The Wars of Light and Shadow (9) - INITIATE'S TRIAL Read online

  ‘You can protect him?’ Elaira pressed gently.

  Kharadmon dissolved into a self-contained whirlwind that whipped up a cyclone of ice-crystals. ‘Asandir was forced to swear! He laid down an oath by the witness of stone, of Fellowship noninterference. Damn your Prime’s machinations to Sithaer! The terms that completed her claim of debt towards the Crown of Rathain have extracted that ruthless stay!’

  Which bad news delivered a blow to weaken the knees. Elaira drew in a bracing breath. Under the astringent blue sky of altitude, chilled in the pine-scented shade of the rock scarp, she fought for the balance to curb draining fear. If few staunch spirits could match her bold strengths, none equaled the depth of her love for Prince Arithon. Or her steel endurance, as she dared to challenge the turbulent fury repressed by the Sorcerer’s shade. ‘You cannot lift even one finger to help,’ she accused in bald-faced distress. ‘What of the Biedar? Will their shamans stand guard for your prince? Now he’s freed, might they warrant his safety?’

  The discorporate mage drifted to a freezing pause. ‘Who knows what might move the desert tribes to act? In this world, who dares to try them? Biedar wisdom lies outside the compact.’

  Elaira gaped in dumbfounded surprise. ‘I never imagined! More tellingly,’ she added the moment her paralyzed wits sorted consequence, ‘has that sharp fact escaped the Prime Matriarch?’

  ‘Oh, past question, she knows.’ Kharadmon’s image unfurled again, smiling with forthright malice. ‘That sore point’s a matter of recorded history, and no secret buried at Althain Tower. The Biedar people came to Athera before the terms of the compact were struck. They set foot in Sanpashir, just ahead of the Fellowship’s promise of surety, which granted the rest of humanity’s right to fair settlement.’

  ‘How could that happen?’ Elaira asked, stunned. She had never envisioned the paradox!

  Kharadmon’s grin displayed wicked humour. ‘Their tribe’s revered elders did not petition for leave through our Fellowship’s auspices. Are you breathing? Here’s the stinging fly in your Matriarch’s cup! Her Biedar counterpart treated for residence directly with the Paravians.’

  Staggered dizzy by her upended assumptions, Elaira required more than a moment to measure the implications. She felt as if mountains had moved at a stroke, with every familiar landmark thrown into radical rearrangement. Changed truth arrived as a blast of fresh air, that the latent power possessed by the tribes far outstripped the reach of the Prime Matriarch’s bidding.

  ‘A bit of a quandary,’ she sympathized to the discorporate spirit, poised in rapt interest before her.

  Kharadmon’s corrosive manner turned fierce. ‘Quite.’ Even his Fellowship must be hard-pressed to reconcile the salient question of sovereign authority. Should Sanpashir’s desert-folk choose to exert their enigmatic autonomy, the might behind their least action could throw any power on Athera an untoward wall of obstruction.

  ‘You don’t know the limits on the tribe’s intentions,’ Elaira needled, point-blank.

  ‘Your guess would fall under the provenance of Sethvir,’ the Sorcerer evaded with delicacy. ‘Or else be found among the lore kept by Athera’s living Paravians.’

  But the creatures he referenced were lost to the world, and such knowledge, a quest of futility. Elaira smothered a frustrated sigh. The Warden of Althain was unlikely to send her the grace of his counsel. Sethvir’s adamant silence had stayed unbroken since the desperate decision forced upon her on a lonely beachhead at Athir two hundred and fifty sad years ago. Naught remained to be said beyond dogged pursuit of what pressed Kharadmon to broach the indelicate point. ‘If the Biedar cannot be trusted to act, how will my beloved defend himself against the vicious designs of my order?’

  Kharadmon raised his eyebrows. He had no glib words. Nothing of comfort to soften the blow bestowed by his shattering news. ‘There, rare lady, the inspiration was guided. The Biedar followed after the tactic his Grace himself used at the terrible crux, to spare you.’

  ‘They displaced his memory?’ Elaira cried, drained white, the rose fallen from her nerveless fingers. ‘Left him blind to himself? How deeply? To set him past reach of a Prime Circle’s scrying . . . !’ There, her appalled reason faltered.

