Traitor's Knot (40 page)

‘I will not see you make an alliance with havoc!' Sulfin Evend used his studded bracer as a club and tried to stun his liege unconscious. The effort fell short. The knife gouged and slipped. Blood pooled in the hollow of Lysaer's throat, while the unmanageable grip of Desh-thiere's curse trampled down ethics and reason.

The crux wrung the loyal heart beyond bearing: to burn alive in Lysaer's crazed assault, or to drive home the knife like a butcher.
Yet even the choice to serve death had not spared the other three officers trapped in the breach.
Black spell-craft had claimed them in ruinous usage, a fate now poised to overtake the most powerful ruler in the five kingdoms. The weal of the Alliance, and who knew how many innocent lives, hung in the horrific balance.

‘Lysaer!' Sulfin Evend shouted to break concentration,
any
effort to redirect the burgeoning rip tide of light. ‘Fight your war! But not this way! Don't join hands with the dark cabal whose twisted acts drove your wife and your son into danger!'

Slammed into a riser, battered half-dizzy, the s'Ilessid prince sucked a wracked breath. ‘They were pawns. Stand aside! Don't think to obstruct me.'

Out of the cold dark, the spelled voice kept taunting. ‘But your son's name is not on the rolls of the dead. This I vow! The master I serve could tell you what forces have laid claim to Prince Kevor's destiny'

Sulfin Evend felt the hardening under his hands. ‘No!' His scream shattered the welded tension with echoes, while his liege's mad fury unleashed. Lost beyond hope, the lord commander cried out, ‘Lysaer! Destroy the conspiracy that murdered Princess Talith! Then handle the Spinner of Darkness in a conflict at arms, untainted by black ties of necromancy!'

Success or failure, the shocked air burned white. Dazzled blind, scoured by heat, Sulfin Evend hung on, as hammer to anvil, the percussive clash of Lysaer's raised light smashed down. He heard ragged speech; realized his liege was weeping the name of his departed beloved. For
Talith
, the force of Lysaer's outraged assault turned upon the worked tool of the grey cult below him.

The strike roared through the keep like the fires of Sithaer. Flash-point heat glazed the lower cellar to slag. Both ward-room and dungeon were scoured. Doors, walls, and steel glistened red, then ignited. The unnatural fires belched up a curtain of black smoke, as razed masonry bloomed orange and ran molten. The stairwell above became a chimney, blasted by the winds of inferno. Clothing smoked. Skin blistered. Whipped hair singed in the blast. On the landing below, the downed guardsmen sizzled, flesh and bone seared away, while the stink of the fumes ripped the guts of the living into paroxysms of nausea.

Retching, flash-blinded, Sulfin Evend slammed his liege into the stone step with stunning force. Then, scoured fingers still gripped to the knife, he locked his left arm and dragged his unconscious charge in a stumbling rush up the stairwell. He reeled ahead, hauling Lysaer along with him. Hot air seized his throat. Swirling fumes turned his senses. Sulfin Evend could not see, only grope his way upwards. If the mercury shadow of spell-craft still stalked, his gifted talent was blinded. He could but hope the uncanny assault had been thwarted when the necromancer's string-puppet cabal had been consumed.

Fire raged, beyond salvage. Bricks shattered, red-hot. The dungeon was blasted to ruin.

Coughing, stung bloody as the blast fragments raked him, Sulfin Evend rounded the bend. He saw torch-light, then the pallid square of the upper postern, stamped amid the morass of churned smoke. Cradled in his locked grasp, his liege lay rag-doll limp, a wound running red at his throat. Ahead, faint shapes against the trammelled twilight, he saw his posted guardsmen, responding. Their distressed shouts seemed far off. Sulfin Evend had no voice left to cry warning. He was fordone. If wisps of vile spell-craft streamed through the murk, no recourse remained. He could not enact further remedy.

Above, the grand hall of state was in flames, gone up like a torch to the roof towers. The foundations already crumpled, below. In moments, the whole lower stairwell would give way and collapse into crumbling ruin. Sulfin Evend could not do any more than continue his harried flight upwards.

