Stormed Fortress (54 page)

Amid the anguished pause, loud with clinking glass, and the sharp reek of tincture of iodine, Elaira prepared her honed instruments. At relentless speed, she set her boundaries. Yet unlike the past surgery rendered in Merior, she did not proceed in presumption, as she selected the herbals for healing. Her sojourn in Ath
'
s hostel corrected such arrogance. Poised in tender humility, she now sounded out the thread of consciousness underpinning each plant. Then, under intent to mend tissue in partnership with Sidir
'
s desire,
she asked for participation.

Even Dakar must acknowledge that pause for alignment in accord with the Major Balance. No matter how urgent her need, Elaira suspended opinion. She had to sense whether the channel would open, and grace her willed use with permission.
Only
then could she engage the Koriani sigils of power that heightened remedial efficacy.

Attuned to the peace she required to concentrate, Arithon gentled his stiff ultimatum.
'
On all counts, Dakar, you hold my consent. You will use that authority, and without restriction, should my innate talent as musician fail to stay the full course.
'

'
Impose your acceptance of Rathain
'
s sovereign duty through my ties to the Fellowship?
'
Dakar crossed his arms, desperate to quell his anguished heart, as in searing language, he qualified,
'
Allow this, by force, in a state of extremity? Beware what you say, prince! The blood oath you gave over to Asandir included no term of release! You know I must hold you to your sworn promise, not to permit you to fall into jeopardy!
'

'
I have no intention of letting things come to that.
'
Under the sputtering flare of the lamp, as Elaira adjusted the wick, a plucked shower of notes stabbed out in reproof.
'
Trust me, I beg you,
'
Arithon pleaded.
'
I protected Feylind. Salvaged the
Evenstar.
'

'
And nearly lost all you
were
to the Kralovir cult at Etarra!
'
Dread and rancour laid bare, Dakar lashed out.
'
Without trusting me then, or sharing your strategy beforehand, how dare you rely on me now?
'

'
I will rise to this!
'
Arithon stated, determined.
'
Stand by me, or leave. I won
'
t shirk the attempt.
'

Dakar lost all words. While a dying friend
'
s fingers chilled in his clasp, and the ugly, wet suck of drawn air stretched the seconds, necessity demanded: Sidir
'
s margin for rescue diminished, each moment they wasted in argument.

No more could be done, except to shoulder the adamant watch from the side-lines.

Arithon phrased a final request as Dakar stirred to capitulate.
'
Please lace Sidir
'
s hand through Alithiel
'
s grip. If the fight we enact is for a just cause, the sword
'
s enchantment could be moved to speak for him.
'

With consummate speed, then, events moved apace. The bard sounded a ringing chord that tested the pitch of his instrument. Elaira knelt, chalk in hand, poised to allow the beguiling draw of his music to amplify her healer
'
s trance. Within the stilled chamber, reeking of death, and still roiled by the discharge of violence, the Prince of Rathain, acting as Masterbard, addressed his prostrate liegeman.
'
Can you trust, Sidir?
'

Wracked in spasms, near emptied of blood, the Companion opened his tortured eyes.

Arithon
'
s voice all but faltered.
'
No! Don
'
t speak! Your right of free choice to survive is acknowledged. If the channel for your consent has been made, let me do the work. I will find it.
'

He gripped his fine instrument. Side-tracked the clamour of agonized uncertainty, tipped his dark head, and
listened
with his whole being. Then his hands moved. Touched on metal and wood, that the empathic whisper to forge vital sound might be wedded with fretboard and string. Now, mortal flesh dared not slip from high mastery. Fear and anxiety must have no voice, lest he mar the balance that danced between life and loss.

Arithon opened the phrase for the summoning. Delicate, seeking, he ran the first skein of harmony: sought the bold measures that accessed the keys to the human soul. In rhythm and line, made captive through inspired harmonics, he founded the melody that would play for Sidir his Name.

Partnered with him, entrained to his talent, Elaira inscribed the exacting ciphers for the spelled circle: the matrix, once done for a fisherman in Merior, that would come to shelter the unshielded spirit. Only this time, the consummate weave of meshed talents trod more than the razor
'
s edge of mortality. Initiate skill must
also
thread the unerring path: between Prime Selidie
'
s plot to ensnare Arithon, and the Fellowship Sorcerers
'
need to preserve Torbrand
'
s irreplaceable crown lineage.

