Grand Conspiracy Read online

  Lirenda picked a disdainful course between the broomstraw and briars, skirts raised to keep runs from the silk and her work satchel slung from her shoulder. Her kid boots she could do little to spare; the path through the orchard was a rut of gouged mud, slotted by goats and heaped with dung dropped by the steading’s milch cow. ‘Just don’t lag behind. We need to be finished before Althain’s Warden completes the new seals on that grimward.’

  Elaira ignored the admonishment. ‘Shame on us if Sethvir’s awareness is all that holds our order to common decency. Forgive me,’ she added to the child as she wrapped his sturdy form in the fleece still warmed from her body. On impulse, she retrieved his dropped practice stick and leaned it against the wall where he could find it. ‘The seeress who cast your birth prophecy was most wise. You’ll need to start young to master the skills of a warrior.’

  ‘Stop wasting time!’ Lirenda poised by the canted gate of the orchard. Sulky irritation sharpened her face as the moorland elements played havoc with her costly clothes and fine grooming. ‘I want the seal wards in place before our young decoy sits up and recovers his wits.’

  ‘Should he waken, I’ll manage quite well without help.’ Mud and briars posed Elaira no hindrance as she followed in Lirenda’s footsteps. She dawdled where she could, well aware that her peer’s flighty nerves stemmed from worries of Fellowship vigilance. Asandir and Traithe might be engaged in distant lands across the continent. But the discorporate mage Luhaine would not stay diverted at Althain Tower for one second longer than Sethvir required to emerge from the grimward and reclaim the lapsed gift of his earth sense. Until Fionn Areth yielded willing consent, one Sorcerer’s notice could make ruins of Morriel’s plot.

  Elaira dragged her feet as much as she dared, though she guessed her effort was futile. Lirenda was always meticulous in allowing a wide margin for mischance. The spiteful satisfaction offered small recompense, that for each minute the Koriani senior was delayed, the wind tugged wild wisps from her knotted, jet braid and chapped her pampered complexion.

  Under the blown ink boughs of the orchard, the grasses lay tangled and damp. Frost-withered dock stalks crunched underfoot. The faint, silver foil of moonlight stamped through knotted trees and lapped light upon shade like ethereal wisps of cast floss. The wind smelled of winter in waiting. Each ice-sharp gust razed and rattled through the bare branches. The stars were snagged pinpricks, their beauty no boon on this night. In Elaira’s dark thoughts, cruel rain and black storm should have dogged every step since the demands of her vows forced compliance. Had her voice been her own, she would have screamed for Fionn Areth to waken and flee, and call down the wrath of his family.

  No saving slip of good fortune arose. The stayspell held the boy quiet without mishap, until Lirenda found a clearing where a deadfall had been hewn down for firewood. The hollow where the roots had torn free offered shelter and natural seclusion.

  ‘Lay the child there.’ The disdainful flick of a finger indicated the boy’s head should orient northward. Under the waning moon, Lirenda seemed a carved ivory figure, mantled in ebony silk. She opened the satchel and unveiled a weighty, terminated rock crystal, chosen to channel the spells of transformation. The bared quartz seemed a flame’s heart sculpted in ice, paned in frost-polished facets. Like every major focus held in Koriani service, the stone had been mined on a world far distant from Athera. The etched mapwork of its natural formation had been buffed to a polish to obviate any unwanted features of character. The jewel was conformed as a tool, subservient to the order’s dedicated cause to further the needs of humanity.

  Sick at heart, Elaira settled the boy on a soft patch of grass. ‘He’ll need to be conscious,’ she reminded. Dread lent her a stripping new edge of hostility. ‘That’s if you’re still planning to go through the pretense of asking for his consent.’

  ‘Wards first.’ This was no sheltered sisterhouse tower, where the metallic, formed rings of runes and spell seals laid down permanent defenses. Lirenda shot back a reproachful glance as she knelt beside Fionn Areth. She set the quartz point to one side, then unpacked an assortment of thin copper rods. These she assembled into a pyramid. A wide silver ring stained black with tarnish formed the structure’s apex, its position arrayed above the boy’s forehead. ‘Set the perimeter guard spells,’ she commanded, her lashes half-lidded in concentration as she placed the large crystal point downward in the cradling band of dark silver.