The men reached him. Hands fumbled and grabbed. Their touch woke his seared skin to agony. Sulfin Evend cried out, even as saving strength hauled him up, then dragged him along with his unconscious burden in a careening rush towards the doorway.

‘That's the Blessed Prince himself!' someone cried. ‘Mercy on us, he's bloodied! What ill force attacked him?'

‘Get him out!' Sulfin Evend managed to gasp. He could scarcely see, barely hear, while the wheeling roof seemed to plunge in a downward spiral upon him. Before faintness claimed him, he croaked, ‘Chain my liege in bed. Strap this knife to his skin. My orders, on pain of treason! No man is to take me away from his Grace's presence!'

Aftermath left the harsh, appalled silence that followed an earth-shaking thunder-clap. The blackened, raw scar of the grand hall of state still belched sullen fumaroles of black smoke. Ash sifted over Avenor's smudged roof-tops, while the smouldering talk in the streets placed the blame on the Spinner of Darkness.

There would be war.

Clad in stark white with a discreet, buttoned collar masking his bandaged throat, Lysaer s'Ilessid confronted his Lord Commander, who lay swathed in dressings soaked with medicinal unguents to cool the raging sting of his burns.

‘I will not deflect the course of this outrage,' Lysaer declared with crisp sovereignty. ‘This nest of conspiracy at Avenor is cleaned, but connections remain under question. If corruption did not work hand in glove with the Spinner of Darkness, ties existed. Find my wife, or my son, and I'll prove them.'

Prostrate on pillows, and sweating in discomfort, Sulfin Evend glared back. Hoarse, he still argued. ‘Etarra, first, liege. More trouble lurks there. If the corruption we just defeated has tapped into Raiett's massive network of spies, the connection you attribute to Shadow is falsehood.' He held firm on that point. His harrowing acts in the stairwell granted his claim to that licence. Yet the privilege did nothing to lessen the force of his liege's imperious displeasure.

Sulfin Evend did not waver. If his eyes were raw red, his wits stayed ice-cold.

A populace convinced that the heart of their regency had suffered an assaulting strike by raised sorcery might be blindly convinced to lay blame on a culprit. Frightened guilds would bring outlays of funds for fresh troops; a unified council would speed restoration. But here, in this sun-washed, taut chamber, alone, the Alliance commander would not play shell games with the truth. The palace page who had carried the false message was missing, with the thirteenth fugitive still somewhere at large.

‘Your interests are being played against sorcery,' Sulfin Evend insisted. ‘You must realize that, liege. A clan war and a siege of Alestron will undermine the Fellowship Sorcerers, then whittle away at the talent that safe-guards the open country-side. Distrust of Ath's adepts will only serve the cult factions that just tried to lay claim to your talent for their use as a private weapon.'

‘Light has triumphed.' The statement was too polished. Jewels threw off scintillant glints in the daylight, while the icy draught through the casement still wafted the flint reek of char. ‘Today, the streets of Avenor are safe.' Lysaer moved, found a chair, and sat by the bedside. His pale grace caught the breath, for the spark of conviction that fuelled what seemed bed-rock earnestness. ‘The plot to destroy my regency is disarmed, and your loyal defence will not be disowned or disparaged.'

That lost love for a woman had been the stay that spared the staunch hero from immolation had gone unspoken. Yet Sulfin Evend's taut stillness spoke volumes.

‘No disgrace will arise for our difference,' said Lysaer. ‘A discharge with honour is yours, at a word.'

Sulfin Evend held to his stark silence. He dared not state his view: that war against Fellowship interests, and clan presence, may have been the main thrust of the treasonous cabal's agenda. If so, then the cause of the Kralovir necromancers had been brilliantly served. When the Light of the Blessed raised arms against Shadow, an untold evil might bid for free rein to slip through the ragged breach.

