Stormwarden Page 31

  "Mother misses you, Emien." Taen's voice softened, tormenting him with hope. "She mourns your absence more deeply than the death of our father."

  The reminder suddenly became more than Emien could bear.

  He lashed out at Taen's presence in pain and rage and terror. "My sister is dead!" His shout rang deafeningly off the stone, sent ugly undertones echoing across the garden.

  The defiant note of his rejection shocked Taen like a blow. "You shame your ancestors, brother. Would you betray them as well?"

  But Emien had regained his footing, and her plea moved him not at all. "Yes." His voice throbbed with malice. "What are they but a miserable, stinking lot of fools? I will never waste myself remembering their useless lives, all drenched oilskins and cod nets. When I have done, their kind, and perhaps even the sea itself, will serve me."

  His conviction rang vindictively across the dream link, poisonous as the venom of a snake. Taen perceived the evil in him and the depth of it sent her talent reeling out of focus. She wakened weeping within the clearing of the Vaere. The enchanted silence did little to restore her. The instant she parted contact, she had seen into Emien's heart, and known he chose against her out of greed. Since the first intoxicating taste of power, his hunger had increased to the point where he could not, and would never, give up his desire to rise in dominance over his fellow man. Taen drew her knees against her chest, her head bent with unconsolable grief. Tathagres had done her work well; not even Anskiere himself could recover her brother now.

  * * *

  Emien fled the colonnade, wrenched the door closed against the moonlit garden with a crash that shook the carved lintel. Trembling and sweating, he slammed the bar home, then stood panting, his weight braced against the cold steel. His sister was a small child, dead, drowned beneath the waves. He had seen Crow founder. The pain of his conscience gradually eased, exposed to logic and reason. His panic subsided. The grown woman who had appeared to him could only be a dream, a profanity shaped by Anskiere's guile and sent to undermine his purpose.

  Emien smiled in the darkness. Suddenly exultant, he threw back his head and laughed. Obviously, his presence in Tathagres' plan meant something. He had been a fool not to see it. Why else would a sorcerer trained by the Vaere trouble with him at all? The idea consumed him, left him drunk with a reckless sense of importance. Perhaps Taen had survived, even told him the truth. If so, she was a creature of the Vaere, robbed of her childhood and used as a pawn against him.

  Emien pushed away from the door and strode down the corridor. He was tired of waiting, sick to death of being manipulated. Intoxicated by a savage flood of arrogance, he hastened to his chambers. He would arrange Anskiere's destruction himself. The Kielmark would be too busy with the demons upon his shores to bother with a single man. Ice could be broken; mortal steel could pierce a sorcerer's flesh. Emien blotted sweaty palms on his maroon velvet tunic. If Anskiere died by his hand, that surely would earn even Tathagres' respect.

  Emien stepped confidently into his chamber. The sconces were dark and the air chilly; the chambermaid had forgotten to close the windows at sundown. Leaving the door ajar at his back, the boy fumbled about on the mantel until he located striker and flint. He lit a single candle, then banged the mullioned casement closed, setting the flame streaming in the draft. Emien cursed the flickering light. He knelt beneath the slate slab of the mantel and began to lay a fire, no longer awed by the luxuriously patterned carpet beneath his knees. He had come a long way from the wooden planked cottage where he had been born. Nothing could ever convince him to return.

  Emien struck a spark to the kindling and rose. He crossed to the wardrobe, flung the inlaid doors wide. Although the clothes within lay deep in shadow, his fingers moved quickly, sorting rich velvets and brocades by touch. He passed the soft weave of his favorite lawn shirt; this once, finery did not interest him. Instead, he chose heavy linen breeches, a leather tunic and the sea boots he had purchased following the crossing from Skane's Edge. Preoccupied and impatient, Emien dumped the clothing across the bed and began to untie the laces of his cuffs.

  He did not hear Tathagres enter the room at his back. Surprised by his presence, she paused in the doorway. The plain clothing on the bed, and the decisive set to Emien's back did not escape her notice. An expression of rapt calculation crossed her face.

  Tathagres waited while the boy loosened his shirt. Then silently, she crossed the floor and trailed slender fingers against the bare skin of his neck. "Emien?"