  Elaira accepted the four directional tetrahedrons of cut hematite, then the pairing rods of black tourmaline whose screening virtues would defend against psychic attack. She cupped the burden of each separate mineral and invoked the focus of her personal quartz to recharge their properties of alignment. In a ritual older than written memory, she began the steps to lay out a circle of protection. East, to south, to west, to north, she demarked the points of direction. The tourmaline wands she placed like black arrows beyond the outer perimeter; at the base of each one, the hematite tetrahedrons, heavy to the hand as dark lead. If the properties of the tourmaline became overwhelmed, the next crystal in line would send harmful influence to ground before any breach could disrupt the innermost circle.

  Invocation and seal raised a small spark to stand sentinel at each point of the compass. ‘Anient,’ she intoned, the Paravian invocation for unity. The summoned flecks of light bled round the ring in an active spiral, deosil. South met west, west meshed to north, north arced to east, and east closed the circle back to the point of origin, aligned by the glimmer of the polestar. A soft halo of phosphor glowed faintly pink and joined the four arcs into an unbroken figure.

  ‘Fariennt tyr,’ Elaira invoked over the traced runes of the set seal. ‘So be this construct, as I have defined.’

  ‘Begin.’ Lirenda engaged the energy closure, and the wardspell meshed into completion. She leaned over the rods supporting the large crystal and scribed a symbol into the base. A whispered invocation and a breath keyed the cipher’s activation. The quartz flared a sultry, actinic yellow. As its matrix imprinted and magnified the transmission, a pale flower of illumination touched the skin at the center of Fionn Areth’s forehead.

  Lirenda murmured the incantation to waken only the mind. The words of her litany were framed in a tongue whose origins came from a world far removed from Athera.

  Young Fionn Areth opened his eyes, but not to the autumn night he remembered. No moon shone above him, no stars. He did not perceive the bare branches of the fruit trees that shivered in the moan of cold winds. The spell seal cocooned his conscious awareness, and his senses stayed suspended, netted into disembodied quiet. The etheric web of a jewel’s charged lattice enclosed his sight like glass walls.

  ‘Where am I?’ His voice fell echoless and flat, splintered against that imprisoning silence.

  ‘You are in dreams, but awake,’ a woman’s voice answered. Her vowels struck through consonants edged with high-pitched harmonics.

  Too distanced to be frightened, Fionn Areth searched the planes of the crystal’s lit heart, trying to make out the speaker. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Here.’ Her laugh rang like glassine slivers of ice. ‘You shall see.’

  A shimmer bit through the blank vista of perception; and he made out a dim figure muffled in dark purple silk. Veils of softer violet light shimmered amid the radiance thrown off by the activated quartz. Fionn Areth beheld a dark-haired woman with a face of marble serenity. She had lips of bleached coral and hands too ethereally fine to have toiled at birthing goats, or spinning fleece, or stirring an iron pot to render raw fat into tallow.

  ‘I know who you are,’ the boy ventured, determined not to be craven under her steady regard. Her brows were fine arches, and her eyes the rich, ruddy amber of the whiskey his father bought from the backwater traders. ‘You’re an enchantress. Why have you brought me here?’

  ‘To ask if you’re ready to lay claim to the fate your tribe’s seeress prophesied at your birth.’ The lady’s amused gaze seemed to measure him. ‘Are you brave?�
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  ‘My sisters don’t think so.’ Fionn Areth gave their opinion his scornful dismissal. ‘I had to climb to the top of the ash tree by the brook to show them that girls don’t know anything. Are you like Elaira, the enchantress who saved my life the night I was born?’

  ‘She is there,’ said the lady, and pointed.

  Fionn Areth noticed the second figure then, this one clad in the laced leathers and jacket she wore when she called bringing simples. To the woman he recognized as a friend, he need not cling to appearances. ‘You look sad. Why is that, lady?’

  Inside that prison of crystalline walls, Elaira stepped forward. The spectral light made her features seem strained. The rich, russet highlights in her hair were erased, as if she had become but a shadow of herself in that place of carved ice and moonlight. ‘I am saddened, Fionn. The time’s come when I’m asked to give over your birth debt to the higher power of the Koriani Order. This cannot be done without your consent, but Lirenda insists you are old enough. She would have you speak and arrange for the terms of your sacrifice.’

