Peril's Gate Read online

  ‘No.’ The eagle’s gaze trained upon her stayed placid. ‘That act was done on behalf of Sethvir.’

  He would not elaborate. Ath’s adepts were unyielding with confidences, and this one volunteered no more insights. His kindly expression masked patience like rock, a firmness disarmingly gloved in compassion that would make its will known without force.

  Elaira tipped her head back against the board wall, her fingers tight clasped to lock down her desperate uncertainty. She felt too tired and small for this task, and her wisdom, too young, or else bound too narrow by the didactic constraints of her order. The moan of the wind in the eaves and the distant shouts from the harborside offered no anchor upon which to hang the drift of her unmoored thoughts. If her sweating anxiety was not crisis enough, the intrusive creak of a step on the stair jolted her to alarm.

  The adept quelled her panic. ‘Dear one, don’t worry. That’s only a servant bringing the meal that comes with the cost of your lodging. The grandmother who owns this house thought you looked thin.’ As the arrival knocked, he encouraged, ‘Open the door, you’re quite safe. The kitchen boy sent up with the tray won’t see any trace of my presence.’

  Elaira returned a look of raised eyebrows, then arose and crossed the plank floor. Each movement felt awkward, all angles and noise before the adept’s immaculate presence. Nor did his promise of anonymity fall short. The boy at the threshold proved painfully shy. Eyes glued to the floor, he passed her the tray with a few breathless words concerning the house tradition of hospitality.

  ‘Please thank your grandmother for her generosity.’ Elaira’s warm smile raised the boy to a flush.

  ‘Her kindness won’t count if she catches me slacking.’ He bolted downstairs, no doubt more unsettled by the fact she was spell trained, and a healer.

  Left bearing a tray that was prodigiously laden, Elaira eased the door closed with her elbow. The bar was rendered unnecessary with an adept as her visitor. Since the room had no table, she could do nothing else but set the food on the pallet between them. Tempted by the rich odors of steamed mutton, fish soup, two loaves of brown bread, and last season’s apples stewed in syrup and vinegar, Elaira recovered her humor.

  ‘I do hope you’re hungry,’ she invited her guest.

  ‘I’m content as I am.’ The adept’s courtesy was instinctive, as though his ear stayed more closely attuned to the scream of the wind clawing over the roof slates. ‘Save what you can carry. You’ll need sustenance on your journey.’

  Caught dunking a heel of bread in the soup, Elaira glanced up, surprised. ‘Journey? I’d thought to work healing in Highscarp until thaws.’

  The adept turned his head. His desertbred eyes were unreadable in the storm gleam from the dormer, cut through the backdrop of gloom. ‘You could do that. Or, if you wish to set foot beyond reach of your order, you might consider taking sanctuary. Our hostel accepts travelers. You must take the road toward Eastwall, anyway, if your Prime’s charge sends you into Daon Ramon.’

  Elaira bit into the bread, her methodical manner masking the bent of deep thoughts. ‘My order frowns upon hostels,’ she said slowly. ‘Fourth-rank seniors claim that quartz crystals become altered if they are carried inside of your gates.’

  The adept watched her, his settled quiet grown profound.

  Tempted to walk the first steps of a riddle, Elaira rose to the challenge. ‘Crystals change. Why? You will answer questions?’

  ‘I will tell you truth,’ the adept amended. ‘The primary Law of the Major Balance states that where there is substance, or energy, consciousness exists also. Self-awareness in all things is Ath’s unconditional gift, no matter the form of expression. Our Brotherhood keeps Ath’s law before that of man. Therefore, any consciousness that finds the way inside our precinct is restored to its sacrosanct right of unfettered being.’

  ‘Then the crystal kept under your province is set free,’ Elaira concluded. The bread crust rested, forgotten in her hand, while her searching gaze sifted through the faint gold halo of luminosity released by the adept’s tranquil presence. ‘And what passes your gates abides first by Ath’s law. Koriani power, then, cannot cross your threshold. I could enact the Prime’s will concerning Arithon s’Ffalenn, and incur no tie of indebtedness to the order?’

  ‘Those truths are self-evident, under the Law of the Major Balance. That precept holds the conscious will of all beings as sacred and therefore inviolate. I give you a parable.’