‘I will fight alone as need be,' Lysaer promised. Such regal poise would never beg, even at risk of dismissing the sole, selfless friendship that touched
his humanity. ‘You need not retain your Alliance rank if my service wears too heavily upon you.'

While Sulfin Evend refused speech, those piercing blue eyes dared not waver. Lysaer pressed on. But his immaculate hands now had locked in his lap, while the trembling flicker of gold braid at his cuffs exposed the pent force of his feelings. ‘This much of your counsel I will take to heart. I promise to test my convictions. Once the hard evidence has been disclosed, woe betide Duke Bransian if his family has worked a covert betrayal against me. For Alestron's fortified strength is too powerful a resource to align with the powers of Darkness.'

‘I shall keep the command,' Sulfin Evend rasped back. He had little choice. What he could not blunt, he must now strive to temper.

His oath to a Sorcerer married him to the land. With eyesight unsealed, he had glimpsed the deep mysteries preserved by the Fellowship's compact. Too late, he perceived the raw conflict: that the blinding effects of the curse that drove Lysaer could never be leashed in restraint. The Alliance ideology would not be laid to rest before the bastard half-brother's blood stained the field. As a weapon, the geas of Desh-thiere offered a tool without parallel. The inflammatory words just unleashed by the Kralovir's machinations surely seeded a deadly design: for a wife in the custody of Ath's adepts, and a clan ally turned, and a son kept alive by no less than mystical sorcery, swords would be raised for the cause of the Light. With Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn as the dangled prize, Lysaer's flawed will would forge a new war host to launch another assault against Shadow.

Strapped by a blood oath and conflicted honour, the one man at the right hand of the avatar foresaw the tragic crux. The invidious play was poised to destroy Athera's bright powers of initiate mastery. For dark ends, the black cults wanted the world's greater mysteries torn asunder and broken.

‘I should weep to take up the challenge,' Sulfin Evend grated at length.

The words raised his liege's most dazzling smile. The gift of such trust was undeserved. Shamed to the quick, he ached for grief, that an upright man's justice should have been suborned to spear-head annihilation. Against curse-flawed charisma, and the risen star of a self-proclaimed avatar, Sulfin Evend became the last voice of sanity, wedged in the bleeding breach.

Late Winter 5671

Midwinter to spring, when the passes were closed, all items crossing the continent followed the shipping that plied the prosperous, southern sea-routes. As terminus for the silk caravans from Atchaz, whose raw bales were in prime demand, the port of Innish on the coast of Shand became the stewpot for breaking news. Dispatches moved with the commerce of trade. The factors who handled the lading of ships also passed the brisk traffic of state correspondence.

Though Fiark's obtuse network might be the least recognized, his unerring eye for profitable cargoes suggested the unusual depth and diversity of his contacts. Close-mouthed and quiet, his discretion was legend. He met with his hired captains in public and kept the family interests carried out by his sister the carefully guarded exception.

‘Did you know,' Feylind groused, ‘that they call you “the clam”?' Sunburned and raffish, and wearing a man's jerkin redolent of ship's tar and fish oil, she grinned, then perched herself with flagrant abandon upon the most comfortable brocade chair. ‘You owe me, for patience,' she declared without fuss as her brother winced for his cushions. ‘I'll buy you two beers,
with
the fact, I didn't kick any nitpicking customs men off my decks into the harbour.'

‘That's because Teive kept your temper in hand,' Fiark denounced, though not without sympathy. Since the Innish port officers had noses like weasels and a rabid aversion to contraband, the
Evenstar's
logged movements were dealt a devouring scrutiny each time she hove into home port.

Feylind shrugged. ‘You'd think the damned vultures would tire of picking for carrion on a clean slate.'

No thanks to her brother, for the obdurate fact that her registry stayed aboveboard.
Her late trials had been no whit less, for that honesty. Long delay, a spoiled cargo, and an unscheduled hold-over to refit storm damage at Southshire had ruffled the hair of the clerks. The custom keeper's grilling had been worse than cantankerous.

Fiark's wry delight stayed undimmed behind the privacy of shuttered windows. ‘They didn't much like the fact you switched shipyards?'

