Grand Conspiracy (66 page)

‘Would that I had definite orders to give them.' Lysaer's masked rage burned the more fiercely for the fact he was caught at odds in
an untenanted wilderness. With no target at hand, and no other distraction of state crisis, he could not ease his hard-driving urge to eradicate sorcery and destroy the Master of Shadow. The current balked state became as raw salt on an open sore of frustration. ‘The rotten truth,' Lysaer said, bitter. ‘Fell powers are afoot without any doubt, and at the one moment I've gone beyond reach of town messengers. The minion of Darkness himself could not choose a better moment to disadvantage me. One cursed stroke of timing has just undone the painstaking work of two decades!'

‘We're still bound for Daenfal?' Sulfin Evend pressed, his stalker's instinct aroused by the implied upset to long-range, secretive plans. Left uninformed, denied the sure insight to lend strategic backing and guidance, he waited in coiled stillness, his question dangling unanswered.

‘Suppose Arithon s'Ffalenn chose this hour to unleash his sorceries on the continent?' This once oblivious to his Lord Commander's razor scrutiny, the Divine Prince almost lost to the tormented urge to pace the ground in obsessive agitation. ‘Such a man would scarcely allow himself to be seen, except by intended design. At first, I expected the reported sighting at Daenfal would resolve as a case of mistaken identity. Now, I'm not sure. The event may have been set up as a blind to draw me away from Avenor.' A tight gesture of defiance encompassed the heavens, lit now by the adamantine glitter of winter constellations. ‘The fact major sorcery has reared up in portents drastically rearranges priorities. If Arithon s'Ffalenn has returned, he'd bid to make use of our weaknesses.' In the rapt intensity of the instant's blind passion, Lysaer's veneer of majesty cracked through. Voice and bearing this once revealed his vibrant base feeling: not fear, not concern born of righteous distress, but the focused rage born out of pride and a stinging, personal defeat. ‘Avenor will panic without my protection, and
I'm not there to capture the plum as the
tree shakes
.'

Struck to deep insight that prickled his nape, Sulfin Evend stared at the prince before him. His keen glance read a frustrated anguish few men alive ever witnessed. He said, cool and neutral through a shocked leap of epiphany, ‘You meant all along to use the s'Brydion clan as your game piece to trigger the selfsame reaction?'

That turned Lysaer's head and earned a considered, sharp stare from the cowled priest who stood in dispassionate quiet on the sidelines.

By faint starlight, Lysaer's face held a chiseled, ice sculpture symmetry that momentarily eschewed every trace of human emotion. ‘Dame Dawr's affray with the priesthood was pardoned after Duke Bransian wrote us a formal apology.'

Sulfin Evend said nothing.

The chill darkness became weighted by his charged expectation, and something more sinister, a thread of deep and dangerous concealment, treacherous as the current that sucked through the weir of an unruffled millpond. Prince Lysaer brazened out that nailing regard, silent, while the wind snarled and whistled through the scrub in the gully, and the blossoming star of a firebrand traced the movements of the men who broke camp.

Since Sulfin Evend had never backed down from a challenge, Jeriayish finally relented. ‘Given firm-handed guidance, and the right crisis as inspiration, Tysan's rich guilds would have emptied their treasuries. We'd hoped to fund a fortress and garrison as ambitious as the one now under construction at Etarra.'

The Alliance Lord Commander sucked back a snort of amazement. He regarded the white-clad avatar before him, his perception jarred to cynical reassessment. ‘Then you've been outflanked by surprise? Of course, in hindsight, an upset of this magnitude would convince a guild with no fighting arm to pledge every resource to stand on the side of the Light.' The censure that followed was delivered with the same, distanced ring of soft irony. ‘Still, that can't excuse the hard facts. In pandering to guild greed for a future gamble, you've left a whole kingdom exposed and all but defenseless.'

The glance Lysaer s'Ilessid fixed on his Lord Commander revealed a grim depth of honesty. ‘Fear has its uses. As the powers of darkness exploit our vulnerabilities, shall we foolishly spurn the same tools? Too much lies at stake. We face an enemy who threatens the stability of the world.' His acute, inward conflict spurred his fury as he added his bald-faced endorsement to the priest's veiled hint of conspiracy. ‘Naturally, I would have preferred to arrange a safe means to rock the proverbial boat.'

