TWOLAS - 06 - Peril's Gate (88 page)

In wonder, he bore witness, while the adepts who sang him back to ecstasy dipped into that quickened stream. As they had, many times, they gathered unharnessed power in looping coils. Their deft handling braided the energies into a rope, then guided the living current back down, through their linked minds, into the heart of the circle.

There, the power surged, made gently captive to the wisdom of their intent. Into the cataract of drawn light, they dreamed, and their thoughts spun the fires of energy into form, ephemeral and unearthly fair.

Kevor cried out, his spirit raised to an explosion of exquisite delight. He beheld the living mystery, whirled into the dance of pure light as the adepts interceded, calling down the singing powers sent forth by Ath Creator. He witnessed the alchemy of transmutation, as their Brotherhood invoked unity and blessing, and allowed the wild forces to adorn the heartcore of their sacred groves. The limitless creativity of their dreaming sustained their liminal forests, and brought forth the water to endow the deep wisdom embued in their welling springs.

Here, the hoop of the cosmos was joined, sunfire and moonbeam and love bent to earth and cradled there in tender care, to engender undying celebration.

At first hesitant, then with an unleashed, bursting confidence, Kevor joined into the summoning. He had walked that far place, where the power was drawn from the limitless flow of abundance. He had seen and touched patterns that others had not, in the course of his convalescent sojourn. From those far horizons, the thread of his gathering flowed into the weave, and the colors of twilight flowered in joy, as the first new voice in a hundred years joined into the circle's chanting . . .

The moment was marked.

Far southward, in Ath's hostel at Scimlade Tip, an adept named Claithen opened his eyes, aroused from his hour of contemplation. He stretched as though touched by a fresh breath of wind, though no breezes stirred the dead leaves, gathered in brittle drifts at his feet; nor had, for a quarter of a decade.

'Oh, blessed,' he whispered, as the burgeoning awareness touched him and powerfully infused his wearied spirit. As though heavy darkness saw the first blush of dawn, he straightened.
Almost,
he thought he heard the tentative trickle of water splash over the dry stones of the spring.

'Oh bravely blessed, let me bear the truth.' Afraid that his aggrieved longing might have tricked his sore heart, he looked up just in time to behold the blighted tree overhead burst into a fragrant shower of white blossom.

'Oh blessed!' His shout rang. 'We are given a savior and the gift of rebirth.'

His trembling smile melted into tears of gladness, and the echoes of his cry brought the dusky-skinned lady, who alone had remained at his side to attend the withered wreckage of a grove that had once been made green through thousands of years of devotions.

'Who?' she asked, ripped into laughter as the joy burst from her throat. 'Who has accepted the white robes of adept and brought us the first breath of healing?'

'You don't recognize the voice of this miracle?' Claithen caught her slender brown hands, his dark eyes shining with wonderment. 'Life has wrought another full circle. His birth name was Kevor
s'Ilessid
.'

Early Spring 5670

Crucible

Exhaustion was a blanketing weight, dragging him down into darkness. The draining ordeal of Vastmark behind him, Arithon sank to his knees in Kewar Tunnel as Jilieth's determined grip faded and left his limp hand. He realized he must not give way before weariness. Must not lie down in prostrate surrender, or succumb to disorientation.

Yet the traumatized nerves that suffered the impact of thirty thousand violent deaths were by now numbed past response. Emotions tormented by a surfeit of grief had wrung dry, scorched beyond reach of desire. The screams of the lost had pummeled Arithon's mind until he would have been grateful for deafness. He had cried aloud for heart-torn remorse, until his voice wore away, leaving a ringing, blank silence. To feel nothing at all seemed the very haven of peace. Pummeled half-witless by the experienced trauma of repeated battering wounds, his shrinking flesh clung to the false safety of stillness. Ingrained reflex insisted the least effort to walk forward would unleash the floodgates of punishment.

Arithon battled that visceral recoil. Blood oath had been sworn to the Fellowship Sorcerers. No less than Elaira's life lay cradled between his two hands. He dared not succumb to the leaden weakness dragging him down into lassitude.

'Respect my free will,' he husked through a throat skinned from incessant screaming. 'I have not broken down in consent.'

Yet will by itself could not master the overwhelming weight of spent flesh. Beaten limp, rendered half-dead by the bleeding rags of s'Ffalenn conscience and the unruly drive of the curse, Arithon sank toward collapse. Pressed to the reeling edge of unconsciousness, he sprawled on chill stone, one aching breath drawn after the next. The sorry truth scourged him, that his last mustered strength seemed insufficient to drag himself back to his feet. A reviling shame, if Davien's Maze claimed him with an unbroken will, through an outworn body unable to marshal the brute resource to stand upright.

Touched by the first sense of numbing diffusion as spelled powers crept through his being, beginning the process that would unspin his mind, Arithon extended his arm. He forced the lamed effort, wormed another inch forward on his belly.

'That's it,' encouraged a vibrant male voice, just ahead of him. 'Now reach!'

Arithon opened his bandaged right hand, strained outstretched fingers to their trembling limit.

