Traitor's Knot (17 page)

King Eldir of Havish arrived without fanfare, his solid frame an imposing presence that crowded the snug stern cabin aboard the merchant brig
Evenstar.
Past the cramped threshold, he peeled his wet gloves and swiped back his dripping hair. Eyes grey as the storm beyond the streaked glass fixed at once on the stranger installed on the cushioned seat by the chart table. All else seemed in order: bills of lading awaited, alongside a trimmed quill and ink flask. Not one to dismiss an uneasy detail, the High King held his ground and stayed standing. ‘What have you brought us, Captain? A foundling cast up by the sea?'

‘Evenstar
ships cargoes, not hard luck passengers,' Feylind demurred where she leaned, arms crossed by the gimballed lamp.

The blanket-wrapped presence of the woman defied that impression: the bare feet tucked under her loose trousers were raw, and her diffident voice faintly trembled. ‘I came by land, your Grace.' Still damp, she pushed back masking wool and unveiled a crimped spill of brown hair, gently salted with grey. Care-worn eyes of a liquid, doe brown watched the royal stance, wary.

King Eldir decided her reserved poise did not match the menial callus that ingrained her small hands.

His held silence demanded.

The woman made haste to explain. ‘Captain Feylind has lent me the use of her cabin to spare the embarrassment of importuning your favour out in the public street.'

The king's steel gaze flickered, a wordless query redirected back to the
Evenstar's
master.

‘Your Grace, I have granted the privacy of my ship. Nothing else,' Feylind clarified. ‘If you care to listen, the lady has come a long and perilous distance seeking a royal audience.'

King Eldir advanced to the chart table, then bent his head under the encroaching deck-beams. No servant attended him. Only his taciturn
caithdein
stood guard in the companionway, close behind. The court clerk would be detained outside, strategically snagged by the mate concerning the matter of a mislaid tally sheet. By now aware the delay was no accident, the king tossed off his soaked mantle. Beneath, he wore no regal tabard. A badge with Havish's scarlet hawk blazon was discreetly sewn on to his sleeve. His plain leathers were cut for riding. The fillet that gleamed on his brow was thin wire, with the ruby seal upon his right hand the only royal jewel upon him.

He seated himself, his eyes on the woman who filled sailhand's clothes with the grace of a birth-born courtier. ‘My lady, you have asked for my ear. Be assured, at this moment, you have it.'

This crowned sovereign's demeanour did not overwhelm, or bate the breath like Lysaer's blinding majesty. Buoyed by a bed-rock patience that appeared willing to wait, the petitioner wasted no words. ‘Your royal Grace, I have come here to beg Havish for sanctuary'

Eldir held her pinned with his level regard. ‘Under whose name?'

‘I prefer anonymity, your Grace. With good reason. My life has been threatened.'

The caught flame of reflection in the gold circlet stayed steady, unlike the bald
caithdein
behind, whose wary fingers closed on his knives. ‘Who has threatened your life, lady?'

She swallowed, uncertain, now unable to mask the tremors of her breaking terror. ‘The regency of Tysan,' she whispered.

‘I see,' said the king. Yet, he did not. The surprise that flared within those grey eyes was sudden and wide as new morning. ‘Lady, do you have proof?'

When she nodded, King Eldir commanded his
caithdein
without turning his head. ‘Fetch Ianfar s'Gannley At once!'

At the woman's bounding start, he moved, caught her wrists. Fast as she set her hands to the table, he arrested her thrust to arise.

She protested, rattled. ‘Your Grace! I have asked for your ear with no outside witness at hand!'

‘Princess,' said the king, stripping pretence away, ‘where you are concerned, there can't be anonymity! The young man I've summoned is the named heir of Tysan's invested crown steward.' As her courage deflated, he qualified swiftly. ‘We observe the old law, here. By royal charter, Avenor's business is his. That is as it must be, or are you not Ellaine, wife of Lysaer s'Ilessid?' He released her, and waited.

When she sat, as she must, or go her way destitute, his commanding baritone gentled. ‘Accept your clan spokesman. He is ally, not enemy. For Havish
to shelter you would be grounds for war. Your safety can't be bought through bloodshed.'

