumph of the moment, as Jieret spoke the rune to seal his flawless execution of grand conjury, Arithon s'Ffalenn used his silence like weaponry to wear down resolve and compel space for second thoughts.

  Jieret stayed unmoved. He tucked the spelled mica amid the packed contents of the last acorn without fumbling. 'For the love I bear you, Arithon, I return the gift of life you gave me as a boy on the banks of Tal Quorin.'

  Such drilled quiet could have burned, for its baleful intensity, Jieret reaffixed the acorn's cap, careful not to mar the minute chains of ciphers scratched over the seed's oiled surface. He secured the end with pine pitch, spoke the name for the Paravian rune of ending, then wrapped the finished construct in a loose twist of silk. As he tucked the fated bundle into the breast of his jerkin, he concluded, 'You're not free to refuse, liege. Not belore you have tasted fulfillment, as I have: conceive an heir in marriage with the woman of your choice and raise Rathain's next crown prince to maturity.'

  Silence, from the Teir's'Ffalenn, as the realm's acting steward arose to his lanky, full height. Sketched in the failing light of the candle stub, he loomed large as his father, his broad hands as capable, and his carriage as self-assured as he shouldered the deliberate next step.

  Braggen watched, seized dumb, as Jieret struck the flint and lit the spill of herbs left bundled and waiting. He reinscribed the line of the circle holding the Teir's'Ffalenn. No vital step omitted, he cut himself separate from Arithon's ward of containment, then sealed the new circle behind him with a crisp incantation and a powdery trail of warmed ashes.

  Arithon tried again, spoke Jeynsa's name with each syllable of appeal pronounced with a masterbard's attacking clarity.

  Jieret fielded the strike, placid. 'On the hour my daughter swears her oath as caithdein she'll embrace the steel of her heritage. She has been raised strong. As the Fellowship's marked candidate for my succession, she'll rise to her inheritance and forgive us both for what comes of this day's work.'

  'If she might, I won't.' Half-unmanned by his failure, Arithon faltered, his gift for glib satire broken by strain into vindictive desperation.

  'You forget,' Jieret answered. 'I know you too well. However you bristle and snap, your compassion can seed no rancor. For that, you've forgiven me already. It's your conscience that's hounding you past reach of peace. Have done, brother. For my sake, and yours, let it go.'

  Inarguably firm, he asked Braggen to hand him Alithiel's empty scabbard.

  'I'll renounce you,' threatened Arithon. 'Your family, your heirs, everything you stand for! I'll turn my back. If I survive, they'll watch: me walk away, forgetting the names of your father and mother, and every misbegotten offshoot of your lineage.'

  'You wouldn't, and you can't,' Jieret contradicted. 'If the truth hasn't moved me, your lies just demean you.'

  Rammed against an unyielding defeat by the High Earl'l immovable courage, the conflicted presence of Arithon s'Ffalenfl whirled in raging bitterness. The fabric of his very self all bui came undone as he saw his bluff called. Never before this had hi| arsenal of threats been so savagely reduced by bare honesty. Even had Jieret not known his true heart, a blood-pacted friendship sworn under the sighted strength of his mastery was utterly beyond his present power to revoke.

  He could do nothing, nothing but rage, as his caithdein laced the scabbard in the black silk cord pulled from his ripped-off shirtsleeve. Warded word, and arcane sigils laid down at each crossed junction, remade the battered leather into a spelled prison to bind him. Then the parallel lines, drawn by the birch twig, and sealed with dry ashes, framed the path that would join the connection.

  Braced to finish the final stage of the ritual, Jieret asked for the sword. Deaf to pity, he sat with the blade's icy length pressed between his fixed palms. He made the incantation, flawless and sure, that traitorously transferred his liege's Named permission into the warded black metal.

  Against silence like a cry, he returned the weapon to the hands of his waiting Companion. 'Braggen, on my word, you will raise the sword Alithiel and thrust her blade through the circle of ash that holds Arithon's spirit form captive.'

  The victim found his voice, a peal of blazing torment that raised sympathetic resonance from cold stone. Vibration cast back in subliminal echoes, to lift the hair at the nape. 'Jieret, no, don't do this!'