  The adept paused, head tipped in tacit inquiry until he received her clear word to proceed. ‘Very well. Two men rode horses into a hostel of Ath’s Brotherhood. One was townborn, and his horse suffered a bridle and saddle, and was made obedient to his needs through domination and fear. The other man was clanblood, and drifter. His horse bore both saddle and rider without any bridle, or restraint by means of compulsion. Once inside our gates, both animals were stripped of their tack. They were left to do as their nature required. The townsman’s horse cantered into the hills, and never returned, though a chase was mounted for days in the effort to recapture lost property. The drifter’s horse remained standing at the gates. That one whinnied his glad greeting at his friend’s return. One horse had a master, and the other shared a companion. Ath’s freedom may be taken, or it may be given in accord with the law of free will.’

  Elaira reached out of instinct and groped at the space where the quartz had hung, chained to her neck. Embarrassed, she swallowed. Beyond interest in eating, she set down the bread crust and regarded the adept who, apparently, had come at the Warden of Althain’s behest.

  ‘Sethvir believed that I needed protection. Since he acted to stop me from clearing my quartz, I need to see much more clearly. Can you lend understanding? There are complexities involved with this issue that I’m not wise enough to address.’

  The adept inclined his head. ‘Brave lady, had you cleared your crystal, there would have been trouble indeed. I came here as Sethvir’s emissary, but I must serve as Ath’s order demands. Your quartz deserves freedom, except its own will has granted you deference. It prefers to remain a Koriani tool, that you may preserve your given trust with the one known as Arithon s’Ffalenn. Stone is patient. It bides lightly in time. Count yourself honored. This crystal spirit has given you the accolade of naming you as a companion. Therefore, since you planned to relinquish your claim, I suggest you let me take the burden of carrying out its preferred intent. With your permission, I will bear the quartz back to your sisterhouse. Let it remain in the peeress’s hands until you can safely resume your oathbound charge of its keeping.’

  ‘I would be grateful, as well as content.’ Self-conscious and flushed, Elaira pursued her dropped bread crust. Through the moment she required to recover her aplomb, the adept vanished without sound.

  She started, glanced up, searched the shadowy space he had occupied. No visible trace remained of his presence, only a tactile patch of left warmth where he had sat on the coverlet. No small bit shaken that her spell crystal was also gone, Elaira swore like a fishwife. She had scarcely begun to ask questions.

  Then, practical enough not to wallow in self-pity until the fish soup got cold and lost savor, she addressed the task of finishing off the perishable portion of her supper.

  In hindsight, the adept had ceded her with fertile ground for new thought. Not all of her power derived from Koriani teaching. In the course of expanding her study of healing, independence had brought her odd bits of hedge lore. She had once learned a hill grandmother’s method of setting up wards using field stones. In principle, that knowledge might apply to a quartz, though the ranging of vibration directed by crude cantrips would become glass clear, and far stronger. By morning, the sphere in the salt bucket would be cleansed. She could borrow upon knowledge shared from Arithon’s trained mastery and attempt to engage its Named spark of awareness. In addition, she had the untapped potential in the crystal point given by the talisman maker in the market.

  If the adepts’ store of wisdom might open an alte
rnative way to access her natural-born talent, she must gather fresh courage, and against every obstacle, shoulder the risk in pursuit.

  ‘Fiends plague and Dharkaron’s fell Chariot, but Selidie Prime and Lirenda are going to be furious!’

  Raised to devilish good cheer by the prospect of being a thorn in the side of high-caste Koriani authority, Elaira mopped the last broth from her bowl. She devoured the plate of stewed apples. Then, wildly reckless, she commandeered her last cloth length of linen for bandaging and packed the leftover victuals into her satchel.

  Outside, the silver-plate gleam of last daylight was already rapidly failing. Black runners of storm cloud drove in off the sea. The first, gale-force gusts slapped and battered the dormer’s dilapidated shutters. The racket drummed a demon’s tattoo against the bass-note pound of the surf boiling into the seawall.

  At least savage weather would discourage the sisterhouse peeress from rousting the poor quarter for a renegade. Elaira stifled her wild burst of laughter as she imagined the outrage raised by Ath’s adept when he knocked to deliver her spell crystal. Too bone weary to lug buckets for a hot-water bath, she steeled herself and settled for a bracing, cold wash from the basin.

