The Curse of the Mistwraith (9 page)

‘D’ye think the Rauven mage would care if we kept the jewels on ‘im?’ said a coarse male voice.

The prince made a sound in protest. His head whirled unpleasantly and his stomach cramped, obscuring an unseen accomplice’s reply. The grip on him shifted, then tightened, crushing the breath from his lungs. Lysaer blacked out once more as his captors dragged him from the boat.

His next lucid impression was an inverted view of cliffs silhouetted against the sea. Breakers and sky gleamed leaden with dawn. Slung like a sack across a back clad in oilskins, Lysaer shut his eyes. He tried desperately to think. Facts slipped his grasp like spilled beads, and his train of thought drifted; yet one fragment of memory emerged and yielded a reason for his confusion. Whatever drug his abductors had used to subdue him had not entirely worn off. Although the effects were not crippling, the prince felt inept as a newborn.

His captor slipped. A bony shoulder jarred Lysaer’s stomach. Consciousness wavered like water-drowned light. Shale rattled down a weedy slope as the man recovered his footing. Then his accomplice gripped the prince, and the sky spun right side up with a sickening wrench. Hefted like baled cargo, Lysaer felt himself bundled into a cloak of rancid, oiled wool. He twisted, managed to keep his face uncovered. But clear sight afforded no advantage. High overhead rose the chipped arch of an ancient stone portal; between the span swirled a silvery film, opaque as hot oil spilled on glass. The proximity of unnatural forces raised gooseflesh on Lysaer’s skin. Shocked to fear and dread, the prince recognized the Worldsend Gate.

He struggled violently. Too late he grasped the need to escape. His enemies raised him with merciless force, cast him headlong into mother-of-pearl whose touch was ice and agony. Lysaer screamed. Then the shock of the Gate’s forces ripped his mind to fragments. He plunged into fathomless dark.

The crown prince of Amroth roused to the sting of unbearable heat. Bitter dust dried the tissues of his nostrils at each breath and strange fingers searched his person, quick and furtive as rats’ feet. Lysaer stirred. The invading hands paused, then retreated as the prince opened his eyes.

Light stabbed his pupils. He blinked, squinted and through a spike of cruel reflection, made out the blade of his own dagger. Above, the eyes of Arithon s’Ffalenn appraised him from a face outlined in glare.

‘We’re better matched this time, brother.’ The bastard’s voice was rough, as though with disuse. Face, hands and the shoulder underneath his torn shirt showed flesh frayed with scabs and congested still with the purpled marks of abuse.

Sharply aroused from his lethargy, Lysaer scrambled upright. ‘What are you waiting for? Or did you hope to see me beg before you cut my throat?’

The blade remained still in Arithon’s hand. ‘Would you have me draw a brother’s blood? That’s unlucky.’

The words themselves were a mockery. A wasteland of dunes extended to an empty horizon. Devoid of landmark or dwelling, red, flinty sands buckled under shimmering curtains of heat. No living scrub or cactus relieved the unrelenting fall of white sunlight. The Gate’s legacy looked bleak enough to kill. Stabbed by grief that his royal father’s passion for vengeance had eclipsed any care for his firstborn, Lysaer clung wretchedly to dignity. Shaken to think that Amroth, his betrothed, every friend, and all of the royal honour that bound his pride and ambition might be forever reft from him, he drew breath in icy denial. ‘Brother?
I
don’t spring from pirate stock.’

The dagger jumped. Blistering sunlight glanced off the blade; but Arithon’s tone stayed inhumanly detached. ‘The differences in our parentage make small difference, now. Neither of us can return to Dascen Elur.’

‘That’s a lie!’ Rejecting the concept that his exile might be permanent, Lysaer gave way to hostility. ‘The Rauven sorcerers would never permit a favoured grandson to wither in a desert. They’ll reverse the Gate.’

‘No. Look again.’ Arithon jerked his head at the iron portal which arched behind. No curtain of living force shimmered there: the flaking, pitted posts framed only desert. Certainty wavered. This gate might truly be dead, sealed ages past against a forgotten threat, and beyond any power of the Rauven mages to restore. Lysaer battled shattering panic. The only living human who remained to take the blame was the s’Ffalenn bastard who crouched behind a knife in studied wariness.

‘You don’t convince me. Rauven spared you from execution.’ He paused, struck cold by another thought. ‘Or did you weave your shadows to shape that sending of the queen as a plot to seek your own vengeance?’

The blade hung like a mirror in the grip of dirty fingers; inflectionless, Arithon said, ‘The appearance of the lady and your presence here were not of my making.’ He shrugged to throw off wry bitterness. ‘Your drug and your chains left small room for personal scores.’