  He started violently, but did not whirl. Tathagres felt fine tremors of tension course through the flesh beneath her hand.

  But when the boy spoke, his words were controlled. "I thought you had business with the King?"

  "It is finished." Tathagres shifted her wrist, caught the silk of his collar and gently tugged.

  Emien faced her reluctantly. Despite his determined restraint, the breath caught in his throat. Tathagres had dressed for the celebration. A gown of white lace clung provocatively to her slim waist; bracelets of gold wire circled her wrists. Threaded by a circlet set with amethysts, her hair spilled like spun glass over bare shoulders. A delicate scent hung on the air about her person. Unbalanced by her nearness, Emien ran an appreciative glance over the ripe cleft of her breasts.

  Tathagres saw, and a thin smile of amusement touched her lips. She traced the line of Emien's collarbone with a teasing fingernail. "Why did you leave the festivities? It's very unlike you. Weren't there to be fireworks?"

  The query seemed casual. But Emien felt the power behind her words; she could force the truth from him if she chose. Seizing what advantage he could, he feigned nonchalance, and told her of his experience in the deserted rose garden. "My sister Taen came to me in a vision. She may have survived the foundering of Crow. If so, Anskiere sent her to the Isle of the Vaere, for she appeared to me as a woman grown." He paused. Tathagres' touch against his skin made him ache. Although his body quivered with desire, he resisted fiercely, aware she used her beauty as a tool against him. "Taen's childhood was stolen from her. I would see the Stormwarden suffer for that."

  Tathagres dropped her hand, frowning. Emien stepped back until his calves pressed against the solid wood of the bed frame. With barely concealed defiance, he resumed unfastening his shirt. Tathagres continued to regard him. She toyed with the bracelets on her wrists, elegant features preoccupied by an expression he could not interpret.

  "Your sister urged you to forswear your oath of service," Tathagres said at last. She seemed almost wistful. "Is this why you choose to attempt Anskiere's death by yourself?"

  Emien disguised a shiver by shrugging the shirt from his shoulders. He tossed the garment onto the bed. "Do you care?"

  "Yes." Tathagres closed the distance between them. With her arms relaxed at her sides, she bent her head and laid it against the corded muscle of his chest. "It does matter." Her breath tickled his skin. "Did you not guess? We are fated to work together."

  Her presence burned him, released emotions like the raging spring tides. Emien managed a harsh laugh. "In all things, lady?" He caught her slim wrists, lifted them with the powerful grip of a sailor. "Remember, I've seen you kill. Why did you come?"

  Tathagres did not resist, though her soft skin reddened under his fingers. She tilted her head, her lips within inches of his mouth. "It is destined."

  Her voice held a queer note of sorrow. Jarred by the inconsistency, Emien stared at her. For a second Tathagres' control wavered. In one unguarded instant, the boy perceived she was bound to some purpose whose origin could not be guessed; she offered herself against her inner will. The urge to take her became overpowering. Lust beat like storm surf through Emien's veins. Unlike the sentries murdered on Cliffhaven's shores, he saw he could claim her with impunity.

  He loosed his hold, turned her slim hands palm upward in his own. She shifted her weight. A lace-clad hip brushed his thigh. Emien quivered in response, released her entirely. Tathagres slipped her hands around his waist. One th
inly covered breast traced a line of fire across his chest as she leaned up and kissed him. For a moment, Emien resisted her pliant touch. Then, with vindictive resentment, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pinned her against him.

  Passion unfolded like the rush of water over rapids. Plunged beyond restraint by physical need, Emien sank to the bed, bearing Tathagres with him; clothing rumpled beneath their combined weight. The boy tugged at the fastenings of her gown. White lace parted, baring her eager flesh beneath his fingers. He buried his face in her warmth, all reason forgotten. His body trembled as, with skilled and exquisite simplicity, she freed the points of his hose. Emien locked his fingers in her hair. Lost to all caution, he failed to note the bright edge of triumph in her smile as she parted her legs and accepted him.

  Their union was consummated swiftly. Flung headlong over a stormy crest of emotion, Emien subsided, spent. He lay back on the crumpled coverlet, his pulse beating languidly in his veins. For a very long interval he did not care to move. Tathagres lay still against him, one arm flung possessively across his chest. Emien regarded her, and saw that she slept. Candlelight softened her, lending her curves the grace of a masterpiece painted on velvet. The boy lifted a silvery lock of hair off her cheek, revealing the unearthly perfection of her features.

