Traitor's Knot Read online

  He closed the last rune, worn thin by his labour. Peril confronted him. The new, active matrix now must be conjoined with the ghost imprint of the old homing spell. The surge of live power as he welded the link could not be masked, since the bias of the earlier working had never been meant to impede. Its primary design was a homing call, fashioned to welcome the weakened, strayed spirit, and assist swift return as a carrier.

  At the instant the new conjury aligned with its matrix, the defunct structure would refire, and react once again as a wide-open conduit.

  Asandir took swift pause, scanned backwards, and measured the flesh left at Althain Tower. His breathing and heart rate were slowed, not yet damaged by creeping exhaustion. Beside his stilled form, steadfast as flame, the adept maintained her calm vigilance. The Sorcerer took ruthless stock, as he must. Once he committed, his straits became sealed as his action flagged the wraiths’ notice. Outside of his body, he would be raw bait, and starved for fresh prey, they would come for him. He must close the last rune and slip clear on the instant before his reserves were expended.

  Schooled to know his own strength, already tested against the bittermost limits of hardship, Asandir struck with surgical speed. He tapped the older spell’s structure, reclaimed his personal permissions, and renewed their validation within an exact flash of thought. He sensed the wraiths also. Their quickened interest woke an insatiable drive to consume the intoxicating power contained in his essence.

  Despite dire necessity, the Sorcerer dared not rush. Constrained to subtle delicacy, he adjusted the old spell’s continuity. The pulse of changed energy shifted the imprint, there and gone, as a flicker. He damped what he could, reduced his touch to the barest ephemeral signature. Unmasked and vulnerable for the duration, he seamlessly joined his new crafting into the stream of the structural remnant. He sealed each connection with intricate care, aware of his enemies, closing. Wraiths converged on two fronts: hordes from teeming Marak as well as the pack on his back trail, raging under his colleague’s defence. The trace of the homing thrummed under Asandir’s touch, plucked like a strand of taut wire. An echo bounced back: Kharadmon’s startled cognizance, fired to sharp response, as his colleague redoubled his effort to snag back the free wraiths’ converging attention.

  Asandir dared not pause for acknowledgement. If that saving help eased the pressure on one flank, the side facing Marak had no ally. As long as his work kept the spell-craft unsealed, Athera lay open to invasion. Each second, wraiths seethed from the ice-bound waste. They rushed the connection, mad with sentient hate and beyond every power to stem.

  Asandir wove his craft, lightning-fast, sure as granite, even as the homing spell trembled and flared. He marked the approach of the descending swarm, foresaw critical deficit, and, at raw need, expanded the reach of his resource. That resharpened focus took all that he had. Given a narrowed, split-second to finish, he shouldered the risk under fullest command. His body would suffer, but only as long as the moment he needed to lock the last ciphers to forestall attrition. He must take the chance that he could wrest clear in time to salvage the anchor that grounded his absent spirit.

  In that crucial split-second, the adept’s brilliance dimmed. Asandir sensed that change. Forerunning prescience detected her influx of clean power, dispatched through his aura, and flung down the breached cord in a gesture of unconditional reinforcement.

  His raw instinct screamed warning. Disaster would follow!

  He reacted before thought, slammed the rune of closure over his almost complete structure. The construct would stand, flawed, subject to decay. That loss had no remedy. Time had run out. Asandir whirled clear of the free wraiths’ starved rush. He twisted his being outside the veil, rejected the stream of the prime life chord dispatched by the adept as it happened. Snapped back inside of his damaged flesh, sprawled in the chair back at Althain Tower, he cried out as the pain of shocked nerves whirled him dizzy.

  Asandir was granted no space to prevaricate. A seizure ripped through him. He quelled the convulsed muscles; unsealed stinging eyes, burned his own life-force at reckless need, and shoved back his wheeling faintness. Through needling agony, as his impaired auric field whipped through imbalance, he encountered the adept, tumbled slack in his lap, with her cheek pressed over his heart.

  ‘No,’ he grated. ‘I refuse you! This is my clear right!’ He raised shaken hands, cupped her face, and stared into her opened, stunned eyes. ‘You will not diminish yourself to assist me. Dear one, no. The charge of the dragons was never your burden!’

