Fugitive Prince

~ Voyager]

Janny Wurts

FUGITIVE PRINCE

The Wars of Light and Shadows

         VOL UME 4

    FIRST BOOK OF
THE ALLIANCE OF LIGHT

HarperCollinsPublishers

        Voyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8lB

The Voyager World Wide Web site address is
http://www. harpercollins.co.uk/voyager

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 1997
       135798642

Copyright c Janny Wurts 1997

The Author asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Bœxtish Library

Trade Paperback ISBN 0 00224077 7

Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press,
      Netley, South Australia

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the publishersi prior consent
in any form of binding or cover other than that which it
is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names,
characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work o~ the
authoris imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental~.' ~:'

For Beth Gray,
who opened the first door
that has led to so many
others.

Scale in Leagues

t

  Cities
  Second Age rains
  City that did not fall in uprising
  Worldsend Gates
  Standin~ Stones
~.    Kingdom Borders
~     Rivers
A     Forests
~     M~rshes or Mires
: ... W~stel~nds
      Second Age Ro~ds
      Tr*de Ro~ds
      Mountains

Acknowledgments

         This book would not be in material form
     without the help of so many, who gave: Jeff Watson,
Mickey Zucker Reicheft, Jonathan Matson, John Silbersack,
Caitlin Biasdell & Jane Johnson, Sara & Bob Schwager, Pieta Pentr
  Lazaris; Don Maitz, my long-suffering husbandmand not least,
             many hundreds of trees.

Contents

First Book

  II.

 III.

 IV.
 V.

 VI.

 VII.

VIII.

 IX.

 X.

 XI.

 XII.

XIII.
XIV.

Fionn Areth .....................         1
Fugitive Prince ..................        41
Sentence ........................         83
Turnabout .....................           131
Riverton .......................          173
Tangle ........................           209
Hunters .......................           243
Spring Trap ....................          275
Setback ........................          317
Pursuit ........................          359
Fire and Sword ..................         383
Grimward .....................            411
Reversals ......................          459
Passages .......................          505

Glossary ...................              541

Winter 5647

Thirty-five thousand marched to war.
Their weeping widows all died poor.
Swords against Darkness, reap for Light
Fell Shadow's Prince and rend false night.

 --verse of a marching song from the
 campaign of Dier Kenton Vale
       Third Age 5647

I. Fionn Areth

Strong arms closed and locked around Elaira's slim shoulders.
Fingers strengthened by the sword and sensitized to a master-
bard's arts tightened against her back. The dark-haired, driven
man who cradled her surrendered at last to his blazing crest of pas-
sion. His lips softened against hers, the restraint, the control, the terri-
ble doubts which bound him consumed all at once in a rush of tender
need. She responded, melted. Her being exploded into sensation like
fire and flight. At one with the prince who had captured her heart,
her spirit knew again that single, suspended moment, with its
promise of inexpressible joy.
    Then the fulfillment of union snapped shy of release, doomed ever
to fall short of consummation by the rough intervention of fate. This
time, a harried, insistent pounding snapped the dream into frag-
mented memory.
    The small-boned enchantress entangled in threadbare quilts jerked
out of her fretful sleep. A muted cry escaped her. Chilled in the drafts
which flowed over the sill of an unglazed croft window, she fought to
regain full awareness. Once again, she grappled the irreversible real-
ity: Merior's mild sea winds and the Prince of Rathain lay two years
removed in her past.
    Elaira squeezed her eyes shut against the ache. Instead of the muf-
fled boom of breakers creaming against stainless sands, the ferocious,

JANNY WUI~TS

clawing breath of winter whined over the white-mantled da
Araethura.
  Yesterday'~ blizzard had delivered a biting, cold night.
    Over the open glens, through stands of scrub oak and acro
rustling flats of frozen marsh, the ice whipped in driven bursts,
tie the ill-fitted shutters of her cottage at the fringe of the moor.
tals found the cracks, tapped at the lintels, and fanned a frosted
silver across the leaked bit of moonlight admitted through the
chink. While the eddies moaned and clawed past the beams.
eaves, and the spent tang of ash cornmingled with the fragrance
cedar and frost-damp miasma of moldered thatch, Elaira exh~
deep breath. Given time, the runaway pound of her heart woul~
side.
    She untangled the fist still clenched through a coil of aubur~
Too many times she awakened like this, struggling against the
urge to weep, while the ripping, slow agony of Arithon's m~
threatened to stop her will to live. In desperation, against the vc
the Koriani Order which tied her lifelong to a cellbate servic
refuge from despair became the fiercely guarded shelter of he:
tude.
    Tonight, even that grace was forfeit. The disturbance whic~
torn her from lacerating dreams came again, the insistent hamr
a fist on wood.
    There would be some emergency, of course. Elaira grumt
filthy phrase in the gutter vernacular of her childhood and kick
her tatty layers of quilts. "Fatemaster's two-eyed vigilance! D~
all think I'm deaf as a post?"
    Whoever pounded for admittance, the abuse threatened to
the tacked strips of leather that hung her rickety door.
    Sped by awareness that she lacked any tools for small carp
Elaira heaved up from her hoarded nest of warmth amid th~
clothes. The shock of cold planks against her bare soles dissolv~
invective to a gasp. She had retired unclothed, since yesteJ
storm had soaked through to her shift. Through forced delay ~
fumbled past the clammy folds of her cloak to snatch the first su
garment from its peg, the hammering gained a fresh urgency.
    "Fiends plague!" The dank cloak would just have to serve.
ever you are, I don't dispense remedies naked!"
    Elaira bundled the soggy wool over her shoulders. She closed
ering fingers to secure the cloth under her chin, then shot the b~
stepped back as the door swung inward.
  A dazzle of moonlight flooded through. The collapse of th~

 left pocketed across her threshold doused her bare ankles in snow.
 Elaira yelped and leaped back. Her cloak caught in an eddy of wind,
 snagged the latch, and tugged itself free of her grasp.
     The herder boy outside froze in startlement, saucer eyes pinned to
 the slide of the wool down the firm, naked swell of her breast.
     Elaira managed the grace not to laugh at his expression. She caught
 the errant wool and snugged it back up to her collarbones. "Are you
 going to come in?" she asked with mild acerbity. "Or will you just
 stand 'til you freeze with your mouth hanging open?"
     The shepherd boy shut his baby-skinned jaw with a click. Too
 young for subterfuge, still innocent enough to flush to the roots of his
 tangled hair, he ventured a slurred apology behind the snagged hem
 of his sleeve.
     "Of course there's trouble," Elaira said more gently. "You've a year
 yet to grow before you start calling on ladies for that sort of randy
 interest, yes?"
    The boy shrank and turned redder. Since he was also frightened
enough to bolt back into the night, the enchantress caught his arm in
a grip like fixed shackles. She bundled him inside, wise enough to
slam the door before she plonked him on the stool by the hearth and
let him go.
    "Who's fallen sick?" she demanded, brisk enough to shock
through his stunned silence. She groped meantime across darkness to
sort through the pile of last night's discarded clothing. The fire had
done its usual and gone out. Gusts hissed down the cottage's flue and
scattered ash across the stone apron where her herbal still rested, a
dismantled glint of burnished copper and glass reflecting a meticu-
lous upkeep. Seized through by a shiver, Elaira drew on the icy linen
layers of her underthings, then laced the stiffened leather of her leg-
gings overtop.
    The herdboy huddled under mufflers on her stool and could not
seem to find his tongue.
    "Don't say no one's sick," Elaira murmured through chattering
teeth as she turned her back, cast off the cloak, and wormed into the
dank, frowsty cloth of her shift. The hem which had been dripping as
she drifted off to sleep now crackled with thin, crusted ice.
    "My aunt," mumbled the boy. He stared at his toes, unaware of the
stockyard pungency of goat carried inside on his clothing. "She's in
childbed. The midwife sent me to fetch you."
    Burrowed into her tunic and struggling with numbed hands to
hook the looped leather fastenings, Elaira said, "How long since her
labor pains started?"

    "Since just after midda3~" the boy replied, miserable. "I cou]
run. Snow's piled too deep." He worried his chapped lip with st
teeth. "Will she die, do you think?"
    "I'll try not to let her." By reflex, Elaira stilled her thoughts.
used the trained edge of her talents to sound the night for the ti
Past midnight, she sensed. The tidal pull of the full moon just dip
past the arc of the zenith. She crouched to retrieve the fleece boots
had kicked off and left where they fell. One hid in deep shac
under the worktable, scattered still with oddments of tin stam
with the sigils for fiend bane. The mate perversely eluded her. '
you know if her water had broken when you left?"
    "Aye, so," the boy affirmed in his broad-voweled grassla
dialect. "That's why the midwife would have ye. The birthing's g
hard, and the caul broke and let forth an unlucky color, so she said
    Elaira caught a half breath in foreboding. "What color was
fluid, do you remember? Was there blood?"
    "No blood." The boy paused to trace a symbol across his
breast, to avert the eye of ill fortune. "The stream was thickened
greenish. That's bad, yes? My aunt's going to pass beneath
Wheel?"
    "No. She's unlikely to die." Sure of that much, Elaira blew on
fingers, reached, found her other boot, the one she had dunked at
ford when she slipped on a stone and the ice broke. The fleeces v
still clogged and soggy. "It's the babe trying to come who's in t~
ble."
    She gritted her teeth and thrust her toe in the cuff before her n~
snapped. No time could she spare to warm the wet out, even were
fire still alight. Every second counted, if in harsh fact the boy's caF~
help had not already reached her too late. She scrambled up off
knees and snatched her satchel from the table. Another mi~
strayed as she struck light to a candle stub and gathered up the ~
cialized herbs she might need, ones the midwife was least ap
carry. More minutes fled, as she groped amid the disassembled c
of her still to twist the curved segment of glass tubing from the ~
which capped the collection flask. She could only pray it woulc
the right size as she stowed it amid her remedies, to chinking c,
plaint from the crockery and small flasks that held her stock of a
hol and tinctures.
    "Come on," she urged the boy. "I'd make you some tea to warrr
if I dared, but truly, your aunt's babe can't wait."
    No coals lingered in the hearth to be doused. That lapse in corn
became a twisted sort of blessing as she rammed out the door

4

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 plowed knee-high tracks through the dunescape of drifts to the shed.
 A rumbling nicker greeted her from inside. Then a white-blazed face
 peered out from the dimness, hopeful.
     "You idiot butterball," Elaira replied. "You won't be begging more
 grain."
    The slab-sided roan gelding had come with the croft, no replace-
ment in her heart for the spry little bay who had died of old age the
past spring. Some frivolous initiate had named the beast Tassel, for
reason outside of all logic. Elaira unhooked the rope hackamore that
served as his bridle and looped his whiskered nose through the
cavesson. He butted her, snuffiing in quest of a carrot as she flicked
his ears through the headstall, then blew a resigned sigh as she bent
to raise his forehoof and treat the cleft with goose grease to keep snow
from bailing up against his soles.
"Wise one," said the boy in whispered diffidence, "I don't ride."
"You will. If your aunt's to have help, you must." Elaira stepped to
the gelding's quarters and grasped a feathered fetlock, not without
heart to spare sympathy. "I'll see you don't fall off." In belated,
breathless courtesy, she asked his name.
    "Kaid, wise one." From the comer of the eye, she caught the
clumsy, mittened gesture he made with intent to ward off spells.
    Her stifled smile of irony was lost as the wind flogged her hair
against her cheek. "You'll do fine, Kaid. Not to worry." The odd con-
tradictions of countryfolk, to summon her for the magics that refined
the craft of healing, then to trace out a hedge witch's symbols to avert
the dread effects they feared from the selfsame mysteries.
    Elaira had never known the reverent respect once offered to initi-
ates of the Koriani sisterhood. The arts of her order had been viewed
with trepidation for as long as she could remember. The ignorant
intolerance arisen since the uprising that upset the rule of the old high
kings had not lessened with defeat of the Mistwraith's fell fogs,
which had masked Athera's skies for five centuries. Quite the con-
trary, the entrenched distrust the townborn folk held for sorceries had
been inflamed to root deeper since the hour the vanished sunlight
had been restored.
    The Koriani Prime Enchantress held adamant opinion on the rea-
son: the new strife arisen through the Mistwraith's curse of enmity,
laid upon the two princes whose gifts had brought its captivity, just
provoked such misguided beliefs. Blame was not shared equally
upon the shoulders of Lysaer s'Ilessid, birth-born to wield the powers
of light. Only the Master of Shadow, Arithon s'Ffalenn, was raised
mage-wise. The Prime and her Senior Circle were swift to point out

5

]ANNY WU~TS

his shortcomings. Unlike the royal half brother set against hi
had spumed the strictures of his training and invoked the hi~
without scruple.
    Few would deny that across four kingdoms, Arithon's ham
aow linked to destruction and unconscionable acts of bloodshed
    Elaira stamped back that distressed line of thought. The Sh
Master's part in the ruin of Lysaer's war host on the field at Die~
ton Vale must never become her concern. She knew his heart; hac
shared his deepest fears, and knew of the visceral horror of killin
tormented him, mind and spirit. As sharply as she longed to
whether the affray had unstrung his grip on integrity, the unruly
tions burned into her heart lent iron to her resolve. Her order
never be offered a second opening to use the attraction shared bel
them. Shamed to rage that her love had ever come to be tested as
to set Koriani ties on Arithon's destiny, the enchantress applied ?
to the crisis of the moment. She slapped grease in the roan's last
straightened up, and wiped her hands on a scrap of old burlap.
    "Out, you." She gave a suggestive tug at the roan's headsta~
pressed to delay for the saddle. "We've a hard night ahead. ~
going to have to do a generous bit more than shamble."
    Another gust screamed past the comer of the shed. Gossame~
of snow unraveled from the lip of the drifts. The eddy stre
Elaira's hair across her eyes. She clawed back the tangles, imp~
"Come, boy." A swift touch adjusted the hang of her satchel. '"
need to show me where to go." She raised her wet boot in qued,
foothold in the buried logs of the woodpile, vaulted astride the ~
back, then extended her arm to haul the herder child up before h
    He was shaking through his furs, mostly from fear since he s]
as her arms clasped around him.
    Elaira sucked in a breath musked with wool and the rancid t~
goat. "Which way?"
    The tilt of Kaid's chin said north. Elaira faced the gelding a~
into the teeth of the wind. Its cold pierced her clothes like honed
The stars overhead were like flecks of chipped ice, and mooJ
sheared the hillcrests in razor-cut brilliance against the strea:
knotted shadows sliced by trees.
    "Hup!" Elaira cried. She gathered the roan's reins and thu:
him with her heels. The gelding shook his mane, grunted back ~
drummed another thud against his ribs. His steaming warmth
trated the damp layers of her leggings, and a breathy snort sn
from his nostrils. Too lazy to show displeasure beyond a flick.
tail, he roused into a short-strided walk.

FUGITIVE PRINCE

Elaira shook her cuffs down to muffle her exposed hands. "How
long did it take you to reach me?"
    "I left our steading before nightfall. Snow fell too thick to know the
time." The boy clenched his jaw to still chattering teeth.
    Questions remained, over details the midwife might have shared
that would tell how far the aunt's labor had progressed. Yet as the
gelding breasted through chest-high drifts, or plowed a crumpled
trail across the pristine vales carved trackless by the scouring winds,
Elaira held her silence. Nothing but hurry could improve the babe's
threatened chances. If she failed to arrive at the steading before the
moment of birth, the infant might already be lost. Rather than pass
her distress to the boy, she reined alongside a thin stand of alder and
picked off a branch for use as a switch to force the placid gelding to
trot.
    The night engulfed her in its landscape of silver and black. Amid
the wind-tortured swirls of dry snow, the horse underneath her
seemed all that moved in the world. If hare ventured out to gnaw
bark and dry grasses, or if owls flew hunting mice, she saw no sign of
anything alive. The tattered plumes of the gelding's breath embroi-
dered hoarfrost on her patched leggings. His hooves stitched the hill-
crests to avoid the soft drifts, and the boy sent as guide lolled against
her shoulder and slept. Where the ground was swept bare, she flicked
the gelding to a canter, the glassy chink of snapped ice compacted
under the thud of his passage. The gentle, rolling downlands
stretched ahead and behind, sere under unrumpled snow, the rippled
ink of oak copse and the grayed trunks of alders snagged through by
tinseled skeins of moonlight. Over marshes herringboned in storm-
trampled cattails, and past the treacherous, inky wells of sinkpools,
Elaira forged ahead in relentless urgency.
    The fugitive hours were her enemy. The sensitivity of her talent let
her feel them, slipping inexorably by as sand would sieve through a
net. She drew rein at the crest of a dale, confronted below by the steep
flanks of a gully, and the snake black outlines of iced-over current.
Araethura's downs were famed for such, obstructions to any traveler
unfamiliar with the lay of the valleys. Elaira cursed, remiss with her-
self. She ought to have wakened the boy sooner to ask guidance, for
the narrow, swift-flowing streams which fed the River Arwent ran in
treacherous, deep beds, too wide to jump over in snowy footing, and
unsafe to attempt a crossing without a known ford. The same had
been true of Daon Ramon, long ago, before the diversion of the
mighty $evernir's flood by Etarran townsmen had rendered that
golden land barren.

JANNY WURTS

    Elaira gave Kaid's shoulder a shake before the cold let her thou
stray further. He said as she roused him, "No need to cross over.
steading's beyond that stand of alders."
    Shadows obscured the building's outline, a patched, oblate pat
where drifts had silted over the mosaic outline of roof shakes age
the vale beyond. From some hidden byre, the bleat of confined
breathed in snatched fragments between gusts. Elaira shook uF
tired roan, pressed his laboring step downslope. The pricked glea
stars came and went as the alders closed around her, branches v
racked against the zenith. Two hours until dawn, her tuned av~
ness told her. That time of night when death was most apt to be
comed by a body and spirit in distress.
    She slid off the gelding's back, left the reins to the boy, to dism4
as he could and see it stabled. She wasted more seconds, fumblir
close the iron latch of an unfamiliar gate. Finally arrived in the
tered space between hay byre and cottage, she thought for a sec
she heard the pained groans of a woman. Whether the sotrod
born of labor, or grief, or just a last, cruel trick of the wind, the we
of the moment crushed hope.
    Stiff, stumbling across the rutted yard, Elaira tripped the door 1
and shouldered her way across the threshold into the cottag
Kaid's aunt. Darkness swallowed her. Cut off from the clean bil
winter, the closed-in smells of lavender and birch coals and
ingrained musk of grease left from simmering a thick mutton
made the air seem stagnant and dead.
    Then, muffled through board walls, the midwife's voice aro~
terse encouragement, "Bear ye down, dearie. The time's come
us, and naught can help now by delay."
    A brittle, third voice made shrill with the quaver of old
remarked, "Let the babe come. Thefferedon'li's here at last." The.
sen term was a bygone word for healer, corrupted from the Para
phrase which meant 'bringer of light.'
    Elaira moved on, tense and sharply uneasy, unsure she meritec
confidence and trust implied by the use of the ancient title. The r~
she crossed seemed too still, too close, its eaves sealed tight ag~
the weather, as if the vast, rolling moorlands of Araethura wer~
adversary worthy of a barricade. The cottage held its carven c?
and furnishings the way a miser might grasp a hoard of coin~
close-fisted family, Elaira sensed through observation; not the so:
ask outsiders for favors. The trained perception of her gift allo
her to pass their cherished clutter without tripping, to avoid the s
ning wheel and stool jutted between the wool press and a

8

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FUGITIVE I~RINCE

drawn water arrayed on the flagstones by the hearth. Boards creaked
beneath her hurried tread. This steading was prosperous, to have
glazed and shuttered windows, and better than a packed earthen
floor. Her next step fell softened by a throw rug. The byre and fenced
pastures should have prepared her for comforts. Those Araethurian
herdsmen less well off let their stock graze at large on the moors.
    A paneled door creaked open. Raw, orange light spilled out in a
swathe to guide her through to the cottage's back room, a walled-off
chamber beneath the beams of the loft, where a row of younger chil-
dren peered down, their expressions all dread and curiosity. Elaira
caught another flurried gesture to avert spells before she gained her
refuge in the bedchamber.
    A tallow dip in a crockery bowl rinsed the broad shoulders of the
midwife, a middle-aged matron of competent presence, sleeves rolled
back over rawboned wrists where she knelt to administer to Kaid's
aunt. The woman she attended was small as a deer, dark haired and
wrung limp, far beyond fear or caring whether an enchantress or a
demon had entered. She crouched on the birthing stool, her face lined
with sweat, a plait wisped into tangles draped over the wet shine of
her collarbones. Her feet were bare. The rest of her torso was swathed
in a crushed mass of down quilts, her shift of undyed linen rucked
into bunches above her thighs.
    As though sensitive to censure, the midwife said, "It's hot enough
she is, but the husband insisted." Past a sound of disgust through her
nose, she added, "Matter of her modesty, he claims. It's all foolishness.
No wisdom in it, but the man wasn't bom in these downs who isn't
bullheaded useless over the propriety of his wife."
    The girl on the stool convulsed in another contraction, long since
too tired to scream.
    "Steady," murmured the midwife in a striking change of tone. Her
beefy fingers closed over the straining woman's in comfort. "Don't
falter now, dearie. Just bear down." She held on, encouraging, thick
wrists gouged in crescents where suffering fingernails had dug
through the violent cramping pains, weathering the terrible, fraught
minutes of waiting, holding, resisting nature's overpowering drive to
push out a babe long since ready to be bom.
    Over the girl's exhausted grunting, from the comer by a clothes
chest, a mass first mistaken for a bundle of old rags stirred to scratch.
Attenuated, white-boned fingers went on to sketch out a blessing sign
in welcome. Behind the gesture, faint in the gloom, a withered face
surveyed the enchantress who came as healer.
 The traditional seeress, Elaira identified, grateful at least for one

9

JANNY WURT$

courtesy. A matriarch gifted with Sight attended every birth, death,
and wedding held in these isolate downlands, her place to interpret
the omens and deliver a guiding augury appropriate to the occasion.
Elaira made her response in accentless Paravian. "May the future be
blessed with good fortune."
    Then she knelt on the boards beside the midwife, and caught the
laboring woman's other, clammy hand in reassurance. The wavering
glow of the tallow dips threw a sultry gleam off the crown of the
babe's head, just emerged and cupped within the midwife's other,
guiding hand, which pressed gently downward to ease the child's
shoulder past the bone beneath the pelvic girdle.
    "Ath preserve," Elaira murmured. "I'm not too late to try and
help."
  The laboring woman gasped a question.
    "Lie easy," Elaira told her. "Let the midwife instruct you. If all goes
well, your babe will stay living and healthy."
    She straightened, unslung her satchel from her shoulder, and shed
her snow-dampened mantle. While she struggled to unfasten the
thong knots with chilled fingers, she added quick, low instructions to
the midwife. "Now the birth is accomplished, cut and tie the cord as
usual. But do not stimulate the child. It must take no first breath, nor
rouse itself and cry before I can clear the fluid from its air passage."
    The midwife raised no question in protest. Quietly busy with
towels and knife, she knew best of any which complications lay
beyond reach of her knowledge; had seen warning enough when
the mother's water had broken, clogged and discolored. The trauma
of birthing had stressed the unborn babe and caused it to void its
bowels before it could be pushed from the womb. The fluid which
had cushioned its growing had become fouled by its own excre-
ment. If it chanced to draw such taint into its lungs, the newborn
would perish of suffocation. No herbal remedy in her store of expe-
rience would change the outcome. The child would die within min-
utes.
    If the Koriani witches knew a spell to avert tragedy, the midwife
was too practical to spurn the aid of the one who had recently taken
residence amid the fells.
    But Elaira did not reach to free the chain at her neck from which
hung the crystal her order used to refine magics. She rummaged
instead through her satchel, found the thin, curved tube borrowed
from the apparatus of her still, then warmed the cruel, outside cold of
it away between her shaking hands. Methodical, she rinsed it clean of
contaminants in a dish filled with her precious store of alcohol.

10

rife

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 ged
,red
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             FUGITIVE PRINCE
 The laboring woman moaned through locked teeth at the weak-
 ened spasm of another contraction.
     "No need to push further, dearie," soothed the midwife. Her prac-
 ticed fingers knotted the slippery cord, last tie to be severed from the
 mother. "Work's all done. Ye're naught beyond the afterbirth left to
 drop now."
     Through the frantic few moments remaining, Elaira shut her eyes,
 wrapped a hold on her nerves to force controlled calm over scream-
 ing uncertainty. These were fells herders, distrustful of her kind, and
 knit close with unbreakable ties of kinship. Should she fail in her
 effort to help this child, she well understood its death might be taken
 as a bloodletting offense.
     To the woman's soft query, the midwife said, "Well-done, girl. By
 Ath's grace, ye've delivered a fine son."
     Elaira steeled herself, turned, received from the midwife's compe-
 tent, broad grasp the sticky, warm bundle of the child. His blood-
 smeared skin was pale gray, his limbs unmoving, not yet quickened
 by the first breath of life. She laid him head toward her on the table,
 aware through the crawling, unsteady light that his wet, whorled hair
 was coal black. She pried open the tiny, slack mouth, arranged the
 skull and neck, and with a hurried prayer to Ath, inserted the tube
 from the still down the throat and into the infant's airway. She must
 not tremble. The curved glass was thin, very fragile. Any pressure at
 an angle might snap it. Where a straw reed might have offered less
 peril, no interval could be spared to search one out. Need drove her.
 She must not miss the opening, nor tear the newborn's tender flesh in
 her haste. All the while the awareness skittered shivers down her
 spine, that she had but seconds to complete what must be done.
    If the child were to die now, it would be of her own, rank clumsi-
ness.
    She felt the tube slide in. A sixth sense, born of her talents and
training, told her the insertion was successful. She bent, set her lips to
the glass, sucked, and spat the juices into the bowl she used to mix
remedies. Against the white porcelain, the secretion was greenish,
foul. She sipped at the tube again. Another mouthful, and still the
drawn fluid was discolored. She repeated the procedure, was
rewarded with a slight change in hue. The fourth mouthful came out
clean.
    "Ath bless," she gasped. She eased the tube free. The hot, close
room seemed formless around her, the pinpoint focus of her concen-
tration the lynchpin of her whole being. She slapped the infant's feet.
"Breathe," she said fiercely, the exultation of success at last tearing

11

J~� Wul~$

loose, to burst from her heart in searing joy. "Breathe, new spirit. It's
safe for you to join the living."
    The child's fingers spasmed. His tiny chest shuddered. Small
mouth still opened, he sucked in clear air and screeched as lusty a
first cry in outrage for expulsion from the dark, wet safety of the
womb.
    Elaira bundled the squalling infant back into the care of the mid-
wife, then found the nearest chair and let her knees give way. She sat,
head bent, her face in her hands, while emotion and relief shuddered
through her. The cries of the child grew louder, more energetic. His
flesh would be blushing to pink, now, as exertion flushed life through
his tissues. Elaira pushed straight, scarcely aware of the commotion
which swirled through the outer room, then the blast of changed air
as the door opened. Feeling every aching bone, and all the weight of a
night without sleep, she looked ~.~p.
    Then froze, jolted through her whole being as her eyes met and
locked with a man's.
    He had black hair, green eyes. A face of lean angles bent toward
her, the rage in each tautened muscle burnished by the hot flare of the
tallow dips. The rest of him was muffled beneath a caped cloak, tied
with cord, and woven in the fine, colored stripes preferred by the
herders of Araethura.
    Rocked out of balance, Elaira felt a cry lock fast in her throat. For a
moment fractured from the slipstream of time, she could not move or
think. Then the nuance of observation she was trained to interpret
showed her the subtle differences: the fist, clamped in rough wool,
with thick fingers too clumsy to strike song from a lyranthe string.
This man was larger, coarser in build; not Arithon s'Ffalerm, Prince
and Masterbard. The rough-edged male who loomed over her was
the husband of this house, and the newborn child's father.
    "Daelion avert!" His fury bored into the enchantress. "What's her
kind doing here!"
    "Never mind," Elaira said quickly. She had expected hostility in
some form or other, since Kaid had appeared on her doorstep. "I'll be
on my way directly." She arose, tipped the filth in the basin into the
slop jar beside the birthing stool, then turned her back, stepped over
the pile of wadded, bloody towels, to repack her things in her satchel.
Her part was done. The child's danger was past. If the man was ill-
mannered enough to dare set his hand on her, he would regret the
presumption.
    Like the whine of a whip, the seeress protested. "Thefferedon'li will
not go just yet. Not until the child's augury is spoken." Across the

12

FUGITIVE PRINCE

irate glower of the husband, the trembling, diffident anxiety of the
mother, the crone arose from her comer, moved, an animate bundle of
shawls, to present her appeal last to the midwife. "Tempt no ill luck.
There's a sacrifice owed by this babe. He would have gained no firm
foothold in this world at all, if not for the hand of thefferedon'li."
    The husband swore with expressive, fresh venom, his glare still
locked on the enchantress.
    Comprehension dawned late, like a douse of chill water, or a sud-
den fall through thin ice. Elaira understood where the brittle, steel
tension had sprung from. Her heart leaped at once to deny her own
part. "I wish nothing, no tie for my service!" Through the longer,
louder wails of the newborn, her voice clashed in rising dissent. "Let
the boy's life hold to its own course, with no interference from me."
    "Ye know better, gifted lady!" the seeress said, tart. "The debt
against this young spirit is a fair one, and to refuse his given charge, a
sign of ill favor and disrespect."
    The father spun about, his bellow of rebuttal cut short by more
withering reprimand. "Foolish man! Were ye raised by a nanny goat?
Here's a strong son ye'11 have, perhaps to beget other living children
of your line! Now let the augury say what he's to grow and become.
He may bear your blood. Yet the fate he'll be asked in payment for his
birth is nothing else but his own!"
    Silent, even mollified, for it had been her summons which had
brought Elaira to the steading, the midwife lifted the naked, newborn
babe, wiped clean of the fluids of birthing. A rutched comb of dark
hair arched in a cowlick over the vulnerable crown of his skull. His
face was rosy, suffused with crying, and his miniature feet lashed the
air in what seemed an impotent echo of the father's outrage.
    At the dry, cool touch of the seeress's hands his wails missed their
rhythm and silenced. The crone raised the boy's small body. Her eyes
were dark brown, clear-sighted and deep, schooled to reflect the infi-
nite whole, from which grand source came the spark to animate all
that held shape in creation. Watching the finespun aura of spirit light
flare up as the woman tapped into her prescience, Elaira experienced
both relief and sharp dread. The old woman's Sight was no sham, but
an untrammeled channel attuned to the resonance of true mystery.
    Then the words came, sonorous and full, to augur the coil of the
future; they were directed, not to the babe's kin, but to Elaira.
    "One child, four possible fates, looped through the thread of his
life span. He will grow to reach manhood. Should he die in fire, none
suffers but he. Yours to choose when that time comes, Fferedon'li.
Should he die on salt water, the one ye love most falls beside him.

13

JANN� ~URT$

Should he die landbound, in crossed steel and smoke, the same or
ye cherish survives, but betrayed. Yet should this child's days exten
to old age, first the five kingdoms, then the whole world will plun~
into darkness, never to see sunlight or redemption. Your burden
choose in the hour of trial, Fferedon'li, and this child's to give, the na
ural death or the sacrifice. Let him be called Fionn Areth Caid-an.
The ancient seeress lowered the babe, the hard spark fading from h~
eyes as she closed her final line. "Let his training be for the sword, fc
his path takes him far from Araethura."
    Elaira stared transfixed at the child just born and Named.
wished, beyond recourse, that her hand had slipped in its office,
that the dull-witted roan had mired in some drifted-over streaml~
and fallen. Better, surely, if she had arrived too late, and this herder
son had gained no saving help to survive his transition into life. A
her wits shuddered free of paralysis, the enchantress could not shal,
off a terrible, pending burden of remorse. The feeling which ha:
rowed her lay far removed from the soft, stifled sobs of the mothe
Elaira could not react to the rattling slam of the door, as the fath~
stormed out in mute rage, nor to the midwife, murmuring phrases
helpless consolation for the destiny forewarned by the seeress.
    The enchantress felt the trained powers of her focus drawn an
strained in a web of disbelief. The babe had such tiny, unformed fix
gers, to have tangled the destiny of the Shadow Master betwee
them, and all he entailed, the misled fears which had raised marchin
war hosts; the bloodshed and sorrows of an age.

14

Winter 5647-5648

Crown Council

Far distant from Araethura's wind-raked downs, in a wainscoted
anteroom trimmed in gilt and agleam with pristine wax candles,
an immaculate steward in blue-and-gold livery bowed to King
Eldir's ambassador. "His Grace, the Prince of the Light, will see
you now."
    The visiting dignitary on the cushioned bench arose at the royal
summons. A middle-aged man of spare bones and blunt demeanor,
he seemed unremarkable for his post. Nor did he display the stylish,
warm manner which trademarked the gifted statesman. Clad still in
the travel-splashed broadcloth he had worn from the mired winter
harborside, he followed the servant through the massive, carved
doors, then down the echoing corridor which led to Avenor's hall of
state. Cold light, reflected off a late snowfall, streamed through the
lancet windows. Here, no stray sound intruded beyond the measured
tap of footsteps upon satin-polished marble.
    The palace sanctum where Prince Lysaer s'Ilessid plied the reins of
his government lay far removed from the chopped mud of the prac-
tice yard, where the handful of veterans returned from campaign
drilled their surviving field troops.
    No secretaries murmured behind closed doors. A lone drudge pol-
ished rows of brass latches, her labors methodically silent. The hush
felt inert as the vault of a tomb. Three weeks was too soon for the city
to assimilate the impact of a fresh and unalloyed tragedy. The bur-
geoning industry of Avenor, so magnificently restored, seemed

15

~ANNY ~URT$

stalled; as if even the very resonance of power stood mute, strick~
numb by the news that even now rocked the five kingdoms.
    Of the forty thousand dedicated men sent to war in the rocl
scarps of Vastmark, all but ten thousand had died of the strate~
unleashed by the Master of Shadow.
    The declared neutrality of King Eldir's realm made those casualti
no easier to grapple. The ambassador sent by his liege to should
today's dicey audience was a man appointed for patience, and valu{
for his skeptical outlook. The outraged grief and shocked nerves 1
encountered made even simple needs difficult. Since the hour of 1~
arrival, he had weathered a brangle with the seneschal's undersecreta~
and before that, a harbormaster's flash-point temper, to secure his sta
galley a dose anchorage. He chafed at the pressure. To miscall any sm~
point of diplomacy could spark an unforgiving train of consequence.
    For the stakes ran beyond mere potential for bloodshed. The dea,
locked struggle between the Prince of the Light and his enigmati
sworn enemy had widened. Arithon's works now polarized Ioyalti~
and compromised trade in four kingdoms. Folk named him Spinn
of Darkness since Vastmark. Fear of his shadows and rumors of f~
sorcery attached to his secretive nature.
    Sensitive to the pitfalls in the tidings he carried, the High KinE
ambassador reviewed his firm orders. Then his sovereign lord
entreaty, unequivocal and clear, given upon his departure: "Your lo
alty may come to be tested, and sorely. Lysaer s'Ilessid can be disarming
persuasive in pursuit of his hatred of Arithon. But the Fellowship Sorcere
grant no credence to his war to destroy the Crown Prince of Rathain. Yo:
errand may well be received in disfavor. Should you find yourself compr
mised, even imprisoned under wrongful charges, you must keep my realm
Havish uninvolved."
    If the ambassador regretted the burden of his mission, the mom~
was lost to back down. The steward escorted him through the arch{
portals which led to Avenor's state chambers. Masking unea:
behind a lift of dark eyebrows, for the credentials from his king h~
been public and formal, the dignitary found himself admitt{
through a less imposing side door.
    In the smaller room used for closed hearings, Prince Lysa
s'Ilessid awaited. He was alone. A less imposing man, unattende
might have been overlooked on the dais, with its massive oak tab]
hedged by tall chairs with their carved and gilded finials, then the:
dwarfed in turn by the star and crown tapestry, device of Tysan's pa
high kings. The woven device masked the east wall, gold on bh
beneath the spooled rail of the second-floor gallery.

16

en

ky
gY

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 Limned by a flood of cold, winter sunlight, this sovereign's pres-
 ence filled that lofty well of space as a jewel might rest in a reliquary.
     The dignitary from Havish discovered himself staring, forgetful of
 protocol or the ingrained polish of court ceremony.
     Fair, gold hair seemed tipped in leaf silver. The eyes were direct,
 the clear, unflawed blue of matched aquamarine. Where Lysaer
 s'Ilessid had always owned a powerful, charismatic male beauty, the
 Vastmark campaign left him changed. Now, his majesty went beyond
 poise. As steel smelted down and reforged could emerge from the
 punishment of hammer and anvil to carry a keener edge, the pain of a
 massive defeat had tautened his flesh over its framework of bone.
 Less given to smiling platitudes, he wore the tempered, private still-
 ness of the veteran who has squinted too long over hostile terrain.
 The strong southland sun, the cruel weather, the indelible grief
 imprinted by the loss of thirty thousand lives had but rekindled this
 prince's resolve; like a lamp set burning on a fuel of sheer faith, to
 illuminate where a lesser flame would fail.
     The ambassador shook off stunned paralysis. He tendered the bow
 that acknowledged royal bloodline, but implied no stature of rank.
 The detail struck him as curious: the prince had eschewed to display
 the sovereign colors of Tysan. Instead he wore a tabard of white silk,
 trimmed with gold cord, and fastened at the neck with stud dia-
 monds.
    Lysaer s'Ilessid began in a brisk form quite altered from the
effortless courtesy which trademarked his single, past visit to Hav-
ish. "You may sit. I will make no apology. This meeting must be
short and private. A gathering of kingdom officials and outside
delegates is scheduled to take place after this one. Those who
attend have been discreetly handpicked. I hope you'll consent to be
present, both as an independent witness, and as King Eldir's repre-
sentative."
    "It is to his Grace of Havish such apology is due." Blunt features
immersed in shrewd thought, the ambassador wondered whether his
equerry might have talked over beer in a tavern. Had word of his
business reached Lysaer beforetime, today's air of secrecy boded ill.
He perched on a bench, a touch on edge, his words like thin acid
before the autocratic whims of royal privilege. "In fact, my appoint-
ment concerns an errand for the Fellowship Sorcerers, entrusted to
Havish's keeping."
    "Indeed?" An unexpected irony raised Lysaer's eyebrows. "That
being the case, all the better if our discussion is kept close." He
stepped around his state chair and settled. The stillness in him now

17

~ANNY WURTS

went deeper than patience, went past mere endurance, or the bit
ing confidence a beaten man raised in game effort to shrug off de
    About Lysaer s'Ilessid lay a quiet that towered. His immut
restrained force made the glare through the casement seem displ.
the hard scintillance of his gold trim and diamonds jarring as a
ter painter's slipped brushstroke.
    He said, "I make no secret of my bias. The doings of Fellow
mages are no longer welcomed in Tysan."
    The ambassador rejected political wrangling. "Any tie to the
cerers is indirect, you shall see. My case concerns the first ransc
gold, raised to free your lady wife. The one which vanished d~
transit across Mainmere Bay this past summer."
    "Five hundred thousand coin weight," Lysaer mused
unswerving mildness. "My merchants, who raised the bu
remember that setback too well." In phrases wiped clean of res:
anger, he added, "That sum was purloined by the Master of Sha
You bring me word of the contraband? I'm amazed. The Fellow
Sorcerers were nothing if not in cahoots with that blatant act of p:
Go Oll."
    The ambassador folded stiff fingers inside the lace of his cuffs
circumspect to pass judgment on the doings of mages, he picke
way cautiously. "Your lost gold was returned by Prince Aritl
hand, and surrendered under Fellowship auspices. By appoint
as neutral'executor, the crown of Havish will restore the full s~
your Grace's treasury. The incident, as you claim, went beyond
pie theft. The Master of Shadow waylaid your lady's ransom 'as ~
tic to stall your war host from invasion of Vastmark."
    "Five hundred thousand coin weight in exchange for the tir
arrange for thirty thousand deaths." Lysaer never moved, his s
less detachment enough to raise frost on hot iron. "What price, fc
blood that was spilled in Dier Kenton Vale?"
    The ambassador sidestepped that baiting insinuation. "The
sure is guarded aboard my state galley, counted and bound ~
seal by his lordship, the Seneschal of Havish. Upon my recei
signed documents of discharge, the gold can be consigned to the
of Avenor's state council."
    No need to prolong the particulars; a writ of acceptance cou
drawn up and sent to the harbor by courier. Avenor's str~
resource could scarcely spurn funds, however embarrassing thei
gin. Havish's envoy straightened, in haste to exchange due cou
and depart. He had no authority to stay on as witness to the ~
noon's clandestine council.

18

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FUOITIlIE PI~INCE

     Yet before he could draw the audience to an end, the royal steward
 flung wide the door. A tightly bunched cadre of trade ministers filed
 in, their clothes trimmed in furs and jewelled braids. Costly, dyed
 plumes cascaded from their hat brims; their hands flashed, expressive
 with rings.
     The prince had staged his private meeting to converge with the
 ambassador's presence. Eldir's delegate settled back on his seat, out-
 maneuvered by the forms of diplomacy. While the trade worthies
 vied like rustling peacocks for the places close to the dais, he waited
 in guarded resignation for the play of Lysaer's strategy.
     This would be a volatile, partisan gathering to judge by the seals of
 high office displayed by the men who attended. Trade background let
 the ambassador identify at least a dozen of Tysan's ruling mayors,
 united in their distrust of Arithon. Other delegates with complaints
 against the Shadow Master had been summoned from extreme long
 distance, as shown by the black-and-gold lion of Jaelot emblazoned
 on a dignitary's tabard.
     Another who wore plain broadcloth and boots seemed displaced,
 all fidgety with nerves as he moved through the trappings of wealth
 and the suave, mannered men of high power. The table filled, then
 the seats arranged by the side walls. The liverish governor of the
 Western League of Headhunters hunched uncommunicative beside
 two stolid commanders at arms with the broad, southcoast vowels of
 Shartd. These would have suffered direct losses on the field, or borne
 firsthand witness to the devastating sorceries wrought from illusion
 and shadow.
    Rathain's foremost headhunter, Skannt, sauntered in with his
gleaming collection of knives. He chose to stay standing, arms folded,
in the cranny by the gallery landing. At his shoulder, companionable
and stout chested, Lord Commander Harradene chuckled over some
pleasantry. To him fell the captaincy of the disheartened remnants of
Etarra's decimated field troops. The chair left vacant by Lord Die-
gan's death stayed unclaimed to Lysaer's fight hand. As yet no
replacement had been named to command Avenor's elite garrison.
Nearest to the prince, faced bristling across four feet of oak table, a
muscled, tight-lipped mercenary traded glares with Mearn s'Brydion,
youngest brother of a clanborn duke from the eastshore kingdom of
Melhalla. The scruffy little cleric in scholar's robes placed between
them stared through the window, oblivious to the smoldering hatreds
entrenched through five centuries of bloodshed.
    The men Lysaer s'Ilessid had drawn to his cause were of disparate
backgrounds and loyalties, too fresh in alliance to mingle in comfort,

19

J^~� W~$

 and too volatile a mix to leave standing too long without war to har-
 ness their interests. They crowded the small chamber like rival
 wolves, the martial devices of the field captains' surcoats bold as
 game pieces beside the padded silk pourpoints of city ministers.
  Lysaer called the meeting to order. He might wear no coronet of
 royal office, yet the absent trappings of rank stole no force at all from
 his majesty. His opening phrase slashed the crosscurrents of ambition i~
 and froze them forcefully silent. "We are gathered this hour to resolve
 my claim to the powers of crown rule, offered to me by legitimate
 blood descent, and sealed into edict by Tysan's independent city.
 councils." His hand, bare of rings, moved, reached, and lifted a heavy
 document weighted with state seals and ribbons.
   All eyes in the room swung and trained on the parchment. Against
   the expectant, stalled quiet, something creaked in the gallery, behind
   and above the seated audience.
    A snap of air flicked across a taut bowstring, then the whine of an
arrow, descending.
    Its humming flight scored through Captain Skannt's scream of
warning, and above these, the shout of the archer, in sheared, clan-
born accents, "Such claim is unlawful!"
    A sharp crack of impact; the four-bladed point impaled the parch-
ment and skewered it to the table. The chink of shattered wax became
lost in the noise as the dignitaries chorused in panic, "Barbarian!
Assassin!"
    Pandemonium rocked through the room. Scribes bolted for cover.
Overdressed trade magnates and timid mayors ducked, trembling
and frightened to paralysis. Entangled and cursing, war-hardened
commanders surged erect and charged, bowling over spilled hats and
cowering figures. They heaved empty benches before them as shields
and pounded for the stair to the gallery.
    "I want him alive!" Lysaer cried through the clamor. Uncowed and
looking upward, he wrested the arrow from the tabletop. The lac-
quered red shaft gleamed like a line of new blood against his stainless
white tabard. The hen fletching also was scarlet, the cock feather
alone left the muted, barred browns of a raptor's primary.
    "That's a clan signal arrow. Its colors are symbolic, a formal decla-
ration of protest." The speaker was Skannt, the headhunter from
Etarra, his lidded eyes bright in his weasel-thin face, and his interest
dispassionate as ice water. "In my opinion, the archer struck what he
aimed at."
    Lysaer fingered the mangled parchment, slit through its ribbons
and the artful, inked lines of state language. He said nothing to

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             FUGITIVE PRINCE

Skannt's observation. Motionless before his rumpled courtiers who
crowded beneath the shelter of tables and chairs, he awaited the out-
come of the fracas in the gallery. Five heavyset war captains rushed
the archer, who stood, his weapon still strung. He wore nondescript
leathers, a belt with no scabbard, and soft-soled deerhide shoes. In
fact, he was unarmed beyond the recurve, which was useless. He car-
ried no second arrow in reserve. As his attackers closed in to take
him, he fought.
    He was clanborn, and insolent, and knew those combatants who
brandished knives bore small scruple against drawing blood to sub-
due him.
    Fast as he was, and clever when cornered, sheer numbers at length
prevailed. A vindictive, brief struggle saw him crushed flat and pin-
ioned.
    "Bring him down," Lysaer said, the incriminating arrow fisted
between his stilled hands.
    Scuffed, bleeding, his sturdy leathers dragged awry, the clansman
was bundled down the stairs. He was of middle years, whipcord fit,
and athletic enough not to miss his footing. Space cleared for the men
who frog-marched him up to the dais. He stayed nonplussed.
Through swelling and bruises, and the twist of fallen hair ripped
loose from his braid, his forthright gaze fixed on the prince. He
seemed careless, unimpressed. Before that overwhelming, sovereign
presence, his indifference felt like contempt.
    Through the interval while rumpled dignitaries unbent from their
panic, to primp their bent hats and mussed cuffs and jewelled collars,
his captors lashed his wrists with a leather cincture borrowed from
somebody's surcoat. The clansman never blinked. He behaved as
though the indignity of bonds was too slight to merit his attention.
  "Slinking barbarian," a man muttered from one side.
    Another snapped a snide comment concerning the habits of clan
women in rut.
    No reaction; the offender held quiet, his breath fast but even. His
patience was granite. The royalty he had affronted was forced to be
first to respond.
    "If you wanted a hearing, you have leave to speak," Lysaer
s'Ilessid said, forthright. "Consider yourself privileged to be given
such liberty." A tilt of his head signaled a scribe to snap straight, find
his pens, and smooth a fresh parchment in readiness for dictation.
"Set this on record," Lysaer resumed. "To bear arms in the presence of
royal authority carries a charge of treason."
  "Your authority, royal or otherwise, does not exist," the clansman

21

               }ANNY WURTS
replied in his clear, antique phrasing, too incisive to be mistaken for
town dialect. "Since my arrow isn't struck through your heart, you
have proof. I haven't come for your death." He lifted his grazed chin.
"Instead I bring formal protest. This writ signed by townsmen to
grant sovereign power in Tysan is invalid by first kingdom law. The
tenets of this realm's founding charter hold my act as no crime. Your
cla~,~m to crown rule is in flagrant breach of due pro,c, ess."
    I need no sanction from Fellowship Sorcerers. Lysaer laid down~
the arrow, unruffled. Winter sun through the casement spanned the~
stilled air and exposed him; even so, he gave back no shadow of~j
duplicity. For a prince who had lost untold lives to clan tactics, then
his best friend and commander to covert barbarian marksmen, this
unconditional equilibrium seemed inspired. His reproof held a sor-
row to raise shame as he qualified, "I must point out, your complaint
as it stands is presumptuous and premature. This writ from Tysan's
mayors has not been sealed into law. I have not yet accepted the man-
tie of kingship."
    To the stir of surprise from disparate city mayors, the murmured
dismay from trade factions, and the outright, riveted astonishment of
King Eldir's ambassador, Lysaer gave scant attention. "As for treason,
let this be your trial." He gestured past the clansman bound before
him. "The men assembled here will act as your jurors. No worthlet
circle could be asked to pass judgment. You stand before the highest
officials of this realm, and the uninvolved delegates from five king-
doms. Nor are we without a strong voice from the clans. Mearn s'Bry-
dion, youngest brother of Alestron's reigning duke, may serve as
your voice in defense."
    "I speak for myself!" the barbarian insisted over the scraping dis-
turbance as upset chairs were rearranged, and the attendant men of
government refocused their interest through the rustle of settling vel-
vets. "Let there be no mistake. Since the murder of Maenalle s'Gann-
ley, caithdein and steward of Tysan, her successor, Maenol, has
appointed me spokesman before witnesses. Upon false grounds of
sovereignty, for the act by which you mustered armed force to make war for
a wrongful claim of injustice, hear warning, Lysaer s'Ilessid. Forsake
your pursuit of Arithon s'Ffalenn. Or no choice remains for the good
of this realm. The response from my kind must open a clan declara-
tion of civil war."
    "I think not." Lysaer set down the arrow. A small move, made with
unemotional force; barely enough to stem the explosive outrage from
the merchants who had lost profits to the Shadow Master's wiles, and
from veteran captains his tactics had broken and bloodied on the

22

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             FUGITIVE PRINCE

 ~iekcL L~tsaer's blue eyes remained stainless, still saddened. His regard
 upon the captive never wavered. "Rather, I believe your clan ch'~e~ta'm
 would resist me as an act of insurrection. His grandmother died a
 convicted thief on the scaffold. He will see worse, I can promise, if he
 persists in rash overtures of violence. Woe betide your people, should
 you let your clans be bound in support of a proven criminal. To abet
 the Master of Shadow against me is to threaten the safety of our
 cities."
     "This is a strict issue of sovereignty!" the clansman pealed back
 through the sawn and inimical silence. "Your royal inheritance has
 been disbarred by the Fellowship of Seven because your fitness to
 rule has been compromised. We serve no cause outside of our land's
 founding charter! This war you pursue against Arithon of Rathain is
 engendered by the curse laid on you both by the Mistwraith."
     The Lady Maenalle s'Gannley had said the same words in the hour
 of her execution. The heavyset Mayor of Isaer might have borne wit-
 ness, since she had been tried and condemned in his city, under his
 justiciar's tribunal.
     Havish's ambassador himself could confirm that the statement
 held more than a grain of hard truth. But his king's will kept him
 silent, even as the other dignitaries expressed their searing disbelief.
 Ill feeling already ran hot on both sides. However the thundering
 crosscurrents of hatred bent truth to imperil the prisoner, Havish's
 representative could do naught but observe.
    Lysaer's control was not absolute. Despite his impressive majesty,
no matter how staunch his self-command, distrust of old blood roy-
alty made his claim to the throne controversial; more telling still, the
question just raised against the morality of his dedicated conflict.
Fresh losses still stung. Inside one year, the campaign he pursued
against the Master of Shadow had seen the eastshore trade fleet sun-
dered and burned at Minderl Bay, then the clash as the armed might
of four kingdoms ended in an abattoir of spilled blood at Vastmark.
    As new uncertainty threaded tension through the gathering, all
eyes fixed on the prince in his tabard of flawless white and gold.
    His stance held straight as an arrow nocked to the drawn bow. He
perused the assembled dignitaries, nestled like plumed birds in roped
pearls and winter velvets; acknowledged the military captains with
their muscled impatience; then diverted, to touch last on the single
man in the chamber born to a laborer's status. One whose stiff,
uneasy stillness stood apart from languid courtiers like a stake ham-
mered upright in a lily bed.
 "How I wish the threat posed by the Master of Shadow were due

~ANNY WURT$

only to the meddling of Desh-thiere." A disarming regret rc
Lysaer's pause. Then, as if weariness cast a pall over desper~
strength, he relinquished his advantage of height, sat down, a
plunged on in bald-faced resolve. "But far worse has come to bear
this conflict than rumors of an aberrant curse. This goes beyond a
issue of enmity between the Shadow Master and myself. Hard e
dence lies on record in the cities of Jaelot and Alestron. Twice, unp
voked, Arithon s'Ffalerm wielded sorcery against innocents w
destructive result. Now, in the course of the late war in Vastmark
more dire accusation came to light. Since it may touch on the c~
here at hand, I ask this gather'mg's indulgence."
    The prince beckoned for the plain-clad man to mount the stair
the dais. "Your moment has come to speak."
    The fellow arose to a scrape of rough boots, his occupation plain
his seaman's gait and hands horned in callus from a lifetime sp~
hauling nets. Too diffident to ascend to the level of royalty, he chos
stance alongside the accused clansman. His embarrassed g~
remained fixed on his toes, unscuffed and shiny from a recent ref~
bishing at the cobbler's.
    "! was born a fisherman at Merior by the Sea," he opened. "WI~
Arithon's brigantine, the Khetienn, was launched, I left my fathe
lugger to sign on as one of her crewmen. Under command of the M
ter of Shadow, I bore witness to an atrocity no sane man could sa~
tion. For that reason, I deserted, and stand here today. Word
monstrous act at the Havens inlet must be told, that justice may col
to be served."
    Then the words poured from him, often halting, tremulous w
remembered horror. Too desperately, he wished to forget what h
happened on the summer afternoon as the Khetienn put into one
the deep, fissured channels, where the high crags of VastmE
plunged in weather-stepped stone to the shoreline of Rockbay H
bor. Today, pallid under the window's thin sunshine, the seam
recounted the affra~ when two hundred archers under Arith
s'Ffalenn had dispatched, without mercy, a company five hund~
and thirty men strong.
    "They were murdered!" the sailhand pealed in distress. "The v~
guard were cut down in ruthless waves as they scrambled, expos
on the cliff trails. More fell while launching boats in retreat. T1~
were dropped in their tracks by volleys of arrows shot out of co~
from above." The long-sighted seaman's eyes were raised nc
locked to a horrified memory. As if they yet viewed the steep, sh~
owed cliffs; the wave-fretted channel of the inlet; the still-runni

24

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 blood of men broken like toys in the brazen, uncaring sunlight. As
 though, beyond time, living flesh could still cringe from the screams
 of the maimed and the dying, scythed down in full flight, then tum-
 bled still quick in their agony into the thrash of the breakers.
     "Such slaughter went on, unrelenting." Before listeners strangled
 into shocked quiet, the damning account unfolded. Impelled now by
 passionate outrage, scene after scene of inhumane practice were
 described in the fisherman's slow, southcoast accent. "Those wretches
 who fled were killed from behind. Any who survived to launch long-
 boats did so by shielding their bodies behind corpses. Their valor and
 desperation made no difference. They were cut off as they sought to
 make sail. Every galley turned in flight was run down and fired at the
 mouth of the inlet. No vessel was spared. Even a fishing lugger bur-
 dened with wounded was razed and burned to her waterline. Mercy
 was forbidden, at Arithon's strict order. By my life, as I stand here,
 and Dharkaron as my judge, the killing went on until no man who
 tried landfall was left standing."
     The fisherman stirred, came back to himself, and shifted his feet in
 self-consciousness. "All that I saw took place before the great rout at
 Dier Kenton Vale."
    The last line trailed into appalled, awkward stillness. City officials
sat in their numbed state of pride, pricked down the spine by an
incomprehensible fear Their poise like struck marble, every veteran
commander sweated inwardly, forced to accept that the wretched,
slaughtered companies could as easily have been their own men.
    The moment hung and then passed. Deep breaths were drawn into
stopped lungs. Bodies shifted and hat feathers quivered, and humid
hands fumbled through scrips and pockets in quest of comforting
handkerchiefs.
  Then the floor loosened into talk all at once.
    "Ath show us all mercy!" The minister of the weaver's guild
fanned a suety face with the brim of his unwieldy bonnet. "What sick-
ness of mind would drive a human being to command such a letting
0fblood?"
    "The killing appears to have been done for no reason," the
Khetienn's deserter stressed mournfully. "No one who landed at the
Havens survived. The wyverns there scavenged the corpses."
    But the ambassador from Havish weighed the sailor's lidded gaze,
that darted and shied from direct contact. Instinct suggested this wit-
ness had withheld some telling fact from his speech. For malice, per-
haps, or personal rancor against his former captain, he might slant his
account to spark vengeful impetus to Lysaer's ongoing feud.

25

JANNY WURT$

    "But Arithon s'Ffalerm never acts without design." T
impact of Lysaer's rebuttal spun electrifying tension in.
man alive is more clever, or sane. This Spinner of Da~
have his reason, cold-blooded, even vicious, to hav
effected such slaughter."
    Lysaer stood, fired now by conviction which no Ic
keep still. The light shimmered across his collar yoke
template to his distress. "We know the scarps above
Vale were splintered into a rock fall. Earth itself was s
weapon to break the proud ranks of our war host. If th~
that territory are prone to slides, the ruin rained down
was a feat beyond all bounds of credibility. What
exploitation of a natural disaster were the cause? Cou
fact have been used to cleave a new fault line? Even
structure of the shale?"
    Disturbed murmurs swept the benches. Feathers ripi
vet hats tipped, as men shared their fears with their neigl
    "Arithon s'Ffalenn was born to mage training!" ~
exhorted above the noise. "Through his seemingly wan
at the Havens, could he not have tapped the arcane pow
very fabric of the earth?"
    On orchestrated cue, the shriveled little man in sc
started up from his unobtrusive dreaming. "The premis
out precedent," he affirmed in a drilling, treble quave
proscribed practices that herb witches use to tap fore
magnetism."
    A stunning truth. Every common man-at-arms who e~
illicit love philter had observed the filthy practice.
    "These distasteful creatures will slay a live animal, tl~
ing spells from the spilled effervescence of its life essenc,
more potent the power to be gained, if the sacrificial
human?" The scholar cast his accusation above an un~
lous anger. "Be sure, the massed deaths of five hundred
be enough to cleave the very mountains in twain t~
unconscionable destruction on our troops!"
    "The question is raised," Avenor's deep-voiced ju
through the uproar. He nodded in respect to his
addressed the bound clansman. "If the Master of Sha~
dark magecraft, the preeminent arcane order on this conl
stepped forth to denounce him. The Fellowship Sorcei
spoken. Nor have they acted to curb his vile deeds. Tt
Althain himself is said to feel each drop of blood spilh

26

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 Every death at the Havens would be known to him. Why should he
 let this atrocity pass?"
     A mayor in the front row raised an imperious fist. "The opposite
 has happened, in practice!"
     A scathing point; more than once, the Sorcerers had stood as
 ^rithon's spokesmen.
     Havish's royal ambassador stiffened, then stamped down his
 urgent protest. In even-handed fairness, hard against their better
 judgment, the Fellowship Sorcerers had also endorsed today's return
 of the princess's purloined ransom. Lysaer's avoidance of that truth
 was duplicitous. Pained by the loyalty due his own king, the ambas-
 sador endured through the unjust malignment, while Avenor's justi-
 ciar widened the charges in his sonorous, gravelly bass.
     "What is the Fellowship's silence, if not evidence of collaboration?
 By this lack of intervention, events would suggest that the Sorcerers
 may support all of Arithon's actions against us."
    "They gave their vaunted sanction to Rathain's crown prince,"
Etarra's Lord Harradene allowed. "If the Fellowship stands together
as the Shadow Master's ally, the consequence can't be dismissed.
They may have become corrupted. If they deem the use of dark mage-
craft as no crime, Prince Lysaer, as the public defender of the inno-
cent, would naturally be obstructed in his legitimate claim to rule
tysan."
    The clan prisoner's sharp protest became shouted down by
another voice as accented as his own. "Now there's a braw, canting
spiel, well fitted for a mealymouthed lawyer!"
    Mute on the benches, the ambassador from Havish shut his eyes in
relief.
    Volatile as spilled flame in the red-and-gold surcoat of Alestron's
unvanquished clan dukes, Mearn s'Brydion, appointed delegate of
his brother, sprang up in pacing agitation. "While you bandy conjec-
ture in mincing, neat words, let us pay strict attention to procedure! If
this slaughter at the Havens ever happened, where's hard proof?" He
cast suspicious gray eyes toward the sailhand, impervious himself to
the looks turned his way by townsmen distrustful of his breeding.
"Or will you sheep dressed in velvets let yourselves be gulled by the
word of a man disaffected?"
    As the deckhand surged forward, flushed into outrage, Mearn
raised a finger like a blade. "I've not said you're a liar! Not outright.
Arithon's a known killer, that much I grant. I witnessed the debacle
he caused in our armory. But whether his slaughter of these compa-
nies at the Havens took place as a blood crime, or some cruel but

27

JANNY WURTS

expedient act of war, the killing was done on the soil of Shand. Can
mix your legalities for convenience. Town law won't apply to a kin~
dom. Under sovereignty of Shand's founding charter, as written b
the Fellowship of Seven, Prince Arithon's offense is against Lot
Erlien, High Earl of Alland. As caithdein of that realm, the Te
s'Taleyn is charged to uphold justice in the absence of his high kinI
The question of Prince Arithon's guilt falls under his province !
determine."
    "What is the old law to our city councils?" cried the plump, ri~
boned spokesman from Isaer. "Just hot wind and words! TI~
caithdeins' authority was broken when the uprising threw dow
crown rule. And even if our mayors cared to bow to dead precedent
has this new evidence against Arithon not tainted the clans' leg~
claim? What if the Fellowship's morals are debased? Shall we wa
and watch our cities become victimized?"
    Talk rose, scored through by a treble run of panic. Even the sallo~
bored Seneschal of Avenor thumped his stick fist to be heard. "Shoul
we risk being deceived, or stay willfully blind, then suffer the sam
ruin that leveled whole buildings in Jaelot?"
    From all quarters of the chamber, heads turned. Ones bare an
close cropped to accommodate mail, and others fashionably coife~
Earrings swung, and jewelry chinked, as every face trained on th
Prince of the Light. He alone could speak for both factions, throug
hard-won respect and ties to an old blood inheritance.
    Yet it was Lord Shien, joint captain of Avenor's field troops, whos
remark stormed the floor into quiet. "If the barbarian before th~
council was sent as an envoy to declare his chieftain's enmity, w
have sure trouble here at home!" A large man, with meaty, chappe
knuckles and a frown that seemed stitched in place, he raised the bu
bellow he used to cow recruits. "And whether or not the Master c
Shadow has embraced wickedness, or sacrificed lives to buy powe
dissent from the clans will give him a free foothold here to exploit. ~
dare not allow such a weakness. Not before such dire threat."
    Attention swung back. Like blood in the water amidst schoolin
sharks, men fastened their outrage upon the offender held boun,
within reach. "Sentence the archer! Condemn him for treason! LE
him die as example to his brethren!"
    "Do that," interceded the long-faced justiciar, "and according t
town edict, he dies on the scaffold, broken one limb at a time."
    "He was sent to contest a legitimate point of law!" Mearn s'Br~
dion warned. "Take his life in dishonor, and your clans here wi~
never be reconciled."

28

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FUGITIVE PRINCE

     "A child knows better than to break into state chambers bearing
 arms!" a southcoast mayor bristled back.
    Inexorably, sentiment aligned. The delivery of the chieftain's mes-
sage had been insolent, a mockery of civilized practice. No townsman
remembered the bygone tradition, when a ceremonial arrow gave
symbolic exchange of a high king's censure from his liegemen. Where
those old ways once forestailed needless bloodshed, now, they were
seen as provocation. The trade guilds had suffered too many losses in
clan raids to trifle with forgotten forms of etiquette. Nor was Lord
Shien inclined toward forgiveness. Not when his divisions had been
held home in Tysan, guarding the roads from the spree of vengeful
ambushes launched after Lady Maenalle's execution. His blood
burned in balked rage for those companies marched south, every
comrade in arms to perish untimely of a sorcerer's fell tactics in Vast-
mark.
    Only the ambassador from Havish regarded the clan prisoner with
pity. The man waited, his stance easy. His attention never shifted from
the face of the prince on the dais.
    Lysaer s'Ilessid withheld intervention. Serene as smoothed marble,
his form touched in light like the finished planes of a masterpiece, he
allowed the dissonant chaos of argument to roll and rebound and
gain force. He listened for the moment when his disparate factions
became unified, their imprecations a shouted resonance of passion,
crying for blood in redress.
    Then he held up one hand. A spark snapped from his palm, the
smallest manifestation of his gift. But the flare of illumination cracked
like a whip through raw noise and engendered immediate silence.
    Before venomous animosity, he stayed detached, his diamonds like
frost on a snowfield. Then he inclined his head to the captive before
him. "You're fully aware, a vote cast now will condemn you. Town
law has small mercy. You could suffer a brutal public maiming before
death."
 The clansman said nothing.
    Lysaer used the pause. While the atmosphere simmered in fierce
anticipation, his study encompassed every minister, hard breathing in
velvets and furs. The officers of war endured his regard, unflinching,
then the mayors, with their gnawing, hidden fear. The prince they
had signed into power was royal, closer in ties to clan ancestry than
they wished. The price of their protection from the Spinner of Dark-
ness might come at the cost of their coveted autonomy.
    Yet to refute the traditions of city law outright, Lysaer had to know,
he would flaw the amity of their support. Foremost a statesman, he

29

JANNY WARTS

showed no hesitation. "The case of your clans might have fared best
by waiting. Before you shot down your colorful ultimatum, you
could have heard out my answer to this document." He fingered the
torn scroll of parchment in unfeigned regret, as he added, "For you
see, I have no intent to accept the burden of crown rule at this time."
    After the first, indrawn gasp of surprise, a stunned stillness, as i~
the overheated air had hardened to glue, with every man gaping al
the prince.
    Lysaer showed long-suffering equanimity. "There are truths to t~
conflict against the Master of Shadow even I have withheld from gen.
eral knowledge. I wish above all to avoid seeding panic. After the fail.
ure of our late campaign, we need order more than ever to rebuild."
    He had his factions riveted, the ambassador saw, struck by a surge
of admiration.
    "Arithon s'Ffalenn may have been born a man, but he has foregon~
his humanity," Prince Lysaer resumed. "His birth gift presents ar
unspeakable threat. This, paired with his use of unprincipled magic
redoubles our peril before him." Lest the quiet give way to fresh alter
cation, Lysaer delivered his solution. "I sit before you as this crimi
hal's opposite, my gift of light our best counterforce to offset 1~
shadow. For this reason, I must decline Tysan's kingship. My purpo~
against Arithon must stay undivided for the sake of the safety of ott
people."
    The logic'was unassailable. Defeat on a grand scale had shown th~
futility of choosing one battlefield for confrontation. The inevitabl~
striving to forge new alliances, to restore shaken trust after broadscal~
ruin, then the wide-ranging effort to buy a mage-trained enemy':
downfall, must draw this prince far afield from Avenor.
    He said, "For the stability of this realm, I suggest that a regency b~
appointed in my name, answerable to a council of city mayors. Tiff
will serve the crown's justice and bind Tysan into unity until the day
have an heir, grown and trained and fit beyond question for th~
inheritance of s'Ilessid birthright."
    The stroke was brilliant. Havish's ambassador noted a spark o
comprehension hood the eyes of Mearn s'Brydion.
    Though the prisoner pointed out in acerbity that the realm'
caithdein held an earlier appointment to the selfsame office, but with
out formal ties to city government, his case was passed over. O1~
hatreds lay too long entrenched. Throughout the chamber came,
squeaking of benches, a nodding of hats, as guarded interest ease~
the tensions of mayors and guild magnates. The most hardened ey
for intrigue, the most shrewd mind for statecraft, must appreciat

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FUGITI~/E PRINCE

 that Lysaer gave up nothing beyond the trappings of crown and title.
 Sovereign power would largely reside in his hands. Except townborn
 pride would be salved. The uneasy transition back into monarchy
 could proceed with grace and restraint.
     City mayors would keep their veneer of independence. By the time
 they left office, their successors would wear the yoke of consolidated
 rule as comfortably as an old shoe.
     "We shall have a new order, tailored for this time of need. Past
 charter law forbids the cruelty of maiming. And this is Avenor, where
 my dominion is not in dispute." Lysaer stepped to the edge of the
 dais, pale as lit flame against oncoming storm as clouds choked the
 sky past the casement. Whether his gifted powers of light touched his
 aura, or whether his gold trim and diamonds shimmered in unquiet
 reflection, the effect was magnificence unveiled.
     The ambassador from Havish forced himself to look away from the
 brilliance, the drawing pull of a gifted man's charisma, as the prince's
 fired, clear diction pronounced final sentence upon the clan archer.
     "Here is your fate, by my word as s'Ilessid. Your hand shed no
 blood. But an ultimatum against me was tendered by your caithdein,
 Lord Maenol s'Gannley. For that, you go free as my spokesman. My
 safe conduct will see you outside the city gates. Tell Maenol this: he
 may come to Avenor before the spring equinox and present himself
 before me on bent knee to beg pardon. Let him swear fealty in behalf
 of his clan chieftains, and no one suffers redress. But if he refuses,
 should he declare open war, I will enact sanctions in reprisal for trea-
 son against all the people of your clans."
    A murmur swelled from the benches, slammed still by Lysaer's
brisk shout. "Hear the rest! I have funds at hand to rebuild the east-
shore trade fleet. Every galley and vessel which burned in my service
at Minderl Bay will be replaced at Avenor's expense. I promise that
every merchant who receives restitution will suffer no more raids at
sea. The Master of Shadow and his minions will think twice about
attacking with fire, since the newly launched ships shall be manned at
the oar by chained convicts. Condemned men fairly sentenced as
^rithon's collaborators, and as of this hour, take warning: Maenol's
own people, if he fails to bind his clansmen under my banner to take
arms against Arithon of Rathain."
    To the headhunters' stiff-backed dismay, Lysaer granted swift reas-
surance. "Bounties will not be repealed for renegade clan scalps. But
if Maenol s'Gannley refuses his allegiance, double coin will be ten-
dered for each male barbarian captured and brought in alive."
 For a moment, as if deafened by a thunderclap, the clan archer did

31

JANNY WURTS

not move. Then he drew breath like a rip through strained cloth i
gave answer in blazing contempt. "If any small blessing can be pri
out of tragedy, I thank Ath my Lady Maenalle never lived to see th
will return to her grandson, caithdein of this realm, and tell him,
threaten us with slavery."
    Nothing more did he say as his bonds were released, and gua~
men were dispatched to see him on his way through the gates.
    The ambassador from Havish used the confusion to slip thro~
the ranks of halberdiers. Outside in the corridor, he ducked into a v
dow niche, while the sweat dewed his temples and curled the s~
hairs of his beard. This was not his fight. And yet, even still, his m
seemed loath to relinquish the pull of Lysaer's seductive delivery.
    The prince owned a terrifying power of conviction. Thirty th
sand lives gone and wasted in Vastmark had left his dedica!
unshaken. Nor would his adherents awaken and see sense, tied to
need as they were through inherited blinders of prejudice.
    The tramp of the men-at-arms and the clansman they esco~
dwindled, then faded away beyond hearing. Outside, white on g
new snow dusted downward. The wind's biting cold seemed to s.
through the casement and strike an unmerciful ache in the heart.'
ambassador shook off the memory of Mearn s'Brydion's thin featu
seething in stifled restraint, his clanborn outrage no doubt throt~
silent by some stricture from his brother, the duke.
    Worn from the effort of leashing his own temper, the ambassa
from Havish shook out his linen cuff and blotted his dampened f~
The word he must bear home to his liege boded ill.
    On both sides, the corridor was deserted, its white marble arc
bathed chilly silver by stormlight. Lysaer's voice carried through
opened door in fiery address to his council. "We are gathered ?
today to begin the long work of uniting all kingdoms against
Master of Shadow. Given his acts of evil, there exists no moral c~
promise. Our task will not ease until no dwelling remains on this c
tinent where ignorance will lend him shelter. We are come, in ú
hour, to found an alliance to act against terror and darkness."
    Steps pattered across the council room as someone inside move~
remedy the door left ajar Sickened, tired, afraid for the future ~
anxious to embark on his downcoast run back to Havish, King Eld
ambassador hastened away, too burdened to risk hearing more.

32

Spring 5648

Stag Hunt

 Two months after Lysaer s'Ilessid leveled charges of dark sorcery
 against Arithon s'Ffalenn, the horror instilled by the ruin of the war
 host had magnified itself into rumors and uneasy fear. Households in
 mourning for those fallen on the field did not celebrate the festivals.
 Avenor seemed engrossed by industry, as men of war paid in gold for
 new swords and laid avid plans to sign on recruits to bolster their
 decimated garrison.
    At least one free spirit inside city walls chafed at the endless, long
councils. Mearn s'Brydion, the rakish youngest brother of the clan-
born Duke of Alestron, slammed the door from his quarters and
strode into the ice melt which pooled the cobblestone street. Today,
the state garments laid out by his servants had been ditched for a
briar-scarred set of worn leathers. In wild joy gloved over simmering
temper, he snapped in the disapproving faces of his servants, "Let
Prince Lysaer's stool-sitting councilmen share their pompous hot
wind amongst themselves."
    This morning, he would fare out hunting for pleasure, and
bedamned to his current assignment as the douce representative of
his family.
    The gray, weeping mists wadded over the battlements failed to
dampen his fired mood. Draped on Mearn's shoulder like a desert-
man's blanket, the scarlet horsecloth with the s'Brydion blazon threw
a splash of sharp color against the drab dress of guild craftsmen who
hurried, sleepy-eyed, to their shops. The pair of brindle staghounds

33

~ANNY WURTS

just liberated from the kennel yapped at his feet, muddied to
from their bowling play through the puddles.
    Mearn's laconic, off-key whistles scarcely checked thei~
ance. His hounds charged amok, tails slashing, to disgruntle
in their path. The racket raised Avenor's rich matrons from s~
a few howled complaint from cracked shutters. Mearn
While geese honked, and chickens flapped in squawking ff
alley cats fluffed tails and bolted, the carters loosed ils!
curses above the manes of their shying teams. Mearn r
onslaught of outrage with bright-eyed, impervious humor.
    He was clanblood enough to relish the upset his antics ca~
man townborn. No one was brash enough to hinder him. Th
clipped accent turned heads and roused threats, Lysaer
decreed that any old blood family bound to his alliance mi.
Avenor's streets with impunity. The duke's youngest brothe~
his happy tumult into the royal stable yard and shouted for
bring his horse.
    Patience sat ill with Mearn. He slapped his riding whip at
boot in brisk tempo while the grooms fetched and bridled hi
He paced. The horsecloth hooked over his shoulder flappc
breeze each time he spun on his heel. Restlessness rode his ff
like hot sparks, while the deer hounds bounded in frenzied ~
around him.
    At last, infected past discipline, they bayed their uncont~
Their deep belling note spooked the highbred charger, w~
and upset the rake the new horseboy had forgotten to tidy.
    Milling, shod hooves crushed the handle to splinters. T
flung back, snapped its head tie, and added its thunderous
tion by galloping loose through the stable yard.
    Mearn cursed the groom for his inept hands, then toss~
copper for his trials. In his bitten clan dialect he added ]
which raised the eyebrows of the drayman who idled besid~
nessed team. Then he insisted to all inside earshot that he she
die his mount for himself.
    "Please, no lord! I dare not allow you," the groom stamm~
faced. The rest of the yard boys had wisely made themselv~
"Our Master of Horse would see me thrashed bloody if he ca
slacking my duties."
    "He'll thrash you anyway," Mearn argued. "Or does he n
your charges fly loose?" He pursed his narrow lips in disI
emitted a piercing, high whistle. His bitch hound howled i
with the noise, but the charger, obedient, stopped its clatterh

34

belly

~ber- 1

~t lay
 ~q~,t

:hed.
and
kin,t
~'ac}~

his
ant.
the
me

:sns

FUOlTII7E I~RINCE

        It poised blowing, its high neck arched and its ears swiveled back, lis-
        tening to its master's approach.
        Meam's grumbling irritation changed to endearments. He stroked
        the bay's glossy shoulder. Then he laughed and spoke a command
        through the redoubled yaps of his hounds.
        The horse turned, dealt him a companionable shove, then trailed
        him like a puppy as he recrossed the stable yard.
        "Fetch out my saddle, and then get you gone!" Mearn called to
        the fidgety groom. "This gelding never did like a town-whelped
        runt. Likely you'd just find your skinny butt nipped as you tried to
ar~v    fasten his girth." Suddenly all pared efficiency, he tossed his bla-
~ his   zoned saddlecloth over the horse's back. As the boy still hovered, he
ssid    added, "Hurry on! Do you think the deer will wait while you stand
calk    there?"
~ght    Minutes later, Mearn vaulted astride, shouted his hounds to heel,
y to    and wheeled his mount through the gate. A razor-edged irony whet-
        ted his smile.
        As his three older brothers would laugh themselves prostrate to
        explain, he held stag hunts in passionate contempt. His purpose in
        plying the wilds alone was for game and stakes far larger, dangerous
        enough that he risked his life as forfeit.
        Belying even the semblance of secrecy, Meam made his racketing,
        flamboyant departure through the moil of the early-spring market.
        Chaos surged in his wake. Curs barked, and carriages swerved, and
        crated sows squealed in their wagon beds. Even the bored guards on
        Avenor's inland battlement were relieved to see his turmoil pass the
        gates.
        He reined off the muddy road into the shrinking, gray mounds of
        01d snowdrifts. The bare, tangled boughs of the oak forests engulfed
        his whipping scarlet horsecloth and his laughing whoops to his
        horse. The baying of his hounds rode the land breeze, until distance
        mellowed that also. The s'Brydion line was clanbred, barbaric to the
        bone. Lysaer's captains agreed that their envoy from Alestron was
        unlikely to be troubled by his murdering, woodland kindred, even
        had any of Tysan's blood chieftains dared to skulk in the bogs within
        reach of Avenor's armed might.
        The spring was too new for greenery. Ice still scabbed the north
        sides of the dales, and the air held its chill like a miser. What warmth
if      kissed Mearn's shoulders was borrowed from the sun, half-mantled
~d      in streamers of cloud. Their shadows flowed like blown soot across
~s      the valleys, and rinsed the bright glints from the streamlets. Meam
~t.     gave on his reins, let his horse and his hounds drink the wind at a

35

]ANNY WURTS

run, as man and beast might to celebrate life as frost loosed its]
on black earth.
    He carved further inland, his horse settled to a trot, thrc
deeper thickets and trackless mires, beyond range of Lysaer's r
foresters. His hounds coursed ahead. If their quarry was not al~
a swift-running deer, their master scarcely cared. The hound co
badgered any game they could flush. Wild lynx, or red fox, no t
to their training, they were left to track as they pleased, and.
whipped off the scent if their hunt veered them northwar~
south.
    Due east, Mearn was bound, his brother's ducal blazon now r
tied beneath the drab folds of his cloak.
    By noon, under pallid gold sunlight, he reached a bare hillock,:
tered with wind-stripped, buff grass. He drew rein there,
mounted, loosened his girth. His stag hounds flopped, pantinI
snap at the tickle of dried seed heads as though they were both
by flies. The bitch whined. The horse shook its mane and rubbe
sweated headstall against Mearn's leather-clad hip.
    He shoved back the gelding's nose with a gently spoken epithe
trace of roguish pleasure erased from his taut, narrow features.
year and events had changed him. His quick mind and observan!
were bent now toward other pursuits than tumbling loose ladies
gambling. The breath of the breeze fanned a chill on his neck.
lovelock he had worn since his first growth of beard shorn off in
purpose since Vastmark.
  A dove called, mournful, from a thicket.
    Mearn swung about at the sound, raised the corner of his c]
and unveiled the ducal blazon. Then he found himself a dry, flat
in a cranny, and sat out of the wind while his horse grazed.
    A slow interval passed, with Mearn touched to prickles by the
tain awareness that he was being watched from all angles. Then,
no ceremony, a young man moved upslope to meet him.
approach scarcely woke any sound from dry grasses. He ~
undyed leathers and a vest with dark lacing. He carried bow, k
and sword as if weapons were natural as flesh. Large framed, del
ate, he had a step like a wary king stag's. His light eyes, never
swept the hillock behind, then Mearn, and measured him down t.
boot soles. On that day, the high chieftain of Tysan's outlawed c]
men was nineteen, one year shy as the old law still reckoned r
hood.
    "Lord Maenol, Teir s'Gannley, caithdein of Tysan," Mearn gre~
He arose, inclined his head in respect, and shared grief for the gr.

36

ts hold

t, all
One
 eye
and
 the
:old

er- i
ith [
tis
~re

re,

]'F-

11,
is
S-

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 son, whose titles and inheritance now burdened his young shoulders
 through Lysaer's murder of his predecessor.
     Unlike the deceased Lady Maenalle, the heir returned neither wel-
 come nor greeting. He stood, chin tilted, silent, while the gusts flicked
 the laces on his clothing.
     No whir less stubborn, Mearn met that challenge with a sheared,
 bright-edged smile. If the s'Brydion ancestral stronghold had with-
 stood the wars of the uprising; if his family owed fealty to another
 kingdom and another chieftain on the farthest shore of the continent,
 the ways of charter law and the old codes of honor were still held in
 common with Tysan's clans in Tysan. Shared trust ran deep beyond
 words.
     "You have taken an unmentionable risk to come here," the boy said
 at last in his startling, mellow baritone.
     "I bear unmentionable tidings," Mearn countered. "And a packet,
 bound for Arithon, sewn in the lining of my saddlecloth. I went
 through Sithaer itself to keep that from the handling of Lysaer's
 overzealous pack of grooms." He added, "You'll want to read the
 contents before you send them on. Your clans are the ones most
 threatened."
    Tysan's young caithdein took that ominous statement in stride; such
troubles were scarcely new. His own parents had fallen to head-
hunters. "It's risky to be sending late dispatches across," he pointed
out, vexed more for the snags in the timing. "Arithon plans to sail as
soon as the weather settles."
    Small need to dwell on the risk of disaster, if their covert crossings
to his island haven at Corith were sighted. The fair, warming weather
would see the first trade galleys nosing their way from snug harbors,
the earliest at sea always manned by the keenest, most vigilant cap-
tains.
    "I leave that decision in your hands, then." Mearn strode to his
grazing horse, removed girth and saddle, and sat down with the
redolent, damp horsecloth. He used his knife to pick out the hem
stitching. The packet inside was wrapped in cerecloth, by its weight
and thickness no less than purloined copies of state documents.
    "Oh, well-done," murmured Maenol. Still standing, stiff backed,
against a sky that now threatened fine drizzle, he nipped through the
twine ties with his teeth, then flipped through the pressed, folded
parchments. The dark arch of his eyebrows turned grim as he read.
Documents recording rightful claim to clan prisoners to be bound over
into slavery; documents of arraignment without trial for acts t)f dark
sorcery, attested and signed, which named Prince Arithon criminal

37

J^~� W~$

 and renegade. Maenol's sharp features, never animated, stilled to p
 quartz as he perused the signatures and seals.
     "Merciful Ath," the words torn through his reserve as if jerked
 the barbed bite of steel. "Is there no end? How can so many may~
 bind these acts into law, upon no proof or surety beyond Lysae
 spoken word? It's not canny!"
     "It's happened," Mearn said. "I've seen. Lysaer has a tongue li
 pure honey. Fiends plague, my own family once fell for his trump~
 up cause before we discovered any better. I'll need a courier sent
 warn my brother Bransian."
    Maenol looked up. "That you'll have." He paused, squared fing~
gripping the first lists and requisitions appointed for the plann
royal shipyard; for the galleys where his people might come to su~
at the oar, under the whip and in chains. He took a moment, seem
to gather himself, then asked, "Is this truth, the accusation Lys~
s'Ilessid has laid against Prince Arithon at the Havens?"
    Mearn looked back, intent, his mouth turned glass hard. "I dol
know." He could not stay seated, but pushed to his feet, pressured
vent his raw nerves. "But there's one proven fact every charge sot
has omitted. Arithon lost his mage powers years ago, in defense of 1
own by the river Tal Quorin. If the slaughter at the Havens was col
mitted to enable an act of dark sorcery, his hand could not shape t
spells."
    "The deaths could be his," Maenol said, blunt. "He could ha
used an accomplice."
    Mearn stopped. As his gaze bore into the younger man, relex
lessly direct, Tysan's caithdein raised his chin and would neither bel
nor stand down. "I'm this realm's steward, in the absence of its kin~
must ask, since our fate's been entangled with Arithon's. As a ma
whose talents were blinded and broken, who knows to what lengt
desperation might drive him to wrest back his gift for grand cc
jury?"
  "You never met him," Mearn said, implacable.
    "Once." Maenol all of a sudden seemed heartsore. He star~
toward the wood where a pheasant pair called, while the bree
framed the unrestrained joy of a lark. "I was eleven. Arithon seem~
retiring, unimportant at the time. All my devotion was for our f~
s'Ilessid prince, just arrived. I couldn't imagine he'd betray us."
    Mearn at last looked away, his sigh a soundless exhalatic
"Arithon's nothing like his half brother. Trust me in this. As for ~
guilt, there's no guessing, given the nature of the man. He's det~
mined, and beyond any doubt, the most dangerous creature my fa~

38

tuned
suffer
emed
ysaer

:ton't
ed to
O far
~f his

' the

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 ily has ever chanced to cross." Attuned to his master's distress, one of
 the brindle hounds roused and whined; the horse stamped, and
 douds lowered, dimming the earth beneath their soft-footed shroud-
 ing. The sky threatened torrents before nightfall.
     "This much I can say," Mearn added finally, his arms folded as if
 the chill of the wetting to come later bit through his leathers before-
 time. "I have never yet known Arithon to lie. He received the Fellow-
 ship's sanction as Crown Prince. Since his oathswearing to Rathain,
 his integrity has been tested, once in life trial by the caithdein of
 $hand, and again, by my blood family. His morals were not found
 wanting. No act he undertook had been done without reason. Before I
 dared judge on those deaths at the Havens, I would ask in his pres-
 ence to hear out his sworn explanation."
     The breeze hissed through the grasses, rich with the bearing
 promise of thawed soil.
     "Well," Maenol shrugged in that steely light fatalism better suited
 to a man years older, "the tangle won't be yours or mine to unravel,
 but Earl Jieret's, as Rathain's sworn caithdein. If a boat can be sent,
 your dispatches will go across. Given luck, Arithon can be reached
 before he sails. Rest assured, my runner to your kin in Melhalla will
 leave my camp before nightfall."
    "One last thing," Mearn said as he offered his forearms for a formal
clasp in parting. "Lysaer has set scholars to work. They'll comb the
old archives until they've recovered the past arts of navigation."
    "So Arithon expected," said Maenol. The practice of star sights,
disused and forgotten through the centuries while Desh-thiere's mists
had smothered Athera's skies, could not stay lost for much longer.
For each day his Khetienn delayed her departure, the risk of discovery
increased. Ancient charts might be found, or a rutter, to recall the
location of the offshore Isles of Min Pierens. Arithon held neither the
resources nor the men to repel an assault from the tumbledown
fortress at Corith.
 To be caught there would drive him to flight.
    Aware like cold death that time was Lysaer's ally, the two clans-
men went separate ways. In birdsong, the day waned, while the gen-
tle rain fell and pattered chill tears through the dark, blurred brakes
of the oak forest.

39

Spring-Summer 5648

Three Warnings

The day after Meam's duplicitous stag hunt, couriers bearing
same copied dispatches ride outbound from Avenor, their horse tral
pings emblazoned with the sunwheel on gold, new device of t~
Prince of the Light; and they pass another messenger inbound fro
the south, who delivers King Eldir's ultimatum, that slave-beari
galleys henceforward shall be barred from all ports in his Kingdom
Havish ....

  While dawn mists mantle the oak forests of Avenor, a black arr~
screams over the ci walls, shot from a clan messen er's bowstrin
                     ty                                   g              g
affixed to its shaft, sealed in Maenol s'Gannley's blood, a letter pro
nounces a forfeit of life against the s'Ilessid pretender who has darec
break the freedom of the first kingdom charter....
    Far eastward, in the greenwood of yet another kingdom, the cl~
blood chieftain named Earl of the North cries out in torment from h~
dreams; and the warning delivered by his gift of Sight shows a packe~
city square with a scaffold, cordoned about with white banners and~
dazzle of sunwheel blazons, and chained there for the blade of a
lic execution is his sworn liege, the Prince of Rathain ....

4O

Spring-Summer 5648

     the ~!~
 trap-
    the
~rorn
aring
)m 0~

rrow
ring;
p ro-
ared

Ilan-
L his
ked
~d a

II. Fugitive Prince

 The prophetic dream broke on a scream of sheer rage, torn from
 the throat of a doomed prince.
 A second, real cry became its live echo, wrung in drawn
 agony from the caithdein sworn to life service of liege and realm.
    Jieret, Teir's'Valerient, and Earl of the North snapped awake in
Rathain with the vision's cruel vista seared into indelible memory.
Unmindful of peace, deaf to the birdsong which layered the spring
dawn in the woodland outside his lodge tent, he eased himself free of
his wife's tangled limbs and arose from the blankets to stand shiver-
ing. Unsettled, naked, he sucked down breath after breath of chill air.
The close, familiar smells of tanned deer hide and oiled steel, and the
pitchy bite of cut balsam failed to restore him to balance.  "Ath keep our sons!" he gasped through locked teeth.
    He could not shed his Sight of the last s'Ffalenn prince, crumpled
and still in the swift, welling spurt of his life's blood.
    "Another augury?" The bedding rustled. A lavish fall of hair
stroked his back, then a cheek, laid against his taut shoulder; his wife,
arisen behind him, to link calming hands at his waist.
    His tension would tell her the portent was ugly. Too often, in sleep,
the prescient vision he inherited from his father warned him of death
and trouble.
 Jieret raked long fingers through his ginger beard. He braced his

41

JANNY WURTS

 nerve, spun, and enfolded his lady into his possessive embrace.
 sorry, dove." The soft, misted peace of the greenwood seemed
 denly, desperately precious. "I shall have to travel very far, very
 The life of our prince is at stake."
    She would not question his judgment, not for that. Arithon
 was the last of Rathain's royal line. Should he die with no heir, his ~
 clansmen would forfeit all hope to reclaim their birthright.           tt~
   Feithan's fingers unclasped, brushed down Jieret's flanks,
 withdrew. "How much spare clothing will you carry?" She caugh
 the blanket, still warm from their sleeping, and spread it to pack~
 necessities.
     Jieret bent, caught her wrists, and marveled as always.
 strength in her was a subtle thing, her bones like a sparrow's in h~ '!
 hands, which were broad and corded beyond his youthful years fr0~
 relentless seasons of fighting. Their eyes met and shared mute appeal
"I'11 take weapons and the leathers on my back, and you, first of all.'
A smile turned his lips. The expression softene~ the fierce planes ~
his face, and offset the hawk bridge of his nose. Leave the blanket."~
    He rocked her against his chest, his touch tender. An urgency ~
could scarcely contain spoke of the perils he must weather on the s01[
tary trek that would take him to Tysan's western shore. Bounties wen
still paid for captured clansmen. Headhunters plied the wilds ~
bands, their tracking dogs combing the thickets. Towns and trade
roads were no less a hazard, choked with informers and guardsme~
sent out recruiting to replenish the troops lost in Vastmark.
    The wife in Jieret's arms would not speak of the risks. Strong as the
generations of survivors who had bred her, she absorbed his neec~
then massaged to ease his old scars with skilled hands, until he kissed
her and slipped free to dress.
    Jieret s'Valerient, called Red-beard, was in that hour twenty-one
years of age. Supple, self-reliant, clean limbed as the deer he ran
down in the hunt, he was rangy and tall, a being tanned out of o~
bark. War and early losses had lent his hazel eyes more than a touch
of gray flint. Jieret's inheritance of the caithdein's title had fallen to
him during childhood, both his parents and four sisters slain in one
day by town troops on the banks of Tal Quorin. On his wrist, even
then, his first badge of achievement: the straight, fine scar from the
knife cut which bound him lifelong to the honor of blood pact with
his prince.                                                  ,~~~
Proud of his rugged courage, too shrewd to voice fear, Feith
reached beneath their mattress of spruce boughs and tossed him ~
worn, quilloned knife.                                           ~

42

ce. "I'~
ed sua. Bi
.~ry fast. ~
'Ffalenn ~
his real~

~.S, and
~ght up
ack his

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e ran
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en to
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,than
~ his

FUGITI17E PRINCE

She smiled, a nip of white teeth. "The sooner you go, the better the
chance you'll be back to my lodge before autumn."
    Then she folded slim knees behind her crossed arms and watched
him bind on sheath and sword belt. If she wept, her tears were well
masked behind tangles of ebony hair. Not on her last breath would
she voice her disappointment. If her young husband did not return,
his line must live on in the child she knew to be growing within her.
She would endure, no less than any other clan woman widowed in a
sudden, bloody raid.
    Her husband was the oathsworn caithdein of Rathain, his birthright
an iron bond of trust. The needs of kingdom and prince must come
first, ahead of survival and family.
    Feithan held no rancor. If the Teir's'Ffalenn died, no clanborn babe
in Rathain could have peace. The future would be kingless, while the
townsmen continued their centuries-old practice of extirpation.
Headhunters would keep sewing scalps of clan victims as trophy
fringe on their saddlecloths, until at last the survivors dwindled, their
irreplaceable old bloodlines too thinned by loss to sustain.
    "Go in grace, my lord husband," were the last words she said, as
her man kissed her lips and stepped out.

     Three days on foot through his native glens in Strakewood saw
 Lord Jieret to the shores of Instrell Bay. There, a bribe to a Westfen
 fisherman secured his safe crossing to Atainia. From landfall just
 north of the trade port of Lorn, Jieret faced an overland journey of a
 hundred and fifty leagues. Anviled, rocky ridges arose off the coast,
 the country between summits guttered in dry gulches, and the scrub
 thom which clawed stunted footholds in the sands of the Bittern
 Desert.
    Here, where a man made a target against the luminous sky, Jieret
kept to the gullies. Sweat painted tracks through his coat of rimed
dust. He jogged, walked, jogged on again, refusing to measure the
odds that his errand was already futile.
    The winter storms had abated. Any day, the Master of Shadow
would raise sail to ply the world's uncharted waters. He would seek
the fabled continent beyond the Westland Sea, and finally know if
Athera held a refuge beyond reach of the Mistwraith's curse.
    The Sorcerer, Sethvir, Warden of Althain could have named Prince
Arithon's location. Yet at dusk on spring equinox, when Jieret passed
his tower, the Fellowship held convocation. Where Sorcerers worked,
the elements paid uncanny homage. The night air seemed charged to
crystalline clarity, the land lidded under a transparent sky with its

43

JANNY WURTS

winds preternaturally silenced. Ozone tinged the silvered gl
which speared in beams from the keep's topmost arrow slits, a~
earth itself seemed to ring to the dance of ancient arcane rhytl~
Though the clans did not share the widespread fear in the tov~
toward the powers called from natural forces, the man was a fool wh
held no mortal dread of disrupting the Sorcerers' conjury.
    Dawn saw Jieret on his way. His lanky stride ate the distant
through the rocky, slabbed washes bedded with black sand, pud~
still from the snowmelt off the lava crags to the north. Before the f0~
he veered west, to give the trade roads to Isaer wide berth. He keptt
ditches and hedgerows through the flax bogs and farmlands, an
moved softly by night where the headhunters scoured the flats.
stolen horse saw him to cover in the tangled stands of spruce whi
patchworked the Thaldein foothills.
    There, better mounted by clansmen from Tysan, he galloped sou!
with the relays who carried news between their fugitive enclaves ~
Camris.
    The first scouts insisted the Master of Shadow would have left h~
winter haven at Corith.
    Flanked by a campfire, the first cooked meat in his belly since th
desert, and his undone braid fanned in hanks upon shoulders sti
glazed from a wash in a freshet, Jieret said, "I know that.". Th
bronze bristle of his jaw thrust out and hardened. "I have to try an~,
way."
    The scout who lounged across from him spat out the stem~
sweetgrass he had meticulously used to scrub his teeth. "Fien›
plague, then. Keep your bad news to yourself. We've heard enou~
already from Avenor to turn our hearts sore with grief."
    Every restive sinew in Jieret's body coiled tense. "What's ha]
pened?" A late-singing mockingbird caroled through the gloom wit
a sweet and incongruous tranquillity. "What has Lysaer s'Ilessid do~
now?"
    The scout spat into the embers and spoke, and amid the fragrar
piney gloom beneath the Thaldeins, Jieret Red-beard first heard of tl
edict which endorsed live capture and slavery.
    "Spring equinox has passed, with the ultimatum given," the sco,
finished off in bitten rage. "Our Lord Maenol would never swear, b'
sent the false prince his black arrow proclaim'mg no quarter."
    Lysaer's life, among the clans who by right should grant him fealt
was now irrevocably called forfeit. Jieret had no words. The eve:
posed a vicious and unnatural tragedy, a warping of tradition pr
voked at its root by the evil of the Mistwraith's curse.

44

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

     The breeze carried the odd chill, breathed down from the snow-
 fields, bathed pristine white under starlight. Jieret felt as if the cold
 inside had closed stealthy knuckles around the heart. He sat, eyes
 shut, and his knees clamped behind his clasped hands. "Events have
 turned grim in ways even Ath could scarce believe. How are you set
 when the headhunters start the spring forays?"
     "Well enough." The scout shrugged. "Troops and supplies are
 depleted since Vastmark. We'll have a year, maybe two, before
 Lysaer's Alliance regroups, but mark me. Then we'll see sorrows."
     For a moment, like the drawn-out whisper of old grief, the wind
 stroked through the greening briar. Then the scout tipped his graying
 head. "You'll need to go back," he urged, gentle. "Our people will
 carry your message from here. No better can be done. The Khetienn
 will have sailed. If she has, your wait for your prince could be
 lengthy."
     The stiff pause came freighted with facts left unspoken: that
 whether or not the Master of Shadow had passed beyond reach, the
 headhunters' leagues in Rathain were ever in Lysaer's close confi-
 dence. The defeats freshly suffered at Arithon's hand, then the loss of
 their late captain Pesquil by Jieret's own arrow, had fanned their
 clamor for vengeance to fresh fervor.
     "You see what must happen," the scout said in staid logic.
 "Skannt's going to claim sanction from Etarra's fat mayor to harrow
 Rathain's feal clans the same way."
    "I know that." Jieret erupted in strung nerves, reached his feet, and
resisted the blind urge to slam his fist into a tree. "Ath, for chained
slavery? The guild merchants will cheer and donate the coin to forge
manacles. Morality's no deterrent. For years now, Etarrans have used
our child captives as forced labor." His back to the fire, he seemed a
man racked, the passage of each breath made difficult. "I have to go
on. What I know must not wait. Nor should my liege hear my word at
second hand."
  By the embers, the scout swore in sympathy.
    Forced to the crux of a terrible decision, Jieret summed up trou-
bled thoughts. "My clans are more to me than the spirit in my body,
but I am not irreplaceable. The Fellowship can appoint a new
caithdein for Rathain if my liege is not at hand to make his choice. My
spokesman, Deshir's former war captain, Caolle, would agree. He
knows the warning I bring is an augury which bears on Prince
Arithon's life."
    The last of his line, this fugitive Teir's'Ffalenn; threat to him ended
all argument.

45

               JANNY WURTS

    "Ath guard your way, then," the scout said, blunt as
metal. "May the clans in the south speed your journey."

  Jieret crossed the Thaldein passes, dismissed his friendly
and grew lean and browned from hiding in ditches through the
endale's sun-drenched, plowed farmsteads. He took no careless ~
But headhunters picked up his trail west of Cainford. He left
hounds dead, and two men, and limped on with bound ribs and a c
with a festering dog bite. The hedge witch he challenged at
for healing cursed his barbarian tongue, then tried to sell him ~l
amulet snagged together from squirrel skin and the strung vertebra~
a grouse.
Jieret refused her the price of a cut lock of his bronze hair.
"'Twould be useful for bird snares," the crone muttered. She s
fled over her sticky decoction, then knotted a bandage over an
smelling poultice with vindictive and sharp ferocity.               ~:
    "I like the birds free, and myself most of all." Jieret wanted to flinc~
at her handling, but dared not, with his dagger point pressed to h~
back. The crone's hovel had nesting sparrows in its eaves, and the p~
on her brazier leaked. Poverty and townborn contempt for her s~
ples had leached all her pride in her trade. Jieret harbored the cynic~
suspicion that any offering from his person would be sold back ~
headhunters by nightfall, twined into a tracking spell to trace him. ~
    Despite his need, the crone put a grudge in her remedies. His le~:
swelled and ached. Through curses of agony, he tore the dress~
away and soaked off the salves in a stream. Feverish, limping, h~
thrashed his way south through the brush. A second pack of trackint
dogs winded his scent and burst into yammering tongue. Freshly!i
mounted, their masters tried to run him to earth against the guard'~
spells of a grimward, which no man living might cross. There, ~
might have perished, inadvertently killed by Fellowship defenses set
to keep trespassers from harm.
    But clan hunters from Taerlin heard the commotion and spirited
him downstream in a boat. Safe at last under Caithwood's dense
cover, cosseted by a girl with cool hands, he slept off his lingering
wound sickness.
    Six weeks, since he had left his wife in Deshir. Early spring
exchanged lace-worked blossom and bud for the sumptuous mantle
of summer. On the sandy neck of Mainmere Bay, Jieret was met by the
clan chief whose ancestral seat lay in ruins across silvered waters. She
had ridden hard to bear him a message, the scout in her company
said.

46

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

     The hour was dusk, the sky, cloudless azure. Jieret crouched by
 her campfire under the eaves of scrub maples and spat out the
 bones of the rock bass netted for supper. While thrushes fluted
 clear notes through the boughs, and the deer emerged to nibble the
 verge of the bogs, he regarded the wizened little duchess who bore
 ancient title to Mainmere. She watched him eat, her gnarled hands
 folded. Along with age, she wore callus from sword and from bri-
 dle rein. The leathers belted to her waist were a man's, and shaded
 under the fans of white lashes, her eyes met his own with stark
 pity.
     "What's wrong?" Against the soft, sustained lisp of the breeze,
 Jieret sounded boisterous and unseasoned.
     Lady Kellis touched the battered satchel by her knee. "A docu-
 mented accusation by Avenor, made against your sanctioned prince."
 She resumed in her husked, worn alto. "My lord Maenol withheld
 this one writ from the packet, for your hand alone, he insisted. By
 your sworn duty, this becomes your legal charge as caithdein of
 Rathain."
    Her fingers trembled as she loosened the strings of her parcel. "For
this, we risk another passage to see you safe into Corith. There's a
chance the Khetienn's departure was delayed. In the month when the
ice broke, the Shadow Master heard of Lysaer's proclamation of slav-
ery. Word came back that he intended to make disposition on behalf
of our clans."
    "What's the charge?" Jieret's appetite fled. He rinsed his hands in
the leather bucket used earlier to sluice down his whetstone, in no
hurry to accept the offered document.
    But Lady Kellis had no reassurance to steady him. "I leave you to
read," she said in blank reserve. "Then you must act as your oath to
your kingdom demands."
    At first touch, the heavy, state parchment filled Jieret with trepida-
tion. He unfolded its leaves, braced as though handed the news of a
recent fatality. Then he perused the first lines of official script, and his
fists knotted from helpless rage. "But there was never a trial to affirm
this arraignment!"
    The Duchess of Mainmere gave a dry laugh. "Be thankful. If there
had been, the towns would have seen your prince burn."
    By the time Jieret finished, he was shaking. Traced bronze by the
flame light, he bent his rangy shoulders and dammed silent misery
behind the locked palms of his hands.
    A caithdein's given charge was the testing of princes, if the Fellow-
ship Sorcerers were preoccupied. The clans of Tysan were lawfully

47

JANNY WURTS

correct. Any accusation of dark sorcery against his liege belong~
nowhere else but with him.
    Heavy of heart, Jieret tucked the document into his shirt. "I will ~:
on to Corith. Find a boat quickly to bear me."
    The grandame arose, touched his arm in mute sympathy, then
him to a comfortless night. While the stars shimmered through
puzzle-cut shapes of black leaves, the ugly duty before him at Corit!
lent spin to his chafing fear. Rathain's sworn caithdein could not shak~
his dread, that his prescient dream of a city execution and Aven0r'!
sealed writ of arraignment might share a fatal connection.

    Passage to the Isles of Min Pierens in a patched-up fishing smaci
took three weeks, beating against the season's prevailing westerlies
and bouts of calm between squall lines. As the little craft
through the islands off the headland, Jieret crouched on the deck
stripped down to his sun-scorched skin. Between his knees, he bracei
a bucket of damp sand against the wallowing roll of the deck. ~
monologue of curses marked his ongoing effort to scrub the gree~
bloom of mold from his leathers.
    "Man, lend it mercy," drawled the craft's only deckhand, perche~
like a limpet halfway up the mast with orders to watch out for shoals.
"Keep on that, and just weep when yer bollocks tumble out and dan.
gle right pretty through the holes."
    Jieret looked up, a squint to one eye as he took vengeful aim with
the holystone.
    But the sailhand's snide interest had swung toward the land,
where the high, russet rock notched the sky in crazed patterns. Turn.
bled walls crowned the summit, bleached with sun, and the broke~
eggshell rims of the keeps which remained of a Second Age fortress
Beyond, unveiled by the sliding shift of vantage as the fishing smack
nosed downwind, there arose a trim set of masts stripped of canvas,
and a dark, lean hull, rocking serene at her anchorage.
    "Swamp me for a half-wit!" cried the sailhand. "Who'd have
risked coin to wager? The Khetienn hasn't sailed after all."
    Jieret reached his feet in a rushed, thoughtless movement, and th~~
bucket overset; a wet sludge of sand flooded over the offending set
leathers. "Fiends plague!"
    The language loosed next won a laugh from the boat's swarthy
captain. "Ach, let her go, lad! The deck won't see harm. For your
stripped buttocks, we'll scrounge a loan from our slop chest."
    "My naked arse isn't like to be burned for dark sorcery," Jieret
groused, his distress not at all for soaked garments. He glowered

48

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 across the closing gap of water. The brigantine's satin brightwork
 mocked him back, insolent, unmarred by the damage rough weather
 might cause to drive her back into shelter. Nor did her decks hold
 industrious crewmen, but languished untenanted in the heat. Jieret's
 foreboding deepened. His liege should be long away from known
 waters, with no trouble too dire to stay him.
    The hard-run little fishing smack put in and launched her dory
over the side. "We'll hold off for your signal," said the captain from
his squint-eyed perch at the rail.
    Jieret settled into the tender's stern seat, still damp, but pre-
sentable. He brooded throughout the approach to the strand, limned
in the flat glare of noon, the shade like slopped ink beneath the
cedars. As the craft neared the shore, a figure built plump and round
as a partridge bobbed amid the rocks, craned a short neck, then
erupted into spectacular strings of epithets.
    The oarsman listened, awestruck. "D'ye suppose yon one caught a
hornet in his breeks?" He reversed his stroke, and the dory spun
about in the wash of a slack tide breaker. "A collection like that's a
rare masterpiece. Never heard the like, not in any cutthroat dive the
length of the westshore dockside."
    H'm speculation foundered against a peculiar, chilly reticence as,
boots gripped in hand, his profile like the anviled rim of a thunder-
doud, the muscled young chieftain from Strakewood splashed thigh
deep in the shallows.
    "Well then," the crewman said, stoic. "I'll be off. Show us a light
from the point if ye want passage back to the mainland."
    Oars creaked. The dory reversed direction, leaving Jieret to wade
through the surf.
      The diatribe from the headland hiccuped through a pause, then
switched key to outraged recognition. "Ath! It's yourself!"  Jieret forbore to glance shoreward.
    "He's not with you!" The fat man on the beach hopped the last
steps to the tidemark, shook his lard fist, and erupted, "Damn his lice-
brained, sow-eared, rutting stubborn mind! He's bent on getting him-
self killed."
    Jieret arrived on dry shingle. "Not with me?" he echoed. Stopped
erect in noon glare while salt droplets sluiced runnels down his
ankles, he gazed from full height into an unkempt, round face and
smoldering, cinnamon eyes.
    "Turd-stupid, string-plucking goose," said Dakar, erstwhile spell-
binder to a Fellowship Sorcerer, and known far and wide as the Mad
Prophet. He licked bearded lips, then clapped his mouth closed,

49

J^~� Wu~$

belatedly aware that the clansman who loomed over him
like dammed acid with temper. Dakar's layers of mismatched
ing heaved as he dredged up an ingratiating shrug. "Well, maybe!
a goose, exactly."
    "You refer to my liege, Prince Arithon?" Jieret tossed a clipped ~
past his shoulder. Behind him, a wing-folded raptor on the settled~
of the sea, the brigantine seemed juxtaposed on the view, a wild
imprisoned by the natural stone revetments ,w, hich bordered the hi
bor basin. "Don't you dare claim he isn't here.                  :
    The Mad Prophet screwed his eyes shut. Wheezing like a rna~
from his headlong rush to the beachhead, he raised chubby,    p
ated hands and tugged at his fox brush beard.
Since on their last meeting, Dakar had been the Master of
implacable enemy, Jieret added, "We are speaking of the same
    Dakar flounced stiff. "Nobody else drives me to fits of sick
and anyway, you should know best. This isn't the first time
you come chasing his shirttails the length of the continent."
    Too wary to mind insults, Jieret kept his fierce glower. Dakar
miracle was not wallowing drunk. Though the clownish,
features were still slack from loose living, the spirit inside his
pared flesh seemed transformed into change. The pouched eyes
a glint of shrewd purpose. A queer incongruity, and one at
odds with the Mad Prophet's scapegrace reputation.  The silence extended too long.
    "What's amiss?" pestered Dakar. "Something's turned wrong.
Ath's own Avenger couldn't have dragged you to sea."
    "Oh, there's trouble, well enough." Jieret parked his hip against:
boulder and jammed on his boots to mask his outright anxiety. "P,
haps you'd best say where Prince Arithon went."
    "Ashore," Dakar said. Sweating in his seamy, worn clothes,
looked all at once beaten down, just another bit of flotsam cast up b]
storm to wilt on the waterworn rocks. "His Grace is alone, back 01
the mainland."
    Jieret confronted the Mad Prophet's moon features like a swords
man stunned silly by a mace. "The mainland," he echoed in stark di
belief. "Please Ath, not now. He can't be."
    "Best come up." Sly eyes swiveled askance; Dakar surveyed'
Rathain's tall caithdein, bitter himself with shared sympathy. "You
look like you need to be out of the sun, and besides, there's a risk. We
oughtn't discuss his royal affairs so freely here in the open."  Jieret looked blank. "What?"
  "Koriani," said Dakar. "Damn prying witches and their bother-

5O

              FUGI?IVE PRINCE

  ~ane spells." Then he rolled his gaze skyward, remiss. "I forgot. You
  wouldn't know how far things went wrong last autumn in Vastmark.
  The Koriani Prime Enchantress tried her level best to have Arithon
  s'Ffalenn assassinated."
      Jieret shot tense, hand clasped on his knife, his color gone shatter~
  ingly white. "On my oath as caithdein, is every living faction on
  Athera dead set to end my liege lord's life?"
     "Damned near." Dakar closed his moist grip on the larger man's
 elbow and tugged. "You haven't brought dispatches in with the
 sloop? Just yourself? Best move along, then." He nodded toward the
 cliff path. "I've got quarters up in the old fortress."
     Cicadas buzzed amid the crumbled rock stair that jagged up the
 flank of the headland. The dry air scarcely stirred, thick with the resin
 taint of cedar. Gray lichens silted like ash in the crannies, and the only
 visible inhabitants were the finches, flitting in startled bursts through
 the vines netted over bent limbs and black needles.
     From the heights, the isle was a fissured, clenched fist, the fretted
 shoreline worried by tides, and seamed in jagged grottos, hazed over
 in lavender shade. Here, in the First Age, Paravian seers had held
 council with dragons, who flew the world's skies no more. Against
 the vicious aberrations spawned by the drakes' wild magic, defend-
 ers from four races had languished, besieged, in the cramped, ragged
 bounds of the curtain wall. Now strewn like kicked block, the last
 ridge of foundation housed basking, gold lizards which skittered
 away into cracks.
     The eldest living dragons had spun their dream of desperation and
 appeal within these baked, cratered keeps, to draw to Athera the aid
 of the Fellowship Sorcerers. But if any ghost presence from that past
 remained to haunt Corith's ruin, the land retained no thread of disso-
 nance. Just bare stone, tuned shrill by the blaze of summer noon, and
 loomed on the untrammeled song of bundled energies which under-
 pinned all the substance of creation. Centuries of wind and battering
 storms had swept even the deepest, layered bedrock clean of the
 imprint of violent vibration.
    "Through here," Dakar puffed. He beckoned into gloom and reap-
peared beyond a crumbling archway.
    Jieret followed, but saw no sign of tenancy. The temporary, safe
haven for a Third Age fugitive felt abandoned, as if the site had been
owned for all time by naught but the wind and the seabirds.
    The stillness sawed at Jieret's suspicion. "Where are my liege's
people? The crew of the Khetienn? Daelion, Master of Fate, save his
Grace, has he kept none but you to stand by him?"

51

    Suddenly exposed before dangerous antipathy, Dakar stop
sliding, to chinks in complaint from loose stone. "I'm not yc
prince's enemy, not anymore. And he's kept the Khetienn's crew
full complement. They're all here, and safe, masked under my w
,o,f concealment." A note of plaintive unhappiness crept throuI
 That's why, Ath forgive me, I had to stay. Given the choice
wouldn't be here."

     Jieret regarded Dakar's sweating tension. "I know the s'Ffal
 temper, none better. You were told to hide the brigantine, if gall~
 happened on her?"
    Dakar nodded, miserable. "Or fire her, should my spells of illusi~
fall short." He shuffled breathlessly on. "Man, I couldn't stop
from going. His Grace has a will to stand down the Avenger's Fi~
Horses, and no mercy on the fool who interferes. If he gets hin~
butchered on some mayor's scaffold, I can't argue his right to ten~
fate."
    At Jieret's worried start, Dakar raised his hands. "No, rest assure
Arithon's not taunting a death wish. He couldn't if he wanted.
Fellowship of Seven forced him to take blood oath last winter. Hi
bound and sworn to life, whatever the cost, against future threat fr0~
the Mistwraith."
    "Mercy on him," Jieret whispered, shocked. In all Athera's hist0r
so strict a measure had never been asked of a crown prince. "Idich
know."
    "That happened after you parted at Minderl Bay." Dakar reache~
gap in the masonry. Beyond him, the hazed jointure of sea and
dimmed into distance, snagged with fluffs of white cloud. Innoc~
now, those scattered fleeces would mass into towers by late
noon, and anvil into a squall line. Just as untrustworthy, Dakar
right and vanished into clear space.
    Jieret's startled shout entangled with a prosaic reassurance,
backward. "Pay no mind to the wards. They're illusion. The
quite safe."
    Faced by a jagged opening, then a yawning gap into air, the
chieftain muttered imprecations against the spellbinder's feckless
character. A clutch of fractured boulders overhung the drop, ready to
launch from their settings at the first wrong breath of the wind. No
coward, Jieret stepped down.
    Chills roiled and rippled across his flesh. His senses upended.
fierce, hot tingle sang through his nerves, then stopped with a bracing
jolt.
  The Earl of the North bit back a yelp, the steel hilts of his weapons

FUGITIVE PRINCE

:rew, he~
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illusion
top him:
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apons

     ~lrned hot to his hand. He blinked, wits recovered, to find himself
 standing in a dusty, flat compound, scattered with tents sewn from
 sailcloth. Nor was Corith any longer untenanted. A circle of sailhands
           in the shade of a gnarled cedar. The ones near at hand
 looked aside at him, bored, then resumed quarreling over a dice
 throw, the winning stakes a collection of sticks notched with tally
 marks. The crescent knife used to keep count flashed in the fist of a
 prune-skinned little desertman, who stabbed air and hurled his
 scathing invective at a ship's boy for rigging the odds.
     "The defense spell is spliced reflection," Dakar said, smug. "Those
 cliff rocks, and that span of ocean were borrowed intact from a site
 halfway down the north slope." As the fracas erupted into knee-
 slapping mirth over the ship's boy's scurrilous rejoinder, the spell-
 binder admitted, "Of course, the noise was more difficult to mask."
   Case in point, a shout pealed out like steel put to the hammer.
     The urchin shot erect from amid the pack of dicers. All coltish
 brown limbs and angular grace, the creature had blond hair tied in a
 glistening, long braid. The end was cross-laced with a frippery of rib-
 bon bleached to rust. A second glance at a body clad in scruffy sail-
 hand's cottons showed the first, shy curves of a girl at the threshold of
 maturity.
     "Arithon wasn't on that fishing craft?" she shrilled across the
 brassy wash of sunlight.
    At Dakar's headshake, she crowed her wild triumph. "Well then
you owe me six royals! He wasn't to embark 'til the winds changed,
and the weather's stayed contrary this season."
    "There are still three days left before solstice," Dakar hurled back.
"Your silver's not won before then." Soured by the prospect of for-
feited coin, he confided to Jieret, "That's Feylind, the pest. I misspoke
myself teaching that girl to wager. She attached herself to Arithon at
Merior by the Sea, and for her talent, your liege thought to train her.
She's gifted at navigation and seamanship when she isn't cheating
numbers on the dice."
    "She has spirit, give her that." Jieret watched her spin back to
defend her hoarded spoils, then realized: this girl must be one of the
twins that Arithon had spoken of granting his oath of protection.
Years passed. Feylind had grown beyond childhood; nor would her
brother Fiark remain beardless much longer, wherever his own fate
had sent him.
 "Come on," Dakar urged. "If the heat isn't making you die for a

drink, ! want all your rumors from the mainland."
                              53

JANNY WURTS

     Dusk softened over the broken spires at Corith. The:
 breakwater spread a flat, purple disk. The seasonal squall line r
 bled off the coast, stalled through afternoon by the chancy, winn0v
 ing breezes. Cloud ramparts loomed off the islands, their sulf~~r~
 rims stained by the afterglow. When Jieret refused outright ~~ ~~
 what drew him from Rathain, Dakar parked his bulk upon the ~:r~i
 ing rope pallet he had strung in the shelter of a tumbledo~~.~ dru:
 tower. The furnishings consisted of axe-cut fir, lashed at the i~i~~.t~r~
 with twine. A water jug, a basin, and a clump of holed sock, 1~
 cached in the niche of an arrow slit. Beneath this, a sea chest in ~,~_,~
 a table held a spellbinder's clutter of bundled herbs, and an ~.dge.
 pair of shearwater's flight feathers. Jieret chose to sit on the ,lc~r
 floor through the exchange of desultory small news.
    They suffered but one interruption; the desertman burst h~ w:tt~0~
word or apology, and left a meal of smoked fish and greens. l'h~ ia~
of the day slowly fled. The ragged old walls were roofed with ~ t~a:
hazard patchwork of sailcloth, worried to threads and gaps k,~ t'r.
wind until stars could be counted in constellations. Outside, th~. ~ai.
hands had laid off their dicing. Someone returned from trappint,, a~:
coals were laid in to roast conies. No stranger to the nuance of le,~dir.
men, Jieret listened. Through spirited slangs and the odd br~r,t
laughter he noticed the underlying worry.
    Arithon's absence weighed on them all, though the subject starx'e:
scrupulously unmentioned. Even the Mad Prophet's prying, sl~ tal;
circled to evade the sore topic.
    The temperature cooled. Jieret cracked his knuckles and sud ~n?
ran out of patience. "Why should my liege be alone on the .~:~a~,
land?"
    Silence; the fallen summer darkness cut by a yelp as a sailhan~
burned careless fingers at the spit. Dakar against custom had ncl
touched his food. He regarded his laced fingers, as if he just realize~
his soft, dimpled knuckles were wearing a stranger's rough callus. Ht
was not drunk. His clothing was mended, and his beard, trimme~
neat, as if dogged grooming might suppress the misery'that impella
his anguished admission. "His Grace sought Cattrick. That huge ma~
ter joiner he used to employ back in Merior."
  "Dharkaron avenge!" Jieret cried. "His Grace went to Shand?"
    "I already know," Dakar supplied. "Official books of grievanct~
have been opened on the southcoast. Lord Erlien's clansmen sent
warning. Any town citizen can make claim of injury against Aritho~
No proof is required. Just a sealed statement from the plaintiff. Thost
women left widowed at Vastmark have wasted no time recording all

54

Voncl tlae

 ú
Vll~rlO~.
~lœurous
t to sa)
e creak.
~ drum
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    hap-
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              Pt!~31TIVE PI~INCE
     manner ofspur/ous spite. The pages are filled to the margins. and the
 mayors have promised to appeal for redress at Avenor."
  "Ibis Cattrick, "]ieret snapped. "Is h/s loyalty secure?"
     "Arithon believed he'd be able to win back the craftsman's trust."
 As this fueled a more alarming shift into fury, the Mad Prophet
 cringed, and cried out, "You know your liege!"
     Jieret showed the fat spellbinder no quarter, but drew up his legs
 and busied his hands working the ringed salt from his buckskins. No
 need to reiterate the plain fact: that Dakar's intent was equally well
 suspect, outspoken as he had been in the past concerning the Shadow
 Master's ethics.
     A thunderclap boomed over the ocean. Echoes shook the ominous
 fiat air, and growled through the Mad Prophet's explanationú "Once
 Arithon heard that his half brother had signed formal sanction for
 slave labor, his temper lit off like fell sparks. No reason moved him.
 He would go ashore, use his Masterbard's talent and ply the
 southshore taverns. He meant to recall his craftsmen and recruit those
 who dared on some devious scheme to stall Avenor's injustice."
     Iieret glanced up, his eyes chill hazel. He asked to borrow an oiled
 rag and a whetstone, then deliberately tended the steel of his quil-
 10ned dagger. Dakar, who had once known the caithdein's father,
 knew better than to interrupt. The clan chieftain took his time, then
 stabbed the blade upright in the rush seat of a footstool. He gave his
 considered opinion. "Had I been here, I would have fought my liege
 bloody, even bundled him in irons to hold him."
    "Oh, you could have tried," Dakar rebutted. "His Grace knows the
tricks of his Masterbard's title. Even if he couldn't sing triplets to turn
steel, the problem's not simple or straightforward. Arithon has
changed. The campaign brought to ruin at Dier Kenton Vale left him
marked, sometimes too deeply to reach. You don't want to tangle
with his temper."
    But that had been true far and long before the devastating war in
Vastmark. Every one of Jieret's ancestors had lived with the peril of
challenging s'Ffalenn royalty head-on. The clan chief probed, "You
haven't mentioned the Havens."
    ^ sudden, fierce gust slapped the sailcloth overhead. Dakar
flinched. Brown eyes slid away in discomfort. "Your war captain,
Caolle, saw everything."
    Jieret stared back in rancorous bitterness. "My war captain? Who
came back to us changed? He resigned his post, did you know that?
Said he would lift a sword for nothing else except to train our young
scouts sharper skills. But no more to kill. He won't say what took

                                    JA~
   ~.~o ~ ~ .....   ~zZ"~'~2~ ~s~t.                      ~77~ CIo~ ~C~t$,
  ~ ......~ ~ ~a~ ~eo/~e. ~          ~o~'~~. ....          ~ o~ ~
    OO~on~ s~ff disquiet,~he wi~ rake~ the ~ght,
clouds un~l the stars at the ze~th were blackened. Dakar r~x~6~
smile as, ~ boisterous constema~on, the ~x~an~ ...... ~ ~ ~
 [~. ~X% ~ ~ ~ ~x~ ~x~ x~ ~ m~ ~ .............
  ~ ~ ~m~ .~ ~x~ ~ ~m~ ~x~ ~ ~ ..... x~x ~x~
       ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~m ~-~-~ -~%~%~
    wks~e~e couX~ xa~e o~x o~ ~e~o~.
       He said softlg '7f Caolle can't speak, then ne~er will I. Tmstr.
   word. ~at went wrong be~een the Havens and the cl,~h ~x':
   Lysaer's war host lies beyond spoken words to explain. He,~ r adx::
   from a kiend. Don't ask your prince. I beg you, keep clear and d0r
   p~. Let Arithon expla~ if he chooses."
       "If he's still alive, and not roasted for sorce~ on some mayor ~s ~:
   of lit ~ggots." ]ieret shot out a fist ~d ~abbed the stout spellbinde
   by the collan "By A~, prophet~ ~ere my price is concerned, I'r
   more than a ~iend. We're bloodbond! I've ~ice risked my life tt
   ~ard his m~d kom Desh-t~ere's curse." Pa~, naked and deep as~
   canker burst through. "Dharkaron avenge!" cried Jieret. "I've dra~
   ~s ve~ blood to spare ~s sani~. ~at happened on that shoreline,:
   his right m~d or not, could scarcely come to sunrise me."
       S~angely ~cowed by the clansman's fierce s~ength, Dakar te~
   away. "It's not what you could bea[ nor what I could~" Just anguis~
   blazed t~ough and reclothed ~s rompled di~. "Nor do you ques
   fion a man's conscience alone, but a masterbard's empathy tumec
   ~der siege by the Fellowship's imposed royal gi~ of compassion. h
   Arithon be, if you have any mercy."
       Hemmed in by the howl~g descent of the squall l~e, Earl Jiem
   went obs~ate to the bone. "~at one thug I can't do. ~ ths, I am no
   my own maste[ but ~e oathsworn caithdein of Ratha~. I am th~
   realm's conscience ~ maRers of the law~ ~d Lysaer's charges ~
   dark sorce~ are too weigh~ to drop without question or ~quiw."
       ~e tempest broke over the cliff top. W~d screamed, and the bfl.
   lowed, d~ dust became ~ampled ~der the cloudburst. ~e sh
   above Cofi~ split apart ~ ac~c tangles of ligh~g. For a dra~
   span of ~utes, theder sla~ed t~ough the old for~ess. Jier*
   hung wai~g, racked to naked appeal; he first presumed Dakar hac
   left hm. Aga~st the w~te ~sh of the lea~ t~ough ~e sailcloth, B
   agoffized words had o~y the sto~'s voice for answen
     ~en ~om the tempes~ous wail of the elements, the Mad Prophe

           m
  "I~Iow
from the
kx-x lc~rx~ 5~
     ~-~
 ~ ~

56

               J^NN� WURTS

place." Jieret paused, snorted through the high bridge of his n0s~           erv,

mixed admiration and disgust. "For stubborn, close secrets, a clam'
less lockjawed than Caolle."
    Beyond stiff disquiet, the wind raked the night, deepened~
clouds until the stars at the zenith were blackened. Dakar raised ~
smile as, in boisterous consternation, the sailhands scurried for she
ter. His gaze tracked the broken, white line of the breakers creara~~
the reefs far below. Each crest came unraveled in driven, wild $pler
dor against shores nothing like another blood-soaked shingle h.
wished he could raze out of memory.
    He said softly, "If Caolle can't speak, then neither will I. Trust ~
word. What went wrong between the Havens and the clash wii
Lysaer's war host lies beyond spoken words to explain. Hear advic
from a friend. Don't ask your prince. I beg you, keep clear and d0~.
pry. Let Arithon explain if he chooses."
    "If he's still alive, and not roasted for sorcery on some mayor's p~
of lit faggots." Jieret shot out a fist and grabbed the stout spellbind~
by the collar. "By Ath, prophet! Where my prince is concerned,
more than a friend. We're bloodbond! I've twice risked my life
guard his mind from Desh-thiere's curse." Pain, naked and deep as~
canker burst through. "Dharkaron avenge!" cried Jieret. "I've dra~
his very blood to spare his sanity. What happened on that shoreline, ~
his right mind or not, could scarcely come to surprise me."
    Strangely uncowed by the clansman's fierce strength, Dakar t0r~
away. "It's not what you could bear, nor what I could!" Just angui~r
blazed through and reclothed his rumpled dignity. "Nor do you ques.
tion a man's conscience alone, but a masterbard's empathy turnec
under siege by the Fellowship's imposed royal gift of compassion. Le
Arithon be, if you have any mercy."
    Hemmed in by the howling descent of the squall line, Earl Jier~
went obstinate to the bone. "That one thing I can't do. In this, I am
my own master, but the oathsworn caithdein of Rathain. I am th~
realm's conscience in matters of the law! And Lysaer's charges
dark sorcery are too weighty to drop without question or inquiry."
    The tempest broke over the cliff top. Wind screamed, and the b~.
lowed, dry dust became trampled under the cloudburst. The sl~
above Corith split apart in actinic tangles of lightning. For a dram
span of minutes, thunder slammed through the old fortress. Jier~
hung waiting, racked to naked appeal; he first presumed Dakar hac
left him. Against the white gush of the leaks through the sailcloth, t5
agonized words had only the storm's voice for answer
  Then from the tempestuous wail of the elements, the Mad Proph~

fron
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of

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 served his opinion. "Well thank Ath, it's going to be you. Your liege
 would mangle anyone else who challenged his integrity this time."
     "How nicely opportune," a silvery, smooth voice issued unbidden
 from the rain. "I can see I've returned just in time to play my own part
 in the satire."
     Dakar gasped an oath, and Jieret, spun in one surge to his feet,
 faced the doorway.
     Lightning flared like a rip in black silk, to limn the arrival stand-
 ing there. The man was slight boned, soaked as a seal in plain cot-
 ton. Temper smoked through each stabbing vowel as he added, "I'm
 back from the mainland, blown in with a spate of foul weather.
 Don't cheer," said Arithon s'Ffalenn. He stepped forward, reduced
 once again to a voice clothed over in darkness. "Cattrick didn't sell
 my killed carcass to the mayors, though assuredly, he had to be
 wooed."
     Dakar's stupor unlocked all at once. He splashed sliding through a
 puddle, and rummaged after oiled rags and a wet length of kindling.
 Nerves interfered. When his hands dropped the flints, he resorted to a
 cantrip, spell driven. A spark erupted in a ripe flare of sulfur. New
 flame snagged the torch, fought into tormented brilliance by the
 gusts. Its tittering glow bronzed the first thing to hand, the bent
 crown of Jieret's head.
    He had knelt. Taller than his sovereign, a muscled tiger before a
wraith, he stumbled through the ritual greeting, caithdein to his sworn
prince.
    Black haired, green eyed, pale as if chipped from veined quartz, the
Master of Shadow poised on braced feet with his crossed arms
wrapped to his chest. He was shivering. Shed droplets rocked off
the plastered folds of his shirt and scribed rubied flecks through the torch-
light. "There's a parchment," he prompted, succinct. "Let me see it."
    At Jieret's upflung glance of distress, the prince's brows angled
higher. "You can hear? Good. Than arise and stop looking amazed.
Your mission's no secret. Every forest scout I met crossing Falwood
said a writ had been passed to my caithdein's charge. If I'm not over-
joyed to find Rathain's left stewardless, at least I'll see why no clans-
man in Havish seemed eager to look me in the face."
    Jieret stood erect, his every movement cautious. That his prince
was unarmed made no difference. The royal presence framed warn-
ing like the gleam on a lake of black ice. The pair of them were
bl0odbond, and yet, here stood a stranger masked in the features of
a friend. This diamond-edged malice held a febrile, strung focus
~0re volatile than Jieret remembered. While thunder boomed and

57

                JANNY ~URTS

shook the ancient foundations, and the rain thrashed in
torrents, he became aware of Dakar's tense stillness, as if even
whisper of a wrongly drawn breath might trigger the spring
predator.
Jieret's hand did not shake in its office as he said, "I would
this, liege, if I could." In the uncanny, grave style inherited from
father, he drew the bundled document from the breast of his
and passed it across to his prince.
Arithon stiffened at first sight of the seals: the crown and star'
zon of the purloined s'Ilessid device, and another, stamped
lozenge of champagne wax, the rayed sunwheel adopted
mark. The Shadow Master flipped open the folded leaves,
tipped them to capture the torchlight.
He read. His skin went from pale to transparent, and
seemed to stop. Then he stirred. A word passed his lips, the
lilt of consonants framed in the grace of old Paravian. He
down the indictment as though its mere touch burned his flesh.
he whirled, bent, and in a move of pure fury, plucked Jieret's
loned knife from the stool seat.
"Caithdein of Rathain," he intoned in chiseled, formal
"The truth, on my word as your crown prince. If that's not
you'll have your sure proof through a death seal set into the
spilled from my body."
From the comer, Dakar gasped. Before Jieret could decry the
sity, Arithon closed an unsteady hand on the blade, over steel
meticulously sharpened. Scarlet welled from his palm, s
through lean fingers, and ribboned slick tracks down his wrist.
inclined his head to the spellbinder.                                     i
"You have my consent. Lay down the binding, my life as surety:!
that nothing I speak is a falsehood."
Dakar arose. Raised to a grave majesty sprung from stark fear, he
clasped Arithon's wet fist. The spell rune he framed burned in lines 0t
cold light, then twined like barbed ribbon through the rich flood
flowing from the knife cut. "Beware," he cautioned. "What you ask ~
done. One word of deceit will destroy you."
By ancient custom, the last scion of s'Ffalenn then knelt before h~
caithdein.
The Shadow Master said in metallic distaste, "The deaths at the
Havens are all mine, every one. But this charge of dark sorcery has n0
ground. No spell was spun, light or dark at that inlet. There were no
fell tricks. No engagement occurred beyond arrows and steel, not
even the use of my birth-born mastery of shadow." Still trembling, he

                    58                   ~

            FUGITIVE PRINCE

regarded the spreading, red stain on his shirt cuff and finished his
venomous delivery. "What happened was simple, cold murder."
    lie ~aughec~ then, w~c~e-e~ed, anc~ spun ttxe s~'~ckec~ b~acke. T~xe p~'xx'xt
now angled against his own breast, its chased silver pommel a reck-

 treason ancl tixreatenecl to spit me with barecI steel."
     }ieret sv~aklov~ect, stuffed btank and s'tckened. F~ve hundred forty
 lives had been taken in cold blood: the truth forced out in a naked
 confession that asked neither quarter nor pity.
     "You can't find the gall to ask why?" pressured Arithon, still vent-
 ing pain into anger. "Or are you waiting for a Fellowship Sorcerer to
 gainsay a testimony made under truthseals?"
     "Almighty Ath, that's enough!" Dakar launched himself across his
 clutter of belongings and with a competence few would have cred-
 ited, snatched the knife from Arithon's grasp. He discarded the blade
 and clutched the prince's soaked shirt in both hands. To Jieret, caught
 aback as the Shadow Master swayed on his feet, the Mad Prophet
 cried in rebuke, "What more must you have? Kingdom law has been
 satisfied. Daelion himself! A crown prince's blood oath alone should
 have satisfied that the charge of dark sorcery was false. Your duty
 could have demanded far less, since Caolle himself stood as witness."
     With no gap for reply, he turned his invective toward the prince
 braced upright in his hands. "By Sithaer, you're freezing! Where's
 Cattrick? Wasn't anyone aboard to share the watch on your sloop?
 How long were you out there, manning the helm in the storm?"
     "Galleys," said Arithon, abruptly too worn to fuel his own manic
 fury. "Seven, with registry flags out of Capewell. I lost them six days
 ago, off the shoals of Carithwyr." Against every precedent, he failed
 to resist as Dakar pressed him to sit. The drum of the rain nearly can-
 celed his speech. "Cattrick's still on the mainland. I meant him to stay.
 He's agreed to return to my employ."
     "He's a fool, then." Dakar shoved past Jieret, who felt awkward
 and in the way. Displaced wing feathers fluttered helter-skelter as the
 spellbinder cleared the trunk and flung up the rickety lid. "I won't
 ask what you promised him."
     Folded on the pallet, Arithon said nothing. His face did not show,
 his head being bent and resting on his knees. The fire in its makeshift
 bracket across the drum tower had finally ignited the oiled rags.
 Golden light limned his appalling exhaustion. His loose, sailhand's
 cottons hung off his gaunt frame, except where heavy wet had slicked
 the cloth to his flanks. His wrists showed each ridge of old scars and
 taut sinew, and the cut on his hand bled too freely.