  Made aware by Braggen's bounding start that the plea had sheared within range of hearing, Jieret stiffened to adamance. He confronted his prince, his hewn features drained pale, and his voice racked to stark desperation. 'Even if, in my place you know well you would do the same thing?'

  'Still, I ask you, I beg you, don't do this. Bear the spelled sword yourself. Stay at my side as we planned.' A stricken pause, then the admission, delivered with stripped human need, 'After you, there is no one else but Elaira. Can't you see how your loss would diminish me?'

  A long look, exchanged between caithdein and sworn prince; a stretched second, fractured from time by pure heartbreak. In speechless communion, the locked conflict between them encompassed a love beyond words. The bonding first made with the boy at Tal Quorin had grown to mean more than blood, more than duty, more than the gift of breath and life.

  The one moment was too unutterably fleeting to carry the hope and the pain that should have endured to the peaceful, quiet parting of old age.

  'No,' Jieret gasped, his tone flattened and final. 'I see too well I've made the right choice. You might give too much, if I rode beside you. The temptation to spare me might drive you to jeopardize your survival. Caolle would have endorsed my fair judgment. Braggen's better with the sword, always has been.' After a frightful, shuddering pause, he mastered himself enough to manage the echo of his most wicked smile. 'You'll live to be crowned as Rathain's next king, or else leave s'Ffalenn progeny. In memory, I'll still stand beside you.'

  Cruelly isolate within the spelled circle, Arithon's spirit form lashed back in emphatic rejection. 'You can still change your mind! Cast the mica construct into the running waters of the Aiyenne. Jieret, you'll have done far more than your duty to Rathain on the instant you've won a diversion.'

  And again, Deshir's High Earl gave back his refusal, sealed by a caithdein's irreproachable integrity. 'The crown charter we guardian can't stand on the foundation of our mortal attachments.'

  'Bedamned to the law, if it strangles the care that gives our wretched existence its meaning! The weight of royal sovereignty is as much my bane as any warped destiny bound by the curse of Desh-thiere.' Shattered, unable to weep for the fact he was helpless, Arithon recoiled at last against the tenacious thorn of his character. 'I am not reconciled,' he insisted.

  And yet, Teir's'Ffalenn and Torbrand's lineage to the very bone, he gathered the bleeding shreds of rent pride. In thankless torment, he strove to embrace the left burden of an insupportable tragedy. 'Meet my death well, Jieret. Swear to me! Promise! Make Lysaer strike you down fast and clean in the open! By the tenets of clan custom, you won't let his Alliance fanatics seize their chance to take you alive.'

  'Ath keep you safe, liege,' was all Jieret said. 'On the hour, when it comes, I'll give Caolle and Steiven and the others who have loved you all of your heartsore regrets.' At the crux, only tears slipped his ironclad control. Scalding drops traced his cheeks, their soundless agony absorbed into the graying strands of red beard that had made his name the scourge of the Northern League of Headhunters.

  Jieret had the rest of his nerves kept in hand as he nodded his signal to Braggen.

  Nor did man or sovereign flinch through the devastating instant of parting. Eye to eye, heart to heart they endured the shearing grief as Braggen carried out his called duty.

  The black sword sliced the circle. Hungry spells set into the metal by unbending design first swallowed the scintillant golden aura, then the defiant, bright spirit and vital personality of Rathain's last sanctioned crown prince.

  Darkness remained, scored ghostly phosphor by the lines of spelled circles, an
d the less ordered flare of the struggling candleflame.

  'Sheathe the weapon,' Jieret instructed. His split-gravel command splintered the horrific silence wedged like a gap in stilled air. 'The cord ties hold all the protections wrought to shield him.' Freed now to release the dammed flood of his sorrow, he fumbled with palsied hands and found the strip of fine silk torn away from Arithon's shirtsleeve. 'Hold the weapon up. The hilt must be wrapped. Otherwise, his Grace's naked presence will offer a beacon for scryers on the instant we break the outer circle.'

  Braggen did as he was asked. His own need to weep all but choked the labored breath in his throat. He stood fast, while Jieret set the last wards and bindings, and swathed Alithiel's black cross guard in the frayed length of silk. Nor could he avoid a harrowed glance sidewards at the body which lay, much too still, amid its calyx of bearskin. 'You court the very edge of disaster,' he husked as he received the harsh weight of the sword.