Machiel's shout filtered back through the strained pause, shortly broken by running footsteps. An energetic man clad in the king's livery burst in, breathless and scattering raindrops. He was a strapping fellow in his late twenties, come into the grace of his stature. His fair hair was bound in an elaborate braid, and his eyes, dark as shadow, missed nothing. He bowed to the king, fist on chest, as the clans did, his flushed features keenly alert. ‘Your Grace?'

King Eldir referred him to the woman huddled under the blankets, in borrowed shirt and sea breeches. ‘She is Lady Ellaine.' As the clan liegeman's eyes widened, the king qualified, his choice of state language precise. ‘She has come here in appeal against an injustice, claimed against the pretender's regency at Avenor.'

The clansman recovered himself, faced the woman who sat opposite, then bowed, fist to heart. To his credit, her dress and rough hands did not merit more than a curious glance. ‘Ianfar s'Gannley, my lady,' he announced in flawless address. Then he smiled. ‘As a mother who has borne the blood royal of Tysan, freely ask of my service, as heir to my cousin's title.'

Ellaine regarded him, taken aback. His accent was crisp as a forest barbarian, and yet, no trace of contempt or antipathy moved him. Accepted in fosterage to Havish's court, Ianfar seated himself with aplomb, then deferred, as was right, to crowned sovereignty.

The High King was swift to make disposition. ‘My lady, the tenets of charter law must apply, here. Entrust your proof to the hand of s'Gannley'

The parchment she produced was stained, and still damp, the seal's wax cracked from rough handling. ‘This was smuggled out, sewn into my garments,' Ellaine apologized as she extended the unsavoury document.

‘Best take her seriously,' Feylind declared. ‘The lady worked her way here since last winter, earning a slop taker's wage in a refuse cart.'

‘To the sorrow of my cousins,' Ianfar said as the soiled parchment changed hands. ‘The news of her hardship does nothing but shame us.' He flipped open the folds, jarred to bitterness. ‘You could have appealed to the clans for help, lady. Your court at Avenor has misapprised us.'

‘As my husband's confirmed enemies?' Ellaine burst out, incredulous. ‘Or is your cousin not Maenol Teir's'Gannley who has formally sworn that Lysaer is an imposter, with his life declared under forfeit?'

Ianfar flattened the parchment on the chart table, flushed with affront, and not smiling at Feylind, who had moved to brighten the wick in the gimballed lamp. ‘Maenol is that same man. The history occurred before your current marriage. Did you know he made his lawful appeal to s'Ilessid, to challenge false claim to crown title? That just inquiry provoked an infamous reprisal! For as long as our people live under an edict of slavery, my cousin has no choice but to stand in his place as the throne's oathsworn shadow.'

Eldir intervened to smooth hackles. ‘The
caithdein
must serve for Tysan's rightful successor, not Lysaer, who was never sanctioned by Fellowship authority. Charter law is explicit. Earl Maenol is the voice charged to guard the crown's unbroken integrity'

Ianfar bent his flax head to examine the document. As he perused the opening lines, the High King watched the clansman's demeanor shift from tense to aghast. Prerogative stayed him; he withheld his royal counsel, waited motionless, until the binding signatures with their row of wax seals had been recognized. As father of three sons, with this one raised to manhood among them, Eldir must not flinch for the horrific burden thrust upon Maenol's heir lest he risk the innocent blood of his realm. The aching pause hung, until Ianfar straightened, and affirmed the most desperate thread of his fear.

‘The lady cannot be sent back to Tysan. If she goes, her life could be far more than threatened.' Ianfar finished, with levelling force, ‘This document outlines the terms for a murder, and confirms every rumoured suspicion. Your Grace, Avenor's regency is corrupt and involved in criminal treason.'

Eldir sighed. The light flickered, scoring the gouged lines of sorrow that tightened his mouth. ‘Lady Talith, I presume?' His regard measured Ellaine. ‘Your predecessor was not driven to suicide for an unpleasant political expediency?'