Level steel in adherence to the letter of sworn duty, Sulfin Evend asked again for his orders.

Yet Lysaer clamped tortured fists to his temples, still agonized by indecision. Whatever fell power had crafted this setback, its immediate impact would outpace his most careful expectations.

‘I dare not return to reap the rewards I have ripened through years of patience and planning,' the Blessed Prince confessed.
His cry for vindication flawed his conviction as he added, ‘Nor can I fail to rise to the gauntlet thrown down by tonight's fell round of portents.' As the world's given gift to cleanse darkness and sorcery, he could not disregard the real chance that now, innocent lives stood at risk. Wrung by a passion that raged to shed blood, Lysaer finished, ‘
I dare not miscall how the Master of
Shadow will use his power to unbalance us
.'

The choice of which coast to guard had passed beyond compromise already, with snowfall choking the high passes. Winter storms would allow them no second alternative. Sulfin Evend could assess the logistics well enough. Either their handpicked strike force of officers turned tail now and took the river route through Korias to reach Avenor the long way. Or they committed to go on and cross Instrell Bay and make landfall in Rathain before ice locked the northern strait that would give them swift access to Atainia.

The thin priest skirted the issue of lapsed morals with delicacy. ‘If tonight's events are connected with the reported sighting in Daenfal, your Grace fears the worse threat will arise in the east?'

Lysaer tipped his face skyward. His posture strung taut by a need that poisoned the very marrow of his commitment, he admitted, ‘I fear so, but what if I'm wrong? Avenor and all of Tysan must stand or fall upon the wisdom of an aging crown seneschal and the word of High Priest Cerebeld. As Athera's given power to defend against Shadow,
I cannot afford to miscalculate the site where the Spinner of Darkness will strike
.'

While Sulfin Evend looked on with veiled eyes and masked thoughts, Jeriayish bowed again. The sunwheel priest's tone raised a silken whisper against the tireless whine of the gusts. ‘Blessed Prince, I have been trained to serve. The way exists to find out …'

Within the sealed chamber fashioned by conjury beneath the stone mazes of Kewar, a spark of light scalded down and poised in the air above the image reflected in the pool. An answering flicker played through the rune patterns incised into rock underneath. Through a queer, tensioned second, the tall, ascetic figure of a man appeared to lean over the burgeoning ripple of springwater. He wore a leather doublet the burnt orange color of autumn leaves, and a shirt with crisp, pleated sleeves tied at the wrist with braided sable laces. His hair fell shoulder length, a tumble of
frost-streaked russet. The planes of his face were ascetic, shaped flint, and his foxy chin was clean-shaven.

His hand rested wrist deep in the pool. The narrow fingers were an artist's, long and flexibly capable. Ripples flowed over a cast, silver ring inset with a citrine, and carved with three interlocked crescents that framed the sign of the moon.

Dark, shrewd eyes surveyed the image still held in suspended reflection: of a blond prince caught in the crux of duplicity as the geas of the Mistwraith's curse collided with the dictates of conscience, and again, deflected Athera's future. On the cusp of resolve, before Lysaer s'Ilessid sealed his consent to his priest in the hinterlands of north Camris, the enigmatic figure by the pool far under the Mathorn Mountains straightened up from absorbed contemplation. He raised a wet hand. Droplets scattered to the brisk snap of his fingers. The bright spark of intent poised over the pool flickered out. The scrying erased, and took with it the imprinted form of the watcher.

The softened play of the light that arose in formation as the water rippled over the channeling course of the rune patterns did not stay unpartnered for long; another spark descended. The next summoned image formed in the pool. This one reflected another incident within the closed walls of Avenor …

Couched alone in silk sheets in the royal apartments, Princess Ellaine stirred to the sliding rustle of bed curtains. Urgent hands prodded her. She was forced awake despite the unconscious need to remain lost in oblivious dreaming. ‘My lady? Your Grace? You'll want to arise.'

Ellaine opened her eyes, aware all at once that the handmaid's determination held fear. She pushed erect amid a silken slither of comforters and hooked tangled hair from her face. The room was still dark. No candles burned but the one in the pricket gripped in her handmaid's trembling fingers. ‘What's amiss?'