59

JANNY WURTS

press~

  "Liege, let me help," Jieret begged.
  "Find him a blanket," Dakar ordered, terse, then
through his things, and snatched out linen strips and tied a
wrap over Arithon's gashed hand. "Idiot," he murmured. "You 4
that damned blade like a butcher. Got tendons laid bare. When~
bleeding's controlled, you'll need to be sewn, or risk scarring~
ma"YM7r yøur music'"                                                   i
        throat isn't cut. I can sing." Arithon lilted a slurred line
doggerel taken from a dockside ballad. Then, as Jieret bent down
swaddle him in wool, his maundering humor fled before desper~
focus. "Why are you here?" he demanded. A deep tremor racked If
He locked his teeth through the spasm, then ground on in unsw~
ing logic, "Had that parchment reached your hand in Rath
Dakar's right. Caolle could have refuted those charges."         ,
    "My liege, not now." Jieret scarcely noticed the tug as D~
snatched the blanket from his fist. "The other news that brought n
can wait."
    "Ah, no!" Arithon shoved off the wool the Mad Prophet sought
drape over him. His eyes raked up, fever bright. "I won't have ~
sleep spell you've slipped through the weave." He shot to his fee
restored to command through animate, blistering irritation. "By y0u
oath as caithdein, Jieret, speak."
    The moment hung, its tension spun out in maniacal wind and ~
distanced percussion of thunder. Leaked droplets pattered under th~
sailcloth. The torch spat and hissed, fingered by drafts until ever
shadow seemed crawlingly alive. Black haired, baleful, Arith~
waited, his presence stillness incarnate. He was not a patient mar
The fretted, willful energy he used to avert collapse seemed nurse
from a leashed spark of violence, as if his heart's peace had bee
razed off in Vastmark, to leave a core of acid-etched steel.
    Jieret quailed before apprehension. This was no stranger he c0~
fronted, but his crown prince, scarred and haunted by the tria
brought down by the Mistwraith's dire curse. The spring's prophet
dream lodged too vividly in recall, with its wrenching potential f~
tragedy. The vision was terrifying, final: the wide square paved:
brick, centered by its cordon of guardsmen and the unpainted rise
the scaffold, pennoned in the dazzling glitter of gold cord and su
wheel banners. His very pulse seemed to throb to the chant
packed onlookers. He shook off the mesmerizing hold of remer
brance, in thought or utterance unwilling to grapple the silver-brig
length of the executioner's sword, then the scream of this sa~
prince, fallen.

6O

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 "I had an augury on your Grace's life," he rasped, tom by his need
 to be finished.
     "Oh, how merry!" Arithon exclaimed, sardonic. "My fate's already
 wound in auguries like tripping strings. No. Don't plod through the
 hysterical details. Let me have just the bare facts."
     "You must listen!" cried Jieret, frightened by the dismissal. "After
 the slaughter at Tal Quorin, would you take my gifted dreams
 lightly?"
     "But I don't." Unrepentant, Arithon accepted a blanket from Dakar
 that was combed free of furtive seals to bring sleep. He flicked the
 wool across his wet frame, winced as he fumbled a one-handed clasp,
 then stepped back to forestall more assistance. "I can manage. Am
 doing so, in fact. Your Sight does run true, more's the pity. But for the
 sake of Rathain, I'd have preferred to be spared the unnecessary
 favor. As my oathsworn caithdein, your presence here can't improve
 my wretched odds of surviving." He spun, tripped over the stool in a
 startling turn of spoiled grace. "Now give me the details without any
 melodrama."
     "The time seemed high summer," Jieret resumed, ferociously
 bland. "A public execution, under town auspice, with every appro-
 priate trapping."
    "How splendid and trite. How predictable!" Arithon gasped back
shrilling laughter. Perhaps goaded on by his caithdein's sharp recoil,
he bit back like salt in a sore, "All right, my sworn lord, your duty's
been met to the last grasping letter of the law. By kingdom charter,
I've been properly tried and warned. Now for love of the realm, you
are free. Return to Rathain. The fishing sloop that brought you sails
tomorrow for Carithwyr on my personal orders. Her captain was told
to expect you on board. You will cross High King Eldir's neutral realm
of Havish to reach your homeland, and avoid another tangle with
Tysan's headhunters."
    "Go," Dakar urged, cued by a mix of dread and epiphany, since
every shred of bad news out of Tysan would have emerged through
that prior exchange with the fishermen. Arithon was not sanguine
for very good reason, beside being too spent to cope. The Mad
Prophet grabbed Jieret's elbow, wide-eyed and imploring. "Come
away. What you're seeing's not temper, but a mannerless plea to be
alone."
    The clansman stayed fixed, his bleak, considered aze upon the
motionless form of his prince. He looked as if he miht speak.
    The Mad Prophet plued his ears, shut his eyes, and crined like
a do that expected a kick.

61

~ANNY ~URTS

    Yet Jieret held silent. When no explosion came from the
under the blanket, the spellbinder cracked one eye open.
    "For mercy's sake, Dakar, just get him out," Arithon
hoarse, deadened misery.
    Like an obedient, fat ninepin bowling down a young oak, the
Prophet plowed Rathain's young caithdein into prudent
through the doorway.

62

Summer 5648

Close Confidence

 The squall passed. Above the swept rocks of .the fortress at Corith,
 stars emerged from the cloud cover Sea winds combed the headland
 and slapped through the sailcloth roofed over the ruined north drum
 keep. Bronzed by the smoking stub of the oil cresset lit to treat
 Arithon's hand, Dakar sat awake, keeping watch. Long since, the
 spooled silk and needles used to close up the gash had been tidied
 and put away. On the pallet, stone quiet, the Teir's'Ffalenn lay
 sprawled in exhausted sleep.
    The Mad Prophet listened to the call of the night-flying owl,
mournful between the irregular tap of twine lacings. He waited, alert
for the moment of inevitable aftermath. No man mentioned the
Havens inlet in the Shadow Master's hearing that dreams did not
come and goad the prince screaming from sleep. Grateful that fore-
sight had seen Lord Jieret dismissed before the inevitable backlash,
Dakar settled his chin on plump wrists.
    An hour passed, uneventful. The night smelled of puddled rock,
mingled near at hand with the astringent bite of medicinal herbs.
Gusts thrummed sighing through the cedars down the slope, cut by
the whistle of a sentry, come back from the headland to roust his relief
watch. Dakar traced out a fine rune. His trained talent as spellbinder
raised an appeal to the air, then bent the element's given consent to
work a small construct of deflection. When the sailor just wakened in
the compound raised a noisy string of complaint, no ripple of distur-
bance crossed the line of soft conjury to upset Arithon's rest.

63

  Somewhere in the thickets a fox barked. The
arced across the black zenith, their dance unchanged
turies since man first inhabited Athera. Against their seasonal
mony, a whispered rustle of discord: on the pallet, one
hand spasreed closed. The Master of Shadow curled into a
huddle and loosed a harsh breath through his teeth.
  Dakar crossed to the pallet. He murmured a cantrip to
his inner strength in the ageless stone of the headland.
Arithon moaned, twisted sidewards, and thrashed, he
slighter man's shoulder. He caught the fist that snapped up
his chin, winced for the abuse to new bandages, then pressed
in firm restraint. The prince he resisted might be sorrowfully
but his struggles were inventive and difficult. Dakar required~
force to prevail. He turned the sharp s'Ffalenn features into
blankets and stifled the rising, agonized groan into the
bedding.
    "Wake," he murmured. "Arithon, throw off the dream and,
back." He barbed each word in spell-turned clarity. "This is
and everyone is safe."
    Dakar waited, spoke again. He absorbed the next
redoubled, blind fight as the Shadow Master tried to bludgeon
Against his undignified need to cry out, the Mad Prophet held stoa
fast, until the corded tension under his hands dissolved throug~
spasm of transition. The Teir's'Ffalenn in his care passed from ni
mare into living remembrance of a horror no passage of time miI
erase. Then, as often happened, Dakar waited, silent, while the M
ter of Shadow softly wept.                                  g~
  The cresset by then had dwindled to a coal. Rinsed by ruby li
the Mad Prophet stayed his sympathy, while Rathain's crown prino
cocked an elbow and pushed himself upright. The single-handed ~
to slip pursuit from the mainland had worn him. The resilience hey
recovered since Vastmark had abraded further in the months spe~
ashore. Terrors of guilt and conscience dulled the green eyes tha
regarded Dakar through the gloom, left them lusterless as sea
battered glass. The expressive, fine bones of the Masterbard's hah
rested slack on the coverlet, bundled flesh sapped of small grace.
    "Daelion Fatemaster forgive me for the way I treated Jieret," we~
the first words the Shadow Master said. He looked fevered. Minut~
passed as he steadied his breathing, and his high, sweating flush su]
sided back into pallor. "He is Rathain's true caithdein, courage ar
honor to his core. So like his father, he's become. Does he know eve
yet what he means to me? Should he take harm from Lysaer's mi

['hen, as
~ped the
toward
d down
ly thin,
d main
~to the
Jdle of

] COlTIe
Zorith,

ght of

FtlGITI~E I)RINCE

 called judgments, I don't think I could stand it. Let Dharkaron
 Avenger redress his wronged feelings. I had to send him back to his peo-
 ple."
     "You did right," Dakar soothed. "Lord Jieret will go, and soon
 after, the Khetienn will sail."
     An interval passed without speech. Arithon tipped back his tan-
 gled head and rested against the worn stone of the bastion. The steep,
 angled features of his ancestry carved sharper in the uncertain scrawl
 of deep shadows. "If Cattrick succeeds, we'll have ships," he mur-
 mured, his ongoing effort to control his fraught nerves sketched in
 pained creases arotmd his eyes. "The clans can be taken to safety. We
 0nly have to find the Paravians." His hope was a refuge from the
 drive of Desh-thiere's curse behind the strong wardspells that
 masked them.
     In the dimness, Dakar averted his face. Ill practiced at patience, he
 fiddled with his sleeve cuffs, then launched on a sharp change in sub-
 ject. "What will you do about Jieret's new augury?"
     "Ignore it, unless the Khetienn's search fails." Arithon's bitterness
 scraped through like old rust. "What can I do anyway? My mage-
 sight's still blind. Given your help, I couldn't even scry through to
 find a sane outcome in Vastmark. Ath knows, since that blunder,
 naught's changed."
     "Stop," Dakar snapped. "You can't let your past write the future."
 Like ill omen, the fading last flame in the torch dipped to an ember
 and died. This moment, Dakar found no comfort in darkness. "Right
 now you would do best by sleeping," he advised.
    An oath ripped back in sharp, precise syllables. Bedding rustled.
Arithon settled prostrate on the cot. His limbs did not move, but
through mage-sight, Dakar sensed his eyes were still open. When an
hour passed, and his needling conscience kept him wakeful, he
loosed a soft word in resignation.
    The spidered threads of the spell already prepared between
Dakar's hands enfolded his consent on a thought. The wide, tortured
gaze became masked by the sweep of black lashes. Tight breath'rag
steadied. Arithon s'Ffalenn relaxed fully at last, the unquiet gnaw of
his lacerated spirit eased back into dreamless rest.
    Weary, aching, the Mad Prophet arose from long vigil. He shuffled
his way to the keep's narrow doorway, and in the drawing pull of the
earth through his bone marrow, measured the interval before dawn.
Another figure bulked dark alongside the drum tower's threshold.
Lord Jieret lay curled there, his great sword at hand, and his hawk
features set in repose. A contradictory tautness knit through his body

65

~ANNY ~URTS

warned of the fact he was wakeful. Dakar chose not t~
stepped out, his intent to seek solitude and settle drawn n
heights overlooking the sea.
    A grip like fixed iron trapped his ankle. He tripped,,
and bit back an outraged howl as his cheek slapped into
dle. Then outcry became moot. Rathain's cait/~dein roll,
fe]led form and pinned him facedown in the dirt. A prec
vised his nape and a knife bit a slanting, cold line across t
skin of his throat. Dakar gasped. Contact with the blade
jolt of misery through his mage-sense. The kept steel of i
shrilled with the strung resonance of despair, dark imprin
prince's blood oath.
  "Jieret/' he grunted. "For pity, let up."
    "Ath, you've a fine sense of arrogance to try and keep ~
liege's confidence!" But the hold loosened. The ugly t~
knife blade lifted. Lord Jieret backed off and squatted on h
while his victim rolled upright and swiped a slurry of grh
beard.
"You were eavesdropping," the Mad Prophet accused, [
"Aye, and where else does any caithdein sleep, but acros
prince's threshold?" Met by affront, the clan chieftain
cough of laughter behind his wrist. "Dharkaron's immort
you forget. My forefathers were standing down test
princes while yours were still pissing in swaddling bands.
    Dakar blotted his moist face with napped cuffs, spat
gritty, and forcibly noosed back his temper. "You cot
helped. And your suspicions are wasted. I'm no 1onge
enemy."
    "Does that even signify?" Jieret snicked his knife back
sheath, careful to damp the steel silent. "I sat with my li~
the night when my people died for him at Tal Quorin. Ag~
he was forced to burn the trade fleet at Minderl Bay. I've s
weeps for the nightmares. I know his fear, that the ones 1~
love will lose their lives." All purpose, he finished, "My
stand at his side. Caith d'ein, shadow behind the throne."
    "I'm unlikely to test his given will on that matter," said
wants you safely back in Rathain. And he's right. You ca
his realm from the uncharted sea aboard his brigantine."
    Jieret looked away through .a tigerish pause, the jut ol
outthrust against the film of fine mist. "What do you knc
aren't saying, prophet?"
  "Fiends plague, your whole line was bred to be diffic

eak, but
~S on the

~ed fiat,
~d pud-
v~, r his
y hand

            FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 p~0~ ~ n~'4~,) ~tt\. "%~%'~ �~,,x ~~ ~, ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~k~
 a long walk. ~e roc~ here are practiced at ~m~mg themselves, and
 your Vxege is secure. I set wards."
     ~e clan cMef rose also, his oiled s~ide shortened to pace the Mad
 Prophet's bobbling progress. ~e ~ikely pair crossed the com-
 pound, cap,red in mismatched reflecfon through the silver-plate
 scatter~g of puddles. Beyond the gapped walls, ~e cliff path lay fog-
 bound, shadowed in ~e refrain of wild surf hewing ~e obdurate
 sh0rel~e.
     ~en the sai~and huddled wakeful by the notch to ~e harbor
 hiled to challenge ~eir passage, Jieret raised g~ge~ eyebrows.
 "You've set spells of concealment? ~at do you fear? Or do you
 already ~ow ~om the Fellows~p ~rcerers that Ari~on's course
 carries risk?"
     "Da~ you for berg your mo~er's son after all. She always
 guessed fir too much." Dakar snatched an irritable swat at Ms nape
 where a bloodsuck~g ~sect had bitten. "I share some wider ~owl-
 edge from ~vir of Al~a~, and Arithon as well, s~ce ~e Paravi~
 charts he was ~ven to steer by were lent for ~s use by ~e ~rcerer."
     ~e Mad Prophet stalled, hopeM1, w~le ~e grate of ~s ~ead over
 chipped rock and gravel silenced crickets, ~d the ~st silted droplets
 in his hair. Jieret ranged beside ~m, his p~er's s~de soldless,
 and his expectancy taut as s~g wire.
    "Shark," Dakar ripped out. "~e taste of blood, you keep circl~g."
He swiped past the dripp~g boug~ of a cedar ~d resumed wigout
apology for his comp~ion's adroit duck to avoid a slap in the chest.
"Ve~ well, yes, there's more danger than you ~ow, even granted
your heritage as clanblood." ~e Mad Prophet fo~d a boulder, damp
but sheltered from ~e wind. He sat to expla~ ~e gift of ~e grand
ea~ l~k ceded to ~e ~rcerer ~thvir by Athera's last guardian cen-
taur.
    "~e ne~ork ties ~e ~rcerer's consciousness to eve~tMng on
A~era, animate life or still ma~er. But ~e ~ven have pos~lated ~e
c0~ection may hold selec~ve bl~d spots. Its weave could be subject
t0 guarding wards set by ~e old races ~emselves." Dakar stabbed
fleshy f~gers toward ~e masked edge of ~e horizon. "~e evidence
lies ~ dehult. ~e Paravi~s appear to have v~shed from A~'s cre-
ation. And yet, though d~shed, ~rough s~ands and deep
au~ries, ~eir presence s~11 fi~res ~ the weave of Athera's life pat-
tern."
    Simple words, to frame ~is world's penultimate royster. Dakar
paused in sorrowM1 reflection, his brows snarled down above ~s pug

JANNY ~URT$

nose, and his chin bristled out beneath his beard. What
arcane acts of scrying might yet be uncovered by a manned
tion. The oceans girdled the far side of the world, immensely vastl
wide. If an isle existed, wrapped under wards, or some hidden, ~
haven lurked on the shores of the far continent, Arithon would~
sail in the Khetienn to seek.
    "Your prince hopes to beg sanctuary from the Mistwrai~h's !~
curse," Dakar ended. "That scarcely offers much hope for your cla:
but the Fellowship Sorcerers agree, Paravian protection of~'~r~:
surest possibility of reprieve."
    Broad-shouldered as a sentinel against drifting mist, Jiere~ ~tari
out to sea. "The Fellowship Sorcerer, Ciladis, set off on that q~
almost two centuries past. He has never come back."
    "Nobody argues the choice harbors peril!" Dakar snapperS, ~?
old races have no desire to be found, else their presence w~l~.
known to Sethvir." He paused, choked silent by memories v~,r'~ i~
left alive could understand: of the awesome, pure grace of ti~: ~
corns dancing, that could sear sight to blindness from too te~-vi~ie
surfeit of ecstasy. His very marrow ached for the deep, dr~'~z
peace of a centaur's presence, or the lyrical harmonies in a su~:~ii~
song. These mysteries, once experienced, could draw mortal ~v ~d~..
forget food and drink, and waste away, lost, until the spirit ~,~s0~
the body, lured beyond all common things of earth.
    Aggrieved beyond words for the loss done the world by the. l~ar~
vians' passing, Dakar was jerked back to the trials of the pre~:~t ~.
Jieret's harsh grip on his wrists. "Take care of my liege. By rn~,. i~I~
as caithdein, see him happy and secure, or bring him back whoi~.. Ei~
by Dharkaron's bleak vengeance, I will scour the world's fou~ ~a:
ters to find you, and make sure you suffer my judgment."
    Dakar gave a raw, hooting chuckle. "That threat cuts both way!
you barbarian wolf. To harry me for my failures, you must first sta'
alive, and free of a galley slave's coffie." He shrugged, disengage~
from the clan chieftain's hold, and heaved his short bulk off the b0~
der. Around them, the last of the dark was fast fading. Gulls screarne~
above the jumbled, gray crags, and the knifing wind wore the srneli
of seawrack and salt. Dakar clasped his arms to ward off the chi'~
while the charcoal sky brightened and limned his stout form againsti
lucent pearl backdrop. "Go where your heart calls. The sleep $pell~
left won't hold in full sunlight. Your liege will wake and feel reste~
He'll want to see your face and be sure you are well before the h0~
comes to sail. Give him that much, for the journey he embarks 0t
could easily span the next decade."

68

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FUGITIVE PRINCE

     Between a breath and a heartbeat, the Mad Prophet was gone, van-
 ished into the raw cotton mist as if his presence had been knit out of
 dreams. Jieret was left to the desolate splendor of the cliff head, con-
 sumed by worried thoughts, while the throaty crash of flood tide
 slammed white torrents over the seamed rocks below. Suspicion
 remained. The Mad Prophet had not disclosed all he knew. A shiver
 touched Jieret as he measured how subtly the spellbinder had
 changed.
     While playing the drunkard, Dakar made it easy to forget his five
 centuries of study under Fellowship auspices.
    Disarmingly masked behind vexed words and bother, the fat
prophet scored his clear point: he could have exerted his trained will
at any moment, used powers of sorcery to set one blustering, young
clan chief firmly into his place.
    Jieret flushed, then loosed a chagrined shout of laughter. He
checked the hang of his weapons out of habit and started back toward
the ruined fortress.
    For Arithon's sake, Dakar had indulged him. Whatever reason
underlay the vicious slaughter at the Havens, the shifty little spell-
binder had entrusted Rathain's prince with the dubious benefits of
his loyalty. From that, the realm's caithdein must salvage what peace
of mind he could; his liege would not sail westward into peril with-
out an ally to guard his left shoulder.
    "Though Ath Creator," Jieret ripped out, as if air itself would carry
his balked temper back to the Mad Prophet's ears, "I'd rather be
boarding the Khetienn myself than turn'mg tail back to Rathain."

Summer 5648

Checkrein

For Morriel Prime, Matriarch of the Koriani Order, the rage
burned white-hot, even eight months after her failed attempt to as
sinate the Master of Shadow. Due to the intervention of a bunglil
fat prophet, Arithon s'Ffalenn still breathed. Morriel shut her eyes.~
if by cutting off the daylight which flooded her quilted chair by ~
casement, she could deny the thorny fact the prince still walked
this side of Fate's Wheel. Old, withered, reduced by years
longevity spells to a husk of sagged flesh wrapped over porcel~
bones, she endured the weary pulse of blood through her veins; e~
heartbeat a throb of endlessly unquiet pain.
  More than anything she wished the oblivion of death.
    Yet the haven of final rest lay beyond reach. First she must unyo
the chains of command and transfer the massive burden of prit
power to the hands of a proven successor.
    Forty-three women before this had perished attempting the ~
of succession. Fear remained, to poison all pretense of patience. TI
years spent training the current candidate might be wasted, despi
all her promising talent.
    Morriel breathed in the humid sea air of the southcoast. Decades
handling critically potent forces had chafed her senses to unwonte
sensitivity, until the ceaseless barrage of sound, form and sine
besieged the desperately held order of her mind. Even removed
this high tower, confined in isolation above the sleepy commerce ~
Thirdmark's narrow streets, Morriel battled the distractions. T~

7O

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 moldered damp of age-rotted stone, even the salt crystal scour of the
 breeze through the casement flushed her thoughts to patternless
 noise. Her cognizance at times felt strung thin as cobwebs, until the
 air currents themselves seemed to separate into voices. Each passing
 second tapped a pulsebeat against her dry flesh.
     Moment to moment, she denied the seductive lie. Inanimate matter
 could not quicken in sentient vibration. She would not permit inert
 reality to rock off reason's track, slip the botmdaries of discipline, and
 seduce her to embrace dreaming madness.
     She had handled too many sigils of power in the course of her
 unnatural, long life. The very currents of her aura had been sealed
 into containment, to interrupt, then deny nature's cyclic rhythm of
 death. Attrition thinned the veil between senses and perception. The
 spin of bridled power eroded Morriel's control, until one day no bul-
 wark would remain upon which to snag the purling thread of insan-
 ity.
     The Koriani Prime endured with the dangerous knowledge that
 her age was now more than ten centuries. She had clung to breathing
 flesh far too long. None of her predecessors had dared test the limits
 so far beyond earthly balance.
    Her will on the matter had been gainsaid by fate; and now, yet
again, Arithon's persistent survival reduced all her works to futility.
The augury she held as fair warning galled most for its absolute, ruth-
less simplicity: this last living scion of Rathain's royal line would dis-
rapt the Koriani destiny, destroy a body of knowledge that stretched
back into history to the time before catastrophe and war had driven
humanity to seek refuge on Athera.
    Morriel listened to the cries of the gulls skimming the breeze above
the tideflats. She had never felt so wretchedly helpless. Her acquired
depth of vision only mocked her. Earth turned, day to night, careless,
herself a mote on its skin no more significant than any other unsettled
speck of dust.
    While the Master of Shadow plied the ocean aboard his brigantine,
his unformed destiny hung over her sisterhood's affairs. One malig-
nant chain of latent events would snap a succession unbroken for
thousands of years.
    Morriel endured, her frustration contained. As the Khetienn
embarked into tinknown waters, Rathain's prince would lie vulnera-
ble to any bout of mischance water and gale could mete out. Her
opening arose to spin a new plot over the wreckage of the old. A dry
smile crimped the Matriarch's pale lips. No step would be wasted. No
other enchantress in the order need share in the fabric of her design.

71

JANNY ~7UQT$

The first move in play could be masked to advance the
Lirenda, First Senior, selected and groomed, but as of this
unprepared to survive the rigors of the accession.
  On the eve of summer solstice, while the Fellowship

worked in concert to complete an arduous conjury that had ' ..m~n~
them for over a year, the Warden of Althain would be least indh~
take meddling notice of accidents. The Koriani Prime snatchl
moment.
    The bar of warm sunlight slanted through the casement and c0~
to a soft flush of red. Morriel soon heard the rustle of silk she ar
pated in the stairwell. Her chosen First Senior arrived on the rn0~
appointed. Such precise obedience was not petty. For a candida
show less than perfection in all things carried the risk of ill c~
quence. One woman alone could wield the full might of the K01
Order A small lapse of discipline on that scale of power could d~
the course of history, even harrow and scorch the green earth.
    The latch grated, gave, and the door swung open. A gush of s~
displaced the miasma of dank stone. Then the shuffled step of
deaf steward who had replaced witless Quen, but who admitted
arrival with the same simpleminded devotion.
    First Senior Lirenda presented a regal figure, slender, tall, and
poseful. Groomed and graceful as a panther, she wore hair like c~
satin sleeked into a single, coiled braid. Her feet kept a dancer's li
tread on stone floors. The fine, sculptured bones of her wrists we~
off by the gold-banded sleeves denoting her high office, and her ~
let silk mantle flowed off her lithe form like water poured fror
vase.
    She bowed before her Matriarch. Even in obeisance, her man
maintained innate breeding.
    Morriel recalled the same trait in the child. Lirenda had alw
owned an elegant self-possession, that bone-deep assurance lent
wealth and background that touched servants to instinctive det
ence. This morning, the drifting perfume of the rose petals she used
sweeten her clothes chests came tanged with a trace scent of b~
stone. Apparently the crates which sealed the new fiend banes tu
been troublesome to pack off to market.
    Yet if the oversight arose from the duty novice's instructions, ol
boy ward had shirked his assigned labor, Lirenda showed no irril
tion. Her oval features stayed smooth as a cameo as she murmtw
the ritual greeting. "Your will, matriarch."
    That metallic, alto voice betrayed no curiosity, which was we
Morriel prolonged her survey of the prime candidate, her eyes li

probing black quartz. Power forgave no shortcoming. Distrust of
arcane practice within the walled towns had redoubled since Lysaer's
charge of dark' sorcery against the Master of Shadow. The Koriani
Order could ill afford to risk becoming mired in the backlash of
frightened reaction.
 "Sit," Morriel commanded in a brevity that stabbed.
    Lirenda settled to a rustle of skirts on the bare stone ledge of the
window seat. Against failing light, her body affected a cat's aloof
poise; her expression settled to waiting. But beneath that unapproach-
able, aristocratic polish, her mind seethed with ambition. The preda-
tory spark in those pale almond eyes never slept.
    Morriel opened at due length, "The time has come for the first trial
to prepare you for mastery of our Great Waystone."
    Watchful eyes smoldered into full flame. "At last," Lirenda mur-
mured.
    "You'll use every minute before nightfall to prepare," said the
Prime, and waved her peremptory dismissal.

    The massive, polished sphere of the Koriani Waystone stood
unveiled under starlight, planed filaments of captured reflection
spiked deep in its shadowy heart. Even seated, eyes shut, a full span
away, First Senior Lirenda felt the amethyst's aura soak into her
stilled senses. With her mind diamond clear from an exhaustive
course of ritual, the dark crystal's presence chilled like the breath of a
predator: lethal, unforgiving, and charged in pitiless peril. The stone
was as ancient as the order itself. Over a thousand prime matriarchs
had wielded its dire focus since the cataclysm and war which had cast
an uprooted humanity from its homeworlds. The jewel's deep lattice
was said to encompass them all; their unquiet memories; the imprint
of each departed prime's experience mazed like etched knotwork
beneath its stilled facets.
    At times in past history such knowledge meant survival. The
records in the crystal could not be replaced. Nor could they be trans-
ferred. Stones mined in Athera fell under the Fellowship's compact
with the Paravians. The knowledge from outside worlds was pro-
scribed. Limited to those crystals brought in by the order, every
Matriarch since had no choice but to adopt the fixed practice, that its
original set of jewel matrixes must be maintained without cleansing.
    No stranger to the contrary properties of first focus stones, Lirenda
required firm discipline to stamp down her apprehension. Her gnaw-
ing unease was no phantom. The Great Waystone's secrets were held
at perilous cost. Twined through the stored experience of the former

JANNY WURTS

matriarchs' collective memories ran vicious, ingrained
the coiling, sullen residue left layered by centuries of arcane
crammed together and entangled into dissonant, unquiet knots.
  One day, these must become the prime candidate's trial
    The protections Morriel laid down for this first exposure were~
bidding enough to intimidate. Lirenda resisted the urge to break ~
cipline and steal a glance through cracked eyelids. Agai~st the ~
fabric of summer night, she felt the formed lattice of wards stab~
flesh like the prick of a thousand fine needles. The passes the ?r~
completed to frame each new sigil raised dire cold, and the sa!:
damp that freshened the sea breeze came whetted by a bitter taint~
ozone.
    Minutes passed. Through the still blaze of stars and the tidal dra~
of the moon on the western horizon, Lirenda followed the ?ain~
shuffle of the Prime's steps, circling, tirelessly circling. The low, t~~t
whisper as the Matriarch chanted in rhythm to align each i~qtrica~
chained set of runes. Perception itself drowned. Sensed impressi0~
strung out to elastic proportions, as if moving time and the trestle:
dune grass had slowed to congealment in amber.
    Elsewhere, the world turned untouched. From the tide 70~!
beyond Thirdmark's harbor, a curlew called. A kicked cur yel?ed,~
the fish market alley, and the martial jink of steel as the wall walc
changed guard reechoed off the city's gabled roofs. Sounds reac~e~
Lirenda as if muffled through gauze, and then not at all, as her ,~x'ar,
hess submersed, ringed about by ambient power.
    When Lirenda's consciousness became a joined circle, sealed ini
relentless isolation, the Prime Enchantress said, "We are readv ~~
begin."
    Instructions followed, the husk of each syllable sandpaper s'~,~
amid Chat enforced web of stillness. "Do not look upon the '~avst~?
as I raise its grand focus. To try. is to beg for destruction. My se~ ~;~
tections cannot shield you from direct interaction with the ex~'~
unless you maintain perfect balance. No matter what hal~,l~,:r~
through temptation or disaster, remember you follow as obserx, e~
Stay passive. On pain of annihilation, however much you feel trau.
matized, do not exert your conscious will outside the bounds of r~,.
ward ring."
    One second passed in unbearable suspension. Lirenda foug~'
down the dizzy pound of her pulse. Then in shared resonance, ~
plunge snatched her up in a rocketing, exhilarated rush, as Mt)rrie.
Prime bent her will and invoked the Great Waystone's focus.
  Stark silence descended. Wide as old darkness, deep as the floor 0t

74

~r
~e
Y
~f

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    oceans, the stillness reigned absolute. Lirenda felt walled in
         cable black glass, reduced to a dust speck captured and pris-
~ 0ned in jet. Of her Prime's guiding presence, no sign remained, as if
  her aged flesh had succumbed to blank death, then faded to final
  oblivion.
     Panic raked through, a blind, clawing terror of abandonment.
 Lirenda could be left here, forever entombed beyond reach of life and
 movement. She wrestled to breathe slowly as she had been trained.
 All of her pride and practiced control seemed trampled and torn into
 shreds. She had no dignity. In gasping, sweaty struggle, she fought
 herself steady. The need to leap up, to flee headlong without heed for
 safeguards became almost too overpowering to deny.  Then abrupt change overset even terror.
     The eruption was cyclonic, an invisible whirlwind of force barbed
 in malice. The vicious, leading edge had a thousand voices, cursing,
 crying, tearing with words and far worse: the scything, bitter edges of
 passionate hatreds all stabbing to flay and draw blood. Even sealed
 beyond harm, Lirenda felt her mind become milled into fragments,
 her thoughts consumed by unadulterated violence.
     No prior experience prepared her, although every other ancient
 focus she had handled harbored such coils of trapped rancor. By
 nature, all crystals absorbed the essence of spells raised to resonance
 through their mineral lattice. If the patterns were not cleared, the
 vibrations over time and usage thrummed into rank dissidence, a
 resentful moil of caged energies. A stone pressed to heel by the will of
 many mistresses was wont to reflect twisted spite, or worse, become
 warped into hideous subterfuge, to turn on new wielders and seek
 domination in turn. Greatest of all matrixes, the Waystone's stored
 pattems spewed forth in unparalleled viciousness.
     Lirenda felt the blast as an obdurate, scorching tide of hatred that
 strove to unravel her being. Never had she witnessed such forceful
 malevolence. Her own strength was inadequate. Before such a flux,
 her deepest defenses would snap like so many dry twigs. She shrank
 inside the Prime's warded circle, cowed to a whimpering huddle.
    She was not alone in her terror. The screams of Koriani predeces-
sors who had failed to overmaster the Waystone's maze of trickery
rolled through the crystal's depths also. Their despair charged the
mind, shrank the flesh, and became a scourge defined unto itself; as if
those vanquished, consumed spirits sought to lure fresh victims to
succumb to the inner flaws that destroyed them. Their bodiless
thoughts whirled in tireless search, seeking, prying, scrabbling to
exploit any small chink of uncertainty. The peril of their assault was

75

JANNY WURTS

 real, unforgiving. Lirenda's skin rose into prickles of fear.
 assurance of Morriel's wards, the danger sang through
 instant before a lightning strike, with her naked selfhood
 one breath shy of oblivion.
     An inflexible truth, that if the Prime Matriarch failed to
 roused Waystone, her frail circle of protections must
 thin lines of power once faltered or faded, Lirenda would be.
 ruin in the turmoil of upset control.
  As never before, the lesson thrust home: to succeed the Prime's
 a candidate must become nothing less than a faultless
 prime applicant would ever achieve dominion of the amethyst
 unbreakable strength and no fault left to admit weakness.
  Then Morriel made her presence known. Her confidence
able, she configured the Waystone's seals of mastery, laid thern,
in silvered vectors of power, fast and precise as thrown knives.
arced into sigils, symmetrical, perfect, to shape raging
order. Through the convulsed moil of energies, Lirenda caught
half-glimpsed imprints of past conjuries, the ghost echo of old
rents chained through the quartz axis: of storms and disease
awry or tamed outright; of the very slipstream
reversed. She heard, too, the dusky voices of past matriarchs,
words, their deeds, their arguments all melded like the
scrape of dry leaves. Then one last stamp of mastery sheared the
whispers away.
    The Waystone's sullen stew of resistance tore asunder, then
dered to limpid clarity.
    Lirenda watched, awed, as the limitless vista opened before her
second hand. As often as she had experienced the rushing, exhilara~:
joy in her mastery of other focus jewels, the Waystone yielded
order of magnitude more. An indescribable passion plunged throu~i
her, sensation shaved to an exquisite knifepoint of ecstasy. The firec
thrill of self-awareness seized her unaware, left her flushed and cra~'.
ing. She lost herself. Rapture beyond all imagining rolled like s~~:ee~
thunder down her nerves. As if she stood poised at the pinnacle
all Ath's creation strung on its axle, turning; and her hand, her~ tc
grasp the rein and drive the wheel, to prod the harnessed vectors'
fate to the dictates of her chosen whim.
    Revelation flooded her, a keen exhilaration spiced by addi~ti~'e
longing. She would own this power herself one day. At whatever cost.
matter the sacrifice, Lirenda knew she would pay any price to
ceed the Koriani Prime. No risk, even death, would swerve her right-
ful claim to that heritage.

76

the
the
but

FUGITIVE I)RINCE

     Impatient for that hour, the First Senior envied Morriel's grasp of
 that seamless course of power. She ached for her chance to let tuned
 awareness thread through the stone's lattice and frame the runes into
 sigils of command.
     The pattern the Prime chose was a basic scrying. Somewhere upon
 the world's seas, a brigantine's keel carved westward. A small mote; a
 dimple pressed into the wavecrests by a hull hand fashioned of
 planks and sheathed in a bottom of copper. The metal would be sub-
 ject to personal resonance, stamped bright in imprint of a man's des-
 peration, and his all-consuming hope of escape from the geas that
 hounded his peace.
     Arithon s'Ffalenn sailed west on the summer winds, and Morriel
 shaped her bidding to comb Athera's broad oceans to tag his current
 location. For sheer display, the move was impressive. Water was
 earth's most unbiddable element. Salt of itself balked cast conjury.
 The call through the Waystone arose in a tumultuous torrent, a
 whiplash of force before which the wide seas must bow to outright
 demand.
     The search spell released, launched in stamped intent to claim
 dominance over its target. Yet the connection fell short, maligned by
 some unseen barrier. Another resonance intervened, then captured its
 order Clear sigils were impacted and snarled awry, then diffused
 away into nothing. The sea appeared lidded by impervious shields,
 and the scrying failed, its pure force dispersed into aimless puffs of
 air.
    Lirenda cried out, indignant. "So much for the Fellowship of Seven
and their claim of unshakable morals! Look! They have broken the
code of their own compact, even acted covertly for the sake of pro-
tecting a criminal. Did you plan to catch their hand in the act?"
    But the Koriani Matriarch kept pensive silence. Beneath her hand,
the violet sphere of the Waystone shed chill, its heart a thousand spin-
dled planes of trapped starlight. The noosed perils of its focus stayed
poised and still as the glint off an unsheathed axe blade. "The Sorcer-
ers have shown a devious cleverness," she finally said, noncommittal.
"That defense ward left no tracks, no afterimage of structural con~
jury." The resonant signature of Fellowship work in fact had been
absent, as though Arithon's presence had been masked by an unseen
force, or sea itself had joined in conspiracy to hide him.
    That piquant anomaly would keep for later study. Morriel cata-
loged the nagging incongruity, then moved on, brisk, to the task of
granting her First Senior a taste of prime powers expanded through
the Great Waystone. She spun the jewel's focus, sent a new probe

77

{ANNY WUI~TS

unfeeling over the far lands to the north, where the
of Tornir Peaks tore through the spine of the cape, and
white spume off the Gulf of Stormwell.
  Lirenda shared the majestic swoop as the Prime's channeled
ers changed purpose. Delight stunned her. She reveled in a
like flight; knew the thrill of rushed passage, as if spirit could s~
over jagged summits where no road ran, and Northerly's trap~
never ventured. The foothills were cloaked in a straight shag 0t i:
There, wolf packs hunted by the new silver moon, the fanned e~~
vescence of hunger and slaughter trailing like smoke in t}~eir ~'a~
The Waystone's precise focus could pick out the frost-p~,~nt er~bro~
dery of the Fellowship wards which bounded the Sorcerer's !'rese~
Through the lens of Morriel's vision, the knitted intricacy of tt~eir c0r.
jury looked like crocheted water, random patterns twined i~to ~'
accord beyond grasp of matter and logic. The Sorcerers' works ~,e:!
like no other conjuries, their core of fey mystery fraught with ?eri~
and gloved in an unearthly beauty.
    Lest those secretive riddles beckon the mind into circling, ~q~adnes!
Lirenda marveled instead at the creatures the wards kept imt~,r~s0pec
Here flew the last deadly packs of winged predators b~-~,t~ght'~i
breathing life by the dreams of the bygone dragons. Most r~t~ r~ero~
of the surviving drake spawn, black Khadrim clustered on it~dges0!
volcanic rock. They warbled unending songs of bloodlust. More 0t
them crouched, armored tails curled over their needle-sharp talon!
Warmed by the mud pots, they dreamed, ever restless, drinking ~r
memories of the whistling dissonance as high-altitude air thru~r~ec
over thundering, taut wing leather. Here and there, a long, p~rr~
head arched up and breathed flame. Others jo'med in, until the ~t~>~
raked scarps became necklaced with brands like a festival.
    Northward, Morriel bent the axis of the Waystone, over ~,e,~'~
mailed in ice, or snagged in batts of drifting cloud. Here, on t!~' ri~
walls which bounded the Gulf of Stormwell, lay the mountai~' li~.
ing heart, no longer cold, but aflame and bleeding the earth's ~t~itc?
mineral through shattered seams and caldera. The peaks at the N~,rt?
Cape were unstable, a brutalized vista of riven rock. Here, earth ~
elements raged in endless war. Volcanoes like angry, fuming behe.
moths hurled hot rock and cinders. Magma spewed scarlet lacew0r~
into the boil of gray breakers, ever ripping their voracious, tide-
driven channels between the shores of the Trow Islands.
  "There," Morriel said, lxer voice the thin tone of dropped porcelain~
    Lirenda sensed the small peak singled out, its flanks carved lam-
bent by lava flows.

FUGITIVE PRINCE

     "We shall cap that vent in the earth's crust." Morriel spoke without
 arrogance, without even the prideful overtone a child might show a
 trapped butterfly.
     She brought the focus stone's power to bear, a wheeling spin like
 forced vertigo. Then, in bursting white lines, she framed the grand
 seals into sigils. Overwhelmed by their magnificence, Lirenda could
 not discern whether the Prime traced the figures over the amethyst's
 surface, or whether she called them up, blazing, from the grar/ite dis-
 cipline of her mind. Some she recognized, for mastery of rock; domi-
 nance of earth; the interlaced patterns for repression and joining and
 guard. Others seemed disquietingly changed, indecipherable despite
 a haunting familiarity. The train of the construct shaped an unquiet
 strangeness that razed her to upsetting chills. Her rational thoughts
 were flicked on wild tangents to recoil into confusion.
     The spell towered, bloomed, achieved finished perfection. Then,
 like the flight of an arrow from bowstring, the sharp, singing hum of
 release.
     Perception overturned, kicked through an explosive cascade of
 change. Lirenda screamed with the upset as something spun wrong,
 and cognizance unraveled with the unbound, wild fury of a thunder-
 clap. All order dissolved, then mastery and rule, leaving dark like the
 aftermath of carnage. Next, the slipped threads of power hurled into
 backlash. Chaos clapped down. For one yawning instant, natural law
 wrenched off course. Every sane tie to reason unhinged, as if torn
 from the span of creation.
     The impact slammed through the mind, then froze there in stopped
 reverberation. Lawless disorder coiled into itself like craze marks
 pressed through crushed crystal.
    Then the moment cracked free and passed. The earth turned
serene. Summer stars burned untouched. Lirenda recovered herself,
gasping and dazed, on the tower felted in the mild air of a bay shore
night in Thirdmark. Etched in the eye of her mind, she still saw the
volcanic basin at Northerly, and the fuming, scarlet lava jetting
uncapped through the darkness.
    Next she became aware of Morriel's speech, pronouncing maledic-
tions in a quavering, vitriolic whisper.
    "Matriarch, are you hurt?" she asked, stressed and shaken, in need
of reassurance for herself.
    She held on through a racked draw of breath, while the Prime
expressed rage in a rising, thin shriek. "Damn them all to the
dimmest pit of Sithaer! Fellowship meddlers! Curse their hands and
their eyes and the tongues in their mouths. Let them suffer for this!

79

~ANNY WURTS

May they die, every one, unmanned and weeping, helpless
unloved and alone!"
    Lirenda cowered at the tirade, afraid to move or speak, as~
Matriarch spun, her features seamed bone in the starlight. "lAth
happened? Ath forbid I should have lived to see the day! The Fetl~
ship held our Waystone in custody for five centuries, and oh, we ~
fools to have believed they never tampered."
    "But Sethvir promised me our Waystone was untouched!" Lire~
cried. The order's own tests had assured the Warden's statement'
no falsehood.
    "Ah, untouched indeed." Morriel's malice changed to bitter a~
ration. "Sethvir did not lie. He did not disturb our stone. Clever fi
that he is, he never had to. He simply imprinted the Waystone's
nature into every cranny of the world through the earth lind
gained from the Paravians. And damn his wretched cleverr
he laid no ward on Arithon, nor broke any thread of moral princ
The same trick just upset my scrying."  "I don't understand," Lirenda said.
    "You should, given more time and experience." Morriel qual
in that etched, acid tone she used to restore equilibrium. "The ke~
in the foundations of Fellowship philosophy, First Senior. The So
ers' mastery keeps Paravian precepts. The Seven are bound, and ~
live by the Law of the Major Balance, itself a stricture of permiss
They believe earth and air, in fact, all solid matter, to be spun
animate spirit. Nothing they do, in craft or in deed, can proceed ~
out an exchange of consent. So they have trammeled us. Our ~
stone's signature pattern has been given to all that has form ir
world; and by Sethvir's knotted conjury, all physical matter in
tence has been empowered to refuse its channeled force of interventic
    Before Lirenda's outrage, Morriel ran on, her rancor fired no'
the ancient sting of balked rivalry. "Oh, we're not helpless. Our ~
can still tune a circle of seniors into focused unity through the s
We can still curb disease, and even, turn armies. But only to
influence upon conscious, living beings, and these have wills of
own. Over the earth, against even the lowliest storm, our Way~
has been robbed of power."
    The wide-ranging impact undermined at a stroke the trium1
the Waystone's recovery. For the order's major spell crystals
themselves irreplaceable. Brought in when the Koriathain first s~
Athera, the stones' offworld origins set them outside the scope c
Paravian-wrought earth link. Only those select conjuries charu
through their matrices could escape Sethvir's observation.

8O

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    Now, the Waystone's Named signature had been disseminated
abroad by the Sorcerer. The unique, patterned aura of its influence lay
hampered in ties of recognition. Its forces had been disempowered
through rejection by all things over which the Fellowship's compact
held sway.
    Lirenda regarded her Prime Matriarch, shadowed under her hood
of pale silk like a hunting spider noosed in spun gossamer. "What
will you do?"
    "Whatever I must." Morriel stroked skeletal fingers over the pol-
ished, sullen facets of the Waystone. "The Fellowship of Seven have
no given right to curtail our Koriani powers. I will go myself and pre-
sent my demand at Althain Tower. The Sorcerers will heed, or be
sorry. I will gain back our autonomy."

81

Summer-Winter 5648

        Three Seasons

In late summer, amid the long train of scholars who bring must~
ship's rutters, and the flocked parchments of archived maps, ani!i
even, from Erdane, new proof that the Isles of Min Pierens exist in the
margin of a faded merchant's lading list, a brawny craftsman bows
before Lysaer s'Ilessid, and says in his broad southcoast accent, "Your
Grace, I'm named Cattrick, and I've come to apply for the master'~ ~!
position in your new shipyard at I~iverton .... "

    At twilight on the autumn equinox, while the day fades to nigh~
and two seasons shift balance on the fulcrum of change, three Fellow-
ship Sorcerers at Althain Tower seal the next layer in the construct
which has commanded their unsparing efforts for a year; and dea~
power spears out in a ruled, white line to pierce the very nadir of the
heavens ....

    On the wide moors of Araethura, while winter's diamond dusting
of frosts silver the stems of sere grasses, the child, Fionn Areth, sur-
vives his first year, while his mother weeps for the auguries yet to
entangle his future, and his father stands taciturn and silent ....

82

Winter 5648-5649

III. Sentence

musty
s, and
in the
bows
"Your
ster's

~ght
11ow-
truct
:lean
,f the

ting
sur-
~t to

On the moming that Arithon's brigantine rounded up and
backed sail off the wind-blasted sands of the far continent,
the Fellowship Sorcerer who was Warden of Althain perched
in a sun-baked window seat. He could have held that pose for hours,
or even days, hunched like a ruffled gray pelican in the comfort of his
moth-eaten maroon robe. The lined, ivory knuckles of one hand
clutched a sheaf of curled parchment. The other wielded a black
swan's quill, fussed sharp as a dandy's rapier point. The pot last used
to dip his nib nestled between his braced knees, a tipped fraction shy
of a spill. Stray stains and a threadbare shine to his velvets showed
Sethvir's small care for vanity. Mere ink could be left to run where it
would while his provenance spanned all the world.
    Through the gift of the Paravian earth link, Sethvir sensed the dis-
tant, salt splash as the Khetienn's anchor plunged to bite into the
pearlescent sands of the shallows. Amid myriad sounds, just one pat-
terned resonance of changed air: he heard shouted orders from a half
a globe away, to brail tanbark sails to squared yards at the end of an
arduous passage. Caught between lines of small, precise script, the
Sorcerer furrowed his seamed brow. Then the poignancy of the
moment overcame him.
 He laid his temple against the old stonework and wept.
 If the sea gave the Shadow Master a temporary shelter from the

83

JANNY ~VURTS

hatred raised among townsmen against him, his cherished
finding a haven on Athera's far continent was misled. Sethvir
as much, aggrieved by the secrets necessity had forced him to ke~
Kathtairr, the far land, was familiar to him as the creases grained ~
his own flesh. Distance offered no obstacle. The grand earth link
bequeathed him, moment to moment, its endless, weary vistas 0t
ocher and gray. Sun scorched and blasted by the elements, the c0n~.
nent fanned like a snag of singed cloth cast on the jewel-toned sea. I~
rivers were dry, or ran poisoned and alkaline. Its shoreline extended.
league upon league, as blank, rippled dunes and swept desert.
    Sethvir ached for the tragic truth. To the last sand grain and rock.
from the cracked, dusty summits of each nameless mountain to the
seared, crumbled fissures of the valleys, the land mass beyond
Athera's vast oceans was naught but a lifeless waste.
    Even in the early centuries of the Third Age, at the height of the~
power and ascendancy, the Paravians had shunned the place.
    Arithon would find no reprieve in Kathtairr from the bane laid ~
him by the Mistwraith. If he gained brief escape through the ti r~~, he
spent searching, for each year that passed, Lysaer s'Iles~id :~ul~
breed more killing sentiment against him. The longer the Kh~t~t'~tl~'i
absence extended, the higher the stakes laid against the Shado~~' Nla~-
ter's life.
    Between Sorcerers, the issue had already been thrashed to e~.t~z~s.
tion. In desperate truth, their Fellowship dared not spurn the s~alle~t
borrowed margin of time. They would, and had wreste~ tr~r~
Arithon's blind need that span of uneasy peace. Trapped then~-~.t~'~
in a race to stave off disaster, they labored to avert an unmenti, ~,~bl~
peril, compounded since the hour of the Mistwraith's confine~.r~t
    Sethvir straightened, blue-green eyes grown airy as mist. His ~ ~,r~
draped loose across the unfinished last paragraph on his parc~~:~,~,~t
The quill slipped, forgotten, to drift on a whisper to the floor. Amid h~,
sprawl of opened books, stained tea mugs, and his cluttered, stray odd-
ments of feather and stone scavenged from excursions through ti~
meadows, he looked for all the world like a beak-nosed little grandra-
ther, abandoned to senile daydreams.
    In contrary fact, the Sorcerer's trained focus ranged far beyond i~.i~
tower library. Immersed in the broadscale vision of the earth link, tt~.
split train of his awareness encompassed all things, from the migi~t?
pull of Athera's riptides, to the rustle of solitary grass stems. The b~s~'
tracks of ants reached his ear, and the singular signatures of sand gr~ ~t~s
banked in the gullies of the deserts. Sethvir could count at whim ti~,
cries of the owl and the albatross, riding the wind's thermal curre~t~

84

FUGITIVE PRINCE

ted hope of
;thvir knew
im to keep.
. grained in
 earth link
 y vistas of
 ~, the conti-
 ned sea. Its
 ! extended,
 err.
  ~ and rock,
  rain to the
  ~s beyond

ht of their

ne laid on
~e time he
id would
Khetienn' s
«ow Mas-

exhaus-
smallest
ed from
~raselyes
~tionable

 s fingers
 ~chment.
 kmid his
 ray odd-
 ugh the
 ~randfa-

'ond his
ink, the
m~ghty
he busy
t grains
'tim the
lrrents.

He sensed the grind of polar ice, north and south, and the thundering
shear of each floe calved into the briny arctic seas. The planet itself
played its living chord through his consciousness. He knew, like a
heartbeat, the molten toss of core magma and the eerie, static pulse of
its array of magnetic power lanes. Amid the vast, milling chord of flux
and event, two predse notes snagged in dissonance. Sethvir narrowed
his sight to frame these, his brows tugged into worry like muddled cro-
chet.
    ^ listening minute later, the Sorcerer moved on. Past the world's
motley cloak of spun cloud, he traced the wheeling arc of the moon
through deep vacuum, then left its grand dance to encompass the
thin, singing tracks carved by stars.
     The deeps of the void in between were not lifeless. A massive,
 near-complete ward construct spread for arc seconds in space. In fan
 curves, through ruled lines and joined angles that transected time, an
 intricate chain of seals spindled taut in lace point and sapphire, their
 phantom imprint a gemstone's planed facets cut intaglio on the dry
 dark. To the paired entities who labored to close the last gaps in the
 symmetry, Sethvir sent word, 'Arithon's made landfall on the far con ti-
 ller.'
     "Past time," Kharadmon's brisk comment flung back. Discorporate
 since mishap overcame him in the course of Second Age violence, the
 ghost Sorcerer added his usual caustic fillip. "He's Torbrand's true-
 b0m descendant, with the same nasty temper when his dignity's ran-
 kled, or his principles. When he sails back empty-handed, will you
 have a ready answer? He's bound to demand why our Fellowship
 never warned him that Kathtairr's seared lifeless by drake fire."
     "Mind well, Kharadmon," a fruity, morose voice admonished. "If
 you fritter away words restating prehistory, there won't be a living
 land left for anyone's ship to return to." Luhaine's gloomy nature had
 scarcely improved since his body had perished in defense of a
 deposed high k'mg. Once a corpulent scholar who preferred cautious
 order, in five hundred years, he had yet to savor his free-ranging exis-
 tence as pure spirit. Nor had his tart rivalry eased into shared com-
 miseration as a shade. "In case you've gone drifty, we've work to
 complete before the advent of solstice."
      "Oh, dance on it," Kharadmon retorted. A ripple of energies shot
  through by stars, he set to in exuberant relish. "You scold like some
  humorless grandmother with nothing to do but knit mufflers and
  r0ust up windy criticism."
      Luhaine chose to ignore him. "Do I surmise we're summoned back to
  ^theta?" His prim query was presented to Sethvir alone, the inflection

85

all plaintive acid. "The timing's a gross inconvenience, as you see.'
earth link would show that one last charge of power drawn
lane tides at winter solstice would see their long labor
first stage protection was urgent, and indispensable, against
dire for delay.
    'You're needed,' Sethvir insisted. 'The moment can't be helped.
s'llessid just condemned his first clan captives to chained slavery.
adepts have sent their appeal to invoke our duty to the compact.
choice but to confront him. In addition, Morriel Prime and her
about to camp on my doorstep. I might as well have your company in
port when she knocks to air her fresh grievance.'
  Luhaine huffed his contempt.
offer their help, and not wasting themselves in frivolous
cap volcanic vents whose existence but serves the earth's balance."~
    "Now see who's nattering," injected Kharadmon. "I'm not
watching you argue the stupidity of inviting Koriathain to mix
meddlesome sigils in our works! If Sethvir wants an interview
Prince Lysaer, I'll just be off to string the energy paths." A
laugh and a swirl of sourceless current marked the Sorcerer's
tous departure.
    "Irresponsible jape," Luhaine grumbled. "Always flitting out."
sour eddies that flowed like rippled oil over a backdrop of stars,
capped a precise flourish to a dangling knit of spell seals. "As ill
loose ends remained here that shouldn't be stabilized first."
unseen touch launched a spiraling array of circles and
bridge a crucial expanse of deep vacuum. "Trust Kharadmon to ~
like a truant, and meet ugly threats with light raillery. I can't
why we put up with him."
  Luhaine listed each shortfall he saw in his colleague's
then plowed on to include notable past instances when he had
abandoned to tidy disagreeable details. No answer came back. ~
the impersonal, high chime of remote constellations. Already,
had moved on, his listening presence retuned to Athera, and
across the long leagues into Shand to make contact with another
cerer.

    The discorporate presence of Kharadmon breezed into the
chambers at Avenor a comfortable interval before noon. His
raised no notice, passed off, perhaps, as an errant winter
breathed through the swagged velvet curtains. The room
appointed in rich carpets and gold. Wax candles shone from
sconces. Against the satin glow of varnished hardwoods, the ~~L~~

86

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 valet who served the Prince of the Light fussed to set Lysaer's last
 diamond stud.
     "How right you were, your Grace." Head tipped, the servant
 stepped back to measure the dazzling effects of his handiwork. "Gold
 trim was excessive. You shall shine like a star in full sunlight."
     Lysaer laughed. "Here, don't feed my vanity." He flicked the last
 pleats in his cuffs into place, his form all pale elegance, and his fea-
 tures cut marble beneath a molten ore cap of combed hair. "I don't
 need such show. For the gift of my bullion, the beggars will be suit-
 ably awed." Then he smiled at his valet, his unearthly, pure beauty
 transmuted to intimate warmth.
     The boy blushed. He bobbed a clumsy bow, then stammered an
 apology as his elbows jostled the palace officials who waited, clothed
 in stiff-faced magnificence. Each one wore a new sunwheel tabard,
 cut of shining champagne gold-and-white silk.
     The realm's chancellor and the Lord High Justiciar forgave the
 boy's gaffe in cool tolerance. They advanced to attend their prince in
 full ceremony, paired as if cued to a stage drill. The dense, beaded
 threadwork on their garments somehow looked soiled beside
 Lysaer's stainless presence. In his shadow, they swept toward the
 doorway. There, four silent guards dressed their weapons and joined
 them, two ahead, two behind. No man looked askance at the unseen
 arrival which breezed on the heels of the royal train.
    A second, more tangible obstruction awaited to waylay the prince.
The young boy who served as the royal bannerbearer could scarcely
take position while a willowy form traced in sparkling jewels blocked
off the arch to the vestibule. She had the prowling smooth stride and
rich coloring of a lioness, and for today's prey, she stalked in chill
rage.
    "Princess, Lady Talith." Lysaer touched the foremost guardsman's
shoulder as signal for him to keep station. Hunter's spear to her
tinsheathed claws, he eased past, on an instant the solicitous hus-
band. He clasped his wife's hand, drew her into the light, and lost his
breath a split second, as he always did.
    First sight of Talith's beauty unfailingly stunned a man foolish. She
had finespun, tawny hair, and features refined to the delicate texture
of robbed ivory. Her dress skimmed over her devastating curves, for
this meeting, a calculated, flowing confection of damascened silk and
jet buttons, cross-laced at wrist and bodice with silk ribbon.
    "My dear, you look magnificent." The words framed an effortless
courtesy, since his glance significantly avoided the cascade of yel-
10w citrine which sparkled like poured honey into the tuck of her

87

JANNY ~URTS

cleavage. Her smallest move and breath chased teasing reflecti0~
over her pearl-studded bodice, until the eye became trapped, the
arrowed downward into a girdle fitted tight enough to hitch the
in the throats of Lysaer's waiting attendants. "I'm delighted ~
course, but won't your need keep? I promise I'll see you directl
after I've finished my appearance in the plaza."
    Lady Talith narrowed dense, sable lashes over eyes like razor~
bronze. "The beggars can wait for their alms without suffering.
Risen to the challenge, she smiled. Her flawless, fine skin flushed fc
the joy of a stabbing duel of wits. "Better still, let your chancellor d~
pense the day's coin in your stead. Dismiss your train. Now. I'll nev~
settle for begging court appointments, or standing in line for an
ence."
    "I can't dismiss my train. My chancellor is no fit replacement/'I
grave, caring tenderness, Lysaer clasped her wrist to draw her clear ~
the doorway. "If privacy matters, we'll save our discussion for a
hour when I'm not committed."
    "Bedarrmed to privacy." Talith tested his hold, felt the steel in
fingers, and laughed in a sheared peal of scorn. "Why play at p~
tense?" She aimed her next barb with all the sugared venom her Eta
ran background could muster. "My pride wasn't stung by thr~
months in Arithon's company." She smiled, digging him with thre
and innuendo, even daring his temper, since he had not shared
shameful secret with his courtiers at Avenor. They were never to
that the Master of Shadow was in true fact begotten when Lysael
mother cuckolded her marriage in liaison with his father's rnc
hated enemy.
    Gratified by the vengeful jab of his fingers through her sleeve,
ith hfted one porcelain shoulder in a shrug. At her throat, the je~'~
flashed, enticed, trembled in liquid invitation. "Why not say al0,
what every servant in your palace already whispers behind yc
back? That time enough has passed since my ransom. A year ant
half gone, and all your court watching my belly like a pack of starr
midwives. What pretense is left? My time in captivity was innocen~
dalliance."
    Unlike your faithless mother, her swift, weighted pause suggest,
Locked eye to eye, his arctic blue to her molten amber, Talith s~
"Since you can't claim avoidance for a nonexistent bastard, what ke
you from sharing my bed?"
    Lysaer stroked a light finger beneath her chin, while a frown
consummate puzzlement came and went between his brows.
love, you're distraught." By an act of brazen sympathy he behavec

88

'~c air
.~d of
'ectly

r-cut

1 for
dis-

_wet
 ~di-

~;s

'e-

r-

~t
'.s

 S

 t

FtlOITIVE PRINCE

 if they stood alone, though the guardsmen behind exchanged discom-
 fited glances. They knew well enough his nights were spent in the
 royal suite, since their ranks supplied the watch set over the pr'mce's
 apartments.
     "No doubt, you have cause for distress," Lysaer temporized. "I
 realize how desperately you desire to conceive. But chasing me about
 in a lather is unlikely to help your fertility."
     Talith hissed out a breath at this vicious twist. "How dare you!"
 Her lashes swept down, a black veil for a murderous flare of hatred.
 "Y0u'll never be able to bury your lapse with state excuses, or claim I
 am flawed or infirm. If I'm barren, my ladies-in-waiting all know, it's
 because your elaborate show of appearance masks the fact that you
 won't couple with me. Tell me, your Grace, what are you hiding? A
 mistress? Boy lovers? Revulsion on the chance I fell victim to incest?"
    "Here, I'll be late. Your troubles must bide for a little bit." As she
snapped breath to sink her barb of victory, Lysaer cupped her face,
slipped a quick kiss on her lips, then handed her off to his ranking
man-at-arms. His low, rapid orders cunningly disarmed her most
brilliantly raking response. "See my lady to a healer for a posset to
soothe her nerves. Say I'll return to check on her the earliest instant I
am free."
  She threw him a withering epithet.
    In pained sorrow, the prince shut his eyes: as if by flat denial he
could pretend for a heartbeat such beauty did not harbor so vile a
contempt. Then he roused himself, straightened. Every regal inch of
him contained into painful, mannered sympathy, he reassumed his
place with his chancellor and Lord Justiciar. Despite Talith's glare like
an auger at his back, he expanded the circle of his confidence.
    "I'm sorry for the scene." His hushed voice carried backward as his
party advanced through the echoing, high vaults of the hallway. "The
10ss of her brother at Dier Kenton Vale so soon after the months she
was kept in duress by the Spinner of Darkness have left Talith
strained and unsettled. We must all be patient. Give her care and
understanding. I'm certain the moment we manage to conceive our
first child, her usual staunch nature will prevail."
    The chancellor murmured banal commiseration. Less suave, the
guardsmen showed pity, while the red-faced valet who watched from
the dressing chamber gave the princess the gawky, bold stare that
admired for sheer, brainless loveliness.
    Talith swept off with the appointed guardsman, chin raised in
smoldering rebellion. Born a pedigree Etarran, she was too well sea-
soned to the ways of court infighting to augment Lysaer's strategy

JANNY WURTS

with protests. If he sought to discredit her as a woman
harsh circumstance, he had to know, the new-forged,
spite in her heart would admit no defeat while she breathed.
    "On my life," she called after her royal husband in a tone like~
cet poison, "I'll birth you an heir to make the s'Ilessid name
even as your lady mother did before me!"
    Appalled by the sharp, sudden pallor that blanched his prince'!
face, the Lord Justiciar of Avenor's state council tipped his gray hea~
in assurance, "Give her time. She'll weather her disappointment 0ve~
children. Women do." He pursed his lips, prepared to co~ti~ue ~
fatherly advice.
But Lysaer raised a hand and touched him silent. "Not h~r~,."
The royal train reached the outer postern. Composed anti brittle a!
an artwork in glass, the Prince of the Light mastered the ~t~rt cer~.
mony while a heavy box of coins changed hands from Ave~r's .~l~-
ister of the Treasury into the care of his chancellor. He ste?pcd ~'i~t
his retinue through the outer doorway into the blast of wi~ter ~'i~d
The cold nipped his cheeks back to color Against the luminous, aqua.
marine sky, his hair gleamed like the tinseled weave shot throug~
ripple of Atchaz silk. His poise, now restored, was steel masked in fei~.
as he dealt his justiciar a swift and shaming rebuke. "A year and~
half is criminally soon to say whether my lady's unfit to bear an hei:
Discretion is called for. Her Grace's distress will fare all the w~rse !'.
unkind rumors start to circulate."
    Beside the bronze finials of the palace gate spread the circuit,.
plaza which centered the city of Avenor. This site retained its dvsigr
since the Paravian ruin underwent Lysaer's restoration. His ~aste:
masons had found the proportions and placement too pleasin~ t~ di~.
rupt. The facades of the formal state buildings had arisen on the ri~!
of Second Age foundations. The ancient worn slates, wit~ their
cracked channels of queer inlay, were now paved over in arv, b~r-and.
white block incised with a sunwheel pattern. The vista with its innat~
grandeur presented the ideal setting for Lysaer's noon practice t~t di~.
pensing largesse to the poor.
    Since the crushing defeat in Vastmark, the coins struck for th~ ?~r.
pose were embossed with the new order's blazon upon one side,, ~uc
stamped on the other with a sigil of ward against darkness. [ ~r~bbed
shadow-banes by their recipients, merchants in Tysan took t~t'rn i.~
trade, then resold them as amulets for more than their value in ~t~ld
    No edict was signed to curtail the practice. "Why sap the f~,unda-
tions of the common people'~ hope?" Prince Lysaer gave instt~ctit~r.
to his council. "For as long as the Shadow Master lives at larg.., their

9O

~ dul-

nce's
head
over
~ his

  kerror is ~ea~ anc~ )us~'li-iecl. Let ~olk grasp whatever comfort they may.
  Suffering and losses could harm them soon enough. Folk will fare
  better for not feeling helpless in their worry."
      Speculation became rooted into belief. The name of Arithon
  Teir's'Ffalenn was anathema, and feared, and the coins, dispensed
  with the blessing of Lysaer s'Ilessid himself. They could not be other
  than talismans infused by his blessed gift of light.
      Prince Lysaer never walked in the public eye without due presence
  and ceremony. His daily custom of charity became a dazzling display
  of royal pageantry, while the poor and the downtrodden elbowed for-
  ward to claim the trinkets which held the reputed power to protect
  them.
     This day, the plaza was packed to capacity, despite the bracing
 wind that snapped the fringed banners on their poles. The out-of-
 town merchants and the bored rich who thronged to observe from the
 balconies clutched their caped cloaks and furred hoods. Below, in
 jostling chaos, the waving, cheering supplicants pressed to catch sight
 of their savior. More than the city poor and village crofters shouted
 and surged against the guardsmen's cordon. Petitioners now traveled
 from far-distant cities to receive Avenor's royal alms. A second row of
 pikemen ringed the central dais to keep order, their polished buckles
 and appointments backed by white silk bunting tied up with gilt cord
 and tassels.
     Lysaer stepped through the gateway just before the advent of
 noon. The wind's icy buffet ruffled his ingot gold hair. His white-
 clad person seemed etched into air, set off from the commonplace sea
 of dark woolens like a mote struck into incandescent purity by the
 sil~,er-ice fall of winter sunlight. The welcoming roar which greeted
 Prince Lysaer rocked echoes off the high, amber brick of the watch-
 t~,vvers. Engulfed in a mounting crescendo of noise, he ascended the
 dais stair, his honor guard and high council ministers a parade pace
 behind him.
    The thronging stew of voices grew hushed as Lysaer s'Ilessid took
his place. He accepted the bullion coffer from his chancellor, then
addressed the adoring crowd. "Hail the Alliance of Light! Through
the dedication of all people, moral strength shall prevail against dark-
nessF' He tipped up his face. As though his appeal was presented to
heaven, he summoned the powers of his ~ift. A dazzling shaft
speared down from the zenith to lend grand display to his benefi-
cence.
    Yet this time, the flaring, fired brilliance which answered was not
completely his own.

91

]ANN Y ~)~7LIR TS

  The two officers nearest sensed something amiss: as if
were too fine, too potent, charged through by an
force outside the range of mortal senses. They called in
saw their prince jerk up short. His calm shattered
astonishment as his frosty, white finery spun awry in a
uncanny, cold air.
  Unseen, unheard, the Sorcerer Kharadmon linked his
conjury to the tide of the solstice noon. An actinic blast of
illumination exploded over the dais. The ranking royal
were rocked back and dazzled. They strove to reorient, unsure if~
should draw weapons, or what form of enemy might
Through an inrush of winds like a rip in clear air, they heard the
of the coin chest, fallen from the prince's grasp. Then the
treble as the shadow-banes burst free, clanging and scattering
the dais. Plucked off the boards like a captured chess piece,
s'Ilessid no longer stood among them. The circle of light just
manifest shimmered empty, while his chancellor and body/
gaped in terrified astonishment.

    For Lysaer, seized fast by a presence that disallowed protest,/
upset plucked him bodily and hurled him through the howling eye~
chaos. He felt torn in half, upended, spun. Nausea threatened to
up his guts. He battled to cope in riled anger. Led onc(
a spell transfer across longitude, he recognized the forces of
conjury just before the disembodied voice of Kharadmon
him, "You are bound at this moment for Althain Tower in answer
summons by the Fellowship."
  Then transition ended. The wheeling cascade of
snapped away. Lysaer felt his person restored to firm stone, but not
the plaza at Avenor. The smells in this place were ozone and
coiled through. an elusive, dark tang of oiled metal. He shielded ~
eyes, made out a black onyx floor underfoot. The fierce play
streamed from inlaid strings of ciphers, arrayed in disquieting
terns, concentric circles and interlocked rune lines yet limned
white in the fast-fading shimmer of spent energies. He recognized
stood at the apex of the power focus laid out in the keep's lower dun-
geon. Its seamless walls were pale marble. Gargoyle sconces crouched
leering at the major points of the compass. Lysaer's flesh crawled
with chills, gift of Luhaine's nearby presence; then that cold intensi-
fied as Kharadmon flanked him as invisible escort to prod his stiff
step toward the stairwell.
  "You won't get away with abducting me," Lysaer ground out in

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 10w fury. "Nor can raw power absolve Arithon's bloody crimes, nor
 the secret of your dirty liaison."
     "You're no one's prisoner," Luhaine said, unperturbed. "As for
 keeping propriety, this meeting you attend shall be bent outside time.
 Your absence at Avenor will last no more than the wings of an
 instant." He led up the stair shaft, his spirit reclothed as a courtesy in
 the image of a corpulent bald man from whose dimpled chin hung a
 cataract of silver beard. His stooped shoulders were robed in the
 dusty slate cloth favored by scholars and clerics, and his sandals
 fussed to a waxed shine.
     Behind, manifest as a slim, dapper form cloaked in extravagant
 green velvet with slashed sleeves and linings of flame orange,
 Kharadmon showed his foxy smile. "Nor need you waste effort
 maligning your half brother." He wore a black mustache twisted to
 raised tips like crossed scimitars. His beard was a spade-point goatee.
 The rest of his hair fell loose and long to his collarbones, argent
 combed through jet at the temples. He surveyed Lysaer's pique with
 eyes a sardonic, pale green. "The only man's fate held at issue today
 will be yours, scion of s'Ilessid."
    Every inch the born prince, Lysaer stayed unruffled by the Sorcer-
ers' cavalier handling. His tread on the worn, concave stair was
assured, his bearing never less than a masterpiece of cool statecraft.
lie filed after Luhaine through the trapdoor to ground level, into the
fragrant tang of cedar and the polished, frozen ranks of Paravian stat-
uary. Though past high kings before him had cried aloud for sheer
wonder at the antlered, stone majesty of the centaurs that raised
hooves and towered above human height, Lysaer would not turn his
b~_act. Royally assured, he displayed no catch of breath. Nor did he
marvel at the unearthly, stopped splendor of the unicorns, posed in
dancing steps, with their spiraled horns struck soft pearl in the muted
gleam through the arrow slits.
    That veneer of indifference soon became forced. The willful, steel
nerve he sustained throughout taxing state councils in this place
chafed thin, made brittle as a mask of varnished paper. Lysaer fought
the poignant, swift tug at the mind that moved prior visitors to weep.
He refused for staunch pride to unbend. The Spinner of Darkness was
the Fellowship's minion; moral duty compelled him to stand strong.
No matter the price, he dared not let the unworldly grace of a dead
past beguile him into weakness. He walked as a man sealed deaf to
temptation, while to the right and the left, the joyful, inspired artistry
of the smallest ones, the sunchildren, ripped his heartstrings and
begged him for laughter.

93

JANNY ~URTS

  Ahead rose a staircase oœ stark, chiseled granite,
 centuries of torch soot. Althain Tower had been raised in
 haste to safeguard the records of the Paravian culture. Its
 the chronicles of the First Age, when the ravaging hordes of,
 raised to life by the drakes' dreams had led the world
 Sealed vaults and storerooms contained old weapons from
 times, rare artifacts of Paravian craftwork. Young by
 heirlooms recovered from the plunder of the high king's halls sha~
 shelf space.
    The grim stairwell between levels still reflected the primary func.
tion as a fortress. Stark, unfinished stone made a wrenching, gr~
contrast to the grandeur of the commemorative statues. Here, eve~
the most unflinching pride could not evade the imprint of despair
The moan of the drafts and the squeal of a loose shutter bespc~ke des.
olation, undying reminder of tragedy and losses endured since the
departure of the old races. Lysaer set his chin. He refused ~, ~i~e ~'a,:
to emotion or embarrassment, and that hardened deter~i~,~ti0n t~
stand down Athera's past was not missed by the Sor~c'~'~'rs ~.~c
escorted him.
    They ushered him across the first landing, past the chamOer ~x~her~
the Koriani Waystone had been held secure since the first chaotic
hour of the rebellion; they ascended to the next, where Althai~'~ ~'ar.
den kept his living quarters. On the third level, Sethvir ~irnsel!
awaited, the dusty, threadbare garments he preferred put a,ide i0:
state formality: a robe of maroon velvet interlaced at sleeves ,~,~d co',.
lar in black cord, and belted with a girdle stitched with river ?c. arls
His beard had been tidied. Silk cord looped his hair at his nat~, an~
his glance of greeting came sharp as a catchlight on fired t~t~,~r~,l
"Welcome to Althain Tower, Lysaer s'Ilessid."
    The prince's crisp nod offered civilized replacement for tt~ ~ald.
faced accusation, that in his hall at Avenor, hospitality did not i~ ~:tude
being snatched off by force.
    Sethvir met that unspoken fuming with a note of disquieting, pure
pity. "Beware how you think in this place."
    "I fear no one's censure," Lysaer said, and despite his best care, the
pique showed.
    "Perhaps not today, but the future's not written." Sethvir unfolded
hands like gnarled twine and flung wide a door of iron-strapped ~,ak.
    Inside, the tower's rough stone had been paneled over in li~en ~c,/d
patterns of golden maple. A carpet of Cildorn weave graced the I'i,~'~c~r
of a comfortable, warm chamber. The furnishings included a table, c~i
waxed ebony, standing lions back-to-back as its pedestal, and ct~,~irs

94

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 upholstered in dark leather with exquisite, chased ivory finials.
 Beeswax candles burned, both in tall stands and sconces. Rowed
 beneath the paned, lancet windows, and lent the rich depth of choice
 dyes, the banners of Athera's five kingdoms hung from bronze
 tapestry rods. The ambiance held a grandiloquent, trapped weight of
 history before which Lysaer paused, amazed.
     "Behold, the chamber of the high kings. Here, your ancestor, Hal-
 duin s'Ilessid, knelt and swore oath to the Fellowship. That blood
 vow he gave became binding on his progeny, for the length of his line,
 and all time. No light matter." Sethvir's gesture encompassed the
 cleared space before the table, no invitation, but strict command.
 "Through the duration of this audience, you will stand."
     Lysaer bridled, mocked at once by Kharadmon's mercuric chuckle.
 "You forget yourself, bantling. Your forefathers were crowned kings
 on Fellowship authority. Any claim you have to royalty originated
 here, ruling power granted in accord with Tysan's founding charter."
     An added voice gruff in the grain as old bedrock lent that state-
 ment full weight. "This is not the world of your birth, to acknowledge
 right of arms or direct ancestry." Unnoticed until he straightened,
 another Sorcerer moved from his quiet, leaning stance against the
 ebon pilaster that flanked the fireplace. "You walk on Athera, in the
 hall at Althain Tower, where blood inheritance is fully revocable!"
    Tall, worn to leathery leanness by centuries of life in harsh weather,
Asandir was not clad for travel. The flames' ruddy glow touched and
drowned in the velvet of robes the deep indigo of midnight. Sleeves,
hem, and collar were sewn in silver braid, matching the glint of his
hair. Named Kingmaker in legend for the royalty he had crowned, he
looked the part: clean-shaven, with sable brows angled in lines like
slashed pen strokes, his cheekbones and nose as rugged as if notched
by an axe out of hardwood.
    "What brings your complaint?" Lysaer assumed his place in pride-
ful, combative challenge. "I refused Tysan's crown. The sovereignty I
shoulder is none of your making, but springs from city law and a writ
drawn by Karfael's mayor."
    "Is that how you claim your right to set chains on free men, then
subject them to branding and lifeterm of forced labor on the galleys?"
From the doorway behind, Sethvir sighed. "I think not." He added,
"We're all here." Although he moved not a finger, the iron-strapped
panel slammed closed.
    Lysaer gave a start, but refused to acknowledge the arrivals who
filed behind him. He took their measure instead as they assumed
their seats at the table. The lead figure was hooded in a full-length

J~� W~$

  white mantle. The face stayed shadowed and genderless
  sharp brilliance of candles. Lysaer recognized the collar
  linked runes in silver and gold which denoted a life initiate of
  Brotherhood. He sucked a grim breath. His prior suspicion
  firmed: the adepts were in sympathy with Arithon
  delegate's presence, an unpleasant, sure proof that their
  joined ranks with the Fellowship against him.
      As dark followed day, a fifth Sorcerer limped after, his caped,
  short tunic, and leggings woven of somber black wool. A raven
  his shoulder, wings spread over a steel gray thatch of hair
  surveyed the prince and the assemblage of Sorcerers, but its
  and its thoughts were not avian. All of its_~
 gence lay reflected in eyes the hue of ripe chestnuts.
    "Traithe," Asandir greeted. A swordsman's swift step carried
from the mantel to draw out a chair. His care for his collea,
mity held deferent respect for good reason. Traithe of the
had been crippled since the terrible day he had raised the wild
to seal the passage at South Gate against the Mistwraith's
His sacrifice then had cut off the invasion. Though fogbound,
world had survived. If his quizzical smile and listen'mg
eased Lysaer to amity, today, all the laugh lines were
visage looked tired, his mouth a taut fold, grim with years and
pain.
    Sethvir chose the seat beneath the banner of Tysan, flanked:
and left by the mismatched shades of Kharadmon and
Between the one, rapacious as a gambler in a card parlor, and
other, staid and somber as a judge, Althain's Warden might
a maundering old man, prone to openmouthed dozing. Except
eyes he raised to the prince were no dreamer's, but a surgeon's
steel,. to flay skin from bone on a glance.
  Lysaer resisted the coward's urge to plead. Fellowship
were not subject to persuasion. Unlike his packs of recalcitrant:
ors, they could not be swayed by sincerity. Trappings of ornament
clothing would not impress them. At will, they could strip him dow~
to his naked spirit. To face down all five without trembling in dread
required an act of main strength. Lit by the merciless flood of the can-
dies, Lysaer felt sealed outside of time. The tower's very presence dis-
tilled his perception into shapes too precise for forgetfulness. Grand
causes and ideals were excised and diminished. The strivin~ 0i
honor and the layered masks of selfhood became turned ai~.~~~.
reduced to flat copies in reflection, a purposeless circling like n~ ~.-
ments of fish behind glass.

96

pite the
,ke and
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nd this
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cloak,
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e bird
mind
ntelli-

~ him
infir-
vship
Orces
'sion.
, the
once
the's
told

'ight
tine.
 the
like
 the
:ept

FUGITIVE PRINCE

     Lysaer clasped his hands, steeped to acid resolve. He was the hawk
 in the falconer's net, and the Fellowship, deadly and powerful con-
 spirators acting in concert with a criminal. The right was not theirs to
 decry his moral destiny, or to accost him with binding judgment.
 They could hurl their dire threats, and he could refuse. He had no
 stake to bargain beyond dignity and life; his sole weapon became his
 own staunch fiber of principle. Let the Sorcerers break him with brute
 force and conjury if they could. For the sake of all threatened and
 innocent people, he would do no less than extend his best effort to
 stand strong.
     Traithe opened in shaded, soft sorrow. "You are aware, our Fellow-
 ship acts in accord with the Law of the Major Balance. We bring harm
 to none, nor does our practice force any man against his given will.
 The talk in the cities of coercive spells and rituals raised out of blood-
 shed is no more and no less than the ignorant bluster of fear."
     "If choice is still mine, then send me back, now." Lysaer inclined
 his head, every inch the magnanimous prince. "Or prove yourselves
 hypocrites, since the conjury which plucked me up out of Tysan was
 an act done without my consent."
    "You will listen." Asandir sat forward, his eyes the washed, pale
0pal of the tiercel's, and his expression forbidding as granite. "Games
of rhetoric will not serve, nor will we bandy obstructive, petty argu-
ment. Do you realize, in truth, the place mankind holds in the order
of this world? Or do you even care, in your self-righteous cry of pub-
lic sacrifice?"
    Kharadmon flicked one finger. Like the barbed parody of a stage
magician's trick, a shadow-bane flashed and arced airborne. Asandir
fielded the spinning coin in one fearfully capable hand. At first touch,
as if the gold scalded, his mouth flinched into a line.
    "Abomination," murmured the adept of Ath's Brotherhood. The
soft, fluting voice was female, and young, and the shadowy hood
turned a fraction. Unseen eyes bored into the prince and measured
his regal stillness. "Ah, no," she said. "A mere hedge witch's sigil to
ward against darkness could not turn the might of the Fellowship.
But stronger powers lie dormant behind symbols. Beliefs cling to met-
als. For those reasons, the cumulative resonance of your gold rings
unclean."
    Asandir held the coin cupped between his palms. Through a span
of stilled silence, its cast glow of reflection seemed to light his seamed
face from within. He spoke a liquid, clear word. The language he
chose was the ancient Paravian, and the inflection shaped sound like
struck crystal. Time stopped, suspended. The mystery in that moment

97

JANNY W URTS

held the potential to snap thought, or the latent might to rend m0un
tains. But Asandir's summoning framed only kindness. Lysaer k~e~ ~
an instant of scouring, sore grief, that he was but fashioned of n~0rta'.
clay. He felt as a child shut in the cold dark, and the wrench all but
felled him, that the Name gently spoken was not his.
    The shadow-bane melted to that power of compassion. Both sigil
and sunwheel flowed molten and smoothed. Asandir ~'as not
burned. The disk he laid down and slid back across the t,~ble was
transformed to a pristine blank. The Sorcerer spread his haT~ds flat
and looked up while the prince was still nakedly shaken.
    "Tricks and spells," Lysaer gasped. "Would any man arg~~e? Al
_your bidding a stone mi~:ht be made to wail and weedy."
    "Even so, the stone weeps for choice, by our code." Asandir's
speech stayed dispassionate, uncolored by the fabric of sheer caring
he had just summoned to redeem the shadow-bane. "What code
shapes your life? The deceptive diffraction of Ath's order vor~ enc0ur-
age shall afflict miseries to span generations. You style us crin~inals
who break lives and spill blood. Do you not do the same for a feud?"
    Lysaer snatched at argument to collect himself. "Why not t~,11 me?
Did Arithon s'Ffalenn weigh the full measure of consequence when
he tore buildings in Jaelot stone from stone, or placed arms in the
hands of Vastmark shepherds?" Flagged confidence returned, became
ringing conviction. "What of the five hundred he murdered at the
Havens? Or the mountains torn down upon Dier Kenton Vale to
crush tens of thousands more beneath the Wheel?"
    "Those spirits lived and died in free choice within Ath Creator's
ordained order," the adept said in metallic soft sorrow. "Their beliefs
and expectations held no more than error. They fought for lies, but
not faith. The course you now tread would deny the prime source
from whence springs all joy and all life."
    Lysaer fielded that sentiment with contempt. "Are they any less
dead for their choice or their truth? Arithon, also, can beguile to turn
innocents. If I don't oppose him, who will?"
    "Beware, false prince," Sethvir interjected, neither wistful nor dif-
fused, but earnest in a concern that terrified for its mildness. "The fears
you smooth over in the trappings of moral platitudes will counterbal-
ance nothing. Neither can they build. You will find the just fervor you
raise can save no one. In the end, your own followers will dictate v~ur
actions. Their will shall rule yours with a needy finality that you will be
powerless to gainsay. We can offer no help for you then."
    "I was beyond help the moment I fell under Desh-thiere's curse,"
said Lysaer, succinct. His diamond studs flashed like ripped bits of

98

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 light as he snatched his small opening for riposte. "That was sup-
 posed to be your problem. By what right do you criticize my methods
 before you have broached your own failure?"
     A pause seized the chamber. Sethvir and Asandir stayed wrapped
 in glass silence; the spirits of Kharadmon and Luhaine looked pressed
 into the air like stamped felt. The adept made a sound, in sorrow or
 dismay, and clasped bronzed hands to her lips, while the candles
 burned on in smokeless, unreal indifference.
     A baleful, black cutout given life in a scene without motion, the
 raven splayed its left wing feathers. Its head swiveled sidewards. One
 bead eye stayed fixed, a spark of buffed bronze, as it balanced to its
 master's shift forward.
     "There is no pretense here, Lysaer." Traithe's rebuke was rust
 swathed in velvet. "Desh-thiere's ill works pose the true danger, a
 peril shared by us all. Subject to a curse to kill Arithon you may be,
 but that does not rule out choice and action. Mind and will can be
 yours to command outside of your half brother's presence. Blind
 hatred can be fought." The raven preened on his shoulder, undis-
 turbed, as he entreated, "You are gifted to seek justice. Don't make
 that a weapon for righteousness. The misery you seed in your quest
 to kill Arithon might live on long past your death. Claim your cause
 as divine, and you found a tradition that will not be lightly shaken."
    "You are swift to condemn my role as deceit." Lysaer's fine hair
shone a pale, fallow gold beneath the flood of the sconces. When he
raised his proud head, all the strain showed, his beautiful face stiff in
his forced effort not to weep. "As one human ruler, ! may be in error.
But in all fair conscience, can I stand aside and let Arithon of Rathain
turn his sorceries on an unsuspecting society? What binds him to con-
straint? You who claim wisdom know better than any. A mortal who
commands unchecked power becomes ripe for corruption. Jaelot and
Alestron have already suffered. Why beg for a large-scale disaster?"
    The prince turned his head. Despite a transparent desire for pri-
vacy, he pursued his point, dogged, to its finish. "If I sacrifice one
value for another, if I choose to create a balance of power, who are
you to cry me down? The debt incurred becomes my personal score
on the slate of Daelion Fatemaster. I am the Shadow Master's oppo-
site. My place is to check him. Ath have mercy on us both, for the fate
brought upon us by the bride-gift of a sorcerer whose ancestor was
trained by your Fellowship!"
    Lysaer faced forward in blazing, brash courage and hurled his own
charge in defense. "If your hand is revealed at the root of our conflict,
tell me why have you not acted?"

99

JANNY ~URT$

    Asandir arose, dark brows drawn down over eyes turned ~
ding, storm gray. "How dare you mistake us for the street I
Avenor, to try and wring sympathy by crying lame causes
ing the puppet martyred for the grand destiny." He leaned 0n!
table, the veins on his hands like vines gnarled into aged oak. "0r~
you hope you might finally convince yourself?" His glare flicks'
over the prince like crossed lightning. "We have not acted because l~
thiere's curse is inseparably tangled with your life aura. As Traithe s~:
our Fellowship does not kill."
    "You claim you would let two lives tear civilized socie~~ a~
Lysaer laughed, his widened eyes locked on the Sorc,.~',,;'~ "~i
indeed, I have no hope." Honest rage tore through his gritt~ r~'ser:
ment, for a second upsetting the ironclad duty dunned into i~t~ xxi~:
royal birthright. "Ath, did you think I desired my exile to tt'~> ~x'0rl~
Or that I asked to become your sacrificial weapon against the ~i:'.
wraith?"
    "The Fellowship has never been a force in Athera to take g~id~
charge of human destiny!" A creature of movement and
Asandir thrust up from the table. He stalked to the fire, braced an~
on the mantel, while the flames at his feet snapped and
Their light played a moving mapwork of lines over his hard,
tered features.
    Luhaine retrieved the lapsed dialogue. "Our purpose is
stand guard for the land, and to this end, you're being asked
harsh questions. Face yourself!" The entreaty was raised, a
blade that offered no quarter. "You embark on a dangerous
even beg the ruin of your race! How dare you mask over the
that is the prime source! For arrogance, you put yourself 0n!
pedestal in attempt to whitewash a curse-bound directive to end'
half brother's life. True justice plays no part. You veil
vendetta, for vengeance and base envy, because Arithon will
seduced by the evil you seek to attach to his name."
Lysaer swayed. His glittering shoulders wavered, almost bent.
The adept swept to her feet, relentless. "Unstop your ears
ten, scion of s'Ilessid. Persist on your present path, and you shall~
your desires." As Lysaer's blue eyes widened, she pressed him,
yes. Your half brother shall walk in the shadow you create. But
before you stand blackened enough to raise despair of a
cient to break him. Every mortal enclave on this continent
victim to your cause. Your memory shall be sealed in the
violence, for nothing in creation can stand or flourish in the
of love. Let us see, in the hour that Arithon's blood stains your

100

master.'
    That
Untoinc
The ligt
bright t
wrong. ~
    Asan,
txands. '~
hapskx'
leape~
Kh
style,
Ba/an

             FUGI?IVE PRINCE

whether conviction for your fellowman or overweening pride is your
illaster."
    That bleak forecast raised consternation among the Sorcerers.
Unmindful of their stir, Lysaer sank to his knees. Tears wet his cheeks.
The light snagged and shivered in his diamond studs as he bent his
bright head in defeat. "Have mercy," he pleaded. "I admit to mY
wrong. Lend me your guidance to heal."
    Asandir returned to the table and sat, his harsh gaze fixed on his
hands. Silence fell, filled by the tormented sobs of the prince, who per-
haps had been brought to realize the enormity of his acts. No Sorcerer
leaped to mete out the last test of surety.
    Kharadmon shouldered that burden at the end, his razored, brief
style expressing the inflexible Law and just consequence of the Major
Balance. "Abjure your call to arms. Publicly renounce your false tie to
divine calling. Then you shall have at your side all the help our Fel-
lowship can command."
    Lysaer pressed his forehead against the patterned carpet. Hair like
combed sunlight fronded the hands he held clenched at his crown. He
would not look up. Shamed to abasement, he asked of the Sorcerers,
"What do I say to ease the grief of the widows and the mothers whose
loved ones were slaughtered in Vastmark?"
    "Tell them the truth," Sethvir answered, implacable. "Your mistake
should not be permitted to compound, nor be passed to their sons, to
die for wrong cause and false sacrifice."
    At that, Lysaer regained the will to stand straight. Through shock-
darkened eyes, he perused the stilled faces of five Sorcerers, then the
shadowy countenance masked by the hood of Ath's adept. In tear-
stained magnificence, he looked like one of Ath's avatars, fallen, a
sword forged in blood to stand firm against wrongful action. "Ath
preserve, you ask me to break my personal, given trust. As I am
cursed, so too is my half brother. I can't leave my people defenseless
before him. Bind Arithon first. Then take my capitulation on any
terms that you ask."
    "Ath show you mercy," Sethvir replied. "I am sorry. We now must
do more than warn."
    A thin, feral smile seized Lysaer's lips. "I thought so!" He loosed a
jarring peal of laughter. "Here is the truth. Power begets force, did I
not say so? What will you do now, if not call me down by straight vio-
lence?"
    "You mistake us," snapped Traithe, no longer the listening confi-
dant, but grim as the raven just flown from a field of raw carnage.
"Your life in our hands is sacrosanct, and your will, no one's other

101

]ANN� ~r U R T S

than your own. But mankind's place in Athera has never been a
right." This was straight fact. The ancestor of every human aliv~
first come as a refugee begging for sanctuary. "Settlement here,
permitted under strict terms by the compact sworn between our ~
lowship and the Paravians."
  "Did you think kingdom law was written at our whim?"
mon sat forward, his trickster's flamboyance razed away. "The
nal charters were drawn by our hand, but to the old races'
Their strictures are not mere rules to be overturned for some
mayor's convenience."
    Not to be outdone, Luhaine plunged on to lecture, "For the
you have initiated, for setting your seal to chained slavery, and
seeking to supplant Ath's order and the Law of the Major
you have defied the tenets mankind was charged never to violate."
    "Now you know." Sethvir tucked folded hands beneath the~
fleece of his beard. Diminished by sorrow, he appeared to read
next lines from the whorled grain of waxed maple. "Our
keeps a trust with the Paravians. Each human child birthed here
and dies on the sufferance of our intercession. We stand surety
mankind, all their works, all their laws. Yes, even for their greed and
their strivings that could mar every facet of this world. Understand
this. We guard and nurture as we can, but our service is not to our
race."
    Althain's Warden paused. As if the air to drive spoken words
bound him mute, he looked aside, the set to his shoulders gone bird-
boned and frail. He seemed an old man without mystery, outwornb~
relentless attention to detail and a shackling burden of care. "There
exists no compromise, no quarter Any man to defy the compact, who
breaks the first order set down by the Paravians, must be cast outside
our protection. You will leave Althain Tower None here would mis-
use grand conjury to upset the fate you pursue. Nor shall we mourn,
or answer your cries when the justice of the old races falls upon you
and the followers you seduce into blindness."
    "You will not break me by intimidation," Lysaer said. "I stand as
the shield for my people."
  Sethvir bowed his head.
    No second chance followed, no gap for reprieve. The image fort~s
of Kharadmon and Luhaine whisked out like gale-blown candles.
    Lysaer felt their presence encircle his form in cold air, while the
adept slipped her hood and bared features of frost-brittle clarity. "The
ways of the Paravians are not those of men. They are not born of
earth, but sprung from the prime source itself." Her upraised finger

102

              FUGITIVE PRINCE

 accused him. "Woe to you, prince. The wrath of Athera's true
 guardians is no light fate to invoke."
     An actinic burst sheared the chamber as a rune seal flamed above
 Lysaer's head. The cipher blazed yellow-white, then faded to violet.
 Sensation followed, a sourceless wind of fine energies that hazed
 through all the five senses. Lysaer experienced no physical discom-
 fort. But the vibration rocked on through his mind. Something inside
 of him howled wild protest for the irrevocable step being taken. His
 awareness became pierced by untenable loss. No grief ever savaged
 the heart to such depths, as if for an instant he had gazed upon par-
 adise, then plunged for all time into darkness. He wept. Ugly, racking
 sobs closed his throat as something unnamed and brilliant slipped
 away and consigned him to friendless desolation.
     The hurt sieved and tore him, needles through silk, until he felt
 nothing but numbness.
     Then Asandir was beside him. Firm hands took his arm, drew his
 faltering step away from the King's Chamber and into the black chill
 of the stairwell. Lysaer reeled as though drunk. Plain air turned his
 head. The stairs felt absurdly hard beneath his feet, and the shadows
 pooled under the sconces held menace like teeth, lurking unseen to
 gnaw flesh.
     Lysaer called on his gift to blast out the darkness, but no spark
 answered. His limbs seemed battened in felt. Again he stumbled. A
 Sorcerer steadied him. The touch was raw power and limitless
 strength clothed over in gentleness that plunged a dull ache to the
 bone.
    "You are deceivers," the prince insisted. "Betrayers of your own
principle to shield Arithon." His voice seemed a stranger's, and his
commitment to honor no more than the soulless whine of spent wind.
    Asandir pressed ahead, bundling his charge between the stilled
ranks of statuary. Their mystery had gone strangely dull; now, the
centaurs, unicorns, and sunchildren seemed nothing more than
exquisitely beautiful carvings. Lysaer felt remorse, and then won-
dered in leveled, pure logic why he should pause for regret. The
tricks of the Fellowship were evasively subtle. The guiding hand on
his flesh was creased by the bridle rein, ordinary, no more than a com-
mon old man's. Still the contact was comfort and animal warmth;
then even that simple solace was gone as Asandir released him by the
trapdoor to the vault.
  "Go down." Winter drafts bit deep where the Sorcerer pointed.
    Lysaer locked his jaw, sliced again by a glass-edged sorrow. He
spoke fast and bitter to fill the void. "The mayors who fear you, did

103

J^~� W~11~$

 your Fellowship disown them the same way?" Steadier now,
 seized the giddy nerve to laugh. "I've read the musty old
 the uprising kept at Erdane. They speak of retribution and
 to be claimed for the blood of the murdered high kings. Yet
 dred years have passed. Nothing happened." The freezing, dry~
 braced him back to banked rage.
     "The Paravians are gone," Lysaer insisted. "They might
 return. Yet you still threaten and raise dread in their name. I
 humanity deserves better than empty rules and the coercive
 your sorceries. I shall spread truth, that your compact has no
 in present-day governance."
    Asandir still said nothing. At the base of the stairwell he.,
unnervingly inscrutable. His hands hung still at his sides, empty
large knuckled as a quarryman's. Lysaer looked away, unbeguiledt
that traitorous semblance of humanity. Before him spread the
Paravian focus, its patterns strung across in mazed chains of~
white quartz embedded in onyx. Then, touched to life by some
of bound magecraft, the demon sconces blazed into flame. The'
cerer's taut face became etched in copper; then that warmth erased
unyielding, struck iron as captured lane force flared the pattern
active.
"Step forward," said Asandir. "Your people are waiting at Aven0r.'
Lysaer turned his back. He walked in unvanquished pride
center point of the focus. "I will see mankind released from
tyranny. Justice will follow war. The land will be given a peace free 0~
shadows, with no help from absent Paravians."
    No word came back. Only Asandir's signal to Kharadmon and
Luhaine, who poised, unseen, to engage gathered power for the
transfer. Then chaos clapped down, and time came unhinged. All
links to the senses dissolved through a fireburst of light. Spinning
vertigo remained, slashed once by the twined cipher of a sorcerer's
mark that spanned the whole axis of creation. Through the deluge of
static and the keening explosion of channeled energy, Lysaer can~
aware of a far-off sibilance of speech...

    "... say something fast to avert panic," his captain at arms call~.d
out in shrill urgency. "Just name the event as a portent of Ath's fa~ ~r.
and hurry. If the mob's left to think our prince was abducted by '~r-
cery, we're going to see mayhem and riot."
    No brave line of pikemen could stand their ground if the
became stormed by panic. Since the play of uncanny, shimmer~~~.~
light seemed the least of two evils, the chancellor had no choice

104

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

into the breech. His orator's shout rose above the crowd's

     "There will be alms!" Forced to a desperate semblance of calm, he
 improvised, "As you see, the Prince of the Light obeys higher forces!
 He goes where he's needed upon instant notice. Are we children to
 pine for his continuous presence? The shadow-banes are blessed. Let
 them be disbursed by our own public servants, and leave his Grace
 free to shoulder the burden of our defense!"
     Just as the mob subsided from its milling roar, the light of Lysaer's
 gift shimmered clean once again. Restored, riled and whole, to his
 ceremonial dais at Avenor, he was fully exposed to the public eye and
 the stupefied shock of his officers. The moment was his to recoup
 what advantage he could.
     "I've come back with proof!" he announced, his snap of resolve
 reborn from quenched terror. "Since Merior, I've known the adepts of
 Ath's Brotherhood were in league with Master of Shadow. Now they
 and the Fellowship Sorcerers have joined in conspiracy against me."
    Before the stark awe of his ranking retainers, he whirled face about.
The crowd in the plaza redoubled their chanting. Cheers pealed and
woke to a howl of animal noise. "Prince of the Light! Prince of the
Light!"
    Lysaer drank in the adulation. Spurred to fierce exultation, coun-
tersurge for a hatred he had long since ceased to resist, he bared. his
teeth in a laugh. White clad, gold haired, fired by his gift, he raised
his fists in defiance of the Sorcerers who had dared to intimidate and
censure him.
    "Behold!" he addressed the masses in a ringing, exuberant shout.
"You and your children shall be saved from shadow! I am called to
serve Athera and oppose the Spinner of Darkness! No cause and no
power will stop my pursuit until he lies dead, and the allies to his evil
works are thwarted!"

105

Winter Solstice 5649

Exchange

The explosive surge of spell-turned forces just used to restore
to Avenor subsided from the focus beneath Althain Tower.
prince's mortal senses had lately discerned but rough stone andi
mood of pervasive sorrow, for lingering minutes while the lane
subsided, the guarding wards left laced through the rock
roused in all of their splendor. A mind attuned to Paravian
could discern their imprint. The fine energies twined into
like hazed water, everlastingly falling: a lightning-laced lattice of'
tern came sheathed in a beauty fit to draw spirit from flesh.
    While the fitted block walls of the citadel ceased their
vibration, the visiting adept of Ath's Brotherhood
the door to the K'mg's Chamber. Her willowy build and white
made her form appear cased in brightness against the grimed arch
the stair vault.
  Or perhaps the effect arose from the spirit aura
ates of her discipline when they chose to walk in dim places. Few in
Athera were empowered to keep pace with the mysteries of Ath's
Brotherhood.
    One such confronted her now, a Sorcerer who, over thousands of
years, had been other things in his past.
    He leaned on the massive, iron-strapped door in what seemed a
deranged fit of woolgathering. His features were glazed in the glow
of the candles. Less susceptible than stone to the fluxes of grand con-
jury, wax-fed flame only danced to the drafts, as winter's cold swirled

106

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 and snatched at the shutters, and moaned through the chinks in old
 masonry.
     The adept surveyed Althain's Warden with her tuned awareness.
 Her shapely hands stayed clasped beneath her embroidered cuffs;
 threadwork of gold and silver which at times glinted back something
 more than commonplace reflection. The heavier sconces, flaming in
 iron brackets on the landing, scrawled moving shadow across her Fel-
 lowship subject, masked in his disarming vagaries.
     Sethvir's eyes alone showed a mind like surgical steel swathed in
 misleading burlap. Beneath the spiked tufts of white brows, his gaze
 remained bleak and trackless as ice on the northern flank of a snowdrift.
     The adept knew a sudden, deep stab of uneasiness, as if a wet leaf
 had brushed scraping tracks down her spine. "Never doubt," she
 urged, her dusky chin lifted under the shelf of her hood. "Your Fel-
 lowship chose right and fitting action with regard to Lysaer s'Ilessid."
     Sethvir's seamed knuckles tightened on the doorframe. "Right or
 not, his expulsion was our forced duty."
     Evasive words, to mask chains of happenstance that would come to
 shape Athera's future. Ath's adept matched his challenge, unwaver-
 ing in her regard. Drafts stirred the clogged fleece of the Sorcerer's
 beard and combed unseen over sinews and flesh he often forgot he
 possessed, so many years had his consciousness ridden the intricate
 tides of the earth link. Against flooding warmth and pale paneling,
 Althain's Warden seemed an emaciated tree, braced and shaped by
 relentless storms.
    The adept laid slim, olive fingers on his sleeve. "Why are you trou-
bled? Should we fear for one man's fate, do you think? The judgment
of the Paravians is sourced in Ath's wisdom. They won't err in behalf
of your prince."
    By their nature, indeed, they could not. Sethvir knew best of any.
His sustained, rooted patience was the unflinching remorse of a con-
science chained still through long years and hard-fought experience.
Before such burdensome memories as his, no mere touch in kindness
could comfort. Althain's Warden therefore yielded nothing, his face
clamped to folds like burled cypress.
    The adept firmed her grasp, insistent. "Lysaer shall receive his
redemption from wrong."
    "And is his choice wrong?" Sethvir asked. No kindness could spare
him the lacerating vision imposed through the channels of the earth
link. Stamped into his awareness, passed on through her contact, the
adept shared the keening, hot surge of a crowd whipped on to devo-
tion in the far-distant plaza at Avenor.

107

JANN� WURTS

  "What's left to weigh?" Unperturbed, she let Althain's
share the upset Lysaer's will had once imposed upon the
grove in her brotherhood's hostel near Shaddom. "This prince
willful and flawed."
    Outside, a blast of north wind hurled sand like gritted
against the tower As if flesh were scoured by the sting of each
Sethvir shook his head. "Lysaer is terrified beyond life to
care for the innocent."
    "Never mind they need none of his help!" The adept spilled a~
very, sharp laugh. "Athera's folk can find their salvation very
They need no misfit savior playing on their fears to shore up
reft of spirit." Still probing, she gave Althain's Warden her most
ing pity. "Stay your grief in this hour, you waste anguish on
wrong victim. While Ath's order becomes maligned by false
and the masses are fired to worship your Prince of the Light,
Arithon s'Ffalenn becomes the spirit in mortal danger of corruption."
    "Then you see very well." Sethvir disengaged his arm. "Y~
know our Fellowship dreads that beyond anything." For
the wells of his eyes seemed rinsed blank, both shield and mirra
against her prying concern. "You name just one ugly crux out of
many. Each of my doubts is well-founded." He covered her young,
woman's fingers with a palm that had worn bloodstains before
those of ink, and too much of both for lasting quietude. The strength
which led her to the head of the stair was anything but an 01d
man's.
  She protested his courtesy as unnecessary.
    "As you wish." Sethvir let her go. While the tormented flames i~
the sconces rinsed his face, Ath's adept read its mapwork of lines and
snatched insight: Althain's Warden regretted a hope kept too fiercely.
    Swift in riposte, his forthright, sad smile foiled her sympathy.
"Your Brotherhood can never serve as priests."
    The lady gave way, then, no longer able to match that wise gaze.
Shaken, not cowed, she veiled her distress in the screening shadow of
her hood. "For all good intent, if we tried, we would seed the very rift
in Ath's continuity that Lysaer s'Ilessid shall create through selfish
error."
    Brotherhood adepts could not intervene in affairs of kingdoms
or men. Nor did their high initiates leave their hostels to teach or
draw in new acolytes. They dared not set forth to preach, even
against Lysaer's threat of false faith, which could raise the sure
power to scatter them. Theirs was not, and never could be, a
guide to established religion. Seekers came to them to find insp~-

108

FUGITIVœ PRINCE

     as they chose, they might stay and take the path to life's
      ~stery.
  Ath's adepts held to no doctrine and no creed. They kept their
   ~ clear, their channel to truth unclouded by the arrogance of mor-
      fools, to misinterpret, or by the greedy who corrupted to
      The Paravians who had been their example were departed,
      with them went the world's pure connection to the miracle of
      prime source.
     "We cannot let the knowledge we guard fall prey, first to dogma,
 then to power and politics. If your Fellowship would ask help," the
 ~ept admonished, "then search again for the lost. Should the old
 races return, Lysaer's claim of divinity cannot do other than fail."
  "We have sent Arithon," Sethvir said. Nothing more.
     Those words should have been arrows, to strike so quick to the
 heart. "I am humbled," the adept gasped. Tears broke her voice, and
 trembling reflections sparked over the thread patterns at her collar
 and cuffs. "Because of your sacrifice, Ath preserve, yet again, for the
 endurance of your Fellowship, the light of our grace may live on."
     Sethvir's fingers, reclasped to hers, became reassurance and com-
 fort.
     Whatever deep worry he hedged to keep hidden, her standing to
 pressure him was forfeit.
    Serenity undone, the adept quit the landing. Her retreat down the
stairwell raised pattering, small echoes, no tribute at all to the sor-
rows enshrined in the granite walls of this sanctuary. The vast, shift-
ing shadows offered no refuge. Nor did the Warden of Althain's
piercing watch ever leave her. His thin, fragile shoulders in their for-
mal maroon robes stayed unbowed, in full command of a desperate
history. To one who might hazard the whole scope of that burden,
naught was left but to ache. Words were no match for such courage
and generosity, that in unequivocating competence assumed Lysaer's
dark tangle in her Brotherhood's stead.
    Again, the Fellowship chose to brave every fissure of torn continu-
ity that human works brought to the world.
    Worst of all, the decision to champion her Brotherhood's seclusion
was not blind. Sethvir fully recognized the perilous potential posed
by s'Ilessid folly. He knew too well how events might grow to jeopar-
dize all that his Fellowship had become in their labor on Athera's
behalf. Risk and sacrifice, the Sorcerer grasped every possible ramifi-
cation. No warning could serve; stewardship of the compact might
test yet again the peace of mind he and his colleagues had earned
amidst the strife of two Ages.

109

JANNY W URTS

    They would shoulder this coil, atop the dread quandaries ~
ceded to their care by the past flight of the Pararians. Tear~
ungrateful gift for such courage;pity fell short as a euJogz

    While the adept sought her peace in the comfort of
Sethvir left his post on the third-floor landing. Circling
him frayed as a scrap of old rag hammered and wrung b3 ,~ $
tide. His Fellowship no longer held the Brotherhood's view. th,~t the
disappearance of the Pararians posed Athera's greatest setb,~ck
belief had been violently undone a year past, when Khar,~,~n~c, n5
foray to the sealed worlds beyond South Gate had unma,k~,d the
darker face of Desh-thiere.
    Weighed down by the terrifying scope of those facts, Sethx ~r reen-
tered the King's Chamber.
  There, settled into a solitary vigil, Traithe sat unmoving, hi5
with their bands of old scar tissue knotted beneath his cleft daiwa.
cut gray hair brushed his collar like tarnish as he roused to t]~,, clank
of the door latch. He tracked his colleague's passage through
dark eyes, while ghost silent, Althain's Warden recrossed tht,
and pinched beeswax candles one by one.
    "You did not broach our problem with the wraiths still ~t
upon Marak," he surmised.
    "No." The acrid bite of singed string spindled through the ~nu.~k
hot wax, and the room's ingrained fragrance of citrus-oiled wood.
each light extinguished, one shadow died also; like overlaid oii
those remaining capered in pantomime about Sethvir's feet. ~ ~tt
Brotherhood won't open their hostels to help thwart Lysaer's [,;'~
tizing in Athera, they would scarcely face damnation on tb~.
we've encountered for lost spirits eatrapped on a gate world."
  "You don't fault them?" Traithe said, prodded out of the
tism he brandished like armor against his own measure of des[~,~,'
    Sethvir's fleeting smile masked inward distress, that any Fd:',
colleague ever required to beg reassurance. Years might pass, b~t
ongoing tragedy of Traithe's impairment never for a day cei~t
sting. "The adepts aren't wrong in their stance." No more th.~ the
Paravians had been to abandon man's conflict since the hour
sunlight was vanquished. "I could ask, but not argue. Desh-thier~'s
works have ever been ours to unravel."
    Wings rustled. The raven swaggered the length of the mantel, ht,~
tipped askance and one sequin eye fixed on the Sorcerers.
    "I hear, little brother," Sethvir murmured, his regard centered still
upon Traithe. In the dimmed majesty of the King's Chamber,

110

r/es already

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 nod 'S
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 waited, the grip of his patience like the earth wisdom contained in old
 stone.
     For a colleague left crippled since the hour of the Mistwraith's
 forced entry, courage came slowly to define an event too recent and
 raw to assimilate. "I can't doubt our stern judgment was needed,'*
 Traithe broached at length. "But, Ath show us mercy, I need to ask.
 How much of Lysaer's acts arise from Desh-thiere's accursed instiga-
 tion, and how much, out of wayward self-will?"
     Sethvir moved. The last branch of lit candles spoked his step in
 wheeling shadows. "Do you wish me to show you the aura?" He
 stopped again, waited, while the casement panes rattled to the out-
 side barrage of north winds.
     "Yes." Traithe shivered, straightened, laid his hands on the table.
 The fingers would not flex fully straight; the elegant, long bones that
 onetime were clean as a dancer's lay twisted and ravaged by old
 bums. His formless apprehension poisoned the pause. Half the given
 talent to set shackles on the Mistwraith lay tied through today's condemned
 prince and his inborn power to shape light. "I would know what we face
 for the future."
     The issue went beyond the corruption of an ancient royal line.
 Desh-thiere's threat had increased. The step which cast Lysaer out-
 side of the compact opened yet another pitfall to bring the last plunge
 to disaster.
    Althain's Warden extinguished the last bank of candles. He
recrossed the carpet, soft footed, and rested his palms on Traithe's
shoulders. His touch in the darkness came feathered and dry as the
chance-met brush of a moth's wing. Instantaneous awareness crossed
that slight contact and seized his mind like dull pain. He knew as his
own the harrowing weariness wrung through the flesh beneath his
hands. "Let me carry this," he murmured.
    "Take my permission, and gladly at that." Traithe raised a crooked
grin, the humor forced through his iron bravado an unvanquished
bent for lightheartedness. "You always did like to run things, never
mind your crafty knack for making everyone believe that somebody
else was in charge."
    Sethvir laughed. "I could wish this particular trouble sat else-
where. Then we could chat over honey and scones, and brew up a
nice pot of tea."
    He started his work in one seamless second, his bodily senses dis-
carded for the sharp, trained awareness of mage-sight. The chamber
around him transformed to that altered plane of perceptionú Simple
objects unveiled themselves in complexity, the weavings of Name

111

JANNY WURTS

 and history revealed. The pile of the carpet showed its humble i
 ning as wool on the backs of jostling sheep; then shadowed
 lay, each dye in its coloring, brewed from plantstuffs and
 insects and urine; and underlying the weave like the tap of gh0stt
 gers, the thump of the looms dragging warp threads through
 the hands of chattering craftswomen. The pale shafts of
 bespoke honeyed summer days and the bustling industry of
 Mere flecks of dust adrift on the air gained the lordly, bright
 of stars. Metal for latches, and the bronze of wrought
 pered of dark beginnings in the earth, then shrilled to the
 of smelting.
   At will, Sethvir
tery could sort through its light-dance to the bundled spin of energy
which held the imprint of events long past. The ebony tabletop would
still house the echo of the commitment that Halduin s'Ilessid had
accepted, in signature and seal and blood oath, when he swore to
uphold Tysan's royal charter. The old stone kept vibrations of earlier
times, when the flutes of the Athlien Paravians had led the joy
spring larks, and the winds past the casements had thundered to the
mating calls of great dragons. Years and change like layers stamped
in sediment, through the centuries comprising three Ages, the struc-
ture of Althain Tower itself speared its indelible imprint. Its
stone crossed time's arc in fired loops. Its guard pattern bridged every
facet of existence, then soared beyond, an unvanquished fist of white
light: a lofty splendor of desperation and hope, shot through by the
terrible defense wards wrought by the centaur mason who, for love 0f
the land, had fitted each mortised joint in the walls, then spilled his
own blood to bind the seals into permanency.
    Even Sethvir could not encompass Althain's dire beauty without a
half breath lost to awe. A disturbed scrape of claws issued from the
mantel shelf, cut by a testy croak.
    "I won't stay distracted," Sethvir assured the raven. He steadied
himselL then narrowed his mage-sense into
Slowl)› delicately, he extended his tactile awareness into the aura of
his colleague.
    Sethvir's whole consciousness embraced that of Traithe. Prepared
though he was, a sick rush of vertigo ripped his frame. He broke into
a cold sweat; stifled his reflexive recoil though horror chased his skin
like the clammy, sharp scrape of wet razors. Intent held him firm as
his vision spun and drowned, sucked into the fearful, gapped chaos
of a spirit whose vital energies had been sheared into permanent dis-
array.

112

FUGITIVE PRINCE

     The effect was clean symmetry pulled tragically awry, a mistake
 frozen for posterity as a statue half-smelted in a bronze craftsman's
 crucible might be quenched in disfigured solidity.
     By every lawful tenet of nature, the inviolate whole of Traithe's
 inner spirit should have gleamed through the damage to his body. A
 self-aware being transcended mere flesh. On the contrary, the vibra-
 tional essence of Name held the changeless template by which a sor-
 cerer's own powers could restore full health and fitness. But outside
 the scope of Fellowship wisdom, one long past, calamitous encounter
 with Desh-thiere had snarled Traithe's aura into discord. Unlike
 Kharadmon and Luhaine before him, he could not shape the crossing
 to earthplane existence as pure spirit. His awareness had been
 warped too far out of true, entrapped in its cage of crippled flesh.
     Sethvir shared the scope of that damage firsthand. The resonant
 structure of Traithe's merry essence had been rucked to a madman's
 tangle. Its bright weave showed odd rifts, as if packs of starved
 predators had ripped through tinseled lace with claws and ravening
 teeth.
    These, Sethvir must patch with his own resources. His colleague's
continuity of function must be stabilized to restore complete access to
his talents. Braced for disorientation and mindless, tearing pain,
Althain's Warden dissolved his last veil of identity to shore up the
wounded spirit that was Traithe.
    His mage-sight became shattered. Perception dissolved into crazy-
quilt fragments, welted in patternless blind spots. Althain's Warden
cried out. Unmanned by the handicap Traithe endured through the
ongoing course of each day, Sethvir fought down raw fear. Imagina-
tion foundered. In grief, he felt humbled by his colleague's brave
struggle to hold fast to humor and sanity.
    The heart could but reel before the ultimate cruelty, that such suf-
fering impairment might have no end and no cure. Against sheer
despair, Sethvir raised a counterflux of power.
    The labor he shouldered was painstaking and delicate. No individ-
ualized pattern of his signature precisely matched those gaps riven
wholesale through Traithe. The interface was clumsy, a rafted-
together construct as unwieldy as trying to join hawsers with thread,
or forcing mismatched fragments of porcelain to fuse into a water-
fight vessel.
    Sethvir closed the last channel. He waited, sustained in pity and
patience, while Traithe groped to assimilate, and talents repressed
throughout five hundred years flexed from their cramped state of dis-
use. Lent a fleeting, murky access to the mage-sight once commanded

113

JANNY WU.RTS

in his own right, the lame Sorcerer made no demands, but waite~
while Sethvir engaged the next step.
    Althain's Warden drew on memory. Without judgment, with0u~
prejudice, he shared the reflection of Lysaer's spirit aura on the
moment that Fellowship verdict had withdrawn the protection of
compact.
    Like some eerie, actinic embroidery spindled against velvet
gloom, the recalled vision shimmered into visible light. In cur~es
and angles and blazing, arced spirals, the individual vibrations
which comprised Lysaer s'Ilessid lay exposed, the whole of his being
excised from the shadow of dense substance for mage-schooled eyes
to interpret.
    Sethvir held the facsimile static, while Traithe traced the steps of his
colleagues' decision in unconditional review. Predictable anomalies
were sorted aside: here, the seal of Davien the Betrayer's longevity,
and there, in fixed imprint lent through maternal blood ties, the s'Ahe-
las line's given gift of farsight. Traithe narrowed his study to enc0rn.
pass a transection of angles more jarring, that convoluted mesh of
whorls and jags where the Mistwraith's curse to destroy a half brother
entangled the true lines of s'Ilessid justice. The instilled royal virtue no
longer ran straight, but bent with insidious and chilling persistence
into self-blinding misalignment.
    Mortal will could scarcely resist such a coil. Set to draw his inde-
pendent opinion, Traithe could not overlook the surrounding lines
carved by princely desire and intent.
    Lysaer had been cursed to kill his half brother. The tenets of royal
inheritance led him to endorse that violence with a just cause. But
nestled inside his ardent need to protect society, an uneasy conscience
spun new threads of gnawing uncertainty.
    Delusion entered in: a magisterial spark of arrogance fueled by
outraged duty. Lysaer clung to the vanity of his privileged royal
upbringing. Where the coil of self-perception shaped the ideals of
principle, obsession flowered, a hot, hazy spiral that corded throug}~
the aura like coils cast off a dropped spool.
    Sethvir shared the resonance of dismay through the link, as
resolved his conclusion. Lysaer used his flaws to deafen his ea~'~
harsh truth. A lordly, dark pride that brooked no humility before the
misguided masses; a caring, honorable sovereign's undoing, that
measure of shame and stark horror. No other descendant of Halduin
had lived to lead an innocent people to slaughter. That burdensome
guilt crushed thought and will, and gave rise to a desperate denial.
Lysaer refused outright to betray his s'Ilessid bloodline. He would not

114

              FUGITI~ I~RINCE

 beg mercy and assign himself blame for thirty-seven thousand use-
 less deaths.
     A penchant for self-sacrifice fueled that chord of victimized fury
 and reforged an unswerving purpose. In assurance as cool as a strand
 of steel filigree, Lysaer chose his next course. For the sake of those
 who died carrying his banner, he would forbear his born generosity
 of spirit and embark on a more grandiose campaign. Arithon must
 become more than a criminal beyond pardon, but the instrument of
 evil incarnate. For honor, for the sake of past losses and grief, the man
 who styled himself Prince of the Light would not break down and cry
 weakness.
     And so in that hour the composite of Lysaer's aura showed his
 tragic, committed dedication. For the enslavement of Tysan's clans-
 men and the salve of a glorified purpose, this scion of s'Ilessid
 shaped the course and direction of his fate. Desh-thiere's curse
 might drive him to fight Arithon. Its pernicious hold might inten-
 sify and strengthen the brutality of each encounter. But like an
 addiction to euphoric drugs, its pull could not enslave every facet
 of self-will; nor had it the power to enforce heart or spirit to give
 impassioned collaboration with its drive to seed bloodshed and
 war.
     Hate was the province of the Mistwraith's geas, not conceit or
 vengeance for vanity.
    Too aggrieved to stay silent, Sethvir said, 'Had Lysaer's human judg-
ment or his gift of true justice stayed uncompromised, he might not have per-
sisted in branding his half brother as evil.'
    But outside of conjecture, choices still ended with fact. The damn-
ing omission which condemned the s'Ilessid prince was his prideful
design not to bend.
    'Even so,' Traithe admitted in ringing regret. 'Our oath to uphold the
compact leaves us no loophole to give Lysaer a reprieve.'
    Sethvir dismissed the s'Ilessid construct. Prepared to drop contact
with his colleague's faulted vision, he shivered, swept across by a vio-
lent burst of d~jh vu. Trained reflex responded. Practiced from his
centuries of tracking the unsorted flux of the earth link, Sethvir
tagged the triggering fragment of event. Then he rummaged through
memory in pursuit of the happenstance which linked the uncanny
association.
    The connection became manifest. Breath seized in his chest as the
past took him back into the suffocating terror of attack. Once, for six
hours he had been imprisoned in the sheer, slate walls of a warded flask. He
had fled there in peril of his life, hunted down by a pack of nine free wraiths.

115

These had been lured from the dead world of Marak through the
effort to learn of Desh-thiere's origins. Threatened by possession,
termove forced out of cornered desperation, Sethvir had fragmented and
tered his consciousness to deflect the force of the assault. Voracious '
the wraiths had closed in. For a nightmarish second, Althain's Ward~
relived the torment, while malevolent spirits savaged his being like vivis~c.
tion done with hot knives.
    In that darkest hour, while the wraiths had devoured those d'~
parate bits of his spirit, Sethvir had experienced the paralyzing horror
of a consciousness wormholed with gaps. Shocked to revelation, he
perceived the probable cause of Traithe's plight. In the hour o~ p~sl
crisis, Traithe had engaged grand co~?a~� ~ ~aran~ke the spe~s ~hich
enabled the South Gate as a portal to cut off Desh-thiere's invasi0n.
As battle was joined, the collective mind of the Mistwraith may ~'e~
have bid for possession.
    Traithe had lost memory. Repeated scryings to rect~nstr~ct the
event had exposed only surface images. But there had bee~ ~ spell
unleashed that appeared to recoil in backlash upon its creator.
Through logic and theory, Sethvir knew Traithe's act had not bee~
any miscast conjury.
    On purpose, a sorcerer beset beyond hope might shear of~ t~i~ted
portions of his being. For the mage-trained, the perils of po~,~si0~
and conquest were too terrible a risk to set loose on the ~ ~rld a~
large.
    Worse, far worse, if such maiming defense had not irn~la~ed
those truncated fragments. Laced still in shared contact, ~'th~'ir
masked dismay. Those severed shreds of Traithe's consci~,~s~s~
might well still exist. If they had survived the cautery of confi: :. tJ~e~.
would live in the clutch of the wraiths which devoured them. ~ ;~! [o~
essence of self could be nowhere else but mewed up under the, d~ci~i
vibrations of the wards over Rockfell Pit. The chance was too r~.~i, tha
Traithe's hope of healing lay imprisoned with the Mistwraitt~ ~, ~tt~.
of warped spirits.
    The Warden of Althain snapped his fine band of rapport. C.~t ir~
of Traithe's blinkered awareness, he shivered. The ordinary ~!~rk ~
the King's Chamber enfolded him, its brimstone tang of spent ~. ~rbv
commingling with the faded fragrance of the herbs that kept ~'~t'
from spoiling the heraldic banners. Sweat drenched him. A t,~,
deep dread compounded his earlier heartache.
    He scarcely dared move, lest Traithe be led to sense somethit'
amiss and begin a distressed round of questions.
  "Get some rest," Sethvir urged, amazed that his voice should st

116

COldli-
t scat-i
~lice,
~rden
~isec-

dis-
~rror
,he
~ast

veil

the
)ell
;or.

            FUGITIVE PRINCE

function. He managed no more. The devastating scope of his findings
overcame him, and pity closed his throat like poured lead.

     While Traithe relieved the ache of his scars in sleep on a cot in the
 wardroom, the other four Fellowship Sorcerers in residence gathered
 in the cushioned nook off the pantry.
     The unwelcome impact of Sethvir's discovery had spun into brittle
 silence.
     Asandir's charcoal eyebrows met above his hawk nose. Seated at a
 deal table grayed with old rings left by flowerpots, he plowed the last
 crumbs from an oatcake into mazes of meaningless lines. In the win-
 dow seat opposite, feet tucked up on a tapestry stool leaking horse-
 hair stuffing in tufts, Althain's Warden peered into the dregs of a
 much chipped earthenware pot. A mug turned for a sunchild's pro-
 portions sat clasped between his knobby knees. Sethvir found noth-
 ing useful to say. The tracks between soggy clumpings of tea leaves
 held no remedy to heal Traithe's affliction.
     "How often ignorance stings less than knowledge," Asandir said at
 last.
    By then, a wintery aquamarine dusk tinted the room's makeshift
casement. Hoarfrost tendriled the bottle-thick rondels, crudely set
into leading and mortar to seal the aperture of an arrow loop. Failing
light glinted on the diamond inset in some forgotten aristocrat's fancy
table knife. The bone handle had yellowed, and a blade lapsed to tar-
nish wore butter in undignifled smears. Nearby, a tin spoon stuck
upright in the bubbled glass jar of a farmwife's elderberry jam.
    A current of cold out of phase with the season prowled the rim of
the table. "What does dung do in a byre but get deeper?" remarked
Kharadmon's drifting presence.
    To stall his rank flippancy, Luhaine spoke from the niche between
the rococo cupboards of the larder. "If Traithe's chance of healing is
linked with the quandary of Desh-thiere's damned wraiths, in horrid
fact, we're left with a dearth of alternatives."
    "Just the sort of crux in a chess game to drive logicians and theo-
rists to fits." Kharadmon crossed the window in a puff of miffed agi-
tation. "We might be advised to set calming wards to safeguard your
sanity as precaution."
    "How belated," Luhaine retorted. "I'd sooner go mad from your
incessant, childish inanities!"
    Kharadmon blew back a raspberry. "Leave things to you, we'd
hear you pontificate 'til the fish in the sea become fossils."
Long since inured to old spats between shades, Asandir twiddled

117

JANNY WURTS

crumbs, and Sethvir pondered tea leaves, each one immersed i
furbed quiet. None cared to broach the difficult
Traithe's tragic predicament made the cursed princes' lives
more indispensable. Their elemental mastery of shadows and
couM be needed to sort through the Mistwraith's damned
The outlook on that future stayed unremittingly grim, with
half-deranged by the pinch of s'Ffalenn conscience, and named
hunted criminal; and Lysaer s'Ilessid poised to launch holy
under threat of Paravian judgment.
    Traithe's raven fluffed obsidian feathers from the keystone over
doorway, while Luhaine intoned arch opinion. "There could be a ]
efit to this day's bad work. A reprieve might arise out of,
Lysaer's aberration of prime law would draw the Pararians out
hiding to denounce him."
    "No grace remains for discussion in any case." Sethvir raised
nose from the dregs of his tea mug, his mood diffused into
"We've got company. Morriel Prime's just arrived at the gates
demand our immediate audience."