  ‘What do I say?’ Fionn Areth asked, plaintive. ‘I could give her my knife, but Father told me if I lost it, I couldn’t have another for a year.’

  Elaira wiped leaking eyes with the back of her wrist. ‘Keep your knife, Fionn. The lady wants nothing more than your word. Say if the Koriani Order may lay claim to your fate in my stead.’

  Fionn Areth’s eyes narrowed. ‘She wants this, the lady?’ He considered with the gravity of a child too young to respond as an adult. ‘My mother would say to give nothing for free. What will the Koriathain trade in return?’ His voice firmed as he stiffened his small spine. ‘I’m going to need an expensive, sharp sword.’

  ‘You shall have the very best, fabricated by the hand of a master armorer.’ Lirenda gestured encouragement with the magnanimous assurance of one who had never eaten someone else’s table scraps or missed a night in cosseted comfort. ‘Not only that, but a tutor at arms will be sent to Araethura to school you. Give your consent, and our bargain is sealed.’

  ‘Do I get a scabbard too?’ Fionn Areth said, distrustful enough to be shrewd.

  ‘A scabbard, of course, child.’ Impatient with young ones, Lirenda tapped her foot. ‘You have only to give your consent.’

  ‘Then yes!’ Fionn Areth followed his shout with a whoop that rattled his dream to echoing exuberance.

  But for Lirenda’s twisted plot, plainspoken speech was insufficient. ‘Swear, then. Heart and mind, give me your formal permission for the record to be set in crystal.’

  Elaira turned away, unable to watch, as, still fearless, the boy gave away his autonomy. The words of his oath rang through the frost-cloaked silence of the night. In too brief an instant, the act stood complete.

  Tied by consent to a Koriani quartz focus, Fionn Areth now belonged to the order as irrevocably as any young initiate inducted for vows of life service.

  In the orchard, released from the grip of spelled dreams, Fionn Areth’s body fell limp inside the fleeces of Elaira’s borrowed jacket. For a drawn-out moment, the unnatural trance kept his pupils dilated, their depths an uncanny, fathomless black in the frigid spill of the moonlight. Then Lirenda inscribed the seal for deep sleep. The boy’s wide, staring eyes hazed from focus and fluttered closed. His lips parted in a sigh, while an uncaring breeze bearing winter in its weave flicked the jet ends of his hair. A pen stroke ruled against darkness, the beam of pale light from the crystal seemed to drill through his unmarked forehead.

  ‘He’s sworn oath of debt.’ Lirenda’s satisfaction held triumph, a chilling indication that Morriel’s command matched the grain of her personal involvement. In a guarded move, she raised lily-scented hands and tugged the hood of her mantle to shelter her high-cut cheekbone. ‘Not even the Fellowship of Seven can argue the validity of a vow sworn and sealed as a bargain.’

  ‘You should be proud.’ Elaira made no effort to curb her raking sarcasm. ‘Your victim is only six years of age, and a tutor and a sword are a paltry return for enslavement.’

  ‘Given the choice of a life raising goats, I much doubt the child’s going to care.’ Lirenda’s rose lips bent upward in secretive satisfaction. ‘Don’t think you’re finished here.’

  Elaira huddled, shivering. She knew very well that the coming spells of transformation should not require her presence. This spiteful play to force her participation framed a more than disturbing oddity. Raised on the street as an orphaned child, Elaira had never welcomed authority. Now, her deep, primal instinct gave warning: the strained relationship shared with her senior had somehow grown beyond the surface disparities of social station and character.

  A closer study of Lirenda’s demeanor revealed where rice powder and eye paint could not quite mask her evident strain. The flesh over its beautiful template of bone seemed fine drawn, as though for weeks her sleep had been restless and her thoughts a turmoil of distress.

  In a sure burst of insight, Elaira said, ‘What has Arithon s’Ffalenn ever done to antagonize you?’

  Lirenda recoiled. Her amber pale eyes flicked up in a match flare of rage. ‘How dare you!’

  Chilled as she was, and sick with self-loathing, Elaira damped a grin of ripe devilment. ‘Touché. He’s difficult. I know far better than any. Was his influence why Morriel set you aside in disgrace?’