  For all his awe, a thread of calculation wove through the wonder left by his first experience with a woman.

  She believed she had used him. Abandoned in sleep with her limbs relaxed against him, she seemed vulnerable as any normal woman; the parted line of her lips emphasized her girlish fragility in a manner Emien found disturbing. There was nothing extraordinary about her. Try as he might, he could not equate the lady at his side with the witch who had raised the whirlwind on Cliffhaven or argued with royalty in the council chamber. The thought occurred to him that the powers she employed might be borrowed intact from the demons.

  Emien traced the gold band at her throat with light fingers. A thrill of excitement coursed through his body. The plan conceived on the heels of Taen's visit suddenly seemed ridiculous and inferior; his ambitions abruptly expanded. Now he would bide his time. When the opportunity was ripest, he promised himself he would gain Tathagres' powers for his own. Then would Anskiere of Elrinfaer have great cause to fear him.

  * * *

  Storm waves hammered Callinde's stout timbers and the wind shrieked through her stays with relentless fury. The steering oar dragged at Jaric's shoulders with the strength of a maddened horse. His palms had blistered cruelly. After five days at sea, the ache of stiffened muscles made every hour at the helm a trial of torment. His clothing clung, drenched, to his frame, chafing his skin with each movement. Yet such discomforts paled beside the driving weight of the geas. Jaric sailed with every fiber of his being strained on the thin edge of delirium.

  Callinde's compass plunged and rocked in its casing, scrolled needle wheeling as she yawed over the wave crests. Jaric ignored it. He needed no instrument to guide him. Anskiere's summons consumed his awareness and the direction of its call twisted every fiber of his being into alignment. Callinde tossed on her heading. The spanker was sheeted too snugly; that the boat handled at all was a tribute to the skill of her designer. Yet Jaric had no energy to marvel upon her virtues. He felt far too wretched to bother adjusting lines. Weariness sapped his vitality; each passing hour, his hold upon the geas deteriorated. With one foot braced against the starboard thwart, he battled to keep his sanity through an unending nightmare of cloudy darkness.

  The gale howled steadily on a broad reach; sped by its violence, Callinde made swift passage. Barely six days out of Mearren Ard, the beacon of Cliffhaven arose through the gloom above the bow. Jaric scarcely noticed. He steered, blinded by hallucination; at times he saw the stormfalcon's tawny and black form hurtling above his head, talons outstretched for landing, and the bluish halo about its spread wings backed by a dazzling spike of light. The vision often lasted hours at a stretch. Disoriented and exhausted, Jaric hoped he could muster the presence of mind to bring the boat in safely. The shore toward which the geas directed him was fast drawing nigh.

  The island loomed nearer, jagged and dark but for the orange spark of the beacon in the fortress's topmost tower. Sheetlines snapped and banged against the blocks as Callinde's sails bellied, smacked by contrary gusts. Jaric felt the kick of current against the steering oar, and the earthy scent of wet foliage filled his nostrils. Floorboards rattled underfoot as the boat pitched over ever steepening crests. Breakers hissed off the high curve of the prow, tumbling shoreward in ravening ranks of foam.

  Jaric braced his body against the toss of deck. His hands clenched on wet wood as he muscled Callinde straight. The roar of water grinding over sand deafened his ears and salt spray dripped like tears from his face. At any instant he might be dashed to splinters on the fangs of a reef, though Mathieson had assured him that a boat with shallow draft would beach safely on strange shores. Jaric fretted, nerves drawn taut as bowstrings. Keldric's faith lent no comfort; not even Callinde's stout keel was proof against submerged rock.

  The waves steepened, crested, showering spray over the bow. Jaric squinted ahead through stinging eyes. The boat bumped. Sand grated harshly over wood, and the steering oar jerked, aground. Jaric cried out as the shaft was torn from his grasp. He sprang forward to release the sheets. Loosed to the caprice of the wind, canvas snapped with whipcrack reports overhead. The following wave boomed and broke, lifting the ancient boat. Jaric bit his lip in near panic. But the old man's word proved reliable; Callinde rode the rampaging flood of surf like a seal. Her chines crunched into fine gravel and she came to rest at last on the northern strand of Cliffhaven.