‘Not!' Feylind snapped. The tapping search for hidden compartments had lasted two nerve-wracking days. ‘The old outfitter's peeved that we took business elsewhere. And Southshire's so dazzled by sunwheel banners, I daren't explain that some Innish port rat with a grievance sold us out for a Koriani sigil meant to entrap the Master of Shadow.'

‘They wanted Fionn Areth,' Fiark corrected, as always averse to high drama. ‘So you swore them to prostration and headaches instead?' His timely snatch saved his stacked papers, as his sister lounged back with intent to plant her sea-booted feet on his desk. ‘I know better than to think a few reddened ears might civilize your randy tongue.'

‘If oaths could snip bollocks, I'd have gelded the lot,' Feylind agreed with bad humour. She delved into the satchel strapped at her waist. ‘So what have you done in redress?'

‘Sent an inquiry' Fiark neatly fielded the catch as a sealed packet was tossed his way, granting discharge on the
Evenstar's
bill of inspection. ‘I have a man, a desert tribe half-breed, who works an orange press at the docks. He'll track down your spy. Although I suspect he will find nothing worse than a shamefaced labourer caught up in a sworn oath of debt.'

‘I'd spit him, regardless. You'd better check out the excisemen here, too. One of them wouldn't look me in the eye the last time we got laced by a round of impounded inspection.' Feylind trained her far-sighted squint on the disarranged letters on Fiark's desk. ‘That's King Eldir's seal? Did he sign you a trade grant? He should, for the service you gave through the famine.'

‘You're digging for news?' Fiark raised his eyebrows. ‘Don't say! The Southshire yards were
that
starved for new gossip?'

His sister tossed back her wisped rope of hair, her shore manners in place: at sea, she would have spat over the rail in excoriating contempt. ‘That port has the Light in its eyes to the point where the adult population couldn't whack the butt end of itself with a stick! Teive's with the children so I could come here and badger you for the truth.'

Fiark flicked the ship's papers. ‘Insurance, first,' he stated point-blank. ‘Your happy rendezvous on the high seas happens to have lost me a cargo.'

Feylind stretched forward and snatched up a pen. ‘I'll sign three blank sheets. You can copy the rest. The manifest's been inventoried five times at least, by the custom keeper's zealot accountants.'

‘They would inflate the values,' Fiark said, douce. ‘I'd much rather settle this quietly'

Which careful comment made Feylind glance up. ‘You talk like a merchant expecting a war.'

Fiark blinked. The uncanny way that his twin shared his mind was not always a comfort. While his sister uncapped the ink and scrawled signatures in her emphatic capitals, he recited the gist of the scandal that had all of the north taking pause—a blistering purge of Avenor's high council from a covert incursion of necromancy. Lysaer's summons in appeal to rectify damages had followed the shock to his dependent allies. Representatives were sent by Alliance-sworn mayors to help draft astringent new laws. These returned to their towns, clad in white robes and gold sashes, and quoting policy with assured serenity; of young talent recruited to speak for the Light, and a new order of priesthood expressly dedicated to expose the secretive workings of sorcery.

‘This batch has arcane awareness guarding its works, fledgling seers declared for the Light. Far from shaken in faith, we're seeing complacent delusion. Lysaer's distrust of sorcery is fast becoming a rigid doctrine,' Fiark finished, saddened. ‘After such a betrayal, which threatened a black nightmare, we are now promised that any man taking arms against Shadow will receive the reward of death without Darkness. Avenor's sent out a starry-eyed flock of recruiters—'

Feylind broke in, ‘Those fanatics who pitch sunwheel tents in the fields and hold meetings? Folk wander in out of friendly curiosity, and leave euphoric with strong wine and slogans.'

‘You heard about those?' Fiark said, surprised. ‘But that trend is recent!'