One narrow advantage altered the scales: Arithon
'
s reclaimed mage-sense let him perceive with cleared sight as the ephemeral gold light spun by his notes raised the shimmering construct between them. That delicate framework acknowledged true worth, forming the haven to draw a living awareness clear of its stricken flesh.

Should the bard
'
s gift withstand the arduous course, the enchantress must enact,
without flaw,
the contrary sigils that structured a perilous healing. No longer hampered by Sidir
'
s debilitated pain, with her refigured art uplifted on the wings of the Masterbard
'
s melody, Elaira might stem an ebbing tide long enough to stay the turn of Fate
'
s Wheel.

And if not, if this sinking liegeman reached the end to his striving, the courage must be there, no matter the grief, to play onward and loosen the ties for his passage beyond the veil.

Late Autumn 5671

Reversal

A novice initiate had flirted with one of the Alliance wounded, taken in by Koriathain for healing. Her rash action upset every established activity within the sisterhood
'
s field encampment. Even on distant worlds whose histories predated Athera
'
s compact, the order always had jealously guarded the range of its oathsworn prerogatives. Discipline fell with punitive speed.

The Prime Matriarch called the session of inquiry, despite the late hour
'
s inconvenience. Lirenda
'
s slaved presence was retained for the demeaning service of verifying the actions of the accused, while the formal pavilion was cleared straightaway. By the time the displaced peeresses scuttled out, bearing heaped armloads of books, Prime Selidie sat enthroned in her chair of state, her delicate shoulders regaled in the purple mantle and scarlet-edged robes of high office. No servant came to build up the fire, though lights for reading still burned in the incense-soaked air. The disgraced initiate was kept standing, bolt upright and trembling with fright as she realized her coming interrogation would be impelled through the matrix of a major focus crystal: a gruelling review that entrained thought and mind, and forced past event into present recall. Such intimate analysis was no choice of the subject
'
s, but a forced subjugation of character, made under the absolute terms of the Prime
'
s claim to oath-bound obedience.

The Skyron aquamarine was unveiled for the task, frigidly blue as faceted ice, and as unpleasant to handle; the same jewel, once used to query Elaira, when she had been exposed for her budding attachment to Arithon s
'
Ffalenn. Then, as now, Lirenda clasped the enabled stone between her bare hands. The waves of dire cold raised by its active field punched her skin into gooseflesh and needled her nerves. That whip-lash discomfort concerned her far less than her nettled aristocrat
'
s pride: unlike the past trial that harrowed Elaira, this testing was not conducted under the ritual formality reserved for oathbreaking. The Matriarch administered the questions herself. Lirenda was not honoured as the titled Inquisitor. No more the cosseted, superior favourite, groomed to inherit prime power, she was not charged to wield the tuned matrix directly. Instead, her person was fused into the link, made to serve as both reed and sounding-board for the Prime
'
s stripping analysis.

As bearer, not master, Lirenda suffered the probe of each question, inducted through crystal. While the miscreant subject sweated under the throes of involuntary reliving, Lirenda
also
expressed the experience, down to gut-level reaction. Each sordid response became as her own, drawn from the intransigent girl. Tonight
'
s examination carried no heady rush of dominant power, no private thrill of excitement. Instead, the loss of autonomy remade the ordeal into raw degradation.

No escape existed. The teasing, lustful affray in the hospice tent sprang out of concupiscence. Sickened to trembling, Lirenda suffered the wrenching brunt: an exchange nothing like the lyric affair of the heart that had seeded Elaira
'
s rebellious affection. This raging obsession for sex overturned her ordered mind and rampaged through her virgin
'
s senses. She quickened, then quivered, inflamed by desire, until she felt engorged and sullied.

The process bore on, unending, while Selidie conducted her methodical inquiry.
'
And how did you touch him?
'

A flood of tactile sensation became her heated hands, eagerly fondling forbidden flesh underneath a bed-sheet.
The trapped spirit engaged as the proxy witness shivered in mute protest under the relentless onslaught.

'
Hold!
'
The sudden command shattered the entrainment, channelled from the subjugated novice. Hands clenched to the Skyron crystal by reflex, Lirenda reeled, whip-lashed back into the severed awareness of her chill seat in the pavilion, with its scent of stale incense ribboned across the candle-lit dais and cavernous gloom.