‘Suicide?' Ellaine bristled, sparked to regal outrage. ‘The former princess was brought down by a crossbolt, fired by a killer whose hire was arranged by Avenor's high council. I can't be certain they acted alone, though my heart tells me Lysaer is innocent. Talith's premature death scarred him, cruelly'

‘We're not speaking of that sort of venal corruption.' Ianfar tapped a seal at the base of the paper. ‘This,' he said, sickened. He appealed to Eldir, ripped to horrified dread. ‘Your Grace saw fit to warn my cousin, long since. Lord Koshlin is the suspected affiliate of a necromancer, and at work for years, cheek by jowl with the appointed high priest who governs the trumped-up regency in Lysaer's absence…'

Within Kewar's library, the Sorcerer Davien raised his forefinger. The image called in from the ship's chart room flicked out, while he fixed Rathain's crown prince with wide-open eyes and a hunting cat's fascination. ‘Do you need to see more, Teir's'Ffalenn?'

‘To realize that Feylind's endangered? I do not.' Bristled enough to stay stubbornly seated, Arithon matched the Sorcerer's challenge. His expression revealed nothing. But the ringless, fine hands on the book were no longer relaxed. ‘Are you implying a lawful appeal to the Fellowship on Ellaine's behalf won't bring help?'

‘Can't,' Davien stated. ‘Sethvir lacks the resource. No colleague is left free to answer.'

Unwilling to test the abstruse intent behind Davien's voluntary exile, Arithon said, ‘Then King Eldir can't deal. He won't risk open war, as he must, if he
dares to grant Lady Ellaine his sanctuary. This event is on-going? Then you already know the sure outcome.'

‘Your mind is too sharp, prince.' The Sorcerer would leave a pause dangling to provoke, but not trifle with cruel games of intellect. ‘There's only one pertinent fact left unsaid. On Ianfar's behalf, Mearn s'Brydion once signed the Teir's'Gannley his oath of binding protection.'

Arithon mapped the logic. ‘Therefore, the
caithdein's
young heir must take charge of Ellaine and appeal for an off-shore passage.
Evenstar's
handy. Feylind won't resist. She has a true heart. My half-brother's renegade wife has no last option, except to sail east. Where else would she appeal for safe harbour, except at the citadel of Alestron?'

Davien tapped his shut lips with a restless finger.

Arithon mused on, stirred beyond grim interest. ‘Why show me that scene in the first place? Don't claim you had any bleeding concern over my standing promise to shield Feylind. What is your stake in the
Evenstar's
welfare?'

Davien's image whisked out, his response tossed back as he drifted past the fire-place. ‘What do you know about necromancy, Teir's'Ffalenn?'

‘Enough to raise all my hackles at once.' Arithon tracked the Sorcerer's presence, alarmed, though he clung to his bent of grim humour. ‘I thought you claimed Luhaine would haze you to Sithaer's dark pit, should I sample the vile rites written into your collection of black grimoires?'

‘Not mine,' Davien corrected, precise. ‘The author of those volumes pitched a roaring fit when he noticed his horrid memoirs had been stolen.'

‘That was your light touch?' Arithon grinned, then laughed outright at the subsequent, mortified silence. ‘Or no. More like Sethvir's pilfering, I see.'

Davien's answer rebounded from the arched alcove framing the doorway. ‘What couldn't for conscience be shelved at Althain Tower must naturally be bundled up and sent here.' The chill that comprised his essence flowed out through the door-latch, as always ahead of his mocking last word. ‘If you don't fancy the unpleasant reading, I suggest that you visit my armoury. The wise prince in your shoes would lay aside music and revisit an heirloom Paravian sword.'

‘Alithiel keeps her edge with no help from me,' Arithon said, his peace shattered. Though practising forms with a stick kept him fit, the mere thought of touching war-sharpened steel moved him to blistering vehemence. ‘If I had any reason to crack a black grimoire, the temptation would likely arise from my sore need to curb your nefarious meddling.'

Autumn 5670

The visitor who reined up at Althain Tower was a lonely speck upon the windswept downs of Atainia. Morning by then was almost spent, lidded under a raced scud of storm-cloud. His horse blew steam in the frigid air as the rider dismounted, stripped both saddle and bridle, then hobbled the gelding to graze. Head bared to the tumbling gusts, he removed a locked iron box from his bedroll, and confronted his grim destination.

Few men, standing under the spire's bleak shadow, would not tremble and wish themselves elsewhere.