His sister chuckled. ‘Word's carried, and fast. The water-front landlords are loudly displeased. Free drink dents their profits. The brothels haven't loved Lysaer for years. Not with the herb witches hounded from practice. The simples business has gone over to Koriathain, which change has raised venomous catfights. The order's always been greedy for girl-children. Any tincture they brew to stay pregnancy goes at an extortionate rate.' Paused for assessment, Feylind shook her head, serious. ‘What does King Eldir say? Is he worried that s'Ilessid evangelists are foaming too much at the mouth?'

‘Not words. A crown warning.' Fiark ticked the sealed paper. ‘Lysaer's priesthood's not welcome in Havish. Their ruling on sorcery threatens the compact, and their blithe stance on cult practice is dangerous.'

Feylind moved, straightened, then lifted her crossed ankles and assumed the first sober posture her brother could remember, away from command on a ship's deck. ‘The High King would dare close the ports to this threat?'

Fiark winced. ‘It must lead to a royal edict eventually, but you're right. For now, the subject's too volatile. Lysaer himself does not preach violence. Nevertheless, the view is wide-spread: the guild merchant who shares his wealth with the Blessed gets an armed pack of sunwheel dedicates to defend his interests from clan predation.' He shot his neat cuffs, then searched out a sheet and read in direct quotation,
‘“Teach them kindness, that the masses will learn to despise evil. Attach them to beauty, security, and allegiance, and they will
grow to resent the least hint of a threatened intrusion. Let the Master of Shadow assume his due blame for all discord. Outrage will set the more deeply and grant us the strength of a fear-based response.”'

‘Whose lines?' Feylind gasped. ‘Ath on earth! What a bundle of cock-and-bull rhetoric!'

‘Etarra's new Minister of the Peace at his finest.' Fiark sighed. ‘A misnomer, truly. War's brewing. Not quickly. The Alliance of Light has to rebuild its troops. My contacts assure that Lysaer will move first to secure his runaway wife. He's launched stringent inquiries concerning a rumour that questions the fate of his son. Deeper intrigues are moving. I have inside word that the s'Brydion at Alestron may have been exposed. Their transgressions will be probed through diplomacy to mark time as the Light's new war host is mustered. If there won't be bloodshed next season, the tone at large is brewing towards resonant hatred. Is Prince Arithon warned of the danger that's rising against him?'

‘Oh, he knows.' Feylind frowned, conflicted by difficulty. How to explain the change in the man who had emerged from Kewar's trials alive? Liaison with an eagle who shapechanged to a Sorcerer kept Arithon tightly apprised. Yet against the shifting tangle of politics, even Davien dared not presume to foretell the Master of Shadow's' response. ‘Who can guess what his Grace will do next? Let me tell you, Dakar squirmed like a moth in hot wax each time the subject was mentioned.'

‘Well, the question's not dangling,' Fiark said, drained. He tossed the damning copy of Etarra's state document onto his disarranged desk. ‘The Prince of Rathain is coming ashore; I received his royal word yesterday. I've pleaded with him to stay at sea with the
Khetienn
, again and again, to no use. When his Grace decides he has unfinished business, no one alive can gainsay him.'

‘Not now, they couldn't. Nor Dharkaron himself, with his damnable Chariot and Horses.' Feylind met her twin's splintering stare. Then she locked shaking hands, sucked a deep breath, and came to an inward decision. ‘You've got a cargo outbound for Havish? Then I beg you, send
Evenstar
west.'

Fiark considered this, quiet. On matters that counted, he could become the very soul of considerate tact. ‘Teive doesn't like Arithon?'

A desperate, fast head-shake came back in reply. For drawn moments, Feylind managed no speech at all, while the razor-thin mote that glanced through the cracked shutter splintered against the seal of the High King's distressed correspondence.

Feylind masked the sight behind her taut hands, then admitted, aggrieved, ‘Teive likes our difficult friend all too well. Honest as pig-iron about it, forbye!' Defeat, when it came, was all bitterness, tempered by an ineffable sorrow. ‘So I'll choose life, for both of us. I don't want my mate pulped, or my children left parentless. Not for one of us speaking our mind in the breach to these packs of Light-blinded fanatics!'