  Jaric uncleated the halyards and with shaking fingers dropped the canvas. Headsails and spanker slithered in wet heaps across the deck. Then he hauled the mainyard across the wind, secured the sheets and leaped down into the ankle-deep chill of the sea. The geas clawed at his mind, battering him toward the edge of madness; somewhere on this dark shore, the ice cliffs he had only known in dreams held the fate promised by the Stormwarden of Elrinfaer. But Jaric denied the insufferable compulsion long enough to rig a double set of blocks to a stout boulder in the scrub. Though his hands were raw and his back ached, he warped Callinde beyond reach of the breakers and saw her secure from the tide. Not even for Anskiere's summons would he abandon Mathieson's boat to ruin.

  The stormfalcon flickered at the edge of his vision as he fetched his sword and dagger from his sea chest. Grimly Jaric ignored it. Delirium was not far off, he knew, but this close to release, he was determined not to give in. Belting his buckler to his waist, he hastened shoreward. But progress was difficult. Dry sand mired his steps, and the first solid ground he had trodden in days seemed to buckle and twist under his feet. Dunes shortly gave way to thornbrakes. Jaric stumbled through the night, cruelly clawed by briars and tripped by roots and rocks.

  Suddenly a man shouted, almost at his elbow. "You! Stranger! Halt, there."

  Jaric heard a harplike ring as steel cleared a scabbard. He froze. Then someone unshuttered a storm lantern, pinning him in a wash of orange light. Blinded, Jaric threw an arm across his face. By squinting against the glare, he picked out a gleaming hedge of spearpoints and the needle-thin line of a drawn sword; with the sea at his back he was cornered.

  A man wearing a captain's collar and badges stepped to the fore. "State your business promptly, else you risk your life."

  Raked by the tingling discomfort of the geas, Jaric clung to the frayed remnants of reason. Instinct cautioned him to preserve every possible advantage; he narrowed his eyes to slits, keeping his vision adjusted to the dark. Then, careful to screen his movement behind the brush, he gripped the hilt of his weapon and answered in phrases chosen with the nuance of a court emissary. "I come in peace, summoned here by the Stormwarden of Elrinfaer. I honor your laws, but will answer to him only. Permit me to pass."

  "He's for the Kielmark," said the captain abruptly, and gestured to the sold
iers. Spear points flashed and lowered, arrayed like the spokes of a wheel with Jaric at the hub.

  "Alive?" said a voice from behind.

  The captain nodded curtly.

  Through an incredulous rush of anger, Jaric saw his request would be ignored; the men at arms intended to detain him, by force if need be. And that, abruptly, became a setback his stripped patience could not endure. He shouted, launching himself at the light. Brush clawed his wrists. A spear hissed past his ear, clanged harmlessly into rock. Then his fist smashed into the lantern, tumbling it to the ground. The flame was extinguished, leaving eight of the Kielmark's crack sentries blundering in the dark with their night vision spoiled.

  Jaric ducked, bruising his shoulder against a weapon shaft. The man who held it shouted, "Here!"

  Behind him the captain snapped an order; someone leaped to restore the light. Jaric drew his sword and dagger, desperately repressing an impending recurrence of the stormfalcon's black-and gold-barred form. He stumbled over a stick and blundered into a leather-clad arm.

  The owner whipped to face him. Confronted by a darting glint of steel, Jaric parried. The blow glanced cleanly off his dagger. But the belling note of swordplay drew his attackers like wolves. Even over the wind Jaric heard the crackle of boots approaching through the brush. He riposted, savage and desperate. The geas sang like a chorus of sirens in his ears, wrapping his nerves in fire. He felt no other pain, even when his opponent's blade grazed his shoulder.

  Jaric covered with his dagger, late, but not disastrously. His enemy dropped his sword, clutching a cut wrist. Another swordsman took his place. Jaric lunged. His weapon struck steel with a shock that stung his arm. The impact jarred his concentration for a fraction of a second. Light flashed like lightning above his head; the stormfalcon's image rippled and vanished against the sky. Instantly his position was known to every man at arms present. They converged at a run.