118

Winter Solstice 5649

Demand

~mter gloaming cloaked the sedges, and the raked, brown stalks of
dry weed heads flattened to the gusts that sheared off the Bittern
Desert. At the edge of the dunelands, under sky like translucent
enamel, Althain Tower reared up in blunt contour, spidery runners of
ivy and splotched lichens clotted to its southern side. Morriel Prime
worked age-stiffened joints through the snipped-off fingers of her
gloves. Swathed under layers of thick, hooded cloaks, she drew a
deep breath of the knifing, cold air, and quashed back a riptide of old
rage.
    Koriani feud with the Fellowship of Seven had lasted since Third
Age Year One.
    Behind her, fidgety amid the slurry of mud and rimed ruts which
seized the stone flags by the gate arch, her young deaf-mute servant
stared with his mouth slacked open. No other but Iyan attended her.
Too much power and too many secrets lay housed at Althain Tower.
Mortals who asked a Sorcerer's hospitality were wont to reemerge
changed, since the impacting force of a Fellowship presence was too
heady to encounter without sparking an altered perception. No
enchantress dared count herself exempt. Despite the strict code of the
initiate's oath, Elaira's faulted faith in the Koriani Order had
stemmed from just one illicit talk with Asandir.
    Morriel sized up the massive grilled portal, impenetrable before
her high arts. That irri~tion galled her with surprising ferocity.
Learned as she was, disciplined in the mysteries and dedicated as fine

119

JANNY WURTS

 steel in her convictions, even still, the spelled wards on the
 outside her means to command. Seals conformed in
 tied her attuned senses. The ache of them raised
 twinges from the longevity bindings laid in live
 flesh.
     In the moan of winter winds, under a zenith deepened to fath0~.
 less cobalt, the thorny coil of past event transferred its harsh sting~
 the present.
     Morriel cupped the wrapped Waystone against her breast, t~o ~, ~
 of her left hand white knuckled to secure her cloak against th. ::,:,
 Althain's defenses had endured for unnatural centuries, the !~ .:'
 an age before a destitute humanity had embarked on its flight ~.~.
 refuge. While spacefaring civilization had torn itself ~t~
 pack scrap over the bones of its fallen greatness, the l~e]    ~
 Seven had maintained an isolate residence on Athera.
     Whoever they had been, whatever their unrevealed c~ri~i '.
 chose this place for their work. During the Second Age. t~
 turned the bloody tides in the Paravian conflict against t?     '~
 packs of drake spawn. Rescued from near extinction t.~      ~
 had survived to see peace on their overlooked and unct      ~
 world.
     No such enclave of wise powers had intervened to ~ ~
 mankind's beleaguered decline.
     Amid the suffering and the atrocities of humanity's ~\ ~a~ ' '
 the Koriani Order had been founded to resist the collapse oJ higher
 culture. Their purpose had been to perpetuate mercy, while other
 specious, greedy factions waged war, and burned a pricel~'~ heritage
 to ashes.
      ~?tatFragmented ~now~'edge remarried ~o be salYaged 1~:~ o~ t~
brink of being lost beyond all recovery. Morriel confront~'~.~ t~e fast
sanctuary at Althain, her mood like fired obsidian. Too many ~.~[ her
predecessors had begged these same Sorcerers for help. Each ~atri-
arch had been unconditionally refused. Now, when her own t~.'rrn 0f
office neared its end, the current Prime shouldered the more d~'t~ea~-
ing errand of petitioning for power that was hers.
    The necessity ignited a rage of bitter vintage. She alone gt~,~rded
access to the imprinted memories of every Prime Matriarch t~ li~'e
before her. To Morriel, sole protector of mankind's banished hist0r~;
the green earth here was no refuge, but a prison kept ward~'d b~'
tyranny.
    At the dawn of the Third Age, when the refugee survivors arrived
to beg asylum, the Fellowship of Seven claimed no pretense. 'Ihev

120

FuG

sworn to guard the lar
the culture that shaper
with indigenous tradition.
pact, for which the Fellows!
    The Koriani, with their r
voice in that council. To
Enchantress should rise ab
the burden bequeathed b
weary of the proscribed la
only be passed on to the p~
     Althain Tower's stark
 hurting, chill winter twill
 time or attrit5on might era.
     Morriel trembled as th
 fed her temper. Behind ~
 past this world's horizon,
 lization her predecessors
 lated wisdom of those
 beyond recovery by the t
 Sorcerers in behalf of thre
     The moment was past,
 to do battle on Fellowsh
 righteous indignation an
      The clank of a wind]
  notice. Counterweightet
  way as the innermost d
  falls echoed through the
  gate cracked open. Asa
  behind the lowered grat
      "sethvir bids you we
  lenged in chisel-cut bh
  conversation concernir
  Bransian s'Brydion in ~
      Morriel released a 1.
  forward, and rasped h~

    The unveiled preset
across the litter of eml~
not yet tidied from ~
entourage felt comfort~
with his knees drawn'
of the stamped tin spc

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 were swom to guard the land by Paravian law. If mankind would set-
 tle, the culture that shaped them must be set aside to keep accord
 with indigenous tradition. Such were the terms drawn into the com-
 pact, for which the Fellowship Sorcerers stood surety.
 The Koriani, with their mission of merciful protection, were lent no
 ce in that council. Tolerance might argue that today's Prime
 ~: :hantress should rise above the outworn grievance of the past. Yet
 the burden bequeathed by her office was too heavy. Time left her
 weary of the proscribed knowledge she sheltered, records that might
 0nty be passed on to the precarious charge of a successor.
     Althain Tower's stark dignity only mocked her in that bone-
 hurting, chill winter twilight, monument that it was against all that
 time or attrition might erase.
     Morriel trembled as the old flare of rage stirred her blood. Truth
 tea her temper. Behind this locked portal lay power enough to grow
 ?acer this world's horizon, to restore at one stroke all the shining civi-
 !iz,~tion her predecessors had labored to save; and lost. The accumu-
 !ated wisdom of those centuries was dispersed, or else confined
 be,.'ond recovery by the bucolic bounds of a compact sworn by seven
 5~,;cerers in behalf of three vanished races.
    ~he moment was past, to mourn, or waver, or regret. Morriel came
~< ~o battle on Fellowship ground, armed with naught else but her
:':~!~teous indignation and the exhausted rags of her faith.
the clank of a windlass heralded the moment her arrival drew
~, ~, Counterweighted chain reverberated inside the sealed arch-
y as the innermost defenses were winched open. Then firm foot-
r,~ii s echoed through the vaults of the sally port, and the heavy, barred
~;~ie cracked open. Asandir's craggy profile jutted through the gap,
i,~':find the lowered grate of the portcullis.
    'Sethvir bids you welcome to Althain Tower," he called, then chal-
i~.~}ged in chisel-cut bluntness, "He invites you for tea and specific
c~,nversation concerning an arrow let fly three years past by Duke
t~r~nsian s'Brydion in Vastmark."
    Morriel released a laugh of bloodletting satisfaction, waved Iyan
forward, and rasped her reply. "You may tell Sethvir, I accept."

    The unveiled presence of the Great Waystone flicked violet lights
across the litter of empty plates and the glass sides of the jam crock
not yet tidied from the table. The lone member of the Prime's
~t~tourage felt comfortably at home. Iyan perched in the window seat
w,~th his knees drawn up, contentedly licking traces of elderberry off
~t ~he stamped tin spoon. The more elegant butter knife, cleaned the

121

 same way, rema'med in the possessive grasp o~ the
  hooked to h'~s cross-~artered sh'~r~.
   Sethvir approved the deaf-mute's simplistic
  childish innocence. The bearded, sprite's features veiled in the
  which wafted off a fresh tea mug held no guile. As a host
  faultlessly attentive, and yet, the sparkle to his eyes warned
  ward refusal to address the major talisman Morriel had
  before him.
   To her stripped ultimatum to reverse his act oœ mischief and.
 its Named imprint from the earth's eidet~c awareness, he
 re?roacht~l com?laisancy 'Z)one is finished Who could live up
the conceit you believe I possess?" His irreverent manner
to gleeful chagrin. "You embarked on a journey of four
leagues in bellel i could sway the will of a planet? My dear, I am
as well as sorry for the discomfort and inconvenience brought
your expectations. But no living power in Athera could move the
earth to do as you ask."
    Morriel hissed in a sharp breath. "You're lying." Nestled in shawls,
ensconced in a padded chair like an egg in a silk-lined cup,
shared her glare equally between Althain's Warden and Asandir, who
leaned against the doorpost, his bench lately banished to the larder t0
make room for visitor seating. The afterglow behind the paned arrow
slit had fled. Plate rims poised above the pooled shadows cast by a
tallow dip spiked on an iron pricket.
    Unsinged by the Prime's focused ire, blissfully intent on sloshLug
the dollop of cinnamon butter just added to flavor his tea, Sethvir
shrugged. "What you think doesn't matter. Your crystal has been rec-
ognized, and earth will abide by its own nature."
    He might have said more, but Luhaine snatched the opening to
expound. "Stone and soil, you must know, are susceptible to energy.
Like the mind of a mimic, they will copy and retain the patterns of
induced vibrations. No made spell under sky could remand that
given property." Warmed now to his subject, the invisible spirit ran
over the Prime's reedy protest. "And anyway, the conundrum's not
linked to a balanced equation. To invoke the attempt to dominate a
planet would create an unsolvable backlash. Where could the dis-
charge from such a raised force become grounded? Earth itself would
reject the called power to bind it into subservience! Even if this were a
mutable truth, how could its awareness of your great crystal's reso-
nance be masked? The memory of land is scribed in the language of
epochs. It endures across cataclysm. Ath Creator did not gift its being
with forgetfulness."

122

~een
~~~-
ted

FUGITIVE PRINCE

  "Then give me a spell of illusion for blinding concealment," Mor-
  t/el demanded.
      Sethvir looked up from his mug, his eyebrows tipped in patent
  injury. "Just because you accuse me of deceit doesn't mean I'll change
  tag character to become so." He glanced across at Iyan, who held the
  spoon in locked jaws, as if he sensed the tensioned undercurrents to
  words deaf ears could not hear.
     A/thain's Warden set down his tea. He turned his back, gave the
 mute servant's arm a kindly pat, then vacated his chair to share the
 cushion in the window seat.
     Balked by his move from polite negotiation, Morriel shifted target
 and accosted Asandir. "Indeed, the hour has come to discuss that
 arrow once loosed in Vastmark."
     Ghost quiet on his feet, the Sorcerer who arranged the Fellowship's
 field work moved his tall frame and claimed Sethvir's empty chair.
 He slid the filled tea mug aside and laced his fingers over crossed
 forearms. "You provoked an attempt to assassinate Arithon s'Ffalenn
 by fanning Duke Bransian's urge for blood feud." His riposte
 matched hers like test'rag, cold steel. "No light matter"
    "For that you hobbled the powers of our Great Waystone, admit
it," Morriel accused. Eyes like jet bead bored into the Sorcerer's of
impenetrable, mirror-glass gray. "You protect Rathain's prince, peril
that he is. A mage-trained master fallen under curse of violence will
incite more deaths than that one, on Duke Bransian's arrow. I'll say
what I think. Your Fellowship has never regarded the people on this
~~~rld as more than expendable ciphers."
    "We'll set aside the question of whether you're qualified to make
any judgment on that." Asandir gave no sign he was perturbed. "The
issues are separate, in fact."
    "I see." Morriel raked up a disdainful cough. "The nature of an
inanimate earth and its resistance to change weighs more than our
Waystone's potential to spare cities with children and families from
the misfortunes of storm or disaster?" She stabbed a stiff finger from
beneath her layered fortress of blankets. "Condemn yourself, Sor-
cerer, by those answers already given."
    The tallow dip flared, streamed by an affronted swirl of draft. But
whichever discorporate Sorcerer roused up for rebuttal bowed before
Asandir's prior claim to defense. "Lady Morriel, where are your
grounds for dispute? Athera's land and natural resource were never
placed at humanity's disposal."
    "Which point is moot, since your precious Paravians have left
their ancestral ground." Morriel jabbed home her point. "Will you

123

JANNY WU~T$

    endorse bloodshed lust to hold your Iof~y?lace as guardians
abandoned heritage? WhiIe you mourn for vanished unicorns, ou~
cities slide further into violence. Your Teir's'Ffalenn is too perilous a
presence to leave at large in the world. I see you're not blind to the
flaws in his nature. If your Fellowship won't act to curb his lethal
cleverness, our order must. Lysaer's rule offers selfless governance, a i
fair concern for the needs of society. The obsessions the Mistwraith
has driven him to embrace will fade without fuel if Arith0n is
removed as his target. I find no justification whatsoever for restraint.
How should any one life be worth the thirty thousand left dead at
Vastmark?"
      "Because we are not speaking for one individual, but of the ~ur-
vival of all life on Athera," Kharadmon snapped with blistering irony.
  "That is the root of our quandary," Asandir admitted.
    The clipped note to his speech arrested Morriel's tirade. She nar-
rowed seamed eyes and read closer, disturbed by the precedence that
Luhaine permitted his rival's remark to stand unchallenged. Through
the coarse, ruddy flare of the tallow dip, past the vicious play of static
thrown off by the unshielded Waystone, she at last interpreted
Asandir's stark patience for the stillness of a desperate uncertainty.
    "What have you done?" she whispered point-blank. Then in knifing
accusation, "How is our world set at risk?"
    "The peril is not new, but an ongoing extension of the trouble
begun when man first created the aberrated mists of Desh-thiere."
Asandir sat forward. "If I may?" He caught up the Waystone in long
fingers, impervious, as though it possessed no more hazardous an
aura than a chunk of unwarded glass.
    The Prime Enchantress bridled. Convinced he had the effrontery to
mock her by degrading her grand focus as a scrying stone, she gath-
ered herself to revile him. Yet he did nothing but pass the jewel back
across the table.
    "Your jewel sets off a disturbing dissonance," he temporized as he
ceded its cold weight into her protective grasp. "Better we ease the
distraction before the next subject is explored."
    Morriel Prime tugged a silk shawl from her knees and veiled the
sullen glimmer of the Waystone. She felt disgruntled, manipulated,
and pricked by the awareness that Asandir's gently innocuous
request urged dismissal of her complaint. She would not be side-
tracked from her mission. Nor would she be lulled by the informal
nature of Sethvir's bachelor hospitality. Fellowship Sorcerers were
ever subtle players. Placed firmly on guard, she must anticipate their
ploys, even as they offered diversions that led off on tangents.

124

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 "Are the wards on Rockfell Pit gone unstable?" She settled the
 Waystone in the hollow of her lap and waited in rankling patience.
     "Those defenses are secure," Kharadmon assured from his over-
 head vantage above the door arch. "But Desh-thiere was divided
 upon its entry to Athera. The greater concentration of its fog was
 turned away, as we have unsettling proof. The uncontained portion
 cut off on the gate world of Marak is anything but a dead entity."
     Lapped like a mummy in quilts and thick shadows, her reed voice
 stripped to suspicion, Morriel said carefully, "Dead or not, those wraiths
 should have no thread of connection to exploit. Unless you've contrived
 some harebrained scheme to restore the old portal to Athera?"
     "Ath forfend, never that!" Sethvir interjected, then submerged
 once again in his voiceless communion with Iyan. An inimical pause
 seized the chamber, strung out on the hiss of the tallow dip. Asandir
 turned his hand palm down on bare wood to thwart a visible urge to
 strike a fist. "This is properly Kharadmon's story," he said in quick
 discomfort.
    Luhaine withheld all opinion, nor did he interrupt as the nexus of
his discorporate rival drifted down to settle amid the used-up spread
of light supper.
    "The tale plays more like nightmare," the Fellowship's most incor-
rigible prankster confessed in chilling sobriety. Over the untidied jet-
sam of dishes and a tea mug abandoned brimful, Kharadmon
dropped the too casual comment that he had accomplished a crossing
between stars.
    "I went to Marak with intent to find knowledge to break the Mist-
wraith's geas of enmity over the princes. Why look astonished?" He
chuckled for the joy of provocation. "Come now, Morriel, were your
Koriani spies so inept? Did you actually think we would abandon the
half brothers to the affliction of a cursed fate?"
    The Prime Enchantress fixed his invisible presence with disdain as
inscrutable as a sphinx.
    "Well, madam, don't rush to lend us due grace with an apology." A
miniature, self-contained wind devil, Kharadmon swept a tempest of
crumbs into gyrating circles around the teapot. "I shan't lend false
hope. I found no reprieve."
    On Marak, where cities had once crisscrossed the continents with
glimmering strings of lights, he had encountered a dead waste of
freezing winds and ice. No people survived. There, the truncated
mists of Desh-thiere brooded still, redoubled in malice, and haunted
now by far worse than the original matrix of bound entities that had
launched past invasion of Athera.

125

JANNY WUI~TS

       Kharadmon minced no words. "The fogs still enveloping
   have inducted the spirits of every slain human victim." His
   exhibition oœ crumbs crashed and scattered, released as
   to traverse the casement. "The whole world is a stew o~ traloped
      Ees, suspended in ac~ve consciousness, and driven mad by u~
  ~uJtedhab~d "
     The taIIow dip t/uttered and jerked. The Sorcerer g tinsettled movt~
 ment stalked on, to raise the odd shiver from Iyan, who cast a sharp,
 startled glance past his shoulder.
    "Never mind," Sethvir soothed in daft unconcern for the fact the
Prime's newest servant was deaf. "Yon shade means no harm."
    While Iyan settled and resumed his absorbed, silent dialogue
between the silver knife and the jam spoon, a crystalline pause filled
the chamber. The moaning winter wind buffeted the tower and
sheared all the warmth from the air.
    "I was attacked," said Kharadmon at unpleasant length, "beset and
pursued almost beyond recourse."
    Morriel absorbed this, her lips pinched into a bloodless crease, and
the frown lines like pleats on her forehead. For a Fellowship mage to
admit to near helplessness shook her to driving unease. This recount
was no ploy drummed up as diversion to upset pursuit of her pur-
pose. She measured implications as the grim tale unfolded, of an
unexplained silence, then the beacon signal sent off by worried col-
leagues to guide an errant Sorcerer safely home.
    "We believed Kharadmon was disoriented, even lost." Asandir
made a small, strangled gesture of frustration, then explained how
the sorceries he and Sethvir had raised on summer solstice had been
ground-tied through the land's living trees. Last came the harrowing
corollary, given in hammered, steady speech. "Until every trunk,
seed, and sapling alive completes its allotted span of years, a faint sig-
nature trace of that homing spell will linger. We can't dismiss the risk.
These loose wraiths upon Marak might find means to track such a
resonance. If they should cross the vast deeps between stars, the mists
that embody them would sublimate away. Arrived here as free
wraiths, they would strike for possession and wreak death and
destruction such as this world has never seen."
    "But surely they would perish outside their containment of mists,"
Morriel said.
    "These don't," Kharadmon admitted, reluctant. "They haven't.
Nine of them pursued on my back trail. Those survived the transition
as pure spirit. The measures we invoked to trap and dispel them
would never withstand the event of a large-scale attack."

126

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 "Which is why you need Arithon alive? How very neat and conve-
 ient? Morriel gave her most acid riposte. "If you look to a master-
 'ard's talent to effect a translation of Name and redeem them, that's a
 'esverate, thin straw to grasp at."
     thin straw's the best hope we have at this time," said Asandir
 .iti~ shattering dignity. "The logic is not hard to follow." Taken indi-
 idually, the scourging spirits could be bound through Arithon's
 i~ts. His rearing by mages already lent him an advantage of training
 , r~'~ist hostile attack and possession. "We are also in process of con-
 r~cting defense wards to secure this world from invasion."
     'I see," Morriel said. "All this takes precedence over the cities we
 l~'~.,~dy have torn into war by the criminal charges leveled against
 ~ ~ ~iubious savior."
  I~:!~,~it~e flared into rebuttal. "Neither one of the princes are
    ~,~ Vie. Marak at this time is still choked in mists. Powers of light
    .i~adow might still be used to entrap the wraiths on the planet.
    if the fell entities never try the crossing to Athera, our world is
 ~,t !t'ee of threat. The wraiths in Rockfell Pit are imprisoned, not qui-
    t. The half brothers' talent over shadow and light will be needed
    t~,,~ay to help lay those trapped spirits to rest."
     '. hen confine the half brother most inclined to cause mayhem if
 ou wish them both to stay living." Morriel sat forward with slitted
 y'es. "Don't deny you hold the power to do this!"
    "The issue of power has no bearing," Sethvir exclaimed in fussy
,.0rrection from the window seat. At some point, unnoticed, he had
tt~.~i the spoon and knife from Iyan's hands. "You speak of two
r, ~ n men born to free will, and not string puppets. Their lives are
urs to use for expedience."
    ~re they not?" Morriel arose, wizened and bent under trains of
~,~ool wrappings, but charged to denounce with the stripping, fierce
:in~ of white lye. "What a pitiful excuse! You act when you're moved
, ~,r how else did five royal lines come by their gifts in the first
lace? Why should your wasttel apprentice have taken the arrow for
~\rithon's sake back in Vastmark? Oh, you dissemble very well. The
~rbed powers of our Waystone establish that point beyond doubt."
     "Sethvir has curbed nothing," Asandir contradicted. "The earth
 ~e} f is your arbiter. What spells you impose by way of rank force, the
 ~ ~ has been empowered to refuse. That is all."
    "And are lives and children worth less than a storm or an earth-
~uake raised by the raw whim of nature? What upstart arrogance!"
~orriel startled to a sweet metallic chime as Sethvir tapped the
~oon to the knife handle. In no mood for his mooncalf byplay with

127

JANNY ~V U R T $

   her servant, she raised her voice over the disturbance. "Relea~
   earth's imprinted memory of our crystal. Our help and its
   may be sorely needed, to judge by the botch you have
  Ma;ak. "
       That moment, lyan yelped aloud. He shot to his feet, seized ~t
    cutlery from Sethvir, and clashed spoon to knife blade in an energe~'c
clatter of wild noise.
    "Daelion Fatemaster wept!" Morriel whirled on Althain's Warden.
"What have you done to my servant?"
    Asandir burst out laughing. "Let him restore the nerves that
afflicted his hearing, apparently."
    The Prime Matriarch blanched in shock. "Healed him?" Her d'~s-
may filled the room, since the act was no favor. The man's value had
been his inability to disseminate her secrets.
    Oblivious to all nuance, too elated to perceive a mistress's embar-
rassing, ungrateful hypocrisy, Iyan whooped for joy, then chortled to
experience the music of his own voice.
    "You should leave," Luhaine suggested in a solemn bent of humor,
"before something else more regrettable happens."
    Kharadmon abetted in devilish, barbed irony. "Be nice and smile,
or your servant could also acquire speech."
    Which effrontery was too much; Morriel Prime lost grip on cold
nerves and blazed into rare, scorching temper. "Ath curse you all for
frivolous intervention! What you name restraint, I call cowardice! The
Koriani Order is older than your Fellowship. Our first Prime Matri-
arch stood at the right hand of free governance before Calum Kincaid
sold out his great weapon and became the destroyer of worlds. What
are you defending in this land but ignorance? I call you tyrants, rank
meddlers with what's left of human dignity. Believe this. I shall not
forget. Redress will be found for our damaged Waystone, and your
Fe~o,wship sha~l �we to regret your urf~ust ir~ter~erence."
    She grasped Iyan's elbow and pried kn'~e and spoon ~rom his crest-
fallen hands. "Come. We are leaving." She shed borrowed blankets,
scooped the Great Waystone from the cushions of her chair, and
demanded to be seen down the stair to the gates.

    "Good riddance," Kharadmon announced on the eddy of air as the
door slammed in the Prime's departed wake. "The lady has a temper
like a snake."
    Sethvir disagreed with a tilt of his head. "The years she has
endured in the seat of Prime office have driven her just a bit mad. Pity
her, instead. She's inherited a charge she can never pass on. Since her

128

FUGITIVE I~RINCœ

last candidate for succession died in the rite of passage, I suspect the
complexity of her office has become too much for any new aspirant to
bear. No initiate in her order, however well trained, could survive the
transfer of power."
    "One might have," Luhaine interjected, more than usually
thoughtful. "At least, Elaira shows spirit enough to endure."
    "And count our good grace for the fact she is cast out of favor!"
Sethvir cried in rife exasperation. "The current Prime Matriarch is
headache enough, with her penchant to ally herself with Lysaer. A
successor tied by love to Arithon s'Ffalenn would yield up a frighten-
ing collusion."

129

Winter-Spring 5649

Loyalties

In a clandestine meeting, Lysaer addresses the devoted captain of his
honor guard, and a well-trusted healer who had tended the maimed
through all the horrors of Vastmark: "You are sworn to gravest silence
because I must reveal several dangerous truths well before our people
have gained faith of a strength to endure them. Arithon s'Ffalenn was
begotten by a demon, and his unholy powers have suborned Lady
Talith to the point where she'll need to be secretly confined ....

    Safely returned since his audience on Corith, Earl Jieret, caithdein of
Rathain, hears in relief the appeal of Caolle, his ex-war captain, who
had fostered him since childhood, "My lord, the sword training of
young scouts is more properly left in the care of my successor. I beg
leave to go to the westshore and await the return of our prince. His
Grace might deny the necessity, but a sworn liegeman who bears a
strong sword should be there to serve him against the day he
land fall .... "

    When spring comes, and rumors fly that Lady Talith will make no
appearance for the traditional celebrations, Avenor's royal healer
admits in gentle sorrow to the court: that in distraught state for her
failure to conceive, the princess has retired into strict seclusion for the
sake of her delicate health ....

130

Spring-Early Autumn 5652

IV. Turnabout

J' ust over three years after Lysaer's expulsion from the compact by
the Fellowship of Seven, the brigantine Khetienn lay anchored off
the distant shores of the continent half a globe away. An equatorial
sun sliced her shadow in hard outline on the chipped crystal sparkle
of salt water. Few fish swam those jewel-toned shallows. Bird cries
never wove through the air. The only wild voice was the rasp of light
breezes, flapping the single staysail left set to draw ventilation
through the hatches. Throughout the logged course of six voyages,
after arduous problems with restocking stores to provision for
repeated ocean crossings, the brigantine had put into every cove, bay,
and inlet along Kathtairr's blighted coast.
    That search of the shoreline, and further expeditions on foot into
the rugged, stony vistas of the interior had turned up nothing living.
0nly mineral-poisoned rivers and a limitless expanse of sun-blasted,
wind-raked desolation.
    Tanned and taciturn where he leaned on the ship's rail in the sti-
fling heat, Arithon wore only breeches of stained canvas cinched at
the waist with tarred cord. By preference while at sea, he dressed
from dregs of the ship's slop chest, as far from the trappings of royal
heritage as tattered, plain clothing would allow.
    His tourmaline eyes raked across the splintered ochre rubble, where
the dun contours of scorched earth stitched the cloudless skyline, and

131

JANNY ~URTS

  the knees of the headland met sea in lace petticoat ruffles ors
  breakers. An ominous, flat inflection demarked his address to
  sweating figure by his side. "How long have you ~
  offered no refuge?"
    The Mad Prophet squeezed his eyes closed against the
glare o//the water. "A fair question," he allowed in shrinking mise~
"One I don't care to answer." He inhaled the tarred taint oœ oakum
warmed blistering hot in the thought-shattering fall of noon sunligh~
More than just heat left him faint. He feared even to expe/his discora.
fired breath, aware to paralysis that if he said nothing, the man athis
side would react in spectacular, inventive retaliation.
    No use to pretend there had been no intent to lead Arithon in
diversion through ignorance.
    Dakar re, grou. ped the rags of his nerve. He spoke the truth quietly,
anxious to avoid notice from the idle sailhands who sprawled in the
shadow by the forecastle. "These shores lay scorched sterile by drake-
fire long before Ath Creator sent the Paravians as living gift to redress
all the sorrows of the world. No centaur, sunchild, or unicom has
ever walked here. Not through any age of known history."
    An uneasy interval, cut by an isolated movement; the Master of
Shadow turned his head and delivered his most scathing, level glare.
    "The Fellowship needed to buy time," Dakar blurted. "They
wouldn't say why. Some outside crisis concerning the linked gate
worlds has kept them clapped close as clams. The only thing that
matters is what you intend to do now."
    "What I intend?" Arithon loosed a piercing, soft laugh. "The clans
need a refuge. If a sea search was required to seek the Paravians, Dae-
lion Fatemaster's sorrows, Dakar! We need not have wasted three
years. For a sweep of the oceans, we'll need a whole fleet, and strong
captains, and navigators trained to make star sights."
    Then came the striking, inevitable pause Dakar dreaded, while
thought burned behind half-lidded green eyes. Rathain's prince could
connive with appalling invention, until even Sethvir became sorely
tested to unriddle the final result.
    "You had better hope," said Arithon s'Ffalenn, "that Cattrick has
been busy keeping the letter of my design back in Tysan."
    The impacting force of that statement took a pregnant second to
slam home. "In Tysan? Merciful Ath!" Dakar all but shouted. "You're
not plotting to lift Lysaer's new deepwater keels from the royal yard
at Riverton!"
    The lean, expressive mouth flexed amid the sharp-planed s'Ffalenn
features. Where a stranger might mistake such expression for amuse-

132

~ent, Dakar knew to look deeper. But Arithon swung his inscrutable
regard to the sapphire edge of the horizon as he said, "For the sake of
~~?peace, don't share speculation with Feylind,"

     Night claimed the far continent of Kathtairr like ground quartz
 sown on dark velvet. Restless airs scoured the vivid, flint scent of
 dewfall off its vistas of sun-baked rock. The sky spread above the
 obsidian hills held no k'mdly embroidery of clouds. The stark, strewn
 blaze of Athera's constellations scribed the arc of the sea where the
 Khetienn rode at anchor, a stamped silhouette rouged by the glow of
 her deck lanterns. From his solitary vantage on a shoreside hillock,
 Dakar could hear the desultory laughter, as sailhands made cracks at
 each other's expense. The windborne exchange of camaraderie
 seemed disjointed in time, splashed like fragmented dream against
 the acid-leached contours of rain-stripped gullies and sere landscape.
    Despite distance, and the fast-fallen curtain of darkness, Dakar
could pick out the Master of Shadow, propped alone against the stern
rail. Whether the Teir's'Ffalenn ached for disappointment, or brooded
alone in balked anger, no man dared say. Dakar remained outside his
confidence. The festering dispute arisen between them concerning his
meddling plots against Tysan's shipworks had abraded those nerves
which still remained raw from the ache of a tormented conscience.
    For Arithon, Kathtairr's barren shores delivered more than bitter
setback. The aftemoon's truths had sealed the death of a desperate,
cherished set of hopes.
    The Mad Prophet rubbed sweaty palms on his thighs and swore at
the grit that the land breeze sifted over everything. A decision to put
about and sail back to Tysan meant shouldering the risks still left
hanging by Earl Jieret's fragment of augury. With Arithon left mage-
blind, the unwelcome burden of scrying fell on the spellbinder's
shoulders. He had small choice but to sound the future for the source
of the execution that Rathain's caithdein had foreseen three years in
the past.
    Dakar felt inadequate. His birthgiven talent for prophecy had
always been unpredictable. Despite five centuries of Fellowship train-
ing, his unruly, chance-met bouts of vision still blundered roughshod
over his efforts to impose reason or mastery. The gift had ever been an
affliction to upset the planned course of his life. Even worse, the
stresses of backlash inevitably wrecked his digestion and left him sick
as a dog.
    "Ah, fiends plaguet" he groused to his audience of desolate, stern
boulders. "It's a born sap who dies of stupidiBr."

133

  A fool's self-preservation should have kept him from
mouth to volunteer. Too late, he wished he had capsized Khetienn'!
dory, and seized the lamebrained excuse to beg off, sopping
of all, he dreaded to see what his ill-advised search might discover.
    Arithon's hot-tempered remark to Earl Jieret still retained its
damnable accuracy. Too many fact'ions wished the Shadow Master's
death. The question became less the timed moment of his end, but
which one of his enemies would snatch first opportunity to slaughter
him.
    A whistle signaled the change in the ship's watch. Dakar hugged
his arms to his barrel chest, while the sere, desert breezes fingered the
crimped screws of his sweat-runneled hair. He steadied plucked
nerves. In trepidation and solitude, he centered his will, cast his
thoughts still, and channeled the untrustworthy powers of his gift.
His failure or success would support no observers, far less the dis-
cerning eyes of the prince whose confounding integrity had trapped
him in friendship and loyalty.
    Dakar held no illusions. He was no sorcerer, no grand power to toy
with events. Kathtairr's vast emptiness diminished all that he was, left
him puny as a dust speck afloat on dark waters as he narrowed his
scattered awareness. He resisted the pull of a lifetime's rank cowardice
and a sidestepping inclination to indulge in aimless woolgathering.
Tonight, for the sake of Arithon's life, he opened the undisciplined
aperture of his talent while the sweat of cold dread slid in drops down
his temples and moistened his thatched ginger beard. The salt taste on
his lips reminded of tears before the blameless, bitter kiss of the sea-
spray lately splashed by his inept hand at the oar.
    Time passed. Dakar held on in obdurate stillness. His gift could be
stubborn. Countless times, he had sat with no reward gained but the
yowl of a belly pinched to hunger. Yet even as he prayed tonight's
scrying would draw blankness, his mind sank into that cavernous
silence that seemed etched through a void of black crystal. Fore-
warned by the first, creeping tingle in his gut that his awareness
tipped over the edge, he shook to a drenching chill of apprehension.
Then vertigo swooped down and hurled him headlong through an
unraveling stream of wild prescience.

    He saw pine trees, a bright shoreline where turquoise waters purled into
spume, and there, Arithon s'Ffalenn on his knees in white sand, his black
sword Alithiel drawn and upraised; and through the bone-hurting chord of
grand harmony thrown off by the blade's spelled defenses, a unicorn poised
in the rampant, first thrust of a charge aimed to gore him.

134

FUGITIVE PRINCE

Dakar screamed aloud, earthly flesh unable to bear the beauty and
      as the sword Alithiel fiashed, then blazed through its star-captured
  :ward resonance. The Riathan Paravian dipped his silver-maned head,
   ú horn set to reap; and vision scattered...

Darkness rolled over him, unrelenting and bleak, stabbed through by the
clean harmony of a lyranthe given voice by the hands of a master.
Notes plucked out in Arithon's best style fell like sprays of dropped jewels, or
sleet tapping brass, while decades slipped by in a drawn-out, mindless slow
agony...
    "No," Dakar whispered. He strove to reach out, hook the free-
wheeling thread of his talent and bind it; but change ripped through
him regardless...

    He saw priests clad in vestments with sunwheel emblems, chanting lita-
nies against the vile works of the dark.
    "Ath show me mercy, no!" The Mad Prophet struggled, his yanked
breath drawn too fast, lungs afire as if he had sprinted flat out with
some ravening terror at his heels. "No." He grasped after trained
strictures, clawed for the will to wrest back some semblance of con-
trol. The vision he wanted was one that Earl Jieret had dreamed...

He saw blinding summer sun, and the red, bloodied length of a sword laid
across an altar spread in a gold-edged, white cloth.
    The image jolted through him, almost slammed his heart still.
Screaming now, the Mad Prophet reached anyway, tried to rip past
his grief to back-trace the event to its source. But the blood was too
fresh, too red, too real. In slowed motion, the vermilion drops soaked
the white silk, ragged stains scribing an ending too vivid to escape.
Dakar shied back, wrung helpless by dread, and the channel of his
talent exploded through white sparks to static. His unsteady control
crumbled after, like an unfired clay vessel dissolved on a tap to blown
dust.

    Sunwheel became sun, sinking red to a horizon of weather-stripped hills:
Daon Ramon. Before the light palled into featureless night, he beheld a new
city embedded in tangled black canes of old briar. Somewhere, somebody
sobbed in the throes of a gut-wrenching agony...
    His own voice, perhaps. Dakar had long since lost wits to tell.
String after string of prescience reeled through him, a spate grown too
fierce to divert by means of sane thought or strong discipline.
  A city, sheeted infire and burning; a child, dead in the dust.

135

]ANN~ ~UQT$

    Milled under and weeping, Dakar let go. The dream claimed hi
measure. His senses rushed on in the plummeting slide into the numb
haven of escape. His last thought before unconsciousness drowned
him was his desperate craving to get drunk.

     Much later, there were stars. Dakar pieced together the awaren~
 that he lay on his back with his eyes open. Returned senses imprinted
 an excruciating impression of harsh rock jabbed into limp flesh. The
 pain rushed back then, resolved itself into a skull-splitting headache,
 to which every nerve in his body responded in a sapping chorus of
 aches.
    Nausea knifed through him. He needed to sit up, but lacked the
vftaffty.
    A shadow arrived at the edge of his vision. A touch breathless, the
voice of a bard phrased an oath ripe enough to scale fish. Then hands
left ice-cold from a plunge in the sea grasped his shoulders and
hauled him erect.
    That succor given just barely in time; the first, rending spasm failed
to catch the Mad Prophet facedown. Grateful not to lie heaving in his
own filth, he coughed, spat, shivered, groaned, and finally croaked
the name of his rescuer. "Arithon?"
    "Lie easy." When that instruction became impossible to carry out,
the Master of Shadow held on until the Mad Prophet's stomach
stopped churning.
    Dakar sagged into the lean, steady arm that settled him back
against the lumpy support of a boulder. "I could see nothing certain,"
he husked out, unwilling to sustain the unspoken query for one sec-
ond longer than necessary. "Arithon, I'm sorry. You're too strongly
fated. The futures involved are too powerful to sort. I have no sure
course of counsel to offer. Every fragment called in poured through
me as uncontrolled vision."
    He rolled his head sidewards to interpret the other man's stillness;
no need to repeat what events at the Havens and Vastmark had
already proved in spilled blood. Any prescience he tapped in the
form of ranging visions was subject to change with the pressures of
shifting event.
    Seconds passed, filled by the rush of white foam gnawing the
bleak, stony shingle. With no word spoken, Arithon settled in the
darkness, his shoulders braced to the same rock. No sailhand from
the Khetienn accompanied him; he had swum from the anchorage
rather than roust out the crew to sway out a longboat. The crossing
left him drenched as a seal, and shirtless. Kathtairr's hazeless

136                           ~

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 starlight sheened the flex of his fingers as he worked the cork from a
 wine crock, ferried ashore in one of the mesh nets young Feylind tied
 to catch shiners.
     "Ath bless you," Dakar murmured as the welcome, earthy weight
 was passed into his hands, then guided through the arc to his mouth.
 lie swallowed, eyes closed in relief. One slug, two, and the sour taste
 of sickness rinsed away. He savored restored taste, eased and mel-
 10wed by the sublime, tart bouquet of a rare vintage red from
 0rvandir.
     ,/~ sigh unreeled through a throat skinned raw from mindless
 screaming. "Bless you again, for generosity. I thought you were sav-
 ing that bottle for--" Dakar stopped, would have slapped his own
 forehead for stupidity, had he retained any strength.
     The barren rocks of Kathtairr harbored no cause at all for celebra-
 tion; he had known very well since the day four years past, when the
 brigantine had first weighed her anchor for Corith.
     The prince who sat in iron quiet beside him seemed to have shed
 his rancor for that. Arithon reached, recaptured the wine, pulled a
 deep draft in turn. Starlight strung sparks through the phosphores-
 cent runnels on his skin, and streaked premature silver through black
 hair as he swallowed. He seemed to think better of speech and,
 instead, restored the crock into Dakar's needful grasp.
    The Mad Prophet drank deep to drown a lancing, sharp urge to
weep. When he next looked, Arithon s'Ffalenn had clasped both his
wrists with exquisite, fine-jointed hands, a habit he kept to mask the
disfiguring marks of old scars.
    Dakar shivered. The hour had grown late. Kathtairr's harsh terrain
had traded the day's heat for the keening, cold winds off the interior.
But the gusts which sluiced over his sweat-dampened clothes
scarcely touched him, aware as he was of the deeper chill. With his
mind still awash in the harrowing images just snatched from the
uncertain future, words slipped his grasp before thought. "How can
you bear this, year after year? How can you live, self-aware as you
are, of the fate that hangs on your choices?"
    "I wouldn't," Arithon admitted. His skin pricked into sudden
gooseflesh. His thumb traced the thin line healed crosswise overtop
of the weals once chafed by iron fetters. The gesture arose from
unpleasant recollection of his blood oath, irrevocably given to hold
him to life by every means at his command. The terrible vow had
been sworn to Asandir just after the destruction of Lysaer's fleet at
Minderl Bay.
  Sensitive now to the one burning question Dakar had never dared

JANNY ~UI~TS

ask, Arithon offered his confidence. "You wonder how the Fellowshi
Sorcerers won my consent to that binding." A brief pause, while 6'
stars burned in chill unconcern. "I was told the world might not livei~
I surrendered the struggle in death." Rathain's prince tipt
crown to rest against striated rocks that sprouted no kindly lacework
of lichen. The steep planes of his face might have been sculpted
alabaster, except for the small, tensioned wrinkles which nipped at
the comers of his eyes. "I saw that I couldn't trust myself, Dakar. Not
once I heard what was left on the gate world of Marak."
    "Marak!" The Mad Prophet shot straight to a gurgle of sloshed
protest from the wine. "Ath, Marak! A crisis on a link world across
South Gate. Of course! What else but the severed body of the Mist-
wraith could frighten the Fellowship dizzy? Dharkaron avenge! The
Sorcerers bound you for that?"
    "You need not upset yourself." Arithon's disarming, peaceful tone
but reminded that he owned a masterbard's tongue. Dissembling
cleverness was his second nature. Dakar knew too much not to guess
at the pain, and beyond that, to forgiveness that was genuine, as the
Shadow Master finished, "If the Fellowship Sorcerers sought to divert
me to Kathtairr, they will have had urgent reason."
    "They've been building wards. I've seen them in dreams when the
powers crest on the solstices." Dakar found his palms sweating on
cold crockery. He required a single-minded and desperate care not to
fumble as he tipped the bottle to his lips. "The bindings they weave
are unimaginably vast. As if the Sorcerers strive to stave off the
advent of their own defeat."
    Arithon replied after a short silence, his fingers knuckled white to
his wrists. "We have to find the Paravians, Dakar. For all of our sake,
they offer the only sane hope of reprieve."
    Those half-glimpsed fragments of augury could bite too viciously,
after all. Dakar choked back misery, hating the savage sting that
inevitably arose to sour the fruits of his gift. He sucked down wine in
one guzzling burst, too racked to set voice to the irony, that h~' had
indeed seen a unicorn in his vision, and read death for Rathain's prince i~
the same moment. Life held no sureties. His talent for prescience was
more fickle than a courtesan. One storm in the path of the Khetienn's
charted course, and that goring on the beach might never come to see
daylight.
    A gust whipped the chisel-sharp summits of stone. Hazed by the
sting of airborne sand, Dakar wiped tearing eyes. He tipped the bottle
again, and cursed when it ran empty. The wine had left him stranded
far short of the drunken oblivion he wished for.

138

f~tq C E
   The torment on his moon-round face must not, after all, have been
   to the grit, since Arithon said in that level compassion that
   sliced straight to the quick, "Let's get you back. There's more
   wine on the brigantine, and just as well. If I'm going to get in my cups
   along with you, it's better done after I've launched and rowed your
   dory from the strand."
       Dakar shut his eyes, beholden beyond utterance. Quick temper
   and subterfuge aside, the Master of Shadow could be trusted to keep
   the most damnable letter of his word.
       Shepherded back aboard the Khetienn and installed under blankets
   in the stem cabin, the Mad Prophet was plied with shared wine and
   sympathy until his maudlin mood gave way to exhaustion. By the
   hour he passed out, Arithon had not forsaken sobriety, though dawn
   blushed the sky to the east. The last crock stood drained to the lees.
   Dakar snored in a muddled heap with his cheek pressed flat to the
   chart desk. Arithon s'Ffalenn tucked the blanket over his slumped
   shoulder, then returned to the quarterdeck, and shouted crisp orders
   to roust out the watch. "Stand by to make sail!"
       As the sun sliced the rim of the horizon, his seamen turned the cap-
   stan to clacking life and raised anchor. Sailhands clambered at speed
   up tarred ratlines, then lay aloft to slip gaskets.
       "Clear away the flying jib! Loose and let fall topsails and main
   course! Man halyards, sheets, and weather braces! Out spanker! Sheet
   home!"
       Canvas the color of old blood slithered free and cracked taut, and
   the Khetienn gathered way, bound back to old risks on the continent.

    Athera's sea winds changed with the advent of autumn, blew in
hard, veering gusts, northwesterly, then due north under skies raked
in cirrus as the days shortened. Bowled ahead with the wind on her
quarter, then abeam, the Khetienn logged off the leagues, her exhila-
rating passage made under cascading sheets of spra)~ The crew kept
light spirits, shearing fast course forli~mown waters. Dakar stayed
alone in trepidation. Given his most d~nken spree of imagination, he
could never have foreseen the uncoiling speed with which planning
gave birth to event.
    Landfall at Corith occurred after dark, a ghosting, windward
approach made on spanker, staysails, and jibs. A coin silver moon
threw the archipelago's notched summits, into chipped coal relief.
Tension gripped the deckhands. Drugged by the scent of bearing
land and live earth after month upon month of salt winds and Kath-
tairr's seared rock, the off-watch crew crowded the foredeck. What

139

JANNY WURTS

 scraps of dialogue wafted astern detailed their eagerness to
 an endless diet of salt pork and beans, and hardtack infested
 weevils.
    "Don't let me see another ration o' fish soup with the pepper sto~
gone," groused another, eyes rolled furtively over his shoulder to be
sure the cook's ear was turned elsewhere.
    Still as a wraith at the quarterdeck rail, Arithon s'Ffalenn held a
ship's glass trained on the bulking dark shoreline. His close, raking
survey scoured the unfolding jut of the headland, nicked like a tar-
nished engraving with the unraveling foam of spent breakers.
    Dakar, given mage-sight, required no glass to see that the harbor at
Corith was not empty.
    "Daelion's arse," he swore in a gust of ill feeling. "Damn Lysaer's
industry, those are masts! Wear ship! We're pointed straight into an
ambush."
Arithon snapped the glass closed on a smile of silken patience.
Too sharply aware of smothered chuckles from the quartermaster,
Dakar reinterpreted the Shadow Master's quiet with an unholy surge
of disbelief.
    "You didn't smell the breeze?" Arithon laughed, the predatory
flash of his teeth all the more vivid by moonli,~ht. "I doubt we're in
danger of attack from that brig. She doesn't bear a fighting company
scrambling to span arbalests. Just a hold crammed with casks shipped
in from the orchards of Korias."
    "Apples." A mystified frown puckered Dakar's forehead. He
shoved back the rumpled screw of hair that the wind flicked back in
his eyes. "Why apples?"
    A whispered dance of bare footfalls, Feylind arrived aft to claim
her place at the Shadow Master's side. His equal for height, and
grown into a saucy, long-legged, eighteen, she snatched the closed
ship's glass from his hand. The roped braid slid off her shoulder to
lick her small breast as she deployed the brass segments. She raked
piercing study in turn over the vessel limned dark against needle-
worked reflections cast by a low-riding moon.
    "Dharkaron's hairy bollocks!" She gave a clear whistle. "The var-
nish still shines on her figurehead's tits. It's a mermaid, and look!"
Fired outrage snapped through. "The ship's carvers at Riverton are a
raunchy band of goats. Bedamned if her nipples aren't gilded!"
    "Don't lose our heading," gasped Arithon to the quartermaster,
who had folded his grizzled face into his elbow to stifle an inoppor-
tune smirk of humor
  "Riverton!" Dakar howled in unadulterated fury. "Save us all, you

140

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 move fast! If that's Lysaer's vessel, you've had to be conniving at
 piracy for years! Why am I always the last one to hear what's afoot?"
     But the Shadow Master was himself left no standing to answer.
 Unable to follow his own sage advice, he lay curled in snorting mirth
 against the brightwork of the rail, while Feylind pummeled his shoul-
 der with her fist for the fact he took her offended sex lightly.
     He had to shield his head with crossed wrists as she changed tac-
 tics and lunged to attack with the ship's glass. "Woman, desist! I'm
 bludgeoned half-silly and left unfit for command. You'll have to lay
 the Khetienn's course in yourself. If you ram her on a reef, working in
 without lanterns, believe it, I'll dock her repairs from your dowry."
     "Keep my dowry for gravecloths, I've no wish to marry." Feylind
 flicked back her braid, the tanned arm with the glass still upraised
 :,i~e a cudgel. "You'd let me strike sail?"
     "Under threat of gett'mg my skull cracked, yes." Arithon straight-
 ~,~ ed, disheveled and smiling. "You'll see to ranging the cable and let
 the anchor as well. Now be off!"
     Feylind yelled for joy, hurled the ship's glass straight for his face, a
 challenge for even his thoughtless, fast reflex, and spun away to claim
 t i,.,, wheel to steer the brigantine in.
     "Ath," Dakar made cautious comment from the sidelines. "Take
 ~~ore bribe than gold to find a willing husband for that minx."
    "! heard that, you sorry, fat windbag!" shrilled Feylind. Her crisp
. Jt'r to stand by sent the deckhands scrambling to man braiIs and
~ ~lvards.
    "Don't worry," said Arithon in that thoughtful, grave manner that
ú ~'faitingly masked seamless subterfuge. "You won't have to guard
,~ ~:ainst finding black hellebore in your beer. The Khetienn's past due
..... careening, and the moment the sail rig and paint can be hastened
-ough a refit on that brig, Feylind will serve as her navigator to
~-,i~ to pay her brother an extended visit."
  ~, ~u think I should be pleased with the arrangement?" Dakar said.
  ' ú~,3 purgatives in his drink seemed a piddling, small nuisance
    a~nst the chance to roll doxies and breathe citrus perfume in the
-~ n-warmed brothels of Shand.
      "What are your prospects?" asked Arithon by way of evasive reply.
    ~~id you really want to stay and play hermit for the winter hunting
.,,. tld deer on these islands?"

    Dakar had two short days to wonder and brood, while the
,,,tetienn's trained crew split forces. They carried out whirlwind
 rangements to send their mismatched fleet of two back to sea, and

141

$ANNY

 sailed under straightforward orders to raise funds
 vice in honest charter to merchants. Feylind might swa
 whoop as she claimed her new post, but the Mad
 illusions.                                                  i.
     If the Master of Shadow wished the gffl sent awaj6 then danger
 wou/d dog/ifs next passage. The risk to the s/ifps in/x/s charge might
 be less, but their pursuit would not stay innocuous.
    The course of suspect events started off with an unkindIx', rough
crossing to the mainland aboard Arithon's tiny pleasure slo~~p. She
made landfall amid the deep coves of Caithwood, under love', leaden
clouds and driving rain. A discreet whistled signal drew clansmen to
meet her. In silent efficiency, the band of scouts saw her warped into
an inlet, and covered in brush and deep cover. An icy drizzlt~ misted
the flame red of changed maples. Dakar shivered in the chill, then
endured a dank evening in a cave lit by a smoking oil wick, while
Arithon's reading of dispatches led to a terse exchange of news.
    Swathed like a sausage in his salt-fusty clothing, Dakar blud-
geoned through fogged wits to listen.
    A grizzled forest captain with an eye patch sat tying new fietching
on his hunting arrows. "Can't offer better than deer jerky. Fires are
too risky for cooking, with new patrols off the roads out of Quarn."
    Arithon's reply came measured, all but inaudible over the trickle of
moisture off the evergreen thicket outside. "They've gotten that
sharp?"
    A grunt gave him answer, while the clansmar~ plit a goose quill
with his belt knife. "Tracker's a gift from a demon." With the bounties
doubled for live capture, muster for headhunters had tripled.
"They're crown funded, too. Much better outfitted." A lengthy squint
down an arrow shaft, to ascertain the new feather would steer true,
then the tart summary, made over the winding of waxed string. "It's
an offense against nature, but we've had to set traps for the dogs."
    Amid the back-and-forth round of discussion, Dakar fought ebbing
attention, jerked out of a doze more than once by grim details of shore
patrols and galleymen, and a stockade built to hold slaves insid~~ cit~'
walls at Hanshire. His eyes closed at length. Time must have esc,~~,ed
him, because he looked up and saw Arithon had changed out ot ~,~il-
hand's garb.
    Reclad in a laced set of riding leathers of sable, and a wool t~~~~~
trimmed in dark scarlet, the Shadow Master tipped a sheet of reed
paper above the streaming brown fumes off the oil wick. In his hands,
what looked like a laborer's tally sheet changed form. Invisibly inked
lines first written in lemon juice burned to reveal a message in fugi-

142

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 ire script. He read, while the words glowed sienna between the cal-
 lused, sea tan of his fingers. "Princess Talith confined? For vapors, due
 to barrenness, and delicate health? I don't believe it!"
     The clansman gathered his finished arrows, licked a finger, and bun-
 died them with a deerhide thong. "Hearsay. But word from clan sources
 shows the same. The princess hasn't been seen in public for three years.
 When Lysaer assembled the train for his journey, our scouts on the west
 road were sure that no pedigree lady traveled with him."
     "Lysaer's left Avenor?" Dakar interjected, snapped erect and belat-
 ediv alert.
     Arithon threw him an exasperated glance. "You were snoring
 through that part. But yes." He tapped the report in Mearn s'Bry-
 dion's frenetic script, now flattened across his left knee. "Lysaer's
      the road to Etarra to ply his honey tongue in diplomacy. Toss a
 pinch of salt, sinister, for sheer luck. There's an unguarded henyard
 1,,ft for us foxes once again."
     "Scarcely that." All at once too aware of the cold, Dakar hooked up
 ~i~ dropped blanket and snugged the disagreeable scrape of wool
 under his chin. "I wasn't asleep for that bit about the herb witch who
 g,,t stoned in Quarn. Or the part about Avenor's troop rolls being
 tnpled in number since Vastmark. Nor would I lay any coin on dim
 ~,~,~. that our spirits stay clear of the Fatemaster's Wheel if you make
 tires on the snake's home ground."
     "Our home ground, too," the dansman retorted. "Caitdein, Lord
 \Iaenol, has stayed his blood grievance four years preparing for this day."
 Arithon broke in, "Then the wait for my timing hasn't chafed?"
    "It has, and unbearably." A shrug, then the bald-faced admission,
There were prideful hotheads who railed against your liaison. Only
,~ne was given my lord's leave to pursue vengeance. That man had a
ú ast cause. He'd just lost his sons in a coffle bound for Lysaer's galleys."
    Dakar knew better than to waste futile argument with any party
joined to Arithon in conspiracy. He shut his lips and his eyes, while
the talk wound down. But sleep left him stranded in weariness. The
awful, circling dread of bad prospects harried his mind beyond rest.
He kept no illusions in his service to Rathain's prince. Three years of
suffering tasteless ship's rations and battering ocean gales now
seemed a time of seclusion in paradise. Not least, when the winter
ahead promised criminal machinations under the armed nose of
Tvsan's elite royal garrison.

    Morning broke cold and clear as the shell of a robin's egg. Dakar
crept from the furling layers of his cloaks like a grub from a collapsed

143

JANN� WURT$

cocoon. His predawn hours of restless tossing had given way
inadequate, heavy sleep. His mind felt logy and thick. The
twitters of foraging sparrows drilled his ears like the stab of tinker's
pins to the brain. Frost traced the leaves at the cave mouth. Dakar
bemoaned the lack of any fire as he dressed, and wished for chees~
instead of hardtack and jerky to appease his growling belly.
He sat for some time, head propped between his hands, before h~
noticed the voices outside, raised in ongoing contention.
"You should be with your earl," Arithon said, a snap to his tone to
scale iron.
Dakar thrashed through the intervening curtain of brush and
peered, his nearsighted squint like a mole emerged from its burrow.
Amid dazzling shafts of early sunshine, he made out the discr~
band of clansmen from Caithwood who guested them. Their scout
captain stood near, his eye patch raked low, and the reins of two sad-
died horses looped in each hand. Beyond their maned necks, past the
steaming back of a third horse which drooped its head from hard
usage, another man stood dismounted. The newcomer was built
broad, an obstinate thrust to his massive, squared shoulders. His
head wore its cropped hair like filed steel, bristled to cowlicks at the
crown. Born ornery, or else given to brainless bravery, he confront~
the sF~ghtly made Prince of Rathain, feet planted like a balked mas-
tiff's.                                            -~'
   "Caolle?" Dakar called in disbelief.
   Neither combatant glanced his way.
    "Here I stay, liege," carped the northern-born clansman who had
resigned his life's post as Earl Jieret's war captain. "My sword guards
your back. Live with that gift or behead me for treason."
    Dakar missed Arithon's gloved velvet reply. Whatever the content,
the sally made the rugged, older swordsman flush crimson.
    "So just damn the day of your birth, while you're at it!" Ca011e
cracked back. "Since you refused the good grace to die on delivery,
Rathain has got a living prince." Immovable oak when charged with
his duty, he hurled his next line like a gauntlet. "I serve the kingdom.
Since you plan to hang yourself out in Tysan as bait, you'll have me
along for the sacrifice."
    The Mad Prophet shoved through the thicket in clawing dread. He
closed the last steps to an obliterating crackle of dry leaves, too late
again to catch Arithon's riposte. Caolle maintained his stance,
reduced to contentious, stiff silence. His eyes were red rimmed, as if
he had ridden all night through rough country, and a disfiguring,
fresh scar crossed his jawline that had not been there in Vastmark.

144

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 Those weathered, blunt features that had not changed at all wore a
 frown like black basalt, and the hand closed upon the sheathed hilt of
 his sword could have been etched into place.
     "You might try a smile of welcome, your Grace," Dakar bored in,
 well aware how the title would rankle. He pressed brashly on, came
 between the too-careful expression of blandness that Arithon pre-
 sented toward his liegeman. "Ice could be turned into sunshine on a
 wish before you'll talk Caolle home to Strakewood. He's by lengths
 more stubborn than you are, and besides, this time he happens to be
 right."
    "Say that again to my face, should Jieret's young son lose his father
to a slave galley," Arithon ripped back in blank rage. "By my oath as
Rathain's crown prince, if that day happens, I'll see you both bleeding
and dead for it." All smoldering grace, he spun away, caught the reins
of the nearest horse Caithwood's clansmen held ready, then vaulted
astride without pause to measure his stirrup length. "For today, keep
up if you can."
    No more words, and no thanks did he offer his clan hosts, but
closed his heels and shouted and startled his mount standing to a
canter.
  Caolle surged to remount his blown gray.
    Dakar grabbed, first the reins, then the wrist of the clansman's
right hand. "No. You'll founder a good horse, and for nothing. We'll
get you a remount and breakfast, too, if you're hungry."  "Damn breakfast!" Caolle swore.
    The Mad Prophet held on, well aware he risked a sword thrust if
his grip should give way. Fat, but not gutlessly soft as he had been, he
still felt as if he shouldered the part of the numbskull who grasped a
bear by the leg at a baiting.
    "Curse you, let go!" Caolle dropped his shoulder to battle in
earnest, his desperation made vicious by fast-departing hoofbeats as
his prince widened his lead through the forest.
    The Mad Prophet clung. Despite tendons set on fire by his charge's
effort to wrench free, he said, "Don't be a donkey!" Bashed backward,
fetched a punch that rattled his brains and left him too jellied to duck
the fighter's move set to fell him, he gasped out, "Caolle, have done! I
know where Arithon's bound."
    Kicked hard behind the knee, Dakar hit cold moss on his back. The
jolt robbed his wind. He tasted fresh blood; had ridiculously bitten
his tongue for the damnfool belief he could wring reason from the
selfsame rock-headed clansman who had raised young Jieret to man-
hood.

145

 "I'~x �~s~e~k~x~;' C~o\\e pro~xp~e~, no~ �e~ so~e~6
agabst a sky embroidered with evergreen. He waited ~n
impatience, arms {olded on ~s cross-belted chest.
  OakaY ~eez~d, ro~ed backbYo~n e~s, a~d ~l ~
 thump against a tree root.
    "No use/' said CaJthwood's mustached c~tef scout
obsened from the side,es, s~H holding the horse saddled
~ad Prophet, "He's down like a clubbed trout." Then, )~
Caolie's ~otted pose of frus~afion, he stepped in and
vicfim's cheek with long-suffer~g familiariW. "Don't worry,
Rathal's henc~an can't go 'til we've found him a mo~t
of my scouts are flat s~pid. No one in camp's gong to
~ying to force you to ride without breakfasL "

    Four days later, ~ the crowded, grease-pungent taproom 0f ~
bargeman's hostel built by the ford over Ilswater, a fat man dressed~
a tinker shrugged off the saddle packs slung across his shoulder. He
sca~ed the sca~ered asso~ent of pa~ons seated at trestles and
loung~g ~ talk aga~st the upright posts which supported the r~[
tresses. ~e light blocked off from the casements in the press was
replaced by candle lanterns set be~d glass. ~eir panes had b~n
cleaned of soot, and faces underneath glowed like lit parchment.
    ~e t~ker s~died them all. His traveler's wise eye marked the
dusW boots and badges of the ox drovers; then the barge captalin,
with their boom~g, boastful voices and broad hands; and after them,
the lean-bodied caravan masters ~ oiled wool and leather. His su~ey
brushed past the merchant's factors draped inUrecloth capes to pr~
tect their brocade clothes as they barga~ed passage for trade goods
by the water route across Korias to ~verton.
    ~e ~ker's brown eyes touched, then fixed upon a slim man by
the hob who had hair like bleached flax, quick eyes of a heathe~
~ay-green, and whose clot~ng was embroidered and garnished wi$
river pearls. Two tave~aids fluRered over ~m like moths. He gave
no appearance of lead~g them on, but his sweet words and k~d
ma~er left them desperate ~ their wish that he had.
    A smile ~itched the ti~er's ~cked lips. He raised a wrist t0
scratch ~s snub nose, and be~nd cover of his sleeve whispered,
"~at one."
    Across the dim room, the ranked ~estles and packed benches, and
~e bri~ed felt hats of the bargemen, through the autu~ tang of
c~amon and cider, the fair-haired dandy said something which set
the girls laug~g.

146

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 "No." A hulking, thick shadow against paneled walls, the tinker's
 eyebrows like the grizzled pelt of a badger. Half of
 face lay swathed in bandages that seeped pus from a sup-
 wound. Black gimlet eyes flicked aside and gleamed back in
 disbelief. Then a dubious mumble emerged from beneath the
 ~aked dressing.
     "Oh, that's him, make no mistake," the tinker insisted under cover
 of metallic commotion as a chubby scullion stacked empty tankards
 on a tray. "He kept fancy clothes aboard the sloop with his lyranthe."
     More indeterminate grumbles from beneath the bandages, from
 which the word "wager" emerged clearly.
     The fat tinker cracked a chuckle that turned nearby heads, but
 notably, not that of the blond man. "So we'll see." He shoved his
 packs into the arms of his rawboned companion. "Find us a bench in
 a comer and wait. I'll order beer and pay a visit to the privy. My silver
 laid on eight to three, the first one who follows me out will be none
 other than your royal liege."
    Riverfront taverns in south Tysan were all similar, built of mud
brick and split pine beams and lath. The hearths were always large
enough to roast a call and the bar tops, a vast slab of fieldstone like a
bastion, behind which the barrels were stored and kept guarded by
landlords as seasoned as siege captains. On a meat hook behind hung
the inevitable cleaver, kept sharp to carve the huge wheels of cheese
bought from the dairies in Korias. In rough seasons, the same steel
might chop fingers from unlucky pilferers, to mark them for thieving
ways. Customs along the river route south of Mogg's fenlands were
swift and direct, only generous if a man were honest in his habits, or
straightforward about his need in ill fortune.
    The tinker was soft-spoken and carefully polite. He jostled no
patrons, nor pinched the flame-haired wench who bent to shake out
the straw matting by the back entry. He offered her a copper, asked
directions to the privy, and stepped out the rear door, whistling.
    The path he pursued was well beaten, dusty under the glazed gold
sun of late autumn. Leaves burned brown at the edges by frost crack-
led beneath his slowed step. A breeze blew crisp off the Ilswater,
skeined in the scents of wet reeds and black mud, stitched close at
hand by the taint of sour leather and urine from the mucky compound
of the ox pens. From downriver, a drover called encouragement to his
team. A barge rocked at the landing bollards to a whispered creak of
chafed lines.
    Flecked in the rippled ink shadows of the alders already stripped
by the season, the tinker reached the board privy. He heard no one's

14 7 ~

JANNY ~URTS

step on his heels. Just the uncanny sensation of movement at his back,
a split second before hard fingers bit into his shoulder and jerked him
face about.
    The blond man from the hearthside confronted him, his fine,
beaded doublet masked under a bargeman's caped wool. "Come," he
said in the razor-cut diction of Arithon s'Ffalenn. "We need to take a
little walk."
    The pair turned right, into the dappled shade of the wood which
fronted the river, then veered again, into pine-scented dimness
removed from the bustle of the teamsters who plied the towpath.
    "That took a great deal of nerve, ris~[ing Caolle ~ there," Arith0n
opened. "You'll answer to me if harm c~mes to him.
    The fat tinker drew a breath in trepidation better suited to his role
as a prophet. "I won't take that blame. You might have accepted his
offer in Caithwood."
    Arithon stopped cold and clawed back the straw wisp of hair the
busy wind flicked at his cheek. "You're risking his life!"
    "He's risking his life," Dakar corrected. "I'm flattered if you think
my efforts could stop him."
    Looking frail boned in his pale-haired disguise, half-swallowed by
the bargeman's cloak, Arithon started forward with a visible effort to
keep a tight rein on his temper. "We could be quartered in Riverton
for months." His bard's instinct for sound seemed to guide his foot-
ing. His step fell almost noiseless through the race of loose leaves in
the gusts. He went on, "A winding or two of ill-smelling bandage
can't hide a clan accent from headhunters!"
    "Bandages won't, but a glamour can," Dakar argued. "I can work
the small bindings to make the scar on Caolle's jaw seem far worse
than it is. He'll wear the semblance of an injury to disfigure speech. In
a port town with sailhand's dives, who would bother to look for a
spell to bend air? No one will trouble at all. His halting tongue will
just seem too garbled for anyone but his friends to understand."
    "Ath, Dakar!" Arithon stopped again, one hand pressed to his face.
At long last the misery showed through. "He's Earl Jieret's man, and
the only foster kin that boy ever had to replace his slaughtered family."
    The Mad Prophet spun away, perhaps to lend the pretense of pri-
vacy for old grief. Even as the edge returned to Arithon's control, he
was unable to meet the appeal in the blank, masking gray of those
eyes. Nor was he insensitive enough to try platitudes, or argue that
lieret was now a grown man and father to an heir in his own right.
Not when the Earl of the North had been orphaned in one of
Arithon's former campaigns.

148

FU~31?IVE PRINCE

The loyalties demanded by the ghosts from that past were by far

    "You won't win this one, old friend," Dakar said at last in gruff
sympathy. He turned around in the mat of dead pine needles, ducked
a low-hanging branch, and forged the way back toward the tavern.
"That's Caolle's clan heritage you need purloined ships to try and
save. Nor can you shirk all the trappings of your birth or cast off your
'most sensible liegemen. Some will live and others come to die in the
course of your service. That's their picked fate. Yours is to bear it,
until the day comes that the Fellowship Sorcerers grant you their law-
ful leave to abdicate."
    That stunned through the force of past sorrows. Arithon s'Ffalenn
looked back from his shadow-wrought disguise, his eyes for a second
reverted to their native, blazing green. "Then we're stymied." He
smiled in that baiting, bright malice he used to divert stinging words.
"A match brought to draw, since the end play can't happen unless I
sire an heir for Rathain. You should all leave me."
    Dakar chose to ignore that. "I presume you'll be going into River-
ton as a bard? Well, you've just acquired two servants. You might
want to add some gray hair to fill out the part, since as the fair gal-
lant, you'll draw the wrong sort of notice traveling with a doting male
retinue."

149

Autumn 5652

Design

The Koriani orphanage in Capewell was housed in the refurbished
shell of a merchant's palace, a five-storied edifice of extravagant fancy
that loomed over the harborside market. Stevedores' calls and tl~
dickering insults of house matrons never troubled its residents. High
marble walls enclosed its stables and inner courtyards. Carved with
weathered nymphs and the moss-caked cavities of scrolled waves,
the scullery entrance fronted a sun-washed courtyard. A row of
gnarled pear trees in tubs were all that remained of the formal herb
gardens famed far and wide in past centuries. The branches lay
stripped now, blackened skeletons shivering in the veering toss of the
gusts off Mainmere Bay.
    Hatched in their spiderweb shadows, Morriel Prime chafed porce-
lain stick fingers to encourage her poor circulation.
    The days, the years, blended one into another. She wished she could
scream for the frustrating labor of discerning one from the next, present
from past; the jetsam of old memories become all but indistinguishable
from posited future event. If the gardens where she sat this autumn
morning had outworn their elegance through change, the routine obli-
gations of the Koriani Order stayed tediously static. Each daybreak
came, seamless in sameness as the metallic sheen of pooled mercury.
    On Morriel's right, from the close little chamber that once served
the merchant as countinghouse, speech droned through the opened
window. In muddled accents, a pouch-eyed little cobbler swore the
order's oath of obligation in exchange for a sigil of blessing for his

150

FUGITIVE PRINCE

craftshop. A fresh-faced girl novice would duly enter his name on the
Lists of Service against the day when Koriani need would ask pay-
ment in boots or shoes, or some other piece of skilled leatherwork.
    The ritual was timeworn as the order's inception. Excepting the
small sales of simples and remedies too onerously numerous for
record, enchantresses took no coin for the spellcraft they rendered in
service. With no wealth to gain, their practicing code of mercy
remained difficult for greed to corrupt.
    Morriel loosed a shallow, bored sigh. Entrenched tradition blended,
not just days or seasons, but caused years themselves to meld together,
memories rubbed smooth by repetition until none stood out from
another. She endured the monotony. Moment to moment, she carried
on with the tenacity of a lichen latched to north-facing rock. This
moming's task of selecting new page boys for her personal service had
recurred so many times, she had ceased to number or name them.
    The children seemed one long stream through time, as similar as
pebbles in a brook. Unblinking, her obsidian eyes surveyed the dozen
odd choices. They stood in a mw with their fair hair combed, and cloth-
ing brushed formally straight. In age, they ranged from eight to ten.
    Some always cringed from the Prime Matriarch's review. Two
stared at their feet. The inevitable coward sniffled and shook, while
another near the line's end presented tearful, flushed cheeks in defi-
ant and terrified silence.
    Morriel made her selection on a scant second's thought. "That one,
and that one." The pair marked apart by her stabbing gesture were
close matched in height, and possessed of a china-doll innocence.
"Show the others away."
    "Your will, matriarch." A matronly enchantress bustled from the
archway behind. She comforted those children returned to her
charge, then bundled them off to the kitchen with a promise of apple
tarts and milk.
    The Prime surveyed her latest acquisitions with a vulture's unwink-
ing regard. The near boy watched her back, trapped in awe and
macabre fear, as if her withered limbs in their draping purple velvet
belonged to a corpse, or some nightmare work of carved calcite. The
other child stood frozen with a dripping nose and a chin puckered red
in failed effort to dam back his tears.
    "You will serve as my page boys until you reach twelve years of
age," Morriel informed, not unkindly, but rasped thin as steel set too
long to the grindstone. "The work I ask will be light. Do well, and on
your day of dismissal, an apprenticeship will be found with a rep-
utable trade which suits your inclinations."

JANNY WURTS

  "Yes, matriarch," whispered the boldest of the boys.
     The withered twitch of a smile turned a comer of the crone's
 "How fine, you have manners, boy. Bravery, too. When
 abroad in the world, those virtues will be appreciated.
 are simpler. Please recall, when I come to address you, I prefer
 say nothing at all."
    The tearful child whimpered. The forward one shrank in
tainty from the sting of her mild disapproval. Morriel offered
boys no false reassurance. They would do best to fear her,
friends and associates they made in maturity should share
respect for her office. Like white-painted iron in the
winds that keened off the waves of the bay, she also withheld
missal. Her eyes fixed ahead like sheared chips of slag, and
were unmoving marble.
  The rift happened then, without any warning at all.
    In one seamless second, she no longer inhabited the chilly autumn
courtyard in Capewell. Ten centuries blurred; the friable webs of per-
ception unraveled. The green fields of her village childhood resurged
and wrapped her in sun and the fragrant, honeyed heat of summer
haze. The boys who rolled tussling and yelling amid the new-
sprouted barley were her dark-haired, dark-eyed little brothers.
Sprites who clung to her ruffled skirts while she simmered berries
into preserves; who brought her their skinned knees and elbows to be
nursed; who secreted live beetles inside her jars of dried rose petals.
  She loved them like an addiction.
    When her talent came on too strong to deny at sixteen, her parents
had sent off the young plowman who sued for her handfasting. Deaf
to her pleas and her stormy bouts of rage, they sent her dowry to the
Koriani Order and pledged her to lifelong service. The boys became
the tie that broke her heart. Scene followed scene as she suffered for
their loss, huddled under blankets in the echoing, vaulted stone of the
dormitory. She wept for her brothers, while merchants' daughters
from Cildom bemoaned their lost gowns and jewels, and sly-faced
craftgirls from Narms vied to take illicit lovers before the day they
came to swear vows, and seal themselves forever to the celibate ways
of an initiate enchantress.
    Then the years, passing, and the demands of strict learning
claimed all their youthful rebellion. Study of crystals, then endless
practice with the sigils of power erased their differences of station.
Girls became women, at one with the Koriani Order, and few
thoughts remained of the families abandoned in childhood.
  The regrets which survived were the strong ones. Even after a

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FUGITI~œ I~RINCE

 thousand years, Morriel Prime would not suffer her pages to resem-
 ble the brothers who had grown and gone on to mortal death. No one
 alive remembered their faces; how they had fared, or where they had
 breathed their last. If they sired descendants, those too were vanished
 into forgotten obscurity. The folk who had known them were genera-
 tions lost; their near kin gone to crumbled dust.
     "Prime Matriarch?" A soft voice, then a tentative touch to her
 shoulder drilled her thought like electrified pain.
    Morriel started. Her senses upset, awash in blind static. The
moment became nightmare as she fought to reorient. Buffeted by the
incongruous, fishy tang of winds blown off of salt water, she knew
blank confusion more vast than the infinite dark beyond the veil.
Then eyesight returned with a burning, sharp rush. Two robed
seniors waited to one side. Their inquiring, smooth faces should have
been known to her. Yet her memory would yield up no names; their
identities blurred into thousands of others, until rank and personality
failed to take on any semblance of importance.
    The panic hit then, a slippery, dark wall too sheer for trained calm
or reason. Fear yawned before her, that she might never recover her
sense of time and place. Morriel shut translucent, webbed eyelids.
She willed her breath steady while the trip-hammer pound of her
heart threatened to burst through the walls of her chest. Years of
forced discipline let her clasp the quartz pendant at her throat. The
focusing properties of its matrix should let her grope out the right
thread of recent memory.
    But that remedy failed her. Sharp, questing thought slid past her
guard and mired in the stone's composite layers of stored imprints.
    She had outlived her time. The crystal she wielded held a thousand
years of memory, too long a span for a reactive mineral to stay in
unbroken contact with breathing flesh. Past due for cleansing, any
stone's burdened matrix would develop an ornery character.
    Its obstructive nature mocked her now, as if to expose her rank
weakness. She regained no connection to the facts she required, but
fell into the deluge of residual memories left behind by former
primes: the disparate, echoed fragments of bygone personalities,
strained at random from her use of the Great Waystone.
    Morriel choked back a scream, beat down the visceral terror, that
her last recollection of her name and identity might be mazed into the
stewed thoughts of dead predecessors.
    That instant, like a pane of snapped glass, the disorientation
cleared away. As if the cogs of her mind had never once slipped, Mor-
riel recognized the swept, white stone of the courtyard at Capewell's

153

JANN� WURT$

orphanage. Against mortised coping and soft, southern marble
ished by weathering rains, two small boys stood before her in
fled obedience, shivering in the north wind.
    Though they must learn in due time to wait on her needs, today's
lesson was unduly harsh; Morriel blinked Fightless, jet eyes, chilled
herself, and uneasy. If age had eroded her grip on self-command, she
had small choice but behave as if no lapse had upset her sound judg-
ment. "Have my new pages taken to the seamstress to be fitted for
proper livery."
    "Your will, matriarch." The younger initiate shouldered the task,
though the bands on her robes marked a rank far above petty errands.
    The middle-aged enchantress stayed silent in respect while the
courtyard was cleared of small boys.
    Morriel refused any moment to compose herself. The dread could
take root like moss in dim comers, that a second slip might over-
whelm her. Until Lirenda was fully trained to replace her, she must
permit no breach of faith in her competence. "You bring news?" she
prompted, then gestured her formal leave to speak.
    The enchantress gave proper obeisance, and said, "Matriarch, our
clairvoyant received word from the lane-watcher stationed in Tide-
port. She wished you informed that Arithon of Rathain has made his
return to the continent."
    Morriel's interest took fire. "In Tysan? I thought so!" She wheezed
through a gravelly laugh. "Very well! The hour has come to start f0rc-
ing the Fellowship's hand." A snake's eye glitter of diamond pins
loured from under her hood as she delivered imperious instructions.
"I'll require a closed audience with your most gifted clairvoyant. She
will send my instructions through the lane-watchers. Afterward,
summon your two newest initiates and direct them to attend me in
the observatory. Once I have admitted them, let no one interrupt or
unseal the chamber until I emerge or give leave."
    The enchantress in attendance showed surprise. Such obvious
steps to undertake a grand conjury would not usually proceed with-
out steps to inform the First Senior of momentous events. "You don't
wish a messenger sent on to Lirenda at Valenford?"
    "How dare you ever think to question my rule!" Morriel cut back
in distemper.
    "I bow to your will, matriarch." The initiate took chastened leave,
the displeasure of her Prime like the stab of an auger at her back.

    The observatory built into the Koriani sisterhouse at Capewell was
an edifice evolved through the contrary styles of seven centuries. The

154

FUGITIVE PRINCE

dainty, five-sided bronze cupola and the fancifully shuttered case-
ments which overlooked the town's roof peaks were the latecoming
0maments of folly. Mossy stone walls and the flint sills of old revet-
ments bespoke grimmer beginnings as a watchtower. From its origi-
nal vantage, merchants had counted inbound ships at the quay. The
stone had been reset with arrow slits later, when townsmen fortified
against vengeance-bent clansmen through the unsettled years of the
uprising. The observatory built on when the keep was roofed over
now served as a chamber consecrated for fine magic.
    The inside air had gone musty since the pierced shutters were
darkened with sheets of tarnished silver. Candles of incense-soaked
wax fluttered on the shelves of the sills. The inviting, cushioned
benches that once lined the walls were reframed as cupboards with
bronze hinges. Door fronts and portals had all been replaced with
unpainted oak panels, cut green, dried in fire, then inset with the
knotty, counterlooped copper of a thousand runes of ward. Each latch
had been painstakingly welded, then sealed by tin sigils with guard
spells to deflect any outside prying. The old, timbered floors were
flagged over in black slate, unpolished to accept the scribed traceries
and seals of forced power.
    There, an emaciated predator poised over a webwork of ciphers,
Morriel Prime crouched with a sliver of chalk in her hand. If the con-
struct she patterned against the Fellowship's constraints showed a
calculated, terrifying complexity, its driving plot was most simple:
since the Sorcerers placed undue value on Prince Arithon's life, he
was himself made the key to arrange their coercion.
    Capture the Master of Shadow as a pawn, and for fear of the threat
lying latent upon Marak, the Seven must bow to Koriani demand.
Better than most, Sethvir must own up to the stakes: Morriel would
seize upon any provocation to see the Teir's'Ffalenn dead. Indeed, the
Prime deeply preferred to end his misspent royal life to forestall the
prophesied threat to her succession.
    Between each tormented step of her labor, the withered, old Matri-
arch cursed the crux that bred such necessity. With spiteful care, she
etched chain after chain of linked ciphers in her wretched, crabbed
script. Here and there, as line crossed line, or a finishing sigil raised
latent energies, a sulfurous light flared from the contact. Shed glare
lined her hooked profile, fleeting as the flit of a sunbeam. The air
became glued into uneasy clarity, until the tapping scrape of her chalk
ripped the quiet like the snap of flint-struck sparks.
    Morriel shuffled another step, closed another circle. The rune signs
might skip like torn stitches beneath her palsied, frail touch, yet the

155

J^NN� WURTS

vectored arcs laid to move summoned forces stayed precise,
scribed by a master mason using a pin compass and cord. At the c
ter of the floor where the sigils converged stood a low tripod.
looped in a silver cradle and masked in black silk, the
Waystone stood waiting, center point for the uncoiling layers of
riel's enveloping snare.
    Regarding its draped globe in stifled apprehension were the
young initiates Morriel had chosen to serve her. Though the
tered, fireless chamber was chilly, both girls clasped
the folds of gray robes. Fresh from their novitiate, wholly
by experience, they waited to give what was asked. When their
straightened up from her scribery and bid them to place
at the north and south poles of her construct, they accepted their
in stilled dread.
  "Be seated," Morriel commanded. When she asked them
a deep trance, they knew, but dared make no protest. They
take active part in this spellcasting, but serve as its passive
As their Prime required, energy, talent, even life force itself
become siphoned from them. By the strict oath of obedience to the'~
order, their Prime Matriarch could demand any sacrifice against the
needs of greater humanity.
    "For the mercy of the world," Morriel exhorted them, "do exactly
as you are told. I will be threading your personal energies through the
Great Waystone. No margin exists for your weakness."
    Minutes passed, sluggish under the weight of pent powers. The
Prime visited both initiates in turn and collected the summoning
crystal each one wore at her neck. She traced each with a sigil, then
performed the Prirne's invocation to claim and attune their personal
powers under her dominion. Time assumed the drugged torpor of
dreaming as the circles upon the observatory floor were called active
and dedicated to the secret, dark side of the moon. Mystery pulsed
through the febrile veil which tied life to its housing of flesh. The
paired initiates felt as though a misdrawn breath might shatter the
whole firmament of creation into eddies of glittering current.
    Then Morriel spoke a word in command. She clapped withered
hands, and the spells of prime power claimed the girls, spirit and mind.
    All now lay in readiness. The Koriani Matriarch advanced to the
tripod. She slipped off its covering cloth, the smoothness of silk a
cruel contrast to her ruined flesh. Her skin had grown so translucent
with years, at times, she seemed but a spectral shadow, unreal to her
own tactile senses.
  This moment the allure of death's peace left her hollow. She sorely

156

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 missed Lirenda's support. If a relapse of blocked memory should
 daim her now, she had no one to anchor her through the perils which
 lay ahead. Each time she raised the Waystone's great focus, she shoul-
 dered the risk that her will might become overwhelmed. Yet the
 stakes at play to arrange tonight's plot had never before been so dire.
 Age had unstrung her sure grasp of self-awareness. Should the cross-
 grained old jewel finally defeat her, the Koriani Order must continue.
 Lest this hour's work come to frame her last act, the untried girls who
 backed this spell's pattern were expendable, as the handpicked suc-
 cessor to prime office was not.
     Steeled, heart and will, by fatalistic resolve, Morriel cupped fleshless
 palms around the faceted amethyst. Its cold pierced in dousing waves
 to her marrow as she eased into trance. Perhaps for the last time, she
 locked horns with its spite and grappled to wield its dire focus.
     If Fellowship meddling had curbed the stone's reach, its innate
 strength was untouched. Charged to the familiar, freewheeling exhil-
 aration, restored to the pinnacle of power and command, Morriel
 bent will to accomplish her desire.
    If Sethvir had granted the earth backdoor wisdom to encumber the
stone with permissions, the works of man were exempt. She still
ruled quarried stone and the milled timbers of buildings, bridges, and
diked roadways. The signature energies of individuals left vulnerable
through trusting, blind ignorance remained subject to the Waystone's
spelled influence. Although the Teir's'Ffalenn's training as a master
mage made him elusive prey, his return to the continent had occa-
sioned him to accept other company on the road. The former clan war
captain, Caolle, offered as volatile a personality as any tracking
enchantress could wish. The signature seals of the spellbinder's glam-
our which disguised him with scars and slurred speech tagged his
presence. Each move he made flared small pulses of static through
the world's tracery of magnetic current.
    Searched out by the Waystone's piercing focus, Caolle's course
blazed like a beacon. Past, present, and future, his movements could
be scryed as cleanly as text marked on parchment.
    Given such infallible guidance to dog his liege's footsteps, the
Prime became the more cautious. The weavings to entrap the Master
of Shadow must be wrought with consummate care. Dakar was a Fel-
lowship spellbinder, and guarded. Though Arithon's talents were left
blank and blinded since his past misuse of grand conjury, he still held
a masterbard's arcane hearing and a trained mage's eye for nuance.
The disharmony raised by hostile intent would unsettle his keen
sense of empathy.

157

JANNY WURT$

    The interface must therefore be indirect. In velvet-gloved
Morriel wrought. From the riverside tavern where her quarry
slept, she quested among the dust in the floorboards. Her search
yielded three flecks of stubble left from Arithon's grooming. Bei0re
the inn's chambermaid arrived to sweep, minute sparks of energy
flared in the candleless gloom. The Prime's first tendril of sp~'llcrafl
embraced those cut snippets of hair, then wound their purl0ined
essence, ephemeral as spun moonlight, into a personal signature to
guide the course of her snare.
    Next, the Prime Enchantress launched into deep augury. She traced
the course of event yet to come, sounding the probabilities of Arith0n's
close movements as he mounted his foray in Tysan. She narro~'ed the
vast might of the Waystone into tightest, fine focus, and targeted those
actions her quarry was likely to take. Then she played the full r~T~e 0i
probabilities and allowed for the utmost array of cont'mgencies.
    A trap of such delicacy could not follow a schedule. Chanc~ action
held too wide a range to predict the precise timing of event. l~ther
than structure her plot into a single, inflexible binding, th~, l'rin~e
instead tied its course to multiple chains of tagged markers.
    This board in a bridge that Arithon might cross on his travels: ~10r-
riel set a hair-fine tendril of spellcraft into the wood's grain that would
trigger in response to his passage. Here the wax lamps in a taver~'s
taproom were hazed in small spells of recognition; there, a ferryma~t's
rope on the shores of the Ilswater became twined in ciphers of watch
Next, signposts en route to Riverton were tied into the growing
tapestry, then people drawn in as well. That official in the royal shi?-
yard who would need to be bribed or misled; a cipher of listening ~'as
laced through his jeweled chain of office, keyed to Arithon's v~ice.
Specific cobblestones in certain city streets; the carvings on doorl~,bs
or lintels; then the gate latches of every harborside inn: all because
knotted into the weave of an ever so subtle array of spellcraft.
    Morriel was patient. She had need to be thorough. One overlooked
possibility, and the whole linked network would fail. Her grand con-
struct was shaped, one step to the next, through infinitesimal incre-
ments of care. Then each separate facet was masked in a glamour.
Dakar's watchful eye must be made to turn elsewhere, through a
loosened board set to cause him a stumble; or else the lurking pres-
ence of her embroidery of seals must be groomed to mimic the natu-
ral resonance of stone, or wood, or wrought metal.
    Across the path of Arithon's future, Morriel seeded her small barbs
and hooks. To these, in ingenious, connected succession, she attached
the seals and small ciphers to drive Arithon into her net. This rumor

158

FUGITIVE PRINCE

would find its way to the lips of a street beggar; that hunch would
prompt a certain volatile clansman to raise a round of inquiry and
search. When the orchestrated moment arrived for the coup, Arithon
s'Ffalenn would be flushed from cover and hazed into desperate flight.
    Morriel burned reckless power, affirmed and cross-checked every
venue of possibility. Her labors cased options until no choice her
quarry might try could win free of her invidious design. She adjusted
and fine-tuned; twined tortuous traps in tight spirals.
    On this hour, when every likely auspice came aligned, an ancient
book from the Koriani Order's closed libraries would fall into the
hands of a scholar who owed a sworn debt of service. The knowledge
and the man would make their way to Lysaer; then war galleys
would arm and cast hawsers and sail. The Mistwraith's curse would
engage with its victims, and in the heat of its geas-bent obsession, the
s'Ffalenn pawn could be spirited away.
    A criminal who endangered society would be curbed, and the Fel-
lowship of Seven be served its timely comeuppance.
    Only the last, great sigil of ending remained to seal the chain of
augured event. Tinged nitrous violet by the glow of the Great Way-
stone, Morriel grimaced like a skull. Never had she worked so elab-
orate a conjury upon resources pressed to such limits. While the
daylight hours fled into night, then the starry sky paled and birthed
the new dawn, she sensed a deep-down, burning discomfort. She
had drained reckless power and now suffered sharp warning her
strength ran dangerously low.
    She pressed on, wrung what she needed to steady herself from the
pair of initiates bound to her use through the Waystone. Were the
crystal not restored back to unfettered potency, mankind's rightful
legacy would stay jeopardized; the Koriani charge to restore civiliza-
tion to lost grace would remain threatened by Arithon s'Ffalerm. Mor-
riel did not equivocate. She spent ruthless force to shape that last
cipher, and set final linkage between the disparate, trip-wire elements
arrayed to bring Rathain's prince to defeat.
    At the last, the squared circle of sigils dragged at her mind like
spilled needles. Exhaustion leached her will, pulled like unseen fin-
gers against her weak housing of flesh. Willful as old iron, the Kori-
ani Prime reached out again to tap the initiates who stood as her
anchors.
    Something went wrong. The smooth flow of power summoned to
her hands ripped through a sharp hesitation. One of the young
women rejected the sacrifice, perhaps touched by the sudden, cutting
panic of instinctive self-preservation. Betrayed in her need, Morriel

159

JANNY WUI~T$

felt the balance of raised spells veer awry. She screamed in rebu~
The forces she grappled seemed shadow and flame, two opposite ele-
ments bent toward unbiddable destruction. Lacking her flawless and
rigid control, the whole construct could fold into backlash.
    Morriel perceived no safe avenue. Poised at the crux, taxed past the
limit of her visceral frailties, she grappled harsh fact: without months
of recovery, she could never retrace all the steps of this complex c0n-
jury. Should this construct tear itself asunder, the iagged vibrations 0f
its collapse would burst even the most rigorous protections. Sethvi~
would stand warned. The priceless opportunity to suborn the Fellow-
ship would be thrown away for one faithless initiate's weakness.
    Fury seared through Morriel Prime. Well aware her demands must
claim the life of the loyal enchantress who held firm, even still, she
engaged her act for necessity.
    Power flared up, too bright, too frenetic. Morriel lashed lawless
forces into order, used the channel of the Waystone to reaffirm her
cleared will. She jo'med the last sigil. Her drawn-out, wrenching cry 0f
effort rocked the room. Then the dregs of her strength bled away.
Slumped in collapse, her cheek laid to rest on the burning-ice sphere
of the amethyst, she gasped out the ritual chant to blinder the jewel's
roused focus.
    No space to wonder, that these words might shape her last act. Her
heart raced and throbbed. Each breath rasped like steel filings in her
throat. Vast blackness devoured her senses. While the fires in the
heart of the great crystal blazed low and flickered at last to quies-
cence, the spark of her will bled away.
    Morriel Prime closed her eyes. Alongside the risk she might never
reawaken, she measured the sum of her efforts.
    A momentous labor was done. Time and the unwinding course of
events would spring string upon string of chained triggers. Let the
scryed snares in her construct play through, and Arithon s'Ffalenn
would walk a doomed path into capture. First Senior Lirenda would
be called to assume the mantle of prime power. If she held strong, if
she proved a fit vessel, the memories of past Primes locked into the
Waystone would rise up to channel and guide her.
    Morriel rested content with the chance she had snatched back lost
hope, and salvaged the legacy her sisterhood preserved for posterity.
With the Fellowship brought to heel and the Shadow Master curbed,
the Koriani Order could preside over mankind's freed future.

160

Autumn 5652

Marvel

[:~ ~' his diplomatic visit to Etarra in the eastern Kingdom of Rathain,
~. ~aer s'Ilessid and his sumptuous state retinue would avoid the
Ii~a l dein passes. Ship's captains seldom dared the North Cape, where
tidal rips cut the inlets of a savage, volcanic shoreline. The overland
routes through Camris to MiraIt Head were preferred by the autumn
L~~'avans, as wayfarers and trade goods raced to meet the last of the
.~tbound trade fleets. Before winter churned Stormwell Gulf to a
stew of ice floes and spindrift, a raffish breed of northcoast galleymen
;t',~ t uiged their sharp rivalries, driving their oarsmen in relentless, fast
t~.~ssage to the ports across Instrell Bay.
    Late warmth was wont to linger in the scrub-grown flatlands of
Karmak. Each year the alkaline soil of the plain lay ground to fine
powder by the ox drays. Leaves and brambles entangled on the
verges and wilted under a coating of grit, while air draped like gauze
in late-season haze bore a windborne tang of churned dust. The
progress of Lysaer's cavalcade raised muffled thunder in the pow-
dery footing. The endless squealing of cart axles, the chink of brass
harness, and the sifting grime fouling their trappings drove the
prince's guard to clenched teeth. Tempers flared, and armor chafed,
and meals came infested with sand.
    Six days beyond Erdane, the low ground still stretched the same on
all sides. A tireless sun stabbed glare off the rocks, and the horseboys
were too parched to whistle.
  FIoro. the mettlesome company chosen to spearhead the prince's

161

JANNY

 retinue rode in a squint'rag, watchful wedge. They slapped at
 which lit on their horses and cursed others that escaped to bite flesh.
     "We should make MiraIt Head by tomorrow noon," ventured the
 company's captain, a grizzled former headhunter with a craggy pro
 file and tough hands like silk on his reins. The hair on his wrists
 sprang in tufts through caked grime as he scraped gritted sweat from
 his chin. "That's if the camp cook can pack up his crockery without
 hounding his fool scullion for laziness."
     "That scullion's my friend, and no layabout," the prince's page boy
 defended. "And anyway, how can you tell where we are? This
 blighted plain has no landmarks."
    "Used to trap wolves here," the captain replied. "Packs swarm �~ke
vermin, come the snows. A man knows where he is, and't{ow f~r to
shelter, or he's like to find his horse hamstrung."
    At the page's unsettled review of the landscape, the man-at-arms
loosed a gruff chuckle. "Before sun, there's the truth, and may Light
strike me down if I'm lying."
    "Have a care. His Grace might hear your profanity." The page
tipped a weighted glance behind, where Prince Lysaer rode a horse
length to the rear of his standard-bearer.
    Through the sulfurous silt of puffed dust, the Prince of the Light
rode bareheaded, his gleaming, fair hair a diffracted halo in the citrine
glare of strong sunlight. Even through dirt, his presence seemed
uncanny, a masterwork wrought of alabaster and gilt against the
monochrome landscape. The bullion-fringed banner and the stitched
silk of its sunwheel seemed brass without luster in comparison.
    Voice muffled to awe, the page boy ventured, "Do you believe the
realm's seneschal, that his Grace is sent as Ath's servant to drive
scourge and shadow from the land?"
    The burly captain shrugged mail-clad shoulders. "I couldn't speak
the creator's intent, boy. But Prince Lysaer, now, he's real. His powers
can be seen and felt." Eyes trained ahead, he finished in respect,
"Whether his Grace has divine origins or not, I'll swear by his name
as our given defender against evil."
    A barely sensed movement flicked a leaf by the verge. To a whick-
ered puff of dust, a whine creased the air.
    Stabbed by keen instinct, the guard captain shouted, "Archer!" He
reined his horse back, sent it crab-stepping sidewards; screamed for
his men to close in. "Move! Shield the prince!"
    Scarce time to notice the page boy's mount, shying, and the lad
unhorsed in the roadway.
  Next a searing, actinic crack whipped the sky. A charge of bolt

162

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 lightning scalded everything white. Then a slamming report like the
 hammer of doom thudded echoes across the bare flats. Men were
 yelling. Their formation erupted to mayhem as they fought the eye-
 rolling panic of their mounts.
     But no casualty had fallen to bowfire. The prince remained astride
 his blooded cream charger, stopped in the middle of the roadway.
 Amid a cavalcade churned into panic, he sat with a statue's compo-
 sure. No mere assassin's ambush held the power to ruffle his uncanny
 poise. Heaven's own lightning must leap to defend him, and out of a
 cloudless, clear sky.
     The arrow lay banished to a lacework of blue smoke and a fading
 whiff of dry carbon.
  "Angel of Ath? the guard captain swore.
     He stilled his sidling mount between bit and spurs, dimly aware of
 the men staring dumbstruck beside him; of the page boy's loose horse
 still plunging against the reins looped through its pasterns. The flat
 taint of dust and the tang of sweaty leather seemed disjointed and
 wrong, too earthy a setting for miracles.
     Lysaer commanded the tableau like a stage, his lofty magnificence
 set apart. The moment hurt for pure splendor. For a handful of heart-
 beats, time's flow seemed erased, the lesser movements of men and
 beasts jarring.
    Then Lysaer s'Ilessid commanded his guard with their half-
unsheathed swords to stand down.
    The unseated boy moaned and struggled to rise, the fall having
injured his shoulder. On Lysaer's gesture, the royal valet scrambled
from the baggage train to offer him succor; the loose horse was
caught and soothed quiet by a groom.
    Still awed beyond speech, the troop's guard captain swallowed in
flushed shame, faulting himself for slack vigilance.
    Yet the Prince of the Light offered no reprimand as he stirred
from that terrible stillness. Swathed in the blinding, stitched glitter
of his surcoat, he urged his charger toward the verge. Where the
crumbled old tracery of wheel ruts gave way to the tangled brush of
the plain, he drew rein. The object of his gaze might have been some
beggar's bundle, discarded among the bent weed stalks, except for
the hand flung splayed on the earth, blistered with weeping, raw
burns.
    A barbarian archer, the troop's captain surmised with a horrible
twist to his gut. An assassin struck down by what seemed a godlike
manifestation of wrath, his bow a charred ruin beside him.
  "Bind him up for trial and arraignment," Lysaer s'Ilessid instructed.

163

]ANN� W URTS

When his stunned guard captain failed to react, he added in
encouragement, "The wretch is unconscious, not dead. Any
man of Maenol's who holds murder in his heart can live on to
oar for just cause."
  Roused from its nerve-edged amazement, the prince's
settled, re-formed, no man quite bold enough to exchange
with comrades, or speak. The misfortune of the page boy persisted,
knot of disharmony in their midst. Blanched from the pain of a
ken collarbone, his forehead and cheek grazed in blood, he stood
shaken feet, supported by the royal valet.
    The troop's healer summed up his brisk examination and
nounced him unfit to continue astride on a horse that dragged
bit, restive despite the groom's efforts to calm it. "The boy can't
age with one hand for the rein, and the break in the bone will
poorly if he's jostled about in a baggage cart."
  "Be still, we won't leave you," Lysaer chided the weeping
then turned with crisp orders to his captain. "Mount the clan
on the gelding and tie it to the back of a cart. Then set the page
behind me. My destrier's gaits are the smoothest."
  The valet looked up, aghast, from the boy's dusty limbs
ing abrasions. "But your Grace! With all due respect, your surcoat
will be spoiled with stains."
  "Your Grace, I couldn't," the boy stammered.
    Lysaer laughed. His blue eyes held the unshakable, kind censure
that melted the hearts of his servants. "Should a man who follows my
banner be worth less than a few yards of silk? I think not." The dia-
mond in his ring scribed fire on the air as he extended his hand
toward the page boy. "Come, lad. Share my saddle, and save your
brave face for some worthier fight against darkness."
    Once the captive was mounted and lashed and secured under
guard, the cavalcade mustered in disciplined order to resume its
northbound march. Surrounded by diffident officers, Lysaer s'Ilessici
was pressed with advice not to camp on the open plain.
    "Better we ride on through sundown," urged the captain. "Your
Grace should rest safely inside city walls, protected by a manned gar-
rison."
    Lysaer refused the necessity. "We must not make our entry at
MiraIt unannounced. Our troops will need to be quartered and fed.
As guests of the city, the late hour would pose a discourtesy."
    Then that objection was overthrown by the seneschal, who insisted
that a cadre of scouts forge ahead to carry word in advance.
  "We ride on," the captain said, satisfied. "The mayor's Lord Corn-

164

            FUG ITI'IIE I)RINCE

mander at Arms shall have his due notice of your Grace's imminent

  The royal cavalcade closed the last league to the arched gates of
    ~ before midnight. Despite the late hour, they were met by the
        ranking officers in glittering, parade formation. These were
 accompanied by two dozen armed outriders with rich, matched trap-
 p'mgs, agleam under streaming pitch torches.
     Their approach was unhurried. Lysaer had time to note the fringed
 banners, the silver-gilt helms, and bright bardings stitched from costly
 dyed silk. His forbearing smile reflected his pleasure and dismay. "By
 the fanfare, dare we guess? Our scouts' tale of a light bolt and a bar-
 barian arrow must have caused an excited reception. Those lancers in
 front look like they're packing half the city treasury on their backs."
     The seneschal, mounted at the prince's right hand, squinted
 through the flare of the torches. "Don't belittle their pride. That's the
 mayor's personal guard."
     Apparently unwilling to risk offense to an envoy shown the favor
 of divine intervention, the city of MiraIt had turned inside out to
 arrange a ceremonial entrance.
     A taciturn soul who took shocking joy in the occasional gaudy
 joke, the seneschal observed at bland length, "I imagine they've also
 planned rounds of slow, pompous speeches."
    "Ah." Lysaer's eyebrows rose. "If you're tired, we could duck the
long-winded welcome." He inclined his head and addressed the page
boy, whose chin bobbed against his left shoulder. "You'd prefer a soft
bed and a posset, I suppose?"
    When the child returned an appreciative mumble, a curve of lordly
amusement bent Lysaer's lips. "Well then, we'll need to outmatch
them for pageantry." To his captain, he commanded, "Ready the men.
On my signal, I'd have them dress weapons."
  "As your Grace wills," assurance came back from the dark.
    When the lanterns on the city walls hove into view, Lysaer laid the
reins of his weary charger in one hand, raised his right fist, and dis-
charged his gift in a hazed, gold corona over the vanguard of his ret-
inue.
    Gemstones and bullion leaped into dazzling clarity. Mail sparkled.
Light hazed the sweated coats of the destriers to the gloss of polished
satin. A crisp, clear call from the head of the royal column, and the
guards in the train raised penhoned lances in salute. The sunwheel
standard fluttered in the wash of warmed air, while night became
riven to high noon.

165

]ANN� ~U~T$

    Lysaer s'Ilessid in his brilliant white surcoat became the sruning
center point in their midst. From battlements and gate arch, the
rowed ranks of MiraIt's garrison watched his advance in gaping awe.
Those city ministers and guildsmen called from home by peremptory
summons forgot their complaint. The prince's unearthly presence
might have seemed an arrogant excess of pageantry, but for the
young page riding pillion behind.
    As the pair neared the gates, all eyes could see the rich surcoat was
not stainless white, but marred with bloodstains and dirt. The boy
who besmirched its purity was tear streaked, an ordinary
haired victim of mischance who clung in pain-shocked need for
solace. The contrast between the child's needy suffering and the
Prince of the Light's remote majesty framed an indelible image of
mercy.
    The Mayor of MiraIt forgot every word of his hastily scribed for-
mal welcome. The herald stationed in the gate keep hid his face,
reduced to gawping silence as the prince drew rein in the roadway.
    Before any minister could recover the aplomb to smooth over the
lapse in state manners, Lysaer raised his voice and blessed the city in
flawless formal language. In seamless diplomacy, he begged leave of
needless courtesies. His train had suffered an assassin's attack. "No
man was wounded, but my page boy suffered a battering fall from his
horse."
    If ceremony could be excused, a healer was asked, and swift dispo-
sition for the men, who were hungry and tired.
    Dazzled half-blind, awash in shed glare from the unveiled heat of
Lysaer's majesty, the Lord Mayor managed a stammered assurance.
His garrison barracks would house Avenor's retinue, and the com-
forts of his own palace would be placed at the prince's disposal.
    Lysaer inclined his head. "Light's blessing on you," he said, the
gracious assurance behind such acknowledgment no less than his
regal due.
    To relief on both sides that the speeches were dropped, Avenor%
captain at arms marched his columns through the stone portals into
MiraIt. Curious onlookers lined the thoroughfare to witness the
blessed prince's passage. Shutters cracked open; balconies filled as
the sleep of the righteous was shattered by the fiery, fierce light that
knifed through the glass in their casements. Folk stumbled blinking
from their pillows to gawk. Only when the royal cavalcade reached
the city square did Lysaer mute the splendor of his gift. The furor
kept on, fueled now by pure force of momentum. As the word spread,
the whole city was raised, the streets packed as a midsummer festival.

166

FUGITIVE PRINCE

   Hastily clad in his livery and sash, the mayor's house steward
   frenetic instructions. Servants were rousted to light guest
   and air linen. Grooms were kicked out of their pallets and sent
   to accept the reins of blown destriers. Errand boys fetched
   merchants to unlock their warehouses and amend shortfalls in
   and provisions. A healer arrived with bearers and litter to
   the injured page boy.
  Somehow amid the upsurge of commotion, the prince's charger
   hissed. Inquiries flew.
   The mayor's flustered master of horse added his vehement insis-
   "His Grace never entered my stable yard."
     Questions lacked answers. No one seemed to know the royal
 ,hereabouts.
 "Ath save us!" the mayor's house steward fussed in martyred agi-
 tation. "Suppose our exalted savior has taken offense at some fault in
 my 1ord's hospitality? Daelion avert such misfortune from our house!
 He can't have sought out a common tavern."
     Avenor's Lord Seneschal repeated himself twice, then shouted to
 make himself heard. "His Grace has gone on to the shrine on High
 Street to give thanks for today's safe deliverance."
    Word passed from mouth to mouth. A suitable retinue was assem-
bled in haste. But the latecoming guardsmen discovered the way
mobbed by curiosity seekers who choked the route to the square. The
n~ght streets of MiraIt were teeming and charged into frenzied excite-
ment. Even the dim byways held unsettled crowds, surging to
glimpse the Prince of the Light, haloed in what seemed an exalted
radiance as he made his devotion at the crossroads.
    The thoroughfares went from tight to impassable. Not even the
city guard could maintain their patrols. Balked citizens crammed
into the taverns. Inebriated tosspots were displaced into corners as
drudges rushed to light candles, and rumor sparked rampant specu-
lation. The anomaly was noticed, that none of Lysaer's weary
guardsmen stripped weapons or mail to retire. Half of their hard-
bitten number had remained at Ath's shrine, firmly determined to
stay through the night on bent knee in thankful prayer. Others
whose tastes were more boisterous shed propriety and got them-
selves garrulously drunk. To throngs of avid listeners, they
described miracles and lightning bolts that seared lethal arrows
from clear sky.
    "He's blessed, our prince," they pronounced in stark reverence.
"We've borne witness with our own eyes. The shining powers of
divine creation saved his Grace from a deadly attack."

167

]ANNY WURTS

    "Where's the wretch who shot off the arrow!" some roisterer~
from the sidelines.
    That first, inflammatory remark was cut by a shout from a butcher. ~
"There's justice due! Where's this filthy clansman who's in league
with the Master of Shadow?"
    Noise swelled. Trestles swayed to the surging press of bodies as
like-minded celebrants accosted the royal guardsmen over the fate 0t
the prisoner.
    "The Prince of the Light is all our defense against darkness," a fist-
shaking bystander insisted. "His murder would strand us without
help or hope. Should we leave his attacker unpunished?"
    More outcries arose. A touch match to tinder, the racket spilled out
of the tavern's close confines and erupted into the street. By then,
wine and ale lit the mood of the mob to a vengeful, dog-pack frenz.~'.
When an off-duty guard from MiraIt's garrison volunteered to force
the cell where the infamous assassin was incarcerated, a jostling
throng of vigilantes howled their eagerness to help.
    The ringleaders seized torches. Less scrupulous citizens pried u?
cobblestones and hitching rails, or purloined bricks and sharp rocks
from the mason's yard. The yelling horde grew. A torrent in spate,
folk poured into the deserted market. There, the zealots whipped
them into bloodletting passion. They would visit vengeance ~?0n
Arithon's henchman, who had dared to accost heaven's grac~. and
deprive them of their protector.
    Up and down the side streets, the shuttered, wooden shop trc~nts
echoed to the rush of running feet. A cutler's stall yielded before !~tter-
ing assault. Stolen knives flashed between angry faces, and ott~,~ ti~~s
brandished bludgeons. The mob surged through the commons ~a~'r~ss
the hollowed stones beside the city well, where women did laur~.~ ~'~ by
day and ragged children begged coppers and filled the moss-~-t~stv
horse troughs for wayfarers. MiraIt's citizens rioted past the t~ilared
stair to the baths, screaming vicious and frenzied imprecations.
    There, progress stalled, jammed from egress where the old hart~c,r
storm wall fronted the quays along High Street. From the wharfsid~
mazes, and seamy brothels and sailor's dives, new revelers strean~d
to make mayhem. The press grew acute as men elbowed and pushed
to funnel into the neck of the avenue.
    Then the route to the inner citadel became blocked by a mounted
figure muffled in a nondescript cloak.
    "What passes here?" he cracked. His imperious manner was too
refined for a guardsman. Whatever his business, he traveled without
escort. He appeared to carry no weapon.

168

FUGITIVE I)RINCE

"Make way, man!" yelled an instigator. "We have business afoot."
"I said, what passes here?" The rider wheeled his horse and set its
shoulder against the roiling surge of the crowd. A snarl of frustration
greeted his stance. More than one hothead screamed epithets. In
warning of tension a hairsbreadth from breaking, a brick flew and
smashed a merchant's window. Bodies surged and shouting yam-
roered through the costly tinkle of glass.
    The rider gave no ground to fury. Target for violence, his destrier
jostled by a grinding weight of sheer numbers, he bore in with rein
and spur as if clubs and stones held no power to threaten his person.
"Halt there, I say!" His timbre of authority now blistered to anger, he
cut through the rising clamor. "By my name and the Light, stand
fast!"
    A shutter clapped open above. Too deaf and blind to sense disaf-
fection, a beldame leaned out of her mansion window and launched
into shrill imprecations. "What's become of Ath's peace? You wastrels
have worse than the manners of hogs, who shove for the slop in my
close stool!" She made ranting promise the contents of that could be
hurled on the heads of the rabble.
    She ducked back inside to make good her intention, and the sconce
from her bedchamber limned the rider below. The thin gleam of flame
traced the crest of an unmistakable cream charger.
    The front ranks cringed back. They knew whom they faced: Lysaer
s'Ilessid, just returned from the shrine, and en route to the mayor's
hospitality.
    To others behind, the detail was obscured. Due redress for a mur-
dering, traitorous clansman seemed balked by one man, and the
threat of a grandame's tossed jakes.
"Just cut down the lamebrain!" shouted a knife-bearing smith.
Others howled in contempt and pummeled their way forward,
determined to smash through all foolish opposition. Their fury
drowned protest. "Gut the clansman!" came the chanted slogan. "Kill
the barbarian traitor! See him burned as a sorcerer's accompliceI"
    The outraged old lady raised an arm to shy her chamber pot, then
quailed before a roaring wall of noise. Below her, a cataract of human-
ity shoved and snarled in confinement, slashed here and there by the
threatening sheen of bared steel.
    The bottleneck of resistance, become focus for mayhem, the soli-
tary rider fought his horse with magnificent skill to stand firm. His
effort was futile. Despite ruthless courage, no inspired action could
stem that onrushing tide. The prince must be forced to give way, or
else trample and maim the front ranks who knew him. In seconds, he

169

would be pulled down in turn, a rag milled under the teeth of
less stampede.
  Lysaer raised his fist. "This will stop!"
    A shattering arc of light clove the darkness overhead. His
horse reared up and dislodged his plain hood. Like an angel's
aureole, his crown of fair hair took fire from the glare of his gift. Then
the illumination waxed unbearably bright, and banished the night in
a wave of actinic brilliance.
    The beldame fainted. The rabble recoiled, blinded and screamnag.
Their outcries were drowned as a thunderous report slammed over
the merchants' slate roofs. A howling clap of flash-heated air blistered
paint from the woodwork of dormers and shutters. Rioters at the fore
howled and shrank. They found no escape from the sting as the skin
on their faces and hands became singed by the merciless fall of raw
light.
    "No man held in bonds for the sake of royal justice shall be subject to vio-
lence or bloodshed.t" Lysaer cried through the well of shocked motion.
"Disperse and return to your wives and families, and leave the fate of
clan criminals to me."
    "Why should he not die?" blustered a wainwright from the shad-
owed protection of a side street. "He's the Shadow Master's minion!
Or why should the lightning have surged from on high to deliver
your Grace from his bowshot?"
    "He is but a man!" Lysaer rebuked. His gift snapped and blazed.
Through that flood of dire brilliance, the diamond white silk and g01d
trim of his surcoat shot his presence in scintillant outline. "Alone with
a bow, do you really believe one mortal clansman could bring down
the righteous arm of the Light?"
    No one arose to dare argue that challenge. The prince on his horse
was implacable, cut marble, ablaze in unearthly powers. His fierce
gaze searched out one man, then another, and finally encompassed
the whole crowd until stones dropped from abashed hands. Pur-
loined knives were cast down in fierce shame.
    "No criminal act can be healed by rash action," the Prince of the
Light exhorted. "This clansman you would burn was misled by evil.
Before execution, he deserves all your pity. My law has sentenced him
to chained service at the oar, a miserable fate. He'll know the whip
and the indignity of slavery, sore enough suffering for the error of his
ways. No one, no matter how outraged, will take his life out of hand!
Death will deliver him from the galleys soon enough, but only on the
hour appointed by powers outside mortal judgment!"
  No sound from the mob. Two men near the fore were reduced to

170

FUGITIVE I)RINCE

 stifled weeping. In rustling movement, others sank to their knees in
 spontaneous plea for forgiveness.
    "Go home, now," Lysaer said, his fury reduced to gentle care. The
radiance softened and dimmed from his fist, benevolent as mellow
spring sunshine. "Take my peace to your hearthstones, and my bless-
ing to your kinfolk. For every man's sake, spare weapons and rage for
better causes. If by tomorrow you still burn to fight, my captain at
arms will take down the names of new recruits. Should war come
again to drive back the Shadow, then every brave heart will be wel-
come."
  For a half second longer, that struck silence held.
    Then Prince Lysaer reined his destrier around. Moved to emotion
by the fading of his gift, darkened to loss by his departure, a lone
voice pealed out his name.
    The first cries took root. A man more inspired led into a worshipful
chant: "Hail the blessed lord! Hail the Light! Death to the Spinner of
Darkness!"

171

Autumn 5652

Moments

Ensconced in his diplomatic post at Avenor despite the absence of the
prince, Mearn s'Brydion receives a message from a street beggar sent
by Arithon s'Ffalenn, and the note requests a clandestine inquiry into
the disappearance of Lady Talith, Princess of Tysan ....

    Far to the east of Miralt Head, where avid recruits line up to swear
service against shadow before Lysaer's sunwheel banner, Earl Jieret's
scouts intercept messengers calling town mayors in Rathain to Etarra
to pledge for the Alliance of Light; and foreboding weighs on him for
the inevitable fact that his clans must flee into deep cover....

    Against the strapped oak door to the observatory in the Koriani
sisterhouse at Capewell, the peeress in charge delivers an ultimatum
to her anxious colleagues in the stairwell: "No one opens this door, by
Morriel Prime's stated will! If she's died from turned spellcraft, only
one holds the right to gainsay that command. Her successor in train-
ing has been summoned. Until the hour of First Senior Lirenda's
arrival, what lies past this threshold shall bide behind seals, undis-
turbed ....

172

Autumn 5652

 If tears were hardened stone to carve,
 inscribe my cry for life:
Let no man raise his unsheathed sword,
may no man draw his knife,
that this, our sore and grieving land,
waste no more hearts to strife!

verse from the Masterbard's lament
for the widows of Dier Kenton Vale
Third Age 5649

V. Riverton

Forthree hundred years, the rambling, old tavern had stood below
the river fork where Ilswater joined th,e broad, placid channel
which drained off the mudflats of Mogg s Fen. Moss shagged its
fired brick walls on the south-facing side. The north wings sliced the
brunt of the winds that scoured the leaves from the roof shakes. Its war-
ren of galleries and peaked dormer rooms lay packed, that stormy, cold
night. Chimney smoke smudged the deepening gloom, sliced by the
needle tracks of rainfall. Bargemen forsook the damp berths on their
vessels; drovers left the miseries of open-air camps and thronged in for
a copper to spread blankets on the common room floor. Driven indoors
as autttrnn's late chill threatened the first, freezing sleet, soaked wayfar-
ers huddled elbow to elbow over mugs of soup and mulled wine.
    They would have squeezed the accommodations past full, even
with no bard in residence.
    The racket would let no man rest until he lay drunk or exhausted
by crude entertainment. The taproom was too packed for darts, and
the landlord forbade arm wrestling, since wagers were wont to breed
fights. Milling patrons banged the boards and whistled for service
from the barmaids.
    The hour was just shy of midnight, with long ballads the sole rem-
edy for boredom. The bard on his stool by the Kettle was kept too
relentlessly engaged to retire.

173

               ]ANNY ~I7U~T5

    The inn's kindly landlord held one room aside for his use at
charge, for the excessive demand on his talent. The mannerly
money to keep him sweet. As each song drew to its closing,
coins sliced the gloom to chink on the boards at his feet. If
singer was built a trifle too fine, or his dress seemed a touch over.
done, those delicate fingers on silver-wound strings wove sound
like a net of enchantment. Through the chiming cascade of gift
tokens, the whoops of approval, and a general hubbub of noise, the
call of the mousy widow by the casement seemed the lost utterance
of a ghost.
    "Pray Ath our bard didn't hear that," Dakar said where he lounged,
feet braced on a trestle crammed under the jut of the staircase.
    "Hear what?" Wedged deep in the gloom with his back to the wall
Caolle elbowed the Mad Prophet's side, then spoke his concern for a
tankard left brimful all evening. "You don't drink, man. When that
happens, I worry if you're sick."
    Despite provocation, Dakar's watchful eyes tracked the woman in
her ribbons of mourning. "Trust me, I'm hale and dreadfully sober.
The misery's the same, nonetheless." Then, on a break into fierce irri-
tation, "Damn the silly bitch to black Sithaer! He's noticed."
    For the coins had ceased falling with the bard's head still raised.
All theatrical elegance in his slashed murray silk, he had not
launched into some lilting dance tune to quicken the pace since his
last air. 'Instead, he regarded the nondescript woman in stilled and
striking intensity.
    That indefinable instant, the noise lagged. Rain drummed the
slates and the windows, and the widow raised nerve to repeat he~
request. "Minstrel, play a memorial!" This time, her frail, porcelair
treble reached every corner of the room. "Sing us a lament for th~
brave ones who died against Shadow in Dier Kenton Vale."
    "Merciful Ath!" Caolle shoved straight, gruff outrage slurred into
mangled syllables by the spell-turned web of the glamour. "He'l
refuse her."
    "His masterbard's title won't let him." Dakar clamped a quellin~
hand on Caolle's forearm. "This is sovereign territory to the crown o
Tysan! Try and stop him, you'll start a brawl and get us pitched out."
    "Sithaer's dark furies!" Caolle yanked free. "Are we girls, to flind
from a douse in cold rain?" Yet he subsided, if only to watch hov
Arithon would field the unpleasantness.
    The bard shifted the lyranthe in his lap. He regarded his hand~
fine jointed and stilled, the image of languid elegance. The pose wa
misleading. To any who knew him, the mind underneath was a

174

 110

~all
~e

nd
;ift
he

FUGITIVE PRINCE

unperturbed as drawn steel. While the taproom grew hushed, and
storm sluiced the eaves, he spoke in mellifluous courtesy. "Mistress,
which of your loved ones was lost?"
    "My husband, rest him." The woman cried, bitter, "May the Spin-
ner of Darkness come to suffer Dharkaron's damnation!"
    "Lady," said the singer in plangent, fierce pity, "rest assured, he
already does."
    Then, as if unadorned words caused him pain, he flung back his
head, shut his eyes, and struck a chord like a plummeting cry. No
chance assemblage of minor notes, this opening, but the pure charge
and power of a masterbard's art, that ordered the air and snatched
mortal heartstrings and twisted, until all the world became realigned
to his measure of gripping, stark sorrow.
    A dreadful, ranging chill poured down Dakar's spine. "Caolle," he
entreated, in haste to speak before music burned away reason,
"tonight, I'll need help. Keep vigil with me at Arithon's bedside, and
please Ath, leave your temper behind."
    He never heard Caolle's answer. The upwelling surge of an
exquisitely made grief enthralled every listening mind. Arithon chose
not to play to console. The deaths he had caused at Dier Kenton Vale
were too harrowing a loss to soothe over. Instead, he spun melody in
soaring lament and seized his hapless audience by the vitals. His
notes sheared past thought like hooks in silk thread, unfurling a
shimmering net of fine sound. The musician firmed his hold, dragged
them under, then drowned them in a surge of emotion like tide.
    Fingers partnered to unbridled talent, the bard added song, dis-
tilled into lyrics to unhinge the mind and make the most callous soul
weep.

  If tears were hardened stone to carve
  a monument to grief,
  would we let loss and trouble starve
  our spirits for belief?
Our men have gone from home and hearth
and faith has made us weep!

    Arithon played them their mortality in the pressed heat of that
dingy riverside taproom; first like keening wind, and then like a
blade to cleave through skin and viscera. This was no catharsis to
soothe the bereaved. Each line of harmony demanded the question:
for memory of those dead at Dier Kenton Vale, Arithon challenged
every moral brought to bear, all principle raised as banner and cause

175

]ANNY WURT$

for bloody war. He unwound reason, unstrung pride, then
the last thread of dignity in regret for the wasting ruin of broken]
Barmaids and barge captains, beringed merchants and their ~
of servants; all, down to the coarsest, unwashed mule drover
unabashed, that husbands and sons should ever leave home to kill
reasons of policy.
    The music surged on, relentless. No one escaped the
shame as those surgical tones unveiled the lie of just trappings.
Arithon showed no pity for mourners. He endorsed no heroic act 0!
sacrifice, but stripped away mankind's penchant for self-righteous
zeal to its core of arrogant futility.

  No cause is scribed in fire and star--
  then whose truth must we heed?
 Why bind the will and blind the heart,
 more lives to rend and bleed?
Our men have gone from home and hearth,
and hate has made us weep!

    His last line dissolved in a flood of diminished harmonics. The
bard damped his strings. Silence descended with the brutality of a
public execution. One second passed, two, with the flames in the
lanterns the only movement in the room and the sough of cold rains,
the sole sound. People were statues, cast in bowed grief. Breath itself
hung suspended.
    Then the bard raised his head. His face was bone pale and remote,
as if the channels just tapped for his art had undone the ties to expres-
sion. His stance as he rose was unsteady. The fingers left gripped to
the lyranthe's slim neck seemed nerveless as winter-dry sticks.
    Dakar roused first out of song-induced stupor. Before the bard
assayed even one infirm step, he broke from his lethargy, squeezed
past packed benches, and crossed the cramped space the audience
had lent for performance. Coin offerings chinked and scattered to his
step. Their dissonance snapped the Masterbard's spell. People stirred
out of stupor, then rocked the close room with sighs and frenetic
exclamation.
    Whatever they tossed to acknowledge this performance, the
reward was unlikely to be silver
    Dakar shouted across a mounting swell of noise. "Come on!" His
hand closed on Arithon's moist velvets. The shoulder underneath
was trembling, no surprise. The musician had played his very spirit
into sound and kept no reserve for recovery. For a bard of such

176

~ped
~ves.
~ies
,ept
 for

FUGITIVE PRINCE

stature, the effects could rival the drifting exhaustion imparted by
acts of grand conjury. Arithon swayed.
    "Damn you for a fool, don't fold on me now." The Mad Prophet
scanned across lanternlit fug; gauged the mismatched cadres of
patrons, the resilient ones rising, as yet wrung too limp to react in
affront for their shattered equilibrium.
    Such backlash would come. The moment their recovery allowed a
recap of Arithon's composition, some inquiring hothead would con-
nect that the lyrics suggested a treasonous dissent against Lysaer's
vaunted Alliance. Violence might be averted only as long as mass
fury was given no target.
 "Arithon," Dakar urged, "you've got to leave, now!"
    Then Caolle arrived, unquestioning and brisk, his broad shoulder
set to brace his liege upright and barge them a path to the stairway.

    Behind a barred door in the upstairs chamber, a candleflame flut-
tered in a saucer of puddled wax. The gusts outside laced rain against
the shingles, while shifting light stippled the dingy plaster walls and
sprawled felted shadow across the floorboards. On the low pallet,
stripped to hose and shirt, and warm under clean bedclothes, Arithon
s'Ffalenn lay asleep. Black hair fringed the unlaced sleeve and fore-
arm which cradled his face. The fair, slim semblance of the dandy had
fled, the small workings of his birth gift erased under force of the
spells newly wrought. His awareness lay immersed in dreamless
oblivion, but peace had come at high cost.
    Worn from his battle to quiet the ferocious bite of s'Ffalenn con-
science, Dakar slumped on a footstool, knees drawn up and fingers
shoved through the bristle of hair at his temples. For all his care, he
felt nagged by failure.
    "Those bindings I set may not hold," he warned Caolle. His voice
seemed unreal, like scratches on glass, to which rain burst in tireless
applause.
    Caolle shifted his stance by the doorway, his reflexes set on flinch-
ing edge by the laughter which burgeoned downstairs. Each racket-
ing burst from the taproom stewed louder, more shrill, touched to a
raw pulse of hysteria. "You're thinking we'd do best to ride out at
once?"
    "That's not possible just now." Dakar chewed his lip, while the
roistering celebrants rattled the floorboards beneath him. "If our
horses are made ready and saddled, the precaution is probably sensi-
ble."

    Caolle made no complaint for the weather, but snatched up his
cloak and departed. The bursting swell of noise as he slipped through
the door increased Dakar's breeding tension. The crowd's temper
built to a vengeful edge, as each housebound riverman sought to rout
grief through indulgence. Beer and carousing could not stem their
blind urge for catharsis. No genius was needed to forewarn that their
mood would grow ugly.
    When they turned, the bard who had kindled their emotions must
be far beyond reach down the road.
    Dakar heaved erect and refastened the bar. The small garret cham-
ber seemed beleaguered by storm and darkness outside, and by the
fiery lusts of Sithaer from below. To mask his worry, the Mad Prophet
scavenged the crumpled heaps of Arithon's cast-off finery. He folded
and smoothed ribboned velvets and fine lace, then repacked the sad-
dlebags, attuned all the while to the prostrate form on the bed.
    Left no other diversion, Dakar fretted. His spurious talent for pre-
science-stirred to the targetless hunch that peril stalked at his back.
Rather than chafe his nerves into jelly, he delved past the wrapped
bulk of Arithon's lyranthe and took up the lethal, cold longsword left
propped against the clothes stand. Even sheathed, the blade sang to
his mage-sense of uncanny, Paravian origins.
    "Bloody death, let me not have to use this," the Mad Prophet whis-
pered. He locked sweaty hands to the stained leather scabbard and
hunkered down with the sword laid across his plump knees.
    Arithon's sprawl on the inn's saggy mattress never shifted. The
uncertain spill from the candle played over his tight-knit frame.
Fanned snarls of black hair seemed to drink the faint light, while his
slackened fingers curled on the sheet seemed masterfully carved out
of alabaster. Such stillness unmasked a frightening vulnerability, a
humanity grown too sharply defined in muscle and tendon and bone.
Never a large man, Arithon had become alarmingly thin and worn.
His wrist might be circled by one finger and thumb, and the cleaved
edge of his cheekbone stood demarked in drawn flesh.
    Dakar tried to recall the last time he heard the prince laugh. "For
mercy, how long can this go on?" he asked an unlistening stillness.
    No answer came. Just the unending chap of the rain through the
rowdier din from the taproom. Dakar rubbed his eyes. The sword in
his lap seemed a wrapped bar of ice, his body like storm-sodden clay.
He shifted his shoulders, then ordered his mind in a ruthless effort to
stay alert. His gaze drifted anyway. The mingled, fusty scents of wool
and hot wax conspired to clog his trained senses.
  Then the candle fluttered in spent fuel and went out. Dakar grum-

178

FUGITI~œ I~RINCE

 bled an oath, loath to rise up and scrounge a fresh light. He never
 remembered falling asleep. But the transition back into wakefulness
 came like a drowning douse in warm syrup. The Mad Prophet.raised
 his head. Vaguely alarmed, he fought lassitude and wondered why
 his mind should seem bogged in a spell weave. He mumbled a
 cantrip of unbinding by reflex, then chastised himself for absurdity.
 He could scarcely be misdirected enough to succumb to his own
 arcane workings.
     Yet the counterspell ripped the blank fog from his mind all the
 same.
     "Arithon, damn you? Fully roused to annoyance, Dakar scram-
 bled upright. His fists flailed limp cloth, the bedclothes his ungrateful
 royalty had thrashed off. The sword no longer lay near to hand.
 Dakar dived for it, groped, found its firm length fallen beneath tum-
 bled blankets. He snagged a hangnail, tugged. The hilt remained
 mired past reach of his burrowing fingers. He shoved erect, frantic,
 and almost fell flat in collision with a fast-moving body.  "Sithaer's black furies, Arithon!"
    His cry raised no answer; too much to hope that the Prince of
Rathain possessed anything near waking sanity. Arithon could be
bent on who knew what mayhem, seized as he was in the grip of vile
dreams, and unable to shake the ties of strong sleep spells wrought
over him. Whipped to blind fight, few men alive were as dangerous.
    Dakar plowed to his feet. Poor candidate for heroics, he whacked
his shin on the stool, howled from frustration, and launched off in
blundering pursuit. His toe hooked the table leg. The candle dish fell,
splashing the floorboards with crockery. Too flustered to question
why his mage-sight seemed trammeled, Dakar dove in a tackling
pounce through the murk.
    He struck flesh, grabbed. An elbow sledged into his jaw. "Merciful
Ath! Arithon, you're dreatning! Wake up!"
    The mazed creature he grappled spun about, bashed him spine
first against the washstand. Basin and tin pitcher clattered askew,
dousing his neck in cold water.
    "Arithon!" Dakar ripped in a breath that shot branding fire through
his chest. "Stop this! Now!" The next hammering blow broke his hold.
He dropped, tasted blood from a bitten lip. The jolt as he crashed full
length turned his head. Through dizzying pain and a fall of spun
shadow, he heard the grind as the door bar slipped free. "Ath, no!"
    The latch clanged, gave; the panel swung wide. An influx of chill
air from the corridor wafted past Dakar's damp face. He scrambled
back upright, agonized to find his recovery came too late to matter.