Sulfin Evend proved no exception. Although the sky fore-promised a drenching downpour, he would gladly have turned his back. His binding pledge to the blind seeress in Erdane now seemed an errant act of insanity, no reason not to turn tail and run south, fast and far from this desolate wilderness.

Fear rooted his feet. Lysaer's endangerment posed too dire a threat to abandon the purpose that brought him. Sulfin Evend gazed upwards, chilled bone deep. High overhead, the leaden gleam of the roof-slates loomed through the masking mist. A raven's croak floated downward. Wind snaked through the tasselled grass, snarling over the lichened summits of the Bittern wastes to the north.

‘Avenger's black pox on the doings of mages!' the townsman snapped, and pressed forward. His reluctant step crunched on the diamond frost that still clung to the flanks of the hollow.

Sulfin Evend's distrust of the Sorcerers was direct; all his prior experience, confrontational. Having once been ensnared by Asandir's spell-craft and forced to watch his company of lancers die while entrapped in a grimward, he still suffered the harrowing nightmares. The Fellowship would scarcely welcome the man sworn to rank as the Alliance Lord Commander.

Arrived on the cracked slate at the entry, Sulfin Evend found the outer grille raised. The ancient, strapped portal was also unbarred, its array of geared chains and counterweights a stitched glint of steel under an inside flicker of torch-light. Nobody waited beside the spoked windlass. Past the oppressive gloom of the sallyport, the far gate had been wedged back, as well. No Sorcerer lurked there: only the wind fluted dissonant notes through the black gaps of the murder holes.

Sulfin Evend faltered and stopped. If wards had been set, he sensed no prickle of gooseflesh. Althain Tower stood open before him. The invitation lent no reassurance. He edged forward. One step, two; he paused again. Every nerve strained, he breathed the scents of dank stone and oil, the aromatic resin of pine smoke underlaid by the taint of burnished chain. He assayed a third step.

Nothing happened.

A gust flapped his cloak, making him start, and setting the torch-flame winnowing. The fourth step would see him under the gate arch, no wise move. A man raised to recognize the rudiments of spell-craft should be loath to cross over any sorcerer's threshold.

‘You have two choices,' a voice pronounced at his back.

Sulfin Evend whirled, hackled. A tall, straight figure cloaked in indigo wool blocked the pathway behind him.

‘Go back, and leave all your questions unanswered. Or step forward and accept our hospitality' Silver hair tumbled free as Asandir pushed back his hood. ‘I will not presume to advise you, either way, since you have already tested the nature of the peril you carry'

Sulfin Evend wrestled his outright fear. ‘You!' he gasped, strangled. ‘Why not take me captive, as you did the last time?'

Asandir raised eyebrows like bristled, black iron. His tarnish grey eyes never flickered. Silent, he waited for his town visitor to make up his uneasy mind.

Retreat would require a step
toward
the Sorcerer, a sly fact Asandir used to his unsavoury advantage. Sweating with terror, Sulfin Evend forced speech. ‘After my abduction in Korias, no word you might say could establish your good intentions.'

‘Even the truth?' Asandir tucked his fingers under his sleeves, a pretence: the morning's damp cold should scarcely pose one of his kind the least moment of inconvenience. The voice, crisp and light, was impervious steel. ‘False son of s'Gannley, no prayer to the Light spared your life that day on the Korias Flats. Your deliverance from that grimward was done by my hand, despite what you chose to believe for the sake of convenience.'

‘Liar!' Hanshire arrogance instinctively bridled. ‘I am no son at all, to s'Gannley'

Asandir's amusement was wild as wind. ‘Are you not? As you stand there, all pride and quick temper, you are breathing proof of your matriarch's ancestry. Go or stay by your merits. I shall not intervene. After all, your promise was
not made to me, and Lysaer s'Ilessid rescinded our Fellowship's protection when he cast off the terms of the compact.'

Shocked to hear that fact reconfirmed, and with incontrovertible finality, Sulfin Evend mustered the rags of his courage. ‘You'll swear to my safety?'

‘Swear by what?' Clipped to impatience, the Sorcerer said, ‘You are the spear-head for the Alliance's war host! Do you presume to think we might have common ground?' For an instant, perhaps, his cragged features seemed touched to an elusive sorrow. ‘Did you know you were never at risk from our Fellowship? My promise is only a word, by your lights. Even still, Sulfin Evend, you have it.'