  Kharadmon stated for her, with terrible calm, ‘Arithon’s remembrance had to be stripped. Completely, without reservation. To stay undetected, safely out of sight, he could not have access to the least knowledge of his identity.’

  She collapsed to her knees. ‘You’ve thrown him naked before baying wolves with nothing but his primal instincts!’

  ‘That, and his born gifts, which are not inconsiderable!’ Kharadmon assured, beyond ease. A Sorcerer, and powerful beyond measure, he could but watch and wait, since that bleak encouragement brought no consolation.

  Gloved palms pressed to her face, Elaira shuddered as though the pressure of the icy, wet leather might shore up her frail flesh. Some hurts plunged too deep. Alone, she battled for the toe-hold to assay the shaken first step towards recovery.

  The Sorcerer’s spirit ached for her struggle, insouciant sarcasm shredded away. Once, he had owned the warmth of human hands. He had loved, and known how to clasp a devastated woman and lend her raw tears the intimate patience of a warm shoulder. Helpless to offer that solace now, he gave her smashed courage his inadequate words. ‘Dear lady. Handfast to Rathain, of us all, you must not lose your heart.’

  For in fact, every hope of Arithon’s hale future lay in this enchantress’s unsteady hands. More: the very thread of Athera’s grand mysteries could dwindle, or snap, or perhaps be raised to renewal through her tenacious constancy.

  Kharadmon bore witness through her torment. He did not plead. Not while the balance hung trembling, and all that his Fellowship laboured to heal relied on a destiny yet to be claimed. An interval passed, filled by the wind through the snow-laden pines, and the ice-scoured scent of the Storlain glaciers. Inhospitable country, where a proud woman had nursed her solitary pain, clinging to hope with her hands tied. Unbroken then, she could crumble here, with no trusted ally to steady her.

  Then Elaira contained herself. Possessed of a dignified calm that outmatched her diminutive resource, she unshuttered her hands and began to remove one soaked glove.

  Before she bared her right hand, the Fellowship Sorcerer guessed her desperate retort. No poise could mask the wrench of her regret as she hardened herself to offer back what never in life, or bound service, ought to be returned.

  Kharadmon spoke quickly to forestall a decision that could only launch a disaster. ‘Lady! Don’t do this. Did your best beloved not grant you that ring? And has he, since that terrible day, or in his hour of darkest despair, ever asked to rescind his left token?’

  ‘No,’ Elaira admitted, pinched white. ‘But you know the Prime’s use of me as her personal weapon against him was stopped when he bound his own recall of me beyond reach—’

  ‘Hush!’ The ghost of the Sorcerer raised a forefinger with admonishment. ‘I’ve seen how you’ve suffered in his Grace’s behalf. My dearest, yes, I know what he sacrificed for your sake! Althain’s Warden has been party to all that you’ve borne through the earth-link wrought by the Paravians. If Sethvir were here now, he would tell you the future you dread is not written, besides!’

  ‘Arithon doesn’t know me!’ Elaira cried, pained. ‘He may never remember. Why should he not be set free of a past that is dangerous unless it stays lost to him? Where I have the bitter-sweet joy of remembrance, he has been left nothing at all! Is my love so small that I cannot let him discover anew what happiness life has to offer? Who will he have at his side, and what caring, unless he finds joy in another companion?’

  Kharadmon applied reason, profoundly relieved that his status as spirit disbarred her impulsive appeal for requital. ‘I cannot take charge of an object, except to unmake the thing, stone and setting, which would be a breach of the Major Balance. I cannot revoke your ring’s reason for being, or break the purpose for which it was wrought.’ As s
he stared at him, stricken, he added, ‘Put straightly, the royal signet of Rathain will not cede me due cause by permission!’

  She made a choked sound, but not in protest.

  Kharadmon smiled, then. ‘Elaira, lean on your instinct! That ring stays with you, with all it entrusts. Honour the covenant of Arithon’s promise, and guard his intention as sacred!’

  She stayed unconvinced. ‘And if I should not?’

  The Sorcerer’s ephemeral presence gentled with compassion as he spoke the truth. ‘If you honestly wish to renounce your heart’s beloved, even the Warden of Althain cannot stand as his Grace’s proxy. Should you resolve to cast Arithon off, then hear me! You must face him in person. A vow from a crown’s heir may not be released. With royal heritage invoked, there is no other course, except to return his token directly into Prince Arithon’s hand.’