  'I know. If we fail, we lose everything.' Jieret refused to dwell on his own coming trial, but delivered his rapid instructions to the last remaining Companion. 'You have one day, and no more than three, to see Arithon out of this territory. Once the sword's drawn, all the spells will disperse. Our liege will awaken, restored to his flesh. Keep the blade always at hand. If Lysaer prevails, see that his Grace dies free, beyond reach of the Mistwraith's cursed madness. Keep his horse tied to yours, that if mishap befalls, you won't separate.'

  Time again stole the moment to exchange speech or encouragement. In silenced efficiency, caithdein and Companion swept out the used circles. They picked the cavern meticulously clean of every slight sign of their presence. The herb satchel was packed, the knife oiled and restored to its place in Prince Arithon's saddle pack. When the horses were loaded, the two clansmen gathered up the limp form still wrapped in the mantle of bearskin. Together they bore their liege out of the cleft. He weighed very little, a rag doll whose touch seemed incongruously warm for the corpse-slackness of limbs and body.

  Under the pallid, platinum sun, buffeted by winter that raked the land with unnatural tenacity, they securely lashed Arithon's unconscious frame on the back of the fittest gelding. Then Braggen mounted. Still stripped to his jerkin and his lightweight, studded brigandine, Jieret set foot in the stirrup as well. Only the wide-open sky of the barrens bore witness to their rushed parting.

  'Good hunting.' said Braggen, self-consciously brief, and no artist with speech under pressure.

  'Guard my liege well.' Jieret found no more words to send back, on the chance his Companion survived him. He had none for Jeynsa and his two sons, that the raising of them had not spoken. For Feithan, he trusted her woman's wisdom to know the strength of his lifetime affection. His prince received a swift touch on the crown of the head. No help for the fact the distanced mind would not feel or retain any trace of remembrance.

  Jieret set determined heels to his horse, and reined its blazed head firmly westward.

  Moved to blind tears as the animal sprang to a canter that scattered a spray of loose gravel, Braggen called out, 'Ath keep you close!'

  Then, at a whisper sawn through by raw grief, he addressed the unconscious prince whose life now became his given charge to protect. 'I could not have done as he did. Perhaps for an enemy I hated beyond life, but in love, I could never have spurned the appeal torn whole from the depths of your heart.'

  Late Winter 5670

  Observations

  Darkness extended beyond measure, a limitless binding that swallowed awareness of time and identity. Elaira fought down rattled panic. Her streetwise tenacity rejected the defeatist belief that she had been trapped unaware. She held Prime Selidie's promise of noninterference. Ath's adepts had assured her, again and again, that no hostile spellcraft might cross the wardings that guarded the sanctuary of their precinct.

  Plain logic insisted the black void engulfing her must originate from inside her circle of intent.

  Pure night surrounded her. Its environs revealed no loophole, no form, impenetrable and featureless as black glass. Elaira reclaimed her slipped hold on deep patience. She banished her terror, one clinging strand at a time. When no solution presented itself out of calm, she formed the desperate mental image of a sigil asking for guidance.

  At last, through the murk of undermining uncertainty, she heard a far-off voice, faintly calling her name.

  She turned toward the sound, traced its musical resonance like a drowning soul thrown a rope.

  The stark blackness wavered, then shattered into light. Elaira found herself restored to the warm, sun-washed alcove that Ath's adepts used for their stillroom. Nothing appeared out of place. Her shaken, deep breath brought the heady, ripe fragrance of sweetgrass and dried flower petals. The rows of brass canisters gleamed with brilliant polish above the marble font kept continually filled with fresh water. The wall, banked with herb drawers, each bearing its neat scripted label, and the scales, mortars, and pestles remained, every one, in right order. Nothing threatened from the shelves where the unfamiliar ingredients were stored. As well as exotic roots and distilled salts, the white brotherhood employed recipes of advanced complexity involving crushed minerals, essences pressed from the oils of fresh plants, and ritual infusions of words set in light, absorbed from the sun or the moon.