179

                J ~e~ eq i-q -~ '~iF ~ I~ q~ ~
 He rushed anyhow, tri/~ved over the tih basin, and skated
swath off flung water. Beleaguered          _
of wind, he made a fu '1~ ú ....       , hal[~ stu~ed, and griped,
Should                                              tu~ ~tori tO (2all War~l~%. %~x~ ~a~
           ~rit~o~ ~e~ ~ut ~kt~ ~ ~~ ~ ~xx~ ....
~ ~~ ~ ~x~ ~_ ~ ~ ~.~.~
 ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~. ~.~                                                ~'~

    ~~ _
         ~ ~ ~~ .~ ~ ~
         ~-~ ~ ~ ~ ~,
         ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~
          ~ ~x~ ~ c~ ~ ~ ~t ~
          s~ ~. ~ ~ ~
            ~iV his a~ile ~uarry ~ the doo~ay.
            ~ailed boards Goaned and flexed ~ oblig~ reply, but ~0t to
            block Arithon's passage. ~stead, Dakar ~mself caught the assaul~g
            st~ of wa~ed forces. He yelped ~ vexation, too braised t0 evade
            what he only no~ tagged as a ~rror-keyed spell of deflection.
            ~en ~s own has~ conju~ rebo~ded on its maker and accom-
            plished its end like fell vengeance.
            Dakar s~bbed ~s toe on an ~even plak, crashed full length, and
            s~dded. His palms caught a nas~ scour~g of spl~ters. The more
            frig~te~g ~th huzt worse ~an the pa~: b~on~ un~ doubt, ~he ~.
            ter o~ Sh~dom mus mielding his t~lent ~or ~gecr~.
            "Curse me with fiends, ~at shouldn't be possibleS" Dakar scram-
            bled upright, vexed to despair.
            Always before, the block had rema~ed beyond reach of Ari~ho~s
            resource, the tra~ed powers of his upbr~g~g shacked in Built ~y
            his imposed royal gift of compassion. Too late now, to avert a di~a~t~:_
            past imaging. ~e Mad ~rophet latched ~ hotfoot pursuit. This
            was a rea~ where Lysaer's crown campai~ to eradicate sorcery
            brought vic~ms to the stake without ~ial. Too real, the chance that
            Earl Jieret's augu~ ~ght come due ~ t~s backwater se~lement.
            Bzeat~ess, stabbed at each step by ~e grate of a czacked rib, Dakar
            reached the opened door. ~e hallway beyond showed ~m rows of
            closed rooms, the end by the sta~ banked ~ shadow. Dakar dammed
            back ~s rasp~g breath. ~ough ~e mas~g noise ~om ~e revelers,
            he listened, but detected no scuffle of footsteps. Arithon s'Ffalenn
            could move like a ghost, even with no gifts to ~de ~. ~e dar~ess
            he called to mask ~s escape h~g too t~ck, even to pass the f~e, sig-
            na~re energies w~ch ~de~ed all t~gs of substance. Dakar
            s~a~ed ~s mage-sight, but recav~red no gl~mer of vatte~ ~o
            guide ~.

180

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 Resigned, he plunged into that blind dark by touch. His best
 course lay in reaching the stables. Caolle deserved warning. After
 i that, the flimsy hope must suffice, that their combined efforts would
 be enough to extricate the Shadow Master from whatever brawling
 havoc arose from his foray through the taproom.
     Dakar tracked the wall with a palm stubbed with splinters and
 minced his hampered way forward. Above the racketing clamor
 belowstairs, he heard someone bellow: Caolle, returned from sad-
 dling their mounts against need, and confounded to find himself
 under attack as Arithon sought fugitive exit.
     "Don't let him get past!" Dakar rushed to stop Rathain's prince
 from doubling back through the hallway.
    Ahead, grunts of effort, then an alarming thump. A body cracked
through the oak banister. Caolle snarled an oath. Someone's knuck-
les smacked flesh. An incongruous reek of pitch smoke spiraled up
from the stairwell. Dakar winced through a snort of laughter. Barbar-
ian to his core, the clansman stuck by his cantankerous habit of lift-
ing the coachmen's torches from the stable yard to light his way
within doors. Between prince and liegeman, the battle raged on, a
no-holds-barred scuffle fought on the steps with fists and fire and
fell shadow.
    A wooden-sounding thunk bought a surcease from darkness.
Dakar blinked to adjust abused eyesight. Against the filtered glare
from the taproom, Caolle poised with one massive fist clenched to the
haft of his cresset. The flame had extinguished. Sultry coals still flared
from the tip, laced in demonic trails of spent smoke. Collapsed in a
heap against his braced feet lay Arithon s'Ffalenn, a welted mass of
newly raised blisters glistening across his forehead.
    "Ath, he went mad!" Still brandishing his bludgeon, Caolle
glanced past his shoulder as if he expected another assault from
behind.
    Dakar made neither excuse nor denial. "Lucky the meatbrains
downstairs are flat drunk. We'd best move your liege before some
sweaty john wheedles one of the barmaids upstairs." He ignored his
own throbbing chorus of aches, knelt over Arithon, and helped Caolle
check for lingering injury.
    "No broken bones. That's better than he deserves." Caolle for a
mercy never stalled over questions. He licked a bloodied knuckle,
jammed his spent torch in the stump of the banister, then bent to the
task of hefting royalty. "Runt sized or no, his Grace fights like
Sithaer's furies." An accusatory glower shot back as he straightened
and took note of Dakar's hitched stance. "Kicked you also, I see."

181

  keep me from riding."
     Caolle let thatpass with a dubious grunt and plowed onward with
 Arithon across his shoulders like bagged game. "Well, whatever
 undid him, I'll hear a reason. For this, there'd better be cause fit to
 stop Dharkaron ' s almighty justice."
      13ut time was not given, even œor Dakar to out[inc the gist of disas-
ter. On return to the room, Arithon stirred the moment Caolle ]aid
him back on the bed. Since the damaged bindings of the sleep spell
were now too perilous an influence to keep, Dakar effected their
immediate release.
    The Master of Shadow regained full awareness at once, his pupils
black and wide in the flare of the candle Caolle brought to measure
his reflexes.
    "No concussion. You're lucky," Dakar pronounced. Too heartsick
to meet the anguished recognition unveiled in those wakened, green
eyes, he held out a ripped twist of linen, soal(ed in the spill from the
washbasin.
    Arithon took the offering. As wary himself of prying observation.
he pressed the compress over his scorched forehead. He asked just
one question; heard from Caolle of the torch used at need to take him
down. Then he sucked a sharp breath through shut teeth and let the
sting to his outraged flesh stall off unpleasant explanation.
    Too brusque for tact, Caolle showed him no quarter. "Liege, what
evil possessed you?"
    "Ath, let him collect himselfi" Dakar snapped, detesting the pit,v
that made him speak in defense.
  "I can't be spared," Arithon contradicted.
    The ground-glass hurt in his voice set even Caolle aback. In word-
less embarrassment, the clansman pawed through the fallen blankets
to recover the stool. That evasion helped nothing. On the floor lay the
Paravian-wrought sword; the bared sweep of black quillohs offered
stark enough proof of a trust gone desperately amiss.
    "You reached for Alithiel!" Arithon cried, the name of the blade
charged with horror.
  The Mad Prophet lost his chance to soften the impact.
    "Yes, it's the curse!" Arithon snapped, the admission jerked out
like barbed steel from a nerve. "Desh-thiere's touch has warped me,
never for a moment forget this." For Caolle, he explained his razor-
edged quandary. "The geas which drives me to destroy my half
brother grows ever more uncontrollable. That's why Dakar holds mv

182

]ANNY WURTS

    "One rib. Only cracked." Dakar raised a hand to wave off the mat-
ter, then gave up the gesture for speech that hurt just as much. "Won't
keep me from riding."
    Caolle let that pass with a dubious grunt and plowed onward with
Arithon across his shoulders like bagged game. "Well, whatever
undid him, I'll hear a reason. For this, there'd better be cause fit to
stop Dharkaron's almighty justice."
    But time was not given, even for Dakar to outline the gist of disas-
ter on return to the room, Arithon stirred the moment Caolle laid
him back on the bed. Since the damaged bindings of the sleep
were now too perilous an influence to keep, Dakar effected th~ir
immediate release.
    The Master of Shadow regained full awareness at once, his
black and wide in the flare of the candle Caolle brought to meast~t'~,
his reflexes.
    "No concussion. You're lucky," Dakar pronounced. Too h›:~rt~ick
to meet the anguished recognition unveiled in those wakened
eyes, he held out a ripped twist of linen, soalded in the spill fr~,;',
washbasin.
    Arithon took the offering. As wary himself of prying observation,
he pressed the compress over his scorched forehead. He asked just
one question; heard from Caolle of the torch used at need to take
down. Then he sucked a sharp breath through shut teeth and let
sting to his outraged flesh stall off unpleasant explanation.
    Too brusque for tact, Caolle showed him no quarter. "Liege,
evil possessed you?"
    "Ath, let him collect himself!" Dakar snapped, detesting the
that made him speak in defense.
  "I can't be spared," Arithon contradicted.
  The ground-glass hurt in his voice set even Caolle aback. In
less embarrassment, the clansman pawed through the fallen blanL,t-
to recover the stool. That evasion helped nothing. on the floor lav t i
Paravian-wrought sword; the bared sweep of black quillors offer,,,i
stark enough proof of a trust gone desperately amiss.
    "You reached for Alithiel!" Arithon cried, the name of the
charged with horror.
  The Mad Prophet lost his chance to soften the impact.
    "Yes, it's the curse!" Arithon snapped, the admission jerked ot~t
like barbed steel from a nerve. "Desh-thiere's touch has warped me,
never for a moment forget this." For Caolle, he explained his razor-
edged quandary. "The geas which drives me to destroy my half
brother grows ever more uncontrollable. That's why Dakar holds n~v

182

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 given permission to reach past my deepest defenses. So long as I keep
 ~y right mind, the preventative ought to be binding."
     A moment passed, rinsed in the buttery glow of the candle. "You're
 not always sane," Caolle summed up in his usual, hammer-blow

     ~\rithon shut his eyes. The rag in the mangling grip of his fist could
 scarcely mask his expression. Forced to yield his unwilling confi-
 dence, he lowered his hand, limp now, the knuckles scuffed red from
 ~arped violence. "Yes." A shiver coursed through him. "The curse
 !~as invaded by way of my dreams. Apparently, there, it just claimed
 ~e." He looked up then, his shaming appeal made the worse by his
 ~aflinching dignity. "I'm no fit prince to lead Rathain's clans any-
 n:~re. Caolle, I beg you, accept my release here and now. Take back
 .~ ~ur oath of fealty before the worst happens. Before ~"
     "Before I die by your own hand?" Caolle slammed to his feet.
 Never." He spun and paced, his wheeling shadow too large for the
 ~ tamped room. "Liege, my death is not the worst that could happen.
 t~.v your oath, sealed in blood before Fellowship Sorcerers, I stand
 !~st. Even if your charge to stay alive was not binding,.my heart could
 ~. t !o less. You are the hope for my Lord Jieret's future. The heritage
 , f your bloodline is not revocable, your Grace, any more than my
 , 'wl~ sworn trust."
     "Caolle, could you step out," Dakar pleaded, as much to stop that
 iacerating contest of wills as to seek word with Arithon in private.
    "No. Caolle remains, by command of his prince, if he's too much
the fool to disown me." Arithon sat straight, faced them, the spark in
his eyes too baleful and steady to wear down. "If he stands endan-
gered through guarding my flank, he'll not take those risks in igno-
rance."
    Aware that statement was pitched to provoke, Dakar joined forces,
not just to turn Caolle, but to make Arithon withdraw before ruin
overtook them. "This time, your Grace, you tapped into your train-
ing. You worked talent and wrought conjury against me."  Arithon went white.
    "Not once, but twice." Dakar steeled his nerve and bored in. "My
sleep spells were bent back in deflection against me, and not by an
~utside act of sabotage. When I used force at need to bar your way, all
',.'our sworn permissions were revoked."
    You're quite sure?" Arithon looked as if his own knife had slipped
~nd stabbed him through to the heart. "Ath save us all, then the curse
has subverted even my royabborn gift of compassion." The forearm
half-raised to mask his stark shock dropped nervelessly back in his lap.

183

~ANNY WURTS

      "Not when you're conscious," Dakar amended quickly. Aching too
much to endure forced bravado, he looked aside, and noticed that
Caolle retreated also. As if care œor this prince posed too punishing ~
bust, the ~ru//cJansman busied his lartte hands to right the crashed
washstand and retrieve the dented tin basin.
    Dakar strangled pity out of fear and resumed. "Your Grace, we
can't argue facts. A masterbard's gift grants you linkage through
sound to something akin to your mage-sight. Any performance which
recalls the Mistwraith's influence, like tonight's lament for Diet Ken-
ton's fallen, may well open channels for its curse to exploit." While
Arithon weighed this, Dakar nailed home his point. "I think you know
it's dreadfully unwise to proceed with your mad plots in Tysan."
    "I must," Arithon insisted. The entreaty on his features too
anguished, too vivid, he bared himself to explain. "We need more
ships to seek the Paravians. The clans here require sound vessels and
crews to spare them enslavement on the galleys. Lord Maenol's peo-
ple won't survive the next generation if they are forced to stay land-
bound. They have no recourse left, since their former caithdein gave
her life to declare them my allies. Against Lady Maenalle's execution
on my conscience, I pledged them my word I would help."
    No sensible counsel would move him. A swift, sideward glance
showed that Caolle saw as well. Bull stubborn, or maybe cow stupid,
Dakar tried again all the same. "You do realize that any encounter
with Lysaer could send you over the edge. Not just your sanity, but
the whole of this world would be threatened."
    "I have to go on." A wry bent of humor flexed Arithon's mouth as
the stew downstairs roared to crescendo. Still unapologetic, he deliv-
ered his adamant conclusion. "What's left but to run? And if I turn
tail, that solves nothing. You must understand: this curse just com-
pounds as time passes. Evasion will bring the same downfall. Actions
and will are all I have left to stave off my own self-destruction. Worse
than Lysaer, despair is my enemy."
    "Are you sure?" Dakar pressed. "Do you speak true? Or is your
thinking corrupted by the Mistwraith's geas itself?"
    "Come ahead and find out," Arithon invited. A testy, backhanded
delight lit his face, almost welcome for the change as he shoved to his
feet in familiar, acid-bright temper. "I've always liked fighting my
demons up front. Since I'm dangerous, asleep, we may as well
embrace folly headlong and ride on for Riverton tonight."

    Dawn blazed over the deep estuary at Riverton, a veiling of cirrus
like cloth-of-gold fringe strewn across dove gray silk. Against that gilt

184

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 backdrop, the walled inner city spiked a bristle of towers and battle-
 ments, streamered with pennons and pricked by the rake of ships'
 masts. Seventeen centuries of commerce had overrun the original
 citadel. The flats where the barges docked along the river delta spread
 crammed to bursting with wharves, the arched gateways of coach
 inns set chockablock with boathouses and ferryman's lighters.
     Arithon and Caolle led the horses ashore for stabling with a livery-
 man. Ten paces behind, suspended over water on the gangplank,
 Dakar half sensed something; a fleeting prickle of spent energy, not
 unlike the imprint of a dissipated spell. He suffered a swift pang of
 nausea. Nagged by the oddity, he braced half in dread that his gift of
 prescience might trigger between steps to the dock.
     But his tread on dry boards raised only the expected hollow echo.
 He frowned, paused anyway, plumbed mage-sense until his head
 ached. His search yielded nothing. Only the random, silvered dance
 of energy which patterned grained wood into substance. The air bore
 ordy the reek of black river mud, skeined through by the mulch of
 tumed rose beds in the merchants' garden courtyards, and the sea-
 sonal must of piled leaves.
     Dakar rolled his shoulders, irritable and anxious. All week, he had
 been starting at phantoms, and no wonder. A man with the sense that
 Ath gave a flea would be anyplace else but in the Shadow Master's
 company, inside the crown territory of Tysan.
     Dakar hastened on before Caolle's impatience could shatter the
 morning quiet.
    If the wide, tranquil lanes by the barge docks met misty daybreak
in restraint, by contrast, the harborside reflected a livelihood steeped
from the rowdier tastes of men who plied deepwater shipping. There,
the sky above the roof peaks teemed with raucous gulls. The puddles
in the gutters reeked of flotsam and fish, a furlong removed from the
exquisite walled mansions of the riverfront. The division between
saltwater commerce and fresh lay demarked by the customs keeper's
compound, its seaside encroached on by sagging, tiled roofs and the
storm-weathered planks of old warehouses. The market became the
hub of activity, with its channeled gutters of herringbone brick
spanned by the pilings of squatters' shanties. Behind them, the half-
plank tenements loomed three stories above the street-level sprawl of
bawdy houses and dilapidated taverns. The mews in between held
the seamier sailors' dives, wedged amid tangles of cobblestone alleys
scarcely wide enough to pass single file.
    Arithon traversed the bayside mazes on foot, his lyranthe slung
from his shoulder. His step was unhurried, almost meandering, and

185

JANN� WIJI~T$

everything living made him linger. He dallied to peruse the trinkets
spread on open-air tables; conversed with the idlers leaning on lamp-
posts, or carters, wolfing hot pastries over their slackened reins.
Caolle wore his sword and shadowed his shoulder. Made jumpy by
the lazy accents of townsmen and the hated enclosure of city walls, he
insisted on keeping his hands free. Which left Dakar to heft his tin-
ker's gear, the saddle packs of spare clothing, and the manful share of
complaints.
    "Don't pretend you didn't notice that circle of ash in the market
square." Disgruntled since he had dismissed the painted redhead
whose playful fingers had promised fine dalliance, he groused, "They
burned some poor wretch for the practice of unclean sorcery only yes-
terday."
    A pause, filled by the Mad Prophet's puffing as they jagged up a
narrow stair and passed a darkened archway through a close. His
chorus rang plaintive echoes through a courtyard choked with frost-
withered flowerpots. "The merchants should riot. Who will craft
fiend banes if everyone with mage-sense cowers in fear of execu-
tion?"
    Down a rickle of heaved flagstones, the party of three emerged
back into daylight, with Caolle's grip white on the sword as Arithon
stalled again on his course.
    Dakar scarcely avoided crashing into him. Blinking like a mole
past the bundles clutched to his chest, he snapped, "If you're going to
give silver to every beggar we pass, my back will break before we
find an inn."
    Arithon broke off a quiet sentence with his latest fascination, a
raggedy old salt propped on a crutch. "That's heartless bad man-
ners," he admonished.
    Less eloquent, the beggar hawked and spat on the offensive
Prophet's boot.
  "You toad-humping spawn of a maggot!" screeched Dakar
    The beggar cracked into devilish, deep laughter "Now didn't you
say the same on the day you crammed yourself into that beer cask
and we heaved you afloat on Garth's Pond?"
    Dakar's eyes widened. The jab of Caolle's elbow into barely healed
ribs nipped his cry of recognition just in time. "I'm sorry," he gasped
when he could manage civil speech. Through another glare at
Arithon, he added, "Our singer here has a soft heart and a head as
addled as a duck's egg. We'd all join you in the streets before he'd let
a layabout go hungry."
  The beggar flashed a tigerish grin, none other than the lame joiner

186

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 whose past touch at subterfuge had once helped the theft of a
 princess's ransom. "Ye won't lack for beer and feather mattresses, I'd
 say. Not in the company of a bard whose playing could charm life
 into a stone gargoyle. The Laughing Captain, hard by the shipyards,
 is a tavern to welcome a good singer."
     That suggestion passed off in languid disinterest, Arithon pursued,
 "If Lysaer's royal guardsmen are busy burning talent, what does this
 city do for fiend bane?"
     The beggar scratched his chin. "Well now, the Koriathain fashioned
 the talismans for the yard. Merchant guilds signed oath of debt for
 that." An expert lag, while scruffy fingers poked for lice; until
 Arithon's hand obligingly dipped into his purse. In glad speculation,
the joiner delivered. "For the rest, we had a good bell founder."
  Arithon's interest lit. "Had?"
    "Aye. Man's fair useless to anyone now. Born without perfect
pitch, see? Can't rematch the tone since one of his master set's
cracked." Nonplussed by Dakar's scowl, the scoundrel joiner palreed
coins as though he had begged all his life. "Strolling that way, are
you? Yon craftshop's off Chandler's Alley."
    Yet if the bell founder's plight concerned Arithon s'Ffalenn, the
path he chose to the harborside became everything else but direct.
His small party tailed him in and out of three wineshops. Underneath
the planked walkways which linked the close tenements, he shared
biscuits with the filthy children who lived by picking pockets in the
shadows. Dakar battled his shortening temper. Each move seemed to
fuel his anxiety. More than once he spun around, certain someone
was dogging his heels. He saw only slinking alley cats and rats. His
skin stayed nipped into gooseflesh, as if the creatures were golems
raised from bones, and set spying by furtive conjury.
    Oblivious, Arithon loitered to gossip with a laundry girl, rinsing
linens on a gallery, while Caolle dodged wind-scattered droplets of
runoff, and Dakar fumed in annoyance. His chastised survey of each
chance-met acquaintance revealed no other familiar faces.
    The day wore past noon. Arithon jaunted through the sailors' mar-
ket, loquaciously intrigued with its glass beads and shell trinkets; its
whalebone charms against drowning, and its philters and potions
mixed against ague and hangover and whore's pox. He chaffed the
apothecary and acquired a posy of dried catmint. A second talisman
maker sold him assorted tin scraps in a sack.
    Jostled by a press of tar-smell'rag riggers, they withstood the buffet-
ing sea breeze while Arithon purchased a burgundy silk waistcoat
trimmed with mother-of-pearl spangles.

187

 Before suffering another zigzagging course through the market,
 Dakar balked and dropped all the packs on the cobbles. "No more."
    Arithon looked at him, eyebrows raised, then unslung the lyranthe
from his shoulder. "Hold this," he bade Caolle, then balanced his sack
of tin leavings on top of the load.
    R/ght there in the street, amid rumbling drays and carters who
swore and reined their racketing teams around him, he donned his
ridiculous glad rags.
    The maroon-and-gold garment clashed stupendously with moss
green hose. Dakar gave way to disgust. "Spare us all, you're a sight to
make a corpse walk."
    Arithon grinned, an edged flash of teeth. "I agree. After the clothes,
who will look at the face?" He asked back his instrument, to Caolle's
relief, then waded undaunted through the rows of shawled women
packing salt barrels.
    Dakar's vociferous frustration cracked echoes off the mews cho-
sen this time for an exit. He sucked in a breath and choked on the
miasma of tar and hot wax. His next comment was expelled as a
cough. They had entered Chandler's Alley from the north. The craft-
shop of the benighted bell founder loomed ahead, every casement
boarded up, and its signpost demolished to slivers. The cobbles
beneath were sugared in smashed glass and the shards of pulverized
roof slates.
    The Mad Prophet gave the warped door, the bent nails, the litter of
bashed casements his expert survey, and chuckled. "Ath. The iyats
are having themselves a field day."
    Arithon leaned close, cautious in a realm where mage talents lay
under interdict. "They're still here? You can see them?"
    Dakar nodded. His trained eye picked out the whorled dimples of
distressed air which pocked the shop front and the surrounding alley,
unmistakable trace of the energy sprites' presence. "The whole place
is riddied. Do you guess this is sport, or plain revenge for the fact the
warding bells are out of true?"
    "Likely both," said Arithon s'Ffalerm in delight, "and for us, a rap-
turous throw of fortune." He banged on the door, which swung
inward on shrieking, bent hinges.
    A short step into a lanternless dimness, then a violent stir from the
shadows: an angular crane of a man scrunched across a piney spill of
sawdust, most likely scattered to cushion the impact of tools the
rampaging iyats might throw down. "Are you blind?" he howled in
calamitous agitation. "Get you out. We're fiend plagued and closed!"
Dakar cringed, face masked in his hands; Arithon tucked back an

188

 xhalation suspiciously like laughter; while the fiends, busy crea-
 tures, rocked into a wakened frenzy of assault.

fA tin cup chained to a fallen washbasin gyrated in crazed circles in
the dark. Something else made of wood, a potstand or a close stool,
~ galloped to life on a circling course to smash ankles. Caolle yelled,
[ stamped down on an offending pair of fire tongs which tried to stab
holes in his boots, while a row of tin canisters rocked as if to dump
themselves over his head.
     "Ath, see what you've done!" the bell founder screeched above
 burgeoning commotion. "The blighted infestation has started all over
 again!"
     Iyats enjoyed feeding upon human rage. Hand-wringing, dithering
 hysteria teased them on. Recharged to delight, they obliged, and
 seized on wild energy to fuel a new round of pranks.
     The cup snapped its tether, shot off into space, and clanged into a
 hamper of metal scrap. The lot toppled with a deranged, bell'mg crash
 over the workbench with its crucibles and anvil. Filings and scrolls of
 shaved iron whirred airborne, a threat to eyesight and flesh. Through
 that scourging storm, and the craftsman's imprecations, a sound to
 drill through quartz: Arithon whistled a shattering threnody.
     Scrap metal dashed to the floor like dropped chaff. The close stool
 toppled flat and lay with its legs po'mted skyward, while from every
 darkened comer, the artisan's dropped wares belied in resonant, dis-
 sonant sympathy.
     The rampaging fiends ceased their mischief. Under threat of disso-
 lution from those ranging harmonics, they unraveled their energies
 from purlo'med items and fled. Their departure, willy-nilly, raised
 small flurries of ripped air, the ping of popped nails, and a staccato
 barrage of cracked boards and burst shutters. Inside a handful of
 heartbeats, the sawdusty gloom subsided to muffling silence.
     "Praise Ath Creator!" The bell founder gaped. His protuberant
 eyes cast right and left, but saw nothing except blessed stillness.
 "Here's a bard!" Nary an iyat remained on his premises, and the
 impact of rescue sank in. "A bard with a true ear for fiend bane." He
 kicked through his muddle of violated belong'rags, snatched
 Arithon's sleeves, then thumped to his knees and gushed out his tear-
 ful apologies. "I had no idea. None. Forgive my rude welcome. What
 amends can I make to beg for a ward on my shop?"
     "A fee." Arithon slipped his wrists free of moist fingers, amused
 and cool, but not unkindly. "You've no cause to plead. I don't have
 the talent to set lasting protections. But to place the pitch to recast
 your cracked bell, a sum of ten silvers will suffice."

189

               J..4'..-~.,~v /4r~,'.,4~-5

    "Bless you m~[" ~e craffsm~ scrambled erect and cit~sed on ~
find with doggish, backslapp~g eagerness. "~at's far less than y0m
talent dese~es."
     C~e ~c~& ~ &~ ~ ~-~x~& ~x~, ~ ~c~ ~ ~ ~
 respect sho~n ~o ~s Yxege as for the ~voXous delay. Arithoif s h~0~
 stayed un~ffied. For a private man who disliked berg touched, he
 weaVered his paffon's ~c~ous handl~g with s~i~ng equa~.
     ~ich anomaly at last snapped Dakar to cold thought. He ~d
 accompa~ed Arithon's travels too long not to sense another sea~
 thread of subter~ge. Nor did his h~ch prove ~splaced. ~e repua-
 ~on the bard earned in that one afternoon won them the most sm~
 ~ous, private room ~ ~e Laug~g Capta~ Tavern for tb~ ;e~,~)ba,
 week, free of charge.
     Event fell out with na~ral elegance that, after Arithon's m0~ng
 of ply~g gossip kom passersby and his kesh notorie~ at the bell
 founder's, a nonstop s~eam of ~verton's folk should stop t0
 exchange words ~ the taproom.
     Nor did eve~ admirer wear the face of a s~ger Dakar rec0g-
 ~xzed a ropewalker, a handel of canlkers, ~d ~o doxies ~ed
 through the arms of a suspiciously ia~xYxar s~x~and. A stree~ c~k~
 sidled up, brother to one who had se~ed them before as inform~t
 through a forced stay ~ Jaelot. Ath alone ~ew how the filthy ~lte
 had tracked Arithon the width of the con~ent.
     Inevitably also came Cat~ick, covert conspirator to the Shadow
 Master's cause, and paid master of Tys~'s royal shipyard.
     Dakar caught first sight of h~, a bluff, square man whose muscu-
 lar ~ead rivaled Caolle's for s~eng~, and whose presence exuded
 authori~. He elbowed his way t~ough the press of galleymen,
 carous~g dec,ands, and off-du~ royal ~ards as if he expected due
 deference, ~s immense, callused hands broad enough to span the
 slopp~g rims of four tankards. ~e squat to ~s eye from sight~g
 straight board lengths, or the l~es of new keels on their bedlogs, had
 grown more pronounced t~ough the years s~ce the Khetienn's first
 launch~g ~ Merior La~ shocks of brown hair still licked his wide
 shoulders, a new gleam of silver at the temples.
     ~e g~ff, ram's horn bellow he used ~ the sawpits vanquished
 the taproom's ra~ noise. "Beer for you, singer, and for your compan-
 ions. You'll need to get d~ to raise any me t~ough this racket."
     He barged himself a seat on an overcrowded bench. ~e redolence
 of p~e res~ and coal smoke kom the boiler sheds laced through the
 ~g, and earned glares kom a foppish pair of soap merchants. Cat-
 trick scarcely cared. Braced on ~s forea~ ~ a loose, sailhand's

190

shirt, ne cut an enormous, roug'n ~q
clean in his flashy silk waistcoat and
the tankards brimmed over, his still~
~cars arid c['tsm'tssed them. The weal~
 ca?ec~ cloak me~i~eck ~xo cl, ose~ s,a~w
 indolent, small frame of the singer 1'
 took note of Dakar's closemouthed,
 ered back. "Demons take all, minstr
 bed a bony-arsed spinster. Are ye
 brought fresh-squeezed cider?"
  Arithon grinned. "Man enough
 ~C~ta~o i'~rc'bI~,'2f% c~(2Ofr~ AK~rl.k~".
 reversed, he stung back. "Best you
 month. Or did the street gossips
 your last brig sailed hull down ov
 no doubt, by her ill-fitted seams,
 habits."
      "Tongue �xke a viper, you have.
  who can shrill sour notes to bm
  s~ a\\t~m t~ ~oeex,~r~x~ se~X\e~ B~
  lidded gaze still hunting. "BeyoJ
  your rffx~k-tongued caterwaulinl
  moonSaced in their cups, and I'
  come the morning. Sprung plan]
  to sight north and south on a rn
  bold, you'll have enemies vying
  gatekeep."
       A smile from the bard,,then a4
   to a standstill, first. It by then,.
   with the rest, let's find out who'
       The burly master joiner palrr
   stare. This game was not new.
   lence; if they came with quirks
   nose led, he must expect to cros.,
   "Well?" needled the bard.
       Cattrick slammed the trestle
   tured a man whose interests h~
   no regret for that incident; nor
   bargainer chose to bury the n
   done and Dharkaron take the 1:
   tankard in cocky salute, shove{
   refill, while Arithon received a~

]ANNY WUI~TS

    "Bless you man!" The craftsman scrambled erect and closed on his
find with doggish, backslapping eagerness. "That's far less than your
talent deserves."
    Caolle scuffed sawdust in stiff-lipped distaste, as much for the dis-
respect shown to his liege as for the frivolous delay. Arithon's humor
stayed unruffled. For a private man who disliked being touched, he
weathered his patron's unctuous handling with striking equanimity.
    Which anomaly at last snapped Dakar to cold thought. He had
accompanied Arithon's travels too long not to sense another seamless
thread of subterfuge. Nor did his hunch prove misplaced. The reputa-
tion the bard earned in that one afternoon won them the most sump-
tuous, private room in the Laughing Captain Tavern for the rest of the
week, free of charge.
    Event fell out with natural elegance that, after Arithon's morning
of plying gossip from passersby and his fresh notoriety at the bell
founder's, a nonstop stream of Riverton's folk should stop to
exchange words in the taproom.
    Nor did every admirer wear the face of a stranger. Dakar recog-
nized a ropewalker, a handful of caulkers, and two doxies twined
through the arms of a suspiciously familiar sailhand. A street child
sidled up, brother to one who had served them before as informant
through a forced stay in Jaelot. Ath alone knew how the filthy mite
had tracked Arithon the width of the continent.
    Inevitably also came Cattrick, covert conspirator to the Shadow
Master's cause, and paid master of Tysan's royal shipyard.
    Dakar caught first sight of him, a bluff, square man whose muscu-
lar tread rivaled Caolle's for strength, and whose presence exuded
authority. He elbowed his way through the press of galleymen,
carousing deckhands, and off-duty royal guards as if he expected due
deference, his immense, callused hands broad enough to span the
slopping rims of four tankards. The squint to his eye from sighting
straight board lengths, or the lines of new keels on their bedlogs, had
grown more pronounced through the years since the Khetienn's first
launching in Merior. Lank shocks of brown hair still licked his wide
shoulders, a new gleam of silver at the temples.
    The gruff, ram's horn bellow he used in the sawpits vanquished
the taproom's rank noise. "Beer for you, singer, and for your compan-
ions. You'll need to get drunk to raise any tune through this racket."
    He barged himself a seat on an overcrowded bench. The redolence
of pine resin and coal smoke from the boiler sheds laced through the
fug, and earned glares from a foppish pair of soap merchants. Cat-
trick scarcely cared. Braced on his forearms in a loose, sailhand's

190

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 ~hirt, he cut an enormous, rough figure alongside the bard, neatly
 dean in his flashy silk waistcoat and cap of feathered, pale hair. While
 the tankards brimmed over, his stilled, intense eyes took in Caolle's
 scars and dismissed them. The weapons concealed by the clansman's
 caped cloak merited no closer survey. His attention swept over the
 indolent, small frame of the singer he knew for the Master of Shadow,
 took note of Dakar's closemouthed expectation beside him, then flick-
 ered back. "Demons take all, minstrel. Ye've scarcely the substance to
 bed a bony-arsed spinster. Are ye man enough, or should I have
 brought fresh-squeezed cider?"
     Arithon grinned. "Man enough to deplore the childish need for
 contests involving strong drink." That opening salvo cheerfully
 reversed, he stung back. "Best you stay sober for your launching next
 month. Or did the street gossips malign you for nothing? They say
 your last brig sailed hull down over the horizon and vanished. Sunk,
 no doubt, by her ill-fitted seams, if you rate a man's wits by his bar
 habits."
    "Tongue like a viper, you have. Same as every other skinny warbler
who can shrill sour notes to banish iyats." Cattrick downed a vast
swallow of beer, his settled bulk like an owl on a branch, his half-
lidded gaze still hunting. "Beyond wails for fiend bane, what use is
your milk-tongued caterwauling? Lure out my craftsmen to hang
moonfaced in their cups, and I'll have smashed fingers in the yard
come the morning. Sprtmg planking too, if the lads get too muddled
to sight north and south on a measurement. Mind your step. Go too
bold, you'll have enemies vying to spike your feckless head atop the
gatekeep."
    A smile from the bard, then a challenge. "Let me play this taproom
to a standstill, first. If by then you aren't flopped beneath the trestle
with the rest, let's find out who's effete over fine brandy in private."
    The burly master joiner palmed a belch and gave back a level, hard
stare. This game was not new. Arithon chose his associates for excel-
lence; if they came with quirks or tmruly character, or balked at being
nose led, he must expect to cross wits to extract the service he angled for.
"Well?" needled the bard.
    Cattrick slammed the trestle with a fist, the same that had once tor-
tured a man whose interests had thoughtlessly crossed him. He held
no regret for that incident; nor would he lose sleep if this latest slick
bargainer chose to bury the memory. "You want a contest? Said is
done and Dharkaron take the hindmost." The shipwright drained his
tankard in cocky salute, shoved erect, and plowed his way back for a
refill, while Arithon received an unsettled glower from Caolle.

191

]ANNY ~UI~ TS

    "I thought you claimed you had Cattrick in hand," the Mad
Prophet murmured, voice muffled as he peered into the dregs of the
beer the ship's joiner had left him. "Those insults came barbed, or I'm
a grandmother goat's arse."
    Arithon shot off a sparkling run to retest the pitch of his strings.
"It's a[[~ea]ou~)~" he agreed, eyes alight with innuendo. "Somebody's
welcome was a shade ~oo waa~n and that clerkish little guardsman
behind us returned a bit too pointed an interest,"
    Before Dakar could weigh evidence to tell if the threat was a glib œab-
rication to divert him, the bard rollicked into the reeling, first measures
of a bawdy dockside ballad. His tempered voice cut the noise like
struck bronze, suspending discussion and argument. Nearby drinkers
erupted to their feet with yells of delight. Wolfish sailhands stayed their
dice games, and merchants, their dickering, while barmaids caught the
coppers flung onto their trays and bustled to the tap to fetch tankards.
By the time the bard closed the last chorus, the common room rocked to
the thrill of discovery. He gave his audience no chance to let down, but
flowed seamlessly on to the fast, fired lilt of a hornpipe.
    Town ministers started stamping, despite their immaculate velvets.
Tar-begrimed deckhands whistled and leaped on the trestles to clog
step, then dragged doxies along as the frenzied, wild tempo rocked
up one key and took flight. A figure of calm amid heaving pandemo-
nium, Arithon played, head bent and foot briskly tapping. His spirit
led the dance, surrendered on demand to the weave of the intricate
melody. Precise as stitched gold, each grace note splashed out in
ecstatic execution. His was command of a masterbard's style and to
any with mage-sight, the air in his presence became charged into glit-
tering brilliance. His listeners could not help but ignite in conflagra-
tion, while the trained snap and flex of his fingers wrought joy from
wound metal strings and inspiration.
    Through stamping applause, the landlord shoved in to extend
pledge of free lodging. "Whatever the house has to offer, it's yours
as long as you're minded to stay."
    "A year for one percent from the till, and the coin any well-wis~ng'r~
toss at my feet," Arithon bargained.
    "On those terms? Bless you, I'd fund your retirement and
come!" Unable to contain his disbelief and good fortune, the landlord
beckoned to his comeliest serving girl. "Give the minstrel and his
servants any damned thing they might ask."
    While her painted, sloe eyes gauged the way the singer filled his
clothes and warmed into frank invitation, the landlord moved off,
chuckling.

192

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

     "Any damned thing?" Arithon awarded her lush favors the com-
 pliment of his smile and snapped a sprightly run from his strings.
 "Then keep my friend the tinker in beer. That's work enough for a
 brigade."
     The Mad Prophet's indignant riposte became lost in braw noise as
 the tap's salty patrons clanked knives on the boards in demand of a
 repeat performance. Head tipped aslant, Arithon obliged them, song
 after song, until evening wore away and his listening crowd roared
 itself to exhaustion. While the standing survivors reeled their way
 homeward, the landlord gloated over empty casks and filled strong-
 boxes, his smile all but nailed in place.
     The bard arose then, stretched, wrapped his lyranthe in no hurry.
 Caolle knelt unbidden and raked up the abundance of silver tossed
 down by generous admirers.
    "Do you offer the plate scrapings to the street orphans?" Arithon
asked.
    The landlord bobbed up from the gloom behind the bar, a polish-
ing rag in his hand. "I give the ones willing to scrub pots all the leav-
ings. Do you want to save the small coppers for them? You needn't.
That custom's lapsed since my grandsire's time."
    Arithon shrugged. "I keep stubborn habits. Just make sure the girl
who sweeps up knows how to count in fair portions." The instrument
slung from his shoulder, he seemed impatient to depart.
    Dakar showed no inclination to move, settled as he was in brosy
content with the barmaid cuddled in his lap. "It's grown desperate
late," he complained in a beery slur. "Can't you bear to forego the
indulgence of sucking down brandy with Cattrick?"
    "I daren't," said Afithon. "Caolle can watch my back." His step ghost
light before his liegeman's solid tread, he picked a path through prone
revelers to attend his match with the master of Riverton's shipyard.
    "Dharkaron wept!" The Mad Prophet groaned in low misery as he
peeled off the doxie and apologized. "Before you ask, yes. We're
surely as moon mad as he."
    Desperate not to care how severely he was weaving, he crossed the
puddled taproom in Arithon's wake, to yelps and grunts from the
inebriated bodies he disturbed on his course for the stairway.

193

Autumn 5552

Payment and Bribe

The Laughing Captain's best guest suite still wore its origins as a
shoreside madam's boudoir, bed hangings and dagged curtains done
in gaudy, flame scarlet, tied back with gold-shot cord. Despite a case-
ment cracked open to catch the sea breeze, an ingrained cloy of
patchouli clung to the air and the rugs. The clothes chests were pearl
and black lacquer from Vhalzein, new enough that they still smelled
of citrus oil. The washstand supported an ewer of gilded enamel
flaked with chips at the edges, two rails of embroidered towels, and a
pair of pitch-smeared boots just kicked off and crammed with the
wads of shed stockings.
    Their owner had made himself comfortable on the bed, his back to
piled pillows, a cut-crystal decanter propped between the knees of his
patched canvas trousers. The brandy inside pooled pale amber in the
glow shed by beeswax candles on prickets. Not mellow at all in the
haze of soft light, Cattrick tracked Arithon's entrance, slit eyed and
primed for contention.
    "Ye're a master with that," he opened as the bard tucked his lyran-
the away in the wardrobe. "Heard all from here, and it damned well
entertained me. Lysaer will be wild when he learns what's afoot."
  When and not if; the inference bristled like hurled insult.
    Arithon folded himself into the least-cushioned chair, the deep
pleasure instilled by his music yet with him. "Since Avenor's a scant
fifty leagues from this dive, shall we avoid the unpleasantness? If
you're too cowed to pour, I want to be brought up-to-date/'

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 "Well, here's fine impatience." Cattrick's lip curled in sarcasm.
 "Four years is damned long to wait for the asking."
     When Arithon said nothing, he dug through the pillows and
 unearthed two enormous glazed tankards. The clink of Falgaire crys-
 tal and the trickle of neat spirits did little to soothe a stiff pause.
     Cattrick recapped the decanter and poised the filled tankards on
 his thighs. "Since we've rebuilt and launched a replacement for every
 galley that burned in Minderl Bay, the crown's been hiring on riggers
 like ticks. Two-thirds, and the best, are all yours. The caulkers
 recruited from Havish were no good."
     "Too little pay," Arithon supplied. "King Eldir's no fool. He
 funded his craft guilds to keep the well-trained ones at home."
    "Then that's old news." Cattrick shrugged. "Your own crews from
Merior have gradually replaced any second-rate labor. Petty infrac-
tions did for the rest. The plankers and sawyers all have southshore
accents. By Ath, we're so infested with talent a man wonders why
none of it's local." He extended an arm in an effortless stretch, passed
the most brimming vessel to Arithon, then finished, "Ye ken how I
spit on pretty boy hair."
    An undignified thump intervened from outside. Dakar clanged the
latch and demanded admittance, and Caolle moved fast to let him in.
Against a strung stillness, the clansman snapped the door closed, the
hands beneath his cloak clasped to the hilts of his weapons.
    Too drunken for tact as he sized up the tension, Dakar blundered
on, snatched the second tankard from Cattrick's preoccupied hand,
and spouted his venomous opinion. "A friend might believe you
wanted the thrill of seeing a sorcerer burned alive."
    Cattrick's pelt of whiskers parted into a wolfish smile. "I prefer to
speak to my associates firsthand." He uncorked the decanter, rolled a
long swallow of brandy on his tongue, and switched his regard to
frame Arithon. "You're not drinking, either. Does that mean we're too
careful to risk any untoward confidence?"
    "There isn't an abundance of confidence to share." Arithon sam-
pled his drink, grimaced at the sting to a throat stressed from singing,
then tipped his head back in the chair and shut his eyes. He let go a
small binding. The shadows he used to disguise his appearance ran
off like singed silk in the candlelight. When next he looked up, his
eyes were bright green and his hair the sheened black of a raven's
wing. His gift had done more than falsify coloring.
    Now none in his presence could mistake his frank warning: the
exasperation laid bare, or its unwanted corollary, written into the
planes of bone pressed against hollowed, pale flesh. If such an

195

JANNY WURTS

 unmasking had meant to restore confidence, the mistake escaped sal-
 vage as Cattrick leaned forward, eager to test how far he might sway
 ex?osed weakness.
    Dakar felt a sudden grue ream his spine. Hazed by some thwarted
fragment of prescience, or maybe just spurious hunch, he blurted,
"Cattrick, are you in Koriani pay?"
    "Don't answer that!" Arithon sheared in. "I don't believe it." He
did not look settled or sanguine anymore. "Caolle, pass on what we
brought from the tinsmith's, if you please."
    The clansman slipped the sack from the thong at his belt. Never a
man to forbear from sharp action, he hurled it full force toward the
bed.
    Cattrick fielded the catch without upsetting the brandy. Since its
unwieldy bulk required both hands, he nipped off the thong binding
and upended the contents in a caroling chime over the red velvet cov-
erlet.
    Dakar's eyebrows shot up. The tinsmith had delivered in pristine
gold coinage, struck in Havish's fair city of Cheivalt.
    Prepared when Cattrick's lips hardened to contempt, Arithon said,
"That's no bribe. I thought we agreed. A man of your stature can be
paid, but not bought."
    Cattrick lost all his angst to disbelief. "No! Don't say we're due
wages. The crown of Tysan rewards our work well enough."
    "Lysaer's pay is spoils." Enthused beyond weariness, Arithon
laughed at the shipwright's flummoxed startlement. "If you can
unbend on that fine point, let's drink your nice brandy and celebrate.
After all, the miserable galley work's finished. You're laying new
keels for my fleet, now."
    "Ath!" Cattrick slapped his leg in a stymied explosion of temper
"Fiends plague us all, man, you could've sent some sort of word back
after our previous launching! The lads in the yard are the devil to
keep quiet, and I take unkindly to guessing. Did our new brig shake
down in safe passage to Corith?"
    "That much and better," Arithon quipped. "The pay for your
craftsmen was sent from the sale of the cider she carried as cargo.
Now could we back off and swill spirits in earnest? You can sell me
out to my enemies later if my nasty reputation makes you squeamish.
But if we rise tomorrow undamaged by brandy, then all our brash
claims to manly pursuit are going to lie forfeit by default."

    Dakar woke up to hazed pain, as though moths with steel ham-
mers set to with rivets and fastened the inside of his skull to his brain.

196

FUGITIVE PRINCE

His bladder was full, and his tongue, like furred lead. Well versed
with the miseries that came entrenched with cheap beer, he groaned
and shoved upright. With his throbbing head plowed facedown into a
pillow, he fumbled to grab the first container at hand to catch what
his body ejected.
    "You look fit to serve time as ship's ballast," said a quiet, etched
voice across the room.
    A moan escaped ttie pillow. Dakar unshuttered a bloodshot brown
eye and measured his tormentor, who sat tidied and dressed in the
flamboyant elegance expected of bards who garnered a taproom
patronage. "You shouldn't be capable of speech. By Daelion's fell jus-
tice, that brandy would have knocked anyone else down sick as a
mule with a belly full of yew."
    "You're right." Arithon stood, the slashed velvet sleeves of his dou-
blet tacked with matched studs of black pearls. "I should have been,
too, except that I had to render my gorge after Cattrick earned the
good grace to fall senseless. He was packed off home in the slop
taker's cart for the round sum of two silvers."
    "That's thievery." Dakar found the chamber pot. Pillow clenched
now to his heaving belly, he sat, torn by two needs and waiting to see
which bodily orifice was going to demand service first. "Not to men-
tion a waste of fine brandy." Then, disgusted to be caught just as
black as the kettle, he folded in half and gave the selfsame libation to
the vengeful god of brewed hops.
    Erect once again, and vastly more comfortable, he rinsed his sour
mouth and regarded the prince, who thoughtfully seemed to be sort-
ing out yesterday's clothes for him. "We're going someplace?"
    Unwontedly serious, Arithon passed over his shirt, then small-
clothes and breeches in turn. "Yes. There's something I need you
to see."

    Outside, the daylight had lost its dawn blush. The wind blew brisk
with a warning of rain as the spellbinder trailed in the Masterbard's
footsteps through the quay alleys which led west through Riverton.
Gulls screamed and called in a pale citrine sky. Dakar made his way
with hands clamped to his temples, cursing when his feet tripped
him. The fog-dampened cobblestones gleamed like new lead under
the deep gloom of the eaves. Even that minimal glare hurt his eyes.
    "This excursion had damned well better be necessary," he groused
at the crossroads where the wharfside buildings thinned out. The
stone road gave way to a rutted, mud track, interspersed by board
bridges which stitched an uneven course through the mudflats of the

197

IANN� ~VU n T S

Ilswater delta. Low ground wore bearded stands of marsh grass,
interspersed with the less savory industry drawn by a thriving sea
commerce. The air clung with smells. Still sunk in the misery of a
tender stomach, Dakar pressed his cloak hem over his nose to cut
the reek of the tanneries and the dead animal stink of the stock-
yards.
    "Where in bleak Sithaer are you taking me?" he demanded as Arith0n
moved ahead like a wraith through a streamer of late-rising fog.
    "No place that's civil. I'm sorry." Reappeared in solid outline in his
elegant gray silk, Arithon descended a weathered log stair His high
boots wore a fresh coat of wax, no detriment as he picked his way
down a meandering path churned boggy with cow slots and muck.
The ground oozed brackish water, and marsh wrens flitted off the
fluffed heads of the reed stalks.
    "Not the barge docks at the estuary." Dakar grimaced as the wet
soaked through the scuffed leather shoes he persistently neglected to
upkeep. "That's a nasty, rough place to wear pearl-studded clothing.
The meat packers there will knock a man flat just on principle, far less
to snatch any wealth they think they can clean off of your person."
    "We're not dealing with meat packers." Arithon turned sharply left
off the path. Ahead, the land undulated, ochre on gray, the tufted
sedges and marsh grass skirting the verge of the sinkpools dirtied
with crusts of salt rime.
    "Damn you!" snapped Dakar, sunk ankle deep in cold water that
shot pain like iced nails through his headache. "Since reasonable peo-
ple don't wear black pearls for a slogging jaunt through the marshes,
you might have warned I'd get wet."
    A.r~.thon stopped, turned, caught Dakar's moist wrist in hard fin-
gers. "I wil! warn you now to stay silent. Where we're going, i~ we're
seen, we'll find trouble far worse than a meat packer's mannerless
fisticuffs."
    The corollary stayed unspoken, that to chance-met observers with
too much curiosity, a bard who wore clothing fit for rough country
would have business other than minstrelsy. Dakar curbed his com-
plaint. He sloshed at Arithon's heels for a miserable half league,
while his headache settled to roost in his forehead, and his beard
became snagged with shed seed heads. Ahead, the damp ground
arose into a low bluff, combed at the crest with rustling tufts of pale
dune grass. The chatter of male voices issued from the far side, cut
through by the metallic plink of a smith's hammer. Someone's coarse
laughter was met by a shout. As bard and prophet mounted the slope,
they heard an intermittent squeal of wood pressed to wood, telltale

198

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 sign that a barge dragged at fixed bollards in the rip of the tide
 through the estuary.
  "There's a landing here?" Dakar ventured in soft inquiry.
     Arithon nodded, then crouched to avoid being caught in stark sil-
 houette against sky. Screened by the thickets of grass, he pressed for-
 ward, then beckoned for Dakar to share his vantage point.
     The Mad Prophet knelt in his brine-sodden hose. "Smugglers?" he
 whispered.
    "You'll see." Arithon's face stayed attentively trained forward.
"Listen." Stilled as a fox, he strained to glean what he could from the
windblown rags of conversation.
    "Fool dogs didn't scent them," one party blustered. He had rust-
spotted chain mail and the stance of a braggart, meaty arms crossed
on his chest. "The fiends had masked their back trail using green
brush smeared with otter's musk."~ Through the ongoing throes of
involved explanation, someone else cursed the smith for taking a
fussy long time with his rivets.
    The hammer strokes paused, while a curse was returned, and
Dakar parted the grasses. The headland where he and Arithon shel-
tered overhung an alluvial deposit, piled on the bend in one of the
channels which drained the mouth of the Ilswater. The barge dock
which hosted the current activity nestled beneath the steep curve of
the bluffs. The planking was unweathered and new, but built to out-
last winter storms. The bollards were well sunk and braced in roped
triplets, with two vessels currently tied. One was a seagoing galley by
the chipped strakes and dulled paint which bespoke the hard usage
of a trader. The other was a river barge fitted out as a slaver. Half-
naked clansmen stood or sat, chained to steel rings in her deck.
    Dakar knew a white-hot explosion of rage, then an ache beyond
words to express. These were the proud keepers of the old and irre-
placeable bloodlines whose sworn bond of service began at the dawn
of the Third Age. Now, one man's whim reduced their function to
brute labor. By Lysaer's decree of revenge against Maenol, free men
were reduced to the lives of kenneled dogs: a priceless heritage
thrown to entropy and waste; a wild pride darkened to resentment
and despair.
    A hand touched Dakar's rigid wrist in restraint: Arithon's, in for-
bearing compassion. "Those guardsmen can't realize the impacting
scope of their action."
    Dakar choked down his fury. No excuse salved his nerves; not
when he had borne living witness to the past, when the clans had
braved their place as the link between mortal men and the burning,

199

   dire grace o~ ~'ne~ParaV~a~s.~S~~ ~tn%~
   injustice, reduced now to blind hatred and ignorance.
    0thor crucltieo for their needlessness. The captives had n0ttv
  ing beyond the crump/o;/Og//~c0/~'0]7 t~e]?)t]{'~' Most we;e forward
  marred with old bloodsta~s, testament to the violence of the hunt
     that had brought them to capture. ~ey numbered a miserable ~0
 ~//~/d~J clothed and ill fed, their hair wind tangled and their b0di~
                    ' ' /~ZK
 exposed to the chilly caprice of the wea
       ................ ,,~ ~ ~4g~g of royal authori~ oversaw the
  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~xm~- k~x~-
     dom, they traded epithets and }okes as the prisoners were ol~-loaae~
 0,~8~ ~ O..fime_ j~om the b~rge. A small fire flickered on the verge.
 ~ere, a bandy-legged smith fitted eac8 convict with"bn ~rdn c~t-
 and cuffs. His burly apprentice then closed the steel link which fixed
 their chains to a bench on the deck of the trader's galley.
    "Lookit that gimper. Never guess now, but he's the one who fought
like a wildcat." The speaker with the sergeant's badge sliced a thick
finger down his cheek. "Left our capta~ with a scar his wife won't
forgive. Man beat the fool wretch half-senseless for that. He only
stopped when six headhunters pulled him off. ~eir kind breathe and
piss for their money, I swear. To Sithaer with all else, the bounty was
half if the puking clan vermin upped and died."
    Sickened now by worse than a hangover, Dakar saw t~ough the
marks of old bruises, and recognized just whose wrists were being fit-
ted with pe~anent fetters. ~e young man who stood, fighting
tremors of pain, was none other than the scout from Caithwood who
had provided the spare horse for Caolle.
    The sight was one to brand the mind for cruel sorrow: the scout,
chin raised, unwilling to show his graff captors one sign that degra-
dation and suffering touched his spirit. He did not fl~ch as the ham-
mer blows closed the steel rivets, nor when the soldier grasped his
lank braid and hacked the hair short at his nape. His face wore the
battering bruises of rough handling. ~e arm and shoulder showed
the livid scabs left from untended wounds. He walked with a stum-
bling limp as ~o guards prodded him up the ganglank to the gal-
ley. ~ere, his forest-bred ne~e almost failed him. ~e soldiers had to
bundle him up to the bench, force him down, and hold him, while the
apprentice clubbed his jaw to make way for the tools that would
leave him chained like an animal.
    Dakar shut his eyes against pi~ and tears. ~e chance was too real,
that the ships built at Riverton would become the last hope to save
Tysan's dwindled clan bloodlines.

200

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

     "You do see," whispered Arithon. "Maenol's people must be given
 the fair means to fight back."
    Dakar swallowed. He had no argument for stark necessity. Nor
could he summon the cold-hearted logic to decry that the dangers
posed too grave a risk for a prince already under curse by the Mist-
wraith. As a vicious, damp gust raked over the bluff and razed first
warning of winter in a chill that bit to the bone, he took sharp note of
the season. "It's late in the year. Too late for a galley to round
Stormwell Cape. The ice will be moving already in Northstrait. That
ship can't make passage to MiraIt."
"No," Arithon agreed. "There's another incentive as you'll see."
For the galley captain had poked his head out of his snug cabin.
His shout carried clearly to the guard on the dock, who wore the sun-
wheel badge of authority. That one unhooked his thumb from his belt
and strode aboard. Amid brief discussion, he pulled something from
his tunic. A tied leather pouch changed hands. The galleyman shook
the contents. The greed in his smile exposed yellow teeth as he ripped
open the strings and counted the coin, the pale flash of gold a bright
note under the rubbed velvet of the overcast sky.
    "That's a bribe for the harbormaster at Cheivalt," Arithon said.
Even through his low tone of voice, the sorrow wrenched through.
"They defy King Eldir's edict to move the slaves southward through
Havish. Once past Mornos, no mayor in Shand will scruple to disbar
slave-bearing galleys from the seaports. These men will be resold in
Shandor or Vhalzein. If no one intervenes, they might labor until their
death on the southern trade routes."
    "We can stop them." Dakar shoved stubby fingers through his hair,
thinking furious and fast through his hangover. "Send word ahead
that corruption has undermined Havish's edict."
    Arithon's answering smile was cold as the north-shadowed side of
a glacier. "I trust I'm forgiven the price of wet feet? Without an accu-
rate description of that galley, we could do nothing at all."
    Dakar blinked. "Demon," he murmured. "How did you know
where to look for this shifty transaction?"
    "That guard sergeant drank in our taproom last night," Arithon
murmured in reply. "It's a galleyman's dive, you had to have noticed.
The fellow made his contact, then got into his cups and bragged of his
cleverness to a trollop. Amazing, how men with a chit in their lap
think a bard won't take note of plainspoken words while he's play-
ing." The Master of Shadow backed down from the crest then, his
eyes grim as fired enamel. "We should go. There are urgent letters to
be written and sent, and no more to gain here but heartache."

201

Late Autumn 5652

Liaison

Lysaer's royal galley rowed into the snug port at Narms against the
bitter gales which presaged the ending of autumn. Despite wind and
rain, the city did him honor by staging a sumptuous celebration. Feel-
ing ran high in the packed state guildhall. Delegates had traveled
from the far shore of Rathain to fete the prince's grand entry. The
cities of Highscarp, Jaelot, and Werpoint owned a tangible reason to
show gratitude, since the crown's generous restitution for every gal-
ley destroyed by the Master of Shadow at Minderl Bay. Pensions were
allotted for the families left fatherless, and then new ships, replaced
out of Tysan's royal treasury; the gifts did not end with fair frames
and stout planking. Daily, there arrived the convict clan crews to sat-
isfy losses to labor.
    Rathain's grateful guildsmen had underwritten the night's feast.
The wine and the toasts flowed freely. The hour was late when the
Prince of the Light shook off his ardent admirers. He shed the adora-
tion of the last clinging sycophants and retired at length to his cham-
ber.
    The Lord Mayor of Narms had provided his visiting royalty with a
large suite of rooms commanding the sweep of the harbor. The fur-
nishings were heavy, varnished black walnut, and the rugs, woven in
gold ropes with the deep scarlet dyes for which Narms was famed far
and wide. The bedhangings had been scented with dried rose petals.
The basin held lavender water. Towels and soap were of the first qual-
ity, and a tray of rare vintage wine had been left as a courtesy.

202

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    Lysaer paused in the first private moment he had known since the
hour his state galley had left MiraIt Head. As his body servant latched
the door gently behind him, he resisted the frank urge to raise his
hands and massage the ache in his temples. His arrival had gone well.
The pledges obtained for money and troops to build the resources of
his Alliance had poured in, fanned by the bow wake of excitement.
Much rode on his ability to fire such sentiment.
    This was the first diplomatic visit he had paid to Rathain since the
catastrophic loss, when the Master of Shadow had bogged down his
great war host on the shores of Minderl Bay. Letters and gifts had
kept feelings running high in the Alliance's favor, even after six years.
Well cognizant of the snares of intrigue and politics still left to sur-
mount to bring the Spinner of Darkness to destruction, Lysaer stood,
feeling leaden. The luxuries placed in the room for his pleasure did
not comfort, an oddity that jarred after the privations of a rough and
arduous sea crossing.
    Then memory smashed through the warm haze of wine. On his last
pass through Narms, his best friend and confidant had still been
alive. Now Diegan was dead, and Lady Talith estranged. Lysaer had
no antidote for the loneliness, except to carry forward the cause of the
Light. Arithon's ruin became the last thing in life to have meaning.
    Oppressed by the cloy of patchouli on his skin from the smothering
admiration of several trade ministers' wives, Lysaer waved off the
servant, Who moved to close the dagged velvet curtains. "Just crack
the latch. I need the fresh air."
    Tired, made tense from the drag of his diamond-and-gold collar,
Lysaer closed his eyes and surrendered his person to the ubiquitous
care of his valet. Stripped, bathed in warm water and clove oil, and
reclothed in silk, he settled under blankets loomed by the finest craft-
guild in Cildorn.
    "Leave the one candle burning," he instructed his servant, though
the silent, trained staff who attended him since Vastmark all knew: the
one light was never permitted to go out. The prince never slept in
darkness lest he suffer the torment of recurrent ill dreams. His ser-
vants were discreet. They did not speak of the fear that Lord Diegan
had shared like a brother; that the fate the prince shouldered for the
greater good of humanity might prove too great a destiny for one man.
Lysaer stood apart with his given gift of light. He lived by his promise
as defender of the innocent, though the burden to banish threat of sor-
cery and shadow at times seemed to sear through his blood. Diegan
alone had tempered those moments when the mere sight of darkness
could fracture his reason and drive him to targetless rage.

203

]ANNY W U~lo

     Now, Lysaer took no chances. His dffving wig to see his nemesis
 dead must not slip his contro! on the unquiet wings oœ night' s shadow.
    The servants had stopped suggesting that he take a mistress. Alter
Talith, no woman born could ease the cruel quandary oœh/s solitude.
New staff were warned not to question. Since the friend who had
been his right hand died in Vastmark, ever and always, Lysaer
s'Ilessid passed the hours before daybreak alone. His honor guard
knew to stand fast at his door. They would admit no one short of a
messenger bearing word of war or disaster.
    Tonight, Lysaer did not sleep. Weary as he was, relaxed to pam-
pered lassitude, an indefinable edge kept him wakeful. The odd feel-
ing plagued him, as though something unseen and unheard lurked in
the dimness and watched him. Since the momentous occasion when
the shade of a Fellowship Sorcerer had visited with news of his wife's
abduction, he did not feel the fool for indulging in paranoid fancy.
    For at least the third time, he surveyed the sumptuous appoint-
ments of his bedchamber.
    The painted door was still closed and latched. His jewels and
clothes from the feast had been tidied and folded into the chest by the
armoire. The ironbound coffers with his tactical maps and correspon-
dence were locked and stacked in neat order. His servants were effi-
cient. In well-oiled habit, they had arranged the basin and stand with
clean towels. The floor gleamed, mopped clean of slopped water, and
buffed with a shine of new wax. Beyond the cracked casement, the
late-burning torches by the quayside taverns wore cocoons of rising
mist. The harbor was peaceful. At the mouth of the inlet, the signal-
man's bell clanged to guide inbound ships through the channel. A
dog barked, and a carriage ground past. Through the distanced chat-
ter of departing celebrants, the rhythmic tramp of a wall sentry car-
ried in on the breeze from the tideflats.
The night seemed tranquil and ordinary in the port city of Narms.
Lysaer combed a last glance through the comer which held the
pearl-and-lacquer gleam of the secretary's desk. And this time, he
saw that in fact, the room where he lay was not empty.
    A woman sat on the lion claw stool. Her pose was so still the
hands clasped in her lap might have been shaped of smoothed
ivory. Her face lay obscured, sunk in the depths of a hood of violet
silk. Her sleeves and hemline wore six bands in silver, the sheen of
metallic cloth like chrome ribbon snap-frozen into black ice. Only
the quartz pendant on its chain at her breast moved in time to her
breathing.
  "Koriani," gasped Lysaer. Woolen blankets tumbled over his knees

204

FUGITIVE ~RINCE

   jackknifed erect in hard startlement. "What are you doing here?
   fid you get past my guards?"
     ~ ~.'oman's hood dipped to a fractional tilt of her head. "They
 ...... ~'~ly as much as I wished them to see." One finger flicked
 -r~;!~~ in sudden, sharp censure. "No. Don't call. I'm not here as
 enemy."
 ~'~ were not invited," Lysaer said, his consonants clear as
 ,ect crystal. "Let me be pla'm. The Alliance of Light is opposed to
 ~' ! ~.~rannies imposed by the practice of sorcery."
    !he glamour which allowed me to slip in with your servants
~ ~ached upon no one's free will." The hands were a young
~ ~an's, which lifted and removed the dark hood; underneath, a
of baby-smooth skin and a coil of salt-and-pepper hair neatly
:ulpted with tortoiseshell pins. The eyes were clear brown, and
:irect, and not youthful at all. She had lips like the pink underside of
~ conch, turned up in a half smile of irony. "Credit me with some sem-
blance of courtesy. I could have made my presence known while you
~.~ere engaged in your bath."
    If the enchantress sought to unbalance him, the effort fell short.
,ysaer turned not a hair, nor blushed, but regarded her with a calm
' hat transcended small vanity. "Under any circumstance, I would
ú lave refused your public petition for audience."
    The Koriani laughed, a peal of joy like the struck tone of bronze
~ells. "You fear for your image of morality, I see, far more than for
,,our male pride. Very well. Since I have obtained your close company
~n my own, you might as well sit and listen. I've came to offer you
~ny order's help to bring down the Master of Shadow."
    Lysaer stood up. The quilt slid from the mattress and puddled on
,he floor, while his hands closed to fists defined in white knuckles
~nd hard tendons. "I am listening," he assured her. "But I warn, be
tery careful what you say."
    He crossed the thick carpet, turned the stuffed chair by the case-
ment, and seated himself on the opposite side of the secretary. An
anearthly gleam seemed to burn in his eyes, the pinned highlight
touched by the candle as hard as a cut facet in sapphire. His damp
hair clung in fronds to his head, tarnished and heavy as spilled var-
nish.
    Through a grave stillness, the enchantress took his measure. Her
smile was gone, and her hands cupped the quartz crystal pendant
strung on silver chain at her breast. "Our kind make no bargains,"
she said at chill length. "Nor am I here by any other will but the bid-
ding of Morriel Prime. She would have you know that she shares

205

your conviction. The M~s~e~ oft %kx~6~o~ ~ose~
growth of society. Koriathain will assist your ~�,ur~ee
one enemy if you ask. Remember our pledge. Keep your captains a~
arms vigilant, no matter the season. We have cast auguries on the
future. My Matriarch would have me say that your opening to take
down Arithon will come far sooner than you think."
    The question burned through even Lysaer's state discipline.
"When will this happen?"
    "You shall have fair warning." The enchantress raised a finger and
traced a sigil in burning lines on the air. The glyph flared bright vio-
let, then flashed, shocking sight with its blinding intensity. Lysaer
threw his hands up to shield his face. In the second he was dazzled,
the light burst and vanished into a soundless clap of heat.
    The stool where the enchantress had been seated stood empty in
the draft-torn flutter of the candle.
    Lysaer shot from his chair The beautiful carved back smashed into
the wall, raising chips and a small puff of plaster. Barefoot, sweating,
all over unclean from his bone-deep revulsion for magecraft, he paced
over the floor He searched every corner, banged open the doors to the
armoire, even hurled the bedhangings free of their tasseled silk cords.
He found nothing. No sign remained of the enchantress who had
invaded his chamber. The stuffed cushion on the stool felt ice chill in
the breath of the drafts. The street beyond the casement lay shadowed
and dim, empty of mongrels or carriages.
    Lysaer crossed to the nightstand, uncorked the wine bottle, and
sucked down the vintage red from Orvandir in gulps. The dry heat
that curled in his belly did nothing to settle the prickle of fear on his
skin. He fought for cool reason. The wild heat in his blood was not
rational, he k~e~, but extended back into childhood. The distrust that
ripped him began with his mother, a s'2khel~s w~tch who had married
a king, and then undone her vows in betrayal. Her perfidy had cre-
ated his nemesis, the bastard born Master of Shadow.
    Unsettled, Lysaer paced to the window again. The bite of the sea
wind bit through his thin silk and set him shuddering in waves of
reaction. Too tense to be dreaming, he decided the Koriani presence
must have been an apparition, brought on by a waking illusion.
    Real or not, her words remained with him, a branding gift of live
coals well designed to ignite the full flame of his passion. Con-
sumed by the spark of his secret desire, Lysaer stared unseeing into
the fog which settled over the dark harbor. He could not rest now.
Sleep lay past reach, while the greater good of moral justice did bat-
tle with his most staunch private scruple. He sweated and shook,

2O6

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

brought to his knees by a need that wrung merit from even this
unsavory liaison.
    In the self-searching depths of a tormented honesty, he allowed
that perhaps his harsh judgment had been premature. Spellcraft
could become a tool or a weapon. The outcome depended on whose
hands guided the range of its power. The Koriani Order long claimed
to champion the cause of humanity. In all fairness, he must grant
them their chance to stand by compassionate principle. Now that
their arcane support had been offered, he could turn down no
prospect of help to bring Arithon s'Ffalenn to destruction.

207

Late Autumn--Early Winter 5652

Dualities

In Narms, after sunrise, when the royal valet undertakes the prince's
dressing, he finds his charge in a rare, testy mood; too timid to gain-
say the direct order not to speak, he does not mention the oddity that
only a personal servant might notice: sometime in the night, a small
lock of hair has been snipped from the nape of the royal neck ....

    A fortnight after Arithon's arrival at Riverton, the master ship-
wright, Cattrick, sits morose in his quarters, head pressed between
his huge hands; diligently he has tried, and failed, to provoke Arithon
to distrust, and now time runs out to thwart the betrayal demanded
as service for a Koriani oath of debt, sworn years ago to save a young
sister stricken with fever in childbed ....

    Far south and east, oblivious to the greater machinations of her
order, the enchantress Elaira smiles upon a black-haired child and
promises on the day of his fifth birthday she will saddle her fat geld-
ing and begin his first lesson in horsemanship ....

208

Early Winter 5652

VI. Tangle

Snow silted over the rooftops of Capewell and frost-chilly light
poured in with the drafts through the tower's misfitted case-
ment. On the landing beneath, First Senior Lirenda stood shiv-
ering in her layers of travel-soaked woolens. Before her loomed the
observatory door, laced still with the tracework glimmer of seals kept
undisturbed since Morriel Prime's fateful conjury. Raised power had
charged the air over time. Even the dust held a singed, acrid tang of
charred carbon. An unsettled presence in the gloom of the stairwell,
the peeress of the Koriani sisterhouse and her staff of enchantresses
hung waiting.
    The dignity of privilege bred into her long bones, Lirenda at last
gave opinion, her husky, bronze tones sheared into a thousandfold
echoes. "The chamber must be unsealed, no matter the risk." She
inclined her head toward a spiderworked nexus of sigils. "I sense
stayspells in play, ones powerful enough to bend the forward flow of
time. That lends cause to hope. Our Prime might still be alive."
    The peeress advanced, her soft, oval face dimpled with apprehen-
sion. Small need to stress that if the Prime lived, the least upset to a
meshed net of ward fields might compound disaster and kill her.
    Well aware the woman's silence masked censure, Lirenda faced
about, all poured grace in her travel-muddied mantles. "What of the
two initiates trapped inside when the spells sealed? Should they also

209

                JANN�

 be left entombed alive? Mercy on them, in the absence of our Prime,
 the burden of their fate becomes mine."
     The peeress curtseyed, her deference made awkward by the steep,
 narrow stair, and the enchantresses close pressed behind her. "First
 Senior, no one questions your judgment." For more than the lives of
 three colleagues were at risk; the order's Great Waystone could
 scarcely be abandoned in the resonance of malingering influence.
    A s?ell had gone wrong within that sealed chamber. Behind seals
that blocked scr, ving, who knew what raised powers I2qJght e$colve
conjured channels and run wild. Such deviated œorces couM not dis-
perse naturally, hemmed in by wardfields of containment that time
and attrition would destabilize. Leaked vectors of current might
resurge decades later in unpredictable, even lethal flares of backlash.
Had Morriel engaged the Waystone's grand matrix to frame the main
axis of the construct, a derangement of unbalanced forces could seed
anything from cyclones to broadscale cataclysm.
    The wise old peeress harbored nothing but dread for her First
Senior's designated duty.
    Lirenda bent her head and raised her banded hood, but never to
hide trepidation. She might wish heart and mind to share the peeress's
grief for the fresh risks to Morriel's plight. The icier truth eclipsed sen-
timent: the challenge ahead did not daunt, but instead, incited the
First Senior's strung nerves to a guilt-fed flame of excitement.
    On a threshold of perilous responsibility, when the innate flaws of
mor~ality should have shaken self-confidence, Lirenda felt estranged
from the shrinking caution of her peers. Authority and rank of them-
selves did not distance her. No; what marked her apart was her sin-
ful, fierce lust for the chance to acquire supreme power.
    Lirenda well knew the deep pitfalls of ambition. Her craving for
control could calcify pity, even grow to undermine the Koriani creed
of human mercy. Through the long, lonely nights after trials of initia-
tion, she had battled her willful nature. Yet like the addict's secret
pleasure, need chafed at restraint. The drive to grasp the reins of com-
mand found neither outlet nor surcease; self-contained as the hunting
tigress, Lirenda understood herself very well.  She would rule the pack rather than serve.
    "I will rest and eat," she informed the peeress and the anxious
coterie of enchantresses. "By the advent of noon, I want a contain-
ment seal wrought at the head of the stairwell. Set a second one at the
lower entrance. Then my work to breach the wards on the observa-
tory will begin."

210

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

     Reclothed in an overrobe of lavender silk stitched with the silver
 bands of her rank, Lirenda withdrew from her survey of the stiletto
 bars of light which demarked the seal construct just raised between
 the stairwell and the warded threshold of the observatory. The protec-
 tions laid down by the sisterhouse's senior circle proved flawless,
 each detail precise in execution. Lirenda had cross-checked each
 interstice. Should any skewed force slip past her control, the sister-
 house residents and the citizens of Capewell would be safe beyond
 sound defenses.
    "Well-done," she said in perfunctory praise, then opened the box at
her side to unveil the quartz point which would channel her will for
the conjury.
    The senior enchantress inclined her gray head in acceptance, then
motioned her twelve colleagues forward to their places. She
unmasked a wand crystal to cut and mark the boundary of contain-
ment for the conjury about to commence.
    No need to review every nuance and precaution; from here, all pro-
ceedings would follow an age-old, proscribed set of rituals. Each initi-
ate chosen for the task was experienced with the perils of unstable
conjuries. Their nerves or trepidation stayed masked in decorum as
they knelt in a rustle of purple skirts to serve the greater good of the
Koriani Order. Arrayed in the traditional circle, each one cupped her
personal quartz and murmured a cantrip of opening. A slow minute
passed, the crystals a mute spark of light between each pair of hands.
Then their solitary wills caught and engaged with the energetic
matrix of the stones. Each enchantress spun her awareness in trance
to channel through the master crystal held poised between the First
Senior's palms.
    Lirenda engaged the sigils of command to capture each individual
thread. Then she framed the binding seals to comb disparate energies
into aligned subservience. The familiar, tingling build of drawn force
poured down her nerves like a tonic. Her own senses heightened in
link with the quartz crystal's burgeoning resonance. The air gained a
transcendent clarity, then transformed, a shimmering veil through
which the webworked lattice of raised power seemed as ribbons of
laced silver light. Lirenda's sole will linked her circle of sister initiates
until their collateral talent framed a spearshaft of balanced intent.
    Cipher and rune, Lirenda wrought the last seal. Through the
moment of consummation, stray thoughts dissolved. Here, at the heart
of Koriani ritual, linked with an empowered focus crystal, she found
the unalloyed thrill of fulfillment. All the aching, hollow yearning
inside her lay banished by absolute control.

211

      Her touch, and no other, couJd order the moment. She was
  nexus to spin that reservoir of force and break Morriel's wards of pri-
  vacy over the observatory door.
     The sword-edged delicacy of that unbinding took most of the after-
 noon. Those seniors who assisted emerged from tranced melding
 exhausted and pale with relief. They grounded their energies, dis-
 banded their circle, then asked formal leave with a dutiful lack of
 curiosity.
  Their First Senior spoke the time-honored release. "Your will is
your OWn."
    Outside the slit window, new snow caught the aquamarine tint of
the afterglow. Farther of L the eventide chime of the kitchen bell
summoned the orphan wards to supper. Lirenda did not crave the
teeming warmth of human company. Taxed by her hours of close
concentration, she touched tapered fingertips to her shut lids.
    The flaring, harsh afterimage of the last, enchained sigils felt
branded into her retinas. A tremor shook through her. Dampened
skin under smothering layers of silk prickled through an aftershock
of chills, as her stressed thoughts skittered across a razor array of
dark facts. The Prime Matriarch's workings to safeguard this portal
had been unimaginably thorough.
    Wrapped in a disapproving silence like armor, the peeress
remained stationed in the stairwell. The safety of the sisterhouse at
Capewell was her given charge. Far removed from her cozy, first post
as a ward matron, and happiest with a toddler on her knee, she shoul-
dered the need to witness what passed, despite her stiff grounds for
objection.
    Always made to feel unnatural before others endowed with the
nurturing, female instincts, Lirenda arose. She closed a chilled hand
over the icier brass of the latch. Her untamed thrill of anticipation
never showed as she set herself to violate her Prime's most guarded
confidence. Aware that such elaborate defenses might stem from a
need to thwart observation from the Fellowship, Lirenda loosed the
bar. She pushed the portal inward, pressured by passions she had
striven all her life to contain.
    The door swung wide to a whisper of pressed air. Darkness beyond
hung like unmarked slate, sliced through by shining lines of argent.
Morriel's spell construct sheared across gloom in breath-stopping, mas-
terful splendor. Circle upon square, each interstice sang in meticulous
balance, multiple layers of enchained sigils looped in knots like fili-
gree wire trapped in felt. The weave displayed an unnerving complex-
ity, centrally anchored by a stayspell which fixed its point of origin in

212

FUGITIVE PRINCE

the past. Lirenda found herself mazed into wonder. Those entangling
radiants resisted translation, nor could dazzled eyesight track every
spiral, which channeled the conjury's influence outward to arc
through an unformed future.
      At a predestined moment, this majestic array of spells would
resolve and shape an event of Morriel's design.  "Merciful maker!" Lirenda breathed in awe.
    Imagination foundered. The effects of stark beauty and sheer terror
stopped her breath. Sparked to hot jealousy and raging despair, she
knew beyond question her skills were inadequate to match such a
broadscale endeavor. If Morriel Prime had passed the Wheel into
death, that one shortfall might brand her successor forever. Lirenda
coveted the knowledge not yet in her hands with a passion of savage
proportion.
  The paradox stymied her raging ambition.
    Either she waited to assume the supreme mantle of her order, or
she lived all her days galled by the loss of an irreplaceable legacy. A
live Prime Matriarch or a shriveled corpse: the cipher which entan-
gled her destiny lurked in fusty darkness, coiled inside of those per-
ilous, dagger-edged spells.
    The peeress's tentative inquiry shattered her furious thought. "Did
anyone survive?"
    Lirenda called back through the entry, "I'm not sure yet." She drew
a steadying breath, freighted with smells of dank stone and charred
herbs, but no reek of corrupted flesh. An untrustworthy reassurance,
since the might of the inaugural stayspell itself would arrest the pro-
gression of decay. Nor could she plumb the silence with spells. Wards
drawn and laid on the axis of the earth were not permeable. Even cur-
sory review showed the outermost circle demarked a sealed pocket in
time.
    The purpose which guided the construct stayed hidden. To know
Morriel's fate and recover the Great Waystone, her successor must
bridge those dire protections, then walk the convoluted maze to its
center.
    "You may enter the observatory," Lirenda informed the peeress.
"I'll need a wise senior to keep vigil."
    Three tentative steps masked in rustling cloth; then the stunned
gasp as the enchantress arrived and shared sight of the construct's
magnificence. "First Senior, for prudence, the safest course would be
a ritual cleansing to unmake every line of that patterning."
    "I know. Yet we daren't." No flutter ruffled Lirenda's poise as she
cupped the spell crystal strung on silver chain at her neck. "The

213

JANNY WURTS

importance of this design must be paramount. How dare we counter-
mand our Prime's signal will? I fear worse, to unravel the least vector
of power without knowing the reason for her act of self-sacrifice."
    The peeress smoothed back a loose wisp of hair, ill at ease in the
face of necessity. "Be cautious, First Senior, for all of our sakes. With
the world brought to strife by the works of cursed princes, the Kori-
ani Order cannot afford to lose both Prime and successor."
    Lirenda stared back, her eyes impenetrable as flawed amber "I will
not fail. And Morriel might still be recovered alive."
    Too aware the ordeal would test every facet of her training, she dis-
patched her final instructions. "Stay alert. If the energy flow in the
sigils tums sour, don't rely on the wards of containment. Collapse the
construct immediately, and close the door with a grave seal."
    The peeress stepped back, torn into reluctant discomfort. "Your
will, First Senior."
    But already, Lirenda forged ahead. The chain in her hand stitched
cobalt reflections across gloom as she bent her trained mind through
the crystal, then dangled its focus as a pendulum over the rimwards
of Morriel Prime's outer circle.
    Just as a mirror would give back the light, the quartz caught vibra-
tions in resonance. Attuned through its matrix, Lirenda allowed the
stone's captured energy to suffuse the waiting, blank eye of her con-
sciousness. Guided by discipline, she allowed Morriel's work to
imprint its pattern in her mind.
    Guard and defense, the ward showed her emptiness, a fathomless
well of negative space to freeze breathing flesh and stop the heart.
The crystal spun deosil on its chain. A hint of a smile bowed
Lirenda's rose lips. She advanced a half stride widdershins, her
quartz poised above the figured ward. Its clear facets flashed like
flaked mica, whirling faster, then faster still. Lirenda took another
step. The jewel flared brighter, a blue spark gouged out of stygian
dark. Still the fleezing void gripped its interface, translating through
to her mind.
    The draw of the circle was steady in deception, its blankness
cloaked in a numbing, seductive sense of peace. Lirenda stayed
guarded. A Prime Matriarch's protections were to be feared. Any gap
in her personal defenses, and the ward's shrouding vacuum would
sweep past control and smash her link to conscious memory. An infi-
nite expanse of null energy would draw spirit from flesh, and see her
lost utterly and forever.
    Lirenda trod the rim of the construct, her palms lightly sweating,
the chain between her pinched fingers a vibrating thread whirled by a

214

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 crystal tuned to madness. Step upon step, she sought the one cipher
 of opening that should be wrought into every formal conjury fash-
 ioned under Koriani auspices.
    Another pace, another; the spinning quartz raised a faint, waspish
hum from the chain. The darkness with its smells of tarnish and dust
shrouded the edges of vision. Light-headed with strain, Lirenda
forced burning eyes back to focus. She refused the undermining
dread, that Morriel's design might have omitted the sigil she required
for access.
    That moment the chain jerked. Its tethered crystal snapped the
links rigid and hung as if nailed to the earth.
    Lirenda wrung out a sigh of relief. Her nerve was iron and her left
hand precise as she raised power and engaged the prime successor's
cipher through the heart of her focus crystal. The quartz flared acid
yellow in reply. As that key answered its matching lock, a handspan
arc of the ward circle flickered from blue to acidic gold. The access
point opened.
    Lirenda crossed the abyss. Dread forces held in abeyance through
her passage scoured her nerves into tingles. Her skin felt scraped by
razor-edged steel and her vision blanched into static. She had no per-
ception, no balance, no will. Only faith assured safe completion of her
step. Reason and substance reassembled at last as her foot came back
down on solid stone. She was through.  The blinding veils tore away.
    Around her, entombed stone and dusty darkness hung with an
alkaline scent of chalk. Hemmed by the impeccable vibrations of the
wards, Lirenda settled her riled senses. Her course was committed.
From the moment she engaged with the spell's inner workings, the
sigil which granted her entry would fade. Should Morriel still live,
the pattern must be followed through to its end without disturbing
the least, subtle vector of laid force. Had Morriel died, Lirenda must
survive to contain whatever raging chaos had brought her Prime
Matriarch's downfall.
    Possessed by a clean, analytical calm, Lirenda surveyed her
prospects. Behind her, the defense wards glimmered their fixed, arctic
blue. Ahead, scribed in lines like hot fire, the active core of the con-
jury blazed like a slow fuse, bound to its preset course. The slate slabs
underfoot wore a glimmer of chalked sigils, the inaugural runes
dimmed to spiderworked tracks where the energy had consumed
itself in completion. Among them, Lirenda picked out bronze pans of
spent ashes arrayed at each point of the compass. The scents of
charred herbs had long since melded into the ambient dust, yet the

215

~:~i: ~                                           JANNY WURTS

placement tied the construct through space and distance in ritual
alignment with the land.
    Lirenda wadded her cloak hem and skirts into the grip of cramped
fingers, that no haphazard eddy could smear the febrile chains of
dead ciphers. She eased her way along the inner rim of the ward cir-
cle until she found the Paravian rune, An, which meant prime, or one,
or beginning, and without which no work of Koriani spellcraft could
be engaged on Athera.
    The significating figure interlaced with that rune seemed a knot-
work of arcs, configured with maddening intricacy. Lirenda paused
there, confounded. This elaborate work of conjury did not frame the
foil she expected against interference by Fellowship Sorcerers. Ham-
pered by the unsettled light, the Prime Senior freed her quartz and
chain for another arcane sounding. She dangled the crystal above the
faint chalk lines, hopeful, yet no residual energy remained for the
stone to recapture in resonance. She had no alternative but to retire
the sigil, lend it a spark from her own conjured will to trace its origi-
nal vibration. The quartz as her focus, she bent her will through the
matrix. A lifetime of training enabled its virtue to channel her talent
into an applicable force.
    She stilled curiosity to listening silence, then threaded a tenuous
connection. The lines on the floor responded and flared a fleeting,
subliminal purple. Their imprinted resonance surged through the
quartz link, and touched her ready awareness.
    She grasped that the construct framed the individual Name for a
man, but no more.
    Her sounding of his analog presence stormed through her like tide,
an unassailable, blanketing warmth of connection that shattered all
pride and restraint. Lirenda could summon no breath for denial; her
stunned mind allowed her no grace for retreat. His innate compassion
sheared like struck lightning across the quartz interface, to flash-burn
her frozen emotions. Unwanted fascination held her in thrall, while
integrity unraveled before a force like winged song, an aching, pure
expression of melody that pealed through her woman's heart and
filled all the hollowness within her.
    Lost as she touched what could never be hers within bounds of the
Koriani Order, Lirenda cried out. However she cringed and postured,
this one man held the potential capacity to know her. His intuitive
awareness could strip away pretense and lay bare the self she kept
hidden.
    Every buried sorrow escaped from containment as water might
burst from shocked glass: all of a young girl's mute yearning to refute

216

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 her mother's withering criticism. Cosseted by wealth and strict
 expectations, hounded to polished deportment, Lirenda still harbored
 the sawing, helpless misery left by her childhood feelings of useless-
 ness. Her bleeding retreat from self-expression, then the refuge she
 carved out of rigid perfectionism had matured to a gnawing ambi-
 tion. Hurt long denied now became pleasure thwarted, until the mask
 she wore ripped away. Her present existence became useless motion,
 a dance step play of meaningless shadows.
     Inner barriers crumbled as the male presence tied through Mor-
 riel's spell invited her to discard empty posturing and anneal her
 whole being into change.
    Stranger to herself, spun giddy by a siren call to cast off restraint
and embrace the freedom of laughter, Lirenda understood that her
armor of reserve might dissolve at a touch and bare her vulnerable
heart. One man might command such power to change her. She
gasped, torn through by a savagery of need beyond the bounds of her
past experience. Fear snapped her poise. She gave way to a firestorm
of tears, when in callous fact, she had never before let self-pity over-
whelm her.
    Her violated pride at last sparked true rage, to stab through rank
turmoil and redeem her.
    Hurled back into still, dusty dark and the comfortless flare of
sealed spells, Lirenda knelt in the suffocating velvet of her formal
robes of high office. Her quartz pendant and chain hung slack in her
hands, as though bone, flesh, and nerve had been scorched. Ath, Ath
preserve, she knew this man's nature, with his devastating, forthright
perception of hidden truths. Never mind he was a living danger to
the world, with no thought at all for her dedicated life inside the Kori-
ani Order. His existence was a threat to unstring heart and mind, then
whirl her like a moth to its brainless immolation in a lantern flame.
    Alone in chill darkness, Lirenda gasped a vengeful curse on his
name. For the lynchpin of the construct Morriel had conjured held
none else but the imprinted signature for Arithon, Prince of Rathain.
    The discovery wounded like double-edged steel, that the Shadow
Master's fate lay entangled with Koriani destiny. Lirenda locked her
teeth in frustrated resentment. Of course, the Prime Matriarch must
suspect her hidden weakness for the ill-starred Teir's'Ffalenn. No
other reason expla'med Morriel's need to tie his movements in dire
spells and secrecy.
    Lirenda stood. A twisted cry escaped her. Arithon, unholy fires of
creation, Arithon s'Ffalenn had been the instrument of disaster to trig-
ger the Matriarch's downfall. The irony all but choked her, that he

217

JANNY WURTS

might also became the signal turn of fate to transfer the reins of prime
power into her impatient hands. The reason why remained twined
with the riddle behind Morriel's grand conjury.
    Between the glacial glimmer of the defense ward and the surging,
core brilliance of active magecraft, the chalked chains of ciphers
which keyed the spell's purpose extended in tangling spirals. Lirenda
released the crushed links of silver embedded into her palm. Unable
to quell the tremor in her knees, she buffed the clammy fog of perspi-
ration from her crystal. The misfortune of Arithon's Name as signifi-
cator posed a most thorny complication.
    Her annoyance found voice in startling venom. "Merciful Ath,
prince, if Morriel's died of this, you'll regret the light of day that saw
you born."
    Lirenda grasped her quartz and rapped out a cantrip to raise a
spark of illumination. Its firefly glow caught the rune Shayn, for two,
stitched through the seals of a tracking spell. The locus which keyed
its activation sprang from a riverside inn along the Ilswater in Tysart.
Slaved to that sequence, Lirenda uncovered the Name form for
Dakar, then Caolle's as well, hooked and tagged by the spellbinder's
glamour to disguise his native clan accent. The reason for the triad
presented no mystery. Morriel had wished to trace Arithon's move-
ments. As safeguard against his wily nature, she tied in his henchmen
to assure an unbroken connection.
    The lines off the third figure held branching complexity. Lirenda
recognized the triplicate axis of the seer's rune, then the mazed
ciphers for diversion and secrecy, joined to trigger threads for a deli-
cate array of spring traps. The spell became more than a straightfor-
ward scrying. Morriel had wrought against the code of the Koriani
Order to curtail the freedom of a prince.
    Lirenda refused to pass judgment for that transgression of found-
ing principle. Arithon s'Ffalenn was a catalyst of unprecedented and
volatile potential. Discomfited herself by unruly attraction, she saw
too well how his influence had once spoiled the faith of a promising
young initiate. Perhaps in the greater reach of her wisdom, Morriel
Prime saw past Elaira's tragic defection to some threat to the sister-
hood at large. Or worse: the might of this construct may well have
been raised to shield Lirenda herself from temptation. Koriani code
held no recourse. Any romantic entanglement would disbar her from
prime succession.
    "Never that," the First Senior avowed, shamed by demeaning pos-
sibility. Hatred scorched through her, that the man could exist with
potential to tear the least flaw in her loyalty.

218

FUGITIVE I~R1NCE

    She pressed on to shed her embarrassment. Meticulous strings of
sigils fanned into a widening net, until Arithon's movements were
not only traced, but stalked outright. As the first chains of circum-
stance branched right and left to rearrange destiny and entrap,
Lirenda felt no surprise. By then, leading evidence established his
role as Morriel's earmarked quarry. The progression unfolded with
diabolical care, the Prime's plot stitched unerringly through
Arithon's machinations at Riverton to suborn Lysaer's royal ship-
yard.
    Lirenda deciphered the unwinding course of events, forced to
admire the artistry of invention, as a bard's salty repertoire made the
Laughing Captain a haunt for sailhands and shipwrights. Through a
season's cagey dealings with Cattrick, while Dakar blunted his wor-
ries through drink, Morriel's neat craft passed unnoticed. Spring trap
and trigger, Arithon's course became flanked in a narrowing channel,
scribed in surreptitious power and plain chalk.
    Lirenda paused to stretch a cramp from her hand. The crystal on its
chain had warmed from hard use. She nestled it between her palms
and chanted clearing cantrips, while her arcane connection to a frag-
ment of happenstance reeled on to display a spectral recast of a dia-
logue spoken days since. The trace resonance of sound preserved by
spent sigils cast whispered echoes through the deadened air of the
observatory...

    'When's the next launching?' murmured a flaxen-haired bard in a
voice unmistakably Arithon's, while from a tucked pose in a scarlet-
cushioned window seat, the broad-shouldered master of Tysan's
royal shipyard weighed his every word with the slit-eyed contention
of a lynx.
    'Next week,' Cattrick drawled. 'The gilders are still fussing with her
brightwork. If the riggers and splicers are left to their gnashing row over top-
ping lifts, the shakedown could stretch a bit longer.' A pause for a smile of
provocative, white teeth. 'You know this brig's going to be tougher. The
disappearance of the last was blamed on green officers, so this time they've
assigned the tried and trusty.'
    The bard sheared a needle-bright chord from his lyranthe. Under
his hands the music held laughter, belied by the shaded intensity of
the gaze stilled and trained upon Cattrick. 'Your craft is the building of
excellent ships. My share of the fun is to steal them.'

The spelled record dimmed, faded back into fusty trails of chalk.
Lirenda blinked, brought back to herself. She had screened the

219

JANNY ~URTS

 final spent frames of the construct. Ahead stretched the fire-strung
 nets of live power, preset for events yet to come.
    The interface with the present spread at her feet, and the next
sounding she touched would be volatile. Contact might jar the uncoil-
ing precision of the spe11's influence. Arithon s'Ffalenn still possessed
trained awareness. Blind instinct could warn him if she raised a dis-
turbance. Now, the least misstep would unbalance the conjurjz The
smallest disruption of pent power could destroy her if an inadvertent
move chanced to unravel the delicate bindings.
    Lirenda blotted a forehead rinsed in sweat. Around her, the obser-
vatory seemed a sealed tomb; cold dark wrapped its core of inferno.
Loop upon loop of slaved power lay spring wound and cocked,
awaiting the moment of release. Lirenda strove to read the fine lines
inked like magma across the dark. The dazzle whirled her to dizzi-
ness, and the Great Waystone remained beyond view. Aware she
must risk direct contact through visions, she knew visceral fear. The
danger before her was no longer malleable. Should she once lose con-
trol inside those nets of voracious power, naught would remain of
frail flesh and bone but an immolated silt of white ash.
    Carried by her unbending determination, Lirenda stilled her
awareness. Blank as cooled glass, she stamped down her traitorous,
cringing unease, raised her jewel on its chain, and doused its bared
facets in the surging, live current of the spell. As the upending rush of
seer's vision claimed her, she braced herself to receive...

    The taproom was jammed to an airless, close heat of packed bodies and
uproarious noise. By nightfall, drawn in from the frost and the leaden chill of
coastal winter, every yard craftsman and beached sailhand in Riverton
crammed into the Laughing Captain. Celebration ruled the hour. That day
had seen a successful royal launching. The new brig rode at anchor behind
the seawail, sparkling with lanterns hooked to her yards as the riggers tied in
her last running lines. The crew selected to man her for shakedown attended
the madhouse festivity. They sat apart, under orders to moderate their drink.
Despite the close eye of an iron-willed captain, they howled with laughter
and accepted the beer mugs passed across by congratulatory friends.
    Only the bard at the settle had elbow room. With the same stilled decep-
tion of a storm's sunlit eye, he stirred the jammed room to a feverish, wild
energy through a reeling succession of dance tunes. The crowd responded,
and stamped, and roared with fine spirits, dry tinder raked for the spark.
      Dakar's clumsy, inebriated trip came perfectly timed to fetch against a
bald sailor. The pair of them toppled in a tangling heap, and a trestle crashed
over to a flying gush of spilled beer. A bystander's screeched insult provoked

220

PRINCE

a swung,fist. From behind their captain's cordon, several of the brig's crew
laughed and shouted in scathing amusement. As though uncoiled from a
spell, an agile little caulker whose dinner had been upset snatched a pitcher
from a barmaid's laden tray. He hurled its foamy contents to silence the
ridicule and doused their small pocket of decorum. Through yells of blind
outrage, the bard's measures changed key, then leaped a surreptitious beat
faster. His disingenuous skill burned the very air to abandon, while tempers
frayed red, and brawlers set to and sowed mayhem across the packed tap-
room...

"Dharkaron curse the man's effrontery!" Lirenda swore as scried
vision dissolved and freed thought.
    Lysaer's handpicked sailhands had been fearlessly targeted, and a
fool's guess could forecast outcome. To sideline the men of unswerv-
ing crown loyalty assigned to choice berths on the brig, the boneset-
ters in Riverton would be given a busy night's work. Arithon would
claim his diabolical triumph as the scheduled shakedown raised sail
with an alternate crew.
    Burning to uncover how Morriel's construct might serve the
s'Ffalenn prince his comeuppance, Lirenda mapped a parallel strand
in the weave. She found a fresh spring trap interlinked to a marvel of
scried forecast, and already engaged by the Riverton launching. The
construct arced across distance and time, and conjoined with another,
inset with the trefoil seal of a sworn obligation. Some m'mor Name
who bore oath of debt to the Koriani Order received his call to deliver
due service.
    In the stale dark of the observatory, under roof beams nicked scar-
let by the agitated light thrown off by arcane powers, the First Senior
set her will once again and pitched her crystal to imprint its moment
of due consequence...

    Amid the gaudy appointments of an Etarran hall of state, a lanky scholar
with soft hands arose from his self-conscious bow. Clad in wine velvet, his
bristled, white hair tamed by a cross-laced silk ribbon, he raised his chin to
squint at the imposing, blond figure on the dais. Fingers damp, and heart
pounding, he offered up the aged vellum he had asked private audience to
deliver.
    "Milord Prince of the Light, my translation is done. By Koriani request,
the fruits of rare knowledge are to be freely given to your cause. What you
hold in your hands is an early-Third Age treatise on the lost arts of ocean
navigation."

221

JANNY WUI~TS

    A deep, rolling thrill pricked Lirenda to gooseflesh. Morriel, in col-
laboration with Lysaer, against Arithon; the piquancy of that manipu-
lative use of politics raised a sharp gasp of astonishment. Seldom
before had a Koriani Prime used power to move sovereign players as
pawns. Lirenda traced the spell's ranging reach toward the future.
Curiosity fed now on the drive of ambition, she saw the sealed dis-
patch from Cattrick which would soon prompt Prince Lysaer to
assemble a picked following and leave Etarra in whirlwind secrecy
and haste. Cause to consequence, the mighty construct converged,
with Arithon flushed into desperate flight. Once he took to the sea,
the grand plan would close on him, its culminating force dovetailed
into an ingenious, orchestrated opportunity. The last stroke would
fall amid the stormy, broad swells of Mainmere Bay. Lirenda reached
Aft, the rune of closure, and the construct's cycle showed the end
game to crown its set purpose.
    Morriel's clandestine trap would strip Arithon defenseless, then
bind his mettlesome fate into impotence through Koriani captivity.
    On her knees before the last sigil, Lirenda pressed narrow palms to
her lips to stifle vindictive laughter. Humiliation lanced through the
rags of her mirth, that Morriel should judge her too fragile a vessel to
bear knowledge of Arithon's defeat. If the Matriarch died of such
overweening arrogance, fate's backhanded justice was worthy of
Dharkaron Avenger.
    Lirenda regarded the inner circle of traced, dusty ash and singed
herbs. The arced patterns of ending and ward were precise. She
sobered to fact, that the old Prime had left no loose ends. Past the
dribbled stubs of dead candles, beyond the ceremonial braziers
burned cold on their stands, the amethyst Waystone gleamed in
sullen quiescence. No vestige of strayed power smoldered unchecked
to draw backlash. Lirenda would require no ritual rune of passage to
cross this last ward of protection.
    These vital defenses, set to shield the spell's creator from the scald-
ing blast of fused energies, had been breached long since. The break
had been instant. No vestige of guarding virtue had survived long
enough to bleed away through attrition.
    Lirenda raised her skirt hems in shaking fingers, irrationally reluc-
tant to disturb the fine lines whose sigils had failed to protect. She
encountered the reason for the lapse soon enough. A girl scarcely
sworn to initiate service lay sprawled across the perimeter, hands out-
flung on the charred slate floor. She breathed in a queerly arrested
rhythm, her hollowed, pale features stamped in frozen panic by the
passage of arcane forces.

222

FUGITIVE PRINCE

  Deep rage shattered Lirenda's dispassion.
     Morriel Prime had not fallen to a flux of miscast energies. She had
 been betrayed. The failed nerve of this inadequate chit had undone
 the entire circle. Recognition followed, that the Matriarch had antici-
 pated, even planned for disaster. Seven chains of stayspells wrought
 over the observatory kept the construct in fugue through that unbind-
 ing moment of crisis. Awe remained, that Morriel had called up the
 strength and sheer will to force her spell to consummation. In mortal
 pain, perhaps dying, she had impelled her grand construct to live on.
    Lirenda straightened up and moved on, leveled to realize she
owned no such depths, nor any grand bent for self-sacrifice. Beneath
the scintillant eye of the Waystone, she confronted the last tragic fig-
ures. They lay in their layers of crumpled robes, youth and age like
two dolls dropped through a fracture in time. The first throat she
probed for a life sign lay cold; the steadfast initiate who had held to
her vows had perished, her life's spirit drained out of ruthless neces-
sity, that the Prime might survive long enough to stabilize the con-
jury.
    One bundle remained, cast down like dry sticks in a shroud of fine
velvets. Lirenda sucked in a steadying breath. Lit by the gleam of the
Waystone's chill presence, she knelt down and braced herself to
touch.
    The wrist she raised felt insubstantial as bleached parchment
wrapped over substanceless bone. But a pulse still threaded the blue
network of veins. Though cool, the flesh was not corpse chill.
    Against all adversity, Morriel Prime still survived. Unconscious,
weakened, perhaps strayed beyond recall, indomitable will kept her
breathing.
    Lirenda bent her head, while heated tears welled through her eye-
lids. There and then, amid the musky, flat ash of spilled offerings and
the alkaline tang of scraped chalk, she weighed an unthinkable
choice: to collapse the grand construct and draw Morriel clear, or to
let the spell burn on undisturbed to completion, and hope the Prime's
tenuous reserves could hang on until the last sigil reached its planned
closure.
    Arithon's freedom weighed against Morriel's life; Lirenda snagged
her lip between teeth like small pearls, shredded in the cruel crux
between desire and ambition. Prime power in hand, and the chance to
seize her autonomy; or a sheltered subservience with demeaning
awareness that one man, still at large, held the means to unstring her
whole character.
  Lirenda arose. A laugh ripped from her patrician throat, shrill with

223

]ANNY

 leashed-back self-loathing. She was prideful and flawed, too desper
 ately consumed by desire to rule. Temptation had set its steel claws in
 her vitals, and she was too threatened to tear free.
    Alone in the dark, without voice beyond conscience, Liren&
turned her back on the fallen Prime. She shouldered the task of retrac-
ing her steps without jostling the spell's course of alignment. She held
no regrets. At heart, she was exactly what her mother had claimed: a
spirit born lacking the female kindness Ath granted to natural w0m-
arthood. The man who might have unchained her closed spirit held
too potent a power to ruin her. Once she was confirmed as Koriani
Prime Matriarch, her authority would be unassailable. No one alive
..P~e-e~ .e_v_e_r_kp_ pw_ of the e~ptiness masked at her core.

224

Midwinter 5653

Tidings

The port of Innish had been known as the jewel of the southcoast for
as long as oared ships ranged the seas. During the hard winters, when
the Stormwell Gulf capes seized with ice, warehouse space at the
dockside rented out at a premium. Every shed and stable loft near the
waterfront became pressed into use by the insatiable demands of
commerce.
    In years when the seasonal snows also sealed the northern passes,
the inland attics with sound roofs lay crammed with the silks spun in
Atchaz, then packed through the desert by caravan. Crated oranges
from Southshire towered in stacks under awnings, awaiting sea trade
to the eastern ports along Eltair Bay, or the western cities of Havish.
The streets teemed. Sailhands on leave lounged under the shade of
the damson trees. Merchants with their trains, breathless errand boys,
and half-naked stevedores shouldering bales breasted the chaotic
commotion. Busy men cursed the languidly idle who obstructed their
frenetic course. The side alleys and the louvered windows of the
wineshops rang with the brass bells of the prostitutes. In gilt-dusted
lashes, heavy scents, and soft paint, the paid women of Innish could
lure a man into dalliance and drown him in pleasure for hours.
    Just crossing the wharf district for a day's business could tax an
honest man to short temper. The sights themselves were temptation,
the stucco colonnades with their tiled roofs and pierced finials a puz-
zle of artful complexity. The allure of Innish could waylay the senses
in the whirl of its milling crowds, its exotic scents, or its outright,

225

JANNY WURTS

%%'ax'~ ~\%~x.~, c~e~~t out by the riffraff who skulked and preyed
off the wealth that changed hands in the streets.
    Feylind's brother, Fiark, had as much as he could handle as a"
heyman trade factor. Left wan from the hours spent working over ~
master's accounts by lamplight, sweating under his beautifully tai-
lored broadcloth in the lush southland heat, he had no patience to
spare, even for thrashing through arguments with the twin sister just
called back in port.
     The years spent on shipboard with Arithon's crews had not
 blunted her reckless temperament. Her decorum was still nonexis-
 tent. No woman he knew but a dockside hussy would pick her fights
 amid the racketing press of the wharf at noontide, where shouted
 conversation could scarcely be heard, and rumors flew mouth to
 mouth at the least possible whiff of a scandal.
     "Why can't you give us a cargo bound for Ostermere," Feylind
 shrilled. Clad in the man's dress she wore at her post as navigator on
 board the brig Evenstar, she spun sideways to avoid a servant bearing
 a crate of white doves. "Don't tell me the ladies of Eldir's capital have
 given up buying fine silk! Not when the King's Grace just issued a
 public proclamation of his handfasting!"
     "What would you know of court women and their refined ~',~vs,
 gallivanting in slops on a ship's deck?" Fiark sniped back.
     Feylind eyed him askance, unable to accustom herself to his ~dt~tt
 dignity, nor the golden hair trimmed neat at his collar, and hi, gen-
 teel, quality clothing. No trace remained of the barefoot boy ,~s he
 paused by the bollards and hailed a lighterman to ferry him o~t to a
 brig at a remote anchorage.
    '%. can't duck me so easily," Feylind retorted, her pale braid fly-
ing loose strands in the breeze, and her full-sleeved man's ,t~rf ,~d
pearl-sewn scarlet waistcoat enough to turn heads for sheer gat:di-
ness.
    When her brother merely shrugged, she shot out a toe and ex?ertly
fended the inbound lighter away from the dock. The oarsman cursed
her. She fielded his insults with a phrase by lengths more invenfi~›,
then crossed her arms and g]owered down her freckled nose at her
twin. Except for appearances, nothing was changed between ~hern.
Either they connived hand in glove at appalling acts of mischief~ or
they fought each other like stoats.
    Feylind tapped her foot. Fiark would know she would heave him
into the bay in his finery before she let him ignore her.
    He glared back in anger for only a moment. Then ~he smile she
loved best turned the corners of his lips, and merrimen~ sparkled/n

226

his wide cobalt eyes, "�
%~~,~x ~.~xetxx, reo~u'tred
Prince Arithon's shade
tion to the strings of
need to finagle a passal
     Feylind's eyes of id~
 ship you're in such a h~
     She laughed. spun l
 less arc over the turqr
 ~%~tx~ ~xe seax~a~,. '
 �t%~xte~: a coin ~rom P~
      The craft's slightec
  'bribe:,

    "Such
pride
dock.
  "Do

throu~

  "NOW'
Two
oaths.

ways.
and
harbor. Her
brigs: the
by more
y~
the

see."

his wide cobalt eyes. "You want to gain news of him?" That pronoun,
between them, required no naming; they had spent half their lives in
l~rince Arithon's shadow, underfoot, or attached out of bold fascina-
tion to the strings of his far-flung machinations. "Well, you don't
need to finagle a passage to Corith to hear."
    Feylind's eyes of identical color lit into shrewd recognition. "That
ship you're in such a hurry to meet?"
    She laughed, spun about, and flicked something bright in a care-
less arc over the turquoise water which rolled in mishmashed chop
against the seawall. The offering clanged into the cockpit of the
lighter: a coin from Perdith, minted in heavy red gold.
    The craft's slighted oarsman yelped in mid-oath. He recovered the
bribe, then stood, face upturned, and bowed his unctuous appease-
ment. "Where would the lady like to go?"
    "Such a way you have with men," Fiark teased, then stung her
pride back by extending his hand hke a gallant to assist her off of the
dock.
    "Do that again, and you'll swim for it," Feylind said. Limber as a
monkey, she stepped off the wharf, trod down on the gunwale, then
startled the lighterman all over again by claiming his unoccupied
bench. She unshipped his spare pair of looms, threaded their leathers
through the rowlocks, and scarce paused for Fiark to board at the
stem before she dug the blades into a ferocious stroke.
    "Now I'm in a hurry," she confessed as the lighter shot forward.
Two other craft in the way veered aside, the owner of one snapping
oaths, Feylind ignored him, intent upon Fiark. "Tell the man where
we're pointing this tub."
    When her brother took his time to indicate direction, Feylind
jabbed down one oar like a rudder and shot the lighter craft side-
ways. Head twisted, she sized up the motley collection of boats, small
and large, riding over their slice-cut reflections in the shelter of Innish
harbor. Her grasp of detail quickly winnowed the clutter of merchant
brigs: the slipshod ones with their sails tied in gaskets, and others run
by more rigorous captains, rolling neat at their moorings with
yardarms varnished and stripped. She assessed crosshatched rigging,
the swept decks with baled cargoes, then unerring, spotted the one
vessel set apart.
    "Haht" she whooped, triumphant. "Belay Fiark's word, I already
see." She backwatered, hauled, and jacked the lighter onto her self-
determined new heading. "We're bound for the brig with the shame-
less bronze tits on her figurehead."
  "The Cariadwin," Fiark admitted to the muddled-up oarsman, who

227

J^NN�

 sat with his looms raised and dripping. "She's the new-looking brig
 on the far southwest mooring, and if anyone's shameless while still
 fully dotbed, it's my sister. Please accept my regret for her manners."
     "Shameless, is it?" Feylind jabbed in her right blade and sent a
 rocketing arc of water dousing over her brother's neat head. "Take
 worse than a wetting to cool down your insolence, but that will do for
 a start."
    "Wench!" Fiark laughed. "For each salt stain and watermark, I'll
see you chained to the washtub at home. Our stepfather won't spare
you from drudgery either. He swore he'd help if I held you down.
We've all got ripped hose and holed stockings for darning. High time
you sat for us, mending."
  "You conspired against me?" Feylind accused.
    "Well yes." Fiark flipped back the dripping bangs plastered to his
raised eyebrows. "Don't look so wounded. Your mother and I share
the general opinion that you could stand more practice at needle-
work. You ought to cultivate some womanly graces for the day you
weary of seafaring."
    This time, he was wise and fast enough to duck as the water grazed
over his head. "No chance at all," countered Feylind, carving into the
pull of the next stroke. "If that means getting soft and thick bearing
babes, I'd sooner swim with the sharks." Her expert handling shot
the narrow lighter into the choppy crosscurrents alongside the Cariad-
win's side strakes.
    Not to be outdone, Fiark dug into his scrip and pressed another
coin in the palm of the flummoxed lighterman. "Come back at sun-
down. Our appointment should finish then." Despite his town
clothes and his love of staid commerce, he proved then and there he
could still beat his sister up the battens of a deepwater trader.
    The Cariadwin's captain sauntered on deck to meet them. He was a
thick man, swarthy and wrinkled, with one eye crimped to a perma-
nent squint from judging the set of his canvas. Wind and sun, and the
tireless barrage of the elements had gnarled his joints, and his
unlaced shirt ruffled against a chest broad enough to muscle a siege
ram. He tucked away the rigging knife just used to clear a jammed
block, his sharp glance touching Feylind and swinging at once back to
Fiark. "Your sister, yes?" His thick, frosted eyebrows tipped upward
with inquiry. "She have a strong stomach? There's business we'll
have to conduct in the hold that's no pretty sight for a woman."
    "Nor for a man, either," Feylind retorted, stance braced against the
mild swing as the brig turned to the wind on her beam. "I promise
not to puke first."

228

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    The captain threw back his head and roared with bass laughter.
"By Dharkaron's vengeance!" He dealt Fiark's twin a slap between
the shoulder blades that might have staggered her forward, had she
not reflexively shifted her footing. "Why couldn't I have found a lass
like you before I had a wife and eight weans, not to mention six lusty
mistresses?"
    "Because lasses like me have no use for weans, and even less for a
husband." Feylind grinned back, her teeth like fine ivory, and her hair
a gold rope in the sunlight. "Keep your eyes and your insinuations
out of my shirtfront, and get on with what Fiark came for."
    Not chastened at all, still very much taken with the female curves
underneath the breeches and waistcoat, the captain waved a lanky
arm toward the opened hatch amidships. "Step into my lair, then,
shewolf." He sidestepped to the ladder and led the way down. More
vf his peppery invective boomed up from the cavernous opening.
"First or last, if you puke, lady, you'll be the one handed the bucket
and rag to swab up the mess on my deck."
    Fiark elbowed his sister aside before she could effect a reply. "A
man might think you had bollocks in those breeks, the way you carry
on." He ducked Feylind's punch through a hasty descent, then
laughed at her scowl, framed in cloud fleece above him as she swung
onto the ladder. "Step on my fingers, minx, you'll be sorry."
    Feylind's retort came more thoughtful than barbed. "Trust me, it
isn't your fingers I'm itching to flatten."
    They descended into the brig's lower deck, enveloped by gloom
and the fusty miasma of damp arisen from the bilges. The hull was
new, the fug of lamp oil and mildew not yet entrenched through the
tarry bite of the oakum worked into her seams. Feylind knew ships,
in particular ones fashioned by Cattrick's exacting craftsmen.
Attuned to the hull like a sounding board, she analyzed the chafe of
the lines and the slap of wavelets transmitted through the thick tim-
bers; in her critical judgment, she determined the captain was compe-
tent. No fittings banged, and no halyards thrummed loose to tap and
spin kinks at the masthead. The small talk of three hands at work
mending sail drifted down from the forecastle. In the aft cabin, a
nasal-voiced purser conducted an inventory of stores with the cook,
standard enough practice for a ship between legs of a sea passage.
    A blue-water trader just cleared into port followed a preset routine.
The lower hold beneath would be cleared and swept, ropes and nets
tidied in smart readiness for onloading new cargo. Aboard Cariadwin
the main hatch was not open in welcome, but shut fast in the velvety
gloom. No lit lamp burned in the ring overhead. Rather than roust

229

JANNY WURTS

 out his sailhands for laggards, the captain crouched and whispered a
 password.
     The countersign returned was a sequence of taps. Then, from the
 inside, the hatched grating cracked. A brown eye peered upward.
 Against total darkness, the bared gleam of a knife scribed a thin line
 of silver.
     "It's hiraselœ" assured a low voice in clan accents. A stirred exhala-
 tion came from below, as listeners released pent-back tension.
    "You carry convicts freed from Lysaer's galleys?" Feylind whis-
pered in excitement.
    "Aye." The captain muscled the heavy grating aside. "They've got
the news out of Tysan and Havish your brother's been sweating to
hear." To the clansmen below, whose lives would be instantly forfeit if
the authorities at Innish caught wind of their presence, the brig's mas-
ter assured, "You're kept safe enough. Fiark's loyalty's true, and I've
three hands with good eyes sitting guard on the forecastle. They'll
shout if anyone boards us."
    The face moved, then the knife in token of cauti-ous trust granted.
"For me," the man said, emphatic, "I'd slit my own veins and leave
my blood to the sea before I'd risk freedom again."
    Warm air swirled up from the close, musty darkness, made sti-
fling by the lack of ventilation. Someone below unshuttered a can-
dle. The weak illumination showed the upper-deck planking had
been tacked over with canvas to seal off any chance gleam of light.
The men who inhabited this miserable den numbered an odd forty,
faces upturned in keen wariness toward the visitors brought by the
captain.
    For all their cramped confines, they were reasonably clean. The few
knives shared among them kept them shaven and groomed. Torsos
roped in muscle from hard labor at the oar were decently clothed,
some in the mended rags of forest-tanned leathers, and others in
shirts gleaned by sailhands from Innish's used clothing stalls and
motley from the ship's slop chest. No face looked healthy. Most were
sorrowfully thin. The wrists and ankles rinsed by the flickering light
were disfigured and angry where steel and salt water had chafed into
permanent scars.
    Feylind felt sorrow before sickness, then a ripping fresh anger as
she reached the base of the ladder and a younger scout brushed by
her to replace the hatch. A chance flare of the candle touched the
raised, ugly mark left by some mayor's harsh practice of branding
men sentenced as convicts.
  Fiark sucked a shocked breath, then said without preamble, "What

230

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

are your needs? You'll have anything in my power that doesn't jeop-
ardize my patron or require an outright act of theft."
    The clan spokesman pushed forward, squinting through hanks of
salt-and-pepper hair not yet regrown long enough to braid. He
limped badly, his right ankle fused from a poorly set break. Still, he
had not lost the grace of his manners. "Fiark?" He extended a forearm
for the traditional clasp of amity. "My loyalty belongs to the Earl of
Taerlin. In his place, hear my gratitude for your strength of heart."
    "Speak," Fiark urged. He need not stress that each hour Cariadwin
lingered in a port ruled by townsmen, the risk to her fugitives
increased.
    The clansman bowed his head, for a moment overcome. "Provi-
sions, first off. Fresh meat and fruit. Bad diet has left many of us sick-
ened."
  "Clothing," Feylind added. "I'll supply funds."
    But the freed man touched her wrist in restraint. "Bless you, but
no. We won't be beholden for what our cousins in Selkwood are able
enough to supply." To Fiark, he summed up, "For that, you need only
sign us a legitimate cargo bound upcoast to Elssine or Telzen."
    "Have to be luxuries," the captain chipped in from his laconic,
square stance by the ladder. "Our lading list out of Cheivalt says our
main hold's chock full of wool bales and barley bound for the brew-
ers upcoast."
    "Fine brandy in bottles and some Sanpashir gemstones, will that
do?" Fiark measured the clan spokesman afresh, a warning hard glint
in his eyes. "Should they be underwritten?"
    Someone else's barbed dialect jibed from out of the darkness,
"What, you don't truly want to stay honest?"
    Before light words caused umbrage, the captain reassured, "The
cargo you consign will be safe, with one small delay. We've an
unscheduled stop on the coast of Alland to take on what our lists say
we shipped out of Cheivalt."
    "That's Erlien's territory," Feylind broke in. Her quick mind leaped
ahead, taking stock. The barley would have been grown in Orvandir,
and the wool shorn from Radmoore sheep. The Cariadwin's pending
illegitimate cargo would be nothing else but the spoils from a caravan
raided en route to Sanshevas or Southshire.
    In typical fashion, her brother's thought flanked her. "Are the High
Earl's scout raiders in conspiracy with Arithon?"
    "Not precisely," the Cariadwin's captain corrected. "Don't have to
take sides to hate chains and slavery. The High Earl's river inlets in
Selkwood make an ideal place to load contraband. I used to shift

231

]ANNY WURT~

 cargoes from there before Arithon hired me. And anyway, these
 days, a number of brash younger scouts want to ship out to Corith
 as volunteers for sea training."
     "Volunteer pirates, more like," Fiark said, no stranger to the
 marauding ways of Erlien's chieftains. The factors at Innish knew
 well enough: the best silk from Atchaz always moved overland rather
 than risk the river route into Telzen. "You'll want a return cargo?"
    "Not just then." In soft words and darkness, the plans were laid
out. The brig's share of gold from Erlien's plunder would fund new
rigging and canvas from the Southshire shipyards. "Those supplies
and provisions are critically needed at the Shadow Master's outpost
at Corith. Cattrick's crews have been busy," the clan spokesman said.
"Maenol was told to expect three more brigs for refitting early in the
~p-tr/vo? ,,
    "Why can't the Evenstar bear tt/ese"~rr~ev,trt Alland?" Feylind broke
in, still angling for her chance to escape another decorous run dbwn
the southcoast.
    Fiark shook his pale head. "The Evenstar's bills of lading are clean.
Need one ship honest and yours was elected. If you didn't know, all
her profits are going to buy weapons to outfit the ships purloined out
of Riverton. With luck, by high summer, the clans will have their fleet
of sail to play havoc on Alliance shipping."
    "Slave-bearing galleys won't pass with impunity," a hard voice
affirmed from the darkness. "Once our people have the armed ships
to strike back, we can make rags of Lysaer's new edict by putting the
screws to his trade."
    Feylind was not mollified. "Looks to me like you've already started
with that." She turned upon Fiark, tenacious, to nail home her point.
"If the Evenstar's clean, I don't see any reason why I can't run cargo to
Capewell. The outpost at Corith's a short leg away. Supplies and dis-
patches could be left on a regular schedule without any undue risk."
    "No." The clan spokesman caught Feylind's shoulder and gave her
a fatherly shake. "You care for Prince Arithon?" At her stubborn nod,
he bon~ in. "Then see sense! Stay where he's placed you, or see him
hurt if you fall to grief!"
  Pearls flashed in the shadows as Feylind stiflened to argue.
    The clansman cut her off, merciless. "Then look at these men and
the cruelties they've suffered! You have no idea just how tense things
have grown, and not just in Tysan. Havish's king is caught in con-
tention as well."
    They heard the news then, of how the forty men in the Cariadwin's
hold had come to be freed by the seal of King Eldir's justice.

232

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    "Three galleymen and the fat harbormaster at Cheivalt were just
arraigned for treason." Seated once more, elbows braced on his knees
and his hands jammed through the uneven hair at his temples, the
clan spokesman qualified. "Those were put to trial for an exchange of
bribes to refute Havish's crown edict. They'll die, and not nicely.
Lysaer's bailiffs have been rebuffed twice, denied any fight of extra-
dition."
    Amid the dense quiet lying on all sides, Fiark accepted the tied
packets of correspondence from Arithon's westshore contacts. Sweat-
ing and sobered, he knelt by the candle to read. As always, the broad
range of sources astonished him. From sheets soaked in the incense
from the intrigue of court brothels, to others, encasing filched docu-
ments with official ribbons and cracked seals, the damning, grim pic-
ture unfolded, with warnings phrased in stark language. Feylind
shared the written pages alongside her brother, cursing as he turned
yellowed leaves too slowly, or the flame fluttered low, making thin,
ciphered script too difficult to peruse.
    In letters sent by prostitutes, officials, and tavernkeeps, the politi-
cal brangles unfolded, of relations gone from displeased to con-
tentious at every level of government. The coastal mayors resented
King Eldir's sharp justice. Inbound trade from Tysan would suffer
without galleys, cut off altogether while the winter's rough weather
closed the north passage to oared transport. Tension waxed to dis-
trust at the border, as Alliance officials were forced to discover their
Prince of the Light's bold policies received no margin of tolerance in
Havish.
    The royal counselors at Ostermere might accept that their king
would never back down.
    "It's the rock-brained coastal mayors who refuse to hear sense," the
clansman explained at agitated length. "They're howling protest.
Most won't understand that charter law can't be changed or repealed.
The crown's execution of a few arraigned traitors isn't going to deter
them. Bribes will just double. Nobody's fooled. Enough gold will
tempt any man to dishonesty, and the headhunters in Tysan are
bringing in captives with no heed at all for the season."
    Feylind perceived the stakes well enough. Until the ice broke in
Stormwell, galleymen had no open route except southward through
King Eldir's territory. Oared ships demanded more fresh water and
provisions; their vulnerable low freeboard required close access to
safe harbors, since storm swells could cause them to founder. Only a
blue-water hull with full sail could achieve the passage from
Capewell round West Shand in one leg.

233

JANNY WLIRTS

     Fiark tapped the last document against his shut teeth. "I see back-
 lash and dangerous pressure coming to bear on Cattrick's shipw0rl~
 at Riverton," he said softly.
    "Man, we know that!" The clansman sheathed the knife he had
used to scratch maps of Alliance troop movements and shoved to his
feet in bursting, sore agitation. "Maenol himself's said Prince Arith0n
should leave. Though how we could help to spirit him cross-country
is a right sticky point at the moment. Can't even protect our own fami-
lies in the forests, Alliance patrols are so fierce."
    No need to voice the full scope of the problem. With guild profits
affected, more than ever, the Alliance would covet the new vessels
targeted by the Shadow Master's delicate plotting.
    "One thing's sure," the clansman insisted, his fists clenched in sor-
rowful emphasis. "Those ships are the last and only hope to save my
Lord Maenol's people."
    Under mounting persecution from the Alliance, the last bloodlines
in Tysan faced an increasing threat of extermination. Their loss would
open the gates to disaster, since the territory the clans spilled their
blood to keep wild would become razed by the axes of townsmen.
    "The cry is raised to seize land for development," the clan
spokesman finished in a grief sharpened to desperation. "We are the
grass roots of the Fellowship's compact. Kill us off, and all ties to law
end." No proven line of descent would remain to keep faith with
humanity's petition for sanctuary. "Ath help us all, if the Paravians
return, and the Ath-forsaken mayors have the power in hand to cast
off the Fellowship's sanctions."

234

Midwinter 5653

Succession

The Fellowship Sorcerer crossed the barrens of Rathain in the teeth of
a howling storm. The gale which blasted the swept landscape of Daon
Ramon razed over the rounded, low hills in an assault of horizontal
sleet. Stone and dry gullies lay marbled in ice. The wind screamed
and flayed, lent the cruel edge of a billion dashed shards of quartz. In
weather that vicious, posted sentries were useless, even at the narrow
mouth of the draw which sheltered the small clan encampment. The
first Earl Jieret's scouts knew of Asandir's arrival was the presence of
a steaming dark horse in their midst.
    The young swordsman who wore his braid tied with fox tails
gasped and reached in shot panic to draw steel.
    His wrist was caught and yanked brutally short by the clamping
hand of his elder. "No. That's a friend." To the muffled figure on his
blowing mount, the veteran called, "Kingmaker?"
    A nod answered. The cowled Sorcerer dismounted, cloak snapping
in the whiteout scream of a gust.
    "Take his horse, boy." The older scout turned the younger one
loose with a companionable clap on the shoulder. "Don't be shy. If
there's Fellowship business, and not just a traveler's need to ask shel-
ter, our guest will ask for your High Earl."
    Asandir surrendered his wet reins. His reassurance fell like a
struck mote of sunlight against the gray storm that kept the land
mantied in winter. "Is Jieret in camp?"
  The older scout nodded. "I'll fetch him. You'll find his wife Feithan

235

 in the lodge tent, the one with the stag antlers hung on the javelin
 rack by the door flap."
     "I'll find my way." Asandir peeled a glove, used the back of his
 wrist to scrape the ice from his eyebrows. His level gray eyes then
 measured the scout, who was shivering, his buckskins soaked
 through to the skin. He said in tacit handling of stiff pride, "When
 you find Jieret, give him my word. There are no headhunters out reiv-
 ing within eighty leagues of this site. No need to stand guard until
 this weather has lifted. I left wards on my back trail and a spell of
 confusion to spin any tracking hounds widdershins. The seals won't
 release for three days. If dogs or armed townsmen try to push
 through, they'll just make themselves dizzy running themselves into

    "Ath bless you for that!" The scout's reddened features broke into
a pleased smile, masked as he shouldered head down through the
gale.
    Asandir tucked his bare hand back under his mantle, then footed
his way over iced rock and the rimed crusts of dead grass to the clus-
ter of wind-beaten lodge tents.
    The antlers on the rack proved still fresh from the hunt, and the
small, dark-haired woman who unfurled the door flap was wet to the
wrists from a fatty emulsion of boiled deer brains.
    When she saw who awaited outside her threshold, her thin,
gamine features blushed scarlet. "Come on in. The place reeks." Her
shrug framed apology as she let the flap fall, enclosing her visitor in a
steamy fog of white woodsmoke and the odorous stench from the pot
where two scraped hides were set curing. "Couldn't be helped. If I
waited for sunsh'me, the boys wouldn't have the leggings they need
to cover their new growth of ankle."
    She stepped back to her labor, one skin draped and dripping over a
rope stretched taut between the two lodgepoles. "Let me just wring
this out, and I'll see to your needs. No doubt you're famished. Hang
your cloak, if you want, by the fire."
    With competent, chapped hands, she flipped the ends of the hide
into a neat loop, tucked in the edges, then inserted a stick through the
center and twisted. The raw leather gave up its burden of moisture,
pattering runnels into the beaten earth floor.
    Asandir watched her in light, alert silence. The unassuming move-
ments as he cracked the cased ice off his shoulders and peeled off his
layers of soaked wool were deceptive, even ordinary. Yet Feithan's
blush remained high in tacit awareness that everything about her was
being measured, from the sable coil of hair fallen loose at her neck, to

236

FUGITIVE PRINCE

the skinning knife on its thong that had thinned from too many years
of sharpening. She felt like that steel: worn with use, but still strong,
still keen, still able to cope with the hardships that seemed to increase
with each year as Alliance patrols pinched and harried clan move-
ments.
    "The scouts have gone for Jieret," Asandir said. Unasked, he had
bent. He caught up her forked stick and fished the next hide from the
pot, his upturned smile flashed through his austerity like quicksilver.
"I'm already wet, yes?" He slung the saturated buckskin over the
rope and lent his arm to the heavy work of wringing.
    "You shouldn't," Feithan chided. "You'll stink just like me." Then
she whooped like a girl as she realized just what he was doing with
his hands.
    Magelight flared soft indigo over the wet hide, then brightened,
changed, slid down the spectrum to bloom into clear, fiery scarlet.
The leather steamed and unfurled, dry and warm from his spell seal,
finished inside the span of one heartbeat for its final curing in smoke.
  "I won't have to stretch this?" Feithan asked, dumbfounded.
    The Sorcerer shook his head, running his testing touch down the
velvety surface. "Nor smoke it, either, unless you wish to darken the
color." Luminosity trailed where his fingertips passed. The thick air
seemed to shimmer through an unheard song, as though a resonance
of his blessing did honor to the dead buck. "The hide wouldn't have
dried before nightfall, and this storm could be better spent sewing.
Do you wish me to treat the next one as well?"
    "I thank you, yes." Flushed now with pleasure, Feithan stepped
back and let him lift the moist pelt still draped on the rope. "Though,
Ath, I could have used a few of your tricks on the morning I tackled
the scraping. The camp boys were to help, but my truant of a husband
spirited them off to go hunting."
    She untied the taut cord, then knelt to collapse the frames used ear-
lier for stretching and dry'rag. Immersed in false brusqueness, she
tried not to care how desperately her fingers were shaking. But her
uneasy questions loomed too large to ignore, and the forceful quiet of
Asandir's presence was too palpably real at her back. She would
mask her sharp worry in chatter before she dared to ask why a Fel-
lowship Sorcerer should visit her hearth in the comfortless misery of
deep winter.
    Stilled as old oak, his silvered hair lying lank on broad shoulders,
the Sorcerer spoke as if he heard her thought anyway. "I'm here to
Name the next heir to Jieret's title."
  Feithan closed her eyes. The rank smell of deer brains all at once

237

JANNY WURTS

 seemed to unstring her senses. Fighting a tight chest, then wheeling
 faintness, she crouched half-unmoored, as if the dependable solidity
 of the earth must give way to a yawning void. She hung on, her lips
 clamped shut against desperate fear, and her arms clutched into an
 awkward embrace around a disjointed bundle of ash sticks.
    While the moment hung, she forced her stunned thoughts to sort
out what the Sorcerer had told her.
    Jieret's life was not endangered. An heir for his title as steward of
Rathain was only chosen by the Fellowship when the s'Ffalenn royal
line became threatened.
    No confirmed ill news, then; not an immediate disaster to her fam-
ily, but too likely a larger one pending for the realm. In mechanical
habit, she continued to tidy the collapsed slats of the hide frame. Then
she drew on raw courage and a forced, hammered steadiness. "Which
son should I call?"
    A hand touched her shoulder, light as a moth's wing, and uncan-
nily warm for a traveler just spared from the battering siege of harsh
weather. "Neither son, lady."
    Asandir had reached her side in one long, soundless step. Another
move saw the wood lifted out of her hands. His understated strength
raised her upright and gripped her in bedrock support. "Dismiss
every fear for your husband as well. He stays here in Rathain, under
my binding command if need be. This appointment of succession is
but a formality and, life willing, should stay so for many years to
come."
    Steadied enough to stop shivering, Feithan tipped up her angular
face. She surveyed the Sorcerer, who topped her by a head, his
patience like glacial scarred granite. Then the wonder broke through
and wakened a flutter in her veins. "You want Kei?"
    Asandir's smile was quietly luminous, subtle and fleeting as the
spill of a moonbeam in the sultry flare of spent coals. "She will be Kei
no longer. And yes. Be proud. Your daughter shall become the next
Teiren's'Valerient, steward to the royalty of Rathain."
    "She's with the neighbor," Feithan explained, straightened now
with relief. "The smoke from the tanning sometimes bothers the new-
borns. Let me just rinse my hands and fetch her back."