  Elaira stood up. Eyes filled with all of the day’s blazing light, she regarded the high mountain peaks, white and cold as a sword’s edge above her. ‘You feared to add that our paths must stay separate?’ Too well, she perceived the quandary that stifled her future happiness. ‘I dare not meet him, or touch him, or speak, lest for his life’s sake, he should he be prompted to recover his past, prematurely?’

  Solitary, left only the shadow of their cherished passion for comfort, Elaira faced her core terror: for too many years, the ring’s custody had burned her lonely heart with bright longing. The withering need for Arithon’s partnership opened a constant wound of stark agony.

  For how long? How many more unendurable days and nights must she tread a trackless path that led nowhere?

  The Sorcerer’s fraught silence did not presume to salve her with empty platitudes.

  Kharadmon bowed, instead. He could do naught else. Ever and always, Elaira’s female wisdom stayed infallible where Arithon’s welfare was concerned. ‘My dear,’ the Sorcerer murmured. ‘You are beyond compare. Among women, no other will match you.’

  He recovered the perfect rose from the snow, slipped the stem through the flap on her satchel. And then his discorporate presence was gone, a tacitly bitter-sweet grant of the needful space for inviolate privacy: to weep, as she must, and to come to raw terms with the terrible trial laid on her. She had retreated for over two hundred years to the desolate hardship of these remote mountains. Held out and stayed sane, and endured the hurt of an inconsolable separation. For the world’s sake, and for a crown prince’s safety, Kharadmon could not beseech her for the exigency of his Fellowship’s need or further burden her course for a cause he had no other choice but to champion.

  Nothing rested secure. Not while the Prime Matriarch bade to unhinge the compact and grasp the reins of her unconstrained mission barehanded. Arithon, freed, remained the obstructive cipher that promised her downfall. The Black Rose Prophecy still governed his fate: by himself, quite unguarded, he remained the sole stay that promised the restoration of the Fellowship of Seven.

  All over again, Kharadmon could not bear to watch as Elaira regrouped her lacerated spirit. As she chose to hold firm in the face of redoubled conflict and uncertainty, she must stand or fall on her own merits.

  Autumn 5922

  Changes

  As Koriani scryers fail to trace the released prisoner, Prime Selidie rages across her defaced floor at Whitehold, ‘Our arcane vision is thwarted, you say? Then we’ll seize the True Sect’s faith as our instrument in Tysan. Send a warning dream to the Light’s High Examiner. Spur him with the notion his calling has come, that past evil wakens from dormancy. Show that a minion of Darkness moves abroad for his priests to destroy!’

  Her healer’s work finished by midafternoon, the enchantress Elaira repacks her satchel for a speedy departure: since the Fellowship Sorcerers have disbarred themselves from defending her best beloved, and given the news of the Biedar tribe’s active meddling, she resolves to risk the journey to Sanpashir to measure their wild-card stake in his destiny herself . . .

  ‘How can either party withstand the brute course? Worse, Elaira’s just made herself a naked target!’ Kharadmon rails, lately made aware that the Koriathain twist Asandir’s oath to exploit the Light’s zealot religion; from Althain Tower, Sethvir returns a dismal silence, too distraught to weigh the bad odds: which enemy faction will trace Arithon first, if not strike him down in the vulnerable gap, before he rediscovers his natural talent . . . ?

  Autumn 5922

  II. Vagabond

  T

  he last of the hens to be sold from the crate squirmed out of Kerelie’s grasp. The rude creature bolted before her new owner clamped a firm grip on her struggling legs. Lest the customer grumble, or worse, accuse Kerelie as a thieving cheat, the coin just dropped into her cash-box was returned with her regretful apology. No use to pretend that sore need for the paltry half-silver did not matter. The Light’s tithe imposed by Tysan’s high priesthood already claimed the last revenue from the harvest. Since Tarens was poking about looking idle, he became saddled with the thankless task to recover the runaway fowl. If the useless bird was too scrawny to lay, she possessed enough spiteful fight to take off as though chased by the fell powers of Darkness. Tarens pursued her cackling flight as she darted length and breadth through the stalls of Kelsing’s packed market. Jostled patrons cursed in his wake. A hand-cart of pumpkins upset. Tarens leaped, skidding, through rolling fruit. He elbowed past the irate ring of gawkers. Plunged headlong into the havoc that disrupted the vested priest of the Light at his booming recital of doctrine, while the hen flapped through the audience to outbursts of laughter that upset all pious solemnity.