A hard grasp closed over his blood-slippery wrist, stained wet from the killing at Vastmark. A man's sure grip pulled, and the floor rolled underneath him, transformed at a breath from cold stone into sun-heated planks. The smells of warm tar and oakum rode the bracing east wind, salt tanged by the booming rush of blue water cleaved by a brigantine's stem post.

Arithon shut his eyes, overwhelmed by sheer gratitude. The draw of filled canvas and the thrum of taut rigging bespoke the last freedom he owned in the world. The mercy of another unknown savior had delivered him onto the decks of his own vessel,
Khetienn.

'Sail with me,' invited the speaker, a voice he recognized at last. 'They say that Ath's ocean holds all the tears in creation. Man need shed no more. Only allow the rocking of waves and the cry of the wind to ease the sore grief from his heart.'

Arithon unsealed shut lids and looked up, disbelieving. 'Father?'

Spinning vision showed him Avar s'Ffalenn, his sturdy stance braced against the toss of the swell. Brash and bold as the day he raised
Saeriat's
sails, charting the course that had carried a son from Rauven to a prince's inheritance on Karthan, the sire did not appear royal born. Dark hair was tied back in a sailhand's braid. A fighting man's breadth of shoulder, as always, wore sun-faded linen spun from second-rate flax. The rough fibers would have been pulled and spun by Karthan's women, who wrested their living out of the saltmarshes and bottomlands too poor for raising cattle or barley.

The gray eyes whose compassionate clarity had once won Talera's love regarded the grown son, now sprawled on the planks at his feet.

'Your Grace, why are you here?' Arithon ground out. For this ocean voyage aboard
Khetienn
had not been launched on Avar's homeworld of Dascen Elur. She had sailed the uncharted deeps of Athera in vain search for the vanished Paravians.

The pirate king who had once ruled in Karthan flashed a smile of even, white teeth. Laugh lines scored across the old scar of a cutlass crinkled his weathered features. 'I'm here because I fathered a man with great heart. You once renounced all the gifts of your upbringing to bring succor to a people who needed you. There is pride in the heritage of our ancestry. Will you stand for it? Or will you languish and let yourself die as a sacrifice to the cause?'

'What cause was worth this?' Arithon regarded his dripping hands, still wet with the heartsblood of the slain: both friend and enemy who had marched onto the field to die because he existed. 'Some who paid sacrifice were my sworn liegemen, and mine, the cruel purpose that killed them.'

Avar raised dark eyebrows, gravely astonished. 'The dead are beyond pain. You alone suffer, now.' His grasp upon Arithon's wrist only tightened. His seafarer's strength raised his son up from prostration, with no thought at all for the bloodstains wicked up by his cuff. 'Where is the evil? Show me
one man
you coerced into war. Find me one child you forced to wield the knife. Name the one enemy you killed out of hatred, or the one woman who was despoiled under your orders. Arithon, you never once compromised the first Law of the Major Balance. You have never misled friend or enemy, or beguiled them from free will.'

Arithon shut his eyes, the bile of self-hatred like a coal on his tongue. 'I have done worse.' Seared to a whisper, he added, 'I have used magecraft to kill, not once, but many times.'

Ahead, still ahead, lay the field at Daon Ramon, and the passing of Jieret, who had been his sworn blood bond, and dearer to him than a brother.

'The violation of murder is a human error.' Avar gave him a slight shake, the censure a man might deal a beloved dog who cringed, expecting the whip. 'A man wreaks harm because he forgets to love peace. He kills because of self-blinded fear, that imagines no other protection.'

'I am cursed!' Arithon cried. 'Desh-thiere's geas
-
'

Avar cut him off. Arithon, no! To pronounce yourself condemned in this place is to die. Abandon your own grace, and the maze will tear you to pieces.'

'What else is my life, but a cipher that upends the peace?' Arithon locked stares with his father. Silver-gray as the luminosity of sunlight through fog, Avar's direct gaze encompassed him. As Talera had done, just as anguished before him, he fell and fell, into those fathomless eyes. Their compassion absorbed his jagged-edged pain until the hurt was left no place to rest, except one.

'I gave Karthan my pledge for peace, your Grace, and then watched you die of an enemy arrow aboard
Saeriat,'
Arithon resumed, torn rough by his sorrow. 'Your realm was abandoned, a kingless prize lying ripe for the vengeance of Amroth.'

'Yes, I passed the Wheel.' Avar shifted his grip, eased his son's stumbling balance to rest against the support of the ship's rail. The brigantine tossed, the frisky wind driving her close-hauled. Shearing foam boiled up from her rampaging passage. Leaping and splashing against
Khetienn'
s black strakes, the frothing blue swell of the Cildein carved up into lace and dashed foam.

As the healing of the elements worked its slow magic, Avar resumed the snagged thread of conversation. 'Amroth's arrow killed me, but Karthan was not conquered. After your exile, the high mage himself interceded. Rauven forced the peace. The treaties bear the seals your grandfather wrought of grand conjury. His mages came and saw your dream realized. Our island realm is made green again. That is the legacy you left Dascen Elur. In your memory, the heirs of s'Ahelas have pledged their trained talent to stand surety that the long feud with Amroth stays ended.'