  ‘My gift,’ she corrected, her whisper all pain. Tears wet her lashes, then spilled over. ‘Such pride hurts, that you should refuse me.’

  Asandir held her secure, while his pulse raced, too ragged. His breathing ran rough, as though he had sprinted a marathon. ‘What pride?’ he gasped. ‘Did you not know? Your act invoked the drakes’ binding upon me.’

  Her dismay touched him sharply, though she did not speak.

  The Sorcerer sat, very still. He engaged a deft thought, used the spark of the brazier to recharge and burn clear his stressed aura. When he moved, he absorbed her jagged distress; but not her tears. There, he had no strength. If he wept for this, the break would destroy him. ‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured, then stroked the damp hair that escaped from the crushed back cloth of her mantle. ‘Even so. The burden I carry can’t sanction your sacrifice.’

  As adept, she must bow to the source of his sorrow: Athera’s mysteries could not sustain the loss if the grace she embodied within breathing flesh should be dimmed to a less-than-exalted expression.

  ‘No,’ Asandir whispered. He moved leaden arms and gathered her close, while her anguish soaked his rough mantle. ‘No. With the Paravians lost, we can’t spare you.’

  The adept shifted in protest. ‘Your work—’

  ‘Incomplete.’ The admission carried no rage, and no judgement. ‘The wraiths are delayed, and the crisis, deferred. That grace of reprieve is sufficient.’ The shared grief stayed unspoken: had he not returned to deny her, the remnant spell line would now be fully secured. The closed conjury most likely would not have cost the last spark of life in his body.

  ‘Such risk as you shouldered was not to be borne.’ The adept raised her hand and traced over the seams quarried into the Sorcerer’s face. ‘Never say you weren’t worth the cost of my effort.’

  Asandir could not answer, aware as he was that the library chamber was no longer private. Three male adepts now surrounded his chair, waiting in expectant, grave silence.

  He gave his consent.

  The white brothers moved in, still without speech or censure. They supported their distressed colleague, then eased her weight from the Sorcerer’s lap. Constrained by his own formidable dignity, Asandir endured, as he must. ‘You have been here at Althain Tower too long,’ he informed them in soft apology.

  The elder among them tipped his hood in salute. Since no word could encompass what had just passed, he helped as the others bore up their colleague and tenderly ushered her out.

  For she was unimpaired. The blaze of her light remained brilliant; unsullied. Yet how narrowly close she had come to reducing the glory of her initiate state of high mastery. Asandir bent in his chair, brow rested upon the trembling clench of his knuckles. At the last, none but he knew how sorely he had been tempted to accept the unpardonable gift of a high adept’s act of sacrifice.

  By midnight, the lane beacon at Althain Tower was extinguished, with the deserted library left under starlight. Bathed, changed into a soft, dark blue robe, with his silver hair damp on his shoulders, Asandir settled into a stuffed armchair, pulled up beside Sethvir’s bed. The Sorcerers were private. The adepts had left a lone candle burning, while two spirits locked by the blows of adversity shared a rare moment in conference.

  The gilt glow lit the Warden’s opened eyes, limpid and clear as a dawn sky viewed through a crystal.

  An interval passed without attempt at speech.

  Then Sethvir said, ‘You mad
e a right choice.’

  Asandir shifted broad shoulders, to a rustle of horsehair stuffing. More than care-worn, he looked wrung sick with exhaustion. ‘That does not make me feel any less like a murderer.’

  The wraiths were curbed, but not thwarted. Further, Marak’s hordes had been roused. Over time, as the incomplete warding decayed, Athera would hang in a state of worse-than-redoubled jeopardy.

  ‘You’ve bought a reprieve,’ Althain’s Warden insisted, his scraped whisper that much more determined. ‘The future’s not set. At the first opportunity, we’ll restructure the flaw in that warding and make an end of the problem together.’

  Asandir stilled his impulse to hammer a fist into the moth-eaten chair arm. Once the grimwards were rededicated, he could turn his hands to many a critical task left unfinished. Yet ahead of the urgent work waiting in Lanshire, he had Sulfin Evend, downstairs. While the hiss of the candle-flame sweetened the air with the fragrance of melted bees-wax, his thoughts ranged the dark, where eyes could not see, and fixed on the pulse of men’s fears.