A keen strategist, the commander wrestled the ironic challenge: a retreat at this pass would reject the Sorcerer's spoken integrity; and also repudiate the blood pledge he had made at Erdane to Enithen Tuer.

‘Men die for promises,' Sulfin Evend allowed. ‘What is a life in the hands of your Fellowship?'

‘More than words.' Asandir tipped his head toward the entry, his chisel-cut face bemused enough to seem friendly. ‘Inside, if you dare, you'll find out.'

Sulfin Evend braced his rattled nerves, faced about, and crossed over the tower's threshold. The Sorcerer followed, his close presence mild and his footstep light as a ghost's.

If the Hanshire-born visitor regretted his choice, no chance remained to turn back. Asandir laid brisk hands to the windlass and secured the outer defences.

As the thick doors boomed closed, drear daylight replaced by the fluttering torch, the Sorcerer's frame was thrown into relief. Sulfin Evend observed, too wary to be undone by disarming impressions: how the capable hands that cranked the oiled chains were raw with recent burn scars. If the Sorcerer's face appeared gaunt, or the spare frame beneath masking wool seemed hard-used, even haggard, his vast power remained unimpaired. The warding he raised to secure bars and locks drove his guest to a shudder of gooseflesh. Sulfin Evend had watched spell-craft being invoked all his life, by Koriathain who resided at Hanshire. The only working he had seen to rival Asandir's seamless touch had been an awareness half-sensed: an impression left as a whisper in stone, laced through the stairway fashioned by Davien the Betrayer at the entrance to Kewar Tunnel.

Asandir locked the drum of the windlass and straightened. ‘The defences kept here are an obligation made to Athera's Paravians.'

Startled to find his unspoken thought answered, Sulfin Evend said bald-faced, ‘You can't still believe the old races exist.'

This time, as the Sorcerer retrieved the torch, his fleeting grief could not be mistaken. ‘They exist.' He moved toward the last set of fortified doors, passed through, and attended their fastening. ‘If the Paravians had died, our years of trial would be over, and our most cherished hopes, crushed by failure.'

The last bars were seated, the pin latches secured. Beyond, the last barrier
was no defence, but a pair of ornamental panels, leafed in chased brass, which cut off the draught through the murder holes. Their varnished wood moved to Asandir's touch, slid wide, and unveiled a vista of dazzling splendour.

Sulfin Evend stepped into the Chamber of Renown, with its ranks of exquisite, stilled statues. First to draw his eye, the centaur guardians lifted their antlered heads, winding their dragon-spine horns. Unwitting, the man gasped, incredulous.

His scarcely suppressed recollection exploded: of the creature that had once stepped, alive, out of legend last winter in Daon Ramon Barrens. The unsettling memory would not be denied, when overcome, he had witnessed an immortal grace that had driven him to his knees. Through the awe-struck aftermath, he had dismissed the event as a dream.

Until now, in cut stone, he faced the echo of that towering majesty, and more. This time, the centaurs' stern sovereignty saw completion, placed amid the threefold matrix of the harmony Ath Creator had gifted to ease the sorrows that troubled the world. Now, Sulfin Evend beheld the strength of the Ilitharis Paravians, partnered by exquisite beauty. Exalted form spoke in the purity of tossed manes, and high tails, and in the stone hooves of the unicorns, dancing. Their wide-lashed jade eyes and slit pupils of jet reflected the essence of mystery. In captured grace and shimmering delicacy, their carved presence suggested a tenderness to arrest thought and unspin mortal senses. Amid their lyric, arrested pavane, the sunchildren clustered, blowing their crystalline flutes. The sculptor had captured the sublime joy and delight on their elfin features. Their radiant merriment made the very air ache, suspended in stark, wistful silence.

The Alliance Lord Commander stopped, lost his breath; felt the wrench as his heart-beat slammed out of rhythm.

He stared speechless with wonder. Then his eyes brimmed. Tears dripped unabashed down his chapped cheeks and splashed the rough cloth of his collar.

‘They still exist,' Asandir repeated, steadfast. His saving grasp captured the metal-bound box, before his visitor thoughtlessly dropped it.