As Arithon, who had thought himself emptied of tears, bent his head to crossed forearms and wept, he felt his father's embrace cradle his shaking shoulders.

'My son, you are loved. Accept the gift and find respite.' Avar's plea took fire, became passionate appeal. 'Sail with me, prince. Celebrate life for the people of Karthan. They raise no more children, crying in hunger. Nor will they send brothers and husbands to sea, bearing a sword to win plunder.'

Time passed. The calming influence of spring sunlight, sea wind and spray worked their gentle restoration. Arithon settled. His legs bore his weight, and gradually ceased trembling. Uplifted by the surge of sail-driven wood knifing over the ocean, he straightened at last. He found that his fouled hands had washed clean. As he straightened to give thanks, he felt Avar's steady presence fading to filmed smoke beside him.

'Father,' he pleaded, heartsore with regret. 'Must you leave? I always felt as though I had just found you. If our days in Karthan were too brief, I would not stand here without you.'

The rough-cut s'Ffalenn king who had steered his last landward course smiled fondly. 'On that point, my son, you are most wrong.' His expression reflected a tenderness perhaps only Talera had witnessed. 'Arithon, use your perception as you were taught at Rauven. You will then see the truth. It is I who would not stand here without you. My presence in this maze was admitted by yours. It is ever your own virtue that guides you.
Remember that!
You are your own lamp, through the darkness.'

'Then what light will guide me past Caolle's death?' Arithon cried on a split note of dread. 'Desh-thiere's curse claimed my reason in that hour. Where will I turn if the drive of that binding grows too overpowering to control?'

Avar raised his eyebrows, his outline thinned to an iridescent shimmer. 'Well, there's one tactic left that you haven't tried.'

Caught dumbfounded at the rail of his own command, Arithon stiffened. 'Ath's earth and sky! I swore my blood oath at Athir to survive!'

In that wry, vicious cunning that had endlessly confounded Amroth's best-outfitted fleets, Avar laughed. 'Oh, but death is too obvious, a coward's trick well beneath your s'Ffalenn name and lineage! Are you not my son? Did Karthan's outmatched plight teach you nothing?' The last trace of the pirate king's form wisped away, leaving only his voice, a challenge flung back on the wind. 'Desh-thiere's spells wage a feud, boy! Don't rely on control! Can't fall back and negotiate! Take hold of the hell-spawned geas that gnaws you.
If you cannot run, you must master it!'

Arithon stared, sightless, at the rolling swells, surging unbroken toward the horizon. 'Master the curse? Merciful maker!'

For if means existed, why had the combined wisdom of Fellowship spellcraft not found the path to release?

Arithon jabbed savage fingers through his hair, goading his stumbling intellect. The maze collapsed time, caused memories to flow one into the next without regard for scale or proportion. Davien had designed this trial to test a man's conscience. The thrust of spelled seals held no investment in reward. The victim who had lived all his days in tranquillity could pass through at one stride, without suffering.

The snags came where willed choice threw the mind out of balance. Restored to a measure of healed equilibrium, Arithon felt the respite of seafaring drain away. Now, when he most needed a clear interval to think, vision faded. The confines of the tunnel closed back in. Another breath, one last kiss of sun and salt wind on his cheek, and he faced the inevitable step that must carry him into the reliving at Riverton.

No mercy would be shown, should he stall to think. The maze would allow him no planning. No choice, but to apologize through hard-shut teeth, begging grace from the shade of his father.

Arithon strode forward.

His foot came down, setting him back into the blustery chill of that fateful westshore springtime.
Again,
he played as the bard in residence at the Laughing Captain Tavern. The languorous days spent winding lyranthe strings, and the deeper threads of subterfuge laced through the works of Tysan's royal shipyard, were not seen as harmless, in retrospect.

First came the fever-bright dreams, running tracks through his restless sleep. He had tossed in damp sheets, plagued by suggestive whispers, or lured into visions of blood and killing. The nightmares had eluded precise waking recall, eroding his spirit like slow poison and leaving him snappish during the days. Next came the tossing, wakeful nights, battling down the sweating desire to bolt, sword in hand, for the stables. The hours in solitude when he burned like vengeance unleashed to ride flat out toward Avenor. He had flinched like a man ambushed at queer moments, when Lysaer's image fleeted into his thoughts, striking him to rage like the brutal, swift jab to a nerve.

He quelled the spurious flare of such feelings. Dismissed the stray incidents, or shoved them down. Absorbed in single
-
minded determination to wrest away Tysan's ships and spare the clan bloodlines of Camris, Arithon lived and acted his belief that the drive of the geas could be managed.

He rationalized. He argued with Dakar. The Alliance advance guard would not guess his identity. In all of Riverton, only three others knew that a screening of shadow had altered his natural face. The subliminal friction relentlessly mounted, until that last evening, two days before the planned launching.