  ‘Where is Lysaer?’ he asked presently. ‘What safe-guards is he taking, have you seen?’

  ‘You should sleep,’ Sethvir whispered.

  The field Sorcerer did not answer. Silence reigned, except for the restless wind, sweeping the bare crests of the fells outside. The candle burned lower. Sethvir closed his eyes. Frail as a thread of unreeled silk, he expelled a reluctant breath. ‘Very well. Though you won’t be pleased by the bent of the knowledge extracted from Erdane’s library’

  Asandir raised his eyebrows. ‘Not the Grey Book of Olvec’

  ‘That and worse,’ Sethvir grumbled. ‘They’ve unearthed the whole pile of scrolls on the known genealogies as well.’

  Lysaer s’Ilessid, called Divine Prince, was said to be ensconced in the seaport haven at Capewell. The fact was whispered about in the taverns, and debated in the cozy, private salons of the rich. Yet where merchants bemoaned losses, frustrated by commerce slowed to a crawl by the savage weather, the outlying crofter whose barren fields languished was forced to endure the pinch of privation and scarcity.

  In town, the Light’s Prince Exalted might succour the weak, and comfort the disaffected. But the working-man who built his house with his hands, and who lived by his sweat in the Korias Flats watched his family grow gaunt with despair.

  The traps set at need had long since claimed the last of the summer’s importunate young hares. A father come home empty-handed again did not expect to encounter a white horse, tied up with six outriders’ mounts in the churned-up mud of his yard. Amid lashing rain, the gold-stitched bridles and sunwheel saddle-cloths gleamed blindingly spotless and bright.

  However improbable, the visitation was real. The simple man blessed by the royal avatar’s presence could not offer a traveller’s hospitality. Shamed to the quick by his poverty, he could do no more than creep with embarrassment across his own threshold.

  The smells struck him first: of hot sausage, and cinnamon-spiced mead, and the fragrance of newly baked barley cakes. Afraid he was dreaming, he heard the music of his youngest child’s squealing laughter. The man shed his soaked mantle and made his dazed way into a kitchen transformed by the startling brilliance of candles. His rough trestle was crammed with strange faces: imposing men wearing sunwheel surcoats and a self-assured air of cold competence. Yet their gleaming mail and spired helms were thrown into eclipse by the fair-haired figure in scintillant white, on fire with gold ribbon and diamonds.

  Divinity perched on the stool by the hearthstone. Such magnificence should have seemed displaced amid the rough setting. The rude board walls, and mortared stone hob of the farm-stead glorified nothing.

  Yet Lysaer s’Ilessid displayed no airs. His gilded head bent in artless collusion with the crofter’s tiniest daughter. Clad in muddy rags, her drawn cheeks like paper, she clung to his upraised knee and clamoured to tug at his rings.

  The father stood, stunned, his breath stopped in his throat, as the white-clad avatar looked up. The attentive clarity in his blue eyes could have pierced a man through to the heart. Despite his lordly bearing, the speech that followed was not condescending. ‘Please forgive the fact we’ve arrived, unannounced.’

  The crofter stared, tongue-tied. He had no grace, and no courtesy to fit the astounding occasion.

  Lysaer’s ease was effortless. He scooped the ragged child into his arms and passed her off to the wife as though the best part of his privileged life had been spent dandling mannerless toddlers. The little girl wailed, grubby fingers still straining to snatch at the shine of his jewellery.

  Lysaer’s smile held laughter. Burned into the air by a beauty that scorched the senses like fire and ice, he wrested off his largest diamond setting and handed the ring to the child. ‘See that she doesn’t spoil her teeth by gnawing the stone from her dowry’

  Then, as though magnanimous gifts had no strings, he confronted the stupefied crofter.

  ‘He’s asking for Edan,’ the wife blurted, afraid. Two years past, in agonized grief, they had dedicated their older daughter to the Order of the Koriathain. Better, they felt, to lose her alive than abide the risk that her gift might draw notice from Avenor’s Crown Examiner.

  The crofter swallowed, defiant. ‘Edan’s a man grown. Come of age, this past year. Neither I nor the wife can speak for him.’