    The Fellowship ceremony for Naming the caithdein's heir took
place in hurried solemnity. There was no feast, no celebration, no joy-
ous gathering of far-flung clans the tradition usually warranted. Only
Jieret and his wife attended the ritual when Asandir in his travel-
stained leathers accepted the infant from Feithan's arms.

238

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    On that day scarcely one month old, she was tucked in a sheepskin
laced at the front with plain thongs. Her gems were the glints of
melted sleet caught in silk of the fleeces. Her wide eyes were blue,
still uncolored from birth, but tracking the Sorcerer's finger as he
traced a glyph in white light over the dome of her forehead. "You
who were Kei shall be Jeynsa Teiren's'Valerient henceforward."
    Translation from the old Paravian meant successor to power. For a
moment, the Sorcerer's presence seemed raised to a level that tran-
scended mortality. His hair, his large hands, the very life in his veins
seemed to sing with a subliminal silvery aura. The babe in his grasp
seemed both flesh and light, surrounded and infused by the majestic
force of a power too fierce to be captured by reason. Felthah raised
cramped knuckles to dash away tears. Jieret stood silent, perhaps in
remembrance of his own hour of oath taking, years past in Strake-
wood when his parents stood living beside him.
    Slashing winds and the singing whine of the sleet ruled the
moment as Asandir's arcane rune sank and touched. Its intricate
angles blazed bright as a meteor, and then dimmed, softly melded
against the smooth warmth of the girl child's skin. "Jeynsa, little
spirit, be strong. Prove worthy of the destiny you will come to carry
forward from the time-honored lineage of your ancestors."
    Then the choosing was done. The Sorcerer raised the bundled
child. Smiling and dazzled, she was returned to the care of her
mother, More than Name had changed. Jeynsa's future was sealed. A
sign like a gossamer tracing in starlight gleamed under the rim of her
hood.
    "My mark will bear witness, she is Fellowship chosen." Dimin-
ished once again to a weathered old traveler, sturdy, but worn from
long service, the Sorcerer gave last instructions. "The sign will fade in
one cycle of the moon. Raise the girl to bear the proud title of
caithdein, with all of the powers and charges therein. She will swear
formal service to her prince in the fullness of time."
    Earl Jieret touched his daughter's soft cheek. Still wrapped in the
crumpled furs he had worn in the thorn brakes, his wolf-pelt hat
dripping ice melt through his braid, he raised his bearded chin and
regarded the Sorcerer who stood unmoving before him. In all of
Athera, he was one of the few who stood tall enough, and bred of a
stern enough fiber to endure a prolonged, level stare. "You're not
staying?"
    Asandir's silence became palpably heavy. For a second,'he seemed a
phantom figure, pressed out of velvet against the dimmed hides of the
lodge tent. "I can't," he admitted at unpleasant length. "The Koriani

239

]ANN� ~LIRT$

    witches have been much too busy œor anyone's peace of m/nd." The
regret in his words held the masked strain oœ dangers unfit to be
shared.
    Yet Jieret was no man to settle for plat/fudes, far less from a Fellow-
ship Sorcerer. "If the enchantresses pose any danger to my prince,
best tell me." His courage was agony and his heart, hammered steel,
as he refused to back down under pressure. "I know from Dakar that
Morriel Prime once laid a plot to assassinate him."
    Asandir did not try to evade brutal truth; neither would he answer
directly. "Your liege has Caolle at his side. Bide here. There's nothing
more you can do for your crown prince or your realm in the west,
except suffer the most ugly of deaths."
    When Jieret drew breath out of protest, the Sorcerer spun away,
snatched his cloak from the stool by the fireside, and flung it, still wet,
over the squared frame of his shoulders. "No, Jieret. You cannot come
with me. I am bound now for the focus circle at Caith-al-Caen, and
from there, with all speed, on a m/ssion more urgent than this one."
    Hands clutched to a child whose life was now promised to the ser-
vice of people and realm, Feithan sucked back a small gasp for the
hurt unexpressed behind Jieret's wooden dignity.
    Asandir fastened his cloak. In the close, reeking air, still befouled
with smoke and the lingering, grease stink of tanning, he shook out
his damp gloves. Deliberate in each precise movement he made, and
with no spell expended for comfort, he slipped the chill leather over
his capable hands. Then he looked up. His eyes were rinsed slate,
utterly blank and unreadable. "Jieret, we are not stewards of any
man's life, no matter how precious his bloodline. What can be done,
will be. Sethvir has cast auguries. His assurance was this: the
enchantress who works healing in the moorlands of Araethura has
not been recalled by her Prime Matriarch. Whatever the Warden at
Althain perceived, he said, keep you here in Rathain. Until the Kori-
ani initiate named Elaira is pressed back into active service by her
order, your prince should fare well enough under Dakar's wards and
protection."
    Jieret bent his head. Better than most, he understood the strict lim-
its the Law of the Major Balance set over Fellowship actions. The fists
at his sides locked in helpless, white tension. Unwittingly recast in the
image of his father, his anguish screamed through every restrained
joint of his bearing. "You will tell me, at once, if there's anything I
can do?"
    Asandir reached out his gloved hands and grasped the caithdein of
Rathain by both forearms. "Trust us that much. For now, for your

240

FUGI?I~E I~RINCE

there will be small reprieve. Lysaer's convocation at Etarra is
to lose impetus. All the armed resource the guilds raised for the
Alliance to scour the forests of Rathain will soon be diverted else-
where. Pack up your camp when the storm breaks. For this year at
'least, you can summer in Halwythwood with no more than the usual
precautions."
    There was no more to say. Too proud to plead, too stubborn to ask
where Lysaer's crack officers at Etarra would march troops, if not into
Rathain's hidden glens to hunt clansmen, Jieret watched in numbed
           as the Sorcerer touched Feithan and murmured his formal
farewell. Then he slipped back into the chaos of the storm, drawn
away by more desperate crisis.

241

~te I~inter

Turnings

In the fullness of night, amid pelting sleet, Lysaer s'Ilessid and his
closest retainers mount in urgent secrecy; given covert knowledge of
the Shadow Master's piracy at Riverton, they ride from Etarra's
postern gate and swing west on the Mathorn Road, their intent to
seek passage by sea out of Narms and effect swift return to
Avenor ....

    Late night, under broken clouds and the stabbing-bright glints of
hard starlight, Earl Jieret walks the wind-beaten crests of Daon
Ramon and curses his Sight for the snatched, fickle dream, which has
shown him no sign of his liege's predicament; but only a circle of
Koriani Seniors, gathered whispering around a white crystal, while a
Fellowship ward of protection is smashed wholesale, and the cries of
winged predators whistle enraged off a backdrop of snow-covered
mountains ....

    Dakar the Mad Prophet suffers fitful, ill dreams until a flash of pre-
scient talent rips him awake with an entangled warning of danger
laced in dark images of fire and smoke, and hot blood on a battered
main gauche; through the course of another violent row, he entreats
Arithon s'Ffalenn to leave Riverton, with no more success than
before ....

242

'~e Winter 5653

VII. Hunters

Since Arithon made his covert request for an inquiry into the fate
of Princess Talith, Mearn s'Brydion grew back his lovelock. A
thorough and leisurely round of seductions of ladies-in-waiting
and chambermaids would yield him sure word whether Lysaer's
public declaration of retirement covered a madwoman's seclusion, or
incarceration of an unwilling prisoner. When pillow talk bought
Mearn no more than the court knew, and uproarious drinking with
the palace garrison drew owlish blank looks and speculation, his
: ~'owling search slipped past locked doors. By night, he perused the
,;ivate ledgers kept by Avenor's tight-faced Minister of the Treasury.
Even there, outright facts stayed elusive. One odd, recurrent entry
:~ ,r high-council security allotted gold to six guardsmen without
:,~corded names. Another, in Lord Eilish's fussy capitals, awarded a
~!ipend for the princess's retreat that was suspiciously meager to sup-
port a full staff and the comforts for a cosseted royal wife.
    Mearn's lips quirked in jaundiced thought where he crouched,
lightly clad in bitter air, his chosen vantage now the wind-raked slates
atop the ornate, spired roof of the council hall.
    Yesterday's snowfall had cleared off to a brilliance of winter con-
stellations. Beneath, emptied streets traced a gleam of tarnished sil-
ver, frozen to ruts sliced by cart wheels. The respectable taverns had
closed for the night, their banked kitchen fires trailing thin smoke

243

JANNY WURTS

from the chimneys. The upper-story window frames lay paned ~a
dimmed glass, pocked by the odd candle flame where a restless eccen-
tric clung to deepless act~vi~ Mearn's barfive presence passed
unseen. Left a cold trail by the happier pursuits oœ loose-living
females and beer, he snugged co//ed rope across his trim shoulders,
then chalked resin on the soles of his thinnest kid slippers.
    By the dark of the moon, he set out to test the one lead pried loose
by dint of his maternal grandmother's advice.
    'Townborn will always dissemble and cheat,' he recalled her admonish-
ing through a youthful attempt to talk his way through a scrape.
'That's what nature breeds out of landowning avarice.' White haired,
diminutive, as flawlessly neat as a porcelain lily, she peered up at
him, her chuckle all vinegar delight as she jabbed home her point
with the blackthorn stick she brandished in old age like a weapon.
'Ath above, boy! You keep all your brains in your cock? To know a states-
man's true heart, you must first track his wealth. Only his gold never lies.'
    By coin's sterling testament, the keep which fronted Avenor's state
palace held the realm's most fugitive secret. At least, Mearn had
learned after tailing the self-important senior clerk who paid wages,
the anonymous six guardsmen played watchdog to the locked and
barred tower attached to the building's south wing. The structure was
hexagonal, built of the fired fawn brick used to expedite the restora-
tion of Tysan's capital. From Mearn's stance by the pillars which
braced a dome vaulting, the keep's north facade cut a ruled silhouette
through the smoke silver stipple of stars. No pennon flew from its
blunt, leaded roof. The banded masonry beneath the upper battle-
ment held no carved follies or gargoyles. Only the simple sunwheel
emblem graced the dressed-granite lintels of the entry below, a cav-
ernous portal of strapped oaken doors, studded in steel and square
bosses. This, Mearn discovered, stayed barred to all but a handpicked
cadre of the realm's highest officers.
    Avenor's new fashion of zealous idealism made bribes too chancy
to contemplate. Hands t~cked in the crook of his elbows for warmth,
Mearn suppressed a dry snort. Never mind his recent, scapegrace
reputation, earned in the boudoirs and wineshops; as the ducal
ambassador for his clanborn brother, Lysaer's officials clung to their
prejudice against his credibility.
    Townborn rancor ran deep as the root of the Fellowship's compact.
A man who preferred his grudges blood fresh, Mearn doused pricked
temper to taciturn silence time and again, while the courtiers spun to
their hatreds like weathercocks. He observed, his knife hand locked
into stillness, when tempers flared up during councils of state.

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FUGITIVE PRINCE

Always some merchant who lost goods to Maenol's forest raiders
would yammer the old accusations. Then every pigheaded guild min-
ister in sight would ignore five centuries of history: s'Brydion of Ale-
stron had never preyed upon caravans. Mearn met each outburst and
pigeon-brained insult with cynical, ingrained suspicion. S'mce even
his most innocently posed inquiries were likely to worsen his ques-
tionable clan standing, he chose to sidestep the quagmires of intrigue.
The bare-handed adventure of scaling the tower held much more to
his taste.
    A gust hissed over the cornices and snapped the royal pennons on
their lanyards. No comfortqoving sentry would stand his watch
exposed to such lacerating cold. Mearn snatched his chance to cross
the roof peak unseen. By touch, he avoided the patches of glaze ice;
his soft soles made no sound against slates raked bare by the ele-
ments. Below him, the snow-covered gables of Avenor wore the night
like a mantle spun from frost opal and woodsmoke.
    To the west, his view commanded the black sweep of the sea,
flecked by carnelian watchbeacons. Eastward, over the square walls
and past the crowned turrets of the gatekeeps, a ragged mound tore a
scar in the flank of the hill. There the Paravian stones cast down by
Lysaer's builders lay jumbled as lichened bones, silted in rubble
where the crumbled Second Age towers had been razed off the foun-
dations to make way for his grander design. The dells the ancient ruin
once defended fanned inland, pocketed in winter-silent drifts. Forest
had encroached on the older boundary where mankind's tilled
acreage ended, and the inviolate expanse of Paravian provenance
once began. Horned centaur guardians no longer trod under the mas-
sive oaks crowning the hillcrests. No sunchildren danced in the vales,
with their tangling skeins of shallow streams. The glens where
Tysan's dead high kings had met to hold council with Athera's lost
races lay grown over with holly and briar, forgotten except by the
deer and the hare, the mice and the night-hunting owl.
    Clansmen might stubbornly adhere to past ways, but inside town
walls, the land's former heritage was scorned. A carriage clattered
over the cobbles, bearing some late-going gallant to the sea-quarter
wineshops where friends met to vent youthful spirits. A cur yapped
down by the exciseman's sheds. The commotion set off an answering
chorus from the stables next to the barracks, where Lysaer's coursers
were kenneled alongside the lean hounds bred by headhunters to
worry the fugitive clansmen.
    Among them, deep toned, Mearn's own couple of deerhounds
gave tongue. For their heart, he loosed breathless laughter While his

245

JANNY Wl.i R TS

dearies kept up the commotion and diverted the bored wits of the
sentries, he tucked up against the beaded cornice where the tower
joined with the roof.
    Kiln-fired masonry offered no purchase to climbers, an advantage
for defense. To offset its prime weakness, that brick inc/ined to shatter
under stoneshot launched from siege catapults, the vulnerable angles
had been laid and faced with blocks of field-hewn granite. Scarcely as
inviting as a stairway, Mearn thought as he sighted aloft to weigh his
prospects. The mortar at least was unlikely to crumble. No standing
structure in Tysan's restored capital had stood for more than a
decade. Though exposed to the elements, the roof line of the council
hall masked the first stage of the ascent. The blast of the wind would
press him into the wall, and drive the keep's anonymous, paid guards
to huddle on the leeward side.
    Since Mearn looked on caution as a mealymouthed word for gut-
less procrastination, he tightened the laced wrists of his sleeves and
stripped off his gloves. Hands hooked to chill stone, he wedged his
toe in the crack of the first course of granite and forsook his safe
stance on the roof. Either Princess Talith was locked away in seclusion
above, or he could send honest word back to Arithon s'Ffalenn that
she was nowhere inside of Avenor.
    Shouts from the kennels at last quelled the deerhounds. Mearn's
raised vantage over the wall walks chiseled even the small sounds
into-unnerving clarity. Above the hiss of his breath through locked
teeth, he picked out the warbling flute of distressed pigeons, wak-
ened by a thief in the falconer's dovecote.
    Clamped to exposed rock, shivering from an unrelenting exertion
that scarcely left room for thought, he could do little else but cling
and hope the desperate wretch would wring the birds' necks with
dispatch. Never mind the s'Brydion posture of alliance, now placed
in irrefutable jeopardy. Mearn set his jaw and groped another deter-
mined handhold, then forced buming thighs to straighten. The breast
of his jerkin scraped another foot up sheer granite. For pure,
demented folly, he resisted the breathless urge to laugh. His brothers
would gripe themselves prostrate should he become caught by some
guard rousted up for a servant's inept pilfering.
    If risk of ignominy was not bad enough, an unexpected light flared
scarcely ten yards above. Mearn flinched like a cat. Reflex alone saved
his balance. A fleeting glance upward showed a gleam of new flame
behind a row of slit windows.
  Someone had entered the keep's third-floor chamber.
  Mearn gasped out a virulent oath, wishing pustules and pox on

246

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 palace officials taken with urges to bum candles in towers past mid-
 night. No afterthought, he added his prayer that the crazed individ-
 ual disregard any notion to admire the stars or the view. The niches
 where the sills pierced the wall offered the only secure ledge for him
 to pause. His predicament was not mutable. Not through an unbro-
 ken ascent, with the next set of casements a distance of forty feet
 higher up. Fatigue already ran searing tremors through his limbs. His
 own labored breath turned his head. He must snatch that stop to rest,
 or succumb to exhaustion and fall.
    Wind hissed across masonry and thrummed the thick frames of the
casements. Meam shut his eyes against a blurred sting of tears from
the cold. On a grimace of effort, he unlatched his numbed fingers
from a handhold, fumbled, then hooked the rough edge of the sill.
    The light flickered. A thickset body shadowed the glass, and a
complaining voice Mearn recognized as Quinold, Lord High Chancel-
lor, drifted to the casement overhead. "Beastly drafts at this season."
    Behind diamond mullions, a scant span apart from the knuckles
which suspended the climber from a lethal plunge to the roof slates,
Lord Quinold's pudgy hands seized the tasseled cord to draw the
curtains. Brass hoops slid on the rod and a heavy fall of velvet doused
the candlelight down to a slit.
    Meam hissed with relief. Shaking and runneled in icy sweat, he
shifted his weight, hitched himself up the last, saving foot to the level
stone of the window ledge. The knifing winds which had been his
ally now sheared through his clothing. His skin had worn through at
the fingertips. A forthright inspection revealed flesh underneath gone
too numb to feel the abrasion. Mearn's heart raced with the unpleas-
ant awareness that nothing more than thin rondels of glass and the
untrustworthy mask of a curtain guarded his niche from discovery.
    Let him be caught inside Lysaer's guarded precinct, and no tri-
bunal would trifle with charges of treason. Town law was explicit.
Execution of clansmen brought public dismemberment without bene-
fit of a hearing, followed by death from a sword blade run through
the heart.
    Mearn wrapped his forearms around his tucked knees, as much to
contain his outright contempt as to foil the ripping north wind. His
diplomacy at Avenor could scarcely bend five centuries of ingrained
disrespect. The ways of city governance confounded and astonished
him, that these twit-brained townborn with their manned walls and
libraries, their obsessive filing of ledgers and written record, could so
arrogantly disown the founding facts of their heritage.
  The fugitive forest clans their conceit named barbarian kept no

247

~ANN� ~tll~ T$

inscribed l~/stotYes. Pe~'seculJon by t~eadl~unters dertied them safe
haven to live in shelter and comœort, yet they preserved memory oœ
the purpose behind their unmixed bloodlines and ancestry. Mearn's
restless penchant to challenge authority made him rage, that tinbri-
dled greed could ever have raised this bloodletting rift between fac-
tions.
    As if to bear out his cynical view, the Lord High Chancellor
stumped past the gap in the curtains, his diction precise as he resumed
brassy carping. "Ath, there's no wine. Some dimwit neglected to
restock the cupboard. Damn those breeding pests of barbarians, you
know how ! hate climbing stairs for these meetings."
    A gravelly voice Mearn did not recognize answered too low to
overhear. Pricked to curiosity, well practiced from a boyhood spent
eavesdropping on his short-tempered older brothers, he set his ear to
the glass.
    "... scarcely a matter of clan raiding this time," the bass speaker
finished in stiff censure.
    A chair scraped. Lord Chancellor Quinold sat down, his next line
filtered through a barrage of squeaks wrung from rush caning and
wood. "No wonder you're thin, Vorrice. You fret like a nesting pack
rat. To judge by your maundering, one might mistakenly think the
Fellowship Sorcerers were omnipotent. Or are you worried the Para-
vians might return in their full and fatal glory overnight? Really, we'd
all fare better if you could relax your obsession with burning con-
victed talent. The perils posed by the Shadow Master are far more
immediate, since his overt collaboration with Maenol's clansmen."
    "But the old races aren't dead," the one named Vorrice lashed back.
His grainy voice stabbed with conviction. "If they were, the accursed
taint of practicing magecraft would be banished from the world alto-
gether Obstructions by meddling sorcerers would be ended, besides.
Until that day comes, public cleansings become my bound duty."
    Outside on the sill, a chill gripped Mearn that bit deeper than any
assault of mere wind. He had watched Lysaer's interdict against sor-
cery seed spurious arrests across Tysan. On the street, not a whisper
of rumor had emerged to suggest a fanatic invested with high office
to enforce a campaign of persecution.
    A knock sounded at the door to the inside chamber. "That must be
Tellisec and the other guild ministers," the Lord High Chancellor sur-
mised, then huffed through the bother of raising his bulk to admit
them.
    From below, a ruddy flicker in the stairwell arrow slits warned of
another imminent arrival. Mearn hunkered down against icy granite,

248

FUGITIVE PRINCE

amazed to have stumbled upon a clandestine conference between
Lysaer's trusted inner circle. He listened to their exchanged greetings,
and by names and accents identified the realm's Lord Justiciar,
Avenor's High Gate Keeper, and Lord Mayor Skannt of the head-
hunters' league. Tysan's ranking seneschal was away with Lysaer in
the east, but his appointed seat was not empty.
    Another man with soft, fruity vowels assumed the authority to
officiate. "Where's Gace?" that one snapped. "He's late. Does anyone
know why?"
    Gace was Prince Lysaer's household steward, a closemouthed,
stringy wisp of a creature who tended to slink. Meam misliked the
man's habit of lurking in dim comers, unblinking and watchful as a
rat.
    "If Gace is delayed, he'll have sound reason," Vorrice made grating
objection. "We need his goodwill. As the Prince of the Light's closest
servant, it might be politic to trust him."
    A whining blast of wind obscured the reply. Meam braved the
brunt, given no other choice. Meeting or conspiracy, he needed to tell
which, then make clean his escape. Cold and inactivity were now
deadly adversaries. Prolonged exposure on a north-facing ledge
would soon impair his reflexes. He dared not linger beyond the point
where he became too chilled to climb.
    "Our man has arrived," announced the fatuous spokesman. Inside
the chamber, the door from the stairwell opened to a decisive click.
Pressed to the casement, his breath fanning frost rime across tippled
glass, Meam snagged the newcomer's name from the brisk exchange
of introductions. A frown nicked his brow. What breeding mischief
would lead a rich trade minister to leave his plush comforts in Erdane
to convene with Avenor's cabal of power? Meam gave the quandary
ferocious thought. He had never met Guild Master Koshlin, but clan
rumor from Camris linked the title to a bullish, short man with sly
eyes and a penchant for endowments in gold to further the head-
hunters' leagues.
    While chairs bumped inside, and the cozy assembly settled itself
down to deal, Mearn chafed stiff fingers, riled to slit-eyed concern.
    "Your welcome is accepted here only because of your overtures to
support Prince Lysaer's alliance against evil," the man in authority
addressed, his peach-syrup inflection at chilling odds with a blunt-
ness that ran contrary to the ingrained town penchant for stylized
manners and ceremony.
    "By all means, let us speak plainly." Lord Koshlin's ruffled suavity
trailed through a considering pause. "Your prince shall have gold in

249

JANNY WUI~TS

support from a faction in Camris I have been asked not to name. The
moneys will come with no strings attached. If your self-styled savior
can bring more than folk at MiraIt Head to hail him as an avatar, no
one of us will denounce him."
    That raised a bristling rustle, as someone of size roused himself to
take umbrage.
    Ever smooth in diplomacy, the High Chancellor intervened. "Let
us not quibble over unfounded truths, Vorrice. We few are privileged.
Elsewhere, the awareness of Lysaer's blessed heritage has not been
made common knowledge."
    "Divi~e will shall triumph, but the time must be right," a sup-
porter chimed in to placate Erdane's minister. "His Grace has
promised each man must find faith and belief for himself. Until he
wins due acclaim, our prince poses as mortal."
    Lord Koshlin pressed on, impatient. "Why waste any breath on
theology at all? Let your prince inspire the whole world to bow to his
moral righteousness. Every conversion he makes serves our need, in
turn. We are dedicated men bound to break the constraint of the Fel-
lowship's compact. Our followers in Camris already have instruc-
tions. They'll serve your Alliance of Light in coin and information,
and even raw resource. By whatever means, they want sorcery sup-
pressed and the old clan lineages eradicated. The s'Ilessid claim to
immortal birth is not germane. We view his criminal charges against
the Shadow Master's allies as a powerful political convenience."
    While Mearn battled the rise of his gorge, Vorrice raised abrasive
opinion. "Your hatred of Maenol's barbarians runs deep. Do we also
surmise you fear the restoration of the Paravians?"
    "Don't mistake, we fear nothing." Koshlin paused through what
felt at second hand like a lingering, oily smile. "Let me suggest, any
force in Athera who stands for the old ways poses a dangerous
impediment. We wish the Second Age mysteries forgotten."
    On the sill, tucked and bitter, Mearn squelched seething fury, while
Koshlin's bland monologue expounded upon the self-blinded creed
of the townborn.
    "Those bygone beliefs stunt the interests of trade. Why should a
hidebound adherence to past ritual disallow more seaports and better
roads?" A fist thumped on wood, to a flickering splash of leaked
flame light through slitted curtains. "Since the Paravians abandoned
the continent, mankind should claim rightful use of the land."
Koshlin cleared his throat. "The faction I speak for will back Lysaer's
cause. In secret, we've labored to abolish the compact since the over-
throw of the last high kings. Those of our heirs who incline toward

250

FUGITIVE PRINCE

religion will scarcely care which name they invoke when they mouth
their prayers to a deity. Once humanity is free to reap this world's
wealth, society will flourish. You wish the Prince of Rathain brought
down and his supporters suppressed to save the peace. We wish to
escape the Fellowship's tyranny. Our ends lie along the same course,
won't you see?"
    "You want the slinking barbarians dead," Lord Mayor Skannt
observed in his drawling, perpetual contempt. "For that end, I'll take
in any man's gold. But first, I'd hear your conditions."
    The proposal branched into particulars and questions, while
Mearn shivered and fretted on the ledge. The moment had arrived to
press on, or jeopardize all of his success. Against the murmured back-
drop of debate, then the Lord High Justiciar's scathing accusation to
the realm's chancellor for fence-sitting, the clansman eased his tucked
stance. A second he lingered, heart torn into conflict by blood loyal-
ties.
    "Damn all your shortsighted bickering!" Vorrice burst through in
surging vehemence. Meam started tense. Inside, a chair rasped back
from the table. He flattened against stone as crisp footsteps carried
across the chamber. An angry hand snapped the curtains aside and
bared the centermost casement. Time froze. Cramped against the
adjacent lintel, Mearn stopped breathing, pinned down a fatal
handspan away from the executioner's suffused profile.
    "Barbarians or sorcerers, their twisted nature is the same." Vorrice
jabbed passionate fingers toward the gathering behind him. "The
sooner they're exterminated, the better."
    Escape was not possible. Mearn clamped his quivering sinews into
rigid stillness. If he moved, if capricious luck left him now, he would
be caught as a spy. All Vorrice need do was glance sidewards.
    Unblinking, Mearn memorized the man's jowled features. If by
Ath's grace he came through unscathed, he determined to. know this
new enemy.
    Vorrice's pale eyes fixed unseeing upon the frost-sharp sweep of
the rooftops. He worked fleshy lips, pinched to tight discontent at the
corners. His stance seethed with nerve-fired agitation, the statker's
impression intensified by a thin nose, and eyebrows napped like wet
burlap. He wore his hair cropped. The thoughtless clench of his fist to
fringed velvet contrasted a manic neatness. White robes and gold
band of office hung stainless and straight, glittering with the golden
sunwheel device.
    "We should take the Lord Master's offer, believe this." His
adamant diction flecked spittle as he gestured his conviction. "Let his

251

~ANNY ~U~TS

coin help rout out the canker of sorcer3a What should we fear? Prince
Lysaer will shine as our maker intends. Let the faithless beware. The
light of his presence shall banish corruption wherever man's works
embrace evil."
    "Vorrice," admonished the unseen authority, his fulsome voice
glacial with command, "this is not an inquisition. No sensible gift will
be spumed by this gathering. Not if the coin and the services offered
are being presented in good faith."
    Vorrice made no reply, but snapped shut the curtains to a sliding
clash of yanked rings.
    Veiled in safe darkness, Meam loosed his pent breath. Moisture
plumed from his lips, whirler away by anoLhe~r keen~g gust. The
cold at his back seared down to the bone, while rage hazed his mood
to fierce recklessness. He seized a short moment to steady his mind,
then quit the ledge, athletic and sure as he groped the next handhold
higher up. His mind stayed unsettled, each circling thought struck
from a mold of hot fear. Erdane's guild ministers had not forgotten
their history since the uprising which dethroned the past high kings.
They knew the clan bloodlines were an irreplaceable legacy. To judge by
Koshlin's least sinister insinuations, they understood the connection
between the oldest and first ruling families, and the guarded liaison
once maintained between mankind and lost races.
    For few spirits were born with the tenacity to withstand the living
presence of the Paravians. Meam knew as much from the chronicles
preserved in Alestron's archives. Those moldered histories read with
the fierce ring of legend. Mortals who survived the experience of con-
tact quite often went mad, driven distraught by their limited human
perceptions. The fortunate who were stricken found solace with Ath's
Brotherhood. Most others simply wasted away, reft witless by a thirst
for a splendor too majestic to sustain reason. Daily cares, kin, the very
necessities of survival fell into eclipse before Paravian presence,
which reflected unsullied the grandiloquent grace of the power
which sourced Ath's creation.
    For this, the Fellowship in their wisdom had sworn and sealed the
great compact. Their act of intervention took charge before the grief of
more limited human awareness could tear the fabric of society asun-
der.
    Men like Koshlin still fueled the misunderstanding which gave rise
to the slaughter of the high kings. Sunk in dangerous resentment,
nursed by ignorance and hate, they mistook the clans' past rule for
repression, when in fact charter law compelled bygone sovereigns to
a guiding burden of defense.

252

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    S'Brydion clan record said Melhalla's twelfth high king had set seal
to Alestron's original city charter. Like many another chosen family,
the new overlords made their residence in an abandoned fortress. The
old races had forsaken walled keeps after the binding of the drake
spawn whose marauding had ended in defeat in the middle of the
Second Age. Every duke since then swore himself to life service, and
the peril as acting intermediary between his demesne and the conse-
crated wilds inhabited by the free Paravians. They held vested
authority, but only in trust. Forests were never to be cut down for
fields, nor were fences and roadways ever built, except by grant of
permission. Mankind had settled Athera on sufferance. Their works
and their governance had been cautiously allowed, that the great
mysteries maintained by Paravian wardship should remain in perpet-
ual harmony.
    Rule was not based upon power or privilege, but on the fraught
perils of sacrifice. The pitfalls were documented. Lords and crowned
high kings most often died young, heart torn between dedicated care
for their own, and the terrible, exultant conflict of spirit as they
treated with beings who formed the living bridge across the veil.
    Mearn hugged his shivering body to the granite, groped a toe into
the next crack, and shoved upward. The whispered scrape of his shirt
over stone, and the moan of the wind through the gulf of starry dark-
ness left him too much space to brood. A natural gambler, he mea-
sured the odds and concluded that fate dealt the clans a bad throw.
His brother the duke had initially backed Arithon for matters of fam-
ily honor. But as politics and greed built on the grand impetus of
Lysaer's cry for armed justice, that chosen loyalty could well become
an act of desperate survival.
    Five centuries past, a misguided war cast off crown justice. Dis-
senters had seized the protection of the towns to wrest Athera's unex-
ploited wilds from the sway of the Fellowship's compact. Now
Lysaer's bright new Alliance of Light lent a glove for the hands of
those factions who still sought to raise mankind into dominance. The
sinister purpose which first launched the headhunters' leagues
regained its original impetus: to exterminate the link preserved in
clan bloodlines and end the resurgence of Paravian mysteries.
    Mearn reached the next windowsill winded, his knuckles and fin-
gertips raw from the granite. The chamber inside was curtained and
dark, its purpose impossible to fathom. If a living princess was held
captive above, sleeping guards or attendants might be quartered here.
Mearn shut his eyes, listening. Small sounds drifted up from the street
in diminished, wind-snatched fragments: a slap of hurried footsteps,

253

]ANNY WONTS

 then the head falconer's surly phrasing in complaint of a dishonest
 scullion. Between oaths and blasphemies maligning the oaf's charac-
 ter, the reference to stolen pigeons surfaced in recurrent disgust.
    "Daelion Fatemaster's almighty debts!" harangued the falconer. "If
your duty as Avenor's royal steward won't see the miscreant pun-
ished, who in creation's going to act? Should the Captain of Avenor's
Royal Guard be yanked in to box the ears of a feckless boy? Well, kiss
my dead granny's arse, if that's what you think! Bedamned if I'll
show my face at his door to say why he has to roust out."
    Mearn twitched narrow lips, his soft snort of laughter damped by
his sleeve as the brangle destroyed the night quiet. Echoes bounced,
multiplied, through the tower entry. The theft in the dovecote seemed
the cause of Gace Steward's delay, a setback to nettle his weasely tem-
perament into a snarling row. The falconer refused to give back any
ground. Delighted to seize on the chance-met diversion, Meam s'Bry-
dion nipped from his niche and embarked on the grueling last ascent
of the upper battlements.
    The watchtower's turret had a crenellated guard walk, inset with
drains to gutter rainwater. These offered the climber a precarious left
handhold while he unslung his grapple and line. He timed his throw
between gusts, lest the wind spoil his aim. The carrying, metallic
chink as the hooks slid and caught prickled his nape into gooseflesh.
He could not shake the unnerving conviction that an archer took aim
between his shoulder blades. Imagination harried him on through the
moments he was forced to trust his weight to the rope. Eyes shut,
sweat branding the acrid taste of salt on his lips, he swung out over
air and scaled the line hand over hand.
    Gusts battered at his progress, fetched him against stone in
repeated, bruising impacts that tore through his shirt and skinned a
shoulder. Then he reached the crenellation. He dragged himself up
and through, and crouched head down, sheltered at last from the buf-
feting cold.
    Had guards been stationed there on the wall walk, he should have
died, betrayed by teeth that chattered from fraught nerves and chill.
Yet no man-at-arms came to skewer him. Gray stone and pale brick
wore nothing beyond ice, except where the reaching scour of the ele-
ments swept the battlement clean. Mearn thrived on escapades. He
shrugged his scuffed clothing back to rights, licked a scraped
knuckle, and raked his lovelock free of his collar.
    The tower's turret chamber had windows secured with oak-plank
shutters strapped in iron. No light shone through the gaps at the
edges. With his ear pressed to the wood, Mearn sensed no activity. A

254

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 questing touch confirmed a barred fastening, likely fitted with a lock
 and hasp from inside. The hinges were mounted prison fashion, onto
 the outer wall. Meam unlaced the thong ties from his collar points,
 ripped off his shirt cuff to muffle stray noise, then looped the heads of
 the pins with the leather and worried until they slipped free.
     Left the play in the hasp, and one side unanchored, the shutter
 gave just enough to allow him an opening to push through.
     Meam deferred his first move. While the gusts slapped and pried
 through the rip in his shirt, he peered into the stillness, poised as the
 predator who tested the lair of unknown and dangerous prey. Faint
 warmth touched his skin, dense with the charcoal smoke of banked
 embers and a lighter fragrance of lavender. He detected no move-
 ment, could see little beyond the bronze-bossed handles of what
 might be a lady's clothes chest. Bulked comers of other furnishings
 lay limned in the starlight admitted by the breached shutter.
    Meam raised his thigh, tautened his grip, and hoisted soundlessly
onto the broad sill. A feathered brush of his jerkin across studded
wood, a whisper of calfskin on stone, and he was through, flattened
to the curve of the inside wall.  He waited.
    Nothing; just the breathy draw of coals in an unseen grate, and the
fret of the wind outside. His wide, straining eyes discerned the frame
of a curtained box bed, the harder gleam of a porcelain ewer on a
stand, and the pale linen oblong of a towel. The chamber was
appointed for basic comfort, but not in the grace of high luxury. An
Etarran-bred princess accustomed to society and the gregarious con-
volutions of city intrigue would be like to go mad from sheer bore-
dom.
That moment, from nowhere, fierce fingers grasped his lovelock.
Meam whirled. His sudden, lithe reflex ripped off the hold. His
wrist bone jarred metal. The shuttering cover of a hand lamp chinked
back. Caught in the flaring, sudden haze of light, the woman he
seized with a wrestler's strength was all molten gold hair and pearl
skin. She was fire, gilt-and-white porcelain, and a vision to stun a
male witless. Widened bronze eyes flashed up to meet his, black
lashed and deep, with pupils to drown him in primordial night.
    The sound that impacted his closed throat wrenched his larynx.
Meam lost all grip on his senses. Swept head to foot by a physical
awareness to freeze thought and unstring his reason, the swift, build-
ing pressure of desire in his loins ran him through like the shock of a
sword thrust.
  "Ath!" he gasped in a wrenched whisper. "Save us all, lady. You

255

                J^~ Wu~$
                                          ~
are like the Avenger's own spear, too sharp to touch without bleed-
ing." Cramped œingers could be forced to unlock; dumb flesh, be com-
pelled to step back.
    Her Grace, Princess Talith touched cool fingers to his lips. "Be
wary. A handmaid sleeps in the chamber beneath, and her loyalty is
not to me."
    Mearn shuddered and broke her restraint as though burned. He
had heard all the rumors, even glimpsed Lysaer's wife at state func-
tions before her incarceration. At safe remove behind a retinue and
attendants, she had been a sight to turn heads. Nothing alive could
prepare any man for the impact of her at close quarters. Meam dis-
covered himself helpless to tear his gaze from her face. The delicate,
ivory line of her shoulder entrapped him, and the sheer fall of the
nightrobe whose folds by tums offered and obscured a form of
breathtaking loveliness.
    Words came like bruised increments of noise, struck by a faltering
tongue. "You're a prisoner, then?" Mearn forced a next sentence. "The
party who sent me believed so."
    A brute turn of will let him recall the danger posed by the lamp; he
snatched back the presence to lean through the casement and close
the skewed board of the shutter. Faced away, wit and speech gained a
measure of reprieve. "Word at court insists you've gone into retreat.
Stress and overwrought nerves, Gace Steward says. The upset is
attributed to barrenness."
    "Lies," Talith said on a barb of stung spirit. "My bed has been bar-
ren." Bitterness made her laugh, but in venomous, smothered quiet.
"No husband, no seed, hence, no child. It is Lysaer who fails to get us
an heir." She dimmed the small lamp and restored it to a soot-
streaked niche in the wall. "For hatred of his half brother, the prince
thinks to put me aside."
    "The abduction by Arithon caused this?" Mearn straightened and
set his back against stone, acute in his private discomfort. The lady's
tower quarters were too cramped to pace. If he stirred one step in any
direction, his retreat would not bring him more than an arm's length
from her. "But why? Eight hundred thousand coin weight in gold
brought you home with your virtue intact."
    Talith flung back a ripple of bright hair and regarded him. The con-
tempt that fired her topaz eyes seemed to roil the very marrow in his
bones. "You say. Yet what proof can I show for my loyalty?"
    Mearn swore. A stride carried him to the box bed, impelled by a
pity too fierce to keep still. "Prince Lysaer's a fool. I can't change
that." He locked hands to the spare rope coiled across his sho~lders,

256

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

flamed to ridiculous, boyish embarrassment for his sweaty state of
dishevelment. Tom shirt, ripped fingers, and wind-tangled hair, he
felt rough as an unsanded plank. "But I can offer means to escape."
    "To what?" Talith answered. This time, she spun away in swift vio-
lence.
    Not in time; Meam saw the lucent, gold rims of her eyes dim to a
sudden flood of tears. He ached to take her into his arms, to circle her
glass-and-gold-leaf fragility inside a bastion of comfort. Pride
stopped him, then the first, warning prick of intuition. "You still love
your husband."
    Her rancor a core of iron in silk, the princess rebutted, "Should my
heart lie with duty, in Avenor?"
    But the statement struck cold to a gambler's ear. Hatred could
breed twisted passions, Meam knew. He watched. The lady opened a
drawer and fished out a striker and candles. Her hand stayed too
steady as she lit the fresh wicks. Tears might still glitter through her
ebony lashes, and vulnerability sharpen an allure like thin crystal,
and yet, she had been born a pedigree Etarran. A clansman forgot at
his peril: her breed fed on intrigue and betrayal since infancy.
    Three years of solitary contemplation in this tower might foment a
thousand deadly hopes of revenge. If Lady Talith of Avenor wished
no escape, she would angle to gain something else.
  "I need to conceive a child," she announced without prelude.
  "What?" Meam exclaimed.
    "You risked much to find me. I trust you like women?" She gave no
more warning, but closed in and cornered him, one exquisite, warm
shoulder exposed by an artful slip of her night rail. The curve of her
breast underneath was too perfect to endure without touching. Meam
felt the bang of raw physical sensation hammer the center of his chest.
Her soft scent filled his mind. Rife chaos struck through his labored,
trapped logic. "You want," he began in emasculated anger.
    She tipped back her head, cupped his jaw in fine hands, and did
not smile at the violent flush to his skin. "Don't be a hypocrite. How-
ever much you posture and prickle, you want me in bed well
enough."
    "That has little to do with good sense," Mearn gasped. His breath
failed him. His next utterance came out strangled. "A child--"
    Reason fled, words dissolved to a groan as she stretched up and
laid her softened lips against the sped pulse in his neck. His arms
closed around her through no sane volition. Touched off by explosive,
violent need, he pressed her slim heat against him. The fingers still
tom and stinging from his climb locked in her cascade of bright hair.

257

                JANNY WURTS

    Her seduction was no longer passionless or steady as she
slipped her hands through his collar. Prolonged years of loneli-
ness ripped away pretense. "You are very fine," she murmured
beneath his chin. "Brave also. Sire us a prince to make the realm
proud."
    "Ath, this is madness!" Mearn t~isted free. "My get would be half-
bred." lie caught her wrists, his birth accent snapping. "Lady, you
have no idea what you're asking."
    "Oh?" Talith laughed, deep and low in her throat. If his strength
was too harsh, she did not pull away. Chin lifted, her taut, aroused
nipple a hairsbreadth from his tormented flesh, she let her pose
become her sweet challenge, well assured he could not resist.  Mearn cursed.
    Talith returned a slow smile. "Can a princess be faulted for taking a
lover if she is cast off in neglect? Let the court in Avenor hear I'm not
barren, the disgrace will become my f~esh victory. My child of course
won't be Lysaer's. For that, his much vaunted manhood will be
laughingstock."
    "Things aren't that simple," Mearn wrenched out. She was too
close, too desirable. Her appeal for just vindication was too potent to
let him think. Nor had he the means to let her down with any proper
kindness or subtlety. "I can't. Lady, your spirit is great, and your
beauty unmatched. I could lie with you for sheer pleasure. But I can
never, ever presume the right to make a new life between us."
    She broke then, her tears a bright, roll'mg spill over her flawless
cheekbones. "Ath's mercy, help me! Won't you see how I need this? A
shamed wife could gain freedom, some measure of autonomy. Yes,
the worst could befall. Lysaer may cast me off. At least ! could return
to my cousins in Etarra."
    "I can't," Mearn said, helpless before her unhappiness. "It's a mat-
ter of honoring my family bloodline."
    Her features stayed blank, confounding Mearn's pity. Etarra was a
city founded too late to have any record of the uprising. Unlike the
persistent guild minister from Erdane, Talith would not know of the
facts behind clanborn descent.
    Mearn shut his eyes, anguished. He dared not explain; not after the
clandestine overture just presented to Lysaer's high counselors. Clan
numbers in Rathain were dangerously dwindled from the impact of
the Mistwraith's curse. The damaging truth in Etarran hands, that the
old family bloodlines were not replaceable, might hasten their final
destruction.
  "Lady," he said through bleak anguish, "let me help you escape.

258

s she
oneli-
~ured
'ealm

half-
 you

FUGITIVE I)RINCE

Once free, you can flee to Etarra if you like, or even conceive your
bastard at will on any other man that you choose."  She did not answer
    Mearn sensed the stir, then the chill kiss of draft on his skin as she
widened the distance between them. As he looked, and interpreted
her proud determination, he felt as if his powers of cognition had suf-
fered a dousing in ice water. "Lady," he said, more dangerous now,
"what do you know? There's something to this you're not telling me."
    Talith smiled. Her neat, narrow fingers adjusted her night rail and
reclothed her inviting nakedness. "Tell all and give nothing? How
like a man who has bloodline, but apparently no measure of heated
blood in him. Why am I not surprised? I should be asking, instead,
who has sent you."
    Mearn grinned. "You sound like my grandmother Dawr. Sharp as
vinegar and sand when her males won't do as she pleases. I have no
intention of saying which party takes active interest in your predica-
ment. Shall I end our sweet impasse and go?"
    That shook her. "We are bargaining, bloodless man." The glass
edge of solitude had eroded her strength. Both fear and contempt
rang true as she spoke. "Did you plan to climb down as you came?
Then I'll have your rope and grapple to reel in once you set down on
the council-hall roof. Deliver my note to my lover of choice and let
him scale the wall for my favor"
    Mearn inclined his head. "I'll bear your note. The rope I would
leave you in any case, to escape or invite whom you will. The person
who sent me shall hear of your plight without any need for persua-
sion."
    He shrugged off the hemp coils, nettled by more than fresh scrapes
and the stinging of his grazed fingertips. His refusal of her sex lodged
an ache of unassuaged need in his gut. Still, he felt her gaze track him,
fierce as the heat thrown off magma.
    "If you're dedicated as you seem to the cause of Lysaer's Alliance,
this won't matter," Talith said in sudden, terse resolve. "But if you
speak to other clansmen, or have sympathy for ones in Tysan at risk
of enslavement, I offer this much. The Koriathain are in league with
Prince Lysaer against Arithon. Their kind have sent word: my lord
husband has left Etarra. He returns to Avenor with all speed, in
secret, for he knows the Master of Shadow has suborned the shake-
down crews at his shipyard."
    Mearn blinked. Set upon dangerous ground since no suspicion of
doubt must touch on s'Brydion loyalty, he tossed off an insouciant
grin. "You lay claim to a knowledge of state secrets,from here?"

259

~ANNY ~URTS

    Talith met him with the thinnest of smiles, spiked in thorns
malice. "You didn't know?" She stepped sideward, flicked back a felt
curtain, and seated herself in the box bed. "Beneath lies my jailer and
handmaid, who also is mistress to Lysaer's appointed High Priest of
the Light, Cerebeld. I married a man who now claims to be god sent."
    She paused. Mearn said nothing, preferring to listen, while his
thoughts spun on tangents of frightful speculation.
    The focused intensity of his stillness must have reached her. "Oh
yes, you suspect the very truth," Talith affirmed. "The meetings in
this tower seek to seed a religion. Cerebeld and his mad-dog fanatic,
Vorrice, have been consecrated to carry out a divine mission. Lysaer
makes long-range plans to unleash a holy war against the Master of
Shadow."
    Touched by the fluttering play of the candle, Talith gave a small,
resigned shrug. "The s'Ffalenn prince might be a pirate, might ply his
sorcery and connive against innocents, but he does not spin fair lies to
justify his killing. Remember that, if you stay to fight him." Her
hands had laced themselves taut in her lap, white knuckled in
response to sharp memory. "Arithon's criminal and clever, but he's
truthful. If I can smear Lysaer's reputation just enough to tear down
this false claim to godhood, the world might come to bleed a little
less."
    Again she looked up. This time, her striking beauty held no sub-
terfuge, but an appeal stamped in hard desperation. "I might win
back a husband who is human if his gifted power to win a following
is besmirched."
    "You love him, not his cause," Mearn confirmed. He could rely
upon that to protect the s'Brydion good name. "If you plan to keep
my rope and grapple after I've lowered myself down, what will you
do about hinge pins?"
    Talith looked blank for a second, then chuckled low in her throat.
"Pick the lock on the hasp, what else? The Etarran daughter who
failed at that skill was judged unfit to be married." She arose, too wise
to offer him mean'mgless thanks, and too worldly to press further
claim on his personal loyalty. "If you'll wait, I'll pen my appeal for a
bastard."
    Mearn laughed, enchanted by her spirit. "Dear princess, if you are
cast off and left lovelorn with cousins, allow me to visit and pay
court. If you liked, I'd spirit you out of Etarra and invite you to tea
with my grandmother The result would certainly repel boredom."
    "With vinegar and sand?" Talith rose in wry grace, tore a leaf from
a book on her nightstand, then dipped water from the ewer and

260

FUGITIVE PRINCE

ground makeshift ink from a handful of ashes in the grate. "I'm not
sanguine."
    A thin quill drawn from the stuffing in her mattress, cut and split
with Mearn's knife, made a pen.
    "You've brought me precious hope," she admitted as she scribed
her perilous invitation to lure a lover. "If you fall getting out of here
and break your silly head, I'll entreat your grandmother's shade to
come haunt you."
    "No need," Mearn quipped. He shed his coil of rope. Volatile in
movement as sparked flame, he took her folded missive and tucked it
away in his belt, then kissed the warm fingers of her hand. "Dame
Dawr has already sworn to do as much anyway, if she doesn't find a
way to live forever." He blew out the candle. Removed to the win-
dow, he tipped back the shutter to an unwelcome blast of night wind.
"Fate's blessing on you, princess. May you win back your joy outside
the walls of this tower."
    Much later, returned to the security of his bedchamber, he penned
his own messages for Maenol's clansmen to bear warn'rag to his duke,
and also the Master of Shadow. As he inked his dire findings in close-
spaced, ciphered script, Mearn s'Brydion could not set aside his last
sight of Avenor's royal lady, erect in a silvery outline of starlight, the
silent tears falling and falling off the breathtaking, proud slant of her
cheekbones.

261

Early Spring 5653

First Upset

No sound destroyed Lord Maenol s'Gannley's sleep faster than the
inbound drumming of hooves.
    Shot to alarm in the misted, predawn gloom, too nerve wound to
snatch for his boots, the man who bore title as Tysan's caithdein rolled
headlong from the cloak which also served him as blanket. While
crossing barren scrublands and open territory, he slept clothed in
jerkin and breeches. His main gauche and daggers stayed sheathed at
his belt. Damp earth and tender spring grass chilled bare feet as he
snatched up his longsword, ready on the instant to fight, hide or flee
to keep his small company living.
    "Don't trouble," he murmured to the scout come to wake him.
"Guard yourself as you can."
    Edging the salt flats, en route to their next seacoast rendezvous to
embark with three more of Arithon's purloined ships, none of his
party slept disarmed.
    The rest of his band stirred amid fog-choked hummocks, as hair-
trigger wary as he. Their discipline became their young chieftain's
sole pride. No chink of weapons and nary a torch marked their move-
ments. Their presence blended like chaff upon burlap with the rise of
the inland dunes and their low crests, fringed with wind-harried
sedges. Stained dark with walnut, their exposed hands and faces
melted into the rank stands of cattails and brush. Yet here, even the
most covert care could not ensure their survival. Fourteen leagues
south of Hanshire, their picked destination a hidden tidal estuary,

262

FUGITIVE PRINCE

their foray offered choice bait to headhunters ranging in search of
scalp trophies, or worse, the double bounty routinely paid by the
crown to muscle the galleymen's oars.
    Breezes still spiked with the late season's chill wisped the loose
strands from Maenol's clan braid. Every sense trained alert, he
breathed in the lushness of green-budding willow, and the brackish
fish taint of the bogs. The threat was still closing. Around him, the
shrilling pipe of spring peepers fell silent before the oncoming ham-
mer of hoofbeats.
    "Just one light-boned horse," relayed Jyce, whose barrel-stout
frame was small help in an ambush, but whose hearing made up for
his clumsiness. "Not a destrier."
    Maenol stayed wrapped in habitual silence, too spare with words
to confer. Armed patrols seldom swept this landscape by night,
unless they were dealt provocation; and over these reed-choked,
stream-tangled lowlands, a war-bred charger would mire too deeply
to canter.
    "Nobody moves out of cover," Maenol said in a terse whisper. "We
might face a traveler strayed from the road. With luck, he'll pass by
without finding us."
    Yet the rider came on, relentless. The swish of bent willows and the
splash of muddy shallows marked an arrow-straight course through
the bogs. On Maenol's signal, men prepared to ease steel in a sound-
less draw from their scabbards.
    Then a low, trilling whistle signaled warning to the sentries. No
chance-met arrival, the horseman reined in his foam-flecked mare. He
dismounted, sweat drenched himself and half-winded, and shoved
through the last stand of reeds under escort by one of Maenol's own
watch scouts. "Tysan's caithdein, is he here?"
    Any courier who knew to search these wilds for that name could
bear only calamitous news.
    "More slave raids," Maenol surmised. He stepped forward, gut
tight and braced, his bloodless grip jammed on his sword.
    The sardonic male voice which hailed from misty darkness
belonged to no Korias clansman. "No. Not this time." The rider
resumed with hoarse urgency, the peppery snap of his eastshore
accent now clear enough to be recognized. "A trap's to be sprung on
Arithon at Riverton."
    Maenol advanced another step, piqued by an unwelcome hunch.
"Mearn? Mearn s'Brydion? Merciful Ath! You have no business risk-
ing yourself here, even for such word as this."
  "No time for passed messages. These tidings can't wait." Mearn's

263

]ANNY ~7URT$

 chin jerked up in a spasm of startlement as a second scout slipped
 from the brush at his elbow to take his reins and attend his blown
 horse. Prince Lysaer's increased bount/es to slavers had pitched the
 forestborn clans to a wariness even sworn friends found unnerving.
    Lord Maenol gave no apology, but pinned his close scrutiny 0n the
mare. Relief eased some of the bite from his manner as he marked a
rented hack with nondescript markings, and tack without blazt~ned
trappings. The clan envoy from Alestron had been canny enough to
seize every desperate precaution. Marshy soil would hold a shod
horse's track for days. Skannt's headhunters might pick up his back
trail. If they chose to pursue, the animal must be cut loose for expedi-
ence, or else bled to de,~,f.b J~*.I~e.~ d,ra~' t,r~e ~ctd~ to Pair' cry.
    In the s'Brydion style of rapid-fire summary, Mearn broke the news
that had brought him. "Lysaer's returned." He caught the caithdei~t's
wrist in a grasp like wound wire and drew him aside to speak pri-
vately. "You can't imagine worse. His Grace has reached Avenor exen
as we speak."
A woman scout on the sidelines overheard. "That's not possible!"
Others echoed her incredulity. To the north, the mouth of Instrell
Bay and every northern harbor remained locked in the grip of green
ice; the mountain route through Camris was sealed shut with drifts,
The severity and strength of a lingering winter left the West Road
trade routes impassable.
    "Tornir Peaks are deadly, razed by avalanche at this season, and
our scouts from the Thaldeins say the Orlan pass will stay blocked
thirty days past the equinox," Jyce protested.
    "Yes. That's the lynchpin of Lysaer's strategy." Mearn plung~. d
ahead, straitly grim. "I presumed the very same, a near-fatal mistak~.
Lysaer's forged a liaison with the Koriani witches. They parted the
floes with spellcraft to row a galley into Mincress, then breached ti~c~
Fellowship's wards to bring him southwest through Teal's gap."
    "You claim he's crossed Tornir Peaks through the Sorcerer's Pre-
serve?" the woman cried into stricken silence. "That's insanity!" X,.~
mortal company could survive that terrain. Every savage pack of fir~,~
breathing Khadrim held confined by the Sorcerers would desceded,
and tear an armed supply train to pieces.
    "The Prince of the Light's in Avenor," Mearn insisted. "He had arcane
guidance, and could have arrived no other way."
    The outspoken scout swore. Her young chieftain met the disastrc, c~s
news like unflinching oak, hands firm on the hilts of his weapons.
Over the rattle of breeze through stiff sedges, through the mufflh~,
salt-heavy mist, he said only, "Give us more detail, if you will."

264

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    His caithdein's composure and straight stance revealed nothing.
Unable to measure his courage in darkness, Mearn matched his tone,
talking fast. "The prince arrived in close secrecy. The town's not been
informed. The outrider's servant I bribed for the gossip said his Grace
planned a conference with the inner cabal of his council. He will
board a waiting galley and put to sea by this dawn's tide, then slip
ashore again at Hanshire. You can expect him to take the direct route
by road and rejoin his specialized assault troop."
    Before Maenol's steadiness, Mearn ticked off a trip-hammer listing
of hard facts. The company came on special levy from Rathain, a divi-
sion of Etarran field guard, handpicked, and deadly at infighting.
These had already marched south under orders to cordon the roads
and the ferries, and cut off all routes out of Riverton.
    "Seven days," Tysan's caithdein extrapolated. "You say that's all we
have to break through with a message, and let friends spirit Arithon
out."
    "You've got less," Mearn rebutted. "The elite company bypassed
Avenor. They took remounts with them and parted from Lysaer's
guard past the Melor River bridge. They've gone straight across coun-
try. I traveled at speed through the night out of hope the high spate
off the peaks may mire their passage by Mogg's Fen."
    Maenol seized the gist. The torrent fed by the snowmelt might
open a frightfully narrow margin for clansmen who knew the high
ground to engage and delay the advance of the enemy company.
    "You'll need to move like Sithaer's winged demons. Damned well !
wish I didn't need to be here," Mearn added, vehement. Yet he could
not shirk inescapable facts. More lay at risk than his s'Brydion family
honor. The next shipyard launching was due a week hence. Bold
plans under way aimed for clan crews to abscond with not one, but
three stolen vessels. The temptation to expose Arithon's interests for
reward would be great for a man without a blood stake on the out-
come.
    "Anyone notices where you've gone, and wh~ you could be put to
the sword," Maenol said, then instantly shouldered the risk of that
debt. "You have my free welcome to take sanctuary among my clans."
    Mearn snorted a disdainful laugh through the graying, salt-
burdened air. "Don't mind my back. I left town in fine order. My
chambers are barred, with word out I'm drunk to incapacity. For
added assurance, three whores fill my bed. The house servant's keep-
ing them occupied, blissful man. That much gold in their hands, I'll
just have to hope the trulls won't exhaust him too soon, nor care
whose prick stands to greet them."

265

               JANN� ~7 ~1R T $

    "Come or go as you. please, then. Make free with our stores if
you're hungry, but hurry. You'll know we can brook no delay." Too
rushed for more than that bare thread of courtesy, Maenol stepped
aside to mete out instructions to his war captain. "No help for it,
we're going to get bloodied. Send runners in relays. We raise call t0
arms. Also, word must be won through to Riverton to warn Arithon.
Spend lives as you must. We'll see no free children if those dogs of
Etarrans pin down Rathain's prince in their cordon."
    As he caught wind of Meam's clipped request to grain and refresh
his tired horse, Lord Maenol spun back. "Where are you bound betore
morning?"
    The youngest s'Brydion sibling bared his teeth in acidic self-mockery.
"South, wherever else? I have Lysaer's note of safe conduct. Should
your efforts fail in the fenlands, this fresh Etarran company has no due
that I'm prostrate, easing a thick head with doxies. If they won't be
weaned from bullheaded p~,judice, I'll just indulge them and uphold
my ill-bred reputation."
    "For harebrained acts and wild barbarism? I see." Ma~nol regarded
him, thoughtful, his mustache quirked at an angle that almost
smoothed the furrows from his brow. "As Duke Bransian's envoy and
Avenor's pledged ally, you'll seed uncivil chaos in the chain of
Lysaer's field command?" Before Mearn could muster a mettlesome
retort, he burst into deep-throated laughter. "Go softly. You'll call
down your brother's ducal vengeance on my head if you pass
beneath the Wheel on this foray."
    Mearn eyed him askance. A lethal spark of fury smoldered through
his lean frame as he ended discussion with a shrug. "Better worry
more whether Arithon's killed."
    While the Alliance of Light gathered strength through past feuds
and political incentives, both men held no illusion: the Master of
Shadow became their last hope to stave off decimation of clan blood-
lines.

266

Early Spring 5653

Downfall

On the same misted daybreak that saw Maenol's scouts race east to
attempt their desperate stand by Mogg's Fen, the first gold blush of
light rinsed the high battlements of the tower where Princess Talith of
Avenor was sequestered.
    As always she opened her eyes to deep gloom. The strapped shut-
ters leaked only pinpricks of light. Airless and chill, the flinty dank-
ness of the brick enclosed the fusty odors of soot and beeswax, the
lavender sprigs in her clothes chest too refined to drive the must of
mildew from her blankets. Talith lay still, never so agonized by her
plight that she gave way to helpless resignation. Where once she had
commanded chattering maids to serve up scalding tea and the choice
snippets of the night's gossip, now she had only her ears to record the
ongoing events outside. Born and bred a pedigree Etarran, she would
lie dead before she renounced her belief she could wrest back her
place in court politics.
    On calm mornings such as this, at the tide's turn, the exchanges of
oaths between the stevedores and crown customs men winnowed up
from the harborside. By the number of epithets relating to oxen, she
deduced that a carter backed his dray down to the dockside. Talith
heard the exchange of bawdy jokes, then laughter, which faded once
the inspection was complete. An excise officer duly stamped the bill
of lading; then a grinding, hollow thunder tore the quiet, as the dock-
workers off-loaded the wainload of barrels. Left to conjecture, Talith
wondered if the casks held water for a ship's stores, or whether

                    267

                                                                           '   : . ,"i ~'-;   ú

another cargo from the brewer's rolled down the quay to
hold of a trade galley.
    A ruled sliver of sunshine struck through a crack, the only snippet
of natural light to brighten her chamber all day. The slow hours of her
isolation racked her like torture and stretched highbred nerves to
drawn glass. As if to compound that sawing misery, the bastard
growing in her belly, contrived by liaison with a worshipful palace
page, made her feel drawn and queasy. Talith cherished the still inter-
val after each dawn, and the cozy warmth of the box bed. All too soon
the chambermaid who served as her warden would burst in with
wash water and firewood. Made arrogant by her position of propri-
ety, the woman always grumbled in monotone while her fussy,
brusque hands girded the princess into chilly clothes to endure
another day of grinding emptiness.
    Talith became afraid if she retorted in frustration, the screams she
had smothered through four terrible years would escape all restraint,
and leave her mewling with madness. If she could not hear the trills
of skylarks at the meadows' edge, the spring brought her swifts and
cliff swallows, nesting under the eaves on the battlement. Through
their sprightly chirps, she heard the wind freshen and snap the ban-
ners streaming from their poles on the vaulted dome of the council
hall. The bustle from the docks became erased by the gusts, replaced
by the clo15 of hooves on the paving as a tight, fast-moving cavalcade
cut through the daily grind of farm wagons crossing to market.
    An officer called. His querulous order was answered by the defer-
ent footfalls of a servant. The ponderous, leaved panels to the lower
vestibule were unbarred to the uneasy bristle of activity which spoke
of an arriving delegation.
    Once, Talith would have arisen to pace the floor in a froth of balked
curiosity. Prolonged incarceration had not sapped her spirit. Female
wisdom and cold rage let her stop beating caged wings long since.
She had learned in her desperate patience to rechannel the cutting
edge of her mind to more subtle venues of subterfuge.
    She shrugged off the empty comfort of her blankets, now impatient
for the maid's prompt arrival. The woman had a haughty temper,
when provoked. She was ambitious and vain, covetous of her posi-
tion as a high priest's clandestine mistress. Rich all her life, and born
to position, Talith knew by her huntress's instinct which jabs would
rankle the most. The maid was a gold-digging, servant-class whore,
and her nettled retorts to a princess's needling could sometimes
spring knowledge of outside events.
  Yet the mincing, slippered step and piqued puffs of exhalation she

268

FUGITIVE

expected came replaced by the grating tread of boots, embedded
against the rumble of masculine voices.
    Talith exploded to her feet. She snatched a quilted robe from a
chairback, and whirled, heart pounding, to confront the charcoal
shadow which demarked the barred arch of the doorway.
    The approaching steps ground inexorably upward. An explosion
of pure rage made her blood race like magma, for this invasion came
with no polite notice and no dignity; then that ire seized to ice, as the
steps outside halted and isolated her maid's obsequious soprano
from the stairwell.
    "... missed her courses, my brave lord. The linens for such stayed
unstained these two months, though on my word, no man entered
her bedchamber. Each night, I slept across the threshold to the upper
staircase. Below me, always, were the guards sworn to serve the
divine Light. They answer to no man but your exalted self, and to his
high eminence, Cerebeld."
    A man murmured something placating. Then the steps paused.
The bar clashed and the panel swung inward.
    Barefoot in her nightshift and the dangling toggles of a robe just
barely donned, Princess Talith received no warning beyond a dazo
zling scintillance of diamonds. Then a damascened glint of pale hair
shone by the rags of new flame in the sconce. A lightning clap to
unsuspecting rock, her senses imprinted the form of the man who
entered her chamber.
    Least likely of visitors, her s'Ilessid husband strode in unan-
nounced, prematurely returned from his state delegation to Etarra.
    Four years had changed him, Talith saw, eyes narrowed to the
influx of light, and her arrested breathing resumed to sped rhythm
from the recoil kick of shocked nerves. His stainless white dress, sim-
ple jewels, and lethal charm had been welded into new purpose. He
had always had majesty. Now, presence lay on him like gold thread in
velvet, or fine silk wrapped over tempered wire. His eyes of water-
rinsed sapphire upon her showed no shadow of strain. On the con-
trary, as if passionate love had never aroused his desire, his mannered
tranquillity held a luminous focus that seemed to command the dead
air to forced rarity.
    Despite her contempt, Talith felt the force of him ripple her flesh to
a stabbing prickle of awe.
    She could not sustain the keen edge of her anger Every bastion of
her cynical, Etarran pride wavered. Nor could she tear her gaze from
his features. Almost, she lost to the moonstruck fool's impulse which
urged her to rush into his arms. If Lysaer saw her weakness, he had

269

                JANNY WUI~TS

not come to gloat. His face stayed expressionless, its lordly, fair s~-
roetry remote in perfection as a spirit carved from light and air.
Talith could have wept then for unjust debasement, that his mere
reappearance held the power to sear her shunned heart like a brand.
She wrestled to shore up her fractured composure. A wrung
moment passed while she recouped resilience, then noticed the other
three officia:$ who mounted the landing behind him.
Raw fury then stained her cheeks heated pink, that her unjust state
of incarceration should be made the public butt of a formal audience.
She realized in cringing embarrassment that her hands fumbled to
fasten the front of her robe, but failed in their task through her rack-
ing torment of raw need.
However much she had cause to resent Lysaer, her love was the
stronger, a force as unruly as the surge of the tide. Left weak at the
knees, she had nothing else left but her verbal wits and a hamstrung
drive to vent outrage.
"How like a man and a craven, to arrive with a bootlicking dog
pack to heel," Talith said. "Or have you come in overdressed force to
collect my soiled linen for the laundry girl? The gallants in Etarra
would think it the rage, to see royal~ wait on a servant."
Lysaer seemed not to hear. Lordly and unruffled as masterworked
crystal, he assayed neither riposte nor civil greeting, but addressed          .:i
her instead with the incisive clari~ she had seen him use once on an
officer who had deserted. "We'll have no display of false modest~,
woman. Your robe must come off. Strip your night rail as well. I'm
informed you are bearing. Shall we see?"
His train of officials pattered in from the stairwell, no doubt sum-
moned to stand legal witness. The sallow-faced leader with the stalk-
ing tread swept her with obsidian hard eyes, his voluminous cloak of
ermine and gold fretted with chains and wired pearls. The sunwheel
erablazoned his cowled robe of office, and one fist, squared blunt as a
mason's maul, clutched a scepter encrusted with citrines. Behind him
minced the stooped person of the High Seneschal, the sills of his
cheekbones windburned to old leather by days of inclement travel.
Beyond middle age, and s~mied by events outside the ossified mores
of state politics, he gave the cracked stone in the floor his discoretired
contemplation. Vorrice came last, as the Light's new-made instrument
to seek out and destroy pet~ sorcery. He gave her a leering, suspi-
cious inspection, preened as a fighting cock hung with steel spurs for
a match with inferior rivals.
Talith felt their collective awareness, avid as crows lined up in an
abattoir waiting to gorge on a carcass.

270

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    Her tone was syrup as she let fly her unwounded contempt.
"Whose shame shall we celebrate? Yours, gutless prince, for the
pathetic excuse of my barrenness?"
    Lysaer never blinked. "You heard my command. I need not repeat
myself." A crook of his finger brought the traitorous handmaid scur-
rying to assist her disrobing.
    Talith raised her chin, too proud to give way to a physical struggle,
or invite them to lay hands on in force. Nor would she assist the
ignominy herself. Doll stiff, she maintained every breathtaking inch
of her bearing, while the maid tugged and circled, divesting each
layer of her garments.
    The kiss of chill air was too sharp to hide. Shivering as the cloth
slithered down and bared her defenseless shoulders, Talith relied
upon words for her knives. "If there's truth to this claim, dare you
brand yourself cuckold?"
    The handmaid recoiled in prim righteousness, ready to repeat her
avowal that no man had passed through her guard; yet the princess,
her disdain fixed like acid upon Lysaer, gave that unctuous objection
no chance. "Why not ring the bells in praise of another miracle? Ath's
all-powerful avatar shouldn't balk at a child conceived by sublime
intervention. Let your bitch of a watchdog swear by her truth. Give
the realm an heir begotten by miracle, and blessed by the glory of the
Light. Another lie is scarcely more preposterous than the last. What a
stirring opportunity to fan the ardor of your campaign, and win more
adulation from the masses."
    Lysaer gave back his pitying patience. "I am truth's minion. My born
calling can't be sullied by the rags of false gallantry, even to protect your
infidelity." His eyes on her stayed an implacable, blued steel. "Nor would
I exploit an honest servant's gullibility. The Master of Shadow is at River-
ton, and sorcerer enough that he once gained covert entry to the most rig-
orously guarded keep on the continent." No one could forget the furor
over that, since Duke Bransian's citadel had been widely conside~~d
impregnable. Lysaer closed his point. "If you chose to be my enemy's
lover, this tower would pose his demonic skills small impediment."
    "Had Arithon wished, he'd have done his work earlier, without the
inconvenience of skulking." Talith held herself erect, ablaze with the
unalloyed arrogance of pedigree, while the plain, dull cloth of her
night rail slipped down and puddled around her cold ankles.
    "Bring the torch," the priest Cerebeld snapped to the handmaid.
The High Seneschal flushed red to his wattles, pecking her with swift,
sidelong glances as he opened cupboards and chests, and fingered the
contents to mask his driving discomfort.

271

    Princess Talith endured, desperate and unflinching, her fine skin
fretted to gooseflesh. While the one man she loved with her whole
heart in marriage showed her nakedness no trace of natural human-
ity, others who were enemies leered in unconstrained male amaze-
ment. The exquisite torment of her beauty became her last weapon
against tears, as Lysaer's state witnesses sweated in their clothes and
ached in stifled frustration. Their lust left them slack jawed as they
cataloged her attributes like an ornament unveiled for private auc-
tion. The subtle details lay beyond her to hide: the giveaway pallor of
morning nausea; the ripe fullness of breast, and the first, softened
curve of hip and belly. Nor could she mask the smooth, dewy skin
that seemed lit like the satin reflection on a pearl.
    "Let the light be brought closer," Vorrice urged, sand on granite,
while the thick, hurried breathing of the High Seneschal sawed
through suspended silence.
    The ordeal seemed a puppet's play, distanced by the sudden clangor
as the bell tower tolled the hour. Outside in the freedom of sea-bright,
clear air, gulls still cried and swooped. The snatched, wind-tom cry of a
ship's officer called for his galley to cast off her lines.
    Talith felt every current of disturbed air on her skin. The minutes
dragged by, until the frame of the ordinary must splinter away under
tension. Her bravado became a meaningless shield before an unbear-
able, annihilating shame. Please Ath, let her waken to safe, lonely darkness
and the after-sweat of a nightmare.
    Yet the ponderous, honeyed vowels of Lysaer's new High Priest
crushed hope into damning testimony. "My Lord Prince of the Light,
I corroborate the handmaid's suspicion. The woman is certainly bear-
ing."
    The High Seneschal coughed in queer, strangled haste, then
blurted, "I concur."
    "By the Light of Divine Presence, I would see her burn for infi-
delity with a sorcerer," Vorrice intoned, then licked his moist lips, his
pouched eyes shining with eagerness.
    Lysaer looked aside, magisterial in rebuke. "No such cruel sen-
tence shall occur without proof, nor shall the law act without a proper
hearing and tribunal."
Talith broke into a violent shiver. "My lord prince, I must speak."
Lysaer gave her plea no reaction, but removed his steady gaze from
his officer. The torch flame hazed his pale figure in light as he pro-
nounced in gentle sadness to the handmaid, "Our business is fin-
ished. You may help the accused with her robing."
  That frightening, unnatural distance warned Talith that her last

272

skin
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nan-
aze-
 pon
 {nd
 hey
 UC-
 ' of
 ed
 'in

FUGITIVE PRINCE

option left was escape. She still had Mearn's rope and grapple
secreted between the boards of her box bed. That private option
braced up her pride as Lysaer stepped toward the doorway. He
chided his officers that Ath's tide would not wait. Vorrice and Cere-
held came to heel like two dogs dragged stiff legged off a fresh kill.
The seneschal followed, still cringing. Lysaer's muted words of dis-
position arose, wreathed in hollow echoes from the stairwell, as if the
wife he had once cherished was deaf and mute, and a stranger.
    "Keep the woman in good health until the child's birth. If it is dark,
Vorrice, have it ritually killed as the accursed offspring of darkness. If
the infant is of any other coloring, consider it mortal, and blameless.
Let my seneschal send word to Etarra in appeal to its maternal rela-
tives. If they show offense at the babe's bastard blood, then consign it
to a Koriani orphanage. The realm's justice cannot be sidelined for
sentiment. The adulteress must stand trial for treason against the
Crown of Tysan, under pain of death by the sword."

273

Early Spring 5653

Consequences

Under smoking veils of spindrift hurled aloft by swift oars, an
unmarked galley speeds westward; and below her sluiced decks, the
state splendor of his jewels set aside in private pain, Lysaer s'Ilessid
weeps the desperate tears he could not shed for Talith in the tower,
and the love forced to ruin by the wiles of an enemy anneals his heart
to dread vengeance ....

    Midst the bubbling mud pots and rank steam of Teal's Gap, lit by a
misted new moon, Asandir of the Fellowship paces the unstable
ground, unwinding Koriani spells of concealment like clockchain,
and sounding each link in the boundary wards for weak points which
might unravel to free bloodthirsty packs of Khadrim; and he knows,
as he works, that his stopgap seals will hold scarcely more than a
decade ....

    Near dawn in Avenor, crouched in the rags of the sea mist, an
archer under the High Priest's secret orders discharges his crossbow
to dispatch a thorny state problem and deliver the divine prince from
a base and damaging embarrassment; his bold shot shears through
rope, and the adulteress suborned from the faith of the Light falls
with a cry to her death ....

274

Early Spring 5653

VIII. Spring Trap

The morning began innocuously enough. The Mad Prophet set
out to get drunk and the written verses, commissioned by a
merchant for his love-struck young bride, lent the first opportu-
nity to absent himself. Arithon asked for a servant to complete the
delivery. Flushed since their horrendous argument at dawn, still
unnerved from the sting of the Masterbard's refusal to abandon his
wiles at Riverton, Dakar volunteered for the errand.
    "I need the excuse to get out," he snapped in bruised candor as he
snatched up the ribboned parchment. Only the anonymity of another
tavern would let him drown his sorrows in peace. Stay, and he risked
the inebriated folly of marching upstairs to battle the same cause all
over again.
    On the subject of increased risks at the shipyard, Arithon stayed
deaf to reason. To break off as resident bard at the Laughing Captain
within days of another launching would risk his connection with the
men now set in precarious position to spirit the new ships from the
harbor.
    In due course, the infatuated merchant received the promised
scroll, his jewels subdued like sunken treasure in the depths of his pil-
lared foyer His expansive contentment left three Shandian sovereigns
in the hands of the bard's scowling courier.
  The Mad Prophet blinked. Dimpled into a smile of moist-eyed

275

JANNY ~7 U 1~ T$

gratitude, he asked leave to depart through the merchant's
courtyard. He plowed through the daily mayhem of commerce:
goods and sweating men loading wains, and made for the seas'lcle
quarter.
    Dakar wasted no time. Racked by distress as devouring as guilt,
set after by worry throughout the Shadow Master's string of reckless
successes, he reeled from the taproom of the Oyster ten minutes after
it opened. He knew better than to stay. The proprietor's two heavies
took a dim view of patrons who lolled in seamy stupor on the floor.
Cheerful from the foresight which spared him their attentions, Dakar
clutched a crock of Orvandir's best red in each fist. The contents of a
third one sloshed in his belly, and the day seemed suddenly very
fine.
    Languorous, honey sunlight poured over the checked boards of
the quay. A man in search of quiet could find a sheltered niche if he
poked between the hogsheads of salt pork stacked for bulk sale to the
pursers. The spring season also offered up rotting heaps of fishnets,
discarded as salvage for ragmen.
    Dakar felt no shame for his lapse into debauchery. If Aritho~
s'Ffalenn could ignore every sensible warning, then the fool who
elected to stay at his shoulder must squelch a sane conscience by
whatever means lay at hand.
    Yet in the cramped alley between the quayside brothels, the best of
laid plans went astray.
    A chubby, tousled potter linked Dakar's arm, soon joined by a
journeyman cobbler who was lanky as a pole, and snared in the teeth
of misfortune.
    "Man, it's my temper gets my fat in the fire, every time," he
lamented, while the potter peered up, arms folded like a judge, and
Dakar marked time, scuffing a stripped bone in the gutter. The tale
unfolded, a swan song of dismissal from a master's craftshop for
pinking a fussy customer with an awl. "What a piss-mongering
shrew, never pleased with anything. I went to chalk her size, and let
me tell you! The bitch threatened not to pay if the outline looked
undainty. Kicked like a mule each time your finger grazed her ankle."
    The cobbler rolled his eyes. "As if any man with the itch would tup
a cow like her for relief. Likely that's what keeps her broody. I
shouldn't've jabbed her. But a patten in the groin's a fighting provo-
cation. Damn me! For such a piddling wee trickle o' blood, she
scarcely had to squeal like a hog dragged by the haunches to slaugh-
ter."
  "Never mind," the potter soothed. "Women get themselves born to

276

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 cause trouble." He added a suggestive nudge to Dakar, who obliged
 and surrendered the crock.
     Two shopgirls and a passing sailor's bawd fell in with the consola-
 tion party under the plank walks of a tenement. Pinches were
 exchanged amid trilling giggles. The cobbler shrugged off his disaf-
 fection. Enlivened by the surge of merry spirits, the bawd drew the
 cork on the last crock of wine, the name of her jack-tar forgotten.
    By then, Dakar had insinuated a hand under one doxie's blouse.
The other, who was blond, kissed him silly until his means to escape
into a numb stupor had been squandered. He tried to take his leave,
but his chance-met acquaintances towed him along, disregarding
every protest as they rollicked their way past the shops on Weaver's
Alley.
    Nobody was either upright or sober. To missteps and shrieks of
uproarious glee, they ricocheted off signposts and buildings. The
doxie donned a wig of yarns cut from the warp ends of a loom, then
embarked on a simpering impersonation of the crown exciseman's
second wife. Hurting with laughter and winded as well, after dodg-
ing some spiteful matron's barrage of flowerpots, Dakar folded in
half to catch his wind. When the placement of a lamppost stopped his
list toward the pavement, he seized the moment to take stock.
    A hooked sprig of gentian trailed from his ear. Crumbled earth and
shards of terra-cotta sifted down his collar from his hair. He suffered
the twinges of a bounding headache, and wine fumes made it difficult
to think. Instead of drinking himself painlessly senseless, he found
himself perspiring and itchy as a dog in the untidy wool of his jerkin.
    His uncoordinated squirms to shed the hot garment dislodged his
last sovereigns. The pair rolled in chiming duet down the gutter.
    Shopgirls and whore butted heads as they pounced. Since the cob-
bler waxed morose, they rescued Dakar from the jammed wads of his
clothing and chivvied him down a back alley to purchase more spirits.
    "We need a rum seller," slurred the potter. "Since the day those
blighted ships sailed and vanished from the harbor, every dive in the
quarter's turned lousy with off-duty guardsmen."
    Dakar agreed. As principal henchman to the pirate responsible, he
held no enthusiasm for hobnobbing next to crown soldiers. Dis-
tressed by untimely reminder of his angst, he latched onto the first
available crock and sucked rotgut spirits until his middle felt tight as
a blowfish.
    Afternoon passed in a dizzy whirl of noise, the indistinct moments
overlapped on themselves like a salvager's haul of glass and flotsam.
Dakar stayed transfixed while the cobbler fell prostrate. Cart traffic

277

JANNY ~URTS

jammed. Burly teamsters shook their fists in an argument over which
should step down and drag the lout clear of the thoroughfare. The Mad
Prophet bet a penny on the outcome, then wandered in circles, con-
fused. A swarthy cooper insisted the combatants were knocked sense-
less, while the potter swore by the toes on his feet that the town guard
had dragged off both parties. Dakar blinked like a turtle. Sunk in cogita-
tion to recall which cheating craftsman still owed him a winning por-
t-ion, he tired of walking, and wound up parked on his hams in a bakery.
    The potter seemed content, crunching down the stale shortbread
stars left over after the solstice. When his gestures grew vehement, he
fell off his stool. The baker tried to right him and got his eye blacked.
Tossed back on the street, Dakar had to stop and grope for the coins to
buy another jack of whiskey. His doxie had vanished. He refused to
go farther without a replacement, and there she stood, scaling cod
over a bucket by a cookstall. The potter settled down, obliging, while
Dakar kissed his newest find, his gaze gone dewy from her over-
whelming perfume of fish oil.
    The shops closed. Dusk loomed like smoky pearl through the drift-
ing snags of river mist, while Dakar swore and wept, half-prostrate
across the butt of an unopened keg. Four apprentices from the black-
smith's helped him free the jammed bung. The singing after that
became damaging, with Dakar by then doubled over in the gutter,
caught in between a whistling bout of hiccups and the necessity of
rendering his gorge.
    Night fell, and the crabbed old torchman lit the lamps. Stumbling
past the flare of his wind-jerked brand, Dakar reeled and collided
through streets grown inexplicably crowded. He felt no premonition,
no compelling sense of urgency. His tipsy curiosity led him to sur-
mise that some disturbance had arisen in the market square. Rather
than fight the press, he tacked that direction. The throng soon jostled
him away from his companions. If they had gone because his wallet
was empty, the fine point scarcely mattered. Mazed by the muddle
which foreran a damning hangover, Dakar pawed the sleeve of a
maidservant to ask why the festival should happen five days late.
"Can't anybody see? The moon nearest to spring equinox passed her
full phase last week."
    Her words about captives and barbarians at the gates seemed a
ridiculous fiction.
    Dakar called her a liar, swore back as he was sworn at, then reverted
to unctuous, smiling beneficence as her burly pack of brothers grasped
his collar. Their fists shot him reeling through a mailed cordon of
armed men, and he escaped getting skewered because he fell.

278

PRINCE

     He flung out his arms to break his headlong sprawl and plunged to
 the wrists in a warm, clotted mass of bloodied straw. The spill was
 fresh. Dakar recoiled, slammed witless with revulsion. He yelled and
 scrambled upright to denounce the royal guardsmen for staging their
 unruly public spectacle in a slaughter yard.
     Yet words never came. Speech foundered, as if nervous reflex reacted
 a heartbeat ahead of trained mage-sight. Jarred from his drunken stupor
 as water might slam into rock, Dakar pulled up short, crumpled over by
 mangling nausea. The pale, phosphor haze twined through the night air
 was not steam winnowed up by the chill, but the imprint of spirit light
 shocked free of live flesh at the moment of violent death.
    The aura dispersed by this recent act of bloodshed resolved no ani-
mal's dumb agony. Dakar retched with horror, caught in reverberated
pain pitched too fine to be other than human.
    The spasm sapped all his volition to move. Dakar hugged his
griped middle and wished the rest of his awareness would stop func-
tioning. Then perhaps he could deny that what arose above his head
was a scaffold for a public execution. He dared not.look up lest he
find himself damned. Ath preserve, while he drank, Arithon had been left
undefended. Lord Jieret had delivered them a warning and a prophecy.
Regret came, too late, and the sorry, wretched fear: that the blood on his
wrists could be royal.
    "Come on, you! Move along! You're in the way." The guardsmen
had outworn their patience.
    When they prodded with pike poles and gained no response, they
hauled the barging miscreant to his feet without care for his mewling
denial. Garbage thrown by the screaming mob splattered against the
boards and someone's poor aim raised a bold round of raillery from a
prisoner. The accent sounded too clipped to be townborn. Since no
city officer or tribunal seemed in evidence to restore the crowd to civil
order, logic at last wakened reason. The condemned men had to be
clanborn. Dakar's chastened glance showed one already dead, with
two more bound up for disembowelment.
    He lurched against restraint and rounded on the guardsmen. "Ath,
you can't do this!" He shot a drunken kick at the nearest man-at-arms,
impelled by white rage and urgency. The law's murdering, thirsty
sword must not reap another irreplaceable bloodline. "Your prince has
commandeered these captives as galley slaves!"
    A mailed fist smashed back and silenced him. "Not this lot. Now
be off."
    Dakar was ejected by two brutes with maces, who rammed him
into the surg'mg onlookers, then closed ranks to re-form their cordon.

279

JANNY ~URTS

"Gutless sheep!" Dakar yelled through a stinging, split lip. "Whose
order commands this?"
    "Be still, you fool!" A woman snatched his elbow to restore his
good sense. "These skulking clan curs tried to slip through our gates.
For that, their lives were called forfeit."
    But Dakar shook off her well-meant restraint. "Do I look like an
idiot? No clansman would visit a walled city unless he was crazed
with a death wish!" Yet even as he spoke, he discerned the contradic-
tion: messengers from Lord Maenol might attempt such a course if
they carried a warning for Arithon.
    Belligerent with rum, Dakar rammed the soldiers, screaming to
demand a stay of mercy.
    Too late; across the pale span of boards overhead, amid the
streamed sparks from crude torches, the sword fell and rammed
home. Blood sprayed from a man's opened chest. Painted in gory, flit-
tering light, his death spasms splashed Dakar in a hot, obscene rain.
"No! Save us all! Stop lest you call down disaster!"
    The executioner heeded no outcry amid that raucous sea of noise.
Raised above a crowd that howled for a spectacle, he angled his
stroke to claim his last victim.
    "Let the man live!" Dakar ducked a pike staff. Citizens hemmed
him in too closely on all sides. No spell of illusion his power might
fashion could sway them in time to matter. Left no better course, he
jammed his shoulder in someone's ribs and tried a fumbling charge to
fling himself onto the scaffold.
    The bite of armored hands ripped him back. He fought and
clawed, flayed the skin off his knuckles in attempt to land punches on
chain mail. The one soldier he felled clamped a hold on his ankle.
Another's blunt weapon clouted the back of his neck.
    Vision imploded to a blast of white sparks. Dakar swayed as his
knees gave. The torches upended. The studs of a guard's armored
bracer rasped his cheek. Then howling darkness arose and engulfed
him; not from the blow. Nor yet from the hammering kicks which
tumbled his body on the paving.
    "Spare me, no," Dakar gasped. But no round of pummeling could
avert his cascading slide into precognizant trance. The noise of the
crowd dimmed inexorably into distance as consciousness frayed into
the welling, black tide of his spurious talent for prophecy.

    He beheld the low, serried fiats near the marshland of Mogg's Fen. Bare
tuffs of brush snagged through a floss of pale mist and moonlight. Amid
rn~unded hummocks and the quartz sheen of streamlets, men skirmished.

280

FUGITIVE PRINCE

The light-looted, furtive ones wore the undyed leathers of clansmen. Their
opponents sloshed ahead in a body, encumbered by shields and byrnies. The
glint of their helms bobbed like bubbles in lead as they hacked at cattails and
sunken logs in attempt to rout out lurking foes. Southward, they pressed, to
the beat and clang of metal. Harried officers kept them moving, while arrows
hissed in, and ambushes and traps minced at their flanks and impeded their
forward progress...

  The vision spun away like a scene in dropped crystal.
    In its place, Dakar viewed the high frame of the scaffold. As if he
were drifting unseen as a spirit, he saw Riverton's executioner flick
the gore from his wide, fullered blade. Bloody handed, the man shed
his hood. His stubbled, lantern jaw pebbled the light like red sand-
stone as he ran his gloved fingers over his sword to test for nicks in
the edge. Behind his set profile, the three condemned clansmen
sagged naked and broken in death. The posts which held them
spread-eagled stood as pillars against the stars, flicked into coppery,
shifting relief by the streaming billow of the torches. Slack fingers still
wore the glazed sweat of suffering. Unclotted blood seeped, glisten-
ing, from the corpses' hacked chests. Dakar failed to banish the hor-
rific vista before his seer's gift veered sighted dream into nightmare:

    The gaped-open maw of dead jaws clicked shut. Glazed eyes swiveled in
slackened, dead faces and fixed in reproach upon him. Then dead tongues
stirred in dead mouths. 'We failed in our task. Our life's charge becomes
yours. Warn the Teir's'Ffalenn! Forsake plans in Riverton and see him
away before sunrise. Lysaer s'Ilessid marches from Hanshire to close a Kori-
ani trap...

    The whispered chorus of the slain leached into a future scourged
through by light like a cleaver: a storm-torn night ripped apart, and the
air recoiled to a fell slam of thunder. Ripped out of darkness, a mercury ocean
frothed and boiled into steam. Like dropped spills touched to flame, a thou-
sand riven fragments of cordage and wood rained down upon the flecked
foam. The wrecked shreds of ships and the frayed wisps of charred sails hissed
through the roiling vapors...
    Dakar screamed for the agony of a world gone mad, and then
knew nothing more.

    The stink of rat urine and musty, rotted straw told Dakar where he
was before he opened his eyes. His scapegrace past had dumped him,
manacled or caged, in city dungeons times beyond counting. The

281

./~,N N � ~7unT$

drip of condensation down nitrous walls seemed common to
cells everywhere. Nor was he stranger to the twinge of stiffeneel
bruises, or the dull, throbbing aches brought on from an unconsciou~
night lying supine on dank floors.
    A headache of exceptional virulence made him feel as if demons
with steel hammers played carillons on the bones of his temples.
Through excruciating pain and the soured taste of vomit, Dakar ~t
clutched his crown to keep his skull from flying to pulverized bits
between his fingers. His brain felt like jelly mashed through a sieve.
The evils of strong drink were never so punishing. By contrast, vile
sickness and palsy never failed to afflict him after an episode of pre-
,..~k.~,'~c~.
    Against the grandiloquent maceration of his hangover, a racket of
echoes spiraled down a stairwell: "... disorderly conduct, attacking
royal guardsmen, not to mention disrupting the peace at a public
function." The speaker added in nasal superiority, "There's certain to
be a stiff fine."
    Dakar plugged pudgy fingers in his ears, too late to evade the dis-
mal conclusion. "Those who can't pay get hard labor on the hulks
towed out for dredging the harbor."
    The talker scraped to a stop outside the barred cell gated shut with
riveted-steel strapping. "He's in here. You did say the man you
want's the fat loony?"
    Dakar cracked an eyelid and winced through a spearing dazzle of
torchlight. "Is it night, or next morning?" he rasped. He could not
recall why he felt nagged by a shadowy sense of urgency.
    No one gave him answer. Outside the cell, hatched in squares by
forged bars, Caolle flourished the slate he carried to overcome the
glamour which slurred his clanbom accent. His tough, swordsman's
hands scrawled sincere imitation of a yokel's straggling script, then
thrust the message under the turnkey's beaky nose.
    "You say he was drunk?" the jailer huffed. "That's no excuse.
You'll find the offense with the minor charges listed after disorderly
conduct. The fat wretch is your friend? Then toss a penny in the t'lde
to give dame fortune her due. If the raving idiot hadn't been sotted
witless, our guards would've seen him spitted beside that pack of
condemned barbarians. Best take him in hand. He won't have a long
life, showing pity for that breed of felons."
    Caolle scratched out a new sentence, then flipped his slate like a
tray and cast a chiming spill of coins over the letters which spelled,
'fine, paid in full.' Then he tipped his laden tablet toward the turnkey.
  Gravity obliged; the gold pieces slid. The jailer watched what

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

amounted to a generous year's salary tumble toward the stinking,
runneled floor. Decision became reflex. His spidery fingers swooped
to capture the bribe. "This is irregular," he grumbled, in no haste to
unhook the keys from his belt. "The city's grand magistrate ought to
be called to preside over due process."
    Caolle proved impervious to argument. He snatched the loose key
ring, tongued the iron in the lock, and clashed open the hasp and
grilled portal. Dakar cringed from the clangor of iron. His evasion
saved nothing. His rescuer caught his wrist and hauled him headlong
from his noisome nest in the straw.
    "Damn you, for bingeing," Caolle muttered as he towed his
redeemed miscreant toward the narrow turnpike stair.
  Dakar moaned. "Let me stay. The risers are too steep."
    When he tried to collapse, Caolle shook him. "Sober up, fool!
You're needed." Steel shackles in putty, his hold never loosened as the
Mad Prophet stumbled and tripped. "Arithon's taken with some sort
of fever."
    "If you have to shout," Dakar groused, "at least wait until we're
outside."
    "I'm not shouting." Caolle slammed shoulder first through the
upper-landing portal, and chivvied his charge through the magis-
trate's chamber, a cavernous space of scarred wooden benches and
the fetor of old sweat and dried ink. The Mad Prophet shivered as
they passed the justiciar's dais, then the prisoner's dock with its rows
of forged rings for manacles.
    Torches still burned by the entry. Gagged by a billow of oily smoke,
Dakar missed his stride. His fragmented vision resurged and gave
birth to a hollow spasm of alarm. He bludgeoned dulled senses to
gauge the turn of the stars. Only two hours left before dawn.
    Caolle was still energetically speaking, his words unintelligible
gibberish to the sentries standing bored watch by the portal. "We
have trouble afoot. Those clansmen who died were Lord Maenol's
own cousins. They would scarcely have wasted their lives in a town
without the most dire reason."
    Dakar lagged again as full memory returned like a battering
onslaught of cavalry.
    "Don't mind the guards," Caolle snapped in abrasive impatience.
"I bribed them on my way in."
    The Mad Prophet gave up his effort to shield his tender eyes from
the sconces. Tugged stumbling into the sea-damp night, and a mist
like dew-sodden velvet, he grumbled in plaintive injury, "You
needn't tear off my arm. I know the message those couriers carried."

283

~ANNY WURT$

"What?" Caolle plowed to a tumultuous halt. "Ath, man, you
spoke to them?"
    "No." Necessity and pain made Dakar succinct. "Their execution
wakened my prescience. And Arithon's not ill." He broke off, wrung
by a pestilent shiver.
    Caolle suffered the delay in steaming, clamped patience. Around
them, the clogged air clung like silt. Lights from the wharves shot
ruddy spears through the tenements, and seepage off the overhang-
ing eaves splashed echoes through the darkened alley. Dakar ground
on between dry heaves. "We're in deadly trouble. If I'm right, your
liege has been touched by the madness of Desh-thiere's curse."
    Never slow to grasp threat, Caolle began running. "Then some-
one's told the s'Ilessid prince we've compromised the shipyard?"
    "Worse," Dakar panted. Even crimped like a bolster, he made
every effort to match the increase in pace. "Lysaer's marching on
Riverton with a fighting company at his heels. They would've arrived
yesterday, but clansmen from Korias slowed them down. Lord
Maenol's messengers died to bring warning. We have maybe two
hours left to force Arithon away before a royal cordon seals the
gates."
    "Much easier said than accomplished." Caolle added a string of
pungent epithets. Too real, that Earl Jieret's dreamed vision might
happen on Riverton's fresh-bloodied scaffold.

    The Laughing Captain's upper story lay dark, the candles set burn-
ing to guide patrons to their rooms long since drowned in sooty wax.
The door to Arithon's chamber was closed. No light leaked under the
sill.
    Dakar stalked down the corridor, his flesh napped with chills as he
touched Caolle's sleeve. They had agreed he should disrupt the
bard's privacy first.
    A board squeaked underfoot. The hallway with its ingrained tang
of lye soap and floor wax, and the stale fust of overused bedding
raised too clear a memory of another tavern hallway, and the Shadow
Master hurled outside reason.
    No lingering pinch of guilt plagued his royal Grace this time, but
the proximity of Lysaer himself. Dakar rolled back his sleeve cuffs.
Perspiration snaked down his neck. If he misjudged and the fatal bal-
ance tripped, disaster would follow beyond any power to contain.
    The unlocked door latch gave at a touch, the plink of the bar like a
cry against silence. Unnerved by apprehension, Dakar eased open the
panel.

284

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    Darkness met him, thick as warmed felt and stamped with indis-
tinct shapes. The mullioned casement latticed diamonds across a rect-
angle of indigo sky. The feeble, ruddy gleam of coals in the grate
brushed the textured bedhangings, and scattered sequin reflections
over the yams of gold tassels. Steeped in the mingled fragrance of cit-
rus oil and beeswax which toned the wood of the Masterbard's lyran-
the, Dakar searched the gloom.
    His mage-trained acuity found nothing amiss. The silk shirt and
pearl velvet breeches Arithon had worn the day before were draped
over a chairback, creased by an ornate clasped belt. The bard's full-
length cloak hung in order from its peg. His wrapped instrument
rested on the clothes chest. The accustomed coils of refined wire lay
on the marquetry table by the casement, nicked to scarlet glints where
the light caught; nearby, the spare winding pegs and pearl-handled
knife the Masterbard used to trim lyranthe strings. Everything kept
its accustomed place, except for the item that counted.
The Paravian-made sword was not on its hook by the armoire.
Dakar shrank to a stab of alarm. Innocuous stillness became sinis-
ter as he moved on and surveyed the bed. The hangings were tied
back: recessed in the shadow of the dagged velvet curtains, the blan-
keted outline of a sleeper. Dakar shut burning eyes in relief, then
advanced in quick stealth to take down his quarry unaware.
    Movement sighed from the shadow behind, a friction of leather
against cloth. Dakar caught his misjudgment a split second before a
chill pinpoint pricked at his nape.
    He swore in venomous constemation. The uncanny attunement of
his mage-sense informed that the irreplaceable blade he required now
threatened to skewer his neck. Lost, his one chance to deflect Desh-
thiere's geas; the sword's enspelled virtue would only deploy if the defender
held to a just cause. In Arithon's hands, the malignment of the curse
would keep its defense spells dormant.
    "If you plan to wreck the peace, make your stroke count," Dakar
accosted. "You were awake."
    "In fact, I never slept," said Arithon s'Ffalenn in his most abrasive
ill temper. "Whatever else did you expect?"
    "Not words of brotherhood and courtesy." Dakar chattered on in
the spurious hope he could mask Caolle's presence in the hallway.
"Your promise to Lord Maenol has become a bad risk. If you know
Lysaer's coming, we'll agree, you can't stay here, no matter how ugly
the fate of chained clansmen."
    "But I can," Arithon contradicted. "I've a launching in two days,
and plans I've no wish to abandon."

285

JANNY

    If the voice held its usual pared sting of mockery, speech offered an
untrustworthy gauge of a masterbard's state of mind. Dakar cursed
the sword, which forestailed his need to turn around. Even in dark-
ness, his trained senses must discern more than Arithon wished to
reveal. The inimical bite of the blade turned informant as a f'me-
grained tremor ran through its steel.
    "Arithon, hear me. You're not yourself." Through the pound of his
heart, hammer to anvil against the wound pain of his headache,
Dakar forced himself to keep talking. "If you stay, you'll be letting
Desh-thiere's curse overset your mind and integrity."
    The sword moved, as if Arithon noticed the price of its bearing
pressure. "And what if I planned this to be the last bloodbath?"
    Dakar gathered up the rags of his courage and spun face about in
the darkness. "If you had," he said, tremulous in terror and entreaty,
"then as I was born, I'd not stand here." He pitched all his resource to
unmask the man facing him, and desperately wished he had not.
    The sword blade divided the air in between, an obsidian line
against a less palpable darkness. Arithon no longer wore his delicate
pale-haired disguise. Alert and reverted to his natural coloring, he
had also cast off fancy clothes. "Since I didn't cut you down as you
came through my door, you may accept my invitation to leave."
    "You know I can't do that." Dakar licked dry lips. His headache
redoubled, the throb of forced blood at his temples a trip-hammer
misery of pain.
    Arithon said nothing. Reclad in fitted riding leathers, his form
seemed sheared out of black watered silk. He did not look deranged
or demonic. Excised by the curse from the encumbrance of loyalties,
he looked ready to scythe down any obstacle in his path.
    "I won't move aside," Dakar said in ultimatum. "To get past, you'll
just have to kill me."
    A tensioned thread of suspension snapped. Mage-tuned intuition
sensed the event as a frisson of vibration shot through the weave of
Ath's creation. Only then, too late, the Mad Prophet realized what his
tactless handling had cost. Until this instant, Arithon had been aware,
and still fighting the pull of curse-driven directive.
    "Stand me down at your peril," came his silken invitation from the
dark.
    The infinitesimal shift in tone speared chills down Dakar's spine.
Opened to mage-sight, he witnessed the change as the last sane con-
trols burned away.
    Now wholly ruled by the Mistwraith's design, the Shadow Master
showed the fixated viciousness of a cat as it tracked a lamed kill. "I'm

286

              FUGItiVE I~RINCE

 sure the whole Fellowship would applaud your good sense for dying
 to stop the inevitable."
     "Mercy on us all," Dakar whispered, unable to outface the ferocity
 in those unprincipled green eyes.
    This was what Earl Jieret stood down at Minderl Bay; and another
time as well, on the banks of Tal Quorin, when as an orphaned child,
the boy had thrown himself between Arithon s'Ffalenn and the abyss
of geas-bent destruction. The Mad Prophet was made of no such stern
stuff, to stand firm as a friend's private self came undone. Nor did he
own even that child's advantage: the direct, binding tie of a blood
oath sworn in amity, while Arithon still commanded his mage talent.
    "Could I remake my choice, I'd be far from this place." Yet even
Dakar's cruelest honesty had lost any power to wound.
    "Drunk, surely," Arithon mocked. "Or else buried to your short
hairs in some willing woman's flesh. You'd have been better off."
  However one might ache to hear regret in that tone, none existed.
    Then, "You've interfered enough," the Master of Shadow said.
Without further warning, he attacked.
    Dakar escaped the first sword thrust because his knees gave way
as he ducked. He had poor success with the well of bleak shadow
which clapped down and masked his trained sight. He resorted to
magecraft, begged help from the air, then drew on its reserves to fash-
ion a banespell to stop Arithon. The exchange of raw force settled
chill through the room as warmth fed the draw of his need.
    Before Dakar framed the seal to balance the conjury, the energies
ripped from his grasp. The next breath he drew sheared his chest like
white frost. Just as before, the effect of the curse let Arithon wrest his own
powers against him. He gasped, coughed, wrung his lungs empty
before killing cold stopped his heart.
  Dakar's warding cantrip emerged as a whisper. "Avert!"
    Defense and counterspell locked and unfurled. Barely in time;
through a ratcheting, starved breath, Dakar heard a low, trilling whis-
tle. He felt the ward bend, like stress applied to a green stick clenched
in his fingers. The sound built and focused, and the symmetry of the
spell suddenly let go and twisted. Whatever fell package of magecraft
rained down, the shock lanced Dakar's nerves like spilled needles.
He rechanneled the worst. Backlash smote the floorboards. Wood
squealed and burst into smoking cracks under the kick of wild ener-
gies.
  Half-paralyzed by pain, Dakar resisted. "Arithon, don't!"
    But pleas could not save him. At his peril, he dared apply no more
talent. Arithon's refined ear picked up the vibrations of sorcery.

                    287

.IANNY WURTS

Though the powers were not of the Shadow Master's making, he had
knowledge enough, and a fearsome command lent through his
trained gift for music. He would simply keep on retuning the pitch to aug-
ment and reverse summoned forces.
    Edged steel sliced the darkness. Dakar blundered clear. The sword
snatched a rip in the doubled-up cloth of his shirtsleeve. He rolled to
evade the next cut. Each desperate move, each flurried thought but
entrenched the bite of the spell turned hostile against him. His flesh
felt stitched with white-heated wire. Each effort to think cost him
agony. He denied his need to enspell a release. Any arcane defense
would only be hurled back in hostility against him.
    If he could not fight back, he still held Arithon's given power to
bind. Dakar rushed through a string of entangling cantrips, then
laced these through with the true power of Name, enforced by ritual
permissions. The stayspell deployed and sealed. If the mangling pain
seemed to let go a fraction, or the blind of wrought shadows relented,
the sword hissed down in a cut to his head like the howling descent
of pure vengeance.
    Dakar flung open the door to the armoire to break the force of the
blow. Lacquer-worked ebony jounced to the scream of turned steel.
Chipped abalone pelted his knuckles. He rammed the slivered door
hard into his attacker and deflected the following thrust. Something
hard bashed his shoulder: the pommel of the sword. His arm went
numb, and he crashed into a chair. Through a rain of split rungs and a
mire of bard's clothing, he snatched what defenses he could. Rolled
fabric muffled his bludgeoned forearm. The chair seat made a tempo-
rary shield.
    The sword Alithiel whined off wood and snicked a hungry tear
through the silk. Dakar gained a scratch instead of an amputation, but
the sting rocked his mental equilibrium.
    "Saved," he wheezed, while the blade zinged and clanged, "by the
shirt off your back." As the barrage whittled slivers out of the chair
seat, shrill fear and the limpet throb of his hangover impelled him to
inane hysteria. "You know you've gone mad. Arithon."
    No word came back. Only the clang as a murderous riposte gouged
another scallop from the wood. Splinters rained down on the spell-
binder's cheek. Flat on his back like an upset turtle, Dakar cringed as
stout oak gave way in his hands. A whimper escaped through locked
teeth.
    One heartbeat; two; the lunge he expected would come to impale
him never fell. Dakar heaved in a raxed breath. He recouped the pres-
ence to map a defense ward and cast another snare across the doorway.

288

FUGITIVE PRINCE

     He felt Arithon sense the surge of channeled energies. Braced, he
 absorbed the counterpull as the strength of his binding by permission
 was grappled, and then sorely tested. Now aware he was bound,
 Arithon eschewed all attempt to match sorcery. He smashed the glass
 casement instead.
     "No, you don't." Dakar clambered clear of the mangled chair, then
 shed on the fly the entangling veils of silk shirt. The belt he retained,
 and swung like a sling, which Arithon's blade intercepted.
     Silver clasps sheared off and clanged into the wall to a pattering
 fall of chipped plaster.
    "Stop now!" Dakar snapped. "Don't you realize how closely you
just came to shattering the lyranthe Halliron Masterbard passed on as
your legacy?"
    Arithon used the emerald pommel of his weapon to sweep broken
glass off the sill. "That's a touching concern, but irrelevant. My half
brother isn't going to lie down and die from the glorious rapture of
music." He set his hand on the frame, but Dakar had anticipated.
White sparks ripped out. The branch snare of the spell set to seal off
the doorway stung Rathain's prince into recoil. "Curse you for med-
dlingS"
    "That was your own permission just blistered your skin!" the Mad
Prophet cried in correction. "Don't try your birth gift of shadow.
You'll find yourself curbed there, as well." He seized the washbasin
and pitcher from the stand, dumped out their contents, and sought
for a point of aim by the casement~ "Why not simplify things and
hold still?"
    The solution required no genius. He need only batter an armed and
demented adversary into a state of unconsciousness. The sulky thought
followed, that long before, Caolle should have seized the advantage
bought out of his desperate diversions. As Arithon's liegeman, the man
must try something to bring his sworn charge back in hand.
    "You're not speaking," the Mad Prophet accused. "From you,
silence never bodes well."
    He shied the pitcher, waited for the smash as sword steel fended
off porcelain, then winged the basin on a corrected trajectory. That
vessel also became deflected by weaponry. Arithon must have seized
his sly chance to fetch out his quilloned dagger
    Dakar met the changed odds with a vexed string of oaths, and fin-
ished in plaintive injury. "Two blades make for butchery. You know
when I'm drunk I don't even carry a penknife!"
    No answer; armed now with both sword and main gauche,
Arithon bid to wrest back his mastery of shadow.

289

JANNY ~URT$

    His geas-bent will slashed against sealed restraints and deflected
onto the spellbinder. No surprise to Dakar, that the attack brought a
fragmenting explosion of agony. Arithon's talent encompassed the
command of elemental darkness. He required no effort to raise simple
shadows. If a ward of permission denied his access, he need do n0
more than apply testing pressure to wear down the inhibiting
stayspell.
    Dakar held firm, teeth locked in misery through a pain that
plucked him at random. He suffered the bearing, innovative feints as
Arithon quested to find weakness. The scalpel-swift slice of each
forthright attack hazed him dumb with torment. Wrenched and
pulled as though milled in a spate, he hung on, though his senses
shut down at each onslaught. Leaching numbness beset his extremi-
ties. Next, his balance succumbed to mangling weakness. He toppled.
Only the intervening bulk of the armoire saved his doomed effort to
stay upright.
    He clung, victim tied to ruthless antagonist through the grant of
permission which founded the first rune of stasis. The spell which
curbed Arithon from use of his mastery keyed into Dakar's fast-
failing strength. No recourse lay open to retaliate. A call for assistance
from air or from matter would invite a flank strike from the bard's use
of dissonant sound.
    "Ath, where is Caolle?" gasped Dakar, as his sight dissolved in a
howling rain of white static.
    His chest felt cumbered in molten lead. Each nerve end felt dipped
in raw acid. The fight had been futile, outmatched from the start, with
him pitched alone against an opponent beyond his depth and
resilience. Dakar had no genius reserves of bright talent. Only a fool's
suicidal tenacity to bear up and sustain under pressure.
    "Arithon. Listen." Pain racked the plea to a whisper. "I can't let
you go. A sword and a dagger can't stay Lysaer's army. Fight for your
sanity, damn you!"
No answer from the creature claimed as Desh-thiere's instrument.
Dakar crumpled. A horrid, sucking pull swallowed his mind as the
force of resistance drained him. This was a contest drawn outside of
mercy; wise limits were long since abandoned. The only way left to
stave off disaster was to borrow off his own life force.
    Weeping, Dakar tapped that last well of resource, though he knew
the end was upon him. Arithon stayed in thrall to the Mistwraith's
dark violence. Already he advanced on his victim. Paralyzed by
throttling agony and dizziness, Dakar scarcely tracked his murder-
ous, light tread. The dormant spells in the Pararian weapon gave

290

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 mage-sense fair warning of his peril. Air brushed his skin with preter-
 natural clarity as the blade poised to cleave hapless flesh.
     Then the Masterbard's voice, cold as no man ever heard. "Be a
 dead fool, then, for interference."
     The whetted, steel length of Alithiel descended. Dakar shut his
 eyes. Limp as a hare stunned and stretched for the knife, he kept
 obdurate hold on his bindings.
     "In Earl Jieret's name, leave that spellbinder be!" Metal clanged in
 a screeching collision and arrested the sword in midfall.
     Dakar flinched. Whimpering beneath a trip-hammer exchange of
 fierce swordplay, he realized a burly figure with a torch had rushed in
 to claim his defense.
    "Merciful Ath!" The prince's gruff liegeman had not abandoned
him after all. "Caolle."
    "I went for my mail shirt," the clansman flung back by way of testy
apology. Harried across the carpet by Arithon's attack, he beat off a
rain of furious ripostes with blunt and deliberate competence. The
years he had served as Earl Jieret's war captain matched Arithon's
fierce brilliance through experience. The pair had sparred often.
Caolle knew his opponent's fast style and quirky, unpardonable
tricks. But this was no straightforward match in the open. The mad
drive of Desh-thiere's geas set him at extreme disadvantage. The
caithdein's sworn man, he dared take no life. His slighter antagonist
obeyed no such scruple, but sidestepped and angled to kill. Nor did
Caolle have better weapon than his accustomed hand-and-a-half
longsword.
    In cramped quarters, the blade's greater reach spoiled accuracy.
Close and tight as he parried, the tip clanged off furnishings or
stabbed and hung in the curtains. The torch in his left hand spat
hellish sparks as he turned the wooden haft to deflect the swift fury of
Arithon's dagger hand. Cinders showered the carpet. A sickening
reek of singed wool laced the room.
    Caolle flicked his wrist to haze off the flame which streamered and
singed his leather bracer. Through the clangorous dance of thrust and
parry, he resumed his belabored dialogue. "Nor would I fight a pos-
sessed demon again without light. You just keep tight hold on those
fiend-plaguing shadows." A feint, a disengage; Caolle's sword bat-
tered against the smoky sheen of Alithiel, then screamed through a
sliding bind. "If I'm blinded in darkness, we're dead men."
    A pillow struck the floor, slashed to leaking feathers, close fol-
lowed by a crash as the pricket was raked from the nightstand. Caolle
slipped as the candle rolled under his boot. "Dakar," he entreated

291

JANNY WURTS

through beleaguered balance, "if you aren't injured, please Ath, I need
you to move."
    Dakar scuttled clear as the fight clattered past him. He coughed
sour fumes, swiped sweat from his lashes. "You're oathsworn to
Jieret!" he accosted the Teir's'Ffalenn. "Dare you murder the very
man who raised your caithdein from boyhood?"
    "Never mind parley, his Grace won't hear you!" Caolle grunted. ^
scorching scream tore the air as sheer force of strength cleared his
blade from entrapment on Arithon's crossed sword and dagger. The
torch absorbed another lunge. Sparks flurried and peppered spilled
fragments of glass with pinpoint stars of reflection. "As you love life,
prophet, move your fat arse and do something to back up my light."
    Roused to the danger, Dakar winnowed up eddies of loose down
in a hands and knees scrabble across the chamber.
    Backdrop to his effort, a half-snarled curse as a fighter snagged in
the bedhangings. Velvet tore. A hacked tassel sliced into the gloom.
Dakar wrenched open a drawer, tossed out papers and pens, but
found nothing of use to strike a spark. A toe gouged his calf; Caolle's,
in retreat. Again the duelists clashed in attack over the crown of his
head. The puddle by the washstand slickened the footing. Caolle
slipped, ejaculated a stringent oath as his guard suffered an unlucky
break.
    Arithon's weapon licked in like black lighting; rang into an impro-
vised defense. Blood flew. Caolle sustained a nick above his bracer.
The whirl of his torch barely foiled the following left dagger thrust,
while the jerking, snatched flame chased glints across quillon and
guard.
    Both men felt fatigue. The fight lagged a split second. Dakar, look-
ing up, caught a glimpse of green eyes. The prince who was born to
s'Ffalenn compassion, whose music could raise tears from stone
hearts for generosity, appeared to be vanquished beyond recall. Soul-
less, inhuman, the creature who advanced to take down his own
liegeman seemed unreal as a fetch wrought into the form of a dread-
fully familiar body.
    Lips peeled back in murdering ferocity, the Master of Shadow
lunged again.
    Dakar flung back from that killing bash of steel and cowered
behind the clothes chest. "You'll have to disarm him!" If means still
existed to salvage Arithon's mind, the Paravian defenses held dor-
mant in Alithiel offered the last avenue for hope.
    The washstand crashed over. Back and forth, the duel raged, while
Caolle's fast-pressed weapon gouged slivers from furnishings, or

292

              FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 stabbed jagged furrows in plaster. The belling crash of swordplay
 roused sleepers from their beds. Someone's raised voice shouted from
 the outer hallway, while weapon clashed to weapon, a tireless
 roulade of raw fury stitched through the descant jingle of Caolle's
 mail shirt.
     Dakar cursed a head still melon thick from drinking. The din
 drilled his ears and scattered his labored train of thought. Caolle's
 cause could not be helped. That quicksilver exchange of thrust and
 blocking parry confounded his blurred eyesight. His effort to rise was
 undone by the palsied, nauseated weakness brought on by over-
 played talent.
     Caolle fared no better. Veteran though he was, his strength was not
 speed, but methodical, polished execution. Rucked carpet and the
 hazards of upset furnishings presented countless pitfalls to defeat the
 reach and sweep of his weapon. Again and again he was forced to
 defer to the darting strikes of Arithon's dagger.
     The Mad Prophet snagged the wrapped bundle of the lyranthe,
 shoved her clear of the fray as clansman and prince sprang apart.
 Heaving rasping gulps from exertion, the pair faced off, the stolid,
 iron-haired veteran like a battered stone buttress, and the Shadow
 Master opposite, light boned and slim, and possessed of a weasel's
 poured grace. Blades raised, eye to eye, they stood locked through a
 measuring pause.
    Caolle surveyed his liege, a study that flickered over carriage and
mien, and ended infallibly with the hands; a habit begun in contempt
and adversity, done now as an unthinking sacrifice in behalf of a
prince he had learned to respect. Then its heartbreaking counterpart:
the echo of the grave, listening intentness Arithon served those who
had won his most difficult trust. All his empathetic gifts of perception
stood reversed by the curse. He subjected Caolle to a combing search
for the first fatal weakness to exploit.
    Against razor tension, some concerned citizen knocked at the door
and inquired for the safety of the bard. The latch rattled, foiled by the
bar Caolle had dropped as he entered.
    Suspension shattered into movement. The renewed, wailing
onslaught of metal beat at metal in relentless intent to draw blood.
Arithon's dagger scored once, then twice, as Caolle's sword scythed
through the bedhangings. Swagged cloth slowed his counterstroke.
Again the striking main gauche sought his flank.
    The clansman parried, squarely in form, but the torch cracked at
last under punishment. The lit end sheared away. Shadows wheeled
through its arc as the spluttering stub bounced under the clawed feet

293

of the tipped washstand. Streamered flames lit the towels. The Mad
Prophet chose not to stop the conflagration. He owed Caolle better
than uncertain light. Since the Laughing Captain's landlord required
strong incentive to enforce his house rule against brawling, Dakar
hooked the unlit end of the cloth and hurled its burning length across
the tossed sheets on the bed.
    Fire blossomed. Close walls banked the heat and flung back a
hellish glare of light. Smoke billowed, licked through by the flicker of
steel. The combatants met and parted in circling concentration. While
the racket in the corridor changed pitch to alarm, Caolle ran out of
options. Another bind; his wrists flexed in practiced response. Tem-
pered steel shrieked and parted, leaving him pinned to the crackling
blaze of the mattress.
    Dakar perceived the last choice as it happened. "No! Caolle, don't!
Let the smoke haze him dizzy. We can take down your liege as he fal-
ters."
    But the clansman saw well enough how the stakes lay. He accepted
the one fleeting opening and lunged. His sure stroke rammed home
through Alithiel's cross guard. Faultless in timing, steadfast in sacri-
fice, he recovered his stance, set both hands in leverage, and twisted.
    His right side, exposed, took the thrust of the dagger he lacked any
weapon to parry. His grunt as cold steel bit under his mail shirt entan-
gled with a dissonant outcry of metal: his blade still engaged with
Alithiel's cross guard. Falling, his warrior's reflex at last broke the
Shadow Master's grip.
  The Paravian-made sword arced free.
    At that instant, Dakar spoke her Name to engage the bright powers
instilled by the centaur who forged her.
    Light ripped the air, hard followed by sound, a struck chord to
raise the wild elements to exultation. Wrought in a terrible, undying
harmony, the note reshaped perception, until earthly existence
seemed a shabby reflection to be suffered against loss that carried no
tangible name. No one in range of that resonant, clear power proved
exempt from its force. Time suspended. Thought and memory and
awareness lost meaning. The shattering peal of Ath's primal mystery
shocked the tie between spirit and flesh.
    Arithon screamed. "Caolle? His voice pierced through the sword's
diminished vibrations in a transfixing agony of restored wits. "Ath's
mercy on me, Caolle!" He fell to his knees. Undone, distraught, he
laid horrified hands on the bleeding wound in his stricken liegeman's
side. "Dharkaron strike me, it's death I have dealt for your service."
  His remorse rent through the whispered harmonics of the sword's

294

FUGITIVE 13RINCE

 fast-fading vibration. Flame light laid bare his terror and his tears as
 he labored in feverish need to stop the ebb of life beneath his fingers.
 "Dakar, in the clothes chest. There are shirts to staunch the wound.
 Hurry! Shove my sword in the fire. The blade will be needed for
 cautery."
     Dakar pushed erect, crossed the chamber, but not to fetch rags or
 follow orders. He recovered the dropped sword. For tragic and sor-
 rowful necessity, he reversed the grip and struck Arithon a blow on
 the back of the neck with the pommel.
     The Shadow Master dropped in a slackened heap of limbs across
 the shoulder of his dying liegeman.
    "Well done," Caolle gasped. "Now, heave him up and haul him out
of here." He paused, rendered silent by a shuddering spasm, then
labored through another ragged sentence. "Take his lyranthe. He'll be
grieved if he finds we let her burn."
  "Caolle," Dakar said. He coughed on rising smoke.
    "No! Leave me! You must!" The clansman snatched Dakar's arm in
a frightful, harsh fist. "Don't spurn my sworn duty. If Rathain's
prince is lost, I have just thrown away all I was ever born to serve."
    Dakar scrubbed sweat from his eyes and trembled with anguished
denial. "Ath, if I do this, what about Arithon? You know the force of
his grief could turn inward and cripple him."
    "See it doesn't." Caolle gasped, seized again by a quivering parox-
ysm. Eyes shut, jaw clamped, he forced will to prevail against the
extremity of agony. "If this is my fate," he resumed, "inform my Lord
Jieret that my last service was to fight the Mistwraith at my prince's
side." Through a horrible, wrenching lag, he wrestled to draw breath
and finish.
    "Tell my liege..." As though he sensed refusal in the harrowed
quiet of the Mad Prophet's attention, he grew frantic. "Tell him!" He
had to speak over the yammering noise as alarmed citizens pounded
at the door. "Say to Prince Arithon, when the Fellowship Sorcerers
crown a s'Ffalenn descendant as Rathain's high king at Ithamon, on
that hour, he will not have failed me."
      The bar on the door burst to a flying rain of plaster. Flames fed on
draft and leaped high and licked in a roar across the ceiling.  "Go!" Caolle begged. "You must, can't you see?"
    Shouts hailed from the doorway and thrown water flailed through
the murk. Coughing back tears, Dakar bent, found the sword,
rammed its scabbardless length through his belt.
    "Daelion keep you, I won't let your liege die." The ripped shirt suf-
ficed to cover the exposed s'Ffalenn features. The Mad Prophet

295

IANNY WURT$

remembered the lyranthe, then caught Arithon's slack wrists and
dragged him like deadweight through the smoldering litter of
smashed furnishings.
    Hands from the corridor reached to assist him. Someone astute
hung the lyranthe strap which had fallen askew off of his shoulder.
    Dakar snatched breath for thanks and responded to the landlord's
hysterical inquiry.
    "A thief," he improvised as someone's servant stepped in to help
shoulder his wrapped royal burden. "Broke in and knifed the bard's
servant. Smashed out the window to make his escape." Before anyone
thought to question the lie, he entreated, "My master's man still lies
in there, wounded. I beg of you, do what you can for him."
    Two bystanders arrived to help fight the fire bent at once to soak
cloth and mask their faces. Dakar never knew if they managed a res-
cue. Slave to the demands of desperate necessity, he stumbled on
toward the stairs and started down in a dumb fog of misery. To the
volunteer bearing Arithon behind, he snapped, "I'll need to borrow a
cart from the stable. At once! The bard can't be left on the street,
unconscious, and someone needs must fetch a healer."
    A stableboy passed off his two slopping buckets and sprinted
ahead to commandeer horses and harness. Dakar leaned on the
newel, half-blinded by tears. The excuse of the cinders masked his
undignified sorrow as he played arcane seals through the smoke. He
ensured what he could: the fire would not spread. Through the bed-
lam raised by the bucket brigade, his furtive acts of conjury were cer-
tain to pass unremarked.
    No one would notice his furtive escape, or recall Arithon's precipi-
tous departure.

296

Early Spring 5653

Feint

Dawn mists loured over the estuary at Riverton, stained as dirtied
fleece where the gate lanterns leaked sulfur light through the gloom.
The company of mud-splashed guards sent to seal the city's north
postern established their post in smart expectation of the Prince of the
Light's formal entry. The captain entrusted to seal every egress out of
Riverton was a stocky, scarred veteran, flushed in the face and run to
vile temper from a cross-country march beset by unimaginable diffi-
culties.
    The last men under orders reached their designated checkpoints at
the docks, wharves, and gates through his incandescent drive to mow
past upset plans and diversions.
    The most recent and diabolically irritating of these still remained, a
thorn in his side in the shape of a lean, impertinent clansman. The fel-
low knew field war. His laconic, whip-stinging criticism held an accu-
racy that shamed the men scarlet and generally fragmented morale.
Flights of high temper seeded shouting between rankled officers and
flustered subordinates. Bright eyed, avid, the clansman picked fights.
With them since midnight, and onerously underfoot through the
exhausting, last leagues of forced marching, he clung to their com-
pany like a pill on knit wool until most of the officers would have
been pleased to ram unsheathed steel through his gizzard.
    None did. The s'Brydion claim to alliance against shadow was
unfortunately backed by a safe-conduct bearing Lysaer's own signa-
ture.

297

~ANNY WURT$

  "Horsemen, inbound," called the watch from the tower.
    The mists hoarded sound like an arras of dank felt. Strained min-
utes passed before the oncoming thud of hoofbeats reached the com-
manding captain on the battlement above the main gate.
    His rank, furrowed frown raised more volunteer comment from
the old blood duke's pesky brother. "Look lively, my friend. Your luck
hasn't changed."
    "What?" The disgruntled Etarran swung his cast-iron glare from
the road to the impudent speaker beside him.
    Mearn s'Brydion showed him the insolent grin he saved for his
killing hands at cards. "We aren't getting the reinforcement you
expected."
    "You say!" The troop captain peered through the fog, beetled
brows sequined with moisture.
  "Torches," said Mearn, his accent succinct.
    Comprehension dawned as the cressets streamed in, socketed in
the upraised fists of the outriders. The vaunted and glorious Prince
Lysaer s'Ilessid would not light the column with pitch pine.
    "A pity for me you're too griped to bet," Mearn baited. "! could're
claimed a delightful small stake, since you'd never have imagined the
women."
    The captain managed not to rout dignity and retort, since the mad-
dening assessment was true.
    Emerged like blurred tapestry through the silver-gilt tarnish of
dawn, the disciplined cavalcade which reined under the archway
served escort for three cowled Koriani seniors.
    "Black Sithaer and Dharkaron's bloody vengeance!" swore the cap-
tain. "What are their kind doing here? And where in creation is Prince
Lysaer?"
    "A very sharp question." Mearn s'Brydion's irksome, bright smile
gave way to intent speculation.
    As the captain stamped jingling toward the stair through the keep,
the barbarian followed, cheerfully assured of his blood-given right to
shadow Etarran authority.
    At ground level, the air hung like vaporous cotton, masking the
bleached hue of daybreak. Horses stamped like animated shadows to
the pealing, treble chink of harness. The officer in command of the
inbound party proved a stranger wearing guard's colors from Hah-
shire. The name he gave back when challenged was Sulfin Evend,
pitched in a snapping, aristocratic arrogance.
    The mist cased the loom of the gatehouse, blurring texture from
stone, and spangling the lichens in dew. Etarran men-at-arms held

298

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

their stance in the turrets, defined by the bog reek of mud on their
leggings, and by pebbled gray helms, pocked where the dents of late
combat snagged glints from the moving torches.
    While Mearn held his interested stance by the postern, the Etarran
commander called puzzled inquiry. "Where's his Grace of the Light?"
    No one answered. The captain from Hanshire vaulted from his
high saddle, cloak flung back like a mantied hawk. He turned his lean
profile away and held bridles as the trio of women dismounted. Two
bore purple mantles with scarlet-sewn borders, plain warning their
errand today was not for humanitarian charity. The third wore the
gray robes and white hood of a healer.
    The one with the triple-tiered bands of a seer's rank bent and con-
suited a scrying crystal. The Etarran commander hissed through his
teeth, ill at ease in the presence of spellcraft. More familiar with the
ways of Koriani practice, the Hanshiremen played at their bridle reins
to distract their mounts as the faint, tingling current of uncanny
forces unreeled through the battening mists.
    Two men-at-arms made signs against evil as the cowled seer finally
straightened. She pronounced in a young woman's voice, "I've con-
firmed. The Master of Shadow left Riverton before Lysaer's cordon
closed down the east gate."
    "Dharkaron avert!" the Etarran commander exploded. "That's not
possible. My men were in place before anyone here could gain word
of the force sent to take him."
    "Peace on you," said the second witch, the one wearing eighth rank,
which set her seniority high enough to intimidate. "All is in order."
    Preoccupied by something she held in her hand, she murmured a
staccato run of syllables that sounded like arcane ritual. The lines fin-
ished with Alt, name for the Pararian rune of ending. When she
turned to stow her fetish in her saddlebag, the officer glimpsed what
looked like a doll, fashioned from strips of white velvet and pearls,
and twisted with strands of fair hair.
    A shudder of distaste made his protest too shrill. "I can't believe
this! You expected the Spinner of Darkness to go free?"
    The enchantress faced him. Her collected voice and superior bear-
ing matched a refined oval face, silk black hair, and eyes the turned
gold of aged varnish. "The trap to take the Master of Shadow is pro-
ceeding exactly as planned."
    The Hanshire officer who commanded her escort seemed to share
her high-handed disdain. "Send a man to summon the Lord Mayor"
    The Etarran ignored him. "Where's the Prince of the Light? I still
hold his orders to seal off these gates."

299

]ANN� WURTS

    "Be still!" snapped the enchantress, imperious. "Our snare to
entrap the Spinner of Darkness was never meant to close here. Lysaer
of Tysan is scarcely so reckless! Blameless lives are at risk if there's
bloodshed. Your liege is a just prince, and merciful. He would never
comer an unprincipled sorcerer in the midst of an innocent popu-
lace."
    "I don't ~,'ust what you say." The Etarran stayed planted, arms
folded over his breastplate, while his men in the gate towers clasped
dampened hands to their weapons in chill fear of provoking fell sor-
ceries. "Show me you carry Prince Lysaer's authority."
    The Koriani senior regarded him, tranquil. As if a man's history lay
etched in a face, she said, "You may address me by the formal title of
First Senior. I admire your staunchness, but don't be a fool. In this, we
work for the same cause." Her eye for detail sought the root of his
obstinacy and as swiftly divined the reason. "We know you for a vet-
eran who survived the fight at Tal Quorin."
    When her uncanny statement redoubled his unease, her cut-coral
lips framed a smile. "Fear nothing. No one expected to take the
Shadow Master unaware. We have him hazed into open flight, and
the moment shall come when he's vulnerable. Do you hear? The
s'Ffalenn outpost is offshore, in the Isles of Min Pierens. Prince Lysaer
has already sailed west with his war fleet to intercept him. The Master
of Shadow will fall to an ambush at Corith. Now send for Riverton's
mayor. We require his council's sealed writ to proceed."
    While the Etarran capitulated and called for a runner, a dry-voiced
observer remarked from the postern. "You intended the Master of
Shadow to slip through?"
    "But of course." Lirenda disdained to glance at the speaker. She
guessed his name already. The Prime's initial scrying had shown her
his presence. He had an indispensable role yet to play to ensure the
trap against Arithon. Through the bustle as horses were led off for
stabling, and the bristling talk to establish a hierarchy between the
Etarrans and the guardsmen from Hanshire, Lirenda's reply filtered
back. "The cordon here is set by design to take down all of Arithon's
accomplices."
    Her curious exchange with the s'Brydion envoy became sup-
planted as the scryer touched her elbow. "The liegeman from Rathain
you asked me to track has been moved from the inn where the fire
struck." She finished in soft urgency, "He's been sheltered in the
cook's quarters on Haymaker's Lane. We haven't much longer. He's
dying."
  First Senior Lirenda murmured a terse reply, then amended her

300

FUGITIVE PRINCE

instructions to the guardsmen. "When Riverton's Lord Mayor
answers my summons, inform him to gather his magistrates and have
them await my arrival at the shipyard."
    The three Koriani commandeered a guide from the local garrison.
Through imperious autocracy and the well-oiled use of their power to
intimidate, they swept smoothly on to their business inside the city
gates. The main body of their escort from Hanshire remained at large,
without assigned quarters and food. Beset by their flood of unsched-
uled demands, the Etarran commander took harried notice that for-
tune still granted small favors. The temperamental clansman with the
waspish tongue had finally removed himself elsewhere.