Sulfin Evend scarcely noticed his clamped grip had loosened. His longstanding distrust could not be sustained, not here, swept away by what stood unveiled in commemorative glory before him. In the moment, Asandir's bracing touch offered a balm for stunned nerves, while his obdurate will gentled the mind through the reeling shock of its weakness.

Left unmoored, the man could do little but lean if he wished to remain standing upright.

For grief pierced into a shattering pain, that the light of such majesty should have walked in the world, and been lost, dimmed into abandoned forgetfulness.

Sulfin Evend bent his head, masked his face, crushed down by the force of his shame. ‘We are desolate,' he murmured, ripped wretched by honesty. ‘How does your Fellowship bear our foolish insolence, that most of humankind does
not spare time to realize, or far worse—that we blind ourselves with rank arrogance rather than acknowledge such overpowering greatness?'

‘How does man or woman bear cold, death, and ignorance?' Asandir finished the grim thought himself. ‘Because they must, and for no other reason. To do any less would cast away hope, deny truth, and declare that caring and peace have no meaning within Ath's creation.'

Sulfin Evend permitted the moth-light touch that steered him on and guided his way up the stairwell. Led into a carpeted chamber and installed in an antique chair, he managed to sit and brace his elbows upon a polished ebony table.

There, he endured until the raw fire of his anguish burned itself down to embers.

He blotted his cheeks, finally. Aware of himself, and embarrassed for his bruised dignity, he looked up and encountered the Sorcerer, seated across from him.

Wax candles lit Asandir's cragged face. Two ages of weather had chiselled those features down to their gaunt frame of bone. The eyes, reflective as light on a tarn, gazed into places no man had gone.

Sulfin Evend caught himself staring; and Asandir, with an unlooked-for calm, permitted that uncivil liberty.

Observed at close hand, the Sorcerer's patience seemed nothing less than formidable. An unquiet shadow, or some ravaging horror had been the force that annealed his tenacious endurance. Behind his stark power, which wore no disguise, Sulfin Evend sensed more: the lurking spark of a wistful joy, and a dauntless strength tempered by what was in fact an uncompromised well of serenity.

‘People have reason to fear you,' the Lord Commander insisted, but quietly.

Asandir did not move. ‘They fear their beliefs.' The question followed with disarming mildness. ‘Have I caused you harm?'

‘Not yet.' Sulfin Evend glanced away. A pot of spiced tea steamed on a tray. Someone thoughtful had included a cheese wedge on a plate, brown bread, and bowls of raisins, nuts, and dried apples.

‘Sethvir insisted you'd be tired of game.' Asandir already cradled a brimming mug, infused with the rich scent of cinnamon. The scatter of burns first observed at the windlass, unnervingly, seemed to be fading, the blisters reduced to rose pink against a lacework of older scars.

Again, Sulfin Evend averted his sight, only to become overawed by the details of his surroundings. Heraldic banners covered the walls, offset by a massive fire-place with black-agate pilasters. The Lord Commander identified the star-and-crown blazon of Tysan, then the silver leopard on green of Rathain, and left of that, the scarlet hawk of Havish, adjacent to the purple chevrons of Shand. The golden gryphon of Melhalla no doubt hung at his back. The inlaid chair that supported him had served as a royal seat for far longer than
the Third Age. Before man, this room had hosted the sovereign grace of Paravian rulers, whose names and deeds framed the heroic legends of the early First Age ballads.

The King's Chamber at Althain Tower had heard Halduin s'Ilessid swear his blood oath of crown service. Here, Iamine s'Gannley would have stood witness, assuming a charge still borne by an heir who now skulked in the wilds of Camris.

Weighed by that past, and distressed by his errand, Sulfin Evend remembered the iron-bound coffer, mislaid since the moment he had witlessly lowered his guard.

‘Your burden is safe.' Asandir tipped his head toward the mantel. There the coffer rested, still locked. He moved one hand, but did nothing more than reach for the tea-pot. ‘You look like a man in need of refreshment. Or will you hold out as the victim of nursery tales, which warn against sharing food or drink with my Fellowship?' The glint of a smile came and went as Asandir filled a mug, then pushed the honey-pot across the table.