  Lysaer s’Ilessid missed no small cue. His smile stayed woundingly genuine. ‘A party come to make an arrest does not bring food, or leave diamonds. Your young man is quite safe. He will choose for himself. Withhold his consent, and I’ll leave you in peace. Your child keeps the ring, since it pleases her.’

  In a croft crammed with men wearing chain-mail and swords, that statement seemed beyond reason. More than gemstones flecked that form in starred light. The crofter reeled, his breaths rushed too fast, and his fists clenched with sweating terror.

  ‘Sit down, good fellow.’ Lysaer strode forward. His warm, steering grip eased the crofter’s stunned frame past the grinning sprawl of his outriders, and into the better chair by the fire-place. ‘No father should weigh his son’s lot in soaked clothes, on the misery of an empty stomach. Your wife’s told me that Edan’s out mucking the barn? Then bide your time. Let him finish his chores. You’ll have enough time to measure your feelings and question my motivation.’

  The elegant creature moved on and perched a casual hip on the trestle. The rough plank might as well have been a throne, the way his regal bearing still blinded. The crofter found even the simplest speech painful. ‘What brings your exalted self to us, asking?’

  ‘You can’t guess? Because Edan’s a sensitive.’ Those sapphire eyes stayed direct, though the answer entailed an explosive disclosure. ‘The Light is calling for talent to serve. Your son’s gift will soon be sorely needed.’

  ‘Why?’ The question burned. Grief for the lost daughter was still too raw to broach the sore subject, headlong.

  The wife was less reticent. ‘Your Crown Examiner burns talent!’

  ‘My Crown Examiner guards against misuse that harms innocents,’ Lysaer corrected with unflinching candour. ‘He destroys the potential minions of Shadow, wherever such pockets of depravity exist. And they are wide-spread. I carry firm proof: an evil faction has made inroads against us. Corrupt men who ply the dark arts have poisoned my regency at Avenor. I’m bound by realm law to see justice done. Would your son stand up with a hand-picked few? The most gifted among them will receive training to fill the seats of high office. The Light’s cause will not pander to wealth or ambition! I would have staunch young blood at my back to lend oversight in my absence.’

  ‘He will go,’ said the crofter. ‘For that honest cause, we will spare him.’

  The wife dropped the spoon in the kettle with a clang. ‘You’re that certain?’

  Yet in a starved household with no crops to harvest, the change of fortune offered an unparalleled gift of opportunity. ‘Let him go, Vae. Where better? You know in your heart, wishful thinki
ng won’t make him a farmer.’

  The wife bent her head. She would have to agree. What prospects could the young boy expect among neighbours who distrusted talent? Sworn to Lysaer’s banner, Edan would no longer be shunned. Nor would he be tempted to fall into wrong company and undertake harmful practice.

  ‘He will go to the Light,’ the crofter repeated. Over the bounty of the hot meal, he heard through the Divine Prince’s straightforward terms. When the boy came in, redolent of the cow-byre, the grant of consent had become a formality.

  One had but to look at his young, unmarked face: the avatar’s presence struck the living spark that ignited to incandescent resolve.

  The sunwheel outriders arose and moved out to collect the horses tied up in the yard. They mounted Edan on a fine, dappled mare, while the family he would leave sonless behind him was signed onto the rolls by the hand of Prince Lysaer, himself. They received the sealed parchment, promised a dedicate’s crown stipend that would keep them in comfort for life.

  As the glittering cavalcade clattered through the sagged gate, and the cruel wind blew the cold rains of a premature winter, the wife blotted tears for her departed child, now destined for wider horizons. ‘How did those men find us?’

  The crofter hugged her stooped shoulders, just as fiercely inclined to weep. ‘Need you put such a question, or give way to doubts? That creature who chose him was god sent.’

  Late Autumn 5670

  Sword

  Immersed in a physical exercise learned at Rauven to sharpen reflex and balance, Arithon stood, eyes closed, in the peculiar little six-sided chamber that centered Kewar’s private library. Each wall was cut by an open arch. The portals led off into separate rooms, filled floor to ceiling with books and scrolled maps, and bronze cornered chests crammed with arcane paraphernalia. Davien’s tastes were eclectic. His fascination with architecture infused all his works. In this place, the domed ceiling amplified sound with precise and unnerving clarity.