    Lirenda's small entourage sought the burned shell of the Laughing
Captain Tavern. By now, the fire had played itself out. Smoke
smudged and coiled through a rickle of fallen beams and the last
sullen pockets of shimmering embers the bucket brigades labored to
extinguish. Persistent questioning led them at last to the bedside of
Arithon's stricken liegeman.
    Caolle sprawled like felled dough on a ticked straw mattress in the
kitchen annex left standing untouched by misfortune. The scullion
sent for candles never came back, no doubt out of fear his petty thefts
in the buttery might be disclosed by some trick of divination. The
room that held the pallet remained dimmed in shadow, the squalid
miasma of old grease and turned onions congealed in the heavy, close
gloom. At the First Senior's bidding, the Koriani healer knelt to per-
form her examination.
    "Bums and blood loss," she concluded. "He's in shock still from
cautery." She laid down the rawboned, sinewy wrist she had clasped
to take Caolle's pulse. Her thin face turned toward the stray quill of
light which fell through a knot in the shutter. "In an hour, perhaps
two, his spirit will cross over, however he fights the Wheel's pas-
sage."
    In fact, his obstinate flesh would stay breathing until sundown, one
of a laddered array of small details embedded in Morriel's grand
scrying. Lirenda stirred, a form out of place against plaster whose
grimed coats of whitewash were streaked where condensation had
rinsed through the tallow soot. Her long, sculpted fingers flicked ash
from her mantle, and her face showed supreme unconcern. Through
the ongoing grind of the salvager's wagons across the cobbled yard
without, and brief outbursts of oaths as men soused the timbers that
stubbornly sprouted new flame from the ashes, her voice was enamel
and silk. "Could you save him?"

    The healer's hands hesitated, paused, returned to trace over the
stained linen bindings swathed around Caolle's flank. Her cape-cut
gray sleeves stirred the scents of goose fat and seared tissue, and
roused a sullen chink from the chain mail no one had dared to
remove for fear they might restart the bleeding.
    Lirenda smoothed down her disarranged mantle. Her eyes antique
gold and her face like milk cameo, she watched while the healer
touched her crystal and traced through an array of testing runes and
seals.
    A drawn moment passed before the enchantress dared a prognosis.
"His wound was taken in the name of his liege. There lies our open-
ing. A binding tapped into his past oath of fealty might command
enough power of obligation to stay him. But he's dangerously weak.
A forced regeneration of the blood must come first. If we stabilize his
condition, his body could recover. Wards and sigils can be used from
there to arrest the infection and fever."
    The Koriani First Senior folded her arms, her fine, sculptured nails
sheathed under her cuffs. Her banded silk hems caught on the board
floor as she crossed and surveyed the man on the pallet. The glam-
ours set by Dakar to mask clan identity had dispensed in the spell-
binder's absence. Caolle's strong hands rested slack on the coverlet,
scabbed on three knuckles from the trials of an impatient character.
The cantankerous clefts of hard living and grief were brought now to
unwilling release. Lastly she studied the indomitable broad chest,
where the heart beat unvanquished through the draw of each ster-
torous breath.
    Lirenda shut her eyes. Her fingers, masked in silk, dug the flesh of
her forearms as a white force of rage arrowed through her. An
unswerving devotion to Arithon s'Ffalenn had wrested this clansman
from life.
     She could not stop the hurtful comparison to herself. The felled
 liegeman lay oblivious in extremity and mocked her, that she might
 become just as haplessly subservient to the drawing force of the same
 master. Unlike Caolle, she lived in resentful rebellion, a latent pawn
 with potential to be claimed as a vulnerable, unwilling sacrifice. Just
 once, she desired to reverse her own punishment, to humble
 Rathain's prince and make him suffer the impacting cost of the loy-
 alty he won and then spent without thought.
     Moved to a vicious, inspired stab of impulse, Lirenda seized her
 initiative. "Do all you can," she charged the healer at her feet. "If the
 clansman survives, I would take him captive to sail with us on the
 chance he may yet prove useful."

302

FUGITIVE PRINCE

The woman bent her head and took up her quartz crystal. "Your
will shall be done, First Senior."
    By the order's own tenets, no subservient enchantress could ques-
tion her decision. Lirenda shared nothing in confidence. She took sat-
isfaction in her autonomy, that the crowning fillip to Morriel's grand
design would bear a twist of her own devising. The defeat of her
nemesis would bring sweet revenge by the deferral of one clansman's
death. Caolle would make a devastating addition to the shipyard's
score of hostages when Koriani power at last cornered Arithon at sea.

303

Early Spring 5653

Quarry

Two hours past daybreak, the mist broke and rolled, tom as snagged
knit, over the fields which rimmed the shore of the estuary south-
bound from Riverton. The trade road to Middlecross at the mouth of
the bay snaked through rotted mud, bounded by timber fences to
keep cattle, and hedgerows of thom, budded with clockvine and bit-
tersweet. The terrain was flat. Trees grouped in huddles, salt burned
and stunted on the ocean side by gales, and raked like a drunkard's
grope to leeward. The blue pan of the sky held the swirling black
flocks of swallows returning to nest in the hay byres, swooped and
chivvied by gusts off the Westland Sea. Just past spring equinox, their
winter-sharp edge could still flay through a drover's cloak of oiled
wool.
    Before the uprising threw down the old role, the mild, boggy sum-
mers grew the bull grass shoulder high. Here, the secretive hare had
grazed, her black-edged, velvet ears attuned to the speech of the
breezes. Midges and dragonflies danced in the sun which streamed
like gold oil, and daylilies had bloomed like outbursts of wildfire.
Now, across the wide vista where young dragons once stretched dry-
ing wingleather and flew, wattle-and-thatch farmsteads clumped like
brown mushrooms, surrounded by goose pens and pigsties. The
rustling, graceful stands of bull grass had gone. Reseeded pastures
were grazed to shorn stubble, or chopped into hummocks by the
milch cows who plodded their mindless daily rut from farmyard to
gate.

304

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    The stiff winds of equinox did not rustle and whisper off the sea,
but burned over the razed ground with flattening force. The squat
drover of the oxcart narrowed his squint eye and muffled reddened
hands in the rug thrown over his knees. His beasts nodded onward in
their yokes, their vast, splayed hooves chinking through glaze ice
where low sun had yet to thaw the puddles. The wain racketed
behind them, a rattletrap conveyance of squealing, pegged boards
and spoked wheels which sucked and dragged through black muck
and runoff to a labored creak of worn axles.
    Hunched over the lines, the drover looked as if he suffered the
pangs of a pestilent headache. He did not look up as the armed riders
streamed past, to shouted orders and a military snap of royal ban-
ners. Nor did he curse the mud spattered up by their hooves, or
protest as they waved whips or weapons and demanded he roll his
cart to the verge to make way. Had he carried apples, they might have
stopped him on demand for provender. Since the wain's unsavory,
manure-stained bed held nothing but musty sacking and an empty
goose basket chalked with guano, no guard seemed minded to
search. A straightforward cipher which prodded the senses to revul-
sion was all any competent spellbinder needed to be left to resume his
interrupted way south.
    As the sixth such patrol galloped jingling by, the drover cast a
soured eye across his load of potato sacks. "You have no idea just how
lucky you are." He received no reply. Only the grinding chirp of the
axles and spring birdsong, blithe, from the hedgerows.
    The rider who passed an hour later came alone on a lathered chest-
nut. The saddlecloth bore the guard's emblem from Hanshire, but the
man wore nondescript leathers beneath the braid of his captain's
cloak. Nor was the blade hung by tings from his baldric the issue of
any town cavalry. The acerbic scrutiny he gave wain and drover
could have scraped verdigris off a bronze tack.
    Then a grin like a whip disarranged his thin lips. "Ath, it's your-
self. I thought the stink was by lengths too extravagant. Where's that
shadow-bending little bastard you nursemaid? I bear him a pressing
message."
    By the sniping humor and an accent like shot darts, Dakar recog-
nized the s'Brydion scion who had been the first man in twelve
decades to fleece him at both cards and dice. "I've disowned him."
    But Mearn had not missed the sidelong glower directed at the
ruclded sacking.
    "He's there?" The s'Brydion blasphemed through six sentences of
admiring incredulity.

305

JANNY WURT$

    Drawn pale by the drummed-out dregs of a drink hangover and
the diminishing spasms of palsy, Dakar shrugged. "I'm not at all cer-
tain I'm going to survive the invective when he wakes up."
    The clan envoy's gaze lingered, riveting sharp, while his forced
stab at levity floundered into brooding, and his eyes stayed trained
ahead, circled and darkly haunted.
    "Bad, was it?" The chestnut shook the bit to a spatter of white foam,
while Mearn played her sideways to keep her abreast of the creeping
oxcart. "You won't like what I have to tell you any better." Never one
to hold off delivery of ill news, he plowed on. "You're caught in the
teeth of a Koriani conspiracy, did you know? They flushed you from
Riverton in full expectation of netting your Teir's'Ffalenn in an
ambush off the Isles of Min Pierens. Lysaer's been at sea for six days
with trained navigators. His fleet's destination is Corith."
    Dakar swiveled sideways in dumbstruck shock. "At sea? Lysaer
s'Ilessid? Ath, he can't be! Arithon was driven to break his disguise
by full onslaught of Desh-thiere's curse. Only Lysaer's immediate
proximity could provoke such a fit of murdering insanity!"
    Mearn shook his head, the thick stubble on his jaw graining the
hollow of his cheek. "Spells and trickery." He suddenly sounded
every inch as tired as he looked. "Yon curse was triggered by Koriani
intent. I saw the accursed tangle of hair and silk scraps they used to
shape Lysaer's proxy."
    Horror whitened Dakar's rumpled features, and the cloudless
spring sun sparked small, silver glints on the hair roots at his temples,
changed from ginger to white overnight. "You're saying the witches
brought on the whole incident by means of a conjured fetch?"
    "Why else would their First Senior be carrying a wee doll made of
tied rags and blond hair?" Since the ramifications were too grievous
to grapple, that Arithon could be hazed hither and yon by a bundled
spell created by a Koriani whim, Mearn traced the flight of a marsh
falcon who snapped from its high, lazy spirals to stoop. "His Grace
can't flee to Corith. He'll find Lysaer waiting with a war fleet well
primed to carve his s'Ffalenn liver into stew meat."
    Dakar glowered down the roadway, which unreeled straight
ahead, between the capped horns of the oxen. "I won't ask what you
risked to deliver the warning."
    Meam laughed. "There's not enough gold in Ath's whole creation
to pay the whores to preserve my randy reputation."
    "What?" The starting ghost of a dimple dented the cheek above
Dakar's rumpled beard. "Past experience should have taught me. The
s'Brydion line runs to madmen who are born addicted to danger."

306

FU~I?IVE

    Mearn's grin widened, then became the triangular smile his broth-
ers had learned to regard with extreme trepidation. "You never saw
me," he said. "For the past seven days, I've been in bed at Avenor
i~usting the lights out of three willing doxies."
    "I see." Dakar rolled a walleyed glance of apprehension toward the
muddle of lumps in the sacking. "Forgive me when ! tell you I wish
that had been the plain truth."
    "Oh man," Mearn agreed, turned sharply restive as the horse
which stamped and curvetted underneath him. He glanced over his
shoulder, and the Mad Prophet heard too: through the weave of the
gusts, the oncoming hooves of yet another patrol sent to scour the
roads out of Riverton.
    "You should go," he advised Mearn. To be seen under questioning
by a man with Hanshire trappings would draw perilous attention to
tl~em both.
    "As you suggest." Mearn's humor changed to a wicked slice of
malice as he gave rein to his head-shaking mount. "I leave you the
road, and wish you joy on the moment when yon testy mountebank
~rakens. Upset his temper, he's got a tongue can raze scales off the
i~nocent fish."

    The ox wain rolled on into the afternoon, while the blue sky clotted
with high-flying clouds, and the sun dimmed and vanished into haze.
Dakar ate cheese with the gritty, hard bread provided by the farmwife
whose goodman had sold him the wagon. He absorbed himself lick-
i~g sticky crumbs from his fingers. The lines threaded unattended
through the fist on his knee when a sneeze and a shudder beneath the
potato sacks reminded of his fugitive passenger.
    Dakar tossed off the last crust for the birds and halted the oxen. He
considered, then decided against releasing his mild spell cipher.
    The next moment, the burlap stirred and parted. An angular face
shaded in beard stubble emerged, capped by moldered stems of oat
straw stuck through untidy black hair. Eyes of a burning and terrible
emerald blinked and regarded the wind-flattened briars in the
~edgerow, ragged border to a ladderworked mesh of fallow fields,
then absorbed the rutted groove of the roadway. The intelligence
behind stayed mercifully baffled and blank.
    "Potatoes," the bard murmured, puzzled. His glance turned to
Dakar, inquiring, and his light touch explored a clotted scab on one
cheekbone. "No doubt a just punishment for tupping the farmer's
eager daughter, except that I can't recall the chit's face."
  A pause; hands that in daylight showed the scurfs and congested

307

~ANNY ~URT$

bruises of a ruinous combat received an absorbed inspection. Reas-
sured at last that all his joints flexed, Arithon raked clinging chaff
from his collar and lapsed back to a dusty puff of rot from the sack-
ing. "Dakar," he said, muffled, "the guano is a stroke of pure bril-
liance, I admit. But may we dispense with the manure and the offal? If
I suffer my fair deserts from a hangover, I could manage rather well
without the stink."
    Then, from a shattering and sudden break in thought, a ripped
intake of breath: Arithon s'Ffalenn came fully and finally awake. His
next words reviled in distilled venom. "Should I curse you or thank
you for my deliverance? Or better, give you the whip hand to send
me straight on to damnation and Dharkaron's black vengeance?"
    His unspoken anguish hung on the pause, 'For Caolle, there exists no
redress.'
    Dakar clamped helpless fists to the lines and slapped the worn
leather over the backs of the oxen. "You swore oath at Athir," he
reminded through the squealing protest of stressed wood as the wain
sucked free of the mud and rolled onward.
    "Oh Ath, that I hadn't, or better that I could have renounced life
and breath on the day of my birth." Arithon sat upright, his face
pressed behind his opened, marked hands and his shoulders braced
against trembling.
    "Your survival had to come first," Dakar insisted, unmanned him-
self, and too much the coward to watch. Nor could he quite mask the
flick of an honest revulsion as he made tactless effort to ease an
impossible grief. "All hope isn't lost. Arithon, your stroke didn't kill
him, not at once, I swear this. Caolle still breathed when I left him."
    "Ath, no!" the Shadow Master cried, shot straight and sawn
through by redoubled remorse. "He is clanborn, and hurt, and what
have I done but left him helpless among enemies? His own people
would have served him a mercy stroke!"
    The cry drowned echoless in the winds of the flats. While a wedge
of flying geese sliced the gray sky, and the oxen nosed brainlessly for-
ward, Dakar found nothing to say. Nor could he ease the unbearable
distress of the prince who refused even tears in his locked and horri-
fied silence.
    Fragile as a silk moth's spun filament, the blood oath alone stayed
the force and fury of Arithon's natural reaction. Moment to moment,
while the warm life in his veins seemed a cruel violation, and the beat
of his heart framed insult to his integrity, he sat in bound quiet. Eyes
wide, hands slack, he dared not even flinch to be served the uncondi-
tional gift of the land's beauty. Not now, Dakar sensed with a wound-

308

FUGITIVE PRINCE

ing, sure pity: not when all sound and all movement revolted the
nerves, and a mind lay torn and trapped in the grasp of transfixing
grief.
    The sough of the breeze in the budding briars, and the mournful
cries of the hawk and the marsh wren filled all the world with oblivi-
ous industry, while the wain rolled and bore the Master of Shadow
into the cheerless dusk.

    They made camp in a hollow with a stream, under the leafed-out
crowns of a willow grove. The trees were ancient. Their dry-rotted
trunks offered nest hollows for owls, whose plangent hoots and glid-
ing, swift flight made the oxen whuff and back against their tethers.
Low clouds shed a steady, fine drizzle that sluiced a varnishing glaze
of damp over man and beast, and made the fireless night a bitter mis-
ery.
    Dakar served out the last of the farmwife's provisions, a heel of rye
bread and strips of jerked beef cured hard as glass through the length
of winter's storage. The spellbinder chewed without appetite. In
oathbound responsibility, he noted Arithon's attempt to do the same.
    But exhaustion and stress exacted their toll. Two unobtrusive trips
into the brush came and went before the Mad Prophet noticed any-
thing amiss. Every scrap of sustenance the Shadow Master dutifully
forced down was rejected with wretched persistence.
    Dakar could have wept and sworn both at once for the cost of the
blood bond imposed by the Fellowship at Athir. Since straight pain
was suddenly preferable to the ongoing cruelty of silence, he
scrounged out the flask of sour wine he had hoarded and shoved it
toward Arithon's chilled hands.
    "Drink. You need it. And talk, for Ath's sake. If you can make such
a dogged effort to eat despite the fact you're too sickened, you can try
just as hard to make plans."
    Arithon looked at him. Wrists hugging one on another about his
drawn-up knees, and his fingers like clamped bone under the soggy,
grimed cuffs of his sleeves, he said nothing. Neither did he accept the
offered solace of the wine.
    "Well, you can't risk sailing to Corith!" Dakar exploded. "You
know if you try to face Lysaer again, you'll become slave to Desh-
thiere's curse."
    The ruinous fact could not be evaded. The awful limit must be
faced. Intent had not served; free permissions had proved woefully
inadequate; the working of the geas strengthened with each contact.
Dakar gnawed a torn thumbnail, demoralized and mute. As well as

309

JANNY WURT$

he, the Shadow Master knew: if not for the saving intervention of the
sword, he would have lost his mind into irreversible insanity at Riverto,.
    Dakar dragged in a breath that felt heavy as liquid glass. "You
don't know the worst yet. Koriathain are involved." Pained for the
necessity which made him twist the knife, he repeated what Mearn
s'Brydion had seen, the terrible proof that the flight out of town had
been launched by means of a golem wrought of spells. "To assist
Lysaer's cause, they deliberately triggered the bane of the Mist-
wraith's geas."
    That unbearable news carried vicious implication, that Lysaer
s'Ilessid had been leagues at sea, and no threat. Plans for the launching
and abduction of three ships were upset for naught. Lastingly worse,
Caolle had fought and fallen to Arithon's sword for no true threat at
all, but only manipulative illusion.
    In comfortless grief, set isolate by the needling fall of fine rain,
Dakar could not bear to strike light and measure the scope of
Arithon's anguish. He feared worst of all to broach what no empty
offer of solace might disguise, that every associate and accomplice
brought in for the launching remained still in Riverton, unwamed
and defenseless against whatever machinations the Koriani First
Senior might devise.
    Dakar chewed his lip in agonized suspension. He waited through a
pause grown dense as lead crystal, while soft rain wet his cheeks and
trickled from the untidy bristle of his beard. No night birds called.
Just the whispered tap of droplets, and subliminal rustles as willow
fronds bowed to their burden of damp. The weather promised no
surcease; clouds would sheet in from the north until dawn. Nor did a
mere spellbinder know of a palliative to ease wounded pride, or
shore up the wreckage of a man's priceless care and integrity.
    Human balm did not exist to relieve an inhuman quandary. No
friend could mask the impact of inborn s'Ahelas farsight, that would
turn the birth gift of a ruthless insight ahead to map the course of a
poisoned future. Helplessness remained, of a dimension to grind
thought down into despair for a balance inevitably foredoomed.
    A masterbard whose compassionate heart had been torn out thrice
over in the cause of meaningless destruction could not have limitless
strength.
    The rain and the dark embraced Arithon's stilled form. The wine
flask lay untouched by his feet, while the drizzle pattered and seeped
and leaded the tender shoots of new greenery.
    Against every interfering impulse, despite the oblivious, brash
decadence that prompted his fleshly excesses, Dakar kept his palms

310

FUGITIVE PRINCE

jammed over his lips. He would not speak. Even through the tor-
menting, perilous awareness that the blood oath sworn to the Fellow-
ship Sorcerers allowed but one terrible course.
    If Arithon kept faith and held his gift of Shadow in reserve against
the greater threat of the Mistwraith, he would be forced to spare his
own life through the ruin of uncounted others. No reason could ease
that abnegation of free will. The wait seemed to span the arc of obliv-
ion, while time wound into a brutal, shared tension to shred the most
steadfast patience.
    "I dare not attempt to save the men or the outpost at Corith,"
Arithon announced at drawn length. With Koriani led into conspiracy
with Lysaer, he saw well enough. No place remained inside the five
kingdoms where he could depend on safe refuge. "Nor can I recover
the launched ships for the clans. No course is left but to recover Tal-
liarthe and sail south and east to regroup."
    Dakar set his chin in his hands. He could make no answer, over-
whelmed as he was by the sweet rush of astonishment and gratitude.
Nor could he repress his outright awe for the character of Rathain's
price. He knew no one else capable, no spirit with the outright, mul-
ish fight to reach past such branding ignominy and guilt, and for noth-
ing if not another compounding act of self-betrayal. The torment of
Caolle's tragedy did not end here, but extended to embrace losses
unbearably larger.
    As if no friend wept for the grievous depth of character that carved
up such tenacious resilience, Arithon laid out his decision with the icy
dispassion a surgeon must find, when forced to amputation with no
time to spare for anesthesia. "There's a fishing village south of Tor-
went in Havish remote enough to lend short-term sanctuary. From
there, I'll send word to Fiark at Innish. He can release the Khetienn
from her current merchant charter. The Evenstar's not to be compro-
mised, for Feylind's sake. Her runs can enable safe drop points for
stores to extend our blue-water passages."
    His admission came in agonized quiet, that no shred of his hopes
could be salvaged. That because of his presence, Lysaer's deadly,
trained force from Etarra was drawn into Tysan, where clansmen
fought now for survival. The men, the ships, the months of meticu-
lous and dangerous work to redeem threatened bloodlines: all
designs fallen short on the brink of completion, then abandoned in
one cruel stroke.
    The last line in summary, dredged up in pain for a world future
bought at a damning price in shed blood. "We must sail offshore,
alone, and quarter the seas until the Paravians are found."

311

JANNY ~URTS

    No mention was made of the third brig, Cariadwin, sailing under a
clan crew to Corith, where she must inevitably fall to Lysaer s'Ilessicl
as a sacrifice. Nor did Arithon belabor past choices, or wallow in self-
castigation for what might have been saved, had his bid to free
Maenol's clans from enslavement been pursued in less brilliant
aggression. But Dakar knew him too well; having seen the s'Ffalenn
prince through the atrocity at the Havens, having offered the shoul-
der that steadied him after the horrors unleashed at Dier Kenton Vale,
the dispassionate, stark outlines of tonight's recast strategy spun him
no false reassurance.
    He could do no more than stifle his sorrow for what went unsaid in
the dark and the rain. The change he had most feared to witness had
come. Never through even the ugliest setback had he heard Arithon's
voice turn flattened and dull in defeat.

    At the time which spanned the midpoint of night, that suspended
hour equidistant from sundown and dawn, the Mad Prophet gave up
his failed effort to rest in the clammy shelter of his cloak. He stole to
his feet and listened. Arithon lay still, huddled limbs furled in oiled
wool and his breathing soft and regular. He was not asleep. The rain
had freshened, and the pattering stream of moisture from the wil-
lows' arched canopy conjoined into trickles of runoff. Rising wet
drove the mice to their burrows. The owls had ceased silent flight.
    In trust that his absence would be taken for a routine call to relieve
himself, the Mad Prophet crept from the campsite. He followed the
throaty voice of guttered water and crossed a ditch with a streamlet.
The eddies flowed clogged and tan with drained clay, too muddled to
serve his intent. A few paces on, he found a wide puddle cast to the
sullen gleam of pooled mercury under the haze of the storm scud.
  The water proved clear enough for scrying.
    Dakar knelt. He raked away sodden leaves and a sandy detritus of
gravel. Into the softened mud on the verges, he traced out the radi-
ants invoking the cardinal points of direction. Then he settled himself,
cleared his fraught mind, and immersed himself into mage-trance.
Between the night's whispered rainfall and the fluting shrieks of
spring peepers, he sought the voice and the essence of water. He
asked and exchanged a permission. Raindrops still fell fine as pins,
pocking the puddle with their fleeting circular imprints. A soft word,
a rune, and the surface sheeted still. Palms sweated now with the con-
centration of refined talent, Dakar invoked a star's Name, the one
which rode the meridian on this particular hour, at the nadir of
night's span of darkness.

312

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    Lastly, he ripped off a thread from his sleeve, rusted brown with
dried blood spattered from Caolle's wound. This he soaked clean in
the puddle. He restrained his fretted nerves as he waited, while the
essence dissolved and released its magnetic aura.
    A minute came and went, sevenscore heartbeats set to the impact
of a numbered fall of raindrops. The tone traced over the puddle's
surface flared like weak phosphor and drifted. Dakar gathered his
inner faculties, ordered will into balance, and murmured, "tiendar,"
the Paravian call to invoke the linking tie between spirit and bodily
flesh.
    Had Caolle died, no such connection would remain and the con-
jury just set would fade away unrequited.
    But as Rathain's prince had so desperately feared, the liegeman
from Deshir yet clung to life. In the shadowy depths of the puddle an
image formed, a scrying forged through the delicate energies of one
star's ascendancy, and a clansman's fierce will to survive.

    Candlelight in a cramped chamber, where a youthful woman in gray-and-
white robes labored over a brazier and pot, brewing a steaming herb tisane.
She paused as she stirred to attune small magics through the crystal on the
chain at her neck, and to chalk sigils on the stiff squares of paper which held
her medicinal plants and dried rootstock.
    Just past the edge of that circle of light, eyes like bored gimlets of obsidian,
Caolle watched her, his colorless, blunt features sweating in the extremity of
his pain. He still wore the mail shirt, though the links and the gambeson
beneath had been dragged up his torso to bare his wounded side for the Kori-
ani healer's ministrations.
    As if his fixed gaze were abrasive, the enchantress glanced aside from her
work. "No," she informed with acerbic exasperation. Though he had not spo-
ken, she answered his direct thought. "The mail can't come off without tear-
ing your wound. Your life's to be spared by command of our First Senior, and
I won't risk restarting the bleeding."

    Caolle's life given over to Koriani design; Dakar spared no second
to mourn this sure confirmation of disaster. Nor did he delay to size
up the anguish the news would inflict upon Arithon's already shat-
tered peace of mind. A scant interval remained before his conjured
connection to the star's power waned and passed. A rune, another
cipher, swiftly composed to exploit the connection with First Senior
Lirenda, who had intervened outside of mortal consent to stay the
natural course of death. Dakar's construct widened to summon
another image in the puddle.

313

J^~� Wu~$

    More candles burned in the loft above the cIerk's shed. Here the royal ship-
yard's hired master stored his drafting pens and his tools. The closely kept plans
drawn up for his three-masted brigs lay unrolled on broad trestles, weighted at
the comers with gray, rounded rocks from the river bottom. Though the hour
was past midnight, Cattrick's personal domain was not private. The benches by
the wall where he issued his daily instructions to his laborers were still occu-
pied. Clad in their dark robes of judgrnent, Riverton 's tribunal and justiciar sat
informal session, while a secretary scribbled out transcript,
    Before them, a wretched southcoast rope splicer knelt in sweaty, shivering
fear from the aftermath of an interrogation made under the burning compul-
sion of arcanely wrought sets of truth seals. His shock held him passive while
the shipyard's blacksmith hammered the rivets to close the steel shackles on
his wrists.
    "That's the last of them," pronounced the aristocratic woman with a dis-
dain to slice through the clangor. Her expression was abstract porcelain, and
her gown, a sweeping purple robe with red borders. "Lock him away with the
rest until the launched hulls are made seaworthy."
  The smith finished his task and shouldered his satchel of hammers and
tongs. Blinking and stiff from the long hours spent hearing testimony, River-
ton's officials arose. Uneasy, without talk, they shook the creases from their
clothes and made their pompous way through the door to the outside stair.
    Lastly went the guards with their workaday armor and drawn swords, to
remand the chained prisoner into custody.
    The Koriani First Senior remained, composed as fine ivory in the unset-
tled spill of the flame light. The focusing jewel she had used to wrest open the
privacy of men's minds lay tucked between her clasped hands, each curled,
slender finger arranged into line like the fluting on a blush-colored shell.
    She was not alone. A broad-shouldered man stepped out of the gloom and
skirted the laden trestles. If the eyes set amid his measuring squint stayed
nervelessly direct, his step held a stalker's sharp caution.
    "What now?" challenged Cattrick. He extended his work-hardened,
sinewy wrists in a gesture of mock supplication. "Have you no shackles for
me? Or am I to stayfree in reward for my peerless service?"
    Lirenda returned an imperious flick of her nails. "Busy man. Never pre-
sume to take freedom for granted. Be grateful. Your place remains here."
    As Cattrick's brows frowned in distrustful surprise, she deigned to proffer
explanation. "The gossip must eventually reach Arithon. When he learns
you were the one who effected his betrayal, your worth will be sadly dimin-
ished as a hostage." Her enameled gold eyes shimmered with contempt as she
swept her gaze head to foot, and dismissed him. "You're Lysaer's man, now,
and if you have sense, will remain so."

314

              FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    High overhead, behind banked layers of cloud, the star crossed the
zenith, its span of ascendancy past. The scrying linked through its
energies flicked out. Left staring at raindrops stamping faint rings
over and over in a puddle, Dakar gripped his knees through an
unpleasant shudder. Beset by the aftershock of sorrow and distaste,
he engaged the familiar, ritual steps to release the used frame of his
construct. Three handclaps and a breath disbursed the life tie to
Caolle. A scribed rune of passage unwound the spiraled energies
bound by permission to water. A green stick blessed and borrowed
from a bush made a sweep to erase the directional markers. Once the
leftover traces of his craft were disbursed under blessing, Dakar
stretched his sore shoulders. He gathered himself, but stopped short
on the point of arising.
    Some intuited warning of disturbance made him glance over his
shoulder.
    A whiff of rain-wet leather and a shadowy presence: Arithon
s'Ffalenn stood like a wraith at his back.
    "Dharkaron's bleak vengeance!" the Mad Prophet swore, then shut
stinging eyes. A high surge of relief combed through him for the fact
the prince's mage-sight lay blinded. His Grace may have borne wit-
ness to every step of arcane ritual, but the train of summoned images
would for a mercy lie beyond the reach of his five mortal senses.
    As if private thought had been shouted aloud, Arithon contra-
dicted in searing irony. "Trust me, I heard the whole coil all too well."
    No apology sufficed to fling back in rejoinder. Nor was space given
for Dakar to venture even a token attempt. While he ached for a pity
beyond words to express, the Master of Shadow spun on his heel and
strode off.

315

Early Spring 5653

Recoils

Infuriated that their quarry escaped them at Riverton, the Etarran
officers hold an argumentative council to salve the pride of their chaf-
ing troops by sending them reiving after the forest clansmen who
might lend the fugitive Shadow Master shelter; while they deliberate,
the Hanshireman, Sulfin Evend, requisitions forty men on fast horses
and leaves the gates under Koriani orders to pursue Arithon's trail
with sharp fervor....

    Upcoast, at Avenor, the crown council of Tysan releases formal
public announcement of Princess Talith's fatal plunge from a high
tower battlement; and the verdict delivered to the shocked and
mourning court names her death as a suicide brought on by despair
and a tragic inability to conceive her fair husband an heir....

    On the third day, the Koriani healer reports to First Senior Lirenda
concerning her charge's condition. "Caolle will be well enough to
move, and can sail with the hostages if he's given a secure berth. His
wrists cannot be set into irons, as you hoped. It's a paltry enough set-
back, but the gashes on his forearms for some reason seem to have
festered .... "

316

Early Spring 5653

IX. Setback

N' ight lidded the sky over Korias Flats like a bowl of thick cobalt
glass. Yesterday's bleak weather had blown away south,
chivvied out by a cutting north breeze that moaned over the
barren lowland terrain with its swept slabs of calcine granite. Stands
of witch hazel and thorn, and the storm-trimmed fronds of bent wil-
lows rustled and tossed in the gullies, twigs dusted in the faint light
of a waning crescent. North of the river course, where ancient
glaciers had plowed up a shoal of dry ground, the land fell away in a
gradual slope that eventually cradled the steaming, dank pools of
Mogg's Fen. That way, alone, fared a lean rider nursing a trail-blown
horse.
    The traveler knew his purposeful way in the wilds. He tracked
steadily north, the polestar lending him guidance. His mount
went shod, but no chance grate of steel rang upon unclothed
granite. Sparing of the animal's last strength, he moved where he
could up the throat of the gullies, and avoided the scoured brush
on the rims.
    Despite his most diligent care and sly knowledge to foil observa-
tion, his stumbling, spent gelding could not pass entirely without
noise. Mearn s'Brydion reined back in nettled annoyance as four men
with drawn steel stepped out of the thicket in his path.
  Their challenge was alert and crisply professional. The nasal ring

317

JANNY ~URTS

to their speech identified them as the elite muster Prince Lysaer had
marched from Etarra.
    Against fitful shadow and the mottled ink patterns of bare thorn
and hazel, Mearn made them out, clad in mail dimmed with soot to
damp the chance gleam of the moonlight. Each one was outfitted
with horn, bow, and steel, unafraid to meet trouble with force. Their
carriage reflected a centered, light balance, decidedly more lethal
than their garrison-trained countrymen who wore the sunwheel bla-
zon at Riverton.
    Caught without knowledge of the password they demanded,
Mearn refused answer until their advance had brought them inside
one stride of him. The hand under his mantle rested taut on his knife.
He kept his spurs ready to wheel his spent mount into immediate,
hard flight, for no saving grace could lift the hair-trigger potential for
disaster. These were townbred veterans with hard-core disaffections.
Here in the free wilds, where clan accent alone could provoke a
bloodletting misunderstanding, Mearn had no wish to claim the pro-
tection of Prince Lysaer's Alliance with his family. A s'Brydion pres-
ence abroad with credentials, but no escort, would raise all the wrong
sort of questions.
    "Who passes?" the sentry repeated. "Say your name and your pur-
pose!"
    Mearn let his dragging exhaustion sap the lilt of clan origins from
his tone. "Courier, northbound."
    Then more crawling chills flicked the length of his spine. The whis-
pered rustle of branches from behind gave warning as more men
closed at his back. His straits were now unequivocal. He rode alone,
with no lawful witness within miles to gainsay the fight actions of
men who held him surrounded with drawn steel.
    The next query carried a cold snap of suspicion. "What brings you
here? Your path takes you far from the public road."
    Mearn kept his birth dialect blurred, and his hands light and taut
on his weapon. "Alliance business." To his right, where the gulch
held pooled water, the chorus of spring peepers had silenced. These
men would have concealed archers placed there, backing them up
against mishap.
    Ready to wheel his horse's startled weight and ram the two
swordsmen behind him, Mearn measured his odds. If the bowmen
had poor eyesight and miserable aim, he might narrowly manage to
beat an escape through the brush. Very likely he would be wounded.
Any lead he might gain could last only as long as some headhunter
thought to set dogs on him. Without knowing the size of the camp

318

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

these men guarded, dissembling stayed his best option. Mearn
assayed an impatient, townborn inflection. "I have northbound dis-
patches. Very urgent."
    The Etarran officer was steady enough not to kill out of hand.
Scarcely a day's march away from the river, he must know an overt
barbarian presence was unlikely in the middle of wide-open country.
Mearn waited, unbreathing, to see whether sweet luck or mischance
was going to present his next opening.
  The duty officer called for a torch. "Let's have a look."
    Flint and steel were produced with no fumbling. One of the sen-
tries had rags soaked in pitch already prepared and waiting. As the
flame burst and flowered, carnelian light played over Mearn's
leather-clad knee, then the sable and scarlet colors of the officer's
cloak he had purloined from the gatehouse that morning. Behind the
folds of his mud-spattered hem, his gelding still wore the matching
saddlecloth with its Hanshire blazon, that he had forgotten he car-
ried.
    The Etarrans fixed on the city mayor's device, and troubled to look
no farther.
    "Dharkaron's bollocks!" somebody carped from the sidelines. "Not
another of you louses! Gave up my bed to your kind last night. The
peacock disdained to fold up his blankets, far less say thanks in grati-
tude. Treated everyone he met like the get of a bootlicking scullion."
    "Be still, you!" Defined in the light by the braid on his surcoat, the
authority proved a man of middle years, rangy and fit and intolerant
of nonsense. To Mearn, he made swift disposition. "All right, sir. You
need not prove out the unpleasant reputation your countrymen left
with my troops. You pass. Then you speak to the captain on watch. If
your needs can be met, he'll look after the arrangements."
    Mearn masked a thrill of delighted inspiration behind faintly
sneering reserve. Weary, hungry, and hagridden by the urgency to
move on, nonetheless, the gambler in him refused to ignore the dubi-
ous gifts dame fortune cast in his lap. He tipped a superior nod to the
sergeant. Then he gathered his reins, risen to an arrogance no less
withering than the Hanshire aristocrat who preceded him.
    "Fiends plague!" a plaintive voice announced in oversight. "He'll
need tonight's password if he isn't to find himself skewered on the
swords of the inner watch."
    Mearn pulled the gelding up short, his expression sure prelude to a
burst of reviling temper.
    The sergeant grumbled his unembarrassed apology and shared the
prearranged signal. Mearn inclined his head, touched firm heels to

319

his horse, and passed by, girded to wring what advantage he could,
starting with a hot meal.
    Behind him, the disaffected patrol indulged their dismal opinion of
Hanshiremen. "Not a trustworthy lot, never have been. Hate royalty
like plague. The fish-eaters consort with witches and soothsayers, as
well as abet Koriani. You knew their Lord Mayor's high council is
said to dabble in black magic?"
  "Stow the loose chatter!" snapped the sergeant.
    His chastened men broke up to resume their lapsed posts, while
Mearn moved on out of earshot. In apparent routine, he let his
exhausted mount pick its own way through the rim-lit gulches and
low brush. The farther he progressed, the more fresh unease chafed at
his overtaxed nerves. Again, he surveyed the plain. The shaved moon
textured a panorama like etched lead. He detected no sign of a camp.
Only a storm-raked wrack of bent trees that marked the dry conflu-
ence of a watershed. The hollow he crossed was scarcely a notable
landmark in the lowland face of the Flats. He heard no human sound.
Just the rustle of a fox, and the endless sough of the wind through the
budding twigs of bare branches. Whatever business an armed camp
had here, these Etarrans knew enough to use even this barren terrain
to advantage.
    Mearn slowed the gelding, sobered by an ingrained campaign wis-
dom to revise his original estimate. Given two lines of sentries, and
no discernible activity, cold instinct lifted his hackles. An armed pres-
ence that maintained such secrecy would not be inept, or unleashed
for any other Alliance agenda than the harrying of Tysan's free clans-
men.
    Made aware like a douse into ice water that his danger was far
greater than he realized, Mearn combed the shadows more closely.
He saw nothing still. His palms sprang a cold sweat and his warning
instinct changed from mild to rousingly urgent. A covert retreat now
carried more than chance risk in this country, where a mouse could
not cross these stands of dry brush without telltale rustles of sound.
     Mearn weighed a dangerously cruel set of choices. Best odds of
 survival were to bleed the horse dead, then try and creep back past
 the alert ring of sentries he had just hoodwinked to protect his iden-
 tity. If he slipped through unseen, he would then be on foot, easy prey
 for the tracking dogs dispatched to run him to earth. Hot pursuit
 would inevitably close at his heels. A horse carcass would draw
 notice, perhaps even before the watch reported his presence at the
 next routine change of the guard.
  He could trade his anonymity for short-term escape, or he could

320

FUGITIVE PRINCE

play for high odds and act out his guise as a bullying blue-blooded
Hanshireman.
    Had the stakes been less grim, Meam could have laughed for the
damnfool straits of his predicament. By that hour, he had been mov-
ing at speed through rough country for the better part of five days.
His rest had been snatched between showers in the thom brakes; his
last meal, a chunk of sour cheese bought from a farmwife out feeding
her geese. His judgment was failing, each separate thought strained
as though drawn through a pall of black silk. Had he not been about
t(~ nod off in the saddle, he might have bypassed the first pack of sen-
tries altogether.
    Mearn stroked the neck of his flagging mount. To reward the poor
gelding for trusting service with the furtive thrust of a knife seemed
the ungrateful act of a coward.
    An insatiable gambler, Mearn let the rash heat in his blood call his
fate. Since trained soldiers were likely to dog his path anyway, he
tnight as well snatch the bold opportunity to gain provisions and a
fresh horse.
    "Oats and a rubdown for you then, old man," he whispered in
wisecrack resolve. His bluff would carry more thrill for wild stakes,
never mind the maniacal temptation to gripe the Etarrans in the most
evil manner he could. He pressed the gelding's scrambling, tired gait,
swearing as noisily as any Hanshire townsman whose urgent orders
sent him across an inhospitable wilderness.
    The inner ring of sentries came at him like sharks in their haste to
issue their challenge. Through snapping sticks as the horse fought
bad footing, Meam gave the password in the sloppy, soft vowels that
centuries of affected fashion had evolved into citybred speech.
  "State your business," the guard demanded, unsatisfied.
  "Courier," barked Mearn. "You can't see with the two eyes Ath put
  in your face?" He added a phrase in the west coastal dialect that
  would raise a ripe flush on a galleyman.
    "From Hanshire?" The flustered guard jerked up his chin, then
snapped for a henchman to unshutter the light.
    Slit eyed in the blinding flare of a lantern, Meam gave his
obstreperous opinion. "Fiends plague! You Etarrans always check on
the obvious with the plodding stupidity of fed ticks."
    Three guards slapped swift hands to their weapons, insulted. No
fool, the young officer waved the arrival on quickly. He could do little
else without risking a brawl unlikely to stop short of bloodshed.
  Meam smiled like a fox and rode past.
  A bowshot ahead, he encountered the camp, a row of dark tents

321

]ANNY ~'URTS

hunkered into a hollow carved out of the stony debris of a floodplain.
The site lay well masked, set into the willows that knitted the low
ground in the flats. The shelters were invisible unless an observer all
but stumbled into their midst. Mearn saw no loose ends, no telltale
gleams of chance firelight. The fitful, hard gusts did not slap at slack
canvas, nor did stray talk ride the breeze.
    This field troop displayed deadly, meticulous care. In sheer size
alone, their presence bespoke a planned devastation, the work of
trained reivers moving fast into enemy territory. Mearn disliked the
unpleasant bent of his hunches, that Lord Maenol's clan scouts
were going to receive a grim retaliation for upsetting the late march
into Riverton. Nor did informed hindsight applaud the decision to
beard the wolf pack in its chosen lair. This strike force was sea-
soned by the wiles of headhunters, and likely as fast to take scalps
without question if they caught wind of an infiltrator inside their
camp.
    Though contentious escapades were Mearn's personal specialty,
the banner which flew above the command tent made him wonder if
even his brazen wit could pull off a challenge this grand. For the field
captain in charge here had served the s'Brydion family as a merce-
nary until the campaign at Vastmark had brought an abrupt change
of patron. The duke's brothers were far more than passing acquain-
tances, and Mearn's false claim of identity as a Hanshire courier
would be seen as a killing offense.
    A stick snapped on his back trail. Mearn spun, saw the two-legged
shadow that stalked him, and snarled a silent obscenity. His presence
had apparently stirred enough doubt that a guardsman had been sent
to tail him. Most likely the creature was instructed to make sure he
reported straightaway to the acting officer of the watch.
    Hazed to a spurt of riled temper for this latest unlucky setback,
Mearn drew a deep breath, then turned to engage every twist of cun-
ning wickedness he could raise to secure his stake in survival.
    "If you're going to follow," he drawled in contempt, "might just as
well do so up front, where you won't take the point of my knife in
mistaken belief you had thieving eyes on my purse."
    The stick-cracking rustles hitched through a pause, then resumed
as a stocky, perturbed soldier elbowed his way through the prickles of
a hazel copse. Despite his large build, he moved well. His balance
reflected a swordsman's neat tread, and though self-controlled, his
temperament was by no means phlegmatic enough to withstand the
barrage of Mearn's baiting. If he dared not strike back at a Hanshire
courier, he would settle for shedding an unwanted responsibility as

322                               ~

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 fast as humanly possible. "Head groom's still awake. He'll care for
 your horse."
     "I'll care for my horse," Mearn shot back in distemper. He dis-
 mounted and loosened his saddle girth, running on in snide language
 under his breath about the ineptness of rattle-pated grooms. For
 sheer, stinging mischief, he added an insolent phrase in dialect he
 picked up by the Riverton gates, when the officer whose mantle he
 filched had swept in.
     "Fatemaster's bollocks!" The stout guardsmen peered past the
 sloped neck of the gelding. "Is every living one of you also related to
 the priggish family of the mayor?"
     Mearn smiled, sly in malice as a weasel. "Thick witted, are you, to
 take so long to notice the connection."
     The pair crossed inside the camp perimeter, the alleged Hanshire
 courier all peevish-sharp nerves, and the heavyset soldier tagging his
 heels in contrasting, subservient awkwardness.
    No torches burned, even damped behind canvas. Those men who
had not turned in for the night hunkered down in small groups, con-
versation held to low whispers. They blended into the pitch shapes of
the shadow, faces and hands stained with walnut dye to mask the
pallor of bare flesh. Their shelters were sturdy and weatherproof,
showing the odd scurfs and mends of hard use, and a layout taken
from a headhunters' practice, with tents placed in rows of predictable
width to allow ease of movement in darkness. Mearn lightened his
tread, made cautious by the lethal stamp of competence reflected in
every salient detail.
    This camp was laid out for instantaneous action, from swift reloca-
tion to surprise attack. Men called to arms from the deepest of sleep
could move, fight, and organize without tripping over tent pegs and
ropes. No clutter lay about, no stray gear or strings of washed cloth-
ing. At a table with camp seats placed near the center, three wakeful
officers clustered in conference, a tight-shuttered lantern between
them. Yet no gleam of flame gave their presence away in the faint,
mottled fall of the moonlight.
    Led into their presence, Mearn used the snagged hair of the geld-
ing's mane to obscure direct view of his face. His posture stayed
straight, every inch of him arrogant. At length the camp watch cap-
tain broke off discussion and issued a testy inquiry. "Don't stand
there dumbfounded! If you have any purpose here, state it."
    Since the uppity Hanshireman deigned not to speak, his disgrun-
tled escort was forced to step UP and explain. "Here's a courier,
bound north bearing urgent dispatches."

323

                            JANNY WUI~TS                                   il
     A drawn pause; the watch captain waited, braced on mailed
 elbows. His expectation made the silence unbearable. Red-faced, the
 sentry resumed his report, unable to refute the implied chain of com-
 mand. "Yes, he needs food. Care and grain for his horse."
    Mearn forced his breath steady as the lamp was raised up, and a
cauffous, brief finger of light tJJcke~ed over his c/oak and the Hah-
shire blazon on his saddlecloth.
    Blunt as the mace he wore at his belt, the watch captain pressed his
gruff inquiry. "You know him?"
    "Sithaer no! Thank the power of Light for that blessing." The sol-
dier glared with pure rancor at Mearn, who gave back a smile full of
teeth.
    Across the table, one of the subordinate officers clapped a hand to
his beard to mask humor. The duty captain noticed, and snapped,
"Swellhead or not, he can't stay in camp unescorted."
    The guard braced his posture in bitten-off protest. "Respectfully
sir, I'm posted on the inner perimeter until midnight. Since this dan-
dified errand boy requires a servant, will you hear my advice? Assign
him somebody's unseasoned page. Preferably one with an insolent
tongue that's deserving a stiff round of punishment."
    "Just make sure he knows how to clean a man's boots," Mearn
remarked from the sidelines.
    The watch captain lost his breath to astonishment, then struggled
not to laugh at the stilted discomfort of the soldier caught in the
breach. "I understand your position," he said, straight-faced. "By all
means, we don't pander to mincing state guests." He nodded dis-
missal to his disaffected veteran. "Return to your post with my co~-
pliments."
    Relieved at vindication, the heavyset guard grinned in parting. "Be
sure the daisy attends his own horse. He's already told me our
grooms aren't fit to pluck the arse end of a goose."
    Left with the watch captain and two inimical senior officers, all of
them thankfully strangers, Mearn held his ground, wary. His airs and
affectations in fact bought no immunity. This strike force was not
warmly disposed toward strangers, nor did it welcome unannounced
couriers who impinged with a claim of hospitality.
    "You will leave all your weapons with us," the watch captain
instructed, stretching the hard muscles of his forearm. Moonlight
snagged on the links of his mail as he leaned his massive weight over
the table. "No one here knows you. We don't leave men armed who
aren't vouched for."
  Mearn said nothing, but yanked loose his sword belt. He knotted

324

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 ti~, ends of the leather around the scabbard and, in masterful pre-
 ~~nption, pitched his offering toward the seated officers; as if all his
 li~~s, any man near him would naturally scramble to vie for the favor
 ~t his service. To judge by the fast reflexes of the brute who received
 tt~e catch, his best chance was to stay on the offensive and discourage
 t~,,) close a scrutiny.
     Before the captain could phrase a demand for his dagger, Mearn
 Clustered back in disdain, "Since I'm not an assassin, will you insist
 t~~at I eat with my hands?"
    Any competent killer would use a noiseless garrote before steel; a
fine point the watch captain was shamed to concede since the dagger
remained in Meam's custody.
    �he first throw fell to s'Brydion wiles, that freewheeling complaint
~-,~ , .~d a grating embarrassment in this bastion of prideful authority.
X,o more argument ensued as a page boy was rousted and assigned
~!te mean task of dogging Mearn's presence in camp. The steaming
norse and its troublesome rider were dispatched straightaway to the
picket lines, to long-suffering sighs of relief.
    Granted limited autonomy and a precarious state of safe-conduct,
'.,,~eam adopted the sneer he liked best to intimidate crews on the
,lecks of his brother's war galleys. Cardplay had taught him the ele-
.;ant fine points of intimidation without the crude bluster of exertion.
n one withering glance, he sized up his escort, a swaggering, lanky
~oy of sixteen who tripped over his own feet at each step.
    Since braggarts typically feared contradiction, Mearn spun on his
heel. He tugged his mount in the wrong direction, his blunder a cer-
tainty since the wind in his face carried no tang of manure.
The boy plucked at his sleeve, then flung back as Mearn bristled.
"Don't touch me, whelp." In sterling offense, Mearn faced forward and
continued on his wa~ The page followed. Three dozen strides passed
before the boy raised the nerve to correct the displaced orientation.
    By then, the s'Brydion envoy had finished his count of the tents,
and by swift extrapolation, set a crude limit on the strength of
Alliance numbers. This force kept no camp followers. Servants and
support troops were pared to a minimum, and an overheard scrap of
conversation had informed that even the healer bore arms. More than
one shelter's ridgepole displayed trophy scalps, clan braids knotted
together like rope, or wound in the blood-crusted thongs the living
man's wife would have tied in before battle.
    Enraged and grieving, Mearn came at last to the picket lines. This
division was light horse, the animals all prime, kept glossy with grain
and condition. By contrast, the hack he tied up and rubbed down was

325

JANNY WURTS

 thin and straight shouldered, an eyesore of a livery horse outclassed
 by its neighbors.
  The page boy fatuously pointed this out.
     Mearn ignored him. By clan belief, all things alive were made
 equal, no animal given more worth than another, and no man's life
 valued above either. Moved to cross-grained annoyance for the boy's
 townbred ignorance, he fixed his whole attention on tending the tired
 gelding's legs.
     Just like the chained dog spumed by the free one, the snubbed
 page inflated his boasting to compensate.
     Meam did not comment. Thin features cast to indifferent disdain,
 he listened and absorbed each stray fact the boy spouted. Bv the ti~e
 the gelding was cooled, fed, and groomed clean of sweat, he had cata-
 loged a major array of tactics used in past raids against Red-beard's
 clans in Rathain. When the page boy wound down, he ventured
 laconic opinion that as yet, he remained unimpressed.
    Done with the picket lines, his saddle and the Hanshire horse cloth
slung over his shoulder, he pursued his quest for a meal. At the
cook's tent, a well-placed disparagement sent the boy inside to fetch
bread and jerked meat. Mearn waited, sharp-eyed and observant on
the sidelines, overhearing stray phrases and talk from the men who
came and went about unnamed business.
    "... give the forest-slinking lizards their comeuppanc~-.? a pike-
man said, chuckling.
    Through a lull in the breeze, a companion enlarged on the story, his
gestures expansive and vehement. "... for what they did in the bogs.
Let them suffer harkaron s fell vengeance for all eternity... nothing
                 D           '
else but a tenday of sharpening weapons. Have blades in our band
could split hairs with a cat's breath behind them..."
    Low talk from another quarter cut in between gusts of wind. "Man,
they'll be swept up like leavings. No chance .... other troops moving
in through the mountains .... them surrounded, and clan scalps
enough to make felt to restuff our Lord Mayor's upholstery."
    Riled as a cat doused in rainfall, Mearn capped the blaze of his
temper. Bit by bit, patient, he assembled each gamered fact. Under
Alliance orders to sweep northward, these crack Etarran troops held a
crown disposition to hunt down free clansmen in Tysan. Stung pride
would be vindicated. Having suffered and bled through laid ambush
in the wetlands, these men were rested and hot to take down the bar-
barian vermin who had abetted the Shadow Master's clean escape.
Nor were their officers anything less than prepared for the tricks cor-
nered clansmen could mete out.

326

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

     Mearn had quartered the camp. As s'Brydion knew war, he recog-
 t~ized excellence. After five seasons spent plowing the forests of
 I~bain for Jieret Red-beard's unscrupulous breed of scout, they were
 !~:~r iened veterans, lethally practiced at keeping a near to invisible
 ?r~,~ence.
     He ate what the page brought, suborning racked nerves to assuage
 his body's demand for replenishment. Emerged from a seamless tem-
 '.~est of thought, he laid down the wild card hand he had cut from the
 :loth of desperate courage and chance.
     "I'm tired," he announced without preamble. Lest the flustered
 :~a~e seek a superior officer to ask for bedding and shelter, Mearn
    ~ :;ht the boy's wrist with insistent fingers. "I won't sleep under
:anv,~. Too smelly. Fetch me a blanket. I'll choose my own place set
out of the wind, where I won't scratch from picking up head lice."
    Once the blanket was found, he crossed the camp again, the saddle
and cloth still carried across his left shoulder. He took painstaking
minutes to cut and skin a green willow branch. With that oddment in
~and, he acquired a seemingly limitless enthusiasm for exploring the
!~rush between tents. He poked under bushes. His vexing, erratic
:ourse wound in circles around a structure of tight-lashed canvas,
then stalled into another confounding silence.
    The page grew rebellious. "That's the supply and the armory," he
volunteered in exasperation.
    "I do have a nose, whelp." Not to be hurried, Mearn extended his
search and turned over each leaf on the ground. "One can't be too
:areful. Tracking dogs might have pissed here."
  "They're kept caged in wicker," the page disallowed.
    Since Mearn had detected neither barking nor whines, he made
chill conclusion that this company practiced the headhunters' cruelty
of cutting the dogs' vocal cords to make them run silent.
    Scarcely able to mask his shudder of distaste, he unloaded his sad-
dle, folded his lean frame in the blanket, and lay down full length on
bare earth. "Good night."
  "What?" The befuddled page glowered.
    "I said, good night." As a final eccentric foible of privacy, Mearn
arranged the crusted saddlecloth with its bold Hanshire blazon over
his exposed head and face.
    The page stood at a loss with his mouth open. As Mearn's breath-
ing steadied, then slowed to soft snoring, the boy paced, kicking
stones in bilious frustration. His orders to watch this high-handed
courier included no avenue for relief. Nor was an officer nearby to
consult or say where his irregular duty left off. The boy stood; he

327

JANNY WURTS

  deliberated; he went foot to foot in sore doubt. Finally, resigned, he
  sat down in the brush to keep boring vigil. The prospect of watching
  a prig sleep through the night underneath the ripe felt of a saddle-

  plaint among peers, a boy could do little but sulk and endure the
  injustice.
    Hours crawled. The watch changed. The last wakeful men retired
to their tents. The courier from Hanshire did nothing but lie in
unmoving, oblivious quiet, while the page leaned his back on a
sapling. Tired, he dozed once or twice. The final time he opened his
eyes, the brush over his head rang with the chirps of spring sparrows.
Dawn had broken. Through a pearl haze of fog, men stirred, seeking
breakfast or the latrine ditch. The page stretched, rubbed his eyes,
and through the complaint of stiff muscles, ascertained his charge
had not strayed. The courier's boots and spurs still poked from the
blanket. Naught else had changed; the red-and-black saddledoth
remained creased like a tent over his insufferable, swelled head.
    The page endured privation in eye-watering discomfort, then
finally gave in to bodily need and relieved himself in the brush. The
Hanshireman slumbered on, oblivious. The sun rose, melting the
streamers of mist and unveiling a day like a chisel-cut diamond.
The camp was fully aroused before an irritable petty officer sent by
the watch came inquiring to see why the courier had failed to make
an appearance.
    "He's asleep, still." Grouchy and feeling unjustly martyred, the
page boy tossed a pebble just shy of the blanket. "Probably lies in silk
sheets until noon in that decadent city he comes from. You kick him
awake. He has thankless manners."
    The petty officer stroked his clipped beard. He eyed the man-
shaped muddle of horsecloth, saddle, and blanket with visible trepi-
dation. Then, touched to a sudden, chill plunge of intuition, he
stepped forward and stamped his booted foot with full strength onto
the courier's midriff.
    Sticks snapped. The blanket collapsed, sagged in folds that
revealed the form underneath to be nothing else but an artful
arrangement of twigs and dry grass.
    "Murdering fiend!" the officer gasped. "The confounded dog was a
spy!" He elbowed aside the gaping page and raced headlong to raise
the alarm.
    The Etarran camp erupted like a nest of kicked wasps, but not to a
wild stir of noise. Men reacted in a chilling, oiled flow of discipline,
tearing down tents and searching through every nook and cranny of

328

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 packed baggage. Twenty minutes after the stunning discovery, the
 officer of the day watch stood in straightlaced formality and deliv-
 ered the raw news to his captain.
     "The man's not in camp, though his horse, his sword, his saddle
 and cloth are still here. The outlook is no good. He slit the tent canvas
 with a dagger and crawled into the armory. All the tactical maps are
 taken from the locked chest. He snatched an excellent sword, then
 caused enough mischief to make us all choke in embarrassment."
   "Sabotage?"
     The officer swallowed. "Yes sir." He shifted huge shoulders under
 his mail, braced his nerve, and recited the list. "All the steel broad-
 heads were cut from their shafts, and the fletching stripped off the
 arrows. Sword blades were unwound at the tang and separated from
 their hilts. At the horse lines, we found all the bridles cut apart. We'd
 fix them with string, but no one in camp can find a damned bit for his
 horse, or a girth that has any buckles."
     "Embarrassment, you say?" The captain stabbed his eating knife
 upright in the crust of his scarcely touched bread loaf. "I call it may-
 hem." His eyes narrowed with thought and a chilling, leashed tem-
 per, he snapped his strong fingers, causing the page who knelt by his
 elbow to jump. "Go. Fetch my parchment and seal."
     Then he leveled his blue eyes at the duty officer, and said, "You're
 not finished?"
     The man caught under scrutiny fidgeted, the sweat rolling from under
 his steel helm. "No, sir. The kennelman claims the meat for the dogs was
 tainted. At least, since he fed them, every last one's fallen sick."
     The account suffered a break as the page boy returned, bearing the
 troop commander's lap desk and the tied leather bundle which pro-
 tected the state seal with its su~nwheel blazon of authori~.
    "Keep talking, man." Resigned to the setback that spoiled his
breakfast, the captain unburdened the page boy. His hard fingers
flipped open the lap desk. "If our scouring of the clans is no longer a
surprise, the other troops have to be warned. You can talk while I
write." He accepted the wrapped packet containing the sunseal, then
paused, his frosty brows snagged in a frown.
"Something wrong, sir?" The duty officer blotted his moist face.
The troop commander showed his teeth, an animal response to
murderous fury as he snatched up his knife and slashed the thong
ties. The rolled leather fell away and revealed an old knotted root left
in place of the sunwheel seal to attest crown authority. "Why, that
slithering get of a snake! For this, I'll see his entrails torn out by dogs
and his scalp taken under my dagger!"

329

JANNY WURT$

    The page boy launched into panicky excuses. "The lock wasn't
loose on your coffer, sir. No papers were missing." Then the damning
worst, from the lips of foolhardy innocence. "Whoever stole the seal
from your things had to know just where to look."
    "Be silent." The captain fingered his steel, his temper leashed
through hardened experience, and his slate-colored eyes fixed back
on the man ~,,hose report was unfinished, and whose perspirin fea-
tures showed inordinate lack of surprise. "There's more?"
    "Yes, sir." The forbearing sigh this time seemed to rise from th~~
harried man's boot soles. "The groom on the picket lines was given a
requisition order, sealed and signed in what looks to be precise
forgery."
    "What did that groom give, say quickly." No idiot, the troop caN-
tain thrust to his feet. "The facts are by far more important th,~ tl~,
blame."
    The reporting officer braced himself. "Six horses, half of them salt-
died and bridled, and the last three apparently on lead reins. ~�c'~.
examined the tracks. The creatures were roped in pairs. The da~'~~
patrol saw someone they believed to be ours, leaving with remout~t~
in tow. He carried packeted orders under your wax seal, and we c~'t
fault them, the sunwheel blazon was genuine. A short dista~c~ fr~,~~
our outer line, the trail scouts say the horses slowed down. Then their
tracks diverge to all points of the compass."
    "You tried dogs?" said the captain, not truly expecting the obvious
had not been covered.
    "First thing, sir." The watch officer rubbed his moist hands on his
surcoat. "The two bitches well enough to stand up lost the scent next
to the picket lines. That's where the groom said the rogue mounted.
We can follow that horse, but that's wasted motion." This spy had
proven inventively clever. He had likely climbed from one saddle to
another before he sent the loose horses packing.
    "All right," said the captain, all ironbound purpose. "I want action.
Now. Each one of those horses will be tracked and brought in, I don't
care if their trail leads through Sithaer itself. Every man will be ques-
tioned. If anyone saw this traitor's face clearly, I want his detailed
description. Next, we assume he's barbarian blood. Why else steal the
tactical maps, if not to send word to the enemy? We're marching
north anyway. Last night's little blunder just lit the fires under our
order of march a bit hotter. At the end, we'll face men who are
warned and desperate. By the Light, if there's justice, our line sentries
are going to stand front and center when we close with the murdering
fugitives."

330

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    A searing, short pause, as the captain recalled the humiliation that
he had no seal for his orders. Nor could he verify his dispatch to
Avenor to send formal complaint of the infamy.
    "Damn the motherless, slinking little weasel!" he exploded in livid
heat that promised a reckoning in bloodshed. "When we net his close
kin, I will personally sew their damned scalps as a fringe on my sad-
dlecloth."
    By noon, sweating in the humid spring warmth that chafed blis-
ters under gambesons and made chain mail weigh like poured lead,
the men ran down the last horses. Not one bore a rider. The spy's
tracks were not found, though the hound couple which survived the
morning's bout of poisoning whuffed and milled in baffled circles.
They sprawled on .their sides, muddied and panting, while their
irritable handlers persisted. The next hour entailed the miserable,
wet labor of leaping across hummocks and scouring the verges of
the waist-deep, dank pools in the fenland. Sedges and cattails
waved in the wind. Half-budded maples trailed lichened branches
and tough roots into the peat black waters of the sinkholes. Hard
effort flushed nothing but otters and the flap of displaced crows.
Nothing moved but the high-flying hawk, while clouds gathered
and plumed like combed silver overhead and threatened more rain
before nightfall.
    In due course, the search was called off. The guileful courier had
left no trace of his passage, and his clanblood relations would
inevitably receive the premature warning of trouble.
    The setback raised grumbles, but no loss of morale. These were
seasoned fighters who had marched against clansmen before. They
knew to expect balking tricks and sly tactics that time and again
deferred victory. This campaign might go hard, but the ending was
assured. Without ships, the barbarian enclaves in south Tysan were
doomed, soon to be reaped by the vengeful steel of Lysaer's Alliance
of Light.

    In the late afternoon, the gathering storm rode the west winds rak-
ing in off the ocean. The rain drizzled, then gushed, then hammered
down in white sheets. The barrage chased the dark pools in the
marshes to stippled pewter, and glazed the bent limbs of the maples.
Mearn s'Brydion waded shin deep to keep dogs off his scent, his wet
leathers clinging like glue at each stride, and his fingers locked to the
straps of three rolled leather map cases. The brass-capped ends
bashed his thigh when he stumbled, his ankles caught back by the
sawing tangles of sedges. Only the relentless chill kept him wakeful.

331

JANNY WURTS

His thoughts came in fragments, their mean'mg unmoored by the
expanding spirals of exhaustion.
    He slogged his way past another islet of hummocks. The sucking
pull of the mud continually mired and slowed him. Yet he dared not
traverse the high ground, not with an Alliance armed force at his
back, enraged by his suborning trickery. Some of the dogs might sur-
vive the pulped water hemlock he had used to taint their dried meat.
Etarran field troops were not fools in the wilds, and no lack of bridles
and girths would swerve them from their orders to march north.
    Breathless, shivering, gnawed to the bone by the ache of spent mus-
cles, Mearn perched his hip on a deadfall. Rain pocked the water in
rings at his shins. Premature dusk banked deep shadows beneath the
stained boles of the trees. The low, misting clouds showed no sign of
lifting. Rain blew and swirled and trickled from his eyebrows, and
rinsed streams through the garlands of watercress plastered over his
thighs. Failing light was going to upset his bearings. Mearn tipped back
his head and fought off a flattening rush of disheartenment. He had
only the lichens for orientation. On the south sides of trees, the salt
winds from Mainmere burned off their splotched growth; and the shag
moss did not grow north-facing.
    Mearn shut stinging eyes, every nerve end and instinct alive to his
danger. Range too far east, he would find only distrustful fenlanders
in their lowly wattle-and-mud huts. Pass too far west, and he would
encounter high ground, fair game for a second armed troop the maps
showed would be beating a line inland from Hanshire. South lay the
Etarrans he had riled like jabbed hornets, and north, and if luck saved
him, he might find the armed bands of Lord Maenol's scouts who had
foiled the Alliance's cordon of Riverton.
    Geese called in the reeds. Daylight was fast waning. The gloom
seemed cast in lead silver between the plummeting curtains of rain-
fall. Mearn shoved off through the vast, empty maze of stilled bog-
land, no longer able to mind his own noise as he snapped through the
sticks of the thickets. He tripped again, slamming his shoulder on the
knob of a willow bough. "Forgive," he gasped, breathless, by time-
worn clan custom acknowledging the mistake of his own clumsiness.
The nurturing trees might overlook his offense, but the needs of his
body could not be deferred for much longer.
    The willow grove thinned. Hedged by gathering darkness, the
ground snaked away into tarnished, dull pools inked with the knees
of dead tree roots. A lightning-struck oak thrust a blackened shell
skyward, the stripped husks of burned saplings angled like spears
through the rioting tangle of briar. The past fire had scorched off the

332

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

moss and the lichen. A few sloshing steps brought the water waist
deep. Mearn paused, half-immersed. He wiped streaming wet from
his eyes, while the wind slapped and battered at his hair and his
clothing. He hitched the map cases up to his shoulder to protect their
waxed hide from immersion.
    Rain blurred the landmarks. The sere, muddy banks held no sign
of an otter's den, or any other small animal burrow to hint which
direction lay south. Only the unreliable, buffeting west winds lent
their unkindly semblance of guidance.
    These fens were not safe to traverse after dark, with mud sinks that
could swallow a man's foot in one step and suck down his bones
beyond finding.
    Mearn slogged ahead, splashed into a hole, then managed a claw-
ing recovery back to raised ground. He would have to double back.
The effort would certainly turn him around. Trail instinct did not
apply in this land, with its puzzle-cut maze of tangled, brown hum-
mocks, and meandering pools inscribed by hammering rainfall.
    Immersed in deep thickets, clawed raw by green thorns, he lost his
bearings again. Faced by a deeper stand of water than before, he now
shivered uncontrollably. The relentless chill stole his body's reserves.
He knew his survival hinged upon finding immediate shelter and
food. Sleep now was his enemy. To yield to his craving for overdue
rest would see him a skeleton picked clean by predators. The urgent
warning he carried would become lost, and the maps, which detailed
the Alliance sweep through south Tysan for the purpose of eradicat-
ing clan bloodlines.
    Mearn thrashed into another grove of maples, hampered by clos-
ing darkness. A gray heron startled into flight from her fishing. He
recoiled from the noise. Twigs clawed at his burden. He caught back
the loosened bundle before the straps gave, and clasped the rolled
leather to his chest. Breath sucked through his locked teeth. He no
longer knew if the whine in his ears was the shrilling of spring peep-
ers, or yet another warning of overtaxed senses about to let go and
fail him. He kept moving regardless, unwilling to give way to the
beckoning void that offered him painless unconsciousness.
    Through the sheet-lead expanse of another shallows, Mearn lost
north again. He groped for a tree, a stripped stump, any firm object
that might still harbor a telltale colony of shag moss. His touch met
cold mud. Reeds slapped his face. Cattail down snagged in his
nostrils and smeared yellow fuzz on his eyelids. He coughed into
darkness that seemed too thick to breathe, and shoved on against a
battering tempest of cold wind. The rain sluiced and hissed and

333

JANNY W URTS

rinsed through wet leaves. He knew he must stop, find some sort of
shelter, and wait out the night or the storm. Vertigo threatened to
unstring his balance. Already he could have become turned around
and be moving back into the armed camp of the enemy.
    Time slipped. He became aware that he sat underneath the drip-
ping crown of a marsh maple. Gusts roared through the branches,
and clattered the loosened, dead runners of vines. Far past feeling
cold, he crimped his hands on the straps that secured the purloined
map cases. Fear and worry were numbed, his cognizance flattened to
insipid and dangerous lassitude. The rain drove down, relentless, and
scattered thin trickles off the wicked ends of his hair. Only the otters
fared well in this weather. Meam heard the splash as they dove from
the banks, hunting small crayfish, or cavorting for sport in the dark-
ness.
    Or perhaps their noise masked the doings of men. He could no
longer tell. The vise grip of exhaustion left his skull feeling packed
with wet cotton. Overcome by inertia, he attempted more than one
brutal measure to regain his feet and keep moving.
    Nothing changed. His last strength was long spent. Mearn sat,
huddled with his forehead bowed on his knees, and his smeared
wrists tucked at his ankles. Weariness sapped his last spark of vitality,
but not stubborn will. He still held the map cases clenched to his
breast. Asleep or unconscious, he did not respond as the splashing
disturbance approached him. Nor did he stir in the flare as someone
unshuttered a wick lantern. The breath of the storm winnowed the
reek of hot fat, then the must of wet clothes, sewn from the skins of
small animals. A skiff made of bark glided through the shallows.
From a perch in the bow, a wizened little grandmother raised a horn
lantern, while two younger male relatives pointed and whispered in
the singsong dialect of the fenlands.
The poleman paused. Shoved by contrary wind, his boat drifted.
On the greening bank, the spearpointed sedges bent and flattened,
streaked like ruby glass with reflections. The juddering light picked
out the arrivals, with their stitched leather caps tied with talismans
fashioned from feathers, and strung acorns, and little stars woven of
flax straw.
    "It's a man sitting there. Has no boots on, that's odd," the grand-
mother observed in a mollified, half-toothless warble.
    Rain slanted through the purl of the mist. "Could be dead," mused
the squat uncle, who rinsed the offal from the last kill from his hands.
He jabbed a thumb rubbed shiny from endless hours spent twisting
fish twine. "Has a sword, see? Could be dangerous."

334

  "Isn't moving," the third party ventured.
  The skiff jostled closer. The thwart gouged the peat bank.
    "Still breathing," said the trapper, kneeling down. "Just barely." He
stabbed his bloody knife into the reed basket shining with the scales
of gutted fish, while his companions reached out tentative hands and
lightly fingered the stranger gone lost in the bogs.
  "Clanborn, and in trouble," the grandmother determined.
  Another chimed in soft counterpoint, "Shelter then."
    In silent efficiency, the two men arose from the skiff and stepped
onto the marshy bank. Shadows wheeled, stitched with carnelian
where plummeting raindrops sliced through the flickering lamplight.
They bent, grasped Mearn's arms at the elbow and shoulder, then
startled back with hissed breaths as their find stirred and lifted his
head.
    He had gray eyes, the pupils wide and black with shock. The two
fen folk poised, stilled as scared rabbits, while the rain sang and
splashed unabated. The man squinted through the downpour. His
vision seemed reluctant to focus, as if the skiff and its occupants were
a nightmare come visiting, or a madman's distortion of Dharkaron
Avenger's Black Chariot, filled with wizened little people with blood-
ied knives and insistent plucking fingers.
    Then he spoke, the ingrained courtesy of his ancestors set in the
antique speech of his breeding. "Please. I beg help. If you know, if you
can spare a runner to seek, let these cases I carry reach Lord Maenol
s'Garmley or his kinsmen with all possible speed."
    The grandmother clicked her tongue through shut teeth. "Whist,
bring him in. Or this one that he seeks will receive his cold bones for
naught but last rites and a burial."

335

Early Spring 5653

Appeals

At Althain Tower, the mood changed from downcast to grim in the
darkened, chill hours before dawn. Sethvir sat, chin on fist, at
the massive stone table in the library chamber, half-swallowed by the
gloom which gathered under the star-patterned beams of the ceiling.
As his mind ranged through yet another chain of auguries, his fore-
head stayed pinched into creases. The last such cast sequence had
already fretted the white ends of his beard into finger-caught tangles.
The dark, polished table before him was swept clear of books. By his
elbow, a filled mug of tea had gone cold. The casement windows at
his back were latched shut, the tight fastenings kept under tireless
siege by a barrage of sharp winds that, farther south, coalesced as a
rainstorm.
    The one dribbled candle alight in the stand fluttered anyway, tor-
mented by the gyrating presence of a visiting discorporate colleague.
"Just say what you see," Kharadmon urged at length, his pique the
snarl of a mewed-up predator, and his worry unsubtle as the flaying
edge of a storm front. "I'm well aware the news out of Tysan bodes no
good. Can the details make things any worse?"
    Sethvir shut his eyes. Unmoving, he answered, "Dakar's warning
framed an accurate judgment. Arithon eats, but his body rejects suste-
nance afterward. He speaks, he perseveres. He stubbornly enacts all
the movements of living. But the fire, the passion, his sense of self-
worth and entitlement have all been strangled by grief. Like the Para-
vians, who waste away in the absence of hope, our Teir's'Ffalenn tries

336

FUGITIVE PRINCE

to endure against the grain of his born nature. He keeps the very let-
ter of his oath to survive."
    Through a plangent, fierce pause, Kharadmon spun in suspension.
"Say on. I can already guess."
    "Oh, the gist isn't new." Sethvir stabbed distraught hands through
the hair at his temples, the farseeing span of his vision all bitterness.
Morriel Prime had foreseen this crux years ago, that Arithon's inheri-
tance from two royal bloodlines created an incompatible legacy. "The
gifts of s'Ahelas foresight cross-linked with s'Ffalenn compassion
poisons all that he does, all that he thinks. Now he's forced to betray
the loyalties he holds sacrosanct, he has no defense against guilt and
despondency."
    While his colleague's roving angst churned a crock of quill pens
into rustling agitation, Althain's Warden summed up. "In the absence
of grace, entropy triumphs. The flesh loses its natural drive to renew
itself."
    "Then you fear our Teir's'Ffalenn will succumb into wasting disease,
over time." Kharadmon's presence sheared over the bookshelves, rais-
ing dust like fine smoke from the rows of old, musty covers. Pages
flipped madly on another opened tome propped on a lion-carved
lectern. "Well give him some news." The self-contained tempest
paused on its course, reversed direction, and whirled the quill pens on
the opposite spin like small weathercocks. "Find him some word of
encouragement."
    The Warden of Althain simply looked up, his gaze the blank blue
of a robin's egg.
    Kharadmon stopped, a poured well of cold that exuded biting frus-
tration. "There are moments your mind's just like knotted string, too
vexingly layered to unravel."
    Sethvir stirred, unfolded crimped fingers, and with a fingernail
showing a black rim of ink, traced a circle on the obsidian tabletop.
"You won't like what you see."
    "Well, that's nothing fresh," Kharadmon breezed on. "These times
are rank chaos. Though Luhaine is a pessimist, and his theories are
galling, I have to agree that entropy's been winning since Desh-thiere
came calling through South Gate."
    "Peace, here." Althain's Warden traced a glyph in blue light on the
air.
    Then he laid light palms on the table and pronounced a phrase in
the slow, rolling consonants that awakened the Name for the primal
awareness of this stone which held his attention. A permission was
exchanged in language and pitch beyond range of ordinary hearing.

337

JANNY WURTS

Sethvir traced another glyph inside the closed figure, and awaited an
inward alignment.
    A connection closed like a spark in his mind. He framed his intent
and sank his awareness into the dance of meshed energies which
bound the obsidian into solidity. His grasp of grand conjury accom-
plished what no other arcane order on the continent could achieve on
the wings of pure thought: he invoked shift in resonance, and raised
the vibrational frequency of dense matter.
    Within his drawn circle, the stone's matrix dissolved, transmuted
to a state of pure light.
    Rinsed in a flare of actinic brilliance, Althain's Warden reached out
again. He said, hand poised, the spiked snow of his eyebrows trained
toward Kharadmon's breezy fidgeting, "The fish, at least, led the proper
fishermen to the catch. I give you the brightest thread in the tapestry."
    "Well, we can't all be scatterbrained and capture such nuance by
dreaming." But this once, Kharadmon's baiting humor fell short.
    Althain's Warden did not smile as he touched the field of unformed
matter with his forefinger and imprinted the reenactment of a scene
drawn in through his tie to the earth link...

    Rain splashed and guttered through the reeds in Mogg's Fen, where a
soaked party of marsh trappers poled their skiff northward through night's
inky maze of shoals and mudbanks and flat water. Wrapped in furs and
greased hide, a shuddering clansman lolled half-unconscious, raging curses
against an Alliance invasion in feverish fits of delirium... .

    "Meam s'Brydion? Taken north? But you know his warning will
come far too late." Kharadmon wheeled over the shadowy aumbries,
sarcastically unimpressed, since Lysaer's gathered forces were
already present and closing upon Maenol's clansmen. "What's one
coal raked from the flames of a building conflagration? Merciful Ath!
If that's a success, you'd better show me the failures. Or Luhaine will
claim I've traded my bollocks for outright, shrinking fainthearted-
ness."
    Sethvir bowed his head. "Wiser, perhaps, to discount pride and
praise the one gift as a blessing." But he honored Kharadmon's bid-
ding and set the small linkage between transmuted stone and his
powers of earth-linked perception. The scenes he translated through
the ring of his scrying were indeed unrelenting bad news.

    Lysaer's war galleys swept down on the Isles of Min Pierens and overran
Arithon's small outpost at Corith. The site had no defenses. The ramshackle

338

FUGITIVE PRIN›œ

sheds, the tools, the small sail loft which refitted the stolen hulls from River-
ton were razed and burned inside the first hour of landing. The laborers had
been trapped, killed as they resisted, or run down and captured as they fled
through the brush by headhunters and trained packs of tracking dogs. The
handful of survivors now languished in chains with the wounded, shortly to
see the Alliance destroy their last outside hope of a rescue.
    Into the harbor, unsuspecting, ran the Cariadwin with her crew of freed
galley slaves and her hold filled with clan scouts just signed on as untrained
volunteers. These expected to man three forthcoming new ships, and were yet
unaware of the setbacks inflicted by Koriani intervention. None of them
knew of the launching just gone bad at Riverton; neither they nor their cap-
tain realized as they sailed that an Alliance trap lay in waiting.

    Sethvir spoke a word, and time bowed to his bidding. The colors
in the scrying on the tabletop bled into the ghostly gray prescience
that unveiled the unformed future. The sequence firmed into sharp-
ening focus, as the few tracks of possibility in play merged into a
remorseless junction. Kharadmon saw that the coming sea fight at
Corith would end in a vicious defeat. Against an outfitted war fleet,
caught in confined waters, the Cariadwin's fierce defense was fore-
doomed.
    "Aft," Sethvir murmured, the Paravian rune that marked closing.
The silver-point tones of unborn event bled away, replaced by
another vision, this one a view of the Alliance shipworks at Riverton,
grained in a mist of falling rain.
    "What you see next occurred just this afternoon," Althain's War-
den added in subdued explanation; and Kharadmon shared all the
sorrowful details of Caolle's survival, now entangled with the last
thread in the Koriani design that devolved from the arraigned yard
workers and sail crews kept hostage to force Arithon's capitulation.
Sethvir's scrying perused the firelit chamber where Lirenda, First
Senior, signed the requisite papers of extradition in the smug com-
pany of Riverton's mayor. With a crystal wineglass poised in one
hand, and an expression serene as milk porcelain, she delivered her
order for the prisoners to sail on the dawn tide three days hence.
    "I don't like her eyes," Kharadmon observed tartly. "Vindictive as
nightshade to stop a man's heart in his sleep."
    "She looks that way when she's hiding something." Althain's War-
den considered the sorry prisoners held in chains in the cramped cell
that once had confined Dakar. "The three new brigs will be diverted
from crown orders by her Prime's will to form a blockade. If our
Teir's'Ffalenn crosses through Korias without mishap, he could

339

JANNY WURTS

certainly fall to Morriel's conspiracy as he sails his small sloop out of
Mainmere."
    A wind like black ice, Kharadmon's course riffled a stack of loose
parchments weighted down by a chunk of iron meteorite. "You sent
me summons. What do you ask? What else have you seen that you are so
loath to tell me?"
    Still reluctant to answer, Sethvir raised one finger. His soft word
sang release over his suspended conjury, and the bindings inside his
drawn circle let go. The sustaining, fine energies carried from the
Prime Source spiraled downward. Spell-fired light sank to a pale
halo, then vanished. Residual heat fanned and stirred the pale ends of
the Sorcerer's hair and beard, while spent forces dispersed, sighing
away to stilled silence.
    Between Sethvir's elbows, the stone table reverted to form, seam-
less black as before, the sole remnant of change the upright candle,
now snuffed to a febrile ember. Out of chill darkness, a stir of worn
cloth as Althain's Warden stood up. "! can't say what tomorrow will
bring. There are too many free-will choices involved to guess whether
Arithon s'Ffalenn can achieve his escape into freedom. Yet one fact
can't be argued: at large or held captive in Koriani hands, he cannot
long sustain a despair of self-damning proportion."
    Sethvir's library suffered another tempestuous dusting as Kharad-
mon seized on the gist. Neither one of the half brothers had escaped
the deranging sorrows linked to the bloodshed at Tal Quorin, Minderl
Bay, and Vastmark. But where Lysaer s'Ilessid became driven to self-
sacrifice for morality, ennobling his losses through a public campaign
of justification, Arithon s'Ffalenn more quietly bled in compassion
until his solitary resilience ran dry. No need to belabor the painful
necessity, that the one threatened life held the lynchpin of the Black
Rose Prophecy's resolution. All hopes for the Eellowship's restoration
back to seven still hinged upon a crowned prince for Rathain.
    "You want a mitigator," Kharadmon burst out, his mercuric impa-
tience the springboard to seize on the direction of Sethvir's thinking.
"Someone to reforge the bond of his trust with himself?. Who's to ask?
Daelion Fatemaster wept! We're talking of Kamridian s'Ffalenn's
direct descendant, and nothing we tried in that hour of trial turned his
mind to seek self-redemption."
    "I know." Sethvir reclaimed his tea mug and sipped its cold con-
tents as he shared consternation and the grievous past memory of a
valiant s'Ffalenn high king, driven to his doom in the Maze of
Davien, where the Betrayer's insidious coils of truth spells faced a
man with his own mirror image. Arithon's ancestor had died, torn

340

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 apart by the pangs of guilt-driven conscience. The thread which had
 seen him undone at the last was his line's royal gift of compassion.
     "We lost King Kamri despite every conscious protection, and he
 had no damning entanglement with the effects of s'Ahelas farsight."
 A spark jumped and grounded into the stone floor as Kharadmon
 vented his testiness.
    "I thought you claimed Luhaine was the pessimist." As if the dregs
of his tea showed him nightmares, Althain's Warden secreted the
mug amid the snarl of old twine he scrounged when he needed a
bookmark. He knew by Kharadmon's complete lack of argument that
he could not mask the bare truth. Out of today's breeding quagmire
of circumstance, the same tragedy that had ended King Kamridian's
life could be repeated with Arithon. Sethvir pondered bad odds,
while outside, the wind slapped and whistled against his sealed shut-
ters, and within, Kharadmon expended his angst in small fits that
raised havoc among his belongings.
    As if the innate peace of the darkness had fled, Sethvir touched the
wick of the candle alight. The feeble spear of new flame creased shad-
ows over the timeworn hollows of his face. Worry pinched his lips
like cracked leather, and lent his clasped hands the transient fragility
of flesh that was fallibly mortal. "I know of only two individuals with
the power to lay claim to Arithon's heart."
    Kharadmon froze into ominous stillness. "The enchantress Elaira
and Earl Jieret s'Valerient."
    Sethvir nodded, brooding over the relentless perils implied by his
posited remedy. "The lady could heal Rathain's prince the fastest. Her
influence would be reliable and sure, but she must first step forward
in free will and transcend the limitations the Koriani Order has
imposed between her and the man she would love."
    "I can't take that risk!" Kharadmon protested, all trace of the
prankster razed off by uncoiling horror. "What if she martyrs herself
as a sacrifice? She might well break her vows and accept self-
destruction!" The quill pens flurried airborne and circled, caught up
in the shade's consternation. "By the Avenger's black Spear and
Chariot, Traithe already questioned her once. Luhaine also. Both
met the same obstacle." Elaira had seen no truth beyond Morriel's
binding; nor did she perceive her own power to ask help to claim
back her right to free spirit.
    Althain's Warden could not argue the razor-edged chances
involved with breaching Elaira's self-imposed solitude. Shoulders
bowed, arms tucked to his chest, he crossed to the sill of the casement.
While the storm raged with unrelenting raw violence against

341

                  d~ A N N Y ~i~' U R T 5

   Althain's spelled stone and latched glass, he did not share
   pain, that often his wardenship weighed on his heart like l~/t~',
   les. ~e ~gh~ protections of a dead centaur stonemason could 0~
   no comfort, nor provide any haven against the pending poten~tal i0:
   disaster Desh-t~ere's curse stewed up in south Tysan.
      Nor was ~aradmon left blinded to nuance, that a disc~rporate
  spirit could accomplish the errand to Araethura with neater dispatch.
  His capi~lation came barbed with the sardo~c fire he used whe~ ~e
  masked hurtful sentiment. "If L~a~e went once, I'll bear teat rv~e
  now. At least the woman won't have to put up with his wi~d~ ~ ~
  of lecturing."
      ~thvir~ ]~s ~itched wJ~ ~e b~rest t~ ~o~ '~J~l~ ,~z~z,;~,'
__h~ ~o[~bA~ ~,~'~it~,~woman' s' sens~ili~, ~ fact. Take wam~g
&om that. Her superiors never did break her stree~ise impudence.
Airs ~d au~oriW of any kind still raise her blister~g contempt."
    Outside, the gusts ripped and savaged the ~ers of ivy latched
~to blot stone. By lengths more obdurate, Sethvir laced chilled f~-
gers.under his beard, ~s elbows propped on the sill. His statement
blurred ~to the dream of the earth l~k as he summed up his final
appeal. "If you fail ~ Araethura, and Earl Jieret is called, ~s people in
Rathain will be left ~ the hands of an ~fant successor. He will ask
our help for safe passage. Even so, ~s journey wi~ take several
months. We could lose the short marg~ of time that is left to spare
Arithon's equanimiW. Go swiftly."
    By the t~e the echo of the words died to silence, Altha~ Tower
held no outside company. ~thvir was left to his own dis~rbed
thoughts and the aimless whirl of the dust motes unmoored by
~aradmon's soldless depar~re.

    In distant Araethura, where the herbalist's small cottage snugged
into the sweep in the moors, the spring downpour drummed in
balked thunder against thatch netted down with twine and stout
stones. Deep night wrapped the land. In velvet-grained darkness, the
incessant winds rattled shutters and door, and moaned litanies under
the eaves. After six years, the complaints of harsh storms were famil-
iar enough that Elaira did not stir in her sleep.
    When Kharadmon's presence poured under the gap in her doorsill,
the enchantress lay curled beneath tumbled blankets, wrists tucked to
her breast. The spell crystal defensively cupped into one fist held her
guard, the signature field spun off its facets like smoke hazed to a
glow of spun phosphor That shifting, uncertain luminosity picked out
details a discorporate mage could perceive with no shift in vibration.

342

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    Sethvir of Althain had said for years that this woman's hands held
the threads of Arithon s'Ffalenn's future happiness. Since the fate of
Athera also rode the same course, Kharadmon gave the sleeper his
most exacting survey. The thin, elfin profile pillowed in waves of her
deep auburn hair was serene. Her closed lips had softened from the
habitual wry tilt of impertinence. Open to plain view was her heed-
less sensitivity, the vulnerable heart she would defend with attacking
dry wit when aware.
    Brushed by a finger of inquiry from behind, Kharadmon stilled. A
pinpoint of cold amid the rough play of drafts, he revolved in place,
amazed as the touch came again. Apparently the woman had placed
small defenses on her cottage. His embarrassment stemmed from the
astounding oddity that her contrary wardspells had picked out his
presence before he had noticed their existence.
    He swept her surroundings. The tiny cottage reflected a character
too large to contain it, from the fleece-lined boots flung off helter-
skelter, to the clothes lopsidedly hooked on the tine of a deer antler.
Her pleasures were simple. Elaira had planted jonquil bulbs in a crock.
Two quilted pillows stuffed with lavender and dried catmint seemed
the gift of a moorland matron. She kept a vase filled with fallen owl
and crow feathers. Three slate bits with holed centers strung on a
thong hung over a black bowl lined with marble for water scrying.
    The crammed trestle table where she mixed her herbals showed no
trace of the frivolous dreamer. The brazier, the worn pestles and cups,
the stone knife, and earthenware jars of the healer's trade lay jumbled
together with scarcely a bare space between them. More herbs dried
in bundles dangled from the rafters. Last autumn's rootstock was
wrapped in willow baskets, carefully labeled, and preserved with sig~
ils against rot. The runes and seals radiated a faint golden glow and
the razor-edged haloes of energies that landscaped a spirit's percep-
tion. Shoved by another questing emanation of inquiry, Kharadmon
sent back a pure touch of compassion, and back-traced the carrier ray
to its source.
    Beside the wand crystal used to potentize the fine energy proper-
ties of herbs, four rounded chunks of river granite rested in alignment
with the cardinal points of direction. Their awareness was raised, and
glowing faint blue with the intent the enchantress had set upon them
to serve her as guardian protection.
    Kharadmon found their awakened perception most piquant, since
practice of earth magics ran against strict form. The peculiarity spoke
volumes, that a small wisdom kept by field witches and country
grandmothers should fmd credence here, in the dwelling of an initiate

343

 Aroused, proppea o~, ,~'~.;;;~,c ~'r,:;7og;~2z_-:ij:r~r:~z':2:_-_?d~::
 the blank air by her worktable, the enchantm~ c~,~3%':~.:'
 ~%~ed. "Nor do hex~ets address pla~ stones from thin air.
   your presence'~~~~m me cou~esy and reveal your-
       _    -t~ tt
      ~aradmon did her o~uur,-~b, ~*~red the iraace o~ a taXX,
   per personage furled ~ a flamboyant green cloak ~:i~: t~,~' ~
   hair swathed w~te at the temples, a sha~, spade-p ~;*;~ '
   eyes the flat jade of a cat's. He swept into a bow, his ~
   like a courtier's. "No sweet lan~age of mMe could t- ....
   your guardian stones to betray you. ~e one to the east t..~-
   perament of a crone."
      "~at's why I placed her opposite the door. She won't bend f{~
     te~ or nonsense." Elaira sat up, mantied in blankets and a m,~g~{~-
 cen~ amowed Z~JJ o/bronze ~aiL "You're FeHows~p of ~ven ?"
     For all her bravado, tile import heMrid tgat query revealed a
 tremor of distress. ~aradmon straightened, still the posering
 lant. "Sweet lady, I'm the fou~ to be granted the privilege of me{'~-
 ing with you face-to-face."
    A sMver seemed to mn through the woman's thM &ame, thou~.,l~
sfie masked ~e artease behind movement and ~cked ~e rough we,
up under her chq. "Should I thank ~thvir? Or doesn't fie usuaii)
dispatch shades to pay una~ounced social calls while his victims are
disadvantaged and in bed?"
    Touched to delight by her quick, stabbing humor, ~aradmon
raised Ms peaked eyebrows. "For you, like the cat born with all of its
claws, there exists no Mequity, lady." His image lit with the wicked,
bright smile he used to deflect L~aMe's baiting. "I see where your
stones acquired their ripe tongues."
    "Were they kind, they would have barred you from en~." Now
the tremor caught hold, let the Sorcerer read into the deep, ragged
pa~ behind her effort of seamless composure. "If you've come to
speak of Arithon s'Ffale~, be warned. My Prime Matriarch is his
implacable enemy, and I but a tool to her hand."
    ~aradmon flowed ~to pacMg, carelessly le~g one shM pass
through an oak stool that lay in Ms path. "You are never a tool, lady,

544

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

except by allowance or consent." His glance darted questingly side-
wards.
    The enchantress had gloved !~oth her hands in the blanket and
pressed the cloth to her mouth, as if the gesture flamed a bastion
against her own thoughtless and desperate speech. There were tears,
bright as jewels, brimming her eyelids. Yet the pride in her silence
was stark iron. "! was a six-year-old fool in trouble with Morvain's
authorities," she admitted. Her voice held its timbre through sheer
stubborn strength. "Nor are four crotchety old stones from a river
bottom quite proof against the might of the Skyron aquamarine. Since
my vows are not revocable, why are you here?"
"Why indeed?" Kharadmon pressed, and waited, poised utterly still.
But the woman did not ask for his help to unravel the conundrum
he posed her. Raised self-reliant, too resourceful to seek pity, she low-
ered her fingers and laced them, sure and still, on the tent of her
drawn-up knees. "Say what you came here to tell me, since you've
already stolen my peace."
    Kharadmon spun into vexed agitation, the breeze of his passage
gone bitingly blunt as the frost that sang through his consonants.
"Your prince has just learned that Koriani spellcraft can raise Lysaer's
essence as a fetch. In fact, your Prime Senior laid a trap to ensnare
him. Her minions used that cheating, uncivil trick of spellcraft at
Riverton, to sad and disastrous effect. Earl Jieret's past war captain
fell to his sworn liege's steel."
    Elaira drew in a shaken breath, stilled as white marble in the dark-
ness. "Ath's mercy, Caolle? Arithon's sword took down Caolle? Then
what you have is a man torn by grief and entrapped in a web of
despair. Is that why you came here? For advice to contain the Prince
of Rathain's bitter conscience?"
    Kharadmon stilled again, wholly noncommittal, but the volume of
his silence became mistaken for consent.
    Eyes shut, her hair like wound bronze tanged with rubbed glints
where the ends curled, Elaira said slowly, "As I love him, I can tell
you the truth. Give him his release from your blood oath sworn at
Athir."
    At Kharadmon's specious startlement, she stared back, nerveless
as coal-fired steel. "Oh, I knew of his oath on the hour it happened.
You had to have seen. Since the healing spells we engaged in tandem
at Merior, an empathic link still remains open between us."
    "You could use that to spare him the pitfalls, as you choose,"
Kharadmon ventured in angling argument to coax fresh review of her
logic.

345

]ANNY WU~TS

    But Elaira shook her head. "I won't be his crutch. He needs none of
my weakness. Nor will he thrive on any feminine instinct that gives
him the child's role through mothering a grown man's mature pain. I
urge you instead, return his free will. Give back his choice to own life
or death. As things stand now, the very fact his hand is forced will
only add coals to his anguish." The flex in her modulation snapped
for a second, and revealed all the tenderness beneath. "Ath, I know
him, none better. He has strengths and depths even he doesn't yet
acknowledge. I believe with all my heart he will endure and survive
even a grievous remorse such as this."
Kharadmon pressed her. "You could risk his life on that premise?"
Elaira stared back at him, level. "I'd let him risk his life. There was
no evil done. He did not succumb to the Mistwraith by choice. Nor
would he endorse a forced act of insanity by turning the craven and
destroying the royal heritage Caolle sacrificed himself to preserve."
  "He has lost everything," Kharadmon pointed out.
    Elaira swallowed, fighting down the passionate need to give way,
to lean on the Sorcerer's power and presence and find ease for her
own stricken heartache. "His Grace of Rathain has already lost every-
thing twice before this. What has changed since the banks of Tal
Quorin?"
    "Brave lady," Kharadmon conceded, forced to yield at last before
the unflinching moral fiber of her love, and her relentless display of
raw courage. "I see we have also underrated your strengths. Be very
sure, I shall argue against any one of us making the same mistake
ever again." His image snuffed out, leaving a turning, chill vortex of
air that even the drafts treated deferentially. "With your stones' per-
mission, I will leave you a ward, that your Seniors not know I have
been here."
    Then he was gone, in the space of a breath sped on northward,
where, between Daon Ramon Barrens and the deep glens of Halwyth-
wood his charge was to extend his appeal to Earl Jieret, caithdein of
Rathain.
    Behind him, he left the hollow drum of the rain and the cry of the
winds on the lonely, dark moors of Araethura. Huddled in blankets,
shot through with sorrows, Elaira released the hot flood of tears she
would not shed in his presence. Her vows to her order left her no
grace and no quarter. A child and a prophecy yet hung in the balance.
Worse than death, she dreaded her inevitable fate, that on the day she
next met with Arithon s'Ffalenn, in all likelihood she would be forced
by her Prime to arrange for his final betrayal.

346

Early Spring 5653

Legacy

The rain still smoked down over the marshlands of Mogg's Fen, ruf-
fling the pools to a sheen like dark pearl, and greening the spears of
the sedges. Through the passage of day and into the next night, the
singsong language of running water seemed to leach endless tracks
through Mearn's dreams. Undone in delirium, he raged aloud for
Dharkaron Avenger to give him a place in Sithaer where, if he suf-
fered, his nerves might be spared from the trials of incessant mois-
tare.
    Hands touched him, pressed him back and down into a madden-
ing mire of clinging, smothering dampness. Mearn shouted. His
protest emerged muffled against the rag somebody forced to his
mouth.
    A voice that splintered into a roar like flood tide implored him to
be silent. Since he could not swear his outrage, or make his will
known, he struggled, inflamed by the red rage of fever. Nobody suc-
cored him. A woman came instead, her hair strung with feathers. Red
cheeked, dark eyed, and wrinkled as a harridan, she dealt his wet
cheek a r'mging, hard slap, then shoved a sticky wad of medicinal
herbs into his mouth. Then more hands clamped his jaw while foul
juices numbed his tongue, and the world spat white sparks and
tamed black.
    Later, he rubbed open sleep-crusted eyes. Detached from all rage
by debilitating weakness, he blinked. The sky had rearranged from
weeping gray clouds to an opaque roof of pressed mud and sticks. He

347

~ANNY WURTS

swallowed, and discovered his throat scraped nearly rav~ :~d
tongue furred in what felt like the wrack from a bird's nest.
    Off to his right, somebody groaned. Mearn shut sv~'t~ll~~
aching and limp, and too spent to unravel the straits that had '~.!t
flattened and disoriented with illness. His sinuses felt w,~dde~~ xxitt~
red-hot rags. Someone he could not recall had peeled his leather~
from his body. A throw of sewn rabbit skins covered his nakedness. If
the tanning was poor, his clogged head mercifully blocked his sense
of smell. He lay, too inert to fight his discomfort, though the silky fur
clung to his sweat-runneled neck, and gave rise to pestilent itches.
    Reason eventually assembled the awareness that he sprawled on
dank clay, enclosed by the dim mud-daub walls of a fenland~,r',
hovel. The dwelling had no windows, just one door of rough
set into an uneven frame of peeled logs. A rushlight burned in ,~
lined with slate. The groans of human misery he had heard it~
sleep were not any figment of dreaming. Arranged like bund le~
inert cloth around him, he made out the shadowy forms of fact's
limbs strapped in splints and stained bandages.
    Mearn wrinkled his nose in distaste. He had seen enough field hos-
pitals to recognize the close and fetid quarters where men thrashed in
the throes of wound fever.
    "Ath, how did I get here?" he croaked out in cankerous irritation.
He struggled to sit up. Assaulted by immediate, wheeling faintness,
he swore, then started halfway out of his skin as somebody gripped
his left shoulder.
    "Lie easy. You're safe." The deep voice of assurance was male, and
sure in the grain as burled oak. "The fenlanders brought you among
friends."
    Meam swiveled his head, his neck still mired in the garroting cling
of damp fur. "Maenol? Lord s'Gannley of Camris?" Horrible, chilling
fear ran him through. He might already be too late, with the casual-
ties around him brought down by the very Alliance cordon he had
tried and failed to thwart by his timely warning. "How long have I
been ill?"
    "A day and a night." The hold on him released, and the backlit
shadow at his side revealed itself as the square, solid presence of the
caithdein of Tysan. Sympathetically aware of Mearn's burning ques-
tion, he answered in the same measured steadiness, "The men here
were hurt several days ago. Their tactics delayed the Alliance's first
march on Riverton."
    Not too late; sapped by relief, Mearn clawed the offending fur from
his throat and rubbed his lids to clear his clogged vision. Even dim

348

FUGI?IVE PRINCE

~'~~t~light showed him too much. The young man who held chieftain-
ship of Tysan's clans looked more worn, more drawn, his dependable
~ature fretted into a hagridden mask of desperation since their meet-
,.~g on the tideflats by Hanshire. Strips of white-and-black hide laced
~t~~ his clan braid signified mourning for the blood cousins who had
~ied to take warning to the Master of Shadow in Riverton. Raw
.,~~d ~rance remained, of a stripe to rival a mountain for tenacity.
    "My sorrows are yours, for the lives of your kinfolk," Mearn
began. "I see you have word of their fate already."
    The sturdy line of the shoulders under Maenol's mud-spattered
t~:~thers stayed unbowed. He said gravely, "You informed me your-
self, though not in the mannered condolence you wished."
    ~'\s Mearn stiffened, horrified, the Lord of Camris held him down.
No offense. Quite the contrary. In delirium, your rude opinion of
i,',iverton's mayor and council delivered a more satisfying consola-
tion." Nor was this caithdein's settled patience in any way forced as he
~vaited for an invalid to compose scattered thoughts and rejoin the
tumbling mainstream of life.
    Mearn drew in a breath like dipped fire. "Sky and earth! How
much was I raving? The maps~"
    "They are here. Your message of the Alliance invasion has reached
us." Maenol's pale eyes, intense as his mother's, saw deeper than
most through a difficulty. In response to an agonized, unspoken ques-
tion, he said with sparse clarity, "When the fenlanders brought you
in, you carried three map cases with seven sets of tactical instructions.
If that's your concern, we have already acted."
    Mearn sank back amid the drowning clasp of the furs. A hard chill
speared through him. He had to struggle to keep his teeth from chat-
tering. "Too late," he ground out. "I stumbled into that Alliance
encampment by chance. By the time I lifted those plans, Lysaer's cor-
don was already in place and closing."
    The wind whipped against the gapped planks in the door. Traced
in flickering rushlight, Maenol leaned forward, his rawboned hands
clasped to his drawn-up knees. "Not all is lost. We've set lines in
defense, and no few traps to slow the Alliance advance. Hounds can't
trail in these fenlands. Many of the women and young ones may yet
find escape through the mountains." Born of harsh times and a cruel
practicality, he faced the unflinching truth with an unyielding equa-
nimity. "We still have our hidden refuge in the Thaldein passes. That
will just have to serve to safeguard those bloodlines that survive
through another generation."
  Mearn swallowed, silenced by the overwhelming weight of sorrows

349

~ANNY WURTS

Maenol tacitly faced without speech: that the high mountain defiles
might foil the Alliance campaign for a short time. The caithdein knew,
none better, that long-term safety for his people could not be assured
without the ships just torn beyond reach by the Koriani conspiracy at
Riverton.
  "You stay to fight," Mearn managed at last. "Why?"
    In the dimness, the hiss of the rushlight became the thread upon
which existence loomed its firm fabric. A wounded man groaned. The
wind outside bespoke more rain pending, and time stood as the com-
fortless enemy. Maenol regarded his interlaced fingers. His features
were too grim for his twenty-five years, and the conviction that
shaped the steel of his character lent his answer the grit of scaled car-
bon. "As Tysan's caithdein how could I leave? We are kingless. The
land's charter, therefore, becomes mine to uphold, in line with my
ancestors before me. I will not see living acreage carved up into
boundaries, or trees and streams and hillsides exchanged as spiritless
deeds of writ that ignorant men believe can be bought and sold with-
out penalty. Earth's life and town greed share no common ground,
and I have no stomach for compromise."
    "Brother," Mearn said. He fought a hand free of encumbering furs
and touched Maenol's wrist in the sympathy of their common her-
itage. In Third Age Year One, clanblood had been consecrated to
uphold the Paravian law of unity which kept the earth's mystery
intact. The world's bounty and heritage were the binding fiber to
hold Ath's design, and no man's to unwind for the divisive reasons of
domination and profit.
    "We are not yet defeated." Maenol shifted, straightened, the dig-
nity knit into the blood and the bone of him like the dauntless, stilled
majesty the rooted oak must show the honed axe blade. "While there
is one patch of forest in Tysan still free, I stay to resist the wrong
thinking that threatens the peace of the Fellowship's compact."
"My heart would stand with you," Mearn s'Brydion said fiercely.
"Save us, you cannot!" Maenol's objection turned forceful.
"Lysaer's Alliance has no respect for limitations. The day must never
come, that your duke in Alestron should face the same forces of
destruction our cursed prince has unleashed in Rathain and Tysan."
Too large a spirit for the cramped gloom of the hovel, Maenol
exhorted in sorrow, "Our people are scattered. Every man and
woman who carries a bow has a vengeance arrow with the name of
Lysaer s'Ilessid engraved on the point. There is no joy in this impasse.
I implore you, do nothing. The very suspicion you had betrayed
Lysaer's interests would break a most fragile balance. That would

350

              FUGITIVE I~RIN(~E

 ,~,~'ve nothing, but call down sure ruin on your fugitive clans in Mel-

     "A sword in the hand would feel better, nonetheless." Mearn's
 r~'ame sagged into his rough pallet of rushes, but his eyes held the
 banked fires of resentment. "The truth gives no ease. Not when the
 ~~'ind is likely to blow the Alliance's troubles our way anyhow." Hat-
 ~:~ the fact he must deliver ill news while lying flat on his back, he
 ~,~ve terse explanation why those engraved arrows were unlikely to
 ~.~d the man they were fashioned to bring down. "Koriani duplicity
 ~n far deeper than we knew."
    Diminished by the caithdein's sudden, prepared stillness, Mearn
faltered. The chills as his fever broke racked him in waves, and the
:?!fficult words he must now assemble weighed like piled rock on his
~,est. "Lysaer sailed for Corith, not Riverton," he forced out at length.
!'nned now under Maenol's unnerving attention, he related how
~,, ~riani design had enspelled a fetch of Lysaer s'Ilessid to awaken the
'.:istwraith's geas and drive Arithon s'Ffalenn into madness. "The
spells did exactly as the witches had planned, and set him to purpose-
less flight."
    The pause as Tysan's caithdein measured the root cause for the ruin
of his people, contained a stunned force of sorrow to etch the moment
into wretched clarity. The next breath Maenol drew could have made
the air bleed, or the rain to change into salt tears in midfall.
    When the first shock let go, and speech could be managed, the
caithdein of Tysan had but one word. "Why?"
    Mearn shook his head, without answer. "Who knows the mind of
Morriel Prime? Her works always have run contrary to Fellowship
conceiTIS."
    One of the wounded stirred from thick sleep. Maenol arose. All
stripped grace and silent economy of movement, he crossed the
hovel, dipped water from a leather pail, then borrowed the fen-
woman's long-handled horn cup and made rotrods. For the power of
responsibility he carried, he wore neither ornament nor jewel, nor
any token of finery to set him apart from his scouts. His brown,
weathered hands offered drink to the wotmded without care for rank.
He gave encouragement as he could to those whose voices were fret-
ful. With the natural dignity of a man who had never been pampered
by servants, he rearranged soiled bedding for others who had slipped
beyond conscious awareness.
    On the cot, helpless and weak in the sweat of his broken fever,
Mearn s'Brydion watched the care the caithdein held for his doomed
people. He knew, then, whose hands had tended him through his

]ANN� WURTS

own illness. The rage rose up, blistering hot with the bite of an unen-
durable grief. He had read every one of those maps before
had seen how improbable lay the margin for hope. Truth and
tactics held no ambiguities. Of the clansmen who had errbarked t0
delay Lysaer's Alliance from containing Arithon s'Ffalenn in River-
ton, few would escape to reach safety. The routes into the rnor~~t~ins
from Caithwood would be sealed by armed troops within days. ~hat
would leave only the coastline, already set for blockade at Mainmere
by the selfsame ships that, by Arithon's intervention, could have
opened the way for clan freedom.
    In the squalid, dense gloom of a fenlander's hovel, the sturdy
caithdein in his ordinary leathers seemed unmarked by the immanent
finger of fate. Divested of his weapons, except for a hunting knife, he
paused on one knee to laugh at a woman's rough joke. He flipped
back his braid of ash-colored hair, abandoned to a moment of boyish
embarrassment as an older woman half-hidden in shadow called
something back in rejoinder.
    "My grandmother should be alive to hear that," Maenol said.
gers still busy, he replaced a slipped bandage in frowning
tion. Then, as if disaster were not present and closing to put an ~.t~!
the spirited joys of small byplay, he moved on, in meticulou ....
attending the needs of his wounded.
    Meam shut his eyes, too agonized to watch. Though his fami ,, ,,,
not fugitive, he knew forestborn customs too well not to shrink. It~ t!
wilds, the clan codes of survival imposed since the uprising h~..~
space for pity or compromise. Any scout here who was unfit t( '.,
would not be permitted to fall into the hands of the enemy. Wi;h
Alliance troops marching in force on Mogg's Fen, those wound.~.,~
would ask for a mercy stroke rather than burden their hale compmaior~.
    Under the faltering flare of the rushlight, whether man or w()mi~
each face showed determined calm in the face of such shatteri'.:,z
uncertainty. It was the outsider among them who battled the urg›
stem fate and scream outrage for the injustice imposed by a pri~,.,
turned false to his bloodline.
    When Maenol had finished, he returned to Mearn's side, bearit~
the sewn-leather bucket and horn dipper. The citrine gleam of the
rushlight traced the stubble on his cheek, and the gaps tom in the
fringe on his deerskin where thongs had been cut off at need to mend,
or tie bandages or tourniquets. Lives and blood would be given as
generously to defend the needs of the land.
    Mearn labored to regather the lost thread of his composure. Before
accepting the same care from the hands of the man who was Tysan's

352

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

reigning caithdein, he demanded in rankling honesty, "My Lord of
Camris, why are you still here?"
    The unaccustomed use of his formal title touched the younger man
to stiff wariness. He crouched. The water dipper all but snapped as
his hand clenched, and his face showed a startled and sudden vulner-
ability that exposed the youth in his twenty-five years. Carefully,
slowly, he set down the water. Clan habit did not waste the gifts of the
earth, nor take life's bounty for granted. He settled on his heels,
strong wrists draped on his knees, while the carnelian glow of the
rushlight mapped the small scabs ripped by briars, and the deeper
scars left by war on his knuckles. In the same grave steadiness that
flinched from no hardship, he answered, "! had to ask a boon of you,
in behalf of my clans."
    Thirst forgotten, Mearn refused the wringing weakness in his
limbs and elbowed himself half-erect. Inadequately braced against
the wadded mat of the rushes, he shook back the stuck ends of his
hair and matched the other man's courage headlong. "Whatever you
need will be given. My word on s'Brydion clan honor."
    Maenol looked away, perhaps overcome. "! accept that word from
you. Ath bless your willing heart." He paused, then added through a
harsh burr of regret, "Sleep now. We'll speak of this later."
    He arose, clasped his benefactor's shoulder in salute. Moved by
uncharacteristic reticence, he averted his direct glance, and Mearn, in
suspicion that the caithdein was weeping, did not press, but left the
man to his dignified privacy.
    The fever had left him light-headed in any case. Drained from his
effort to keep focused composure, he gave in to the sapping demand
of his flesh and lay back. Despite his fierce worry and his musty,
uncomfortable nest of damp fur, sleep came like an ambush and
dropped a black cloth over his thought and his senses.

    When Mearn s'Brydion reawakened, the rain had cleared into a
chill, gusty night. The rushlight burned now by the cracked open
doorway, where a fenwoman bent, stirring fish stew in a cauldron.
She was typical of her breed, built rawboned and short. Hair of an
indeterminate color was bundled beneath a string cap. Feathers
swung from hoops in her earlobes, and her layered skirts were sewn
with dark threads into queer, whorled patterns and luck signs. Three
purses made from the shells of marsh turtles dangled from a cincture
at her waist, and two raggedy children sucked their fingers and
peered from the well of deep shadow behind her. A third infant
waved from the carry sack she wore strapped to her back.

353

JANNY ~URTS

If her household was typical, her fenlander husband would be far-
ing out in his skiff, trapping and fishing for the family.
    Mazed in the lassitude left by his illness, Mearn took too long to
notice the hovel was emptied of wounded. The furs where the clan
scouts had languished were rolled in neat bundles, lashed with fiber
twine twisted from wild flax. Maenol s'Gannley was gone, replaced
by a toothless elder smoking a root pipe. Beside Mearn's shoulder sat
the last of the clansmen, a boy of twelve years. He had blond hair tied
into a neat braid, and hands too large for his still-growing frame.
Sword and knife rode in sheaths at his waist. His belt was his only
ornament, sewn with simple designs of wooden beads and otter fur.
He waited, stiff backed and composed in the tight, sober silence that
came over the young in times of crisis.
    Touched by foreboding, Mearn fisted the hand hidden under the
covering furs. "My word as given," he said at careful length. "Just
what have I bound into promise?"
    The boy started. His dark eyes went wide, the pupils dense black
as he realized his charge was awake. He said nothing, but instead
drew two letters out of his jerkin and passed them across to Meam's
keeping. Then he rose. He seemed all knobby joints, rail thin for his
growth. Despite tender age, he knew how to move to accommodate
the adult weapons he carried. His voice had just started the change to
a man's bass timbre, yet the cracking child's treble which intruded as
he addressed the fenwife put no crimp at all on his dignity.
    "Mistress," he requested, then thanked her generosity in fair
dialect as she surrendered the use of her rushlight.
    The flame jerked and fluttered as the boy brought the wick. Mearn
ran his thumb over the wafer of wax, impressed with the ancient seal
employed by Tysan's caithdein for personal use through the centuries
of fugitive exile. The choice of devise confirmed a most risky neces-
sity, unrelieved by the fact the first missive set down upon formal
parchment was inscribed to his Grace, Eldir, High King of Havish.
The second note bore Mearn's own name in a script astonishingly
erudite. He had never seen Maenol's written hand. By wary habit, the
forestborn clans wrote no messages for fear such might fall into the
hands of town enemies.
    That Lord Maenol had seen fit to wield pen and ink bespoke des-
peration and appalling finality. Mearn gripped the note, reluctant as
stone. For an agonized instant, he wished himself far from this site in
the marshes, that he not be the one left to carry whatever burden the
sealed parchment was bound to contain.
  Then, as if stung into branding impatience, he ripped the seal

354

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 open. Wax bits arced through the gloom like flung gravel. Tagged by
 the flickering, uncertain flame light, eyes stinging with humility,
 Meam read.
    The first line requested his assistance to deliver an appeal to King
Eldir. Tysan's caithdein would beg sanctuary in Havish for the refugee
survivors who managed to win free of Alliance persecution against
clanblood. The cost in pride, in pain, in the sheer magnitude of that
understated defeat raised a knot of remorse in Mearn's chest. Scarcely
seven years since the massive downfall at Vastmark, Prince Lysaer
had succeeded in unseating a clan presence whose roots went back
five thousand years. Words were inadequate to express grief and
heartache, that without the trials of the Mistwaith's curse, these same
clansmen should have sworn the same man their loyalty.
    Now naught could be done but watch entropy march through the
breach. The bottomless demands of trade and crown treasury held
small care for the great mysteries. No means existed to soften the
blow, that Arithon's loss of three brigs at Riverton might impact all
future generations. A clan abdication of Tysan's free territory would
leave townsmen free rein for desecration. Unwilling to admit such a
weight of despair, Mearn stamped back bleak thoughts.
    The boy watched his face, restrained into choked stillness that
bespoke an unkindly awareness of consequences. The hovel's thick
warmth and the fenwoman's welcome lent him no ease.
    Mearn tucked the missive for King Eldir away, then fought for the
presence to peruse the second request.
    There, even Lord Maenol's steady hand faltered, the letters formed
into jerked lines of reluctance as they charged s'Brydion by word of
honor to admit the boy named Ianfar s'Gannley into Mearn's per-
sonal household as a page.
    'The boy is my uncle's son,' Maenol's words stated, torn by small
gaps as though more than once the ink had dried on the quill nib. 'As
of this moment, he stands as my heir. He will inherit should I pass the Wheel
without leaving progeny. My scouts just brought word the Alliance forces
are closing the east passes. I see no better way to ensure the boy's safe deliver-
ance from Tysan's sovereign territory. I charge you, by your family Name,
keep him safe. If my war captain in Camris survives me, the raising of Ianfar
must fall to him. Should that one perish, seek fosterage with any forestborn
family you see fit. Be sure he learns what he must to rule after me.'
    Meam closed his fingers, crumpling the parchment with a burst of
animal savagery. Too grim to weep, he used all his anger to resmooth
the crushed leaf, which he then rearranged into razor-sharp folds and
tipped into the spill of the rushlight. Smoke billowed black. The acrid

355

JANNY WURTS

reek of burned hide rode the air, and the fenwife shot upright,
exclaiming.
    One look at Mearn's face shocked her silent. Through the dirty
orange flame that crawled up the charred missive, the brother of
Duke BransJan s'Brydion met the paralyzed gaze of young Ianfar
s'Gannley. "I accept both charges laid on me by your chieftain. Will
you formally agree to my guardianship?"
    The boy tucked his hands under his arms, too brave to show he
was shivering. He knew well enough his consent entailed the
unspeakable possibility that his clans might be driven to yield up
their sovereign charge in Tysan. Almost, his heart seemed to fail him.
The underlit shadow thrown by his lashes made his eyes seem too
large and too bright.
    Then the stark, gritty fiber of his people shone through. "I bow to
the will of my caithdein and the demands of necessity." His dignity far
more in that moment than many men managed in a lifetime, he
bowed. "In gratitude, s'Gannley gives thanks for the generosity of
s'Brydion."
    "This is not charity, boy," Mearn denounced, gruff. He tossed the
last flaring embers to the floor, which was earth, and damp enough
not to lend fuel to the sparks. "Under my roof, you'll have standing as
a brother. Be sure, if my family has any resource to give, you won't
end your days in foreign exile."
    Had the child been younger, even by two years, a grown man
could have extended his arm and gathered that awkward, stiff form
into an embrace for comfort. But hardship had imposed too early a
maturity. The boy stepped woodenly forward and offered his wrist
for the clasp to seal a pact between adults.
    Mearn blinked. He hoped the scalding blur to his sight was solely
due to his fever. With his jaw clenched hard against any words that
might unmask the pity that tore him, he pretended the wrists he
accepted were not cold, or drawn taut with fear and uncertainty.
    "Don't you mind, boy," he said in dry humor. "We're in poor state
together. If I'm not mistaken, our first act must be to beg help from
these fenlanders to thread a safe path through the mires. Then we
might need to pilfer a post horse to make our way back to Avenor.
We'll need to go swiftly." One corner of his mouth crawled up in
fierce irony as he remembered the gold and the compromised straits
of his house servant, still embroiled in the ruse concerning several sly
doxies. Their extended service to cover his absence by now must have
seeded a staggering collection of wild rumors. "If I'm going to look
peaked, it's all in good form. A man who's been worn to his bones by

356

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 ~ too

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 far
 he
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 its
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 a
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FUGITIVE PRINCE

three women over the course of a fortnight would be nothing else
except prostrate. Do you bet?"
A tentative nod. The boy's fingers stopped trembling a fraction.
"That's good," Mearn assured, and lightened his touch. "We'll get
along fine. I'll stand you five silvers for the bone buttons on your boot
cuff that when my brother the duke learns about my randy reputa-
tion, he'll send sealed word by fast courier. He'll say that my dallying
is shameful, and for clan's sake, the time's come to marry."
    By then, Lord Maenol's bitter note of appeal lay in immolated bits
on the floor. The fenwife bustled over, indignant, and poured water
over the ashes.
    "! could have used that to drink, pretty mistress," Mearn said in
reflexive protest. He released his steadying hold on the boy, grabbed
the empty bucket, and tucked it into Ianfar's stilted grasp. "Go, man,"
he urged. "Refill this for the lady, and take as long as you like."
    The release came no moment too soon. Run to the end of his flag-
ging strength, Ianfar bolted outdoors to unburden his anguish in pri-
vate.
    Left to the breathless scolding of his benefactress, Mearn shut his
eyes against branding pain and the flame of a burgeoning headache.
When the fenwife understood he was not going to argue, he managed
a beautifully worded apology that sapped the very last of his
reserves. Before the maw of oblivion claimed him, he made a vow
with the unyielding endurance of black iron. Once back in Avenor,
when Ianfar was delivered into absolute safety, he would seek out the
name of the man who had betrayed Arithon's faith and precipitated
the premature flight out of Riverton. For Lord Maenol's losses, and
for the clans' forced abdication of their age-long stewardship of a
kingdom, that one would suffer the harsh edge of s'Brydion justice
until Dharkaron Avenger himself interceded to ask human mercy.

357

Early Spring 5653

Three Moments

In a tavern along the road south of Middlecross, a middle-aged min-
strel clad in scarlet sits down and tunes his lyranthe for his night's
round of performance; and his accustomed audience of tradesmen
and farmhands is swelled by a half company of crown soldiers under
command of another man, whose nondescript mantle covers the sun-
wheel blazon of authority, and who hears through each ballad with
mounting suspicion and a frown of incensed disapproval ....

    A fortnight following Arithon's clean escape out of Riverton, his
imprisoned accomplices are boarded into the holds of the three brigs
newly commissioned; while the appointed royal captains call orders to
make sail, Cattrick stands at the trestle in his loft, a sharpened shim of
graphite clenched in his fist, and his heart lit with rage fit to murder...

    On the same day, Mearn s'Brydion returns to Avenor, Ianfar
s'Gannley alongside him; and the first gossip he hears as he hands off
his blown livery horse is the word of Princess Talith's fatal plunge
from a high tower battlement, named by the shocked and mourn'rag
court as a suicide caused by despair....

358

Spring 5653

X. Pursuit

 The three brigs newly commissioned under Lysaer's sunwheel
 banner raised anchor to a windward fide. Before the rip grew
 too stiff to ride for advantage, the pert little fleet raised stainless,
 fresh sails and began its mincing, piloted run down the estuary to ply
 open waters to Corith.
    Confined in the narrow gloom of the male's cabin, and crammed
head and feet in a hammock ill suited to the frame and muscle of a
man given lifetime service as a war captain, Caolle listened to the
    \~xx~ s 'kx"~ of orders which maneuvered the flag vessel, Lance of Jus-
tice, through her intricate, bending course down the narrows. Since
his complaint that the fumes of fresh varnish turned his head, the
door to his quarters was latched back and open. His ankles by then
were already chained to forestall him trying escape. By the free air
through the quarterdeck hatch grating, and the brackish miasma of
the salt bogs, he mapped the layered headlands of a shoreline he
could not see.
    Moment to moment, Caolle rode his taxed senses. However his
wound ached, he asked for no posset. Too easily, the reins of clear
consciousness might slip his grasp and spin him back into circling
delirium. The Koriani healer meant him well, but her remedies gave
him sleep that brought nightmares,. and no peace of mind when he
woke.

359

Early Spring 5653

Three Moments

In a tavern along the road south of Middlecross, a middle-aged m'm-
strel clad in scarlet sits down and tunes his lyranthe for his night's
round of performance; and his accustomed audience of tradesmen
and farmhands is swelled by a half company of crown soldiers under
command of another man, whose nondescript mantle covers the sun-
wheel blazon of authority, and who hears through each ballad with
mounting suspicion and a frown of incensed disapproval ....

    A fortnight following Arithon's clean escape out of Riverton, his
imprisoned accomplices are boarded into the holds of the three brigs
newly commissioned; while the appointed royal captains call orders fo
make sail, Cattrick stands at the trestle in his loft, a sharpened shim of
graphite clenched in his fist, and his heart lit with rage fit to murder....

    On the same day, Mearn s'Brydion retums to Avenor, Ianfar
s'Gannley alongside him; and the first gossip he hears as he hands off
his blown livery horse is the word of Princess Talith's fatal plunge
from a high tower battlement, named by the shocked and mourning
court as a suicide caused by despair....

358

Spring 5653

X. Pursuit

The three brigs newly commissioned under Lysaer's sunwheel
banner raised anchor to a windward tide. Before the rip grew
too stiff to ride for advantage, the pert little fleet raised stainless,
fresh sails and began its mincing, piloted run down the estuary to ply
open waters to Corith.
    Confined in the narrow gloom of the mate's cabin, and crammed
head and feet in a hammock ill suited to the frame and muscle of a
man given lifetime service as a war captain, Caolle listened to the
tense strings of orders which maneuvered the flag vessel, Lance of Jus-
tice, through her intricate, bending course down the narrows. Since
his complaint that the fumes of fresh varnish turned his head, the
door to his quarters was latched back and open. His ankles by then
were already chained to forestall him trying escape. By the free air
through the quarterdeck hatch grating, and the brackish miasma of
the salt bogs, he mapped the layered headlands of a shoreline he
could not see.
    Moment to moment, Caolle rode his taxed senses. However his
wound ached, he asked for no posset. Too easily, the reins of clear
consciousness might slip his grasp and spin him back into circling
delirium. The Koriani healer meant him well, but her remedies gave
him sleep that brought nightmares, .and no peace of mind when he
woke.

359

~ANNY WURT$

     Like a crippled, old dog, he felt he had outlived his usefulness.
 enchantresses' meddling fed his unease, tick tight as they were wit
 Lysaer s'Ilessid's Alliance. Dread fanned that anxiety, that his part
 his liege Iord's flight out of Riverton might become their best tool t
 clinch Prince Arithon's downfall.
     Now the brig was under way, ostensibly to reinforce the s'Ilessi
 assault on the outpost at the Isles of Min Pierens.
    Caolle was not resigned. Discomfited by the roll of rough passaf
as her crew worked ship in the tideway, he traded straight pain f~
awareness. The hammock swung and creaked from its rings as
vessel slipped astream of the ebb. Canvas cracked overhead.
sails caught aback., a_n_d o~to~,'~irg-~.~ffthbs fii~sed as the quartermast~
spun t~~e helm hard alee to swing her stem down the channel. Ter~,
orders volleyed through the rocking lag of the stay, as drift bore ff
vessel past the sandy tongue of a spit. Then the shivering bang fro~
aloft as her yards braced full to the wind; new foam dashed off
rudder. The brig regained way and sailed close-hauled down the nec
of the Riverton Narrows.
    Caolle's hammock rocked to the heel of the deck. He clamped h
teeth and stifled the oaths that would draw unwanted attention. T?
straits of his captivity were worse than demeaning. The least cram
in his limbs could not be eased without begging outside help. H
weakness was not deemed a reliable jailer: the festered wounds on h
forearms were poulticed, dressed wrist to elbow in bandages whic
also served as restraint. Immobility left him more time than he coul
use without fretting.
    Abovedecks, the leadsman called off the mark. The captain barke
for a two-point change in course.
    "Smarten up on those braces? howled the mate to some laggard
"Are ye blue-water hands, or a pack o' coast-hugging galleymen?"
    The lookout sang out and the lead line confirmed shoaling wate
Other crewmen stationed at the port cathead let go the ring painte
The cockbilled anchor splashed to windward to a rattling fall of cabl.
While the bow was stayed through the tug of an eddy, Caolle pitche
his forest-sharp senses to take fullest stock of his surroundings.
    By now, he judged the ship's company included twenty-flY
combat-trained guardsmen. Half of these sprawled idle, polishin
mail, or shooting dice for small coin in the galley. Their less seawo2
thy fellows shared the rail on the main deck, unmercifully rouste
hither and yon by rushed seamen as the brig wore again, and the
side changed port to starboard. Two dozen more sailhands berthe
forward as crew, each one vouchsafed by merchant references or

360

              FUGITIVE I~RINCE

paper with a justiciar's seal to affirm lawful background from a city
of lifelong residence.
    Others on board, Caolle recalled from the Laughing Captain's tap-
room. These included the brig's handpicked officers, a captain, two
mates, a grizzled and temperamental quartermaster, and the serving-
class appointments of cook, purser, and cabin steward. At large also
was a street brat, caught stowing away, and pressed into crown ser-
vice as ship's boy. His vociferous, guttersnipe insolence came and
went through the companionway as he fetched and carried for the
Koriani First Senior.
    Since spells and scryings wrought through quartz-crystal reso-
nance could not be made to span open salt water, Lirenda and the
healer, brought along to tend Caolle, made passage on the same ves-
sel. They shared the captain's quarters in the stem cabin, while the
displaced officers occupied the chart room a scant breadth of a bulk-
head away.
    More orders sang out, and the brig hauled her wind; the changed
quarter of the breeze wafted the smell of fish stew from the galley,
mingled with soldier's oaths and the cook's nasal carping. By the
bite of his temper and a doleful emphasis on assignment of unfair
duties, Caolle learned that seventy-two of Arithon's accomplices,
exposed by Koriani conjury languished, chained, in the brig's hold as
well. By default, the two vessels trailing the flagship must bear the
Etarran fighting companies imported to defeat the Shadow Master at
Corith.
    A war captain's instinct died hard, to know the strength and posi-
tion of his enemies.
    Caolle closed his eyes. From habit, he reconstructed the mate's
cabin in detail from memory. On his right hand, a hanging locker
leaked a tanner's tang of new oilskins; then a stand and basin, rowed
with latched hooks holding buckets of drawn seawater and a mesh
bag with lye soap for washing. To his left lay the mate's berth, and a
small niche for an officer's sea chest, with a brass lantem mounted in
imbals overhead, swinging unlit to the toss of the hull. Caolle gave
no ground to discomfort. He quizzed his recall until he knew he
could find his way without mishap, even in total darkness. Then he
catnapped as he could, restive with distrust and the incessant throb of
bound wounds.
    For a while, the rush and slap of rip currents in the estuary kept
time to his uneasy dreams. He drowsed and woke and drowsed again.
When sunset faded into silver-gray dusk, the vessel cleared the last
shoals at the mouth of the inlet. The commotion as she raised topsails,

361

~ANNY WURT$

then the change to the long, swinging roll of fresh sea swell:
ened Caolle back to full consciousness.
    Flaring light jinked through a seam in the bulkhead as tl
steward kindled the lantern in the chart room adjacent. A di,.
in progress resumed on the heels of his departure. Through t
clump of the captain's seaboots, a woman's soprano raisec
which burgeoned into rife argument. The captain's bitten a
clashed into female rejoinder.
    "We will not lay our course for the Isles of Min Pierens,"
contradicted, chill as new ice on a freshet. "That was sheer p
tion on your part since, in fact, our quarry will not sai~ there ei
    The first mate's grufœ bass backed his captain's disagt
whelmed into thundering canvas as crewmen aloft shook
reefs in the mainsail.
    Then Koriani reply, in dictatorial steel. "No. By no means. ?
has the future been scried for full surety, but we have deli
allowed Arithon s'Ffalenn to hear warning of Prince Lysaer's p
clipped, sulky venom, the First Senior qualified. "The ShadoK
knows an Alliance blockade will close over him if he sails tc
We've foreseen his reaction. He'll flee south for Torwent. Sealed
has already shown us the cove where he'll reclaim his sloop and
His point of vulnerability lies in the estuary at the head of Maitre
If our spellcraft restrains his shadows, your three ships plying th
of the inlet can pin him down as he bolts for open water."
    "That's a coast run," cracked the captain, tired and brittle ~
long, fussy hours of seamanship required to run the Rivert
rows. "You'd have been better off to charter a galleyman w~
cargo through Tideport and Mainmere."
    "You're afraid?" Lirenda's derisive accusation chilled C
ugly foreboding. "I'm surprised. Three ships with armed co~
against a pleasure sloop crewed by one man and a bumb
drunk would seem an auspicious engagement."
    The captain's slow-strided pacing stopped short. "Do you
for a fool? You speak of the shadow-bending sorcerer who ca~
trade fleet to burn at Minderl Bay."
    "Against whom you've the backing of the Koriani Prim.
arch. Gainsay her will, and you also betray the Alliance of [
refusing your help to corner the Spinner of Darkness." Lirend
debate with aristocratic dismissal. "Do fetch out your charts,
Our course is a foregone conclusion. The trap which my orde:
will be sprung, the fate of your enemy is already destined an,
through multiple wards of grand augury."