  Then she curled up under the blanket on the pallet and let her thoughts spiral toward sleep.

  Before midnight, the storm broke. Elaira started out of unsettled dreams. She lay wakeful, strained and wary at each muted call of the watch from the street three stories below. Her overkeyed nerves would not let her rest. Worry circled her core of frustration. Over the whine of wind-driven ice, she ached for Arithon and Fionn Areth, one set on the run and exposed to cruel weather high in the Skyshiel passes, and the other gone outside her ken. While the dark fed anxieties that chafed her resolve to defeat the Prime’s Matriarch’s new plot, Elaira lamented her lowly third-rank status.

  She had no means to access the Skyron aquamarine; nor could she breach its warded box and drag its dire weight through the gates of a hostel of Ath’s Brotherhood.

  If she traveled the high road to Eastwall and claimed temporary sanctuary, then Ath’s order and the Law of the Major Balance might honor her born right to freedom. But the measure of reprieve from the Prime’s reach and power could last only while she was sequestered. As long as the major focus crystal of the order held the bound record of her oath, she could not clear her imprinted Name from the matrix. The autonomy she had sworn into Koriani service would stay subject to Selidie’s power.

  Winter 5670

  Tidings

  Asandir’s night return to Althain Tower occurred without greeting or fanfare. He emerged from the flaring blue static of the focus circle to find the candles cold on their gryphon stands. His horse stood, still saddled, beside him. That fact served him rough warning: the pact Sethvir kept with the land’s fey spirits, which normally assisted his arrivals, had fallen into neglect. He could not have encountered a more certain sign that Althain’s Warden remained unwell. As the lane flux subsided to background quiescence, Asandir scanned the dungeon’s chill silence. No wardings had faltered. Yet, in line with his bleak foreboding, no colleague stepped forth to greet him.

  The play of raw lane force under his feet spoke of winter. He had been gone for weeks. He could but hope the supplies in the stable had not been despoiled by mice. Beyond exhausted, his rangy, tall frame was now chiseled lean from channeling the extreme, dire forces required to mend a torn grimward. He stroked the black shoulder of his equally tired horse, then gathered the reins between cinder-burned fingers. Underlit by the phosphor pallor of the runes that channeled the thrust of the lane tides, he slapped out a persistent, smoldering spark still raising smoke from his sleeve cuff. Then he addressed an eloquent apology in Paravian to his long-suffering mount, whose tail and mane had been singed to the same sorry state as his rider’s tattered clothing.

  Shod hooves clanged on the agate floor. The stallion trailed the Sorcerer’s step off the inlaid patterns which scribed the grand rings of the focus circle. By the sidewall, Asandir unbuckled girth strap and bridle. He bundled his holed cloak and mopped the foam from the animal’s face and lips, then rubbed down the sweat-drenched chest and flank, and the whorled hair left matted down from the saddle. The minor burns on fetlocks and cannon bones, he soothed with the healing of his spelled touch. When he straightened and strode into the portal which fronted the stairwell, the stallion pricked black ears and followed.

  At the base of the stair, Asandir asked a permission. He spoke the true Name for his horse. The stallion whickered as though in reply, and stone responded, yielding up its fast secret.

  An arched doorway melted into what had apparently been a seamless marble wall.

  Beyond lay Althain Tower’s snug stable, and an underground passage mazed with spelled gates that led to the fells outside. Aware he was home, the stallion shouldered eagerly over the threshold. The portal was guarded. Paravians had laid wards through the grain of the stonework. Life and movement awoke the soft sheeting flare of those latent powers. A misty light winnowed the animal’s form as though testing each hair one by one. Despite mild appearance, the spell was not harmless.

  Had the horse still worn saddle or headstall, rope and leather would have instantly incinerated. An ill-set nail in any one shoe would have raised a snapped spark of warning.

  Aware his mount’s care had been measured to test his right to admittance, Asandir gave his true Name, then avowed, ‘The black stallion, Isfarenn, stands surety for my given word.’ As many times as this ward had challenged him, the Sorcerer still sucked a bracing breath. Then, in the respectful humility these protections demanded, he followed his horse’s footsteps.