  To her intense disgust, Elaira discovered her collapse had upset the pestle she had been using to crush powdered charcoal for ink. Her wrist, sleeve, and cheekbone wore striking black smears. The lay brother on duty noted her riled disarray, his bearded lips turned with barely stifled amusement.

  'Don't dare say I fainted,' she stated, hot in defense since she had no reason at hand to explain her peculiar behavior. The queer upset had subsided. Elaira repressed the rank urge to swear, braced back to stability by the spiced scents of willow bark and astringents. The remedies still steeped in the warm paraffin and suet used as base for the salves being packed into tinware containers.

  'You didn't faint,' the lay brother agreed. His white teeth flashed through his close-cropped beard as he gave way to acerbic merriment. 'If you had, I couldn't have recalled you by Name.'

  He stopped smiling, warned as Elaira froze in the act of wiping her smeared cheek on her sleeve cuff. Prepared for her stopped catch of breath, he tracked her dismay as she recovered the source of the blackout that had suddenly ruined her morning.

  'Dharkaron's black bollocks!' she burst out, her exalted company forgotten as the shock struck through. Her empathic link to Arithon s'Ffalenn had cut off, vanished away into nothing. Unthinking as reflex, she hurled her mind inward, seeking; and again, the suffocating dark erupted from nowhere and engulfed her searching awareness.

  This time, the lay brother moved fast enough. Lunging past the trestle, he caught her wrist and stayed her collapse before she spiraled away into the yawning expanse of the void. His voice, ever gentle, held sympathy as he urged, 'Elaira! Let go. Pull back.'

  'Arithon!' she gasped, awash in raw dizziness. 'What's happened?' All night long, she had sensed the Teir's'Ffalenn's signature patterns ebb and resurge. She had tagged the flux as involvement with magecraft, no cause for concern. Rathain's prince had been rigorously trained. The intensity of focus that distanced their shared linkage had affirmed the engagement was made by free will. No warning had presaged the wrenching, sharp horror of feeling his presence cut off. Distressed to a panic that scraped her tone raw, she added, 'Had his Grace died, I should have felt his transition as he passed over Fate's Wheel!'

  'Sit,' urged the lay brother. Inarguably firm, he guided her into the secure nook of a diamond-paned window seat.

  She could not stop shaking. The flooding warmth of the sun seemed unreal. The nub of the wool tapestry cushion beneath her felt insubstantial as mist.

  'What's happened?' Elaira demanded, unable to settle. Equilibrium failed her. Despite years of experience, and the well-practiced discipline of restraint, tension hardened her hand to a strangling grip over the lay brother's sleeve cuff.

  'Be at peac
e. We'll know shortly. I've summoned an adept who will help you.' He gently disengaged the grasp of her fingers. You'll want a restorative, meantime.' The lay brother left her, selected an herb mix, then lifted the honey flask from the trestle. He drizzled a dollop into a flagon of cool water, then stirred in a selective pinch of crushed leaves.

  Elaira accepted the draught, unsteady as she assayed a small sip. 'Thank you. For this, and for the calling. If you hadn't responded, no doubt I'd have battered myself to gibbering shreds.' For a mercy, the remedy eased her terror a fraction. She was able to think, and compose her fraught nerves, though very little could be done for the charcoal dust that blackened her tumbled bronze hair.

  'What herbs did you choose?' She asked as much to gain knowledge as to ground herself through the balm of workaday detail. Raw leaves without heat to effect their release made too weak an infusion to explain the draught's heady potency.

  'I used betony and starflower,' the lay brother explained. 'The essences lie in the oils. That's why they act quickly. Those particular plants have fine energy properties that address the disharmonies in the aura.'

  Too disturbed to pursue the bent of her interest, Elaira declined to sound the contents of the flagon for precise understanding of the trace energies binding the restorative's efficacy. Six weeks of applied study at the hostel had expanded her natural vision. Her work with free crystals had extended and deepened her knowledge of spellcraft, and daily chores in the stillroom had enriched her skills as a healer. The inhabitants of Whitehaven sanctuary practiced a refined lore far beyond the specialized teaching once gained from the sisters at Forthmark. The adepts' understanding of life and regeneration surpassed the reach of the wisest Koriani herbalists, even those who had worn their gray-banded sleeves over centuries of hospice service.