But the baiting of the king had been too bloodlessly thorough to inspire s’Ilessid trust. ‘I dare not believe you.’

‘We’re both the victims of bloodfeud,’ Arithon said. ‘What’s past can’t be changed. But if we set aside differences, we have a chance to escape from this wasteland. ’

As crown prince, Lysaer was unaccustomed to orders or bluntness; from a s’Ffalenn whose wretched misfortune might have been arranged to deprive a kingdom of its rightful heir, the prospect of further manipulation became too vicious to bear. Methods existed to disarm a man with a dagger. Sand warmed the prince’s bootsoles as he dug a foothold in the ground. ‘I don’t have to accept your company.’

‘You will.’ Arithon managed a thin smile. ‘I hold the knife.’

Lysaer sprang. Never for an instant off his guard, Arithon fended clear. He ducked the fingers which raked to twist his collar into a garrotte. Lysaer changed tack, closed his fist in black hair and delivered a well-placed kick. The Master twisted with the blow and spun the dagger. He struck the prince’s wristbone with the jewelled pommel. Numbed to the elbow by a shooting flare of pain, Lysaer lost his grip. Cat-quick in his footwork, Arithon melted clear.

‘I could easily kill you,’ said the hated s’Ffalenn voice from behind. ‘Next time remember that I didn’t.’

Lysaer whirled, consumed by a blind drive to murder. Arithon evaded his lunge with chill poise. Leary of the restraint which had undone Amroth’s council, the prince at once curbed his aggression. Despite his light build, the bastard was well trained and fast; his guileful cleverness was not going to be bested tactlessly.

‘Lysaer, a gate to another world exists in this desert,’ the Master insisted with bold authority. ‘Rauven’s archives held a record. But neither of us will survive if we waste ourselves on quarrelling.’

Caught short by irony, the prince struck back with honesty. ‘Seven generations of unforgiven atrocities stand between us. Why should I trust you?’

Arithon glanced down. ‘You’ll have to take the risk. Have you any other alternative?’

Alien sunlight blazed down on dark head and fair through a wary interval of silence. Then a sudden disturbance pelted sand against the back of Lysaer’s knees. He whirled, startled, while a brown cloth sack bounced to rest scarcely an arm’s reach from him. The purple wax that sealed the tie strings had been fixed with the sigil of Rauven.

‘Don’t touch that,’ Arithon said quickly.

Lysaer ignored him. If the sorcerers had sent supplies through the Gate, he intended to claim them himself. He bent and hooked up the sack’s drawstring. A flash of sorcery met his touch. Staggered by blinding pain, the prince recoiled.

Enemy hands caught and steadied him. ‘I warned you, didn’t I?’ said Arithon briskly. ‘Those knots are warded by sorcery.’

Riled by intense discomfort, the prince shoved to break free.

‘Stay still!’ Arithon’s hold tightened. ‘Movement will just prolong your misery.’

But dizzied, humiliated and agonized by losses far more cutting than the bums inflicted by the ward, Lysaer rejected sympathy. He stamped his heel full-force on Arithon’s bare instep. A gasped curse rewarded him. The offending hands retreated.

Lysaer crouched, cradling his arm while the needling pains subsided. Envy galled him for the arcane knowledge he had been denied as his enemy loosened the knots with impunity. The sack contained provisions. Acutely conscious of the oven-dry air against his skin, the prince counted five bundles of food and four water flasks. Lastly, Arithon withdrew a beautifully-crafted longsword. Sunlight caught in the depths of an emerald pommel, flicking green highlights over features arrested in a moment of unguarded grief.

Resentfully, Lysaer interrupted. ‘Let me take my share of the rations now. Then our chances stand equal.’

Arithon’s expression hardened as he looked up. ‘Do they?’ His glance drifted over his half-brother’s court clothing, embroidered velvets and fine lawn cuffs sadly marred with grit and sweat. ‘What do you know of hardship?’

The prince straightened, furious in his own self-defence. ‘What right have you to rule my fate?’

‘No right.’ Arithon tossed the inventoried supplies back into the sack and lifted his sword. ‘But I once survived the effects of heat and thirst on a ship’s company when the water casks broke in a storm. The experience wasn’t very noble.’

‘I’d rather take my chances than live on an enemy’s sufferance.’ Despising the diabolical sincerity of this latest s’Ffalenn wile, Lysaer was bitter.

‘No, brother.’ With unhurried calm, Arithon slung the sack across his shoulders. He buckled on the sword which once had been his father’s. ‘You’ll have to trust me. Let this prove my good faith.’ He reversed the knife neatly and tossed it at the prince’s feet. The jewelled handle struck earth, pattering sand over gold-stitched boots.