  The ward forces combed through him and screened his integrity until he felt scoured from within. Although he experienced no painful discomfort, each nerve in his body was touched. Mind and heart were stripped bare. Paravian wards pierced through all deception, the merciless clarity imbued in their workings a violation of privacy to any creature born human. Asandir harbored no illusion. Had his horse suffered thoughtless harm at his hand, he would stand in peril of his very life.

  Yet the proper permissions had been asked and given. Where hardship had taxed man and beast, the stallion Isfarenn had shared his great strength in free-spirited partnership. Asandir received his due grant of entry, untouched except for the festering blisters branded on him through his trials in the grimward.

  The horse had already entered the near box stall, which had no door and no chain. Asandir fetched bristle brushes and set about grooming the animal’s rank coat. When the black stud was dry, and sleek as new satin, he shook out fresh straw bedding, doled a generous grain ration, then filled the manger with clover hay.

  The horse shook its crest and sighed deep with contentment.

  ‘Rest as you can,’ the Sorcerer agreed as he drew fresh water from the cistern. ‘The gate to the outdoors is left open for your use. Roll on the downs as you please, but don’t wander. I much doubt we’ll be blessed with the option of staying in comfort at Althain for long.’

  The stallion returned a companionable nose butt, then sloshed his filled pail. Asandir rubbed the intelligent, wide forehead. ‘Once again, brother, I thank you.’

  On departure, the stallion’s true Name and contentment allowed the Sorcerer’s safe return to the stairwell. While the arch faded away at his back, he swayed. Aching weariness dragged at his balance. Any bare-handed contact with grimwards wrought havoc. The insidious distortions of drake-dreams and the rip currents of primal chaos left a toll of leaching damage. The Sorcerer sensed the entropic tears laced through the ribbon-thin layers of his aura: the gadfly swarm of imbalanced energy required rest and patience to repair.

  He steeled his worn spirit. Faced by the sure prospect of a swift return to the field, Asandir gathered Isfarenn’s grimed tack. The saddlebags collected from the focus-chamber floor burdened his shoulder like lead. Since his life, and the world’s fate, might come to hinge on his readied state of preparedness, the gear m
ust be overhauled straightaway.

  Fatigue made the stair interminably steep. Asandir paused between risers. He closed stinging eyes and, in iron fortitude, pressed his overfaced body to move on. Deadly languor enveloped him. He acknowledged the mental spur of alarm, and knew he would have to keep moving. The convoluted works of Eckracken’s haunt had taxed him beyond prudent limits.

  ‘For grace, and Ath’s mercy,’ he murmured.

  A miracle answered. The burden of cinder-scorched harness was lifted out of his arms.

  ‘In truth, Ath’s mercy walks beside you, everlasting,’ a voice greeted in gentle encouragement.

  Asandir opened the leaden weight of his eyelids. Washed in a dazzle of soft, golden light, he made out the white-robed presence of two adepts of Ath’s Brotherhood, one male, who took charge of the horse gear, and the other, a tiny, walnut-skinned woman, who extended a strong grip to brace him.

  ‘Welcome home.’ Her smile held the fire of a Sanpashir sunrise, replete with the promise of renewal.

  Asandir took her hand in unabashed need. Gratitude filled his heart. Speechless, he bowed his silver head, and allowed her to tow his rangy frame up the long spiral staircase.

  A wooden tub of heated water awaited in the chamber Sethvir kept to accommodate guests. Asandir had no chance to express thanks or show relief for that tender forethought. Met by lit candles and the fragrance of incense, he found himself accosted at the threshold by two more white-robed adepts. While the one with his trail gear hastened purposefully off, the new pair moved in without fuss to remove his scarred leathers and soiled clothing.

  ‘Allow us,’ urged the desertbred woman, whose tenacious grip resisted his urge to tug free. ‘We were told you would thread Eckracken’s maze, and leave the grimward by direct passage.’

  In fact, expediency had demanded the Fellowship’s field Sorcerer to do just that, his risky transfer accomplished by harnessing the dire vortex within the king drake’s leviathan skull. Asandir found he lacked the strength to muster the courtesy to press the adepts for his privacy. ‘Sethvir knows everybody’s habits too well,’ he agreed, stoic as the woman’s neat touch eased off his singed shirt.