362

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FUGITIVE PRINCE

    Distressed to alarm in the salt-muggy confines of the mate's cabin,
Caolle heard the captain expend his last argument. "I don't like your
odds, witch. This felon commands the very fabric of darkness. No
mortal fighting company can close on a prize they can't see. Nor can
my quartermaster steer clear of the reefs if he's reft blind on lee shores
in an inlet?
    "You worry for nothing." Lirenda arose to a breezy rustle of silk.
The crack in the wall flickered as she crossed through the light to
leave by means of the companionway. "The Master of Shadow will
come readily to heel once he learns of our cargo of hostages."
    "Are you mad?" The captain of the brig banged frustrated fists on
his chart table. "The man's a fell sorcerer and a thrice-confirmed
killer! Do you actually believe he'd give himself up to spare a mere
coffie of lackeys?"
    The latch clicked and held as Lire,~da paused at the threshold. Her
conclusion came freighted with menace to seize the hottest man's
blood. "Then, captain, you must lay us a course for the Lanshire coast
on the strength of my Koriani Order's requirement."
    Lashed prone in his hammock, Caolle measured the stakes and
weighed his own judgment concerning Prince Arithon's chances. He
held no false hope. Set against the entrenched s'Ffalenn gift of com-
passion, the undermining sense of guilt engendered by just one
accursed sword thrust seeded the opening for disaster.
    Caolle understood he was not made as the realm's sworn caithdein,
to test and grapple the fires of s'Ffalenn royal conscience. Nor could
he swerve from implications that nagged like a poisonous aftertaste.
He could not stand down, not for his life's sake: not after overhearing
the harsh, focused hunger which charged the First Enchantress's tone
at each mention of Prince Arithon's name.
    Forty years with the burden of command left Caolle a sharp judge
of character. Whatever Morriel's successor believed, her reasons for
seeking the Shadow Master's ruin were entrenched and intensely
personal enough to raise the hair at his nape. In defiance of despair,
and the straits of mortal pain, Caolle gritted his teeth. He linked his
fists through hemp netting and began in stark need to chafe the linen
bound over his poultices.

    Midnight brought the change in the watch, with the flagship lead-
ing her sister vessels on a dogleg course which would bear straight
offshore for a clandestine passage, then bend on a rhumb line to make
landfall through Mainmere Narrows. The fleet of three ran before fol-
lowing winds when the Koriani healer closed off the mate's cabin and

363

                ~ANNY WURTS

 laid down her satchel of remedies at Caolle's side. Each night and
 noon, she came to renew the regenerative spells on his wound, that
 strict schedule kept since the First Senior had remanded his care to
 her charge.
     The lantern lit by the ship's boy at sundown had burned low, its
 weakened flicker made worse by the strong pitch of the swells kicked
 up by the equinox shift in the wind. The brig tossed stem to stem in
 long, rolling corkscrews, doused under back-fallen arcs of carved
 spray. New varnish sweated to the influx of sea damp. Snatched in
 crawling shadows and sliding spears of wan light, the convalescent
 stirred in his hammock. A groan escaped his clenched teeth.
    Moved to pity for the wearing discomfort caused by the rigors of
~a ?~,tge, t~e enct~antress sighed and deferred her intent to trim
the neglected wick. The sigils she required to reverse fatal wounding
carried an unkindly resonance. F_nspelled tissues closed at the price of
nagging pain, and the clansman was stubborn as grit. He rejected
those possets she mixed to bring ease through the gift of oblivious
sleep.
    Yet tonight, even his stiff pride seemed forced to bow before the
demands of his suffering. "Something's not right," Caolle ground
through a gasp. "The dressing's turned sodden."
    "Easy. We'll see." The enchantress touched his brow, found him
clammy with chill. Her frown deepened. She thrust a palm under the
blanket. Caolle's shoulder and chest were also running fresh sweat.
"You're fevered," she soothed in that bedside gentleness she used to
disguise deep concern.
    For the ciphers and seals still actively binding spirit to flesh were
far from safe or beneficent. If Caolle's wound had gone septic, the
same conjuries which regenerated torn tissue would outrace their
proper intent. Sigils as a rule were unselective, a vectored spell of
forced impetus. A starting suppuration would engage their figured
energies, then turn on itself and run rampant. All risks came redou-
bled. Misread the first signs, and Arithon's liegeman could die in an
hour, consumed from within by infection.
    Now grateful for the dimness which masked peripheral distrac-
tions, the Koriani healer hooked out the silver chain which hung her
spell crystal from her neck. She dangled the jewel above Caolle's
flank, then shut her eyes and smoothed her awareness into trance.
The peace of her craft settled over her mind and distanced the ship's
clamor of stray noise. The squeal of the rudder cables dimmed into
the mirth of the hands who idled on the afterdeck to share a lewd joke
with the quartermaster. Channeled to heightened sensitivity through

364

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

the attuned matrix of her quartz, the enchantress sounded each of the
sigils intermeshed with the clan liegeman's life energies. Naught
seemed amiss. The layered streams of vitality interlaced through his
aura showed no ominous stain of dull gray. She listened, diligent, and
rechecked her findings. The first sign of dissonance could be subtle in
warning of fresh inflammation.
    The explosive attack took her without warning. A hand grabbed
her hair and yanked her headlong toward the hammock. Trance
dulled her reaction. The sharp break from mage-sight hurled her
dizzy, and the shock never let her assemble her balance to strike back.
    Too late, she regretted her reckless compassion, to treat a man's
pain before thinking to test the intent he might hold in his mind.
Something hard clubbed her neck. She toppled with scarcely a cry.
Panic coalesced into split-second instinct. She framed a sigil of air to
alert her First Senior. Then power of defense slipped her grasp alto-
gether as ruthless fingers snagged her spell crystal. The quartz tore
from her hold. She felt the chain snap as her senses upended in spin-
ning descent through bleak darkness.

    Jerked out of sound sleep by an air-fired sigil of distress, First
Senior Lirenda shoved erect on her berth in the stern cabin. The
detested inconvenience of seafaring extracted rough payment for
haste; her head thumped into the deck beams. "Motherless hell? She
thrashed free of damp blankets, her hatred of ships unabated as she
rammed an elbow on the timbers which crowded the edge of her mat-
tress.
    "Dharkaron avenge!" She stood up and staggered as a bucketing
roll nosed the brig down the face of a swell. No friend to water, the
more so since her gifts of power were founded in firesign, she clawed
back tumbled hair in annoyance.
    Whatever mismanaged turn of disaster had upset the healer, ill
temper would lend her no asset. Lirenda soothed her rattled nerves
back to cool equilibrium. Gooseflesh raked her bare skin. She groped
through the darkness to find the hook which hung her violet over-
robe, then listened as she wrapped the silk over her shoulders. She
sensed no overt disturbance.
    Canvas and timber worked to the drive of fair winds. No deck-
hands shouted. Since naught seemed amiss with the crew, she chose
not to summon the watch officer The draw of filled sails and the
surge of rucked foam rushing under the counter would defeat her
best effort to keep her inquiry unobtrusive.
  The captain's outspoken show of dissent still rankled the subordinate

565

JANNY WURTS

seamen. A//on board knew the brig's easterly course had been cha~'ted
under duress, and the enchantress was a fool who would give the ship'~
officers fresh grounds to challenge Koriani authority. Whatever l~ad
arisen to upset her colleague, the First Senior would have facts beck,re
she abandoned discretion.
    Lirenda cupped her white crystal on its chain. Clad in th~~
length fall of her robe, her porcelain shoulders doused under
ink snarls of hair, she strode on bare feet from her cabin.
    The signature trail of the sigil led her past the chart r~~ot ~
plank door was shut; she engaged her quartz focus to augment
senses, but no waking activity stirred in the darkness behind.
brig's captain slept, or else walked the deck, fine-tuning his ve~e~
through shakedown.
    Beyond the stepped bulk of the mizzenmast, the entry to the
quarters cracked open. The streamed phosphor track of the sigil
nated within. Lirenda stole closer. She extended her awareness
tacit, light contact with her crystal, prepared at need to raise coniur'~
    The brig slogged through a trough and rose at the bow. Newiy
forged hinges swung free to her roll, and the panel gaped further
open. The sultry glow of a failing wick etched the interior of the
cabin, with the bulk of Caolle's hammock a dim silhouette overtop.
Lirenda heard a woman's groan. Quickened to alarm, she made out a
female form, held pinned and struggling beneath the rucked folds of
a healer's mantle.
    "What ails you, wench?" teased Arithon's liegeman in muffled,
derisive clan accents. "Only boys mind a virgin. Keep still and enjoy
the fine sort of fun you've been missing."
    A hissed breath of rage escaped Lirenda's clenched teeth. "How
dare you!" She closed the last steps, shouldered into the small cabin,
and unfurled a barbed spell to sttm the male occupant of the ham-
mock into unconscious paralysis.
    "First Senior, my lady," murmured Caolle in obliging regret, from
behind, as the door panel crashed shut at her heels.
    Before she could whirl, something hard struck her nape. Lirenda
lost wind to curse her mistake as she measured her length on the
decking.

    She roused to the chill splash of water on her face. Restored aware-
ness brought her the sawing throb of a headache. Her hands, her
ankles, and her mouth were bound with strips of bandage filched
from the healer's satchel. She was still in the mate's cabin, the velvety
gloom thick with the scents of copal varnish and new planking. The

366

~arted
? ship's
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before

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. The
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 The
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 ~p.

 ~f

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 ship's heel pressed her backwards. Someone hadpropped her shoul-
 ders like a doll's against the shut door to the companionway.
     Runnels of water seeped down her brow and combed through the
 strands of her lashes. She blinked to clear her bleared vision.
     "Now, don't ye look fit to murder," Caolle mused in soft threat.
 Not a half pace away, he sat braced on the sea chest with his back to
 the hanging locker. His feet were still fettered. The heavy iron chains
 had been inventively muffled with a slit length of sleeve off an oil-
 skin.
     He had unhooked the gimbaled lantern during the interval while
 his victim recovered full consciousness. The wick was now trimmed.
 A clear, bright flame stabbed mirrored reflections in the depths of
 inimical, dark eyes. "Foolish, to think I'd sully myself with a witch
 who kept me living as bait to bring down my liege. Not to mind," he
 ran on, as Lirenda jerked stiff. "She's there, in the hammock, triced up
 neatly as you are. How obliging of her to struggle and moan just as
 you made your appearance."
    Caolle paused, flexed his shut jaw, and shook through a visible
tremor. "Oh, ! know I might die for my troubles," he admitted when
the spasm of pain let him speak. "That's why we'll rush things along.
Take my point straightaway, I'm a man who makes promises rather
than blustering threats."
    He raised his left hand. Something bright skittered and flashed to
the bucketing toss of the hull: a quartz crystal on a sparkling length of
fine chain.
    "This belongs to your colleague," Caolle said. "But you're damned
right to worry. Your own isn't still linked around your pretty neck."
    Eyes pinned wide, pupils expanded and black in a stark and impo-
tent hatred, Lirenda matched his stare like a baited tigress. Her dig~
nity was rags. Whatever the cost to her rankled pride, she dared wait
no longer to summon the help of a crewman. Bereft of her voice, she
raised her bound ankles to hammer her heels on the deck.
    Her captor had already foreseen that resistance and muffled her
feet with nothing less than the folds of her mantle of office. That
moment, the lingering chill of the draft gained a horrid and leveling
significance. The gag stopped her shriek. Stripped naked as well as
bound wrist and ankle, Lirenda paled to an explosion of rage all the
more deadly for being mute.
    "I didn't like being fingered by ladies I don't know, either," Caolle
agreed in unswerving complaisance.
    The length of his forearm was laced in fresh blood. His struggle to
strip off both poultice and dressing had torn open his wounds, a just

367

JANNY WURTS

and fitting penalty for the unwise demands made upon
flesh. Lirenda savored the petty satisfaction that the pain undid his-~
dexterity. He made a rough job of tilting the lamp. Several minutes
fled by while he fumbled to lift the latch which fastened the pane.
    Yet he was not unnerved. Every ruthless art of Koriani observation
failed to strip his cragged profile for other significant weakness. f~d-

ily discomfort did nothing at all to blunt his tactician's mind. Caolle
watched her conclude this, unfooled. He was too seasoned a cam-
paigner to entertain false belief that an enemy held captive was no
threat. In stony dispassion, he raised the strung jewel above the
opened cover of the lamp. The healer's dedicated quartz jounced and
spun on its tether as his unsteady grasp teased it back and forth
~2~ &ke ~9a~'xe.
    Given liberty for speech, Lirenda could have explained that the
wards on the stone would offset the ravages of fire. She displayed nt~
uneasiness, that the attuned focus of her colleague's born talents
should become this deadly man's plaything.
    "She's a bonny enough flower." Caolle inclined his head tos~ ,~rd
the healer, his features filed iron, each suffering hollow br~~ise.~i it~
dull shadow where crinkled flesh masked the bone. Never l~a,~ i~t,
looked more the part of the hardened killer.
    The healer who had obeyed direct orders to spare him wat, i~ec~
back in glazed fear, her shining loops of blond hair netted throu gt~ t't ~e
rope mesh of the hammock. Each roll of the hull rocked her tru ;--,,d
form to and fro like a sausage.
    "Would you say that her youth's an illusion?" Caolle mt~,,,~~,
"There's a fact or two whispered in the lore of our clans concernin~
the ways of your kind." He lifted the gemstone, heated now, th~~
unquiet shimmer of its facets thinly tarnished under a layering ot
soot. "Do you know, I've a perverse curiosity to find out how ancient
your colleague really is."
    Russet light wheeled as he shifted the lamp. The bent of his cruelt',
struck through at last as First Senior Lirenda realized he held an iro~'~
bucket braced between his tucked knees.
  Her cry pealed into a defeating wad of cloth.
    "Yes, the water was dipped from the sea," Caolle said in affir~na
tion of her ghastliest nightmare. "Salt water and an iron bucket,:
believe, were the talismans listed for the ritual to ground and clear ~:
spelled crystal."
  'But not elemental fire, never that,' Lirenda raged in gagged anguish.
    Caolle's jet eyes held her pinned like a shark's as he opened his fin-
gers. The chain with its irreplaceable pendant slipped free.

368

ealed
d his
~utes

it-ion
~od-
~olle
~m-
 no
 the
 tnd
 rth

FUGITIVE PRINCE

     Hot quartz struck cold water. A sharp hiss, a shot geyser of steam,
 as the crystal shocked out of resonance and shattered. The fragments
 sliced in terrible, thin clangs against the metal confines of the bucket.
 Trapped helpless in mage-sight, Lirenda beheld a cloudy burst of
 static. Then an actinic flare of silver bloomed above the rim as
 wrought sigils let go, and a lifetime's figured energies bled off and
 vanished into air.
     On the hammock, death visited with wrenching finality as the
 stabilized seals to retard aging gave way. The healer's slim body
 bucked once. An inhuman screech shrilled through the linen
 wound in layers across her mouth. Muscle, nerve, and bone, her
 body convulsed, shivering the hammock on its rings. Her bound
 limbs thrashed. Joints cracked and cartilage popped to the lash of
 unnatural stresses. Spasmed hands jabbed and fought their re-
 straints, then seemed between heartbeats to shrivel. Tendons con-
 tracted. Splayed knuckles bent. Bone clenched to bone, leaving not
 fingers, but claws, cranked fight into rigor like the leg-folded husks
 of dead spiders.
    Then the fit which contorted the woman's wasted sinews let go.
The remains sagged limp and the covering cloak slid away.
    "Daelion Fatemaster's mercy," Caolle gasped, despite himself
stunned into pallor. Throughout his rough life, he had killed count-
less times, but never so hideously as this.
    For the hammock now cradled the shriveled corpse of a hag which
could have languished three centuries in the grave. Leached cobwebs
of hair trailed off the wax skull, swaying to the roll of the ship.
    Caolle recovered himself first. Having grappled the horrors of
death all his days, he averted his eyes, more concerned with the living
enchantress held captive at his feet.
  Lirenda gave him back a sheet-gold glare of pure murder
    For of course, he possessed a second purloined crystal to spin in
cold threat above the lantern flame. Despite features pinched by
sleeplessness and suffering pain, his glacial deliberation left Lirenda
in no doubt that her peril was real. This was the clan war captain who
had helped Arithon s'Ffalenn engineer the atrocities at Tal Quorin
and the Havens, and after these, the most unconscionable of all, the
thirty thousand casualties which had bloodied the field in one hour at
Diet Kenton Vale. He owned no unmoored nerve to revolt. The First
Senior watched, wholly defenseless, as Caolle hooked up the braided
chain which fastened her personal crystal. He rebalanced the lamp,
played the stone through the flame, his ultimatum served up in a
silence like dammed acid.

369

JANNY WURTS

  No threat, but a promise: he could repeat his lethal act if h~
 and strangle his conscience pangs afterward.
     "I'm glad that you grasp the,,true reach of the stakes," he observed~
 as he measured her stillness. Now listen up sharp, because here's!
how we're going to play this."                                           ~
Lirenda heard him through, racked by humiliation. The sham
bled her sick, that she had ever dared to take personal liberties wi~
Morriel Prime's intricate plan. When she stayed Caolle's death, sh
should have recalled he was a scarred veteran, clanbred to sen
s'Ffalenn royalty. Liegeman to the bone, he would see her killed, and
care not a whit if he lost his own life in the balance. The pitfall of her
pride lent him his foothold for victory.
He survived by her weakness, and refused her even the face-savinI
mercy of asking her word of agreement. Pragmatic as earth, he rifled
the dead healer's satchel, then used her stone knife to slice through the
ties which bound his live victim's ankles. While Lirenda's fire-hot
quartz swung suspended over the maw of the bucket, he skidded the
blade across the wood deck for her to fumble and clasp. Through
seemingly endless, awkward minutes, she wrestled to manipulate tied
wrists and brace the haft between her bare knees. She was left to saw
her bonds free on her own, and to cut away the sour knots of the gag.
Caolle's gaze never wavered despite the pounding the ship's
motion dealt the reopened wounds in his flesh. He knew his limits,
and had sounded hers: he expected she dared raise no outcry.
"I don't envy the death my order will mete out for your a, t~, ~f
coercion and murder." Scuffed dusky red with the marks o~ hi~, i~an-
dling, Lirenda arose with a glacial sangfroid and a fury b~, vor~,! ,~11
forgiveness.
Caolle's brows met in a frown of contempt. "I'll shrug oft '~i7,,ir
sting, you bloodsucking spider. Nothing else matters but th~~t ~~�
prince should escape from your unclean web." He flicked the chain.
Her crystal shivered a bare fraction above the rim of the bucket; close
enough to make her heart shrink and skip, he well knew. The quartz
would not escape sure destruction if she tried the least hostile move
with the knife.
"So, die with me, bitch," the clansman invited. "Lack'mg you~
guidance, I very much doubt an untried fleet of three can take or
Prince Arithon and survive."
His frank male regard became statement enough he was content tc
rest on that judgment. Lirenda snatched the folded silk from unde:
her feet. She reclothed herself in graceless, clipped jerks, then spun o~
her heel to depart.

370

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

"Ah, no," Caolle snapped. "That knife stays with me. And remem-
ber, the oil in this lamp won't outlast a quarter of an hour."
    That was the paltry allotment of time he gave to complete his
demands. "You'll shut yourself into your cabin after that." The quartz
flashed and spun its unequivocal, dire warning. "One step wrong,
raise one whisper of alarm, and your doom at my hand is a certainty."
    Lirenda quashed back her overwhelming blind rage. She had no
recourse. Perform as he asked, and Caolle might keep his word and
set her ashore to go free. Guarantees were all forfeit. His perilous ploy
must be launched and forced through before his promise could be put
to the test. Nor was Lirenda's own risk of exposure assured a felici-
tous outcome. She could shrink a man's bollocks out of fear for her
rank, but sham could not survive direct challenge. Deprived of her
quartz link to empower her drawn sigils, she had no sure means to
conceal the betrayal this fell bargain would level against the brig's
unsuspecting crew. With her crystal under the threat of annihilation,
she could fashion no spells. Even the petty illusions devised by the
least tutored hedge witch lay outside the reach of her talent.
    The predicament galled her to singular bitterness. Brought under
coercion, and alone on the sea, she could blame no one else for her
downfall. By her own headstrong miscalculation, the end play to
Morriel Prime's grand conjury might fall to an inexcusable reversal.

    The latch to the mate's cabin clicked shut after the First Senior
Lirenda"s departure. Caolle slumped back against the bulkhead of the
hanging locker, his large frame shaking head to foot from the pain in
response to unwise exert'ion. He dared not acknowledge the grisly
remains in the hammock. His nerves would revolt. The bucket would
become an immediate catch basin for the rejected contents of his
stomach. The minutes crept past, while he sweated. Ath knew, he set
small store by prayer. Nor would he yield to his hypocrite fears, and
beg the creator's indulgence.
    The plan set afoot rode now on the strength of First Senior
Lirenda's stung pride. For Arithon s'Ffalenn, everything hinged upon
her counting ambition above her own life as a bargaining chip.
    Caolle braved another shuddering wave of discomfort. Well sea-
soned to danger, plagued by agonized doubts, he flicked the small
chip of quartz crystal through the lantern flame like a talisman. While
the light sparked in demonic patterns from the facets, he reviewed all
the small things which could spin awry. One single upset would cre-
ate a cascade, calling down risks like rowed dominoes.
  The witch could stop him, and die. Or she could pitch her wits

371

~ANN� ~URTS

against his word of honor, and hope for a mistake to spin the 0~
back in her favor. Few men aboard ship would gainsay the will of'
Koriani First Senior. Not without reason. Her orders would not rai
immediate questions; nor would anyone think to deny her a visit
the convicts in the hold.
    The brig pitched through a trough. Caolle locked back the gro~
which threatened to rip free as the jostling speared fresh tormeI
through his flank. His vigil over the crystal and chain must not fla
though his vision blurred, and reeling spells of dizziness leached
his will to stay conscious. On deck, he thought he heard the watch ca
the hour. No shouting started, nor did he pick up any other small si
of anything gone amiss.
    The sails creaked to the bear'rag pressure of the winds, and th
foam slammed and lisped through the rudder.
    Caolle clung to the reassurance of each sound. He endured th~
grim seconds one after the next in tight-breathing, bulldog tenacity.
Inside a few minutes the lamp would bum dry. By then, the last of
Arithon's collaborators must be set free from their chains. Either their
little hired captain, a foul-tongued West Shandian, would arrive
bringing confirmation, along with the keys for the leg irons and also
the brig's forward arms locker; or Dharkaron damn the conse-
quences, Lirenda's quartz focus would be dropped in salt water to
shatter.
    No loophole existed, outside total failure. Whatever the outcome,
Caolle understood the harsh stakes. He might buy his prince one last
chance for reprieve. In the unlikely event he survived abused
wounds, and won this wild gamble against fate, for himself, the days
he had left must be numbered. For his cold-blooded murder of th~
healer, if not for balking Lirenda, he was now a man marked apart fo~
Koriani vengeance.

372

Spring 5653

Second Upset

Night advanced. In the open waters of Mainmere Bay, the turn of
spring stars crossed through the zenith to the complaint of raw
winds, chasing their freight of fretted wavecrests. The sea heaved
black and molten, web silver beneath cloudless skies. Across a
tableau like spilled indigo, the three Alliance brigs sailed in convoy.
In the main crosstrees of the second vessel in line, the lookout hailed
the watch on the quarterdeck.
"Trouble's here. Lance o' Justice looks to be listing to starboard."
Minutes later, the fitful flash of a signal lantern confirmed that the
flagship was taking on water. The mate himself climbed the ratlines
to the crow's nest to translate the lines of blinked code.
    "Deck there!" he called. "She plans to heave to! We're asked to
round up alongside and take on most of her cargo of prisoners."
    The surly first mate snapped closed the ship's glass, considering,
while the air plucked moist fingers at his cloak, and the dark rim of
the horizon swung like a plate. By the time he completed his descent
from the rigging and conferred on deck with his captain, their ship's
compliance was settled. The exchange made plausible sense. Many of
the criminals packed onboard the Lance were craftsmen trained as
skilled shipwrights.
    "Can't be a blighted loose timber in her hull their sort can't be
press-ganged to fix." To those crewmen who were wont to dodge sail
drill to eavesdrop, he snapped, "It's the other wretches who are dead-
weight we'll pick up. Sailhands set in chains for conspiracy with the

                           JANNY WURT$                                  ~d.~
Master o' Shadow. Their carcasses litter the decking in the hol
Dharkaron's black arse, that's all got to be pulled to see which faulty~
seam the Lance has sprung in her bilges."
    Return signals were sent, then sails and course altered to draw the
two vessels side by side. The swell was running too high to grapple.
Boats were swayed out to a melee of shouted orders and uncertain
flickering lanternlight.
    Then, through moonless dark, the longboats rowed back, trailed by
others put off by the Lance. Each craft breasted and slogged down the
waves, made unwieldy by their protesting burden of prisoners. The
first boats reached the brig, to redoubled confusion, since convicts in
irons could not climb the side battens. One by one, they had to be
hoisted aboard like landlubbers in a bosun's chair The clumsy
maneuver raised a running, obscene commentary from those among
them who were seamen. The most ribald and ruthlessly damning
remarks were volunteered by a swarthy West Shandian captain who
proved vitriolically loyal to Prince Arithon.
    The brig's snappish mate peered down his. nose at the turmoil
fanned over heaving, jet waters. "Pitiful waste, that leg irons do
naught to crimp shut the yap on that wretch."
    For no mark proved exempt: the prisoner possessed a deadly sharp
eye for slack seamanship, and a tongue to scale rust from black iron.
Worse yet, his railing came poisoned with wit to crack the most dour
man's ribs. The oarsmen who ferried him across in the longboat lost
their timed stroke, unraveled into helpless laughter. They arrived,
doubled over their banked oars, shut eyes leaking tears, while wind
and drift fetched them headlong against their mother ship's side
strakes.
    The sea rose and dipped; varnished gunwales raked new planking
to a roaring scrape of gouged wood.
    Screams from the outraged officer topside collided with the Shah-
dian's peal of ridicule. "Ath, you blind ninnies! It's a wonder you all
managed to get yourselves born, if you'll row for a coxswain who
rams a brig broadside with his eyes open."
    The victimized oarsman shot from the stern seat to defend his
maligned competence. In calamitous mistiming, the shove which
fended the longboat off the ship rocked into the rising lift of a swell.
The coxswain windmilled his arms and sat down with a smacking
splash in the ocean.
    "Dharkaron's arse, lookit you!" cried the Shandian in amazement.
To rounds of explosive chuckles from the other boat's crews, and
against jeers from the ~allery of idle hands just arrived to crowd the

374

brig's rail, he ranted, "I'd have to give my one-legged grand auntie
the better odds to stay upright! Not only can Lysaer's brave seamen
not row! By Ath, cold sober, they can't even keep their bungling butts
dry in a longboat! If this is the measure of an Alliance royal ship, then
for mercy strike my chains. I swear, I'll drown sooner if I'm forced to
ply my fortune under the same breed o' captain."
    "Silence that upstart!" the brig's master called down from the quar-
terdeck.
    His command passed unheard. An oar splashed to a murderous
yell from the swimmer.
  "Toss the poor wretch a rope!" cried an onlooker.
    "Better not," quipped the Shandian. "He'll just get it looped round
his neck."
    His bent of hilarity turned from harmless to obstructive as derisive
suggestions flurried down from those sailors on deck who were still
safe and dry, to the oarsmen who manned the indecorous longboat.
Each remark proffered a more outrageous solution to fish their
soaked coxswain from the water.
    "Why bother?" The Shandian laughed in withering disgust.
"Sharks don't care beans if they eat stupid meat."
    "I said, shut that wretch up!" Flushed with ill temper from being
ignored, the brig's captain stormed from the quarterdeck.
    He plied elbows like rams and laid a path through the pack of
shirkers amidships. Forced to stumble over clusters of chained pris-
oners, he shoved aside the last gawkers. But his new vantage at the
rail gained him small satisfaction. Below him, wild splashes and a
steady round of oaths issued from beyond a rocking circle of lamp-
light. To his left, some inveterate pest was taking odds down for
wagers, as though anyone on shipboard could reliably sort out the
roistering mayhem ongoing under cover of darkness. Scribbled
reflections thrown off murky swells defeated the most determined
attempt to sort out the salient details. Nor could a captain enforce his
chain of command without correct names to assign to the faces of the
miscreants.
    Left no sure target for reprimand, he locked horns at last with his
mate. "Are we running a shambles?"
    "Well, ding me dead!" whooped the Shandian in renewed delight.
"We're getting the old man himself, come to teach us lowlifes the
obvious."
    The captain lost his temper. "You oarsmen! Let that oaf in the
water shift for himself. I want every Sithaer-forsaken one of these
prisoners clapped in the hold straightaway! We make sail in an hour.

375

J~N~� WUR~$

By then, the last boat will be stowed in smart form. If I hear.
gard's still bumbling at the oar, he'll be cast off as flotsam for
sharks!"
    "Oh, smart thinking," cried the Shandian in whetted, bright
casm. "Leave the shirkers adrift. I wouldn't want to strike topsail
yards, either, underneath of some louts who can't hoist their flea-
bitten bones up a side batten."
    "Gag that prisoner, or kill him," snapped the captain to the mate,
who still chuckled at his shoulder. "Whatever it takes, bring our men
back in line. I don't care if you have to break heads, just show me a
diligent crew!"
    Far from cowing the sailhands back to order, his enraged threat 0f
violence only seeded a frenetic, new snarl of confusion. Sailhands jos-
tled and yelled oaths from behind. They pressed their captain's
stance, apparently possessed by a brainless urge to start brawling.
More shouting erupted from the oared boats port and starboard. Then
both lanterns were doused in unison. Darkness clapped down, an
oddity which meant the brig's deck lamps had also extinguished.
Screams ripped through the laughter before anyone realized: the
boats alongside were not friendly.
    The prisoners themselves were escaped from their chains and bearing
arms in a battering attack.
    "Ath preserve, we're being boarded!" The brig's captain shouldered
past his first mate and fell fiat, still yelling. Other men went down
with him, raining blood from slit throats. More onlookers skidded and
crashed from missteps in warm puddles as the enemy's murdering
steel chewed through their disorganized resistance.
  "Daelion save us all, it's the Shadow Master's treachery!"
    For the crews who brought in the longboats from the Lance were
not the same ones who had manned the oars at the launching.
    In belated distress, the brig's captain screamed for his quartermas-
ter to ring the alarm. "Sound warning to the third vessel! Let them
hear that we're under assault! The Lance, save her, must be already
fallen to the enemy."
    "Can't, sir!" His officer's explanation filtered back, harried,
through the percussion of steel striking steel, and live flesh and bone
in maiming thuds. "Some whoreson has cut down the ship's bell!"
    "Sithaer, this can't happen." The captain locked his teeth, fought
his way upright, and ducked a bloody sword. He plowed through the
chaos and grabbed his first mate by the scruff. "Get below! Now!
Roust out that useless Etarran fighting company! We need them to
kill as they're paid for."

376

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

  But the bad news returned, that the royal men-at-arms were not
sleeping or deaf, but confined. Some fiend had battened the hatches.
  "They'll come out disarmed, or be poisoned with smoke," said a
  stranger with soot-blackened features who must have crept aboard
  through the thrashing display put on by the posturing coxswain.
  "Since we don't rightly care if the poor bastards suffocate, you might
  want to declare them our captives."
    "You won't get away with this." The captain stiffened to the prod
of a sword at his spine, then flinched, as beside him, his arguing mate
was cut down by a stroke that gutted him to the navel.
    Then, the insufferable last straw, the Shandian captain swarmed up
the strakes and leaped the rail in swaggering insolence. "Strike your
colors and surrender this vessel." His grin came and went, all uncivil,
sharp teeth. "Or die valiant while we run up the leopard of Rathain.
It's all one to me. This brig's already befouled to her scuppers. We're
going to have to find pails and swab up your mate's liver, anyway.
Refuse, and you'll just make that unsavory task the more grisly."

377

Spring 5653

Reckoning

 The meeting took place just past dawn in the Lance's overcrowded
 chart room, the aftermath of hard action reshaped to crisp order by
 the Master of Shadow's freed henchmen. Fate and Caolle's coura-
 geous ingenuity had bought them a stunning reprieve. Theirs now to
 decide, 'the new course of action for the Alliance's two suborned ves-
 sels. In addition, they held the Koriani First Senior and fifty smoke-
 sickened men from the Etarran fighting company, kept alive for use
 as hostages. The latter had been imprisoned in the hold where, lately,
 their ebullient captors had escaped the selfsame misfortune.
    The vessel still listed, albeit suspiciously. No hands could be heard
manning pumps. The defeated captain rowed across from the other
prize cursed in hindsight, now aware the flagship's ballast must have
been shifted to lend her the appearance of leaks and sprung planking.
On deck, in the pale flood of daybreak, he had deciphered the
sequence of signal flags being strung up on a halyard. In due time, the
third brig still sailing in legitimate crown loyalty would receive placid
word that the Lance of Justice intended to retire to Tideport. Her course
change made plausible sense; once in sheltered waters, the convict
shipwrights she carried could ostensibly mend her stressed timbers.
    The two other brigs, in tandem, would sail east for Mainmere Nar-
rows to effect the blockade intended to trap Arithon s'Ffalenn. No
break in procedure hinted of problems. With appearances main-
tained, the assumption followed suit that the flag captain's sealed
orders had been transferred to a sister ship with sound seams. The

378

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 third vessel would have no reason to suspect her command ship was
 now manned by armed enemies. Undisturbed, still serene, she
 remained unaware of the past night's nefarious piracy.
    Tired to the bone, his breeches and shirt splashed with dried blood
from his murdered first mate, the brig's deposed captain currently
languished in the same chains lately struck off his Shandian counter-
part. The ignominy left him indisposed at sea for the first time since
he was a ship's boy set free of his tearful mother's apron strings. His
shame was not eased by the damning sharp seamanship displayed by
a band of rank criminals.
    Behind the chart desk, bound in plain rope, sat his fellow officer in
misfortune. The dispossessed captain of the flag vessel, Lance, appeared
disheartened and pale, unmarked by signs of rough handling. His cloth-
ing was still uncreased and clean, and his face showed no worse than
the wear of taut nerves and lost sleep.
    Packed around the chart table, in swift, whiplash dialogue, the
escaped shipwrights and crewmen, and another man who proved to
be a cianbom scout, exchanged viewpoints. The course and direction
their strong words debated had nothing to do with Tidepor~t as a first
port of call.
    "Dharkaron avenge!" the brig's captain whispered in bleak fury.
These devils can't just spin us around and start gutting trade galleys
for spoils!"
    The iron-haired flag captain turned a face with sad eyes, his shrug
strained by the pull of his bonds. "You think our last brig can fight
past surprise and prevail?" His mouth flexed in resignation as he
looked at his boots, worn at the toes from his distinguished record of
crown service. "No. You'll hear, if you listen. They've planned the last
move. Our sister vessel will be attacked after sundown. She'll surren-
der or bum, her fate to rely on the fight put up by her seamen."  The beaten man's tone shocked for its flat certainty.
    "Why did you give in?" asked the captain, painfully aware that he
addressed a colleague he had once respected as his senior comman-
der. "When you suffered attack, you sent us no signal. What made
you betray the Alliance?"
    "They suborned the Koriani First Senior, Ath knows how. She
called me below, and I walked straight into an ambush. Is it so hard?"
The fleet captain coughed, eyes averted, while he shifted his shoul-
ders to accommodate the splash of the wavecrests retreating beneath
the stem counter. Concerning the proud ship he had relinquished to
the marauding use of the enemy, he had disgracefully little to relate.
"That fiend of a West Shandian gave me a choice. Leave this vessel

379

]ANNY WURTS

intact to Lord Maenol's barbarians and endure a five-day rur~ i~,t0
Caithwood, or else stay in chains and be bound over as hostage to the
Master of Shadow. Better, I think, to survive as a traitor, than to risk
death and Sithaer knows what sort of evil at the hand of that servant
of Darkness."
    But the brig captain dared not say what he thought, that after the
royal edict condemning clan prisoners to lifelong misery as galley
slaves, he very much doubted Lord Maenol's scouts would let any
townsman walk free.

    Much later, the conference in the chart room broke up. The brig
drove east on her bearing, and the Alliance prisoners settled under
tight guard, when a man tapped quietly at the door to the stern cabin.
He awaited no answer, but slipped into the stillness within.
    The one who kept vigil by the berth where Caolle lay arose, gave a
nod, and departed. The newcomer settled down in his place, and
without asking, volunteered all the news.
    "Everything's been decided as you wished, and no argument. The
brig's to be rechristened just Lance. She'll sail as Arithon first planned
at her launching, and take on a crew of Earl Maenol's clansmen. We
can't speak for them, here. They'll have to determine which course to
take, whether to pick up the Shadow Master's orders at Irmish, or to
sail west to Corith and bid against Lysaer for any of ours who may
still be alive."
    Caolle lay with his eyes closed, his breaths fast and shallow and his
skin like limp parchment with suffering. "The plan's sound enough,"
he whispered at long length. If the men chose the fight in the Isles,
they would have the brig and the Koriani First Senior as bargaining
chips, as well as a sea captain and the Etarran company to play for an
exchange of hostages. "The First Senior's jewel is well away?"
    The man he could not see paused a moment to smile. "Aye, so. She
let fly with unlovely language when she heard. If the brig's crew wins
through, they'll do as you asked, and send her spelled quartz on to
Prince Arithon with your compliments."
    For certain, Caolle knew, he himself would not live to see through
the events he had used his last wits to enact. Still as he lay, he could
feel the warm life seep from his limbs. This, his last campaign, was
fought against an enemy no steel could conquer. Spellcraft had no
remedy that his straightforward war strategy understood. In slow
and insidious progression, his extremities were invaded by a crawl-
ing, unnatural numbness he could only presume was the backlash set
loose when he had shattered the healer's quartz crystal. No recourse

380

into
 the
risk
'ant

FUGITIVE I~IR I NCE

 remained as the Koriani seals which kept his body alive undid them-
 selves through attrition.
     In time, he asked if it were nightfall, the cabin seemed so cold and
 dark. The roll of high seas dissolved into the spiraling spin of blank
 vertigo. He could not feel his blankets. The breath in his lungs felt
 insubstantial and light, not like true air, but some vaporous drug
 which wafted his mind into dizziness.
     "It's afternoon," the man said, never far from his side. His accent
 had the syrupy vowels of the southcoast, and his hands, a. ship-
 wright's thick callus. "The curtains aren't drawn. You can't see the
 sunlight through the stern window?"
     A pause came, through which the clansman said nothing, and
 upon which cold truth paid attendance like a vulture.
    Then, in a tact striking for its compassionate acceptance, warm fin-
gers closed over Caolle's shoulder. That firmness he could feel dis-
tinctly, and'the craftsman's straightforward kindness as he spoke.
"Never mind. Day or night, should it matter? Say whatever you want
to Prince Arithon and your kin. One of us will see your thoughts
reach him."
    Across a span of gluey distance, Caolle regrouped scattered wits.
He had no words, then or now, to express what he felt in his heart.
Gruff to the bone, no dabbler in niceties, he could not shed his flint-
edged habit of honesty. Nor could he let go of life in false peace. He
gave in, content to let his ornery nature have his last breath. For his
final, most lacerating care and his need to release a friend's burdened
conscience, he assembled his thoughts as sparely as arrows to be shot
in hard arcs toward the future.
    "Let my people and my prince hear that I died in the assault to toss
out the Koriani witches. No less than plain truth." Caolle denied
clutching fingers of pain just enough to wrench out a gritty, disparag-
ing grin. "Tell the Teir's'Ffalerm, too... every word I said to Dakar at
Riverton is still binding. But add one thing more .... I've survived
many worse than the pinprick he gave me. His Grace has a puny
sword arm, and may Dharkaron Avenger damn him for a weakling if
he doesn't choose another liegeman to stand at his shoulder in my
place."

381

Spring 5653

Turning Points

In the Isles of Min Pierens, where Corith's mined fortress notches a
sunset sky, Prince Lysaer s'Ilessid reviews disposition of his troops,
his war galleys, and the captured brig, Cariadwin, awaiting with keen
anticipation for the hour when Arithon s'Ffalenn will be led by the
Koriani witches to sail into his preset ambush ....

    In the mountain wilds of Taerlin, Maenol s'Gannley and his dwin-
dled band of scouts meet the swords of Alliance forces, and while
clan blood flows yet again to allow the threatened families to flee
behind them, the caithdein whistles the retreat, too aware that no more
time can be bought for his people; either King Eldir will grant hi:
petition for sanctuary, or all will be lost on the wooded shores o~
Mainmere ....

    Stopped to water horses on the Middlecross road, the Hanshire
captain, Sulfin Evend, straightens up from discussion with a dairy
maid, and his sudden flush reveals his elation as he calls his armec
troop to attention: "We're onto him, now. The Shadow Master and hi~
fat henchman passed yesterday, apparently driving an oxcart. There'~
a company of sunwheel soldiers with Lysaer's Crown Examine:
ahead of us. If we move fast without springing the alarm, we coulc
catch our quarry by nightfall .... "

382

Spring 5653

XI. Fire and Sword

Rumpled, hungry, all but giddy with fatigue, the Mad ,Prophet
reined his rackety oxcart alongside the wayside tavern s stone
wall. After a seven night of sleeping in thorn brakes, he smelled
little better than his draft animals. The beasts stood with lowered heads,
tails switching to dislodge the black, biting flies which descended upon
the Korias flats from the moment the sun thawed the soil.
    "Ath, are you certain you're up to this?" He filched a glance side-
wards, not trusting appearances as the Masterbard stepped down, his
lyranthe slung from a strap at his shoulder, and the silence like
poured lead between them.
    The lacerating despondency settled since Riverton this morning
seemed tightly leashed. Arithon had washed and shaved at a stream-
side. His torn shirtsleeves were mended in meticulous stitches; the
tailored cuffs cleaned, old bloodstains bleached away by the lye soap
begged from a dairymaid. His dark leathers had been brushed until
the singed patches were scarcely noticeable. Gaunt from eight cold,
wet days of foraged meals, the Master of Shadow looked more the
part of a courier or light swordsman than a bard on itinerant sojourn;
tmtil he turned his head.
    Then the light touched his face and revealed what he was: a self-
haunted fugitive with exhaustion etched down to each fitted angle of
bone.

383

]ANNY WURTS

  "You're unwise to try music in public so soon," Dakar
  concerned for the exposure an honest performance must demand.
    "We have to eat. We haven't got a coin between the two of us, and
  I'm up to this because it's safer than risking my fingers trying to skin
  cone3~s ~vjth m ma~n &~auche. "~e~athe~'ed bJack b~'o~ Jel~o o/1~
 ~own and ajvped up in acidic inquiry "Unless you prefer snaring
 songbirds? I thought not."
  "Sithaer's dark furies," Dakar swore. "Why do I stay with you?"
    "For maudlin entertainment, no doubt." But against every prece-
dent, Arithon s'Ffalenn was first to turn aside.
    One charged moment led into another, an abrasive progression
unbroken since the hour Caolle had fallen. Beyond the wall, a woman
soothed a crying child, and a stableboy's rush broom scraped rhyth-
mically through the lazy spring warmth.
    Standoff, while the Mad Prophet held his mutinous seat on the
buckboard. Then the Shadow Master's lips curled in sarcasm like a
razor cut, at odds with his careful speech. "We haven't seen a patrol
in two days. Stop look'mg over your shoulder and fretting, or I'll have
to mix goose grease and wintergreen to treat you for cricks in the
neck."
    Dakar felt too heartsick to return the slight. "You aren't up to this,"
he insisted.
    Arithon hitched up his lyranthe with hands that betrayed all his
stress in fine tremors. "All right, I'm not up to this. That's why we
agreed. You're staying to mind the wagon." His departing stride held
that tigerish poise which warned when his temper was rankled.
    Dakar watched the sunlight fall like white ice over his trim shoulders
and back, the sleek ends of black ha'~r feathered into the drawstring ruf-
fles of his collar. In the nerve-racking boldness which trademarked his
style, Arithon refused a disguise. People, he insisted, were least obser-
vant of things left out in plain sight. He passed the inn's gate, and the
broom of the stablehand stilled to his clear call of inquiry.
    Abandoned in the company of cud-chewing oxen, Dakar crossed
his arms to muffle his yowling stomach. Unease scraped his nerves,
though the road stretched empty north and south. The ruts carved up
by recent thaw lay hemmed in puddles, tinted lapis and moonstone
under a sky sliced by diving black swifts. Brisk trade moved by sea
on the southcoast of Tysan until spring dried the mud and the grass
offered fodder for caravans. Midmorning was too late for the farm-
girls bearing spring eggs to the Middlecross markets, and too early
for the afternoon relays of post couriers to clatter in asking for
remounts.

384

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    An early breeze riffled the blossoming apple trees. The droning
industry of bees cut the air, and the thin bleats of lambs, grazing at
large with their dams on the flats.
    Dakar sulked. His natural penchant for long naps in bright sun-
light seemed permanently displaced. He had small taste for idle lurk-
ing in a rattletrap cart that made him a creeping target for sunwheel
guardsmen and headhunters' arrows.
    Nor did he like stringy game eaten cold in the brush, a practice
now likely to continue. From inside the wall, Arithon's mild speech
raised a howl of vehement distress.
    "Another bard? Here? Spare us all, send him packing!" A heavy
door slammed. Then a hail of agitated footsteps slapped across the
cobbled yard, and a voice otc indignant propriety cut off Arithon's
next question. "I'm sorry. You mustn't stay, times aren't safe. An herb
witch got herself stoned last week. She only sold a girl a love simple,
but that was enough to raise trouble. Tysan's Crown Examiner came
with a half company of sunwheel soldiers who could ride back any
moment and clap you in irons for singing the wrong sort of ballad."
    "Fiends eat my liver and lights!" The Mad Prophet snapped up
straight, shot off the buckboard, and raced to the heads of the oxen.
"Back! Hup!" He grabbed at their headstails, snatched green-slobbered
bits, and gave an almighty jerk. "You splay-footed whoresons, move
n0w.t Or by Ath, I'll singe your hairy rumps to blisters! We'll have roast
tongue for supper. While I think of it, we'll hack the rest piecemeal and
string out your entrails for fly bait."
    The oxen rolled reproachful brown eyes. They shook their capped
horns, bawled through whiskered nostrils, and begrudged him a
lumbering half step. The shaft groaned, jackknifed, and the wain
squealed to a chorus of gapped boards and stressed pe~, Willie tile
Mad Prophet yowled epithets, all four misfitted wheels rocked askew
on warped axles and jammed.
    Dakar clenched his teeth in forbearance. "For mercy," he pleaded
into four tureen ears. "For Daelion's sake, save your miserable hides!"
The fact he could hear no oncoming hoofbeats offered him small reaso
surance; a dozen crown mercenaries could be taking their ease
unseen in the innkeeper's taproom. Still hauling rein leather, he sized
up the merits of hazing the beasts with his drover's cape.
    Then another cool hand slipped over his hot ones. Arithon's voice
said, "Desist. We're not followed."
    "I should believe you?" Dakar cranked his head around like a tur-
tle who suffered a pinched tail. A bay, muscled shoulder filled his
whole view.

385

JANNY WURTS

  The Master of Shadow pried the spellbinder's fingers
 and replaced them with a supple length of bridle rein. "Leave
 cart. We're going astride."
     "What?" Dakar gawped at the post horse attached to his
 "Have you taken leave of your senses?"
  A fine-boned, race-bred mare snorted behind the bay,
 flat, as a barefoot horseboy hauled in her girth with indecorous
    The horse nipped in protest, caught short by an elbow as Arithon'
looped his lyranthe to her saddlebow. Dakar's urgent questions were
ignored. Back turned, the Shadow Master scrounged underneath the
cart's filthy cargo of sacking, then straightened, buckling on his
baldric with its sheathed burden of sword and dagger.
    From the innyard, the fussy infant wailed on through commotion,
while some unseen servant shouted to a scullion, "Hurry up and
fetch that satchel from the loft!"
    "Damn you! What's afoot?" Dakar shoved between stamping
horseflesh, his cloak wadded up in the crook of his elbow, and his feet
in grave threat of maceration. "No innkeeper in his right mind trades
prize post mounts for two bone-skinny oxen and a wain overdue to
be hacked up for kindling."
    Arithon flipped the mare's reins over her high neck and mounted.
"There's a free singer in trouble." His fingers, flying, adjusted the
hang of a stirrup. "Time's short. You'll hear as we ride."
    Dakar stuck his toes in to argue, while the horseboy disappeared.
A potbellied graybeard scurried from the yard, burly arms clutched
round a saddlebag. Slung across his shoulder was a fleece-wrapped
bundle that looked to contain a second lyranthe.
    "Here." The man wheezed to a stop and unloaded his burden into
Dakar's already taxed charge. "The singer naturally couldn't take his
belongings. Left here in irons, poor wretch." A coin sack teetered onto
the top of the load, forcing Dakar to bobble sidewards to avert a spill.
    "There's his silver, as well," the innkeeper explained. "Mine's an hon-
est house. Won't take advantage of a man caught aback by misfortune."
    "What misfortune?" Dakar ejected through the horse-reeking
leather of the saddlebags.
    "You didn't hear?" The landlord scrubbed moist hands on his
apron. "Sunwheel soldiers and a weasel-faced examiner arrested the
minstrel I had quartered here. Condemned him to burn. They said
that the singing of legends threatens innocents. I tell you, what's hap-
pened to good sense? Unkempt louts drew cold steel in my taproom
and bedamned to any grace of hospitality. Never mind it's my inn
will suffer the blame and the satires."

/

386

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    "This has nothing to do with us," Dakar insisted. He juggled his
load, and ineffectively tried to return the unwieldy collection. The
lyranthe slipped and banged his knee with a ringing, hollow clunk,
and a harness buckle snagged in his mustache. "Will you listen?" he
cried in breaking, fresh temper. "My companion and ! are not inter-
ested."
    But the landlord only shouted to roust up some laggard from the
tavern. "Wenj! Jump on it! They need those provisions now, not next
week!"
    The prospect of victuals deflated Dakar's protests. He stood,
breathing hard, while the innkeeper narrowed incensed, dark eyes,
saying, "Dharkaron's Spear strike the unsavory brutes! My reputa-
tion's in ruins. Better I ask for the Fate Wheel's turning than see a free
singer take harm during his stay in my tavern. There's curse and mis-
fortune in the breach of a bard's right to shelter."
    "You'll have no such bad luck," Arithon assured, then beckoned
for haste as the horseboy trotted out with a third mount, this one a
fancy iron gray gelding with snowflake dapples, and a bridle which
trilled, sewn with bells and flamboyant red tassels.
    "The singer's own palfrey," the landlord explained through
Dakar's flabbergasted glare of mutiny. "Bless you both! If you can
spare that poor wretch from the fire, the horses are yours with my
compliments. That's the best I can do. Grain-fed mounts aren't easy to
come by, not since the season's been harsh. But you'll need the advan-
tage to outrun the sunwheel guardsmen."
    "Guardsmen?" The sidling horse trod on Dakar's toe. Before he fell
over in an avalanche of goods, the horseboy stepped in, hooked the
lyranthe and packed saddlebags from his wobbling grasp, and
secured them onto the palfrey.
    "Rip off the bells," said Arithon, succinct. "We don't need the noise
to betray us."
    "If you think we can save anybody, you're mistaken," Dakar
snapped.
    "Oh dear." The innkeeper wilted. While the horseboy paused, the
plink of bronze bells choked in dispirited fists, he implored, "Who
else is left?"
    Dakar shot a venomous glower at Arithon. Green eyes watched
him back, implacable as glints in sheared emerald, with all the fresh
sorrows of Riverton like a spiked canker beneath.
  The Shadow Master insisted, "I gave my promise."
    No plea, but a warning; Dakar shut his teeth in balked temper. As
the inn's kindly matron fluttered out with a bulging pannier of

387

                JANNY WURTS

 provender, he shrugged; and discovered the coin sack still grasped i~
 the hand underneath his rucked cloak. That saving fact raised ~
 smile like gilt on bad tin. "Well then. We'll give your bard's rescue ou
 diligent best."
     Dakar crammed the silver down the neck of his shirt before
 innkeeper recovered his aplomb. The venture perhaps made
 ble sense. Gifts of coin and horses were no sort of boon for two
 tives to spurn for the overnice scruple of honesty. While
 innkeeper gushed his effusive relief, and Arithon took directions to
 the hamlet, the Mad Prophet busied himself checking the bay's girth
 to make sure his tat bulk could stay mounted.
    "The burning was to happen between the flour mill and the,glass-
works," the inn matron finished, while the horseboy tossed over the
palfrey's neck rope, and Arithon set heels to the mare.
    Caught flat-footed, Dakar forgot to shut his mouth. Departing
hooves churned up a gobbet of mud, which vengefully clipped him in
the teeth. Hornet mad, he spat grit, clambered astride, and gave
chase, while stirrups too long to suit his short legs clanged and bat-
tered his dangling ankles.
    A league down the road, stretched flat at a gallop, he shouted
through a stinging lash of mane. "You can't mean to try this. The risks
are enough to serve up our guts raw on the sword of Lysaer's execu-
tioner! Even if we bolt now, someone will remember our foolish
exchange at the tavern. Since you chose such rash lengths to be quit of
those oxen, we'd be wise to turn off of the thoroughfare."
    "I spoke in good faith," Arithon flung back, breathless, while the
horses careened neck and neck through a turn. "Didn't you recognize
the silver bosses on the gray palfrey's saddle?"  Dakar's rank epithet allowed he had not.
    Arithon steadied his mare's stride and urged greater speed, ran-
kled to acid impatience. "The free singer they're to execute is Felirin
the Scarlet." As his mount stretched her nose and thundered ahead,
his voice eddied back through the turbulence. "You'll remember
Felirin once helped save my life."
    "Red tassels, oh Ath, of course!" The Mad Prophet regained recol-
lection; as well as loud clothes, the free singer affected complete indis-
cretion before bone-headed, townborn intolerance. "Felirin always did
know just the right ballad to set headhunters brawling with fists."
Dakar tried and failed to match his companion's sinuous agility
astride. His seat smacked the saddle, his mount jibbed and pecked; left
trailing by three lengths, he hollered admonition, "You know you're
turning one minstrel's misfortune into a lunatic's play for disaster."

388

             FUGITIVE PRINCE

    But Arithon by then had forced too wide a lead to bother to frame a
reply.

     The Mad Prophet scrubbed sweat from his neck and sagged
 against the gapped boards of the glassmaker's shed. "Ath, I'm too old
 and fat for this."
     His breathing ran ragged. His heart sped too fast. The muffled
 thunder in his ears came as much from the beat of his own rushed
 blood, as from the rumble of the mill's vanes, turning. The two frame
 buildings notched the mild rise, and beyond them, the tide-driven
 thrash of sea breakers, ripping a white, sandy headland. The hollow
 between held a spindly row of cottages, a cobbler's shop, and a black-
 smith's: the hamlet they had lathered good horses to reach before the
 free singer's burning.
     A glance at the gathering packed onto the commons showed that
 the plight of the minstrel was hopeless.
    "You don't have an obligation," he exhorted to Arithon, crouched
motionless behind the glassmonger's rickle of supplies. "What you
face is a clear invitation to suicide, and if you try, I'll have no choice
but to invoke the blood oath you swore under Fellowship sanction at
Athir."
    "Who would answer? The Sorcerers are all gone to Havish for King
Eldir's wedding." Arithon did not turn his head, but shifted his van-
tage between the piled quartz sand, the green piggins of iron oxides,
and the sacks imported from the fens of West Shand where saltwort
was burned into soda ash.
    "Why can't you hear reason for once in your born life?" Dakar
clapped his cheeks in frustration. "Now would be a nice time to start
listening."
    Sweat trickled down his spine, steamed through his clothes by the
kilns, which beat rippled air through the gapped boards. While
the miller's dogs yapped, and a woman's railing punched through
the sonorous bass of crown authority, the sun scudded under a burl of
cloud. Catcalls from the bystanders maligned the prisoner on his pile
of oiled faggots, no encouragement. With at least ten guardsmen
attached to the official now citing the formal charges, Dakar read bad
odds. The crown soldiers were from Lysaer's elite division, their sun-
wheel cloaks white as strewn snowdrifts amid the drab motley of the
countryfolk.
    Arithon regarded the tableau with the unswerving attention that
boded the worst sort of consequence. "Felirin is condemned for
singing the ballad of Tal Quorin, as written by Halliron sen Al'duin,"

389

                JANNY WURTS
 he said. "Ath knows where he learned the rendition. He must have
 spent time with the clans."
     "Daelion's bollocks!" Dakar shivered, hands latched in his cloak to
 shut out the plucking breeze off the sea. "Small wonder they'll bum
 him."
     "They won't." Arithon ducked, doubled back, and slid down
 beside Dakar. "Since I can't turn that crowd with steel in plain sight,
 I'll need to borrow your mantle."
     The Mad Prophet rammed upright, swearing. "Man, that's a death
 wish! You dare not be seen here!" Certainly not after an unexpurgated
 ballad which maligned the s'Ilessid prince as a butcher made blind by
 self-righteous morality and arrogance.
   "Your cloak," Arithon repeated. "Dakar, stop arguing.t"
     The Shadow Master spun in fraught urgency as the door banged at
 the front of the glass house. A boy hurried out with a torch from the
 kiln fires, streaming a tang of dark smoke.
   Still Dakar hesitated. "I can't sanction such risk."
     "Then I must." The Shadow Master snatched up the drover's oiled
 wool, ripped the cloth through unwilling fingers until his companion
 stood stripped to his jerkin.
     "Felirin delivered no less than the truth! A free singer's rights
 should hold his life sacrosanct, and I am Halliron's successor! If I don't
 stand forth and protest this injustice, can't you see? Any minstrel in
 Tysan could burn for composing an ordinary satire!"
     In Arithon's hands, the vast, caped cloak flared and settled over
 taut shoulders. "I need you to frame up two runes of mastery for ele-
 mental fire. Draw them here, in my palms."
    He pressed a twig of charcoal scavenged from the glassmaker's
midden into the spellbinder's nerveless grasp. "Damn you, think!
Dakar, I can't douse live flame with bare shadow. Not when my mage
talent's blinded."
    A surging cry from the onlookers marked the moment the sun-
wheel guard captain bent and set torch to the faggots.
    The Crown Examiner hailed over their noise, "May Daelion
Fatemaster find you repentant as you pass his Wheel in judgment!"
    "Dharkaron, Ath's angel, avenge me instead!" the condemned
musician hurled back. Disheveled, not young, his face scraped and
bruised, he let outrage fuel his dignity. His voice sliced through the
burgeoning crackle of flame and carved the first lines of a bard's
curse.
    Dakar pressed stubby fingers to his face. He could not look, lest he
weep. While the singer's defiance clipped short in a rasping cough,

390

FUGITIVE PRINCE

speech failed him. His throat closed, too parched to shape words to
gamer the ritual permissions.
    Arithon's prompt spurred on laggard memory. If his talent was
silenced, he still had trained knowledge. The graven discipline of a
masterbard's diction bridged a channel for clear concentration, even
through the first stifled whimpers from the victim chained on the
pyre. Then his slim, urgent hand, thrust through Dakar's damp one,
firm enough to steady them both as the branching runes to blight fire
were inscribed in crumbling ash.
    "Touch anything, even your weapons, and the marks are going to
smear," Dakar cautioned.
    Arithon tossed off a nod, tucked cupped hands out of sight in the
folds of the cloak.
    Irrevocably committed, he emerged from the cover of the glass-
works, strides limned by the diamond-shard heaps of white cullet. He
advanced past the rain-channeled mounds of pure sand, straight as
Dharkaron Avenger's ebon spear in the furling layers of his leathers.
When his head tipped that familiar listening angle askance, a friend
could do naught but feel the heart tear for the moment's brazen,
doomed courage.
    "Daelion Fatemaster wept!" the Mad Prophet ground out. "For
merciful sense, turn back."
    For one hagridden moment, dogged by the leaping surge of the
flames, Arithon raked and measured the backs of the crowd
ranged against him. They were fifty against one: the curs circling
the fringes in whining excitement; the knots of weeping women;
and the glassmonger's burly craftsmen, bare arms and furrowed
foreheads ruddied by the heat. They still wore hide aprons
smeared with ash and the singe prints of cinders, while the rods
and tongs of their trade hung cool between idle fists. Beyond
them, drawn in from the plow, farmsteaders watched with their
droves of barefoot children, the clappers to scare the wild birds
from the seed grain clenched silent in slender fingers; next the
hands from the mill, blanched head to toe with musty flour; then
the grandames and old men, stoic as aged oak with the soldiers
between them, impassive in their white-and-gold cloaks and
prideful, expressionless faces.
    All eyes tracked the fire, braiding hot tongues of carnelian through
the snagged heap of faggots. In horror, in macabre, slack curiosity, the
manifest presence of death held them riveted. The free singer writhed
now for their sick fascination. His suffering became a spectacle, sup-
ple hands rammed taut in steel bonds, all the gifted splendor of his

391

 voice broken hoarse as the inevitable, blistering pain cracked through
 its fallible timbre.
     Arithon's survey touched last on the crown's high official, his bril-
 liance sullied by the risen smoke of his sacrifice, and his righteous-
 ness backed by the helmed ranks of his retinue.
    Lord Examiner Vorrice sat enthroned on a plank propped across
the clouded bricks that were pigs of raw glass, stacked ready for
export to town craftshops. He wore the sunwheel of vested authority
with an unswerving dedication, his jowls shaven, and his fleshy ~
mouth tucked like pleats basted into raw silk. His view was untram-
meled as the slight, dark-haired Masterbard broke his stance and
stepped forward, voice raised and soaring in song.
    Th~ vcr~ und m~lody in ~r~ a cappella were the same ones per-
formed long ago for Halliron's widow at Innish.
    Dakar heard the words, mute. He sensed the true notes spin their
harmonic magic. This was the appeal that Arithon's dead master had
written for his art, a plea for mercy and a cry for understanding from
a family abandoned through the demands imposed by his talent. In
an expression of distilled pain, Halliron had claimed freedom to
pledge his life to the immortal tradition of music.
    Flattened against the glass shed, Dakar felt the first lines stab
through him, whetted to a lance of bright power. Stripped of accom-
paniment, Arithon's voice became a honed weapon. The spare, severe
handling of each flowing lyric came tempered to unassailable force.
Another step, a second verse; song unstrung every tie of resistance
and stormed the floodgates of emotion.
    Arithon crossed the beaten earth of the commons. Through the rip-
tide of release as his powers reached resonance, his directive held
true: to captivate, then to bind, through a suspension of irresistible
beauty. On his makeshift dais, the Lord High Examiner's pouched
chin jerked in startlement. Below him, heads turned, those hatless
and wind tangled and bald, and others in gold-blazoned helms. Then
the bard who demanded in naked, clean song reached their midst.
    He would be recognized. The yelping cur silenced. Humanity
paused, pierced through by a masterbard's construct of absolute,
unalloyed sorrow.
    A figure alone, Arithon parted them. His nerve stayed as iron.
Above the evil crack of caught flame, his melody unreeled, simple
and fine as poured water.
  The sea breeze now wafted a sickening stink of singed flesh.
    Sheltered, still safe, Dakar laced his hands over the clench in his
gut. "Ath, merciful Ath."

392

FUGITIVE PRINCE

     Nearest to the pyre, Arithon s'Ffalenn must endure through the
 reek of the fumes. His concentration must not waver. Pitch and syn-
 tax must cleave to perfection, even through the ugly, shuddering
 moan as the victim's gray head thrashed to the first nip of agony.
     The bard's step trod its measure, nerveless, detached. His voice did
 not quaver. Each sustained note razored out in true pitch, harmony
 and word interlaced to create one matchless tapestry. Power as wide
 as new morning forced the horror at bay; drew each of the onlookers
 singly and turned them. Pitted against time, and the fire's cruel lead,
 Arithon s'Ffalenn weaned the watchers away from their morbid fasci-
 nation. He thralled them to his art with spellbinding clarity. Each
 step, each staid beat, he must be aware: once Felirin gave way to a
 full-throated scream, his effort would be shattered wholesale.
     The enchantment he fashioned was founded on nothing beyond a
 fugitive brilliance of sound.
     Second to second, he fused his art's focus. His will, his voice, his
 irrefutable bearing netted guards and bystanders, and held them in
 rooted attention. Dakar watched them, terrified, aware of the flaw in
 the odds; his heart skipped for cold knowledge that one whelming
 dissonance would splash those superb ties of empathy to ruins.
     All eyes tracked the bard, now, except for one rheumy, bent grand-
 mother.
     "Damn her, she's deaf," Dakar whispered through the unbidden,
 salt taste of tears. Sweat dripped through his beard. His lungs felt
 strapped in lead. The thud of each heartbeat slammed hammer to
 anvil against the locked bone of his sternum.
    Arithon threw back his head. Face tipped to sky, he hurled all he
was into the song's final verse.
    The talent he commanded ran through him like light, and snatched
the stilled air into feeling.
    Nothing moved but the flames. Dakar, himself paralyzed, felt
mage-sense cry warning. Such winding power as this could not be
indefinitely sustained. The tension had climbed to the threshold of
peril, with each listener poised like blown bubbles of glass that the
first jarring tap must collapse.
    Then, at last, elbowed by the wizened grandfather at her side, the
recalcitrant old woman turned her head.
"Now!" Dakar whispered. "Arithon, you have them, act now.t"
Immersed mind and heart in the throes of his art, his audience net-
ted like fish, the bard freed his hands from the cloak. Dakar croaked
the ritual word of release; and the sketched charcoal runes to bind fire
laid into Arithon's palms raised their element to primal awareness.

393

 ~,~',x~,'~'-,~,,~,
    While all eyes were averted, an unnatural
  and smothered the flames on the pyre.    Felirin broke into choking, hysterical sobs.
      Throughout, the descending beat of sung melody never
  missed precise rhythm. Each note rang true, each word
  place to hold the disparate bystanders enthralled. In timing
  the fine hairs at the neck, Arithon s'Ffalenn reached the dais.
  stopped. He hurled down his falling, last line like a gauntlet; and fell
  silent at the feet of the crown's Lord Examiner.
      In the aboT-m~,e of art, the tmchartged voice of nature ground as a
  shock on the ears.
      Past the ramshackle eaves of the craft sheds, surf slammed and
  hissed over unyielding sand. The racketing creak of the mill's turning
  vanes, and the shrill calls of gulls grated on dream-wakened nerxes.
  Against that structureless absence of melody, Felirin's wi~i~npers
  struck like a whiplash of shame.
      Through the riveted focus cauterized by his art, Arithon s't~'tal~,nn
  addressed the robed man on the dais. "What is a song, or a wo~'d brita
  thought given wing? A man should not burn for expression ~,! id~.as.
  The sentence passed here offers frightening precedents. tit-l~as
  forthright speech become one and the same thing, to be tr~,.~t as a
  deed that caused harm? Do we allow you to end a man's life ~~ ~ tire
  because you disagree with his music?"
      "That's rank impertinence!" Vorrice leaned forward, t~r~. '~:~d
 raised to summon his guardsmen, and the knuckles of tt~t ,~ther
 splayed over the pristine lap of his robe. "This was a crown try. ~~ held
 under seal of the realm's lawful regent." His tight, narrowe~~ ~'ves
 refused the appeal, and his brows clumped above his wedged nos-
 trils. "I see no grounds for any commoner to intervene with the works
 of Prince Lysaer's justice."
    Arithon stood his ground, arms lightly crossed beneath the caped
shoulders of the drover's cloak. "I'm Athera's titled Masterbard,
affirming the law of the land and a free singer's right, as you see."
Chiseled, imperious, yet in the crowd's sympathy through the spelled
meshes tied by his song, he cracked a command to the guards. "You
there! Unshackle the minstrel you have wronged. He's no felon, but
the victim of injustice."
    The ploy almost worked. Two soldiers broke ranks in reflexive obe-
dience.

394

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

     Vorrice surged to his feet. "Hold hard! Are we half-witted dupes to
 jump for the first softhearted meddler who speaks?" To Arithon, he
 shouted, "You presume far too much!" The snap of his rage reordered
 his guardsmen, and a murmur arose, as one, then another of the
 bystanders awakened to the fact that the flames in the pyre had extin-
 guished.
     "There's sorcery here, sure as the mother who bore me," someone
 cried.
     Farmhands and craftsmen made signs against evil, while matrons
 snatched their children and hustled them to safety inside the craft
 sheds and cottages.
     Dakar ripped out an oath, while fear stirred a palpable current
 through the gathering. The unarmed onlookers crowded a step back,
 while first one, then another guard's sword sang from their sheaths.
 They advanced, bristling; not to un!eck shackles, but to hem Arithon
 s'Ffalenn inside a nervous circle of steel.
    "You mistake what you see," Vorrice said, his confidence oiled by
the shielding ranks of his guardsmen. He smoothed a wrinkle from
his robe and explained in condescending forbearance, "Felirin does
not burn as a singer. He stands duly sentenced as the minion of the
Master of Shadow. As such, every man must agree, he poses grave
danger to all of us. No masterbard's privilege can excuse those who
side with the Spinner of Darkness. Such license would lead us to ruin.
My given office, by the seal of this realm, is to rout out hidden ser-
vants of evil. You could be one of them. Tell me your name."
    "Tell me yours, instead, puppet!" A brazen contempt sharpened
Arithon's voice, clear over the crowd's stirring murmurs behind him.
"Or do you not wear another man's gloves, and parrot another man's
lies to give yourself airs and importance? Show these people here you
can think for yourself. Or take my promise, you'll have a satire the
five kingdoms won't readily forget!"
  "Remove him!" snapped Vorrice. "He has upset proceedings."
    The guardsmen pressed in, hampered. They were many ranged
against one, without proper space to wield arms. Dakar watched
them close in, racked by agonized helplessness. Like the stag men-
aced by the jaws of a wolf pack, their quarry must know: the least
step in retreat would trigger aggression against him.
    Arithon's feet shifted stance beneath the cloak as he answered in
searing, soft mockery. "A contest of force cannot make your cause
right. You're a misled zealot, or else hopelessly stupid."
    Vorrice bristled. "Should I care what you think?" Gold braid
flashed at his cuff as he snapped knobby fingers at his guard captain.

395

JANNY ~URTS

"Clap him in irons! He'll share the minstrel's pyre. Let him die in
anonymity. The mother who named him won't even weep when the
sea wind has scattered his ashes."
  "But his mother didn't name him," a gruff, broken voice cut in.
  "No," Dakar groaned.
    Forgotten at the stake, sick and bewildered from inhaled smoke
and the blistering pain of burned legs, the condemned minstrel
cleared his throat and spoke out. "You don't know whom you
address?"
    Felirin raised his smudged face and laughed in dazed triumph for
the fact he still breathed, singed and degraded, but graced with an
unlooked-for protector. "You face the Master of Shadow himself,
called Arithon by his maternal grandfather. And burn him? Just try!
With my own eyes, in Tornir Peaks, I once saw his birth gift quench
the fires spat from the jaws of a Khadrim."
    Arithon's shout pealed through the crowd's shocked astonishment.
"Fool!" he cried to Vorrice. As though he were not cornered, nor help-
lessly outmatched, he surged ahead, seized the towering mistake of
Felirin's loose tongue as a tactic of raw desperation. "Did you think you
could threaten a sorcerer's minion with a mere ten guardsmen to defend you?"
    He hurled off the cloak. The scream of black steel drawn from his
sheath came entwined with a soundless descent of pure darkness.
    Then that seamless, unnatural night burst in turn, smashed asun-
der by unbridled light.
    The guardsman singled out as Arithon's first target reeled back as
the runes in the longsword, Alithiel, flared into white mage-fire in
just cause of Felirin's defense. The Paravian blade in a masterbard's
hand could not but welcome a free singer's right to disseminate truth,
clothed in the fine art of music.
  Its cry of bright power sheared the air into recoil.
    Undone by terror before blows could be struck, the sunwheel sol-
dier fled. Behind the glass house, Dakar dropped prone as the
untamed chord which had first Named the winter stars knifed
through the ramshackle hamlet.
    Seared blind by fierce light, struck deaf by a peon of resounding
celebration, every man ranged against Arithon s'Ffalenn lost his will
to attack. Thought faltered and stopped. Grand harmony grown too
refined to endure held them rooted, until mortal spirit longed to
escape the bounds of its own living flesh. Onlookers unmanned by
sheer splendor broke down and wept for a rapture too mighty for rea-
son to encompass, and for a beauty too sharp for the clay of earth-
bound senses.

396

FUGITIVE PRINCE

     The enchantment built to a shattering crescendo. Reduced to shrill
 screams, Vorrice cowered on the dais. His less fortunate guards lost
 wits to flee as the land itself woke in reply. The ground shook to that
 spiraling resonance of celebration. Dust flew as the wild winds
 sprang aloft, to spin the arch of the sky into ecstasy. Caught in the
 breech, man's works became winnowed like so much chaff set to the
 flail.
     The glass pigs whined into crystalline cracks. First one, then
 another of them sheared through and collapsed to a sleeting slide of
 white fragments. The crown's Lord Examiner toppled from skewed
 planks and landed, raked bloody and weeping. None heard his dis-
 tress. Any whose feelings had maligned Felirin became trapped in the
 well of raised force from the sword.
    Deadwood burst new leaves. Forged metal heated in sympathetic
vibration, until swords and armor racked apart into smashed links
and tinseled shards. Within heartbeats, the prostrate, stupefied guard
stood stripped to the shreds of their gambesons.
    At the apex of power, charged head to foot by a wave of unbridled
joy, Arithon s'Ffalenn cried aloud. Athera's titled Masterbard, sound
was his element. Ceded a cresting tide of roused earthforce, he
required no mage-sight to apply the fine dictates of his training.
    Dakar thrust to his feet, prepared for the outcome. The
Teir's'Ffalenn had accomplished much the same feat before, when an
accident of song had unleashed the grand mysteries during a summer
solstice in Jaelot.
    Arithon raised his schooled voice. Merged with the harmonies
fired by the sword, he sang the exacting resonance to wake steel. The
bolts snapped in Felirin's fetters. Chain and shackles clanged free.
Limned in the glare of the Paravian guard spell Arithon kicked aside
smoking bundles of faggots. Cinders whirled, sullen, in his wake as
he reached the dazed singer and shouldered the man's failing weight.
  "Run!" he implored.
    In his hand, the sword passed through its crescendo. The sheeting
flare off the runes bled from white to silver, then sank, sparkling into
subliminal haze. While Arithon spun shadow to confuse their escape,
Dakar reached his side, hands outthrust to stave off Felirin's collapse.
  He said, urgent, "You don't have to walk far, we have horses."
  Together, he and Arithon hauled the singer away from the charred
  bundles of faggots. Drunken flight carried them through the dazed
  guardsmen. They wove past the stacked saltwort, and ducked under
  the eaves of the craft shed, to explosions of fragmenting glassware as
  the sword's diminished vibration unleashed fresh destruction inside.

397

J~N� WUR~$

    To Arithon, in horrified admiration, Dakar gasped, "Ath preserve!
If you planned this, you know you've just handed Lysaer's Alliance
all the fighting cause they need to raise the whole countryside a~ai~st
yOU."
    Running as though traced in a frozen strobe of lightning, Aritl~0n
stung back in dry irony, "That's presupposing we manage to surx i~'e
the next hour. Once that examiner and his guard find their x~'~ts,
they'll be at our heels like fell vengeance."

398

Spring 5653

Parchment and Seal

Nine years into crowned rule, King Eldir of Havish still bore the
weight of royal office like the encumbrance of effete finery draped on
the shoulders of a laborer. His blunt nose, square face, and bluff man-
ner were misleading. More than his high council and his guild minis-
ters had been fooled into believing they could intrigue as they
pleased, masked in deferent manners and false honesty. When the
shrewdest of them all, the Lord Mayor of Westcliff, took a hard fall in
his effort to thwart the disbanding of the headhunters' leagues, the
king was barely eighteen, still fresh from his Fellowship coronation,
and nicked with scabs from inept first acquaintance with a razor.
    By the hour of his Grace's twenty-first birthday, those titled offi-
cials left standing knew not to regard the Westcliff affray as a slip of
poor luck or chance accident. By main strength and hard wits, his
Grace of Havish had routed the most entrenched town policies from
their bloodletting feud against clansmen.
    At the age of twenty-six, the realm remained in firm hand, with the
Second Age site at Telmandir crawling with stonemasons working to
lift tumbled walls out of ruin. If Eldir still donned his state jewels
with reluctant, stiff-shouldered forbearance, only those outside
ambassadors who were deaf to advice misread his farmbred appear-
ance. Even in private conference with a Sorcerer, his p~at brown eyes
stayed disarmingly direct. His hands, square and blunt, rested at
ease. Beneath them, the inked script of state parchments unfurled
across the battered deal planks which served as his council-hall table.

399

JANN� WURT$

    "Choose your stance firmly," said Sethvir of Althain, perched opp0-
site. His woodsprite's face peered out in concern from a wren's nest
of tangled white hair. Shadowed by the gloom under soot-darkened
ceiling vaults, he seemed a bundle of discarded maroon velvet,
crossed legs tucked up like a child's in the ostentatious gilt chair Eldir
kept at hand to mollify disputing merchants. His inquisitive fingers
traced the earthenware mug nestled askew in his lap as he added,
pity the need that makes this step necessary, and I warn, what peace
you buy will be temporary."
  Without visible emotion, the king snapped his fingers to his
tary, then accepted the waiting, dipped quill. He jagged the
loops of his signature as if the act by itself framed defiance. in tr~~th~
no foot'rag for compromise existed. The ban on slave labor ~~',~ a
point of charter law, held in faith by the Fellowship Sorcerers'
compact with the Pararians.
    "Since I don't plan to abdicate, pity has no place." Eldir's
regard rested back on Sethvir. "I won't have my edict against
defied. Nor will I see my harbormasters tempted with bribe~
beguile them to treason, or bend them to the whim of Tysan's
politics for the sake of a shipping guild's profits." The king's eye-
brows knitted in distasteful memory of the death sentence
enacted against three high-ranking offenders. "My relations witl~
Prince Lysaer are already strained over principle. Well then, my port
magistrates need waste no more trials collaring the scoundrels
meddle in the breech."
    If Prince Lysaer's guilds pursued trade with the cities of H;~,.
they would ply the king's coast in galleys rowed by free crews.
    The pen was passed back. The efficient, mousy secretary had ~,~
already heated, Havish's great seal and scarlet ribbons prepared tro~
long habit as the royal fingers snapped again.
    Eldir impressed the realm's blazon, the formality of his words
odds with his gesture as he skated the parchment across the wor~'
trestle to Sethvir. "As King of Havish, sanction is asked with
sealed intent. This day I request Fellowship assistance to enforce
realm's charter, bound to me by oath from my line's founding ance~.
for, Bwin Evoc s'Lornmein."
    "By your leave." The Sorcerer traced an apparently negligent fin-
ger over the wafer of warmed wax. His gaze stayed fixed on the othe~
hand, aimlessly rolling his mug to and fro, while his drifty regar~~
seemed absorbed by the shifting, whorled patterns sluiced throug)~
the grounds by the dregs.
  King Eldir knew better. Moment to moment, immersed in the

400

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 world's multiplicity of events, Sethvir tracked the life threads of men,
 and sparrows, and flies. On that one second's effortless thought, his
 consciousness unriddled a chain of disturbance that whipped the
 s0uthcoast of Korias to a burst of unseasonal activity.
     His far-flung awareness sensed three riders in flight, two of them
 unwell; and a storm brewing; and the shouts of post riders dis-
 patched at speed to raise Alliance guardsmen from Middlecross. In
 the immediate quiet of the king's patient presence, magecraft
 bloomed under the Sorcerer's touch. A star of etched light flared over
 the fresh wax. Deft, precise, Sethvir traced a circle of glyphs. Spells
 stitched the air like the indelible glitter of foil ribbon. When he lifted
 his hand, the cipher remained, a fiery imprint cast across the royal
 blazon to seal promise of a Fellowship binding.
     "Post fair warning," he murmured, while untold miles to the
 north, a gray palfrey stumbled and her rider whimpered in pain.
 Speech maintained his divided train of thought. "In thirty days' time,
 Traithe will travel your coastline to raise an enchained spell of prox-
 imity. When his work stands complete, any galley to raise sight of
 Havish's shores will have no fettered oarsmen, on peril of Fellowship
 intervention. Every man set in manacles or kept under duress will
 have his steel struck by cold sorcery. Slave convicts go free, with their
 captains and crews to be held at the mercy of crown justice."
     "And the ships?" the King asked. "They'll remain tagged with
 banespells?"
    Sethvir shifted, his half-lidded gaze rinsed the lucent turquoise of a
sky-caught imprint in a rain puddle. His distracted reply whispered
echoes across the lofty expanse of the hall. "Impound them. Or set
them afire as you please, though they'll float without hindrance for a
paid crew."
    Outdoors, the sun emerged from a cloud. Barred light streamed
through the west bank of lancet windows, hazed with airborne dust.
The sliced edge of the mote crossed the Sorcerer's bent knee. Against
the lit flare of wine-colored velvet, his hand clamped into a fist.
  "Trouble?" asked King Eldir.
    "Not yet." Seconds passed, while the secretary fidgeted and
Sethvir's pixie features retreated into the semblance of doddering
blankness.
    A dutiful page boy poised by the doors rushed a step to rescue the
tea mug, in danger of upset amid the folds of the Warden's robe.
  The king's quelling gesture deflected the kindness. "Let be, lad."
    A minute trickled by, elusive as the fall of sand grains sieved
through an hourglass. Then Sethvir blinked, stirred, and linked

401

]ANNY WURTS

crooked knuckles through the rumpled fall of his cuffs. He flashed a
conspirator's wink to the page and rescued the canted mug himself.
"A trip to the kitchen would not be amiss. Could you bring back a
fresh pot of tea?"
    His pert smile saw the boy off on his errand, yet the glance he
bestowed back on King Eldir stayed as lapsed into distance as a fog-
bank. "Merciful maker," he grumbled. "If I'm overtaxed by any one
thing, it's intransigent princes who run amok without the saving bad
grace of planting even one bastard on a tavern wench. When you
marry next week, grant our Fellowship a boon. Breed up a clutch of
royal heirs."
     A cough as rich as aged oak escaped Eldir's sturdy palm. "Dare I
 guess?" Orfiy one other ch'fidless scion in/Mh~ ,~so~e,,~a~gbis,o
 family line. "Is Arithon being difficult again?"
     Sethvir raised miffed eyebrows. "That sort of indulgence would be
 blessed relief where the Teir's'Ffalenn is concerned, well you know as
 much."
     King Eldir curled his knuckles against his lips to nip his impolitic
 laughter. One disruptive visit to his court had been enough; Rathain's
 prince had countered Tysan's public campaign of eradication through
 a volatile mix of unlawful conniving and a devilish bent for playing
 unconscionable stakes. No matter that Havish stayed neutral through
 the feud sown by Desh-thiere's curse. All spring, the dockside at
 Ostermere had seethed with bold talk concerning the rigged ships
 disappeared from their Riverton launchings. If rumor held truth, the
 marauding crews included disaffected clansmen from Tysan.
     Since no mind might fathom the full scope of Arithon's design, the
 King of Havish asked outright, "What's Rathain's prince done this
 time?"
     Sethvir blinked. "Raised a hue and cry that has every crown-
 commissioned guard in south Korias lathering good horses to kill
 him." He scowled into space, while the reflexive span of his conscious-
 ness mapped the speed and direction of more than one far-distant set
 of hoofbeats. Then his branching thoughts riffled like cards through a
 player's deck, testing the probable offshoots of consequence.
     Amid myriad moments of unformed possibility, one stood forth, a
 diamond-clear crossroads of movement and intent pared to the fixed
 edge of destiny: in three days' time, guardsmen under a Hanshire captain
 named Sulfin Evend would close upon the three fugitives. The spells of illu-
 sion and misdirection the Mad Prophet spun to evade them would fail,
 because in the past, their commander had studied with the boy wards of the
 Koriathain. He understood very clearly how spellcraft could upset the hierar-

402

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chy of political power. The grown man had sworn his sword to the Alliance
to confront the source of that fear.
  The King of Havish said something.
    Althain's Warden replied, his m'md still enmeshed with the whirl-
wind array of unborn happenstance: when Dakar the Mad Prophet
would come to scribe a distress rune in blood upon the surface of a stone.
Under the light of a chilly, gray dawn, he would dry the figure inflame, then
cast the construct into a streamlet. At the hour his appeal for help reached the
Fellowship, time would be too short to act.
     Sethvir shifted the arc of his thoughts. A fraction of an instant let
 him catalog what resource he might call to hand. Though his powers
 as a Fellowship Sorcerer were overwhelm~mgly sufficient to effect
 complete rescue then and there, he would not, must not, do other than
 allow the threatened parties to act to save themselves. The reprieve he
 had won from a past outside of Athera's historical record still
 haunted; still seared his waking awareness. A stock of experience too
 bitter to endure had stamped its mark of immutable truth.
     By the Law of the Major Balance, his Fellowship could not use
 direct force to intervene without unseating the course of the world's
 destiny.
     The audience with King Eldir suffered a small lapse as the grievous
 pain of past losses weighed on the Sorcerer's heart. He was not com-
 placent. Once, before drake-dream had snatched the Fellowship of
 Seven to Athera, he and his colleagues had enacted their will for a
 cause. They had paid for their meddling with appalling conse-
 quences. He could not but ache before the chill wisdom that for Desh-
 thiere's curse, his Fellowship must resist the temptation to relive the
 same choices again.
     By the compact's clear terms, their powers were sworn to preserve
 the Paravian mysteries; mankind might accept steering counsel and
 assistance on request, but the ultimate course of humanity's survival
 must be shaped through self-will and free choice.  "Your tea has arrived," King Eldir prompted.
     Sethvir looked up, found a smile for the page, then exhumed his
 mug from the folds of his robe and set it upright on the table. Worn as
 he was, and tested by conscience, his gnarled grip held no palsy.
 Through the interval while a royal servant refreshed his cup, the Sor-
 cerer unreeled his considered response in the form of three direct
 appeals.
     A call arrowed out to touch Asandir, just ridden the breadth of
 tysan to test the new patterns of prejudice fanned by Lysaer's cam-
 paign to repress mage talent.

      A second tracer flagged down Kharadmon, on watch amid
  grand ward against a cold backdrop of stars; and tied in a
  the brewing spring storm in Athera's arctic latitudes.
    A third touch raised the awareness of a patriarch tree,
  and twice seared by lightning, and exchanged a pact of permission.
    One last vectored inquiry mapped cause and effect, and
  their impact on the future. Sethvir foresaw no trend of
  understanding arise out of Arithon's brash rescue of Felirin. The~
  mer would bring on more trials, more burnings, more
  recruits led to enlist by unsettled fears and strained politics. The spi-
  raling trend of Prince Lysaer's maligned belief would gain heated
  impetus, fresh spark to the trend which drew men to embrace the
  cause of the Alliance of Light.
      Misunderstanding of a sword's gifted powers served only to ignite
  a new wave of fear. The price of Fellowship assistance as always
  touched off wider ramifications.
     Sethvir sought prosaic comfort from his mug of scalding tea. When
he raised his tormented ~aze to EldJr. he offered his sorrowful for~
cast, "Very soon you will be pressured to take sides on the issue of
practicing sorcery. The mage talented will come seeking refuge within
your borders before the advent of summer solstice."
    "There's no decision to be made," Eldir said, his strong hands
reaching to gather up the spelled parchment. "Tysan's burnings are
unjust. The condemned are not criminals." For the scion of a line
renowned for mild pragmatism, he finished in vehement force. "My
crown is a mockery if Havish can't provide them with sanctuary.
We've already spoken for the refugees who flee Tysan's persecution
of the clanborn."
    Sethvir touched his crabbed fingertips against his closed eyelids.
Shadowed by the finials of the massive gilt chair, he could have been
mistaken for an arthritic grandfather, mantied in velvets too volumi-
nous for their framework of brittle, aged bones. His voice was sub-
dued as he tendered the only bright truth he could offer. "Your Grace,
because of your mercy, more than one irreplaceable clan bloodline
will be saved. That could be the one act to salvage the balance on the
hour when the Paravians choose to return."
    The spin of the Fatemaster's Wheel meantime would scarcely stop
for a platitude. The Sorcerer diffused his attention back into frag-
mented awareness; while far off to the north, amid the hummocked land-
scape of Mainmere's ruined keeps, Asandir drew rein, wheeled his stallion,
and sent it thundering back down the road he had just traversed through
Caithwood. Elsewhere, a storm gained intensity; a battered tree consented to

404

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 the hour of its death; and the Hanshire captain named Sulfin Evend clattered
    into a Middlecross posthouse, shouting for provisions and remounts with a
~! zeal the laziest horseboy must attend.
     Beyond these small happenings, hazed into momentous event with
 the passage of years; snicked warp through weft with the turn of sea-
 sons, and the fall of changed leaves, and the byplay of iyats, Sethvir
 saw sunwheel priests raise vast armies, to carpet the summer land-
 scape. Rank upon rank crossed the Lanshire border to bring Lysaer's
 cause by fire and by sword into the Kingdom of Havish.
     Unwilling to dwell uFo~ the so~o~,s Des~-t~ere's curse might
 inflict on the future, he immersed himself in particulars. "Please
 extend to your bride my Fellowship's profound regret," he said. "Due
 to an unforeseen difficulty, Asandir will be late for your wedding."
    "No matter." King Eldir arose, staid as plain granite against the
stitched silk of a tapestry. He thrust the rolled parchment under his
arm and returned his rare, even smile. "We won't see hurt feelings.
Every city mayor and guild minister your colleague shamed into
compliance for my coronation will more likely be silly with relief.
They've complained in the past that Asandir's scrutiny just makes
them sweat rings through their expensive brocades."
    But Sethvir sensed how the lightness was forced. He and Havish's
king matched an agonized glance of understanding.
    Then Althain's Warden clasped the royal wrist. "Trust your heart,
your Grace. Your decisions today have been fitting and right."
    No longer did the Sorcerer seem aged, or careworn unto fragility.
His myopic air of fuddled inattention could not mask what he was: a
spirit annealed to unassailable strength through a past few others
would survive. He owned the endurance to brave trials yet to come,
and King Eldir s'Lornmein was too wise to stay blind to consequence:
the impact of the day's event would not happen in his reign, but must
fall like a blow upon the shoulders of his unborn descendants.

405

Spring 5653

Impasse

Days later, shivering in the predawn chill of the Korias flats, Dakar
the Mad Prophet licked blood from a nicked thumb and cast his
stone construct into the shallow current of a streamlet. He ached
from the soles of his mud-spattered boots to the uncombed crown of
his head. His vision held the treacherous shimmer brought on by
overstrained hours of mage-sight. He linked pudgy hands and
stretched a kink from his back, then swore aloud for the misery that
the landscape offered dim prospects for a trio of fugitives. Driven off
the coast road, a rider could find himself mazed amid farmsteads,
with their yapping dogs and screaming geese, and where treacher-
ous stands of pasture fencing could yield up angry bulls or lethal
delays spent backtracking from unexpected cul-de-sacs. The low roll
of the fields carried sound far too clearly, and extended visibility for
miles. Those expanses too thin for tillage or grazing formed a vast,
washed floodplain of poor, stony sand, patched over with scrub too
sparse to mask fleeing hoofprints.
    Huddled amid a witch-hazel thicket wadded with morning fog,
the horses nosed the ground for straggling shoots of sawgrass, ears
limp and coats matted into dry whorls of sweat. Felirin could do little
to tend them. Salt leached into the raw burns on his hands, though
every plain shirt in his saddlebag had been torn up at need to make
dressings. Arithon had packed the worst blisters and weals with bur-
dock sprouts beaten in egg whites before he himself had succumbed
to his backlash. The inevitable penalty he must pay for channeling

406

             FUGITIVE I~RIN~E
unrefined earth powers with his mage talent blinded left him drained
near to incapacity.
    Prone amid the stripped saddles with his head cradled on his
locked arms, he made small complaint, though the tight-lipped
expression he wore when he moved told Dakar how deeply he suf-
fered. Nor had the sorrows inflicted at Riverton been lifted by his
keeping good faith with his charged duty as Masterbard. Like snags
in deep current, that unseen despondency leeched him, ebbing his
reserves without letup. He needed henbane tea and a bed warmed
with stones to ease the spasms which racked him. But sunwheel
guardsmen searched door-to-door. Farmwives would sell him to his
enemies out of fear before they would offer him shelter.
    Faint go~ck Ym~se6 ~/n~ d~ogge~, misty air. The fog was starting to
thin. Dakar clutched his ribs to suppress a chill, aware that the thicket
provided inadequate shelter. The mists would lift in less than an hour,
leaving horses and riders a sitting target for the oncoming Alliance
patrol.
    The mare chose that moment to fling up her head and whinny a
deafenixt. g inquiry. Dakar swore. "Just let the whole world know
we're here, you worthless bundle of dog meat." He dealt a pebble by
the streamside a temperamental kick.
    The stone arced aloft, but the predictable crack of its impact never
happened.
  Wary, Dakar glanced up.
    Five paces ahead, an inked phantom against mist, a black horse
and cloaked rider confronted him, their approach uncannily silent.
Even the clang of shod hooves on rinsed rocks failed to raise telltale
clatters. The horse halted, meeting Dakar's sharp start with pricked
ears, but no trace of a shy. A ghost eye gleamed like frosted glass
through the veils of dawn mist. Under a dark mantle, the rider
stirred. A hand unfurled from a gray-banded sleeve, and let the
abused pebble drop to the streambed with a murmured phrase of
apology.
     "You!" Dakar cried. "Did you have to scare a hunted man out of his
 living skin?"
     The Sorcerer Asandir inclined his head in reproof, his regard on the
 spellbinder's thumb. "You did send a summons."
     Dakar glanced down, caught aback, then closed shaking fingers
 over his still bleeding cut. "We need help," he admitted. "I've scried
 warning. The patrol I can't shake will close in by noon. If Sethvir
 doesn't already know, Earl Jieret's had Sight of a public execution, the
 condemned man being Prince Arithon."

407

~ANNY ~URTS

  Asandir sat the black stud, patient, but without speech.
     The Mad Prophet flushed slowly crimson. "I ask for Arithon's sur-
 vival," he defended.
     The Sorcerer touched the black's neck, soothing it from stamping
 off the midges which swarmed at its mud-spattered fetlocks.
 "Arithon suffers backlash, yes? As well he should expect from his
 prior experience, when he raised the Paravian mysteries at Jaelot."
   "You won't see him?" Dakar demanded.
    "He has not asked." The Sorcerer touched his horse again, and as if
language had passed between master and beast, the stud backed a
half step and wheeled to go. While Dakar stood, helpless, his bleed-
ing hand clenched to a frustrated fist, the hooded head turned. Silver
eyes met his, and one bristled brow tipped up. "How you've
changed," Asandir commented. "I should have expected at least an
impertinent question demanding to know where I'm bound."
    One moment; two; the birdsong rang loud through the thicket, and
the horse stamped. Asandir gave him rein, and nearly too late, Dakar
caught the drift of abstruse insinuation.
    "Wait!" He surged forward, hopeful, while the stud snorted his
annoyance at being checked back to a halt. "Where are you bound?"
    Asandir glanced over his shoulder, his mien like graven flint.
"There's a Paravian grimward northeast, did you know? I will be test-
ing its guarding boundary for soundness, and since Luhaine is busy,
no one will check on my back trail. A foolhardy traveler might stray
inside. Should that happen, the perils are unforgiving."
    Well aware he was cued, and blanched to hollow nerves by the
implied suggestion, Dakar recited, "Kill no beast, break no branch or
leaf from a living tree, set no fire and remove no twig or pebble."
    "Just so." Asandir's smile seemed lit as a shaft of breaking sunlight
touched his mouth underneath his deep hood. "A horse should be
muzzled to stop him from browsing. Let Arithon rest, he'll recover.
And bring Felirin with you to Shand. If the friends you have there
won't take him in, Halliron's daughter surely will. She's been lonely
and morose since her mother's death, and the city could use a new
storyteller."
    Dakar drew a weak breath to proffer his thanks, but an influx of
fog surged between. When the air cleared, both horse and Sorcerer
were gone with no sound to mark their departure.
    "Did you have a successful scrying?" husked a voice at the Mad
Prophet's shoulder.
    The spellbinder gave yet another bounding start. "Dharkaron's
black vengeance!" he hissed to Felirin, crept up on poulticed feet.

408

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 "Does everyone in creation have to sneak in here and scare me out of
 my skin?"
    "I'm sorry." The singer padded to a halt, his soiled cloak tucked
around his shoulders like a blanket. He had always possessed ele-
gance, with a handsome, straight nose and cleft chin. Stress made his
prominent bones appear gaunt, and the hair that once spilled in
waterfall waves to his shoulders now clung to his skull, frizzled and
singed like matted wool in the damp. "I thought I heard you say
something. Wouldn't you rather somebody checked to make sure you
weren't lost in a fit of prescient trance?"
    The spellbinder focused his discomfort toward his boots, as if the
hard, stony soil underfoot might sprout untrustworthy sinkholes.
"I've had guidance from the Fellowship, after a fashion."  "And they said?" Felirin probed.
    "Daelion's bollocks!" The outburst set a meadowlark to flight, but
did nothing to lift the Mad Prophet's rumpled scowl as he stomped
off to untie the horses. "We're to lose our pursuit by crossing through
a grimward."
    Felirin blanched. Hazel eyes still inflamed from the pyre showed
bloodshot rings of disbelief. "You do know it's said that those sites
guard the sleep of the great drakes. Perhaps the very ones whose true
dreams led this world to the brink of destruction before the dawn of
the First Age." He slipped a wrapped hand from the layers of his
cloak to discourage a sprig of briar that latched its green thorns in a
tassel. "Are those legends true, as the sun was?"
    "I never asked," Dakar admitted, his moon face furrowed in dis-
tress. "Althain's Warden himself never said. Asandir refused to dis-
cuss the grimwards, except to relate they were ceded to Fellowship
trust when the old races fled from the continent. Ath knows what
those circles confine. I could wish we'd never find out."
    Another rolling billow of sea fog shredded itself under sunlight. By
the time the horses were saddled, the land would be laid nearly bare.
    "I hope you like Shand," Dakar finished, the spur of haste driving
him breathless. "Because if we escape from the sunwheel guardsmen,
there's a very good chance you'll end up there."

409

Spring 5653

On the Korias flats at the hour of noon, a headhunter tracker soothes
his cringing hounds and refuses to cross the shimmering light which
frames the boundary of the Paravian grimward; despite all advice to
the contrary, the brash captain from Hanshire swears through his
teeth, calls his forty select men, and overrides their quavering dread
to continue pursuit of the Master of Shadow ....

    Three days later, a gale off Stormwell Gulf brings rain and winds
that raze trees like a scythe, and one of those fallen is a patriarch oak
which sweeps a sunwheel courier from his saddle; he recovers from a
sharp blow to the head, forgetful of the tidings which dispatched him
to Avenor: that of the riders who followed Sulfin Evend into the Para-
vian grimward, nary a one has returned ....

    In the observatory at the Koriani sisterhouse at Capewell, the last
spiraling glimmer of power fades from the grand conjury made to
trap Arithon s'Ffalenn; and like old, dried paper, the ancient Prime
stirs from her coma and opens sealed eyes to the galling discovery
that her quarry has slipped through her net without scathe ....

410

Late Spring 5653

XII. Grimward

' nside the shimmering, mercurial barrier which bounded the Para-
vian grimward, the natural progression of time dissolved. As
ú spellbinder, Dakar noticed the alarming development when his
subliminal connection to sun, moon, and stars became cut off like
snipped thread. Footsore, exhausted, and snappish from hunger, he
shut his eyes and milked his recalcitrant memory. He retained a
shamefully sparse store of facts for his years spent in Asandir's tute-
lage. What fragments he gleaned could be counted on three fingers,
jumbled as trivia between detailed reminiscence of his past trysts
and wistful hours spent wenching.
    By contrast, each one of his two-silver harlots stood out with a
jewel's exotic clarity. The quirk moved him to teeth-grinding worry,
that the fragment of lore that might key their survival would stay
obscured by the decadent pursuits of his past.
    "Well how was a drunk to know what his life might come to
depend on?" Dakar snapped to Felirin's sensible inquiry.
    Distempered and soaked in cowardly sweat, the Mad Prophet
drummed his heels against his horse and drove its balky steps
through the ward's shifting bands of coiled energy. The bard and the
Shadow Master rode behind him like shadows, the former reduced to
a petrified silence, and the latter, too undone to care where his mare's
herd instincts might lead him.

411

    The Mad Prophet wished in jangled irritation that Arithon's wits
were not scattered. This once, the other man's unmerciful perception
would have posed an indisputable advantage. For his own part, the
spellbinder found such exactitude wearing. Escape into thoughts of a
lush woman's favors seemed resounding good sense beside the out-
right insanity of braving the perils now at hand.
    Dakar yanked a wrinkle from the knee of his trousers before he
chafed a new saddle sore. He needed no scholar's insight; nothing
about a Paravian grimward would seem canny to human awareness.
The location of all seventeen known phenomena might be charted at
Althain Tower, but whole years at a stretch, a man might pass those
marked sites and encounter no trace of their presence. Through his
five centuries as a Fellowship apprentice, Dakar could not remember
one time when the Sorcerers did not attend to the grimwards alone.
    The protections which turned the inadvertent traveler from a dis-
astrous step through their boundaries were laid down with ruthless
potency. When the seals required adjustment or rebalancing, the task
was always shouldered by Asandir or Sethvir. Their discorporate cob
leagues Kharadmon and Luhaine might sometimes assist from the
sidelines by misdirecting strayed game or even the occasional two-
legged trespasser, but Dakar retained the distinct impression that
such places held consummate danger for any spirit left unshielded by
mortal flesh.
    At any cost, a man must not come to die here. Not unless he
wished to be struck from the Fatemaster's Wheel for all time. Of all
the trials suffered in Prince Arithon's service, this one trod the surest
course to folly.
    Dakar tugged a snarl of hair from his mouth, his rude stock of
oaths an inadequate quaver as three muzzled mounts bore his small
party of fugitives irrevocably into the unknown.
    Ten paces ahead, his unsettled senses ripped back into clarity. As if
an eyeblink had remade the landscape, the vista ahead showed
seared trees and sterile dust, charged in a flat tang of ozone. Currents
of wild energy flicked over riled nerves. The Mad Prophet found his
teeth set on edge, and his vitals clawed with unease. The interlaced
spells which defended this border threw off a debilitating resonance.
Leaves shriveled as they unfolded from the bud, and trees became
stunted, shedding skeletons. The blight on the land fed Dakar's dis-
quiet; he knew of the Fellowship's aversion to cause harm to anything
growing.
    Yet in this place, that dearly held tenet had been broken with stark
and appalling violence. As if this circle of spelled seals confined

412

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 something unworldly that would not respond to the kindlier magics
 wrought out of natural forces.
     The air wore the musk of seared earth and dry rot. What sky glim-
 mered through the clawed fists of bare branches loured under blank
 haze, unblessed by the face of sun or moon.
     Dakar attributed the eerie, flat murk to the proximity field of the
 wardspells. He glanced behind. Felirin found courage in lilting gentle
 nonsense to his horse. Arithon had shaken out of his stupor enough
 to gaze about. His features might seem as blank as chipped chalk. Yet
 the man who held his intimate trust could unmask that expression
 and discern the agonized frustration of a master driven sight-blind to
 mage talent.
    "Keep close," Dakar warned. Exhausted as he was, and unfit to
ride point, the others were plainly in worse state. Felirin's wrapped
hands fretted and fumbled to maintain a grip on his reins. If hazard
threatened, Arithon could scarcely stay erect in his saddle. Which
perhaps was as well; Dakar had a nasty stab of intuition that the black
sword, Alithiel, should not be drawn in this place.
    Its uncanny, bright power framed too stark a contrast to the shad-
owy forces he sensed, laced into queer, subliminal eddies by the
blameless stir of their passage.
    That disturbed awareness was torn short as his mount balked with
a jarring snort. Dakar curbed its rank fear. He peered ahead, wary,
then gasped in outright awe.
    The sere ground gave way to an expanse of polished granite.
Ancient, quarried stone was veined in tangled strata of obsidian and
milk quartz, and incised with grand arcs and figures scribed across
with Paravian runes of glowing silver.
    "You're wise to be jumpy," Dakar cajoled his timid gelding. "But
I'm the best chance you have to stay breathing. Throw me off, you'll
end up as fly meat."
    He dug in his heels, to no avail, until Felirin's more willing gray
thought to pass him. The bay's competitive nature reasserted with a
bounding start forward. Dakar swore and snatched mane as his horse
clattered onto the massive, smoothed block, the mare at its heels, her
breath sucked in fast, nervous snorts. The unease of the animals was
justified. The array underfoot was centaur work, each dressed stone
fitted seamlessly into the next with matchless and uncanny precision.
The charged coils of power in the joined ciphers made living skin
bum and tingle in waves, and threatened a ranging headache.
    Dakar could take no measure of their strength. The magic knit here
reached beyond mortal senses, mighty as time, as stately as the steadfast

413

JANN� WU~TS

 turn of the earth, and wrought on a scale to strike terror
 armor of knowledge. Through a shrill, singing dizziness, the s
 counted the eight seals for banishment. His horse skittered over
 directional, six-sided figures for safeguard, matched to the
 points, and vectored above and below. These stood laced through
 ward after ward of containment. He identified an'alt, the
 symbol for infinity, stamped over and over in ribboned light.
 runes he did not recognize at all, but the force in them struck like blades
 of ice through the thick leather boots in his stirrups.
     "I don't think I've ever seen the rune for safe-crossing aligned with
 so many ciphers to annul power," observed Arithon, ridden up on his
 sweat-draggled mare.
  Dakar swiveled in surprise. "You can read these?"
     "Only some of them. My grandfather's library at Rauven was lim-
 ited." Arithon frowned through a fallen thatch of hair, more than
 weariness making him haunted. "The resonant harmonics I can hear
 through my bard's gift are dissonances, all. Not what I'd call reassur-
 ing."
    Then, with no warning, the paved expanse ended. The horses crab-
stepped off a razed edge in the stone and into a rustling growth of
forest. One heartbeat before, no trees had been anywhere in evidence. To the
rear, the rune ring had vanished away into shadowed, random
avenues of oaks. The spellbinder took that for an ominous sign. The
guarding sigils at the portal had sealed the way closed behind them.
No return course was possible by the path they had entered. If
another safe exit to known territory existed, they must endure what-
ever perils lay ahead and unriddle the grimward's dire mysteries.
    "Ath, where is this place?" Felirin gasped. "No timber of this size
grows on the Korias Flats."
    "Well we aren't there anymore," Dakar ripped back, testy as he
bludgeoned his upended senses to gain the full use of his mage-sight.
    Yet a discipline which should have responded like reflex escaped
his effort entirely. Trained access seemed blocked. He could trace out
none of the underlying patterns to this forest's vibrant energies. The
too-sharp barrage of his unrefined vision rattled him down to the pit
of his vitals. Sight framed an impossible discrepancy. The foliage of
these giants grew out of phase with the season, cinnabar and gilt with
the fireburst palette of autumn. The maples, the beeches, and the
crowned, ancient oaks soared aloft in vaulting splendor.
    No such stand of primal forest should exist inside the fifty leagues
separating the grimward's location from the old tracts the clans held
in Caithwood.

414

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

     Dakar withstood his craven impulse to rein in by tugging his beard
 with brisk worry. "We'll need to make time. There's no guarantee
 we're not still being pursued, if those guardsmen were fools enough
 to follow us."
     But the terrain itself thwarted haste. No paths cut these wilds.
 While the party of riders ducked vines and low branches, their
 mounts picked their way in uneven steps over ground laced with
 roots like snagged rope, and through hollows where stones were
 deceptively quilted in moss deep and lush as a king's robe. Felirin
 marveled in monologue under his breath, as though he sought to
 commit such strangeness to verse. Arithon curled on his mare's
 crest, fists crushed to his forehead in pent-back, dazed misery, leav-
 ing Dakar to tax his bewildered wits and effectively function as
 guide.
    He soon discovered the impossibility of keeping straight bearings
through a grimward. The place was possessed by bewitching
strangeness. A man might choose an opening between two pillared
oaks, only to find his steps redirected him ten paces further to the left,
and on through a different byway altogether. What passed for sun-
light shone a pale, lambent gold, with ruled shafts slanting through
glades of stippled shade. Maintaining a constant sense of direction
should have posed his trail-wise party no difficulty, except the
unnerving tricks of the landscape mazed and bemused the aware-
ness.
    While Dakar puzzled to unravel the anomaly, Felirin broke off his
ongoing composition. "Whatever sort of magery's afflicted our
senses, we seem to be traveling in a circle."
    "Spiral," Arithon corrected, half-muffled through folded fingers.
His speech seemed almost drunkenly slurred, the inflection lapsed
back to the antique dialect of the splinter world of his birth. "Don't
you hear? A harmonic resonance patterns this existence that guides
the placement of each footstep."
    "What?" Dakar swiveled to stare, startled enough to ignore the
branch which slapped his exposed side. The surprise seemed unfair,
that Arithon had observed more than anyone else while apparently
lapsed into a stupor. A tug on the rein stopped his gelding, while the
Shadow Master's mount followed suit by dumb instinct.
    Felltin halted his gray, his plain, honest face charged to wonder-
ment. "Masterbard," he murmured, "in truth, Halliron's teaching
unveiled your true destiny. My life has been spent in devotion to
music, and yet, my ear can't detect this nuance you speak of."
 Sunk as the Shadow Master was in discomfort, his precise sense of

415

JANN� WURTS

language never left him. Caught back in reflective speculation by one
word, Dakar twisted aside to pursue inquiry. "Existence?"
    Like a child in creased clothes iogged out of a drea~~~ :\rith0!
straightened. He blinked unfocused green eyes. His ha~~i~ ran
sweat where he changed grip to the saddle out of shameless
stay upright. "Don't say you hadn't noticed the landscape i~
ble."
    "Damn you!" Dakar resisted a hysterical laugh. Through tl~c tre~
to the right, he had just glimpsed a broad, grassy plain. Beyo~t
skyline edged in mountains whose shattered white peaks belong:ted
no range in Athera. "Why not use your boot and kick me awake?
be eternally grateful."
    But this time, the victim was too spent to counter that lame
of sarcasm. His painstaking effort to order plain thought bec,~.~ue
trial to witness. Felirin politely averted his gaze, while
sought to translate impressions with comprehensible clarity. "I
add that the earth where your horse treads is anything but
ground."
    "Well, try the next riddle with an answer at the end." The
Prophet looped his reins in the crook of one elbow and massagt.,t
pounding temples. His balked effort to plumb the phenomel~.~
mage-sight had left him high strung and dizzy. "If I didn't kno~'
ter, I'd swear my talent's gone blind and dead as your own."
    An hour spent immersed in furious thought had left the
binder no whit the wiser. Here, the sparkling energy ties which lac
the very substance of creation did not follow any pattern laid
by natural forces. The aberration chewed him hollow with dread,
the trees, the moss, the very sun on lit leaves remained dense and
sive to mage-sense. Petrified to plumb the extent of his helpless~:~
Dakar shrugged. "If I could accept the impossible, I'd say nothin~
this place has an aura."
    Eyes shut, Arithon snapped off a nod. "You're surprised? This
ity isn't alive by any founding law of Ath's creation."
    Dakar bridled to hear his foreboding confirmed. "However
you know?"
    Too stressed for impatience, Arithon said, "I still have my bar
ear. The vibration of this existence is not myriad, but seems to
loomed from one thread." He labored to qualify. "The song of
being does not change register, not for a tree, or a rock, or an
Since the shadows as well won't answer my gift, I have to presu
they're illusions. The logical end point is scarcely reassuring. We m
be traversing a path through a dream."

416

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

     A chill splashed over Dakar's moist skin. "Save us all, don't say
 that. If that's true, somewhere there must be a great drake, still alive
 and sleeping."
     But Arithon had retreated back into dazed silence. The bay mare
 bore his suffering weight, hunched and half-senseless in the saddle,
 leaving Dakar floundering and alone with his terror.
    The warning strictures remonstrated by Asandir posed a fearful
array of hidden pitfalls. Their small party dared not disturb any
aspect of symmetry in this unworldly place. To take even apparent
life, or to strip so much as one green branch would cause a strand of
continuity to shift resonance. A balance would change, demanding
harsh forfeit, and no power of mercy might spare the offender from
the fate of that unknown consequence. Whatever fell power enacted
this sphere of illusion must not be aroused to the presence of tres-
passers.
    "As you love life, walk softly," Dakar entreated, aware the least act
could distress the loomed pattern of integral consciousness surround-
ing them.
    Their footsteps were now guided by a force of unknown magni-
tude, and retreat of any kind was impossible.
    Felirin alone retained the brash whimsy to flirt with poetic phras-
ing. "Will we or nil we, we're drawn toward the center. I wonder
what we're going to find?"
    "Something Asandir never spoke of, even on his good days." Fed
up with the minstrel's feckless temperament, Dakar let fly out of
pique. "Take great care you don't snap any twigs."
    For whatever unearthly pocket this grimward carved out, they had
no choice but to grapple its uncanny mystery headlong.

The first time the apparent season changed, Felirin cried out in
shock.
    Dakar gawped and inhaled the frizzled ends of his mustache. His
perception had not lied. The leafed autumn wood had transformed at
one step to the cobalt gloaming of winter twilight. Low, rolling hills
lapped away to a snow-clad horizon. Treeless, the crests wore
mantling drifts like honed cleavers. The wind snarled and gusted.
The breath Dakar drew to indulge in rank curses sieved cold like
spilled mercury through his lungs.
    The forest was gone as if expunged from existence, and the new
vista offered no shelter. Too exhausted to bolt, the horses shivered
and stamped, their labored exhalations trailing white plumes against
the deepening purple of dusk. The stars blazed overhead like chips in

417

FUGITIVE PRINCE

A chill splashed over Dakar's moist skin. "Save us all, don't say
If that's true, somewhere there must be a great drake, still alive
and sleeping."
    But Arithon had retreated back into dazed silence. The bay mare
bore his suffering weight, hunched and half-senseless in the saddle,
leaving Dakar floundering and alone with his terror.
    The warning strictures remonstrated by Asandir posed a fearful
array of hidden pitfalls. Their small party dared not disturb any
aspect of symmetry in this unworldly place. To take even apparent
life, or to strip so much as one green branch would cause a strand of
continuity to shift resonance. A balance would change, demanding
harsh forfeit, and no power of mercy might spare the offender from
the fate of that unknown consequence. Whatever fell power enacted
this sphere of illusion must not be aroused to the presence of tres-
passers.
    "As you love life, walk softly," Dakar entreated, aware the least act
could distress the loomed pattern of integral consciousness surround-
ing them.
    Their footsteps were now guided by a force of unknown magni-
tude, and retreat of any kind was impossible.
    Felirin alone retained the brash whimsy to flirt with poetic phras-
ing. "Will we or nil we, we're drawn toward the center. ! wonder
what we're going to find?"
    "Something Asandir never spoke of, even on his good days." Fed
up with the minstrel's feckless temperament, Dakar let fly out of
pique. "Take great care you don't snap any twigs."
    For whatever unearthly pocket this grimward carved out, they had
no choice but to grapple its uncanny mystery headlong.

The first time the apparent season changed, Felirin cried out in
shock.
    Dakar gawped and inhaled the frizzled ends of his mustache. His
perception had not lied. The leafed autumn wood had transformed at
one step to the cobalt gloaming of winter twilight. Low, rolling hills
lapped away to a snow-clad horizon. Treeless, the crests wore
mantling drifts like honed cleavers. The wind snarled and gusted.
The breath Dakar drew to indulge in rank curses sieved cold like
spilled mercury through his lungs.
    The forest was gone as if expunged from existence, and the new
vista offered no shelter. Too exhausted to bolt, the horses shivered
and stamped, their labored exhalations trailing white plumes against
the deepening purple of dusk. The stars blazed overhead like chips in

417

               JANNY WUI~T$

black ice. No moon arose to diminish their splendor, nor did the
stellarions form any pattern familiar to Athera.
    Arithon volunteered his sparse comment through a pause to share
the brandy the innkeeper's wife had tucked into the provisions in the
saddlebags. "I know this sky. The stars were never so bright, but on
Dascen Elur, ships' masters navigated by these same constellations."
He passed the flask on to Felirin, and added, "I wonder if our
thoughts could be bending the dream?"
    "Then you recognize this plain?" Dakar swiped off the ice crystals
lodged in his brows, too dispirited to show disappointment as the
Master of Shadow shook his head.
    "This landscape doesn't match my memory of Dascen Elur. At
least, no landmass encountered by my father's ships seemed this
wretchedly desolate." Arithon's voice seemed leached of all feeling as
he qualified. "Even on those barren archipelagoes where families
mined salt from the silted lagoons, scrub thom grew on the high
ground."
    Worried afresh by the lifeless flatness to the Masterbard's expres-
sion, Dakar attempted to hold his gaze and measure the depths of his
internal despair. But Arithon refused even that slight contact, his
mouth a taut line of strained nerves.
    The small party pressed on when the brandy was finished. Felirin
rode with his eyes shut, lips working, perhaps in a verse from some
ancient ballad, or in prayer to Ath. Huddled in his singed cloak with
both hands swathed and poulticed, and his pert scarlet tassels shred-
ded to threads from unkindly fire and hard usage, he seemed a tatter-
demalion beggar left witwandering in the night.
    Dakar pondered their changed surroundings, not a bit reassured
that the sky overhead seemed to match Arithon's recollection. He had
never thought to ask Althain's Warden whether dragons had flown
past the Worldsend Gates. That fine point might come to matter
dearly in the future. If in fact the great drakes had not cached the
memory of these far-off stars as a backdrop for their present-day
dreams, then trouble would shadow the chances of their mortal sur-
vival.
    The danger could not be discounted or ignored, that this disjointed
frame of existence might prey upon human thoughts, then manifest
their dark contents. If such linkage occurred, then Arithon's shattered
equilibrium could couple with Felirin's penchant for foolhardy fancy
and brew up an unconscionable risk. The chance was too frightening,
that the impassioned knots of subconscious pain might weave them-
selves into the loom of the uncanny forces that clothed this alternate

418

~on-

FUGITIVE

reality. If so, the unimaginable guilt held in check by a blood oath
could unleash, all unwitting, a murderous, tormented revenge as a
subjective nightmare of horrors.
    Shaken stark silent, Dakar sketched a sign to avert the ill thought,
that the grimward's effects might come to magnify Arithon's
despair. The best-willed intent to repress a death wish might twist
free of constraint and remanifest in this place as a parallel act of self-
punishment.
    Through the pound of his heart, Dakar leaned across and spoke
directly to Arithon. "Use your mage training. Wrap your mind into
silence, and don't for a second drop your guard."
    The Master of Shadow opened tortured green eyes. "Ath save us
all, I've already done so." He cast a weighted glance toward Felirin's
turned back.
    For of course, the free minstrel owned no such schooled discipline
to lock down the unrestrained play of the mind.
    Dakar chewed his lip. He knew illicit lore, had knowledge of sigils
to force the will and bend a man's acts through the use of sheared
lines of power Such craft broke the Law of the Major Balance. Eddies
of recoiling damage could backlash on both the victim and wielder
Yet here in this place, such a safeguard might mean the difference
between life and death.
    Left cold to the bone by the bent of his thoughts, even granted the
impetus of a terrible expediency, Dakar startled to the sudden
restraint of a hand on his wrist.
    "Don't, Dakar," said Arithon s'Ffalenn. His shackling grasp did not
loosen. "I thought the same once on the banks of Tal Quorin. Believe
me, no stakes are worth such a cost. I've lost direct access to my mage
talent as a penalty, and would give any price in my power to reverse
that decision."
    Dakar swallowed, undone by the leveling force of an honesty he
could not match. Nor could he restate the horrid, cold fact, that the
harmonious continuity of Athera yet hung on the thread of Prince
Arithon's life. "If need warrants, even you cannot stop me," he said
finally.
    The hold on him released in an unspeakable surrender That act, and
the numbing silence that followed ran against every tenet of fight in
Arithon's character. An ominous sign, with no joy in the victory, that
Dakar held such sway over a friend whose innate strength had always
outmatched him. "I'll hold my decision," he temporized, to no avail.
    The Teir's'Ffalenn had retreated past reach behind the stone mask
of his training.

419

JANNY WUR?$

    Very quickly after that, all concerns became moot before the raw
cruelty of the elements. Gusts bit through every inadequate layer ~
clothing. Horses could not withstand such punishing colcl v~\~xx\
rations o[ grain and œodder. Half-shed into their sleek summer hair,
they were already suffering. Nor did the queer, bending track
through the gloaming permit a retreat by retracing their steps into
autumn. Concerned that Arithon and Felirin were left in more fragile
condition than he, Dakar insisted that the pair ride double on the gray
and share the warmth of the drover's cloak between them.
    The small party plowed on, horses laboring chest high through
sifted pockets of snow. Stuffed like a sausage in two of Felirin's court-
style tunics, Dakar blinked melted snow from his lashes and startled
to the clang of shod hooves on rock. The frigid air left his lungs in a
gasp as the stars and bleak snowfields all vanished.
    The three riders moved now under a sky streaked with dawn,
across sands grooved and black as raked basalt. The air held the
forge-tang of desert and a flint-dry cloy of fine dust. No birds flew.
The arid vista seemed lifeless as Kathtairr, except for the massive,
clawed tracks of a predator which scored the ribbed flank of a dune.
    "Seardluin," Dakar whispered through a throat parched to paper
by a devastating stab of fresh fear. In Athera, Fellowship intervention
may have battled the monstrous killers to extinction; yet in the shel-
tered existence of drake-dream, the creatures would prowl still, their
marauding thirst for blood raised to a scale of unimaginable vicious-
ness. "If even one catches wind of our horses, we're finished."
    Felirin pushed back the limp folds of the drover's hood. "Arithon's
unconscious," he said softly.
    The Mad Prophet vented an explosion of oaths. No telling, now,
whether the defenses ingrained in the Shadow Master's mage train-
ing might contain the subconscious poison past memories and grief
might engender.
    Between blowing on numbed hands and fighting to slip the stiff-
ened straps of the buckles on his saddlebags, the Mad Prophet flung
back stopgap instructions. "Felirin, pack up that cloak. You may need
your hands free. And we'll have to shift Arithon back onto the mare."
    The spellbinder scrounged out two stout pairs of horse hobbles.
Focused and made desperate by full awareness that he must safe-
guard the body that housed the self-haunted powers of s'Ffalenn con-
science, despite the latent potential for disaster that same mind might
seed to envelop them all, Dakar tossed the restraints to Felirin. "Tie
your Masterbard astride. Don't think of pity. Strap him down fight, or
he's lost if we have to gallop."

420

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    "The horses are spent. We ought to be leading them." Felirin fum-
bled with poulticed hands to assist as Dakar directed. Together, they
fastened the stiff leather cuffs around Arithon's wrists and ankles,
and bound his slack form to his horse's girth and breast strap.
    That grim preventative was scarcely completed when Dakar
looked up. "Dharkaron wept!" A massive, dark shadow slunk sinu-
ously into the hollow where they took shelter. He snatched the bard's
wrist. "Don't move or breathe."
    Felirin glanced back, aghast. The next moment the three horses
shied sidewards and tore at the reins trying to bolt.
    Dakar held on, half-weeping, though both of his hands were
skinned raw. Standing or running, they had no chance at all once the
monsters that approached charged to hunt.
    There were four of them, coats like rippling sable, and horned
heads burnished to polished gold under the harsh desert sunlight.
The powerful, maned shoulders stood high as an ox. The forefeet bore
fearsome talons. The muzzles extended into jaws with scaled plates,
and fangs that were cruelly poisonous. The eyes were pale as poured
oil, and slitted like a snake's. Dakar was aware through the hammer
of his pulse that nothing alive looked more lethal. While at large on
Athera, Seardluin had outrun the gazelles of Sanpashir, which took
bounding flight like racing shadows over parched grass and flint
sands.
    Never had the spellbinder known such blank fright as that
moment, when the creatures on the dune paused to snuffle the wind,
ears pricked to strain out the footfalls of prey. Those wide-set, mean
yellow eyes swung and fixed, and seemed to stare right through him.
    Then the lead creature howled in a key to bristle the hair and tear a
hole through a man's slackened bowels. Slumped on the mare's crest,
Arithon groaned.
Dakar reached out, pitiless, and muffled the cry with his palm.
Then, as if tuned to one thought, the Seardluin moved on, lithe,
deadly, and uninterested. They passed not three yards from the
horses, who quivered and dripped sweat in rank fear.
    Felirin shrank, shaking, against the damp heat of his gelding.
"Ath's blessed mercy, I don't think they knew us."
    Weak kneed with shock, Dakar resisted the urge to collapse where
he stood. "We must not be visible to them in this spectrum of dream.
If we were, I assure you, we'd be torn limb from limb."
    Felirin offered no argument. Once the horses had settled enough to
walk calmly, he remounted and pressed on, trailing the mare which
bore Arithon. From behind, the wind carried a drawn-out howl, then

421

                JANNY WURTS

 the sounds of a snarling fight. Screams that sounded human slic~
 the baked air, then the drumroll report of hapless horses set to flight
 sheared through by a chilling clang of steel.                     ~~
     "Hold fast!" Dakar tightened his grip on Arithon's reins,
 twisted to see over his shoulder.
     Five horsemen burst over the ridge at his back, mounts stretche›
 a lathered gallop. Down a grade unsuited to headlong flight, they
 and skated. Sand caved and gave way beneath panicked
 Against the fierce, copper glare off the dunes, Dakar made out
 Hanshire town blazon sewn on their saddlecloths and surcoats.
     "Felirin!" he cried, tensed to stab heels to his own mount and run.
 Even here, the Alliance pursuit had overtaken them.
     Yet even before reflex could spur startled flight, the last guardsman~
 cleared the crest, shouting like a madman and driving his horse with
 the unsheathed flat of his sword. A grue like the precursor to
 prophetic sight caused Dakar to hold back raw instinct. He reined in.
 While the guardsmen plunged closer, and the sand scarp ripped loose
 like unraveled knit beneath their destriers' pounding sprint, he spun
 a fast cantrip to mask his horse's copycat impulse to bolt.
    The stayspell locked down barely in time. Arithon's mount hit the
rein in a spinning plunge, shredding new skin from Dakar's fingers;
then hot on the heels of the Hanshire guardsmen came the predators
which hazed them.
    Seardluin burst over the skyline, four streaks of muscle and bared
talon that came on like shot oil to overtake. Plowed sand and ripped
footing caused them no missed stride. Nor was time given for prey to
react or defend.
    The lead creature sprang with sinuous speed. It overtook the trail-
ing rider, closed a stride and a half lead in one bound, its thick, plated
tail streamed behind. One snap of armored jaws decapitated the
horse. The animal pinwheeled, fountaining blood. Its rider catapulted
ahead. He crashed in a rolling spray of sand, but never came to rest
before the predator pinned him. One goring swipe of its horn left him
a disemboweled carcass.
    The survivors pounded on through another mired stride before the
Seardluin charged among them. Their horses' berserk panic scattered
them right and left, chaff before the oncoming stroke of Sithaer's
scythe. The king male snatched a mare by one hind leg. Half her
haunch tore away in one razor-clean swipe. His Seardluin mate
cleared the steed's scissoring struggle in a powerful leap. She landed
ahead of the next horse, tucked and rolled, then extended a taloned
forepaw as a hook. The horse was jerked out of its run like a galled

422

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

fish. It crashed, splayed and gutted. The downed guardsman died as
fast, bludgeoned silent by a swipe of the Seardluin's armored tail.
Blood pattered a fine rain on parched earth, the spray masked by the
whistling shriek of another gelding, collapsed with a severed wind-
pipe. The final horse thrashed in a heap of maimed limbs, its rider
crushed in the tangle.
    Dakar never knew how the last came to die. The butchery ended
too quickly. Nothing alive remained standing to kill. Seardluin
stalked narrow eyed through the razed carnage, their frenzy of blood-
lust unsated. They slashed and snapped at the slain underfoot, while
the rent limbs of horses and men shuddered through the tormented
spasms of flesh torn untimely from life.
    The furnace-dry breeze wafted the reek of ripped bowels and the
stench of violent death. Dakar's bay gelding and Arithon's mare
sidled in demented fear. The gray trembled, with Felirin doubled
over the pommel of his saddle in the throes of a gut-rending nausea.
    The spell cantrip on the horses was fading. The Mad Prophet
yanked the mare's bit before flight instinct could revert into stamped~
ing terror, then curbed his own milling horse by forcing its panic into
frustrated circles. While Arithon's mount jibbed and jolted against the
lead rein, he shook off stunned shock and strove through a virulent
attack of the shakes to sort out what mage-sight now showed him.
    "Those men, those horses had no auras," he forced out in a
strained whisper. "If they were alive when they entered this
grimward, they became changed into something unnatural."
    As though the recent deaths had not signified, no shocked dis-
charge of animal magnetism hazed the air with blank light; and yet,
the Seardluin had tracked every hapless victim that they slaughtered
on sight.
    Felirin straightened, wrung pale as a specter. "What are you say~
ing?" He wiped his mouth with the back of a wrapped hand, and
insisted with gritty disbelief, "Those were guardsmen from Hanshire.
I knew them."
    Behind, on the dune, amid the strewn gore of carnage, the preda-
tors crouched down to gorge. Snarls carried downwind, punched
through the snap of cracked bone. The horrors worried their kills as
they ate, tearing and ripping through meat and entrails with greedy,
savage abandon.
    Dakar's stomach turned. "I don't care if those men were your milk
brothers from childhood, we'd better get out of here, now!"
    The slightest release of his hold on the rein, and the horses he
gripped plunged ahead. Dakar resisted their snorting, brash lunges.