  ‘That’s none of your business!’ Lirenda’s frustration rankled, that she no longer wielded the ranking prerogative to quash prying questions and insolence. ‘My right to the privileges of prime succession shall not stay in question for long. Have a care. Cross me again, and your lot could be miserable.’

  ‘I’m miserable now,’ Elaira pointed out. ‘You’ll need to threaten with more imagination if you’re expecting me to act cowed.’

  Lirenda stroked manicured fingers along the inverted base of the quartz point. ‘You will provide the focal point for this shapechange.’ Her catty, three-cornered smile showed teeth. ‘As you once did for Morriel’s scrying at Narms, you will shape me a reflected image of Prince Arithon’s features. Your memory will provide the template to guide Fionn Areth’s transformation until the last seal is complete.’

  ‘Touché,’ Elaira repeated with self-derogatory bitterness. ‘Beware whom you cross. The s’Ffalenn royal line has never taken kindly to meddling interference from anyone.’

  ‘I know.’ Lirenda turned away and began to link the first sigil. ‘If you’re worried for the child, the strength of our order will eventually come to shelter him. His skill at arms can be turned to training the boy orphans for posts in the garrisons and the trade guilds’ guard.’

  ‘A fine, useless talent,’ Elaira bit back, her pain and her rage too large to mask behind shallow insults or platitudes. ‘If Arithon’s to become the Matriarch’s captive, and Lysaer’s Alliance clears the woods of the clanblood who harry the trade routes, pray, who will be in the market to pay hired swords? No one will have enemies to burn out and kill.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Lirenda’s stiffened posture gave warning. ‘We have a task to finish.’

  Elaira tossed her a gesture to begin, one that on street terms doubled as obscenity. ‘You first. The opening sigil is yours, thank blazes. I’ll enjoy the moment to the fullest when the fire of s’Ffalenn vengeance grabs you by the throat and strikes at every one of your weaknesses.’ She knelt in chill grasses, arms wrapped to her chest, then closed her eyes to recall the male face that had long since become a branded part of her being. Before she took the irrevocable last step, she let fly the full force of her anguish. ‘Just so you understand, when we’re done, I’m going to buy gin from the first herder I see and drink myself blind, heaving drunk.’

  A knifing blast of north wind shrieked over the byre and rattled the trees in the orchard. Elaira engaged the focusing properties of the small quartz crystal at her neck. Then, with the cold roaring through her like a cataract, she framed Arithon’s likeness with all the detail she remembered: the fall of sable hair and the sha
rp angles of cheekbone and jaw. The lips which smiled too seldom, and the eyes, their green depths masked by ironies and a guarded defense too wary for most minds to fathom. Through a hazing shimmer of tears, she set perfect recall of the Shadow Master’s features into the ice veils of the crystal suspended over Fionn Areth’s face.

  She tried to hear nothing else but the wind, to let the thrash of whipped branches batter all thought from her mind. But her fickle ears gave her clarity instead: every rolling, studded consonant and silver-toned vowel of the shapechanger’s incantation. She clamped her fists against her clenched jaw, torn screaming inside by the insidious progression of the spell. Lirenda remained unmoved throughout, her diction as carved frost while the crystal came alive at her bidding. Hard bars of light beamed from the quartz point. These fell and diffused a spectral mask over the unformed features of the child. The dichotomy burned: through the light-cast image of Arithon’s face, a sleeping boy’s innocence, forced passive under ties of cold sorcery. In despair born of horror, Elaira stood witness as the webwork of whorled power matched spell rune to set seal, then sank like ribboned wire under blameless skin and bone, there to seed the slow elements of change.

  Small differences which would not conform over time struck her now with wounding impact. As if in this one, trapped moment of existence, she must relive each nuance of Arithon’s form and measure the particulars anew: these grubby boy’s hands would mature to match the broad, sturdy frame of the herder stock of his birth; fingers that would never spin the filament of bardic melody from the wire of a lyranthe’s string. The unmarked right forearm and small, callused palm, to stay unmarred by the welt from the light bolt which had seeded the geas of Desh-thiere’s curse. The wrists and the ankles that would remain unscarred, never torn by the welded shackles and chain imposed by the blood feud with s’Ilessid begun on the worlds beyond West Gate. Elaira could but ache for the discrepancies that enemies would miss in the engrossing, blind fervor of hatred.