Against that stilled back-drop came movement and noise: a senior enchantress had dared to enter and risk interruption. While the released novice swayed upon buckling knees, the cloaked arrival curtseyed in rushed obeisance and delivered her breathless report.

'
My Prime, as your will commands. The enchantress posted on lane watch has detected the signature energy evoked by our order
'
s conjury. The signal is the one you predicted, arisen from inside the s
'
Brydion citadel.
'

Unremarked listener, Lirenda was jolted to riveted interest. This reference applied to initiate Elaira, and the glaring urgency of the Prime
'
s machination to entrap the last Prince of Rathain.

'
The signature trace has been carefully shielded,
'
the senior disclosed in crisp recitation.
'
We needed meticulous care to be certain. But the resonant ciphers driving the power originate from the sisterhood.
'

Selidie
'
s porcelain-doll features seldom showed an expression. The wrapped hands in her lap never moved. But the gleam that sharpened her pellucid eyes shot a flickering charge across the Skyron matrix
'
s active focus. Lirenda sensed
also
the elated thrill that made her Prime pounce on the news.

The novice set under disciplinary questioning may retire to closed quarters
'
Selidie ruled, abrupt beyond etiquette.
'
Let the miscreant stay in solitude and consider the gravity of her transgression.
'
Lest the senior initiate should presume to linger, the next order destroyed the least opening.
'
Madam, you will serve as the girl
'
s punitive escort, as well as stay on as her warden. On your way, make sure that the watch is informed. On no account should anyone else broach my privacy until leave is given.
'

'
Your will. Matriarch.
'
The elderly peeress bent in compliance, sulky, since the assignment insulted her station and rank. Worse, the shaken novice required support, not yet able to walk unassisted.

Lirenda regarded the pair
'
s weaving departure, perversely glad not to have been dismissed, if her role as Prime Selidie
'
s puppet made her party to Arithon
'
s downfall. More rapid instructions rousted the boy page by the ante-room doorway. He returned, scurrying, with the small coffer stored in the Matriarch
'
s day chest.

The Skyron aquamarine was kept enabled, but relegated to a bronze tripod, while Lirenda
'
s dexterity was pressed to unfasten the chest
'
s warded locks and bronze latches.

'
Lay bare the contents
'
Selidie demanded.
'
But take utmost care! Shield your direct touch as you remove the covering.
'

A crystal, then, would be wrapped in the silk. Lirenda peeled the cloth back, unsurprised to encounter the silver chain and quartz pendant that served in rapport with Elaira. The jewel
'
s linked matrix was active, as well. Engaged with the distant enchantress
'
s working, its raised field whispered tingles over Lirenda
'
s sensitized skin. Just how any junior initiate could wield power without her attuned focus in hand presented a piquant mystery. The feat should be impossible. Lirenda still sweated the harrowing memory, when one of Arithon
'
s arrogant henchmen had stolen her personal crystal. She had never felt more helpless and humiliated, until her current state of disgrace. Yet no chance was given to study Elaira
'
s singular prowess.

'
Our bait draws on her initiate heritage at long last!
'
The Prime
'
s avid excitement rivalled the cat that measured a mouse-hole for movement.
'
Lirenda! You will take up the Skyron focus, again. Search through its kept record and establish rapport through Elaira
'
s vow of obedience. I would tie into her current activity through the matrix of her crystal pendant. Since my subsequent working will be framed through yours, I need a clear line for my purpose. Grant that for me. Absorb the emotional dross through the link we just used to screen the miscreant novice.
'

Lirenda could not escape the imperative to take up the Skyron focus. Puppet to the Prime Matriarch
'
s whim, she submerged for the second engagement: found and locked into Elaira
'
s self-signature, indelibly stamped by the order
'
s oath of obedience. That binding permitted the entry for Lirenda to key into the focal point of the personal quartz that the order held hostage. Concentration had to be forced, inflamed as she was by aroused lust from the acts of the flutter-brained novice. Never her own mistress, body or mind, Lirenda did as directed, and enabled the cleared channel for the Prime
'
s will.

The dizzying plunge from the familiar came after, as separate awareness spiralled under and drowned in the well of an altered perception. This time, no feat of endurance prepared her. Even the most rigorous course of experience failed to shield Lirenda
'
s stripped nerves from the glorious havoc . . .