A ghostly presence in the wan flicker of flame light, the woman's generous features were pinched into terrified pallor. ‘Dread sorcery, madam.' Her jerked, distraught gesture encompassed the night window, cracked across by an unseasonal flare of lightning. The bright discharge burst and died without sound; no report of shocked air reechoed and pealed into a barrage of natural thunder.

‘Light's mercy upon us!' The maid shuddered and wailed. ‘Folk say the Spinner of Darkness is returned!'

‘Hush,' Ellaine snapped. ‘You don't know that for certain.' She kicked free of her blankets and stood up. Winter's drafts bit through the fine lace of her night rail, and the icy tiles underfoot set her shivering. ‘I'll need to dress. Then send for Gace Steward. If we're being visited by some harbinger of disaster, my son must be seen at my side.'

When the maid wrung her hands in paralyzed dread, Ellaine lost her poise to impatience. ‘Attend me, at once!' She padded to her wardrobe, too distressed to observe the everyday grace of courtly propriety. ‘Avenor has need of its ruling family before panic sets in on the streets.'

Yet as fast as she donned formal clothes and state mantle, Avenor's High Priest had acted in step to forestall her. One of his obsequious sunwheel acolytes barged into her apartment as she swept from her darkened bedchamber.

His bow to acknowledge her station was grudging and brutishly rushed. ‘Lady Ellaine, his eminence, High Priest Cerebeld, has called for an assembly of the council. He requires your presence for form's sake and reassurance, but Avenor's seneschal will preside.'

‘Where's my son?' Ellaine demanded, her tense hands folded into the shimmering silk of the skirt she reserved for ceremonial appearances. Her firm bearing suggested she would let no one's plans disrupt her immediate priority. ‘I'll go nowhere and do nothing until I'm assured Prince Kevor will sit at my side.'

The sunwheel acolyte assumed the role of royal escort unasked and clasped her elbow above her caped sleeve. ‘The young prince's servants are dressing him now. His attendance will be necessary to assuage the false rumor that Prince Lysaer has abandoned the regency.'

At fourteen, young Kevor had grown beyond such limited use as a figurehead, but Ellaine saw little point to be gained in bandying words on that issue. She let the acolyte's curt tug usher her down the corridor, while the tall, lancet windows on either side flickered to another show of uncanny lightning. The wax candles lit at dusk had been left to burn low, their blown glass sconces shaded to umber with soot. The feeble flicker of the last, spent wicks became overwhelmed by the discharge that sparked in blue forks overhead. Dawn would not break for another three hours, and the moonless night showed no threatening wall of cloud or the combed cirrus of an approaching squall line.

‘What's happened?' Ellaine demanded. ‘Does Cerebeld know?
Or will we be maintaining a brave front at Avenor in the absence of my royal husband?'

Turned down the gleaming marble corridor that led to the vaulted state chambers, the priest's glance held harried exasperation. ‘His eminence, the High Priest, says there's been an attack of fell sorcery. What we see are the discharged effects of that imbalance.'

‘Lysaer's at Erdane,' Princess Ellaine pointed out, determined to outface the man's patronizing attitude. She could not remedy the fact that Gace Steward cut off her best links to those informants who were versed in state interests and politics. ‘His royal Grace could intercede.'

‘No longer.' The sunwheel servant paused, while two guardsmen in royal colors flung open the archeddoor to the council hall's anteroom. ‘The sky's a fell portent, forewarning a change. Cerebeld has received divine word that the Spinner of Darkness intends a return to the continent. The Blessed Prince has already gathered his best officers. They've pressed east with all speed to cross Instrell Bay and call a muster of arms to challenge the enemy.'

A stunned, hollow feeling slammed through Ellaine's gut. She quashed her instinctive response to ask questions, less successful with the small lines of worry that pleated her forehead. ‘Then Lysaer won't return to stand guard at Avenor?' The rejection stung yet, that the blood ties of family never bound the man to his marriage. Cut off from her Erdani kinfolk, Ellaine could but mourn and strive for adult understanding. If moral zeal had sealed Lysaer's heart from affection, other loyalties should not be disregarded. His son was here, as well as the guildsmen and merchants who had been first to swear fealty to Tysan's restored monarchy.

Yet matters of Shadow were Lysaer's born cause to pursue. As the mother of his heir, Ellaine tried to eschew sentiment in favor of hard practicality. ‘Our winter garrison scarcely offers us an adequate defense if our people believe these queer signs in the sky foretell an assault wrought of sorcery.'