Lysaer bent. He retrieved his weapon. Impelled by antagonism too powerful to deny, he straightened with a flick of his wrist and flung the blade back at his enemy.

Arithon dropped beneath the dagger’s glittering arc. He landed rolling, shed the cumbersome sack, and was halfway back to his feet again at the moment Lysaer crashed into him. Black hair whipped under the impact of the prince’s ringed fist.

Arithon retaliated with his knee and returned a breathless plea. ‘Desist. My word is good.’

Lysaer cursed and struck again. Blood ran, spattering droplets over the sand. His enemy’s sword hilt jabbed his ribs as he grappled. Harried in close quarters he snatched, but could not clear the weapon from the sheath. Hatred burned through him like lust as he gouged s’Ffalenn flesh with his fingers. Shortly, the Master of Shadow would trouble no man further, Lysaer vowed; he tightened his hold for the kill.

An explosion of movement flung him back. Knuckles cracked the prince’s jaw, followed by the chop of a hand in his groin. He doubled over, gasping, as Arithon wrested clear. Lysaer clawed for a counterhold. Met by fierce resistance and a grip he could not break, he felt the tendons of his wrist twist with unbearable force. He lashed with his boot, felt the blow connect. The Master’s grasp fell away.

Lysaer lunged to seize the sword. Arithon kicked loose sand, and a shower of grit stung the prince’s eyes. Blinded, shocked to hesitation by dirty tactics, Lysaer felt his enemy’s hands lock over both of his forearms. Then a terrific wrench threw him down. Before he could recover, a hail of blows tumbled him across the ground.

Through a dizzy haze of pain, Lysaer discovered that he lay on his back. Sweat dripped down his temples. Through a nasty, unspeakable interval, he could do nothing at all but lie back in misery and pant. He looked up at last, forced to squint against the light which jumped along the sword held poised above his heart.

Blood snaked streaks through the sand on Arithon’s cheek. His expression flat with anger, he said, ‘Get up. Try another move like that and I’ll truss you like a pig.’

‘Do it now,’ the prince said viciously. ‘I hate the air you breathe.’

The blade quivered. Lysaer waited, braced for death. But the sword only flickered and stilled in the air. Seconds passed, oppressive with heat and desert silence.

‘Get up,’ the Master repeated finally. ‘Move now,
or by
Ath, I’ll drive you to your feet with sorcery.
’ He stepped back. Steel rang dissonant as a fallen harp as he rammed the sword into his scabbard. ‘I intend to see you out of this wasteland alive. After that, you need never set eyes on me again.’

Blue eyes met green with a flash of open antagonism. Then, with irritating abandon, Arithon laughed. ‘Proud as a prize bull. You
are
your father’s son, to the last insufferable detail.’ The Master’s mirth turned brittle. Soon afterward, the sand began to prickle, then unpleasantly to burn the prince’s prone body.

Accepting the risk that the sensation was born of illusion, Lysaer resisted the urge to rise. The air in his nostrils seared like a blast from a furnace, and his hair and clothing clung with sticky sweat. Wrung by the heat and the unaccustomed throes of raw pain, the prince shut his eyes. Arithon left him to retrieve the thrown dagger. He gathered the fisherman’s cloak which had muffled Lysaer through his passage of the Gate and stowed that along with the provisions. Then the Master walked back. He discovered the prince still supine on the sand and the last of his patience snapped.

Lysaer felt his mind clamped by remorseless force. Overcome by the brilliant, needle-point focus in the touch which pinned him, he lost his chance to resist. The blow which followed struck only his mind, but a scream of agony ripped from his throat.

‘Get up!’ Sweat ploughed furrows through the dirt on Arithon’s face. He attacked again without compunction. The prince knew pain that seared away reason; left nothing beyond an animal’s instinct to survive, he screamed again. Peal after peal of anguish curdled the desert silence before the punishment ended. Lysaer lay curled in the sand, shaking, gasping and angered beyond all forgiveness.

‘Get up.’

Balked to speechless frustration, Lysaer complied. But wedged like a knot in his heart was a vow to end the life of the sorcerer who had forced his inner will.

The half-brothers from Dascen Elur travelled east. Red as the embers of a blacksmith’s forge the sun swung overhead, heating sand to temperatures that seared exposed flesh. Arithon bound his naked feet with strips torn from his shirt and urged the prince on through hills which shimmered and swam in the still air. By midday the dunes near at hand shattered under a wavering screen of mirage. The Master tapped his gift and wove shadow to provide shade. Lysaer expressed no gratitude. Poisoned through by distrust, he alternated between silence and insults until the desert sapped his fresh energy.