  Tarens missed his next pounce.

  Immersed in the impassioned delivery of warnings against the subtle practice of evil, the priest glared daggers down his lofty nose. The hysterical hen back-pedaled, trumpeted in alarm, and scooted beneath the gilt rostrum.

  Tarens tugged his forelock with an endearing shrug and mumbled a shamefaced apology. Then he dropped onto hands and knees in the grass. His frantic snatch under the priest’s white silk hem raised a sneeze on the cloyed reek of incense. Mortified beyond care how much he outraged the temple, the crofter damned the pea-brained wits of loose chickens to reap the fell gale winds of Darkness.

  The fowl he cursed hiked up ragged wings, squawked like a jammed hinge, and indignantly pelted. Her flight skittered into the candleman’s stall, with Tarens blundering under the rails, fringed with tapers hung by the wicks. Repeatedly clubbed about his reddened ears, he ducked clear, blindly sprinting. The bird raced ahead. She jagged shy of a helpful bystander’s snatch. Plunged into the thick stand of trees at the verge, she vanished into the autumn tangles of burdock.

  Tarens swore and ploughed after her, snagging up burrs and dry runners of thorn. If the silly bird thrashed beyond earshot, she would be lost for good. The fact his beset family needed her paltry worth forced him to keep on until dusk made the finicky bird come to roost. Once she tucked her head under her wing for the night, he climbed the tree and snared her barehanded. The shocked fowl emitted a curdling screech. Tarens winced, insulted by a squirt of guano that splattered his hair.

  ‘Fiends rise and take you!’ he snarled, then blasphemed in earnest as the sky opened into a downpour and drenched him.

  Full dark cloaked the market field on his return. He slogged through the trampled mud between the shuttered wood stalls, dismayed to find even the tent merchants packed up and gone. Dripping and forlorn, their family’s rig was the last harnessed wagon tied to the empty hitching rail. The bedraggled hen was furious still. Her beating wings and manic squalls set the huntsman’s kenneled dogs barking behind the town-walls.

  Efflin’s vile mood had not improved. ‘Should wring that bird’s neck before we get nailed with a fine for disturbing the peace.’

  Tarens shrugged. The sluiced rainfall at least spared his sister’s tart fuss over his sopped clothes and slimed hair. Soaked and cold as he, Kerelie hunched with the open crate readied on the lowered tail-board. Efflin sneezed too hard for further c
omplaint through the ruckus as the miffed fowl was caged. Throughout, the relentless drum of the rain pocked the puddles dammed amid the heaped tarp in the wagon-bed.

  The vacated grounds lay felted with mist by the time Tarens clambered aboard. Efflin tugged the knotted reins from the rail, took the bench, and headed the steaming ox homeward.

  Bone weary and shivering, no one had starch enough left for regret that in spring, their market days ended with two little boys curled up like exhausted puppies, soothed asleep by Efflin’s baritone singing. Grief flattened the family spirits too much to lament that the bull’s yield of meat had gone underpriced at the stock-yard. The meager coin hoarded in Kerelie’s chest scarcely covered the guild fee paid for their license to sell. The land tithe owed for the inherited croft remained still indebted.

  The estate possessed no more excess belongings or chattel to spare. Belts would have to be tightened, again. What cloth goods and staples they gained by straight barter had to be savagely scrimped.

  ‘We could be facing worse,’ Tarens declared in attempt to lighten the pervasive gloom. Town law allowed a year’s grace in which to square the account rolls. A margin at least to assure them of shelter under the hardship of winter. ‘Did anyone see if that crazy vagabond found a patron to hire him?’

  ‘Can’t be our problem,’ Kerelie grumbled. ‘We’re too pinched ourselves to fret over another.’

  Which should have left Tarens ashamed for the coin he had gifted in soft-hearted folly. If Kerelie and Efflin knew that such charity set him back more than a copper, they rightly would skewer him as he deserved. But guilt over untoward generosity did not resolve his anxiety over the strange fellow’s fate.