423

JANNY WURTS

 He could do nothing more than cling to blind faith that theiT part?
 would not be attacked. Headlong flight could not outstrip ~ Seard.
 luin's charge. If he gave way to nerves and let the horses gall~p ~~,
 the loose sand would tire them beyond any chance of recover~'
     Felirin eased his jigging gray up beside Dakar's flank. "WI~
 those drake-spawned furies see our presence?"
    Dakar swallowed hard, yet the rank taste of bile stayed w~tn him.
"I can but guess;_In some wa)~ we haven't crossed fully into their
realm of existence. We traverse a dream. Our lives are not }~:~,t ~,~ it,
but only passing through."
  "Those guards," Felirin started, then coughed back a
spasm. Wretched beyond speech, he shook his head.
  "I can't know for certain." The mare plunged ahead, yanked
yet again by Dakar's iron hold on the reins. Swearing, he lost anotl~r
patch of raw skin before he resumed his snagged thought. "Th(~e
men must have interfered with the dream in some way. Drago~~,
unruly and powerful beings, a law unto themselves. Their
minds could seed life. Why not the reverse? If a man in careles~
rance killed game in the wood, or lit a small fire for comfort, '~~,~ a
thread of continuity would be tom by his act. A kinetic balance ,,.,
become inadvertently upset. In forfeit, the drake might well [31(,, ~,!
the offender's life aura, and knit the repossessed magnetic en~
into the dream's fabric to restore the gap."
    "Ath's mercy on them," Felirin murmured, his sad, lined eyes
ahead. "If you speak the truth, they are lost for all eternity, and
their fear and their suffering was no less for the fact that their spirit~
were unstrung before death."
    Dakar had no word of comfort to assuage the minstrel's sorrowf~~
insight. Nor did he dare broach the evil possibility that Arith~n
unguarded mind may have seeded that vortex of killing violence.
nursed his tired mount over loose, sliding sand, or the brittle salt ~t
cracked hardpan. Though the site of the slaughter might lie behi~
the ugly memory persisted, too vivid and sharp to unburden. A
led in circles by worry and privation could not help but imagine ~,h~
fates might befall the rest of the company from Hanshire, drawn her
in determined and foolhardy duty, and left to the perils of their ignc
rance.
    Other packs of Seardluin prowled the desert. More than one
clawed spoor stitched across the spiraling track carved out by the
horses' labored passage. By the wayside, the hacked and gutted
corpse of a young dragon lay broken. Splayed wing leather shriveled,
half-silted under blown sand, and the ripped coils of entrails were

424

FUGITIVE PRINCE

strewn like sun-blackened rope in clots of rank, congealed blood.
Here, most oddly, Dakar sensed the hazed energies of torn life force;
as though the continuum of Fate's Wheel still contained the
unmoored wraith of this creature's whole being at the moment an
untimely death claimed it. The enigma gave rise to a headache, out of
phase with the throb of his skinned palms. Dakar endured. He
refused to acknowledge the chorus of complaint from an overweight
body kept in the saddle too long. Nor would he hear the fool's urge to
dismount and ease the discomfort of racked joints.
    To guess by the pug marks pressed into stained sand, the Seardluin
which had stalked the slain drake weighed as much as a draft horse.
    Then that kill, too, fell behind. As the riders' blown mounts
breasted another crest in the dunes, the desert with its perils melted
away, replaced by what seemed like a southland orchard gone wild.
Glossy leaves rustled, stirred by kind winds to a ruffled embroidery
of orange blossom.
    Another chill puckered the hair at Dakar's nape. No natural trees
should bear ripened fruit and spring flowers in the same season.
Almost, it seemed as if the grove was presented in temptation, invit-
ing tired travelers to forget the firm strictures by which they might
walk this existence unscathed.
    "Don't pick any fruit," the Mad Prophet cautioned. He wondered
in stark honesty whether Arithon's deranged guilt could be party to
this latest invention; or whether Felirin's loose fancy offered the
deadly peril of a sleepy, spring grove whose climate encouraged tired
travelers to linger.
    Those creeping suspicions entwined with another current, elusive
and powerful, but there as a sparkle of unseen energy that invaded
the periphery of vision. Dakar knew spellcraft. Step upon step, his
suspicion gained impetus, that something or some power tempered
each new train of event, and dammed back the cascade of disaster. Yet
each time he tested to fathom the source, the currents he searched for
slipped past him.
    Felirin brushed a shower of shed petals from his hair, too pained
and dispirited to indulge his ebullient imagination. His gray was
stumbling tired, and fretful in its efforts to evade its rope muzzle and
snatch at the knee-high grass under the fruit trees. Out of pity, the
bard dismounted to walk.
    For the bay mare, they could offer no such relief. Arithon remained
fallen into a stupor. The drawn angles of his face were mercifully
eclipsed by the shadow of the drover's cloak, and his hands dangled
slack from the restraints which secured him to the saddlebow. He

425

               J~ss~ WURTS

would not arouse, despite Dakar's efforts. Even a spell-turned
cation to his Name failed to raise any flicker of awareness. If
s'Ffalenn prince was lost in the dreaming quagmire
the combined debilitation of backlash and despair would find
healing in this place. Nor could aught be done to reverse his
malady, but keep on and hope for the relief of escape.
    "We can't ioumey on indefinitely without water," Felirin husked~
long length.
  Dakar drew rein, sucked clean of the will to laugh for the
"We aren't likely to find water here. If we did, it would be too
drink."
    "What makes you sure?" No matter how desperate his state
vation, the bard's curiosity knew no bounds.
    "Great dragons hated a drenching worse than a cat does, or
Sethvir once explained." Dakar stamped back the ripe fear
threatened an explosion of temper. His nerves were drawn wire.
heaved his fat bulk from the saddle and almost collapsed in a
from the spike of sharp pain which shot through his
and hips. In mulish rebellion against abused dignity, he pursued
thought to the end. "Rainstorms were said to send the great drakes
into rampaging fits of irritation. That's just as well. We dare not inter-
act with anything we didn't bring with us. Heed well. The penalty
could be to share the same fate as those foolish guardsmen from Hah-'
shire."
    The minstrel breathed in the incongruous, sweet tang of the orange
trees, morose. "For a creature that gloried in live flame, wet weather
would naturally pose a problem." The tightening scabs on his bums
made him seem a slouched and arthritic old man. "How long do you
suppose we can survive in this place?"
    The Mad Prophet had no answer that did not offer outright dis-
couragement.
    Overhead, the sky burned a lingering gold, lucent as marigold
enamel. The grove melted away like a lifted curtain into a wind-
beaten vista of steppelands. Dakar set his back to the task of driving
on balky horses without help from the switch he needed, but dared
not braid, out of plucked stems of tough grass. He could not fathom
how far they had traveled, nor yet, how much longer they could ven-
ture without falling victim to lethal mishap.
    Seemingly out of nowhere, the deep, booming note of a centaur's
horn call shook the ground, answered Flke echo by the clarion reply of
a mature male dragon. Felirin stopped short with a gasped cry of
wonder.

426

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    Dakar stared also, amazed and gaping. High over the beaten-brass
furrows of the plain, a mated pair of dragons cavorted, sleek as shot
quarrels as they closed leathered wings and swooped from the zenith
to the horizon. Sun-caught scales flashed fire like tipped gold, and
tails streamed and snapped like armored ribbon. No legend, no awed
description, even from Sethvir's keen memory, could do justice to the
searing, unworldly grace of the great drakes at their prime strength.
Before their vast size, the Khadrim were as toys, and the wyverns of
Vastmark no more than petty and quarrelsome vermin.
    The drakes spiraled upward and dwindled to gilt flecks, lost at last
in the molten brass dome of clear sky.
    Dakar expelled a gusty sigh, brought back to awareness that he
had suspended his breathing.
    Felirin shed his awe in an uncharacteristic bent of practicality.
"Before we see more inhospitable country, do you suppose we'd be
wise to rest?"
    "Better to push on," the Mad Prophet disagreed. "Whatever is
spinning this dream we experience, it's being tempered by some out-
side influence." He resisted another tug at the reins as the mare tried
again to snatch grass. "I can't imagine the immensity of power
needed to stabilize this existence enough to allow for our presence,
but there won't be a second chance should we outstay the limit set on
our welcome."
    In stark proof of concern, the ground changed again. Plains and
grass flowed away, replaced by volcanic rock and a blackened,
clogged sky. The air churned with smoke like stirred sludge, and the
foot'mg rippled with heat haze. Jagged stacks of porous rock notched
the scarp, scoured to red veins where magma had leached glowing
sores through the crust.
    The horses tossed their heads, sidling, tails high and nostrils dis-
tended. Their hooves clanged on rock, a rugged array of slabbed
basalt ledges, seamed with the angry flows of lava and bubbling, sul-
furous mud pots.
    "If this is a drake's dream," the Mad Prophet ventured, "what we
now cross would be their preferred habitat." He broke off, forced to
cough from the acidic bite of swirled ash. "Sethvir told me once the
dragons used to roll in molten rock the way birds splash their feathers
in a rain puddle. Burned the dross off new scales as a snake would
shed an old skin."
    Had the horses not been dull with exhaustion, main force could not
have coerced them to abide such a crossing. The ground was hot
enough to blister through boot leather, and singe nasal membranes at

427

JANNY WURTS

each breath. Scoured eyes streamed hot tears. The porous, sharp
edges of solidified lava slit skin at a glancing touch.
    Suffering still from smoke-damaged lungs, Felirin hacked and
spluttered. Then Arithon's mare gashed her fetlock in a stumble.
Though she moved lame, Dakar feared to stop. The ground was
unstable. Too much could go wrong if they tarried to shift the prince's
slack form to another mount.
    "If we linger, we'll sicken," he rasped through a raw larynx. "The
fumes here are poison."
    No choice remained but push on, each stumbling stride accom-
plished in unalloyed misery. Through the plodding, grim labor,
Dakar could not tell if the spiral they walked seemed smaller and
tighter, or whether the effect was the offshoot of headache and dizzi-
ness. Feathered drifts of ash caved in to hide tracks. Canyons of
etched lava confounded each effort to sight lines for orientation. lie
could scarcely manage the task of tugging his horse and Arithon's
forward. All hope was lost if the spiral's last coils departed from a
safe track.
    At weary length, the lava flows faded to smoking pits of used ash.
The stone smoothed, bleached to a powdery, fine dust as clinging as
pulverized porcelain. Smoke and fumes leached away to a turbid,
blank haze, and the heat ebbed to dry, cruel cold.
    No moss grew; no trees. What passed for sky seemed a drumhead
of cloud, stretched the flat, dull pallor of scraped chalk. Against that
unmarked, monochrome backdrop, a skeleton loomed like spired
iron. The ribs spanned through air in vast, gabled arches. Long, scy-
thing horns on the knobs of each vertebra spiked upright, a gigantic
array of pronged tusks. The bones gleamed a glossy, unearthly pearl
white, with stripped cartilage lucent as quartz.
    "Dragon," breathed Felirin. He blinked, rubbed soot from
gummed eyelids. The splayed, flint black curves of three talons
pierced the ground, of a size to paralyze reason. A destrier could have
walked underneath without hindrance. Speechless, stunned, the min-
strel stared, riveted. "Ath, the terrible size of her!"
    Dakar as well felt his flesh bathed in chills. As a child, he had seen
living Paravians, whom none could encounter without change. This
behemoth wreckage was long dead, and yet, it commanded a pres-
ence which rankled his nerves into shivers. No feat of mortal imagi-
nation could capture the monumental grandeur of what was scribed
in these glyphs of naked bone.
    Braced in arched rows, such ribs could have served as the vaults of
a palace; and had, Dakar recalled through a vague flick of memory.

428

             FUGITIVE PRINCE

Melhalla's last high kings had convened court and served judgment
under just such a buttressed hall. The domed, copper roofs had been
shingled in drake scales, a legend even before the great uprising,
when the ruling seat at Tirans had been gutted by fire and cast down
into ruins.
    The tail, with its delicate, vaned rudder and needle-thin spines
rested curled in an exquisite, neat grace that bespoke the coiled threat
of a predator. Despite such vast size, no creature from any past era in
Athera could react with the speed of a dragon.
    "Sethvir once confided the great drakes were agile enough to brave
the crosswinds in a thundercloud." Dakar shook his head, bemused
to amazement. Credibility balked at the scale of such feats. These
shining remains had tasted the ice crystals combed into white cirrus,
when once, clothed in glittering gold scales and wild malice, the live
dragon had knifed through the riptide currents of high altitude.
    The skull they encountered loomed the size of a hay byre. Its black,
shadowed eye sockets did not seem empty. Even in death, their
uncanny survey guarded the shadowy realms past the Wheel. They
appeared alert still, broodingly hooded in massive, spiked horn, and
overlapped plates of etched bone.
    Felirin ventured a timorous query. "Is it so, that the relics of drag-
ons carry a bane?"
    "Who knows?" Dakar stamped back his shivering dread. The
inescapable fact remained that their steps were being guided ever
nearer to the colossal skeleton. "There's truth to the saying that where
centaurs fell, the stones of the earth weep in sorrow. Dragon bones are
much older and by lengths more eldritch. I've heard the skulls of the
unhatched younglings have ties to dark magecraft, but that could be
taletelling, for all I know of the details."
    They rounded the serrated spurs of a forelimb. Ahead, like sheared
porcelain, the long, scything fangs propped open the gates of horned
jaws. Rows of incisors gnashed through the blanketing dust, razor
tipped as the prongs on a whipsaw.
Nor were the three exhausted fugitives the first to arrive at the site.
Light shattered the clogged air like hurled blades, fanned through
the points of knobbed bone. A figure in dark robes astride a black
horse shouted in pealing urgency. He bridged the small gap where
the dragon's forked tongue had once flickered, his outstretched
hands streaming power like beacons. The flux of raised forces
stormed across mortal senses like the roar of impending cataclysm.
    Felirin froze in his tracks, undone by dread. "Ath Creator keep us
safe."

429

~ANNY ~URTS

    "Not Ath at all. That's Asandir." Dakar shot out an arm and hauled
the bard forward. The unwholesome fumes seared his throat as he
croaked, "We can't linger."
    No Fellowship Sorcerer ever burned reckless power without cause.
By the singing charge that lashed his awareness, Dakar understood
the danger loomed too vast to grapple. Only once before had be seen
Asandir unleash his full strength, and that on the hour the Mistwraith
had attacked Lysaer and Arithon at Ithamon.
    Then as now, the power streamed outward in crackling rays, n0
brute stab of force, but the unbridled might of fine energies called
down by a spirit schooled into peerless unity with every facet of Ath's
creation. The result ranged harmonics like a hammer blow to bronze,
showering light in waves of continuous vibration.
    "Come on," Dakar gasped. "We're in deadly peril." The unshielded
might of a Fellowship Sorcerer could derange mortal thoughts, even
leave a man witless and paralyzed.
    The spellbinder fell back upon ingrained reflex and impelled l~is
stunned limbs to keep moving. However he cowered and shrank
from close contact, he feared worse to cross the outright command of
a Sorcerer raised to the flash-point pinnacle wrought from bridled
chaos and immaculate intent. Dakar prodded the horses' stumbling
strides to narrow the last distance between.
    Felirin hung back, stupefied, until an appeal from Asandir yoked
the gray with a word that could have moved rooted granite. The
horse led the minstrel, bonded in light, and a mystery outside plod-
ding reason.
They crossed inside the proximity of the Fellowship conjury.
"Well-done, but hurry," Asandir exhorted. "The currents of this
dream state aren't kindly or biddable." His voice cut through actinic
bursts of refined power as if speech had been honed by something
beyond sound. "I won't be able to temper the forces here to keep you
alive for much longer."
    Dakar forced the question. "Then this isn't Arithon's creation of
despair?"
    "Never that," Asandir flung back, strained. "Move him on. Hurry.
He's unconscious because his own trained defenses are killing him."
    But the order itself proved most difficult to carry out. The potency
of the Sorcerer's wards of themselves seemed to hamper free move-
ment. Dakar felt as though each of his steps was dragged through
shimmering mercury. The powerfield scoured his mage-sight until
vision dissolved behind a deluge of silver-tipped sleet. His tired mind
could not compensate.

43O

FUGITIVE I)RINCE

    He was vaguely aware of passing the gateway between the
dragon's front teeth. Two horses followed, their breath hot on his
neck, and through that sensation, the ghost-feather touch of
Asandir's guiding hand on his shoulder.
    "Keep going, as you love life!" The Sorcerer's raw strength stead-
ied him over the pothole of bone that yawned between the vast jaw-
bones. "Don't worry about shielding. I'll see that Felirin comes to no
harm."
  "The dragon," Dakar asked. "Do you fear she'll awaken?"
    Asandir faced him, his surprise etched in glare, and his eyes the
flecked gray of rinsed granite. "Ath, no. She's been dead for two ages.
You don't see? This grimward contains the left dreams of her haunt."
    "A ghost's imprint?" Dakar stared, his skin ashen. "Dharkaron's
own tears! You're saying a live one would dream the more power-
fully?"
    "Enough to reweave the known fabric of creation." Asandir's brisk
push sent him onward, under the ribbed vaults of the gullet. "Go
now. To leave, you must enter the inner chamber of the skull. The pas-
sage won't be smooth or comfortable, but rest on my word. You'll
emerge unmarked in due time."
    The Mad Prophet tightened his sweaty grip on the lead reins. The
horses trailed at his heels without protest, thralled to submission by
spells. "You're not coming yourself?"
    Asandir shook his head. "Forty Alliance guardsmen crossed into
the grimward's sealed circle. Twenty eight have perished for their
folly. If they killed game, or broke off so much as a leaf in this place,
my powers could not stay their spirits from entanglement. More will
be lost ere they reach my protection. For the sake of any who may live
to win through, I have obligation to stay. Once I lift my influence, the
dream will revert back to entropic chaos. Only another great drake
could survive, and then solely because it could remake the torn struc-
ture of its being."
    The Sorcerer's last words splashed a patter of echoes through a
thousandfold crannies of chambered bone. "Dakar, caution your
prince." The admonishment filtered through the ringing reverberao
tions of hooves striking the slagged plates of the fire vents at each
side of the dragon's throat. "Any guardsman who emerges alive from
this grimward will remember his fear and cry vengeance. Be wary.
Blame will fall on the Master of Shadow for all of Hanshire's slain
company."
    "Tell my prince," Dakar grumbled..He resisted the craven urge to
shut his eyes and ignore the forbidding cavern which yawned ahead

451

JANN� WURTS

of his quaking steps. "Since when did I ever swear fealty to
wanted dead by half the townsmen on the continent?"
    Any future concern seemed a pittance before the crossing still
to surmount. From behind, a flurried prayer as Felirin braved the
dark on the tails of the glassy-eyed horses. Dakar crept into the fusty
darkness. His boot soles slipped and minced across a surface ~
watered marble, while the unseen, vaulted cranium flung back
echoes of each wheezing breath. In blind trust, the Mad Prophet
hoped Arithon stayed on the mare as the lightless cavern engulfed !
him. Sound just beyond the high range of his hearing seemed to rip-
ple like ribbon across his ears. Then his vision shimmered, punched
through by sparks and sequins of chipped obsidian. A rash of fine
prickles stabbed over his skin, and vertigo twisted his senses.
    Then a magic wrapped in energies he had never known bathed all
of his nerve ends in fire. Every last tie to creation unraveled. Sucked
into the well of primal oblivion, Dakar realized in panic that this
crossing was nothing like a guided spell transfer from a familiar Para-
vian focus circle. As his mind spiraled down toward the heart of null
darkness, he cried out in sheer panic. He did not know how to untan-
gle this pattern. Nor had he the clues to the necessary knowledge
cached amid his muddled memories of prostitutes. No one had
taught him the guidepost to relocate the haven of Athera's known ter-
ritory.

432

Late Spring 5653

Recall

Just before solstice, the nights in Caithwood held a soft, breathing
warmth, the air thick as milk in the pearlescent moonlight which
streamed through the dense crowns of old oak trees. These ancient
groves had never tasted the axe blade. Nor had black soil known the
bite of the plow, or the turned iron rim of the cart wheel. The pale,
whorled bark of ancient copper beeches wore mottles like coin silver
where the strung-floss motes speared the darkness. Rolling combers
off Mainmere Bay lisped through, sea and earth joined in dialogue by
the whisper of the leaves that stirred to the tireless breezes. The mock-
ingbird's song and the whistles of nightjars spilled liquid notes
through the stillness, much as they had in Paravian times when cen-
taur guardians had reigned, and the sunchild dancers had called
down the mysteries that moved, incarnate, with the wild grace of the
unicorns.
    In Third Age 5653, no Athlien flutes rang through Caithwood's
glades to celebrate the joy of the season; nor did centaur horn calls
reverberate under the eaves of the oaks. Yet in their absence, the low,
sandy shoreline which faced Havish and the sands at Torwent did not
pass unpatrolled. In furtive, tight bands, Lord Maenol's scouts kept
watch for oncoming Alliance ships.
    A month past, the contents of Mearn s'Brydion's warning had
reached them, word of the coming blockade brought in by runner
from Mogg's Fen. The Caithwood clans knew of the Koriani conspir-
acy at Riverton which had set Arithon s'Ffalenn to blind flight. They

433

               JANNY WURT$

received the worst news with grim determination, that three finis
vessels had sailed from their launching, packed with Etarran men-at-
arms and sealed orders to cut off Mainmere Narrows until nothing
alive could slip through. At all costs, the handful of scouts under-
stood they must hold the coastline open, that the families set to flight
from the north could stay free to seek promised sanctuary in Havish.
    Never mind their strength was insufficient for the task, their num-
bers pared thin by bloodshed and necessity. Lord Maenol's ap?eal
asked no quarter, allowed space for no preference or pity.
    Despite closing threat, no one thought of desertion. The Caithwo0d
scouts kept their posts, their forest held sacrosanct by a hard-bitten
few, sworn to lay down life and safety for their caithdein.
    Not even the lean fisherman's dory run in by dark escaped their
exhaustive vigilance.
    "Two occupants," whispered the woman who had just sprinted in
from the lookout at the mouth of the Narrows. "One passive, an~~ the
other manning the oars. Neither looks armed. We saw no glint of
weapons, but then, sure's storm, they haven't come here to go cod
fishing."
    The stem elder who captained the outpost made his immediate
decision. "Watch then. They don't leave the shingle unchallenged." A
hand signal sent two reserve scouts off on foray, with the elder him-
self at the fore.
    By the raked dunes at the shoreline, the three clansmen crouched
wary in rustling stands of sea grass, while the dory knifed in to make
landfall. Its sharp prow and muffled oars formed a cut black phantom
against lucent lace sheets that billowed and surged where the froth of
spent breakers receded. As the curl of the surf shot the craft through
the shallows, the old scout made comment. "Torwent fisherman. See
the woven string bracelets? He's also damned good with the boat."
    The man dragged his broad looms, and in dauntless competence,
let his keel gently ground into sand.
    The other figure in the stem seat clambered out, the brimmed hat
he wore obscuring his face from clear view. While the inboun~
combers fountained over his shins, he leaned down and recovered ~
satchel he had tucked safely under the stern seat. An older man, h~
seemed an enigma, his simple, dark clothing too plain to identify ~
regional origin. Though his burden was not heavy, an odd hitch to hi~
movements bespoke stiffened scars or old injuries. The hands tha
clasped the dory's thwart and redirected it seaward were gnarled ant
bent, if still competent.
  His spoken farewell did not carry. The oarsman nodded i~

434

             FUGITIVE PRINCE

clipped respect, then dug in his looms to hurry his return passage
before the riptide raced through the Narrows. The one he had
covertly delivered to Caithwood waded shoreward, his limp grown
pronounced as the wet sand mired his ankles. Once on dry ground,
he paused, the flat spill of the moonlight licking the hanks of white,
shoulder-length hair. He tipped his face skyward. Beneath the
brimmed hat, his features were cragged and intent, as if he expected
~lll omeI1.
Out of the night, a raven flapped down and settled upon his raised
wrist.
    He lilted a greeting. The bird answered back, then sidestepped to
perch on his shoulder.
    "Here's a friend." The scout captain stood in the shoulder-high
dune grass, his distrust melted into glad greeting. "Traithe?"
    The Fellowship Sorcerer turned his clean-shaven chin and smiled.
"My blessing, yes. You're Maenol's captain?"
    "For Caithwood, I am." The elder strode forward, then beckoned
for the other hidden scouts to reveal themselves. While the velvet
thick breeze stirred the fronds on the seed heads, and the raven on
Traithe's shoulder stretched a coal wing to preen, the older captain
presented the courtesy of the clans to visiting members of the Fellow-
ship. "How may we serve the land?"
    Traithe hooked the strap of his satchel, and stroked the bird's
breast with his knuckle. "My tidings aren't joyous. I need you to tell
me where I might find Earl Jieret s'Valerient, who serves Prince
Arithon as caithdein of Rathain."
    "Please Ath, not a death!" The female scout fanned off trailing
mosquitoes and strode forward. "Or do you bring warning of the
Alliance attack we've expected for over a fortnight?"
    The Sorcerer reached out at once and touched her tense wrist, laced
into its bowman's leather bracer. "Not a death. But I can't keep that
promise without your help and swift action. Is the Earl with your
band?"
    "He's four hours north of here, quartered in a hidden glen." The
scout captain extended a hand to assist with the satchel, then deferred
as Traithe chose to retain the burden himself. Since a Sorcerer's ways
were no man's to question, the captain moved on without embarrass-
ment. "Shore's not altogether safe with Alliance galleys plying the
bay on patrol. We'll send a runner."
    But Traithe shook his head as he fell into stride. "Spare your man."
The play of the breeze riffled his platinum hair, while the hat's loom-
ing brim threw a shadow like ink over his urgent expression. "If you

435

JANNY WURTS

know the way to this glen that you speak of, describe the terrain.:
raven can lead me."
  "The path is straightforward." The captain's pinched
away from his uneasy survey of the offshore horizon. "Best we
the details out of sight from this beachhead. If your bird
guidance, the camp where Jieret's quartered keeps horses."
    Traithe's gratitude showed as a gleam of white teeth in jet shadow.
"My raven can summon him, then. If Earl Jieret can manage to be
here before daybreak, the land will be served very well."
    "You bring news of the Alliance?" pressed the other scout. Lanky,
and just come to early manhood, he kept a swaggering fist on his
sword hilt. More than the others, he seemed drawn by the stress 0t
the pending Alliance invasion.
    "Nothing so simple." Traithe no longer smiled, the bracketed lines
at the comers of his mouth grooved deep with the wear of hard
travel. "In a desperate move to cut off pursuit, Prince Arithon crossed
through a grimward."
  "Ath preserve!" the woman scout whispered.
    Before her aghast fear, the Sorcerer used what logic he had to
feed hope. "Rathain's prince was well trained by a master at mage-
craft. He survived the dangerous passage well enough, but his con-
science is troubled. He required more than self-discipline to keep
his despair in check. Now those defenses have driven him far
beyond waking consciousness. He will stay lost between dimen-
sional realities unless Jieret s'Valerient can reach past the veil and
find him."
    Surrounded by worried clan faces, and a quiet that bred despera-
tion, the Sorcerer flexed his shoulders in a tight shrug. The raven
croaked in complaint, its wings unfolded for balance. "We have no
choice. The ties of the blood pact sworn between the caithdein and his
prince must be enacted to recall the Teir's'Ffalenn across time and
space." In gentle reminder, Traithe hastened his step toward the sheb
tering dark of the forest. "Timing is crucial. The opening spells to
bridge the connection must be enacted at dawn."
    He did not speak of the dire hurdles to be crossed, nor mention the
unconscionable intensity of Arithon's grief, or the mind-stripping,
ingrained misery which might come to thwart his best effort. The
prospect of failure was too real, too immediate. Arithon's downfall
might lie at hand despite all his help, and Earl Jieret's willing duty to
be called to shoulder the sacrifice. A Sorcerer left crippled by past
conflict with the Mistwraith could do naught but listen, as his bird
did the same, head cocked to one side, while the Caithwood captain

436

FUGITIVE PRINCE

gave terse description of the location and landmarks of the camp
where Earl Jieret took shelter.
    "Go brother," Traithe murmured. A testy croak answered. The
raven flapped silken wings and launched on its errand. Its flight
clove the falling, gossamer moonbeams like a silent, obsidian cleaver,
then arrowed up through a gap in the foliage.
    The Sorcerer stared after his bird's vanished form, hands knotted
over the strap of his satchel. The bird bridged what access he could
wring from maimed talent, and until it returned, he was both mortal
and blinded. Too aware the comfort of polite hospitality fell short, the
scouts pressed close and took charge. "You must be fired. Let us
know if you're hungry." In soft words and brisk movement, they
shared every amenity they could offer under the eaves of the forest.
    Their outpost was temporary, a narrow, hidden glen tucked behind
the bulrushes of a tidal marsh. Maples and oaks leaned over a brook
whose banks were entangled in brambles. The scouts not on watch
dozed on piles of bracken, cut fresh to drive off biting insects. They lit
no cookfire. Swords were kept within immediate reach, and no one
packed belongings beyond skinning knives and a hunting bow.
Through the lush season, they foraged fish and game, and smoked
food for the trail when hunting would slow their swift progress.
    At ease with the untamed fabric of night, Traithe's form melted
into the tangled darkness under the leafed crown of old forest. His
tacit awareness tracked the flutter of moths and the rustles of mice in
the undergrowth, while someone's shy boy offered him dried meat
and berries, and a chilly dipper of springwater. Weary though he was,
he chose not to sleep.
    Patient for the return of his raven, he spoke his thanks in a resonant
baritone, one knee drawn up and clasped to his chest. If sheer calm
could command the elements, his poise could have arrested the fugi-
tive trickle of water over rocks in the streamlet. His ever-present
worry lay perfectly masked, while each minute fretted past, and a
hunting owl flew, and a late-singing mockingbird caroled a solo
through the last hours of darkness.
    His vigil did not pass without camaraderie. While the wind
stroked through the boughs overhead, and summer stars marked and
measured their courses, three wakeful scouts exchanged jibes and
desultory small talk. "Not to worry," assured one, caught napping
between topics. "Quiet's thick enough to suffocate. An inbound
horseman is going to draw notice like a drum squad."
    The scarred veteran who wound bowstrings from a coil of dried
gut resumed listing the particulars of the Alliance campaign that

437

JANNY WURTS

savaged the wilds of south Tysan. "No good news, from upstream.
We've a precious narrow margin, and no hope at all if our sea~'a~'d
horizon doesn't stay empty. It's plain once the ships come,
haven't a prayer."
    The battle-scarred woman raked her whetstone in a vehement pass
across the weapon bridged across her bare knees. "Sunwheel
are riddled through the vales above Mainmere. Person can't walk to
the riverside to piss without being set after by dogs."
    Another scout wearing an otter-claw necklace filled in lac~nic
detail. "They've swept the forests as far south as Cainford. No~v
escapes their patrols, it's that tight. We have families trapped ~
mountains who've had to hole up past the snow line. They can
scarcely brave the open plain to cross Camris. Armed companie~
move in too fast off the trade road, and time's now our bitterest
enemy."
    Traithe worked his ~ .~arred knuckles to keep the joints supple.
unable to deny the assessment. Scarcity of game, or bad weather i~
autumn would eventually drive the trapped clan fugitives out of hid-
ing. Already, the Alliance net spread over the lowlands to snare them.
    "They could survive well enough in the heights," another sco~~~
picked up. "But no one can win past to send them provisions. We've
bloodied ourselves trying. Too many armed companies with
wheel banners are camped tight as ticks in the foothills. Gold
the trade guilds keeps them supplied, and their dogs have be~,~ ~ ~.~t t~
run silent."
    "And Lord Maenol?" Traithe asked, carefully neutral lest h~s
apprehension burden the troubled scouts further.
    The one blacking his features with charcoal in readiness for
tossed his used stick into the streamlet, his frustration a whisF~.~'
leathers in darkness. "Our caithdein's trapped down in the
Fenlanders shelter him as best they can, but he's been on the run
the springtime."
    A jagged gap held the dammed-back questions no one dared
concerning the overdue Alliance ships. For well past a fortnight,
watch on the shoreline had expected armed forces to seal a blockac~
over the Narrows. The Alliance's crowning strategy would cut o~f
last avenue of escape for the clan families driven south, who
claim safe sanctuary under King Eldir in Havish.
    Traithe stared at the scarred knuckles laced like braid over
sound knee tucked to his chest. He could give no encouragen~en'..
News from the Warden of Althain always ran through his raven, and
the latest sending had held only the images of two brigs in convoy at

438

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 sea. He had not picked up any visible landmark to guess their prox-
 imity to Caithwood.
     "I'm sorry. I bear you no news, ill or good." The Sorcerer chafed,
 pulled a raw breath, then admitted, "If Earl Jieret can pull Prince
 Arithon through, the spellbinder Dakar will be with him. Our com-
 bined efforts can bridge a clear contact to the Warden at Althain
 Tower. Sethvir will have the answers you need."
     The earth link would show where the danger lay, and give accurate
 account of the Cariadwin's fated landfall at Corith.
    Despite the gravity of clan woes in Tysan, one sharp-eyed young
strategist picked up the unspoken thread. "You imply Rathain's
prince may not be successfully recovered?"
    "There is that grim chance." Traithe looked up, his coffee eyes bleak
with an honesty that admitted no shame for his weakness. "The Fel-
lowship Sorcerers are beleaguered with troubles. At this time, I was the
only one able to come here. Ath grant us the grace that Jieret's courage
and my services will be enough to bring Prince Arithon through."
    After that, there was indeed little to say, and nothing to do but wait
out the night in defined, silent tension.
    Ink against darkness, a shape rode the air in the stilled, murky
hour before dawn. The scout captain started, hand closed on his
sword until a touch from the Sorcerer calmed him. "Peace. No harm's
come."
    The raven fluttered down and settled with a boisterous croak on its
master's black-clad shoulder. The rider it had summoned cantered in
a moment later and dismounted at the head of the glen. Unasked, the
younger scout rose to take the reins and care for the horse. The arrival
himself made almost no sound as he strode into the encampment.
Jieret s'Valerient was clad in laced deer hide with fringes that accen-
tuated his firm breadth of shoulder. He smelled of bruised greenery
and overheated horse, underlain with the tang of oil from the well-
kept weapons at his waist. Adverse to language where actions would
serve, he raked a glance over the seated forms of the scouts, then
fixed on the Fellowship Sorcerer.
    No hesitation marked his greeting as he sank before Traithe on
bent knee.
    His clan braid had been freshly bound, a reflection of his quiet
pride and sure bearing, though his straight posture gave clear enough
indication that he sensed the gravity of this meeting. "What do you
ask for the realm?"
    "Caithdein, Steward of Rathain," Traithe intoned. He arose in for-
mality, while around him, Caithwood's scouts backed off to grant a

439

~ANNY WURTS

respectful privacy. "I ask by your oath to your kingdom, that you risk
life and limb for your prince."
    Jieret's reply was clipped iron. "By my ancestor's promise t~ the
Fellowship, my consent lies in your hands already."
    Traithe shifted his weight, unable to find surcease from the ?ull
old scars. More than bodily pain plagued him as he reached and
caught Jieret's wrists and raised the younger man before him.
    The clan chieftain loomed a handspan taller. His leonine head bent
to the Sorcerer's regard, Jieret said, "You're distressed. Why? D~
fear that I carry the weal of the realm as an unwanted burden?"
    "You should fear." The Sorcerer released his clasp in trepid~ti~~n.
"What you face could become far more than a burden. I invok~ free
consent because the need you must answer lies outside the world you
understand. I come to beg your willing heart to let your spirit ride the
winds." A pause, while the impact of that statement sank in. "If your
prince is to be safely recalled to Athera, that's the last way i~,~t to
draw him."
    Jieret shivered despite his most firm resolve. "Where did you se~d
him?" he demanded, the first dangerous edge to a trust already
granted without question.
    Traithe did not rebuke, nor distress his set loyalties, but met ch,~
lenge with a sincerity that could have breached the interlocked matrix
of diamond. "To escape certain death at the hands of the Alliance,
Asandir allowed your crown prince to pass through a grimward."
    Jieret flinched. Force of will held him steady for a running string of
heartbeats. Then his hands clamped, and he tipped back his face.
"How my father would weep." Eyes shut in agony, he swore until he
ran out of breath.
    "That's scarcely the evil fate you imagine." Traithe drew him aside
where the whisper of foliage could settle and ease his cranked ten-
sion. "Your prince sealed off his mind, that his poisonous guilt for
Caolle's death would not ruin him. There's the problem, you see.
Arithon's trained barriers are unimaginably strong. He's locked his
mind behind a protective unconsciousness few things alive could
break through. That kept him safe from the grimward's dire influ-
ence. Only now, he has sealed his awareness too deep. Even Sethvir
cannot cross his defenses to reach him."
    Jieret reached out and braced against the rough bole of an oak. His
profile shone pale in the waning moonlight, and his stance stayed
wide set, as if earth itself threatened his balance. "Ath guard my
prince." He managed to stay the biting unease from his final reply to
the Sorcerer. "My consent is yours, freely. Now, what do you need?"

44O

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    "Your trust, first of all." Traithe's unbroken calm remained steady-
ing despite the discomfort to his lamed leg. "I will give you every
advant.~ge I can, believe it. Prepare yourself. Such a passage is best
started in the gray hour of twilight."
    Saddened for the strain behind Jieret's set face, he added, "You
won't like the method. I'm sorry. My powers are not whole, and
because of that damage, we're going to have to use blood magic."
    "I gave my agreement," Earl Jieret said, stiff. "There are no condi-
tions. By whatever means, to bring back my liege, I serve the need of
Rathain."
    "Bless your straight courage." Traithe's break into gratitude could
have masked tears as he bent and shouldered his satchel. "We haven't
much time left before dawn. If you can bear this, we'll have to start
now."
    The wind rustled through the dense crowns of the trees, and coiled
through brush fringed and heavy with the foil and pearl droplets of
summer dew. Enriched by greenery and bearing soil, the dark
spanned the forest like uncut velvet, still scribed by ruled rays of
moonlight. Yet the sky seemed more indigo than sable, and the mock-
ingbird's solo had silenced. All Caithwood seemed poised at the
cusp, while the world's axis turned toward the ending of night.
    "I'm ready." Jieret flanked the Sorcerer, his rangy stride shortened
in deference to the other's halting gait.
    Traithe moved upstream. A short walk led into the grotto the
scouts used to draw their fresh water. An underground spring welled
in streamlets from a crack in the rocks. Trickles of runoff channeled
through moss and boulders to form a shallow pool that spilled into
the dagged foam of the creek. There, the current lay divided in the
dry months of summer by a washed islet of rounded stones. Traithe
splashed through the ankle-deep channel and laid his satchel among
the lush cap of moss strewn with the fragrance of shed pine needles.
The site owned an innate tranquillity, alive with the melodious splash
where the split watercourse rejoined, to gutter and leap down a wind-
ing channel that widened and eventually rippled into the pewter
stands of the tidal marsh.
    "Sit," the Sorcerer instructed, his voice like worn silk and his
grandfatherly understanding pitched to transcend ragged nerves. "I
have some brief preparations to make."
    A pause, while he murmured a phrase to his bird. The raven
croaked. Every bit the miffed gentleman, it shuffled sulky wing feath-
ers, then sidled down its master's arm and hopped off. One effortless
glide saw it settled upon the bough of a nearby maple. Traithe spoke

441

what sounded like a Paravian epithet in reply to its avian imperti-
nence, then resumed his dropped thread of human dialogue. "My
lord Jieret, whatever happens, you may rest assured you will never
experience any pain."
    The raven cocked its head, avid as a critic, while the Sorcerer knelt.
He nursed his scarred hands with relentless patience and undid the
knots on his satchel, then removed a thin quartz crystal. In sequence,
he took out a stone knife, five clay bowls, and a clean beeswax candle.
Last came a leather-wrapped bundle that contained folded packets of
dried herbs. He placed each item on the moss before his knees with its
Name and a ritual blessing.
    Then he looked up at Jieret, whose apprehension all but sang aloud
like a strand of overcranked wire. "If you have tight clothing, loosen
the laces. The ground here is soft. Choose a place where you can lie
down and be comfortable."
    Jieret scraped his wrist bracer across the bristled red beard on his
jaw, then busied himself stripping off his sword and the bone-
handled throwing knives that he had claimed from his father's dead
body. "Will I sleep?"
    Traithe stood once again, a clay bowl in hand. His reply floated
back as a disembodied whisper as he trod careful steps to the spring.
"Your body will. Not your mind."
    He spoke over the water in the cadence of Paravian, then dipped
the bowl and placed the filled vessel on a nearby stone. Jieret
watched, heart pounding, as the black-clad Sorcerer crumbled an ar0-
matic herb into another readied bowl. This one had painted animals
on the side that seemed to shift and move in the darkness. Traithe
closed his eyes. His features were seamed like the ancient, white
birch, mapped by rough usage, yet wholly tranquil as he asked a for-
mal permission. Jieret recognized the Paravian phrase for the living
fire, then started as a spark jumped between Traithe's spread hands.
The herbs in the bowl sprang into pale flame. Smoke arose, a twining
silver braid that turned in the air as if alive. It sifted a veiling haze
through the breeze as Traithe stood erect and offered to each cardinal
point of the compass, then harkened to the elemental powers of the
four directions. Last, he took up the thin crystal. More words of invo-
cation, the symmetry of each syllable fluid as liquid light. Jieret could
not tell whether the play of the smoke or the language eased his
nerves into harmony. He sat, relaxed and half-mesmerized, while a
soft glow arose from the palm of Traithe's hand and kindled the crys-
tal into an adamantine blaze of raised force.
  The Sorcerer used that summoned power to scribe a clean circle

442

F~!GITIVE PRINCE

around the small islet of stones. Where the quartz wand passed, a
thin sound keened, striking a blade of pure energy that parted a rip
through the air.
    "Not to fear," Traithe assured as if from great distance. "These are
but simple protections to bind and contain the regenerative forces
we'll raise here."
    Yet somehow Jieret sensed the import was more weighty, as if the
spelled circle cut ties through time and space and engaged powers
beyond mortal understanding. The raven launched into flight.
Dense as pressed ink against the substanceless night, it shuttled in
patterns overhead. The rings of its passage dizzied the mind. Jieret
blinked, disbelieving, as his eye seemed to track an uncanny energy
combed into alignment by the bird's feathers. Each quill seemed
attached to a streamer of light. Rather than lose himself forever in
bewitching mystery, he settled for the ordinary task of unbuckling
his belt.
    Around him and past the water's purled edge, Traithe moved
about his work, his lamed tread uncannily silent. He placed what
seemed an empty bowl to the east, then the fire bowl to the south,
water to west, and one he had filled with plain dark earth to the
north. Each pause involved a singing invocation that ignited another
strand of unseen current, and wove its flow to the joined circle.
    Jieret clamped back the unease that surged through his gut. As if
violence could somehow reground his turned senses, he yanked the
leather tie on his braid, then plowed stiflened fingers through the hair
at his temples, dragging the plait loose at his nape. Another glance,
darted sidewards; "You're making my hair stand on end."
    Straight on his feet with his eyes closed, Traithe appeared halfway
removed from the world, his cragged features remote as chased mar-
ble; and yet, when he answered, his human warmth was never more
real and immediate. "Not to worry. There is no power raised here ~hat
is not a part of Ath's order." At the center of the circle, he took up the
final bowl and shook out the last packet of herbs. This plant loosed a
fragrance biting as snow, and a pungency that stripped all five senses
to preternatural wakefulness.
    "Tienelle," Traithe explained. He tipped back his hat to unstick
damp hair at his temples. "What you commonly know as seersweed.
The properties of the flower break down the barriers between space
and time, and release the mind to an unclouded view of the contin-
uum. For your safety, the full potency will be weakened. You'll
receive just enough smoke to loosen the ties to your body, that your
spirit can be freed to search."

443

Jieret said nothing, his throat dried to sand that left him unable to
swallow.
    Traithe's glance held a grave and reassuring kindness as he noticed
the earl's knotted fists. "You don't have to go through with this. We
can stop now."
    Jieret jerked up his chin, just shy of offense. "Keep on. I am blood
bonded with my prince. This is my job and no other's."
    "But a straight battle with steel would be simpler," Traithe admitted
in bald understanding. "Be steady. I stand with you, never forget that."
    He called fire and lit the herb. The smoke whirled and twined,
spun silk against a darkness ingrained with the faint paling imprint
of daybreak. Jieret drew a fast breath, apprehension tightening his
chest despite every verbal resolve. He had but one moment for shat-
tering fear. Then the herb's fragrance burned through the floor of his
lungs, seized his heartstrings, and hurled him into a spiraling vertigo
that whirled him headlong from the earth.
    Dimly he realized Traithe was still speaking. Hands touched h'~s
skin, a nagging distraction that badgered him to lie down. Wrung
through and disoriented, he fretted at the contact. His mind ram-
paged through turmoil, then found its release like a beast sprung out
of a trap. His awareness burst open. The shrill song of stars threaded
the gaps between leaves, and the wind sighed through his being. Its
rustling passage through summer green branches framed a language
he could almost understand.
    Traithe loomed above him, his dark clothes the same shimmering,
iridescent obsidian as the plumage of his raven. He towered, a figure
of primordial mystery punched through the spun cloth of twilight.
He raised the stone knife, its blade of white chert trailing filaments of
blue light.
    Jieret blinked, while the earth turned, the majesty of her dance a
vibration that thrummed through his bones. The stars paled, then
burst into pearlescent sparks that burned through the backdrop of
daybreak. Then the clouds ignited also, their drifting serenity shot
into fire-opal patterns. Nesting thrushes sang out a chord that knitted
the air into ecstasy. Jieret felt warm fingers clasp his right hand, then
bear down, pinning his forearm. The textures of cold dew and mossy
stones screamed detail like etched light down the trackways of over-
stimulated flesh.
    He heard Traithe's voice, a whisper of sound strung on a filament
that corded the arc of eternity. "By your blood bond to Prince Arithon
s'Ffalenn, by the ties that lie beyond life and limb, you will seek. Let
two become one."

444

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    Then the knife traced the scar of a much older cut, taken before a
past battle that left the banks of Tal Quorin soaked with the reaped
fruits of hatred. The stone edge of the blade that was now scored and
bit. Its savage, hot sting raised a sleeting, bright numbness. Freed
blood scalded hot over the caithdein's bared skin. The knife's edge
smoked light. Through half-opened eyes and a mind deranged by the
herb smoke, Jieret watched the uncanny, cold fires off the sharpened
chert meet and join with the haze that misted from the flow of his
opened vein.
    "Ride the winds with my blessing, Jieret s'Valerient!" Traithe
scribed a sign that melded the trifold forces of stone knife, flesh, and
life. The twined powers blazed, then towered, transformed into reso-
nance fierce enough to blind vision and scatter the last vestige of rea-
son.
    A wind out of vacuum rushed through Jieret's mind. He cried
aloud, his voice a splash of raw noise amid the howling expanse of
the infinite. Then his last tie to human awareness hurled up and out
though the crown of his head. He whirled on the vast chord of sound
and light that wove the span of Ath's universe, insignificant and frail
as a leaf unmoored by the chill gales of autumn.

    The sun rose, spilling dappled gold spangles over the spring,
and cascading sequined reflections off the small stream. But inside
the scribed circle, where Traithe sat on vigil, the gray half-light of
dawn hung and lingered. Time froze in place there, poised on the
filament of Earl Jieret's courage and the Sorcerer's cast force of
intent. A small stone pipe by Traithe's knee held the spent ashes of
more tienelle leaves, the last ember gone cold with the morning.
Submerged in deep trance, poised as a bridge across the veil of the
mysteries, he cupped his scarred hands over the brow of the pros-
trate Earl of the North. The stone knife was cleaned, the cut wrist
neatly bandaged. Jieret's hawk features were a stilled casting in
wax, his fox hair a cry of bright color against a pillow of emerald
mOSS.
    Nothing moved in that tableau. The raven kept watch, its eyes
amber beads that scarcely shifted or blinked though the days came
and went in their natural rhythm outside of the spell-circle laid
through the crystal.
    Then, as if summoned by some unseen cue, the bird launched into
flight and disappeared. Traithe's tranced awareness sensed its depar-
ture, as under the distant guidance of Althain's Warden, it departed
the plane of dense matter and crossed into the spirit worlds, strung

445

J^~� Wu~?$

like infinite cast shadows between the poles of primal energy and fir-
mament.
    Though Traithe's eyes remained closed, he stared beyond the brink
of time's prison and into the limitless unknown. He held guard in
that place marking space for the gateway, while a finespun trail of
magnetic light traced the path of Earl Jieret's journey. Behind the
caithdein's lead, a shot arrow of feather and bone, a bird who was
more than mere life and flesh flew on a mission of recovery. There
existed no recourse. Either the blood tie would call Earl Jieret to
Prince Arithon, and afford a firm contact to draw from, or all three
would be lost, bird, man, and prince; and the prophet and bard along
with them.
    "Fly brother," Traithe urged in spun dream to his raven. "Follow,
and bridge the connection to bring them all back."
    There were no guarantees. Earl Jieret's awareness might ride the
winds seeking for an untold span of time. If, in that interval, the
Alliance attack swept through Caithwood, or if even one man dis-
turbed the precise spells of suspension Traithe had laid down, the
caithdein of Rathain would be torn back into the linear patterns of
time and entropy. Should that misfortune happen, his comatose flesh
would again become subject to the cruel passage of days. Severed
from consciousness, Jieret's tie to breathing life would fade and
weaken. Attrition would claim his body and organs, until his vital
signs failed and Fate's Wheel turned, bringing final oblivion and
death.

446

Early Summer 5653

Discovery

Summer sun streamed through the wide windows of the Koriani sis-
terhouse at Capewell, laden with the tang of green herbs from the
gardens, and the brisk tonic of salt winds off the sea. The fish markets
teemed under pale, golden light. Elderly women exchanged gossip at
the well, their pails and jugs clumped on the cobbles, while through
the lingering heat of afternoon, the craftsmen's wives gathered on the
colonnaded balconies and sewed sequined masks for the harvest fes-
tival. In the shade of the walled courtyard, the orphan boys shouted
at their games, free through the indolent days while the crops slowly
ripened, and the crofters required no labor. If the waterfront inns
catered to men-at-arms wearing sunwheel surcoats, or if the roads
wore the passage of couriers and patrols in hanging clouds of fine
dust, Tysan's crown treasury honored its debts for their lodging. In
the lazy month while the barley ripened, the season left time for
indulging the gifts of earth's bounty.
    The Koriani Prime Matriarch harbored no such soft sentiment
through her tedious days of convalescence. Imprisoned by her debili-
tating weakness, and fed on the brew of yet another bitter defeat, she
lay swathed in thin coverlets. Her eggshell flesh showed each blue
track of vein. Bones pressed against skin seamed and worn to translu-
cency, the joints like knobbed pearl beneath. Through the weeks since
the spell construct's release had roused her from coma, her glistening
black eyes lent the sole spark of life to her visage.
  She refused idle company. The least small disturbance barraged

447

JANNY ~VU R TS

her strained nerves. Sound and light taxed her senses past
as if the trial of living exhausted repetitive discipline. The
ber appointed for her recovery was always kept dim for that reason.
Thick curtains were drawn over the paned windows to close out the
noise and the frenetic stimulation brought in on strayed currents 0i
breeze. The dammed-in heat of the summer afternoons burdened the
stilled air, dense as a wool blanket, and choked with the scents ~~ the
medicinal teas to cosset her wasted flesh. The gnawing needs ~~ ~,~
intellect were more difficult to appease.
    Each day, by the sweltering light of a beeswax candle, a senior-rank
seeress in dove gray silk sat in strict attendance with a scryin cr~'~al
tucked on her knees.
    "Matriarch," she responded, as she had countless times to the ~
scantly whispered request, "I search, but find no sign or prese~ ~i
Arithon s'Ffalenn. The crystal shows me naught yet again but ~hv
cold fog of the veil."
    A dry breath stirred the bundled form in the bedding. "He's t~
clever by far. That's the bane of his mother's lineage." Morriel forc›~
out another thready whisper, rough as scabbed rust in the gloom. "Ida:
is not on Athera, then." Her hands lay half-curled, crabbed as the fevt
of a petrified songbird, each hideous detail exaggerated in shadv~,-
spun by the crawling spearpoint of flame. "Proceed."
    "Your will, matriarch." The seeress bent to her travail, the bound
knot of her hair bone ivory in the gloom, and her collar stuck ~o h~r
moist neck. The drill she enacted would follow repetitive routi~~ !~r
efforts divided between three futile searches, none of which ch~'~'c~,~.t
from one day to the next. Already, the resident Senior Circle ~' ~~~i~
sisterhouse whispered in corners that the Prime had lapsed in',~ t~.,.~
dotage. The rumors were kept guarded, with no successor at h~..~ t~,
receive an appeal for review. The peeress stayed loyal, and as a: ~'~
sider, the seeress chose not to speculate. Bound by her vows ~-,
unquestioned obedience, she blotted the steamed moisture off l~r
palms, then rebalanced her mind and gazed once more ihto the v~t
depths of the crystal.
    This time, her intent was cast to draw in the location of First $eni, ,?
Lirenda.
    Ever since her awakening amid the spent ash of her construct, ti' ~,
Koriani Prime had been consumed by frustration. Her mind w~ d
not rest. Not until she knew what had destroyed her laid plan t~ cap-
ture Arithon s'Ffalenn.
    Always before this, the crystal scrying had shown darkness, a bar-
rier of blank, impenetrable density that the most gifted talent could

448

             FUGITIVE PRINCE

not pierce. Resigned to another failure, the seeress tuned her effort
with all the skilled force her experience could command. Her will
became the refined filament, drawn like steel thread through the
aperture of the mysteries.
    This time the wall yielded as if no impedance had existed. The
seeress gasped. Her mind reeled into vertigo as her gift met and
tapped into a scene of turbulence and light. She centered and
grounded, by instinct steadying the contact. Sound immersed her, a
welter of voices all shouting at once. Jubilation reigned, amid a
rushed tumult of tumbling impressions. Somewhere on a beachhead,
a small knot of clan scouts were pounding each other's backs and
whooping in ecstatic celebration.
    The kaleidoscopic chaos of this scrying resisted even the best-
trained discipline. The seeress shifted her seeing crystal and probed
for the reason. The scenes jerked and spun, spliced one to the next,
tethered by what looked like a sparkling strand of silver chain. Dark-
ness and blinding sunlight interfaced at random as the viewpoint
swirled and jounced through a packed mass of bodies clad in the
plain fringe of forest clansmen. A voice filtered through, distinct
above others. "Ath, be careful! That trinket's no booty to send to your
sweetheart, but the spell crystal of a Koriani witch, and bound for
another hand than yours."
    The seeress's horrified gasp ripped the sanctity of Morriel's bed-
chamber.
  "What has happened?" came the Prime's drilling treble.
    "I'm not sure yet." The seeress clasped her stone, desperate not to
break ugly news until she could verify her first impression. "Let me
make better sense of the images." Sweat stuck her skirts to her thighs
as she engaged a sigil to force order through whirling turbulence.
Imagery continued to assault her trained senses. The smelting heat in
the bedchamber dulled her touch as she grappled to find a thread to
seize continuity.
    "What do you see?" Morriel asked, querulous. Her hand twitched
on the coverlet. "Has mishap befallen my First Senior?"
    Eyes closed, hands cupped light as a butterfly's shut wings around
the warmed sphere of quartz, the seeress at last captured one angle of
contact. She framed another sigil of control and froze the vision in
place, then engaged the trained logic of observation to assess the
stilled scene by its content. "I see a beach where clansmen weep, run,
and shout in celebration. They are hunters or scouts, to judge by the
carved-bone talismans laced into the cuffs of their boots. One is a
chieftain, the son of a duchess by the four stranded knots in his braid.

449

JANNY WURTS

In the cove, at anchor, ride two blue-water brigs. They're not under
command of Lysaer's Alliance of Light. The banner flying at their
masthead is no sunwheel, but a crude rendition in dark colors." She
paused, tipped the crystal, but failed to extract any further helpful
detail.
    On the high bed, Morriel hissed in displeasure. "So. My plan failed
at sea. What went wrong? I had allowed for every possible setback
contingency." She ranted on, relentless, her words the grate of d~,ad
leaves dragged over unyielding granite. "What of my First $eni~~r?
She should have sailed with those ships. Is she held captive am
enemies?"
    The seeress swallowed, her dampened palms clouding a fo~
crystal's slick surface. "Matriarch, no." In distress and unc~,~'t,~i
she blotted the moisture on her sleeve and exerted her power:
analysis. "I keyed my scrying to Lirenda, as you asked. It would
that I did not find her directly. Instead, I appear to have captured
resonant signature of her personal quartz pendant." A pause, w~
she braced to conclude the unthinkable. "What I read is not the ~
Senior. herself, but the crystal that has come to be separated fi~
presence."
  The closed quiet of the chamber acquired the tension of the
bow, or the measured arc of the spear as it rushed to transfix
tissue. On the bed, the silk coverlet stirred to snatched movernet~
the Prime's fingers closed into fists. "Who has caused this desc
tion?" She never asked whether Lirenda still lived; that fact was
obvious. A long-distance scrying could not have connected in the first
place if the imprinted crystal had lost its energetic tie to the woman.
    Gilt touched with sweat as she leaned to trim the wick of the can-
dle, the seeress resisted the folly of platitudes. Well aware Morriel's
ire would find small surcease, she bent again to peruse her crystal.
Past the flames' renewed glow, the sealed darkness soaked her in
thick, scented silence. No sound intruded. Remote with trance, the
seeress suspended cluttered thoughts and quested through the deep
focus of her quartz sphere. Now aware her linked imagery arose
through an unfiltered contact with the matrix of another mineral, she
aligned her intent to compensate for the random sequence of imagery.
    Somewhere inside the stone's spiraling lattice, caught in frozen
light, she should find an imprint of the desecrating thief who had
dared to strip a First Sentor of her focus jewel. The stored memory
would be encoded as a sequence of vibration from which her linked
stone could reassemble a sequential string of events. Through the
powers of sigils designed to draw truth from falsehood, she might sift

450

FUGIT!~E PRINCE

 thrc)ugh the traces and unveil the purpose of the stone's present-day
 mishandling.
    Long minutes passed, pressed in the musty atmosphere of sun-
heated felt. Morriel's breath rasped in and out, stirring through the
stale musk of age. The astringency of brewed herbs hung over a room
that resonated with the hollow stillness of a sealed drum. Silence
reigned, fraught with the Prime's brooding fury. The candle burned, a
smokeless, bright finger in its graceful bronze stand, the floor tiles
and the tapestries glinting rich colors only inside of its inadequate
light. The spun gold of its touch edged a corner of silk counterpane,
and mapped each infinitesimal crease surrounding Morriel's black
eves. Nothing else moved. The Prime's features seemed a cast-
porcelain impression, assembled from a caricature of knotted old rags
?inned on a framework of skull. Her fingernails gleamed dulled
ivory, the skin shriveled beyond any inclination to give or take simple
pleasures.
    Only power remained, a dragon's balefire caged in sapped flesh by
the thorns of bound duty and a dauntless, implacable dedication.
Though each passing second bespoke final failure, and the allure of
oblivion and death, the Prime's obsidian pupils stayed focused and
sharp, sparked by a dangerous impatience.
    If that last, held bastion of will should give way, the Matriarch
would pass from her office unsucceeded. None other than she could
measure the scope of such loss, or comprehend the risk of backlash
into cataclysm as prime power ranged free with no prepared vessel at
hand to contain the accumulated burden of stored consciousness. Too
aware of the fragility holding the balance, the seeress responded, her
words like scratched glass against her Prime's nettled expectation.
"The crystal was parted from our First Senior by a liegeman of Prince
Arithon's. He. bore the name Caolle."
    "What?" Morriel's screech of astonishment shocked the dense
quiet, and the quilts jumped to the lash of her fist. "That man should
have perished in Riverton of blood loss brought on by a sword
thrust!" Hurled into rage beyond reach of aged strength, the Prime
Matriarch ranted on in a whisper. "What has my First Senior done?"
    "Your pardon, matriarch. I do not know." The seeress cringed,
shaken out of contact with her talents. "I cannot see her. The crystal
will not show her presence, no matter where on the continent I
search."
    Morriel blinked, her eyes two jet rivets. "That's because she is
masked by salt water." One forearm twitched, as if under the skin, the
nerves leaped to jolts of pure fire. Next to the duller agony of stiff

451

]ANNY W URT$

joints, the torment of pure gall burned the hotter. The Koriani Prim,
had spent painstaking centuries grooming a successor, only to suffer
this balking defeat at the hands of a dying clan swordsman. "More to
the point, where is Lirenda's spell crystal now? Who guards the
imprinted key to her life, and for what unprincipled purpose?"
    Another strung interval, while the seeress bent her head and
sought answers across time and distance. Behind tight-latched mr~l-
lions, the curtains did not stir to the crack of the late-afternoon sea
breeze. Morriel lay, her shut lids like blued eggshells. In one of the
windows, a trapped fly buzzed and battered for freedom. Its wings
striking glass made her nerves flare and sear in sparks of pain from
the sound.
    In the end, submersed m a suffocating tension, the seeress's answer
came clear as flung acid with the impacting force of ill news.
    "The crystal resides in the hands of Lord Maenol's barbarians.
They have instructions to give it into Prince Arithon's keeping. There
can be no chance of its rescue, even by the invasion of Caithwood by
the Alliance troops. The clan scouts are jubilant with the fresh ne~xs
that the ships out of Riverton's royal yard were retaken. Due t0
Caolle's intervention, and our First Senior's coercion, every one ,,! tt~e
Shadow Master's condemned henchmen escaped from ca~.tt,.tt?
while at sea."
    Morriel's eyes flickered open, her weighted quiet an obsidia~ k~ie
that could have scored lines in new iron. "There has been a bet~ ~-,~ ,~',"
she announced at raw length. Her clawed forefinger crooked .,r~ t!'~e
counterpane. "Come here," she directed. "I would know whe',~ ~,t~r
First Senior hides now. I can find out by means of your talents, b~t
only if your link to her spell quartz is given over to my disposal."
    The seeress swallowed. Sweat trickled at her throat. Though s!~c.
knew her free will was demanded in sacrifice, her vows left ~
recourse to refuse. Her talents were at the command of her order :,,
spend for the greater good of humanity.
    "You will come to no harm," Morriel assured, brisk, and beckon~d
again for close contact.
    The seeress arose; not young herself, her knees stiffened in ct~,:~
plaint from the hour spent seated on bare flooring. She offered t,~
crystal between her cupped hands in surrender to the will oi her
Prime Matriarch.
    Morriel extended a skeletal finger. Her palsied touch traced a dark
sigil over the quartz sphere. If her body was wasted, her powers were
immense. A force rocked the sealed room like the shock of a thunder-
clap. The seeress quailed outright, chilled by recognition that she wit-

452

FUGITIVE PRINCE

nessed none other than the cipher of prime dominion, imprinted
upon each initiate who swore oath. The one mighty cipher set a brand
like a shackle, and granted the Koriani Matriarch her authorized
ascendancy over all aspects of free will.
    The sigil sieved into the clear quartz like a stain, a shadow wrought
from the stuff of deep nightmare that spilled and frayed and dark-
ened the crystal's bright depths. There, the force hovered, pulsing
with currents that shocked through live flesh and negated the most
passionate coil of desire. Lightless and cold, it realigned the core
matrix of the quartz, then spilled over and laid claim to the seeress's
awareness.
    She flinched in recoil. The crystal's transmission released a shearing
sting of heat against her cradling palms. Engulfed by vertigo, she was
unable to move as Morriel Prime pronounced the guttural words to key
mastery. The sigil fired and took form. Its barbed force claimed thought
and mind, then erased the last imprint of individuality. The resonance of
subjugation shattered the frail web of the seeress's consciousness. W'dl,
self, and senses sucked away into vacuum, first dashed to powder, then
whirled into void by a tide of cyclonic intervention.  Oblivion remained.
    Seconds passed, or eternity; time lost all meaning as the spiraling
force of the crystal's transmission ranged across distance.
    Then, like smashed ice re-formed through smelting heat and dire
cold, new sensation reassembled. The seeress no longer beheld the
sun-drenched beachhead by Mainmere, noisy with exuberant clans-
men. The eyes she gazed out of were not her own, but those of First
Senior Lirenda...

    Under a sky silted in low-hanging stringers of cloud, the harbor at
Corith lay untenanted except for the churned phalanxes of whitecaps
as the brig Lance threaded her inbound course through the chain of
flanking islets. She dropped anchor against a stiff wind. The rock
basin which gleamed fired russet in sunlight, under dampness wore
the blotched tang of rusted iron. Slate waters rolled, and the air
smelled of wet rock, and the faint trace of ozone which warned of an
oncoming gale.
    By the aft rail, the Alliance captain deposed by Caolle's bold strat-
egy stared shoreward. His locked hands stayed braced on new var-
nish, while over and over, the unraveling spume of the breakers
sheeted the jagged crescent strand. The testy temperament once
raised in defiance of Koriani sailing orders had deflated to fretful
humility since the loss of his flagship command.

453

J^N~� WUR~$

    His pride was ashes. Anxious to please lest the First Senior's
mony reveal the sad fact of his damning lack of fight before surren-
der, he volunteered his opinion concerning the vacant anch0r~g~.
"The Alliance fleet from Hanshire included oared galleys. Weath~r's
set up to blow, as you see. If Prince Lysaer's ships are still here, ti~~,v'1I
be tucked up tight in deep shelter. Captains who'll row on blue ~~ater
know weather, or they don't survive. They'd have winched u?
land, high and dry on log skids. Else they're crammed into some cove
behind a barrier reef, where Sithaer's own demons couldn't
enough swell to kick up a rank sea into combers."
    Another gust thrummed through the stays. First Senior Lir~~~da
clamped manicured fingers over her billowing silk. A
strand of dark hair escaped anyway, to stream and snap a refrait~ to
her fierce irritation. Her lighter mantle buffeted against the
oiled cloak, while the silence magnified her indifference toward
ticulars. Whether or not the Prince of the Light would agree to trade,
off hostages with a pirate crew loyal to the Shadow Master, the,
stakes to her personal dilemma stayed unchanged. Moment
moment, she lived in blank dread, besieged by the knowledge her
bonded crystal was withheld on the mainland, guarded by e~.~
hands.
    The Min Pierens archipelago, with its forbidding, scarred c lifft~ ,~
wind-mangled stands of crabbed cedar, wore its mantle ~f
cloud in savage reflection of her mood. Yet where nature co~lti
the unrestrained elements into primordial fury, she must guar(!
vulnerability behind a mannered facade of restraint. She ct~ul~i
nothing but suffer her impotent rage for talents removed be..
access. Beneath anger and poisonous humiliation, she wrestlt,~!
insidious fear, that mishap could unstring every thread of her ambi-
tion and ruin her beyond salvage.
    She had scarcely spoken through the weeks since the Lance
made covert landfall in Havish. There the prize crew loyal to Ari::
had boarded a mannerless cohort of fortune-seeking mercenaries.
sea, the men had no enemy but boredom. They wrestled and
crapulous and picked fights. Rather than suffer their attacks of
humor, Lirenda stayed out of sight. The fortnight's offshore passag~
to the Isles had been spent locked in the privacy of her cabin.
came on deck for the landfall well aware she must keep up the
blance of appearances. Clothed in the eighth-rank robes of a Kori,~n
First Senior and the empty trappings of power, she despised
reduction to female uncertainty, disposition of her fate given into
hands of these rough-cut, fallible men.

454

FUGITIVE PRINCE

  The lookout hailed down from the crosstrees. "Longboat sighted!
Bearing in on our starboard quarter, and flying the sunwheel blazon!"
  Lirenda throttled the urge to cross the deck and gawk alongside
  the sailhands. Nor would she acknowledge the vanquished captain's
  self-blinded lift of optimism. The rippling gilt snap of Prince Lysaer's
  banner against the crocheted heave of the wavecrests promised her
  no deliverance. Reprieve from captivity would not remove her from
  jeopardy. Not when a thousand ways existed to erase the attuned
  bindings which linked her lost quartz to the spells that extended her
  vitality. If few rituals offered the horrific severance that Caolle had
  arranged for the healer, some were deadly innocent enough to occur
  through ignorant mishap.
    A moment's inept handling might plunge the stone into the sea.
Saltwater cleansing would follow, a gentle dissolution of the wards
that would span the course of several days. The first symptom might
bloom with a nagging, dull headache. Weakness would follow. Then
a fumbling loss of reflex, which would progress into fits of sick trem-
bling and convulsions, until she died at last of paralysis, as her inter-
nal organs failed and ruptured, torn apart by the unleashed backlash
of stayed time.
    The slap of raw winds made her feel her mortality, and the
unblemished hand held clenched to the rail only mocked her: she
could wake any morning and find herself trapped in the witless,
shriveled body of a hag.
    Jostled movement beside her upset her dark thoughts. Lysaer's
displaced captain had turned aside to make inquiry, while on deck
behind, a clipped shout in clan accents called for the deckhands to
sway out a boat.
    "Koriathain, my lady?" The deposed captain faced back and
addressed her. "Signals have been relayed through an officer from
Lysaer's royal galley." Uncertainty checked him. His palm left a
broad, misty print on new varnish as he shifted to scrape at the beard
stubble he now owned no blade to raze off. "The clan brigands agreed
I should plead for an exchange of prisoners with the Prince of the
Light."
    "Those plans have changed?" Lirenda gave him her haughty atten-
tion. "State what you wish."
    The man cleared his throat, his diffidence laughable. Deprived of
her crystal, Lirenda owned no powe~s to cow him beyond glacial man-
ners and deportment. If keen observation could still let her fathom the
gist of his disorganized thinking, no schooled methodology could
restore her lost key to access the complex sigils of spellcraft. "State

455

JANNY WURT$

your wish," she repeated. To hide her distaste for his jettisoned male
pride, she fixed her tigerish gaze on the tumbled and desolate sh0re-
line.
    The man's knot of dread and embarrassment loosened. "An officer
from the Alliance flagship has insisted, by word of his Grace, that you
be the one sent to speak for the hostages."
    Which warped twist of fate held a piquant justice; Lirenda c~uld
have howled for the irony. Had her towering rejection of intimacy ~0t
forced her need to defeat Arithon s'Ffalenn, Morriel Prime's desi~n to
ensnare him would have succeeded without setback. No fool's r~und
of bargaining over prisoners and slave oarsmen would need u~der-
taking at all.
    Caolle would have passed the Wheel back in Riverton, with
Lirenda spared from her present coil of entanglement.
    The First Senior made certain as she sealed an empty promist, that
her voice masked her sorry self-derision. "If human lives can be
redeemed from the Shadow Master's henchmen, the vows of my
order require me to act to the absolute limit of my resources."

    Individual awareness reawakened. The seeress snapped back into
herself, disentwined at a stroke from Lirenda's close thoughts, and
the leveling sting of shared shame. Jerked back into the heat of a
Capewell afternoon, she raised her damp head. Her heart raced too
fast. The lingering horror reeled through her from the secondhand
taste of the First Senior's appalling disgrace. The seeress blinked, then
shuddered in revulsion, unable to bear the closed, cloying dimness of
the Prime Matriarch's bedchamber.
    The quartz burned, the etheric web of its matrix torn by the mas-
terful force of the sigil Morriel Prime had rammed through its trans-
mission. Pillowed in stained lace, the Matriarch lay motionless. Her
features were an expressionless skull, swathed in crimped skin, only
animated by the devouring intensity of jet eyes. Her glance in that
hour could have pierced flesh and bone to plunder thought straight
from the mind. Of all harbingers of disaster, this day's scrying had
delivered the penultimate stroke of ill news.
    No setback could strike with such profound impact: the continu-
ance of Koriani power had hung on Lirenda, First Senior.
    Terrified to breathe lest any slight motion rip the dread stillness
and ignite Morriel's leashed wrath, the seeress froze in suspension.
Alive to the unseen currents of danger, she hesitated to ask back her
scrying sphere from the Prime Matriarch's clasped fists.
  Then the decision was spared her. Morriel unlocked her grasp on

456

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

the quartz, though nothing else moved under the tucked layers of the
counterpane. The pleats at her brow seemed starched into place. Her
bitterness poisoned the stifling shadows that speared where the can-
dle's flame faltered. Her seamed lips held the limpid pallor of killed
fish as she waved the seeress back from her bedside. "You may sit."
    "Your will." The enchantress sank down, unsure whether she
dared ask permission to cease further efforts at scrying. She knew of
no precedents. If a betrayal had ever happened this high in the ranks
during the order's long history, none of her colleagues remembered.
Lirenda's defection left her stunned to incapacity, with the Prime's
disappointment an unvoiced anguish all the more deadly for being
suppressed through an invalid's weakness.
    Nor had the seeress ever witnessed an augury cast across open salt
water. She had always believed such a practice lay past the reach of
the most advanced Koriani arts. The chill truth struck home, that the
Matriarch's seat required more preparation and knowledge than a
senior enchantress imagined. Given the harsh fact, the enormity
became crushing, that the one groomed successor had failed to main-
tain her integrity.
    "Well you should fear," said Morriel Prime. "There is only one
glyph that can span the salt ocean. That is the sigil of mastery which I
hold over each and every one of you, impressed on your oath of initi-
ation. Spells spun through its vortex will track an enchantress,
beyond every defense and safeguard. No place in this world lies
exempt. There is no hiding. One who breaks faith cannot escape for-
feit, no matter how far her flight takes her. Even death grants no
surcease. Such spells have been used at need to call halt on the spirit
in its final passage across the Wheel."
    The seeress knotted wet hands, shaking now, and unable to discern
whether her Prime's words were a warning, or a threat laid against
the damaging evidence of Lirenda's disobedience.
    Nor did Morriel waste hoarded strength to volunteer clarification.
"Leave me. Your duty is finished. You will tell nobody what you have
witnessed concerning our order's First Senior." If setback and defeat
at last undermined the tenacity of the Prime's will, she yielded no
sign. Her faint, husking voice still delivered her authority in snapping
short consonants and clipped vowels. "The matter must bide until
Lirenda returns. I will choose the day and the hour when she stands
before me to receive my formal charge against her conduct."

457

Summer 5653

Reprieves

Inside the circle of the Paravian grimward, Asandir defers his
tion and looses another net of spells to hold the dream of the
drake stable; while inside the bewildering coil of its spiral,
another sunwheel soldier meets oblivion in spilled blood, leavh~g
three survivors of the original forty who followed the Hanshire
tain, Sulfin Evend, in pursuit of the Master of Shadow ....

    In the null gray mists between the veil of the mysteries, Jier~'t
rient's naked spirit rides the winds, called ahead by the draw
bond with his prince; and on the faint trail of his passage flies
raven, bearing the tracking presence of Setheir, who waits and
at Althain Tower in the poised hope of effecting a rescue ....

    Steaming mists rise off the pools of Mogg's Fen, where
Maenol crouches with a blooded band of scouts; and they m~v~,
crash the lines of yet another Alliance patrol, as yet uninformed
the campaign to break his clan foothold in Tysan has been defang,,~,i
in the south: that two brigs from Riverton have made [andfall
Mainmere, but flying the leopard blazon of Rathain ....

458

Summer 5653

XIII. Reversals

Lirenda's meeting with Prince Lysaer was not to take place in the
warmed comfort of a state galley's cabin, but ashore, on the
open cliff top. The same shattered ring of First Age foundations
had sheltered the Shadow Master's sailhands before his unfruitful
voyage to Kathtairr. No trace remained now of that habitancy. Six
years of winter storms had scoured off the ashes of the cooking fires.
The bones of fish and hunted game tossed onto their midden were
long since cleared off by scavengers. Even the sail canvas Dakar had
used to roof the shell of the sole standing watchkeep had rotted, the
frayed threads picked away by industrious kittiwakes to line their
nests in the rocks.
    Set ashore by her escort of officers, First Senior Lirenda had been
left to manage the ascent by herself. On that hour, the low-flying
storm scud wore the gloom of a premature dusk. The gusts which
lashed and moaned through bent cedars, in these heights shrilled
across barren stone. Lirenda's light mantle flailed and snapped at the
hem. Each blast assaulted her layers of silk robes, as if the elements
conspired to strip her naked. Her pinned coils of jet hair succumbed
as well, first torn from confinement, then flogged into tangles like
whipped ink against the flushed pink of her cheeks. The dark, con-
gested clouds overhead streamed like frothed smoke in a vat, chased
by intermittent thunder.

459

JANNY W URTS

  Raised in cosseted wealth, accustomed ever since to the
regime of Koriani sisterhouses, Lirenda held no love for wild
She minced over stones too rough for kid soles, and battled to
the proud, erect grace of her carriage. Stressed to primal nerves b,
oncoming gale, she chewed her lip, while the discharge of far off
lightning glazed mercury over the upthrust tangs of sharp rock. She
could imagine no motive for Prince Lysaer to insist on holding an
audience in the midst of a ruined fortress.
    Logic spurred on her intuitive unease. The setting was all wrong.
Based on the observations drawn from years of Koriani lane watch,
the indulgence of demeaning gestures matched nothing of Lysaer's
ruling style.
    Denied her reflexive access to power, Lirenda felt her nerves the
more keenly as she swept the barren summit in search of a sheltering
pavilion. No such royal trapping met her eye. Just the wind-fluted
rims of tumbled-down walls in the poured tones of rust, lead, and
ink. Stone here had been witness to violent death, and under bruised
cloud, the sorrows of antiquity seemed to cry out for the voice of a
bard to waken their brooding memory. When the fortress at Corith
had stood in defense, the site had been burned desolate by drakefire.
Abandoned to wreckage, even the tenacious island cedars could not
pry a stunted foothold to take seed. Too late, Lirenda considered tl~e
pitfalls. The Prince of the Light had ever been wont to wrest full
advantage from the lofty affectations of court ceremony. His character
did not incline toward brooding. Never before this had he been a man
to choose a glowering, windswept terrain to conduct his crown busi-
ness of state.
    She saw him at last, against every precedent unattended where he
stood against a backdrop of gale-ravaged sky. His elegant silk doublet
leaped out like the sheen of found pearl amid the stripped blocks of a
rampart's foundations.
    A gust screamed. Lirenda wrestled the billowing tug of her mantle,
then snagged its purple folds in a death grip to keep it from flagging
like a sail. If she wished to turn back, the moment was forfeit. Prince
Lysaer turned his head and caught sight of her.
    No option remained but to close the last yards over treacherous,
uneven footing.
    Lirenda's fluttery uneasiness could not be dismissed in brash pre-
tense. Koriani life was communal. Those rare occasions she had spent
in male company afforded untrustworthy insight. No man within her
living memory had owned the presence of this prince, daunting and
polished to flawless grace as he inclined his head and acknowledged

460

FUGITIVE PRINCE

her arrival. He offered his hand to steady her last step, his grasp firm
and warm around her cool fingers, and his hair like snagged gold
against the jeweled edge of his collar.
    "Come," he greeted in unsmiling courtesy. "I invited you here to
share the spectacular view."
    Three steps down a defile, one sharp turn to the right; the abrupt
cessation of the wind all but rocked Lirenda off-balance. Lysaer's sure
strength caught her back from a stumble. He steered her downward
into the niche where the ancient foundation arched over a gully in the
cliffside. They halted in that isolate pocket of hushed air, while the
gusts shrieked on unabated up above, and balked eddies careened
through the defile, shearing through spindly stands of racked trees
and harrying their branches like weed stalks. Far beneath, the strand
met the sea in stepped ledges, a jumbled bulwark of silt gravel and
boulders where the raging surf hurled itself ragged.
    The gale was still building. Already the bay wore the loomed
stripes of spindrift, where wind sluiced the tops from the wavecrests.
    On the pending edge of twilight, the beaten stretch of shoreline
tugged the heart with its pristine splendor. Time could be felt here,
the mighty deeds of bygone ages compressed against the present like
a telescoped view through a jewel facet. Lirenda gripped her thin
silks, diminished by awe, and eroded by the demeaning recognition
that her life span mattered to the earth not at all. She gave way to a
contradictory relief, that she did not wear her crystal in this place.
Had her quartz been in hand, its channels would be quickened. The
past might have burst forth and shaken her with the vast, deep tones
of the horns that centaurs once used to call dragons.
    "You may sit," Lysaer said, breaking through her inadvertent
absence of mind. In seamless, reserved grace, he handed her onto a
fallen slab of coping.
    She would not cast off pride. Rather than decry her spell-blinded
straits, she bent her cool gaze to wring the uttermost from her Koriani
arts of observation. "In my sisterhouse, it would be I granting you
that permission."
    Lysaer smiled, his candor a weapon's cleared edge. "This site
adheres to its own grand sovereignty, except for the Shadow Master's
meddling."
    "We need not stand upon dignity for that." Lirenda gathered the
spilled folds of her mantle and made space for him on the stone.
    He chose to stay standing. She scrutinized his poise, unblinking
and still as a snake that sized up choice prey. Lysaer met her regard
without qualm, a feat few men dared to sustain beyond the brute

461

JANNY ~URT$

span of a moment. The bedrock calm that lent this prince majesty was
in fact the intent of a spirit schooled into a seamless, listening
patience. Whatever she did or said in his presence would be heard
without personal prejudice. No judgment would be passed until their
exchange had been weighed in its entirety.
    That striking attentiveness, paired with the grave impact of male
beauty, lent the man his stunning charisma. Lirenda searched his
clean features for the fine, marring evidence of selfishness, and found
no line in the flesh out of harmony with its framework of bone. He
was all substance and firm moral courage. His skin wore its youth
like an oak tree's new leaves, and yet, he was not young. Lirenda
tried to imagine him as a boy with scraped knees and tousled hair',
and failed utterly.
    Even here, where the elements lent no man contrived artifice,
Lysaer's natural bearing bespoke inborn royalty stamped all the way
to the marrow.
    Made aware through her own armor of deportment that she and
this prince shared more similarities than differences, Lirenda gave
rein to her impulse. "If you could have chosen the course of your life,
would you be here today?"
    Lysaer did not lift his regard from her, nor did the scoured, limpid
blue of his eyes once deviate from directness. "I was born a king's
heir. I know nothing else."
    But his hands gave the lie, unrelaxed against the foil thread of his
hose. Lirenda sensed a glass edge to his poise, as though he had made
his first stance on the cliff top in challenge, daring the gale to rise up
and smash his works into oblivion.
    Lirenda said, "This seems an odd site for a king's heir to hold audi-
ence. What made you come here?"
    "I needed solitude in which I could be myself." His answer yielded
no shred of shared trust as he settled his shoulder to the rocks. "How-
ever, even here we are not alone. Our ties of responsibility still bind
us. Can you see them?"
    The seed pearls on his sleeve pocked the gloom as he pointed
toward the carnelian gleam where the Lance's stem lantern bobbed
amid saw-toothed wavecrests.
    Lirenda maintained her tight survey of his face. "Do you speak of
the hostages who are offered in exchange for the clan slaves kept
chained on your galleys? You could bend to demand. Or do you
believe the Teir's'Ffalenn's allies drive too high-handed a bargain?"
    "A prince must give way to no man. His guide must be the princi-
pled tenets demanded by justice and mercy." Yet new lines crimped

462

FUGITIVE DRINCE

the comers of Lysaer's eyes. A fractional tautness to his jaw exposed
his fleeting, raw edge of discomfort.
    Some recent event still caused him an intense and personal
anguish. A thrill piqued Lirenda's interest, that Koriani arts might
allow her a glimpse of his most private core.
    "The common subjects of the realm must receive the same law as
others born to wealth and position," Lysaer qualified. "My will is not
at issue, lady enchantress, now or at any time. Today, I must pass sen-
tence on men who failed in their orders. Tomorrow, for the weal of the
realm, I may have to sign an execution for treason against the woman
I took to wife."
    There lay the hidden vulnerability, a raw nerve betrayed in the
trembling flash of his jewels. In Princess Talith lay the source of the
agony Lysaer lacked human outlet to express. "You loved her,"
Lirenda accused, aware through h'ls front of equanimity that the con-
fidence she probed for was unlikely to be shared with anyone.
    The temper of his voice came back like sheared metal. "The
Shadow Master knew. He sought to use her to ruin me."
    Lirenda studied Lysaer's shuttered features, the pain embedded so
deeply that not even tears might flow; a wounding as bloodless as the
blued tang of steel broken off inside vulnerable flesh. If this was how
love could mangle free choice, she was all the more determined to
keep her own spirit unencumbered. "Why did you bring me here?"
    "Did you not guess?" Rings and gold braid sparked to a faint play
of lightning. "This is a trial, your hearing, for my impartial royal
judgment, since the Lance has not delivered the Master of Shadow in
chains. Your order's part was to drive my enemy to flight out of
Riverton. I want to know how he chanced to gain warning of my trap
set and waiting here at Corith."
    Lirenda all but shot to her feet in stunned shock. Barely in time, her
reflexive poise slapped back the impulse and saved her. She pulled in
a chain of deep breaths.
Lysaer watched, his eyes on her impartial as sky-printed water.
Relief surged over her like a shot pail of ice as she recouped blud-
geoned wits and reminded herself he was not yet aligned in decision
against her. The Prince waited, prepared to hear her explanation, the
only ruffled part of him now the gilt hair left snarled by the wind.
    "You must understand," he pressed, gentle as though he mistook
her silence for reluctance to name a guilty party. "No inquest could be
made in the presence of the men-at-arms who serve with my fleet.
Each has lost brothers and loved ones in the war against the true
dark. For the fact that Arithon s'Ffalenn slipped the net, they would

463

respond like a dog pack. Unveil a conspirator, and they'll cry for fresh
blood until a death has righted the balance."
    Some sly fact stayed unsaid. Lirenda caught the shrewd set to his
stillness, alongside the unpleasant insight that more than royal judg-
ment would be passed in this unwitnessed hearing. Like his half
brother, Lysaer s'Ilessid bore the royal gifts of s'Ahelas on the distaff
side of his pedigree. However he pronounced sentence for the mis-
play at Riverton, his indictment would bear a calculated stake in the
future. While the night deepened, and the storm broke in turbulent
force against the headlands, she realized that Koriani observers too
often neglected to allow for the mother's inherited farsight.
    "The wise man knows the master always outlives his hounds,"
Lirenda threw back in provocation.
    "Only one opportunity has been lost to take down the Spinner of
Darkness," Lysaer s'Ilessid allowed. "We agree, that's no cause to
indulge in the hysteria of disappointment."
    Against five centuries' longevity, the event lost its impact. The
Prince of the Light would not trifle with recriminations. He would
instead reshape this setback in deliberate calculation to steer later
events to his purpose. Lirenda's suspicion bloomed into swift anger.
Morriel Prime would be mortified to learn any Koriani Senior had
strayed inside the reach of such usage.
    "Is this royal prerogative?" Lirenda provoked. "Are we not to
brand your conspirator in public?"
    Lysaer withheld response; and the fear shot cold through her, since
she had no way to fathom how much he knew, or how much he relied
upon guesswork, concerning the reverses brought on by her med-
dler's choice to prolong Caolle's survival.
    Across gale-torn waters and thickening gloom, the firefly dance of
the ship's lantern mocked her. She found herself mortal and exposed
in this crux as the Lance's miserable, deposed captain. The gutted
pride of her First Senior's rank made her loath to cross moral wits
with the man hailed as Prince of the Light.
    This moment's freight of uncertainty became as grueling a punish-
ment as the loss of her link to prime power. Against masterful state-
craft, Lirenda had no true shield, but only bare wits and a scathing
self-contempt.
     At length, without censure, Lysaer gave his answer. "There can be
 no conspiracy. The orders you follow are not yours, but your
 Prime's."
     The multiple snares of innuendo bit deep. "Must you insist on
 attaching blame?" Cornered behind her last shred of confidence,

464

FUGITIVE PRINCE

Lirenda fell back upon pretense. "If so, you have no guilty party, but
only a poor choice of scapegoats. No man broke your faith. For rea-
sons of mercy, my order spared a liegeman of Arithon's. Caolle's
wounding was mortal. At the end of his strength, no one foresaw he
might become the weapon to turn in the hand and wrest the Shadow
Master's capture off course."
    "Caolle, who once served as war captain to Steiven s'Valerient, and
later, to the heir, Jieret Red-beard? My lowliest Etarran foot soldier
would have weighed that man's character with better prudence."
Dangerous now as struck flame, Lysaer faced the sea. A sudden, sheet-
ing flare of lightning scoured his profile to the ennoblized stamp on a
coinface. "Such a man could never be harmless until he lay dead." He
waited again in sly pressure, prepared to let silence condemn her.
    Lirenda would not stoop to volunteering the Koriani role behind
the question he posed by implication.
    Lysaer raised his eyebrows in acidic irony. "Weren't you planning
to importune me about hostages? Or does the Lance not sail under a
barbarian crew, with my sworn company of Etarrans held locked in
her hold as their captives?"
    "Is that an issue?" For surely he had noticed: the inbound storm
stripped the night's secrets. For minutes on end, Lirenda had marked
the ongoing flurry of activity around the hull of the anchored Lance.
Another bolt of lightning rinsed the ocean dull pewter. From the cliff
top, wrapped in the scent of gathering rain, one could make out the
busy flotilla of oared boats bearing fugitives off the moored ship. As
she watched, the leading party made a sheltered landing in a cove
notched into an offshore islet.
    "Of course," Lysaer said, "we came for the view, since the script is
too obvious. My men-at-arms and original sailhands are still impris-
oned on board the flagship. Since they'd not be left free, the crew in
the boats are undoubtedly Arithon's, leaving. They work for a pirate.
What would they expect except shiftless treachery, no matter whose
word should be asked as surety for their safety? Dogs forced to skulk
know well when to cringe. As my father learned in Amroth, to his
everlasting sorrow, there is no dealing with s'Ffalenn hirelings
through any honorable exchange."
    Lirenda uncrimped her hands from balled silk, displeased to find
herself sweating. "Why make them a display for my benefit, then?"
    Lysaer gave her his complacent survey, as if he might memorize
the precise pattern of loose hair trailed across her domed forehead, or
set a mold to the secretive slant of her eyelids. "For my own men, nat-
urally, there can be no choice. And I asked you here to bear witness."

465

JANNY WURTS

    Full night had fallen. Beyond the white crash of breakers on the
headland, the dark between forks of lightning became a wind-
textured veil of black air, pinpricked in distance by the solitary flame
of the abandoned flagship's stem lamp. Lysaer in his doublet of milk
satin and worked pearl seemed no ordinary man, but an avatar sent
down to earth in a form wrought of silvery light. Lirenda saw him
turn from her, his expression resolved into a stem serenity she found
terrifying for its perfect absence of uncertainty. Then he raised t~is
right arm.
  She foresaw his intent a heartbeat too late.
    "Mercy on them, you can't!" Her cry entangled with a tortured
shriek as his raised gift of light slammed land and sky into recoil.
    Thunder fit to crack rock shook the ruins. This was no discharge
brewed by natural forces and clean storm, but the retort of lethal fury
unleashed as an act of vengeful judgment. Heat sheared in backlash.
The fresh-whetted tang of ozone rode the air as the bolt arced down
to meet the sea and its defenseless target: the fragile, wood-chip
frailty of the ship which swung unsuspecting at her anchorage.
    Deafened, dazed half-blind, Lirenda reeled backward against
crumbled stone. She saw the point of impact as a blooming, orane
star. Timbers and furled canvas and cordage ignited, and with them,
Tysan's entrapped subjects exploded amid a horrific maelstrom ~f fire
and debris.
    Then all light extinguished. The pealing echoes of spent force
quaked the hills and slapped the ground, while the gusts disperse~
clotted streamers of flame. Wreckage and cinders settled and snuffed
out amid a scrim of storm-racked waves.
    The next snap oœ ord~ar)' l~ghtaing unveiled no more than shred-
ded drifts of smoke.
    Lirenda clawed back upright. She smoothed the disarranged folds
of her mantle, raked back fallen hair, and through flash-burned
vision, saw the Prince of the Light turned back once again to face her.
    His posture was straight as Daelion's justice, and his eyes, the
unrelenting, fierce blue of zenith sky.
    "For mercy," he said, his gaze locked to hers. "Behold the true cost
of your intervention in my plan. Every death upon that vessel must
lie on your own conscience, lady."
    When Lirenda tried speech, he cut her off with brute sovereignty.
"Far more is at issue than the Shadow Master's destruction. You will
advise your Prime that mankind deserves a future unencumbered by
the meddling intervention of factions who manipulate our society
with magecraft."

466

FUGITIVE I)RINCE

    Lirenda felt steel rise up with her gorge. "Why you arrogant
butcher!" Sickened, appalled, she regrouped her shocked nerves. "Is
this pique, for balked plans? Some berserk fit of hatred?" Summary
justice was a high king's fight, and he, granted less than legal sanc-
tion as crown prince. "What have you done here, but show in cold
blood you can self-righteously murder the innocent?"
    "Yes, but were they innocent?" Lysaer's formal civility clashed at
odds with the heat of her roused female outrage. "You alone would
know, First Senior." He took her hand, drew her to the cliff path with
such vehemence she nipped her tongue. "Take warning, enchantress,
lest your kind cross my wishes again."
    Lirenda resisted his urge to call an end to the audience, even as the
force of his close presence tested the depth of her ire. The rocks them-
selves conspired against planted feet. She stumbled, caught the hem
of her mantle beneath her heel. Silk tore like the whisper of screams
the wronged dead had been granted no time to utter.
"You have no authority over Koriani affairs," Lirenda snapped.
"You believe so," Lysaer corrected, and then qualified with that
magisterial arrogance that brought the most obstinate guild ministers
to their knees. "One captain, a ship's crew, and a company of men-at-
arms failed in completing my orders. Whether they did so through
negligence, or if they were coerced by the power of your Koriani sis-
terhood does not matter. Their fate at my hand became a foregone con-
clusion on the instant they permitted the Lance to change course for a
landfall in Havish."
    Another step out of shelter, and the gale winds would tear away
words. Lysaer let her pause to lend his conclusion due emphasis. "I
can afford no loyal officer to fear others before me. Such a weakness
could only open the sworn honesty of innocents to risk. Let your
Koriani Order leam well from your mistake. The men in my Alliance.
will not be allowed to become the ready tools of outside powers. I will
not have them suborned!"
    He let her go. The sudden release staggered her backward and
bruised her heel against an unkind angle of rock. Men's lives had
been sacrificed, and an insolent ship's boy, not for their own acts
made in guilt or innocence, but for hers, as example to an absent Prime
Matriarch.
    Lirenda pushed straight, shook the chaff of winter-burned moss
from her robes, while the rising gale screamed, and lightning jagged
like sullen cracks shot through crystal against the blackened horizon.
Her eyes caught the glow, lit bale fire in reflection, as she dismissed
Lysaer's face and fair person. "No prince, but a manslayer. Tysan's

467

JANNY WURTS

 clans were well advised by their caithdein not to entrust you with
 kingship."
     His effrontery showed flawless and deferent manners as he
 clasped her hand to escort her away. "I'm gratified to see my point
 taken so courteously to heart."
     Lirenda stiffened. She would not ask what measure of justice
 would befall the Shadow Master's men, gone to ground as maroons
 with no shelter beyond the overturned keels of four longboats.
    Lysaer widened the breach by telling her in detail. "Traitors ancl
pirates are condemned through fair trial under the written annals of
the realm's law. My governance of men who are not my sworn liege-
men is a matter of public record. No harm will befall the fugitives
from the Lance until they've been captured and arraigned by due pro-
cess."
    Lirenda drew breath to warn him: the renegade crew from the brig
yet included the cleverest of Riverton's turncoat shipwrights. Pure
instinct stayed her. She observed the prince with her arts until the
false complacency sprang stark to the eye and belied his impartial
statement. The line of Lysaer's mouth was too knowing, too hard. His
quiet was not born of calm, but an act to smooth over a keen, intro-
verted calculation.
    Lirenda's trained perceptions pierced that facade and exposed the
underlying face of the truth: that for the linked network of Prince
Arithon's supporters, the end would come later, upon the hour of
Lysaer's choosing. Whatever rebellion their actions fomented would
first be used to leverage further impetus toward Alliance consolida-
tion of power, and then to extend the quest to wreak the Shadow
Master's downfall into a force of dominion to command every king-
dom on the continent.
    "You think I don't mourn for the waste of good lives," Lysaer said.
"I've watched as you base your calculations upon the careful beget-
ting of a power base. But your thinking is flawed. You reason without
pity. Otherwise you must see, I act for this cause because there is no one
else capable."
    Lirenda stopped cold on the path as the impacting power of
Lysaer's sincerity rocked her. Game pieces and conflict acquired new
meaning. Now she could not evade the overwhelming recognition of
the pain he had managed to hide behind the artful trappings of state
dignity.
    "The Fellowship of Seven refused the burden," Lysaer admitted as
her gaze returned to reassess every majestic angle of his face. The
barest note of leaked bitterness strained through as he dismissed her

468

JANNY WURTS

clans were well advised by their caithdein not to entrust you with
kingship."
    His effrontery showed flawless and deferent manners as he
clasped her hand to escort her away. "I'm gratified to see my point
taken so courteously to heart."
    Lirenda stiffened. She would not ask what measure of justice
would befall the Shadow Master's men, gone to ground as maroons
with no shelter beyond the overturned keels of four longboats.
    Lysaer widened the breach by telling her in detail. "Traitors and
pirates are condemned through fair trial under the written annals of
the realm's law. My governance of men who are not my sworn liege-
men is a matter of public record. No harm will befall the fugitives
from the Lance until they've been captured and arraigned by due pro-
cess."
    Lirenda drew breath to warn him: the renegade crew from the brig
yet included the cleverest of Riverton's turncoat shipwrights. Pure
instinct stayed her. She observed the prince with her arts until the
false complacency sprang stark to the eye and belied his impartial
statement. The line of Lysaer's mouth was too knowing, too hard. His
quiet was not born of calm, but an act to smooth over a keen, it~tro-
verted calculation.
    Lirenda's trained perceptions pierced that facade and exposed the
underlying face of the truth: that for the linked network of Prince
Arithon's supporters, the end would come later, upon the hour of
Lysaer's choosing. Whatever rebellion their actions fomented would
first be used to leverage further impetus toward Alliance consolida-
tion of power, and then to extend the quest to wreak the Shadow
Master's downfall into a force of dominion to command every king-
dom on the continent.
    "You think I don't mourn for the waste of good lives," Lysaer said.
"I've watched as you base your calculations upon the careful beget-
ting of a power base. But your thinking is flawed. You reason without
pity. Otherwise you must see, I act for this cause because there is no one
rise capable."
    Lirenda stopped cold on the path as the impacting power of
Lysaer's sincerity rocked her. Game pieces and conflict acquired new
meaning. Now she could not evade the overwhelming recognition of
the pain he had managed to hide behind the artful trappings of state
dignity.
    "The Fellowship of Seven refused the burden," Lysaer admitted as
her gaze returned to reassess every maiestic angle of his face. The
barest note of leaked bitterness strained through as he dismissed her

468

FUGITIVE PRINCE

from private audience. "Today, to my sorrow, I have found your
Koriathain cannot be trusted to act with me for the common good."

    The gale pounded over the Isles of Min Pierens in bands of ram-
paging winds and white rain squalls. In the cliff caves where the main
body of Lysaer's fighting companies and ships' officers took refuge,
the gusts took voice and fluted in diminished minor tones where the
eddies snagged across rock. The caverns had been carved by water
and winds, before the mazed array of branching tunnels had been
bored by the hot breath of dragons.
    Attrition still reigned. Like the fortress above, time crumbled the
stoutest stone bastions. Flooding and springs had crystallized lime-
stone into a petrified silt that smoothed over the scored marks of
drakes' claws.
    Amid echoed bickering, men vied over the best alcoves to hunker
down with their bedding. The convoluted ceiling allowed but one
fire, and that was reserved for their prince.
    First Senior Lirenda kept to herself. Given a dry cranny, a meal of
smoked fish and ship's rations, and the blankets an officer shared out
of courtesy, she observed the royal men-at-arms as they diced or
bandied lewd jokes and smart talk; in grumbling, closed groups, they
polished the rust the sea air raised on their weapons and mail. One
boisterous party chalked out a circle, stripped their shirts, and
arranged bouts of wrestling. The enchantress in their midst was
ignored. Whether at Lysaer's order, or through the inherent dread
most townborn felt toward spellcraft, every man in the company gave
the Koriani First Senior wide berth.
    Like any other who had sworn life service to the sisterhood,
Lirenda was inured to overt signs of distrust. Long experience let
her disregard the unsettled glances, the furtive signs to ward
spellcraft cast her way when men believed her attention lay else-
where.
    Not all of the posturing sprang out of ignorance. Lysaer's ranking
officers kept their scrupulous distance as well. The Koriani First
Senior was excluded from their council concerning the sprung news
that the Spinner of Darkness had slipped through their net. Nor did
any man in her hearing mention the summary execution of those
comrades just burned alive in the hold of the Lance.
    Whether Lysaer s'Ilessid had given them notice of his justice, or
whether they would be left to believe the vessel had been sunk by a
stroke of natural lightning, Lirenda was not privileged to know.
Reduced to the rankling role of an eavesdropper, she strained to catch

469

from private audience. "Today, to my sorrow, ! have found your
Koriathain cannot be trusted to act with me for the common good."

    The gale pounded over the Isles of Min Pierens in bands of ram-
paging winds and white rain squalls. In the cliff caves where the main
body of Lysaer's fighting companies and ships' officers took refuge,
the gusts took voice and fluted in diminished minor tones where the
eddies snagged across rock. The caverns had been carved by water
and winds, before the mazed array of branching tunnels had been
bored by the hot breath of dragons.
  Attrition still reigned. Like the fortress above, time crumbled the
stoutest stone bastions. Flooding and springs had crystallized lime-
s,~,~e i~t~ a ~*vi~qex4 silt t.~t s.~,,'~**~d ~ ~e scord ,~arkz ~ef
drakes' claws.
    Amid echoed bickering, men vied over the best alcoves to hunker
down with their bedding. The convoluted ceiling allowed but one
fire, and that was reserved for their prince.
    First Senior Lirenda kept to herself. Given a dry cranny, a meal of
smoked fish and ship's rations, and the blankets an officer shared out
of courtesy, she observed the royal men-at-arms as they diced or
bandied lewd jokes and smart talk; in grumbling, closed groups, they
polished the rust the sea air raised on their weapons and mail. One
boisterous party chalked out a circle, stripped their shirts, and
arranged bouts of wrestling. The enchantress in their midst was
ignored. Whether at Lysaer's order, or through the inherent dread
most townborn felt toward spellcraft, every man in the company gave
the Koriani First Senior wide berth.
    Like any other who had sworn life service to the sisterhood,
Lirenda was inured to overt signs of distrust. Long experience let
her disregard the unsettled glances, the furtive signs to ward
spellcraft cast her way when men believed her attention lay else-
where.
    Not all of the posturing sprang out of ignorance. Lysaer's ranking
officers kept their scrupulous distance as well. The Koriani First
Senior was excluded from their council concerning the sprung news
that the Spinner of Darkness had slipped through their net. Nor did
any man in her hearing mention the summary execution of those
comrades just burned alive in the hold of the Lance.
    Whether Lysaer s'Ilessid had given them notice of his justice, or
whether they would be left to believe the vessel had been sunk by a
stroke of natural lightning, Lirenda was not privileged to know.
Reduced to the rankling role of an eavesdropper, she strained to catch

469

~ANNY W URTS

what fragmented conversation she could as a rain-sodden courier
came in with word from the fleet snugged down in safe anchorage.
    "... galleys are hove up in the coves on the lee side of Caincyr Isle,
as planned." The young man peeled off his dripping oilskin. His
rough-cut features and perfect teeth gleamed with avid good spirits,
touched to copper relief by the fire. "The convict oarsmen and the
other Corith prisoners are held in chains ashore, under close guard by
the ships' crews."
    Lysaer's reply lost itself in a dissonant screeling of steel as two
zealous Etarrans put their shoulders into sharpening halberds.
Lirenda caught no more than the clipped inflection of the royal query,
implying some detail failed to satisfy. She gathered the gist concerned
the prize Cariadwin, surrendered to the Alliance, but having no loyal
crew of her own.
    "The brig's keel drew too much water," the courier explained,
shoulders squared and voice risen in loyalty to the royal fleet's com-
manding admiral. "Daelion preserve! My Lord said to tell you her
blue-water captain has a temperament like a spring nettle. As he was
the Shadow Master's minion, he won't cooperate, and our galleymen
get twitchy under sail in strange waters. Would your Grace risk men's
lives? The shoals in those inlets shift with each tide. The rutter we're
using with a gale at our backs is six centuries old, and written in
archaic language!"
    A pause, while someone with seagoing experience injected a
quelling comment; then laughter, cut by Lysaer's stark inquiry, "¬fell,
if the Cariadwin's not in the coves with the galleys, where in the Light
did your officers decide to snug her down?"
"At anchor, your Grace. She's secured in the narrows of the cut."
Silence, of yawning and disastrous proportion; the spirited factions
by the wrestlers stilled. Men honing weapons were asked to desist.
Even the rowdiest dicers held t~eir next throws, heads turned to fol-
low the rising altercation.
    "What's wrong?" asked the courier, made the isolate center of
attention by the revealing firelight. "The brig is unmanned, for com-
mon sense. Storm could snap her cables any time and set her down
on the rocks. No crew could save her. She'd break up in minutes. Rip-
tide's too fierce the way the swell's running to allow a stranded com-
pany to launch off boats if she wrecked."
    Across the weather-stained vaults of the cave, over the heads of
men-at-arms and Alliance officers, Lirenda saw Lysaer glance her
way. His eyes were hard blue, and scarcely amused: the cliff-top van-
tage of his audience with her, and the summary act of his judgment

470

FUGITIVE PRINCE

had not yet been shared with his people. None of them knew that
men loyal to Arithon had been left at large in the storm. Since the
longboats which accomplished furtive escape could not have been
seen from the shoreline, she alone shared the clandestine awareness
that Arithon's crew from the Lance had more than likely survived.
    Those men could not be traced now. The ferocity of the gale would
have covered their tracks, even if a boat could venture the crossing to
the islet where they had sought refuge.
    "Your fleet admiral said risk no lives for the prize," the courier
answered in earnest response to the sudden outburst of questions. "If
a watch crew stayed aboard, what good could that do? They'd be left
to fate's mercy. The brig can scarcely beat her way out. Wind's like a
funnel at the eastern inlet. To the west lie the Snags, submerged reefs
and rocks fit to mill a hull's timbers to wreckage."
    Lirenda arose. Having breached Lysaer's trust, she felt moved to
offer a gesture to salvage what she could of her order's damaged
integrity. She gathered her damp mantle and stepped through the
grouped men, while hands snatched their strewn dice up out of her
path, or made signs against spellcraft at her back. She paid the inimi-
cal gestures no mind. The smells of moist cloth and oiled steel and
humanity oppressed her as the mass of the company quieted. All eyes
fixed her way. Her wet kid shoes made less sound than a wraith as
she traversed the sweating limestone floor to reach the fireside
enclave with the prince.
  "Loan me one of your diamonds," she said.
    Lysaer asked no question, but drew his knife and cut a stud from
his doublet. His hands retained their enviable poise as he placed the
gem into her keeping.
    Lirenda knelt before the fire. She pushed back the lush, sable fall of
her hair. The beat of close flame dewed a sheen on her forehead as she
turned the small jewel between her fingers. She rotated the chased
setting and measured the illumination which played through the
starred planes of its facets, until an arrow of frozen light threw its
focused reflection across the centerline of her palm. The stone's
imprint was not dedicated to her; she could exert no will through its
matrix. But given the sensitivity of her inborn talent, and guided by
knowledge of runelore, she might link the stone's resonance into
Lysaer's need to know, and shape a rudimentary scrying.
    The enchantress closed out the furtive rustles as the curious gath-
ered at her back. Her mind brooked no distraction. She unreeled her
awareness deep into the stone's core until she captured the still point at
its heart. Then she raised her distanced vision across the fire's emission

471

JANNY WURTS

of rippling smoke and hot sparks. She narrowed her eyesight upo~ the
planes of Prince Lysaer's face, that no nuance of expression sh~L~td
escape her.
    "Stare through the flames and gaze deep into the matrix of the dia-
mond," she instructed. "Hold to your wish. Let your thoughts not stray
from your purpose. While you own your desire to its fullest extent. I'll
scribe an amplifying me-field. If your will stays steadfast and fort~~n~
favors, the answer you seek will become manifest in the fire."
    As Prince Lysaer concentrated, Lirenda stretched and extended t~er
awareness. The distraction of the fighting company dissolved as
relaxation stilled her outer senses. Preternaturally conscious of the
grounding quiet rooted throughout the cavern, she embraced the
weighty tonnage of the earth, then expanded her consciousness
beyond. The gale outside touched her nerves as a tantrum of wind
and element. She felt the white waves which drummed through
Corith's headland, and the vibration of thunder through bedrock.
This place, which had been the past lair of great drakes, made her
effort feel sadly diminished. She fought the sudden, overwhelming
futility, that her order's works seemed little more than the industry of
ants, which died to raise cities from sand grains.
    Through the muffling calm of her inner alignment, she heard
Lysaer's word of dismissal. Changed air brushed her skin. She sensed
the dispersal of men from the fireside, and wondered what secret the
Prince of the Light wished to keep from his ranking officers. Then her
last thought dissolved into full trance. Held in suspension between
prince and diamond, she raised her hand and scribed the opening
cipher for the first ordained rune of power...

    The bright scrim of the flames gave way to combed sheets of rain, and
another live fire, quenched in a darkness measured between the static bursts
of new lightning. The scrying lent vision where the storm reigned supreme,
and the waters of a rock-bounded estuary lay thrashed to boiling lead by the
brunt of the whipping winds. The snubbed hull of a brig loomed in faint sil-
houette through the veiling rags of spindrift. The Cariadwin had been
secured by competent seamen, her spars and topmasts struck for foul
weather, with spring lines made fast and a double length of cable payed out
for added security. Storm made a mockery of even the most stringent precau-
tions. The brig tossed and slammed like a maddened beast. The sheltering
influence from the islet to windward afforded her scanty protection. Behind
the roll of her counter, the peril of a lee shore: a spit of raw boulders sieved
through by ribbons of green water and spume. Jagged reefs gnashed the froth
in the shallows, seething up geysers of spray.

472

              FUGITIVE PRINCE

    Despite the fury of wind and' wave, the brig's decks held men, struggling
against the murderous elements to hoist her topsail yards to her caps. In
determined struggle, sails were bent on, with spunyard stops, and gaskets
cast off, to ready her canvas for setting on instantaneous notice. The spell-
caught vantage sharpened into focus and revealed their desperation: the
slipped hand or foot as,gusts raked the ratlines; the cried orders lost or not
heard at all as rain and waves drummed white torrents on her decks. And
yet, even blind, even deafened by the gale's thundering tumult, the men
worked in concert. They cajoled the ship like a reluctant maiden. Firstfore-
sails and main yard were hauled aback; then the silvered stroke of an axe
blade chopped her anchor line at the hawse.  The wind claimed her then for its own.
    A bone in the teeth of a maelstrom, the Cariadwin spun, slewed abeam as
her foresail was cut free. She heeled under her flogging yards of canvas. Then
more sails bloomed from mizzen and spanker gaff. To the peal of someone's
exuberant whoop, she backed, stern to. Another unheard, frantic order sent
crewmen scurrying to haul the braces. The helm was reversed. Stressed sails
slammed full, laid for a starboard tack.
    "Saved!" cried her distant, gamecock captain in a paean of exultation.
Through a brash feat of daring in defiance of all odds, the brig recovered in
Prince Arithon ' s name skirted the foaming fangs of the reef and ran the open
channel, to be lost into howling dark.

    "Show me the cove where my galleys are snugged down," Lysaer
broke in with hard urgency. But cold logic scarcely required a scrying
to confirm the extent of the enemy's resourceful sabotage. The Lance's
crew had included forty war-hardened clansmen set free by King
Eldir's justice. They had predictably matched a choice opportunity
with thorough tactics. Nor had they shown any mercy in vengeance
for the kinsmen they found enslaved with the royal fleet. In shadowy
images, the bad news emerged: of hulls left holed and unfit for pas-
sage, and a score of dead sentries, dropped at their posts with slashed
throats. All that remained of the two hundred clan convicts Lysaer's
justice had chained for the oar were the sheared-off ends of their fet-
ters.
    "A victory for your nemesis," Lirenda observed. Her laughter
welled up for the lofty irony, that Lysaer's self-righteous public scru-
ples had led to his own comeuppance.
    "For today, one might think so." The prince's response was too
calm, too knowing, and his gesture, a courtier's indifference as he
extended his hand to recover his borrowed diamond. "The sweetest
gains fall from the jaws of defeat. What seasoned galleyman could

473

J^NN�

possibly believe that brig could sail clear in the teeth of a gale, except
through an act of dark sorcery?"
    He let that sink in, while a crook of one finger brought a page out
of nowhere to secure the loose stud in his baggage. The boy blushed
under his blinding smile, then retired out of earshot as the exhilarat-
ing impact of Lysaer's attention fastened back on the enchantress.
"Our departure from Min Pierens will be delayed for some weeks.
Since no message can be sent until my damaged galleys are made sea-
worthy, my council ashore will be tied. If Maenol's rescued clansmen
strike to plunder before then, affairs back in Tysan will be primed and
set for a righteous retaliation. My deferred reappearance will repay
every setback. I'll find public fervor whipped to a fever pitch the
instant we make landfall on the mainland."
    Lirenda stared, while the stopped air in her chest compressed into
stunned disbelief. "Ath's mercy, you could not have intended this!"
    "I will prevail, for the good of this land and the innocent people
who rely on my protection." Across the dwindling rags of the fire,
Lysaer s'Ilessid resumed in a flawless and chilling sincerity. "None
would have been more surprised than I to see this small venture suc-
ceed. After the slaughter at Dier Kenton Vale, what fool could pre-
sume the Shadow Master's capture could occur without hardship and
sacrifice? My inner council at Avenor is scarcely naive. Each man was
selected to outlast small defeats. Between the warning your Prime
dispatched to Etarra and today's predictable setback, I have gained
my sure proof to expose wider truth. Mankind's endangerment does
not spring from the Spinner of Darkness alone. The pitfalls of spell-
craft pose an equal threat to society."
    Lirenda's appalled comprehension came magnified by the telltale
rustle of her mantle.
    Lysaer granted her unease a statesman's smile, laced with danger-
ous irony: reversal of his high-handed strategy was in fact no setback at
all. His dedicated quest to bring the Shadow Master's downfall had
been expanded to eradicate the practice of great and lesser sorcery;
for that cause, he would let conflict widen and foment. In due course,
his call to arms could extend his control across the entire continent.
    "You begin to understand," Lysaer said, satisfied. "Davien the
Betrayer's fountain in the Red Desert has expanded the game board
across the next five centuries. Time enough to usher in sweeping
change. As the guilds suffer predation from s'Ffalenn ships and rene-
gade crews, I'll gain for Avenor and my Alliance the omnipotent sup-
port to raise standing armies across the continent. My crowning strike
must be withheld until I have won the sworn loyalty of every city in

474

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 Athera. Then I shall bring down the s'Ffalenn bastard, and with him,
 the Fellowship of Seven, and any other factions in the land who obstruct
 the growth of human destiny."
    Lysaer arose, the majesty he carried like an extension of his flesh
made no less by a setting of uncivilized rock. "Now my warning to
your Prime is explicitly clear." His pearls and his diamonds snagged
baleful lights from the coals as he stopped, and faced her, and gave
his dismissive conclusion. "Be sure she hears the extent of my disap-
pointment for her false principles."
    While the embittered calculation of Lysaer's long-range purpose
swept her damp skin into chills, Lirenda felt his eyes on her, fierce
and wholly dedicated. She now had the measure of him; could sense
the trapped depths. His pose of self-honesty shielded some deep and
unconsoled anguish. "What will you tell your men of the sacrifice
you will demand of them?"
    The smoldering spark of his righteous rage struck through his
quick laugh like a barb. "Should I not use the same lie you thought to
foist upon me for your order's covert conspiracy? Are we not alike,
lady? Both capable of committing errors of mercy for men whose
criminal acts lie outside the constraints of human decency."
    But they were not alike, First Senior Lirenda sensed in hard-core
certainty; not yet. She had ordered Caolle's survival out of hatred,
with precise intent to ruin the man whose character might ensnare
her through unbidden emotion of the heart; for no living being would
she endure the blind agony Prince Lysaer s'Ilessid suffered in secret
for the love he had rejected in Princess Talith. Nor did she seek the
accession of prime power for the purpose of public crusade.
    Lirenda seized on the opening she had gleaned to inflict the last
stinging word. "On the day you command your princess's death,
your royal Grace, I invite you to present the same question again."
Then she gathered the spoiled folds of her mantle and removed her-
self from the grace of Lysaer's presence.

475

Summer 5653

Crossing

The darkness burst into shards and smashed rainbows. Dakar recap-
tured the distinct impression he was screaming, while a painless dis-
tress tore him limb from limb and flayed all the meat off his bones.
Through one wrenching moment, he passed the shuttered eye of
time.
    Then perception reassembled with a jolt that slammed like an axe
at the base of his skull.
    The veil ripped away to a redolence of midsummer greenery.
Through somebody's cry of hysterical terror came the shout of a stu-
pefied clan sentry. "Avert and protect!"
    Dumped headlong upon a rich fragrance of loam with a hot blan-
ket of sun on his back, Dakar found no breath to respond. Whether he
came to die for his failure, he had no choice but to let his unruly stom-
ach take charge.
    Doubled over with dry heaves and thoroughly miserable, he
almost wished a clan spear in the back to resolve his shattering upset.
Half-unmoored by the disorientation that racked him, he gasped in
recovery. The air seemed too rich and thick; too real. Delivered from
the irrational side of the veil, his return to the solid terrain of Athera
came as an assault upon body and mind. Befogged faculties fumbled
the sharp-edged barrage of sensation. His wits were reluctant to func-
tion. He did not want the obligation of reassembling the pieces of
problems more comfortably left abandoned.
  Already in dread of the consequences, he sat back on his haunches,

476

              FUGITIVE PRINCE

 blinking. Birdsong laced the treetops. A dragonfly lit on his forearm,
 unfazed by the stink of singed wool and the holes where volcanic cin-
 ders had burned through the weave of his jerkin. Dimly he realized
 that he wore the wrong clothes for the season. The steady, rich
 warmth of high summer laced sweat through his cold chills, while the
 rattled clan sentry slammed out of the brush and repeated his chal-
 lenge again.
     Eyes shut, Dakar rediscovered the function of language. "Where in
 the name of Sithaer's furies are we?"
    Clipped accents changed from belligerent surprise to indignant
complaint. "Ath! Is that Dakar? You're in Caithwood, as if dropped
through the sky by a lightning bolt. If you planned to whisk Rathain's
prince out of Riverton by means of magecraft and thunderclaps, did
you need to keep him stashed for three months? Earl Jieret half killed
himself in a cross-country run through Havish. Then the Sorcerer
Traithe came, and both of them vanished also. The comings and
goings have been fair hard on the nerves, these past weeks." The
scout paused as he took in the sorry condition of the bay gelding,
then accused, "We've worn out a dozen couriers trying to find all the
folks who've gone missing, in particular since the crew of the Lance
left us some liegeman's ashes to be given the grace of last rites."
    "The Lance? Brought Caolle's ashes?" Dakar raised his head and
cracked open bloodshot eyes to find three muzzled horses with cin-
ders in their manes regarding him in mournful reproach. "Then he
didn't die in Koriani hands at Riverton?"
    "Aye, well, she did, and damn well, he didn't." The scout was a
young man with frizzled brown hair, and foxy, irrepressible good
humor. He peered over the hindquarters of Felirin's gray. His plain
leathers were soaked through, though the sky showed no rain in evi-
dence.
  "You're wet," Dakar blurted.
    "Aye, well." The scout swiped runoff from the fringes of his buck-
skins. "I fell arse first into the stream when your ruckus erupted from
nowhere." He blushed, still disgusted enough to try and excuse his
bruised dignity. "Who wouldn't? An arrival like yours was damnwell
nothing canny. The game will be scattered for miles."
    To Dakar's stiff and forbearing patience, he laughed. "You're
behind on events?"
    The Mad Prophet scrubbed at his face with his knuckles as if a
smith had forged spikes through his temples. "Last memory I have, it
was springtime."
  The scout squeezed his wet braid, wrung out his cuffs, and plunged

477

JANNY WURT$

in with loquacious relish. "Lysaer's new flagship made landfall here,
but flying Rathain's royal leopard. Came in last month with word tt~at
Caolle had killed a Koriani witch before he found grace and passed
the Wheel. There's a feat by a clansman worth a masterbard's eulogy!"
    Dakar planted his palms into grass in determined effort to ground
out his giddy rise of dizziness.
    The scout rattled on in excited adulation. "What a fighter, was
Caolle! His pyre was laid out with full honors. The raid plans he heft
when he gave his last wishes won two other vessels for Prince
Arithon. Then the Lance took on mercenaries and set sail for Corith.
They say she burned there, but not before her crew had freed every
clansman that Lysaer's royal fleet held in chains. Under cover of a
gale, they stole back the Cariadwin and left Avenor's force stranded
with holed galleys. Near two hundred clansmen sailed home to their
families, and we've had to feed a whole pack of refugee shipwrights.
They have nothing to do, but they say they won't leave until they find
out if the Master of Shadow will return with plans to employ them.
Where is Rathain's prince, anyhow?"
    "I'm sorry," Dakar said. "We've missed all the news." Then feeling
overcame him. He ducked his head between his knees, caught
between bursting laughter and tears, and a rush of overpowering
relief. Caolle had not died by Arithon's hand after all. Nor had the men at
the outpost at Corith been abandoned wholesale to the Alliance. The joy
seemed unreal, that the Riverton ships were reclaimed to fight the oppression
of Maenol's clans. Life and breath suddenly became unimaginably pre-
cious. A friend could dare to hope for the reprieve those snatched vic-
tories might bring to the Teir's'Ffalenn.
    Hunched and dripping and loquaciously oblivious, the young
clansman circled the nose of the gray and poked an inquisitive finger
into what seemed a wadded lump of charred rags draped over the
animal's neck. The bundle shifted to expose the marble features of
Felirin the Scarlet.
    "What trouble did you bring us? You know this one's out cold?"
Reverted on a breath to forest-bred wariness, the scout took fast stock
of the second form tied to the back of the mare. "Is the other one
brought for last passage rites, also?"
    "You'd better hope not!" Dakar snapped, recovered enough to
scramble erect. "That's his Grace of Rathain, and if he's not tended,
I'll let your caithdein apologize to Earl Jieret for your mannerless lapse
of hospitality."
    The scout raised his eyebrows, prepared to repeat his glib testi-
mony that Earl Jieret had disappeared, leaving no tracks.

478

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    His words were lost to sound as a stupendous thunderclap rocked
sky and earth into recoil. The horses startled. Dakar was thrown to his
knees with the lead reins clutched in blistered hands. He yelled warn-
ing to the scout, who moved just in time to catch Felirin's uncon-
scious tumble from the saddle.
    "Ath's very grace!" The scout staggered under the minstrel's slack
weight, caught in a misstep as his sword scabbard swung and hooked
the back of his knees. "Why'd you do that?"
    "I didn't." Dakar barely managed to calm the stressed horses
before their deranged instincts shredded the last patch of whole skin
on his fingers. "You can lay the singer down in the grass before you
trip and fall flat."
  The scout looked offended. "Is he sick?"
    "I don't think so. He probably fainted." The Mad Prophet had no
chance to see whether Arithon suffered the same problem.
    The next second, a bursting flash of light erupted from behind the
trees. Dakar howled as the horses shied all over again. A deafening
report shivered the ground, but this time he managed to tag the sig-
nature phrase of the spellcraft. "That's a Fellowship ward circle com-
ing down!" he cried, before the scout lost his last wits and bolted.
"Hold steady."
    A confused, milling moment, while Dakar tugged the bridle of the
mare and shouldered the bay gelding from trampling his toes into
stew meat. "Steady." His assurance lacked confidence. Whatever pro-
tective binding the Sorcerer had raised was being released in blind
haste. The pungency of ozone raked through the sweet scent of the
meadow and a razing spin of energies puckered his mage-sense as a
slipstream in time intercepted with the present, and shook like a wind
through the leaves.
  The horses milled in terror, despite every effort to stay them.
    Then the problem was lifted from Dakar's stripped hands as a
black raven swooped down. White light trailed from its wingtips,
combing disturbed energies back into alignment under the remote
guidance from Sethvir's earth-sense. The horses snorted and settled,
while the wild gusts slackened, reduced to small eddies that win-
nowed and spiraled through the grass heads.
    "Traithe?" Dakar said. Pelted by grasshoppers and the odd butter-
fly released from the dissipated vortex, he surveyed the wood.
Presently, a familiar figure in dark clothing and a broad-brimmed
black hat emerged, limping from the shadow.
    At the Sorcerer's shoulder strode another, his large hands clenched
to an unbelted bundle of weapons, among them a matched set of

479

~ANNY ~URT$

bone-handled throwing knives. Dakar took in the tall frame
wolfish stride with a leap of glad recognition. "Earl Jieret
    The caithdein of Rathain looked like a man just shaken from sleep.
His clan braid was undone. The mane of red hair fanned over his
strong shoulders was caught with odd tangles and small twigs. ^
bandage covered his right wrist. His windburned, cragged face and
hawk nose wore a blank flown, and he failed to acknowledge Dakar's
greeting.
    Traithe touched his wrist, directing his bemused attention to the
cluster of horses in the glen. "Look there. You've succeeded."
    Jieret turned his head. As if drawn by a magnet, his eyes fixed and
locked on the figure of his prince, still tied over the neck of the
exhausted mare. His disoriented bearing transformed on a cry of
alarm. "My liege!"
    He cast down his weapons, uncaring, and sprinted, too centered to
respond to Dakar's reassurance that Arithon s'Ffalenn still breathed.
    "He won't for much longer if you don't lend your help," Traithe
said, arrived in uncanny quiet to clasp the spellbinder's elbow. "We
need a fire. At once. Can you see to it?"
    Dakar knew enough not to delay for questions. He surrendered the
reins of the horses to Traithe, who turned his scarred fingers to
unbuckling girths and bridles. He heaved off the bay's saddle and
addressed the stupefied scout, "Explanations can wait. If you have
provisions, stew and a blanket would be helpful."
    "I have only jerky." Aroused to the crisis, the clansman snapped to
and stepped in to assist stripping tack. "There's a buried cache in the
glen with a cooking pot, but no meal. We always forage at this season."
    "Then go htmting, please, once these horses are turned loose. As I
know Sethvir, you'll find a deer waiting if you allow my raven to lead
you."
    Traithe accepted a headstall from the scout's hand, then slapped
the bay's rump with the gentle admonishment, "Go roll, brave heart.
Eat grass and find water and rest."
    Once assured the animals would be competently handled, Traithe
strode through the grass and knelt by Felirin's prone form. He ran
swift hands over the minstrel's body, while the raven flew circles over
his hat, a slice of cut nightfall set intaglio into the hazed summer bril-
liance of sunlight.
    "How bad is he?" Dakar asked, returned strewn with lea,~es and
an armload of dead oak branches clutched to his chest. His plump
hands left sweated prints as he shifted his hold to contain the unruly,
loose wood.

480

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    "Nervous exhaustion." Traithe moved tacit fingers above Felirin's
scorched tunic, touching unseen points in the air. A spark jumped
from his fingers each time he paused. The raised power diffused into
a bloom of faint light, which misted downward into the free singer's
aura, then sank and absorbed through the cloth into flesh.
    "Sound sleep will set him right." Traithe's ministrations moved
down the right arm. There, he held still, with the singer's limp wrist
clasped left-handed, as his right trailed over the grimed rags that cov-
ered the burns. "His hands are another matter," he concluded sadly.
"The fire left damage."
    "He already knows he's lost his fingertips." Dakar thumped the
wood at his feet, too nettled to wrestle the earth's gravity. "He's said
he can turn his bard's talent to storytelling. Asandir suggested he'd
find a warm welcome at Innish."
    Neither spellbinder nor Sorcerer belabored the tragedy, that if
Traithe's faculties were still whole, or if this crisis had been met by
any other member of the Fellowship, Felirin's disfigurement might be
ameliorated.
    After all that had happened, the frustration flared too hot to con-
tain. Dakar bent and began snapping dead sticks into kindling, deter-
mined to offer what sympathy he might. "Truth lies with the fact we
stand here together. Don't count the small losses. Without your assis-
tance, non~ of us would have wakened to see air and sunlight, nor
walked on Athera's soil again."
    A shadow flicked over Traithe, cast by Jieret Red-beard, who
approached with the slack form of Arithon s'Ffalenn cradled like a
child in his arms. "He's cold as death and scarcely breathing."
    "I don't wonder." Traithe's lined face tipped up, drawn with con-
cern. "Lay him down in the sun and get him stripped to his skin.
We'll need his clothes. Also every cloak you can find in the saddle
packs."
    The Mad Prophet stood, stricken. His glance flickered quickly past
Arithon's slack face, then flinched from the pale, lifeless hands that
dangled, grooved on the backs from the prints of the hobbles, which
for expedience had secured him to his horse. The normally scintillant
aura of the Masterbard seemed dimmed and gray to his mage-sense.
    Alarmed by the rapid ebb of a life that could not at any cost be
replaced, Traithe turned brusque. "Dakar! If you're planning to grow
roots with that bundle of wood, the fire's more important. We'll also
need a pit dug in the open."
    The rumpled, fat spellbinder wasted no argument. "You'll use hot
rocks?"

481

JANNY W URT$

    Traithe's smile came out like the sun, rekindling the lost lines of
humor that ran in starbursts from the corners of his eyes. "Yes.
Choose willing ones so they don't shatter. There's a creek bed ten
paces inside the trees. And find six straight saplings that are willing
to make sacrifice."
    Dakar moved off, intent, to reaccess the rusty tenets of his training.
Caithwood was sealed under Pararian law, which demanded strict
form and fine harmony with the earth, no live wood taken without
proper blessing and a clear gift of permission. "Fiends plague," he
muttered, still fighting a thick head. "We haven't come back just to
lose Rathain's prince for want of a sweet-tempered tree!"
    "Just use plain language and say whose life's at stake," Traithe sug-
gested. "Without Arithon s'Ffalenn, the Alliance will triumph. Clan
bloodlines will die, and every green thing in this forest is well aware
no centaur guardians will return if Desh-thiere survives and claims
final conquest."

    The clan scout dragged the cleaned carcass of a buck into the glen
an hour later. As he broke through trees, the pleased whistle carried
over from his successful hunt died into openmouthed silence.
    Miracles had happened in his absence. At the center of the clearing,
on a bent framework of willow poles, Dakar finished tying the
drover's cloak and the gaudy layers of the free singer's court dou-
blets into a shaded enclosure. Traithe stooped by the entrance, bear-
ing a long-handled stick. The fork at the end cradled a stone from the
riverbed, baked red by fire, and crackling to the caress of the breeze
which kissed its glowing surface.
    The scout gawped. "Ath! That's not possible!" He was no born
fool: mere flame took at least the length of a day to raise a river stone
to extreme temperatures.
    A reedy voice answered his doubt from the grass. "A fine piece ot
spellcraft, yes?"
    The scout leaped back startled. The dropped carcass of the buck
slumped into a heap, its glazed eyes fanned with stirred dust. "Fiends
plague!" He backstepped before he spotted the minstrel, seated
upright, and busy fussing the tangles from his hanks of singed hair.
    "Dharkaron's own spear! Last I saw, you were prostrate." The
scout vented relief, that he had not ~ntirely taken leave of his senses.
"Man, you fair lifted me out of my skin."
    Slouched in his motley rags of smudged clothing, Felirin sighed
with forbearance. "I'm sorry." His bandaged hands returned ar
expressive, wry gesture. "The day seems made for surprises."

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    Bent over to reclaim the buck's tined antler, the scout shot a suspi-
cious glance toward the fire pit, where the Sorcerer plied his stick and
scooped out another glowing rock. "How did he do that?"
    "What, heat the stones?" Felirin unhooked his tarnished pearl
studs, and flapped his stained shirt open at the collar. His manner
stayed amused as Traithe shoveled the stone into the darkened shel-
ter of the willow frame. "He called sunlight down through his crys-
tal." The minstrel's gaunt features showed delight at the memory.
"The event will become my first epic story, how a blinding light shot
out of blue sky, a bolt of tamed golden lightning."
    Visibly miffed to have lost his listener's attention to a gutted, dead
deer, Felirin peered disdainfully down his long nose at the sticky
blood painting crushed grass stems. "I suppose you want help. That
was the last rock Traithe just shifted. Though I'm not fond of fire, I
could help roast your game if you like."
    "Soon as you have the skin off, I'll need to haul water," Traithe
said.
    Felirin and the scout both started in unison, spun, and discovered
the Sorcerer standing quiet behind them. "Time," he said gently, as if
the one word could explain his uncanny comings and goings. "We
have none to spare." He knelt, his drawn knife in hand. The blade
was plain steel, unmarked by runes, or any ritual sign of power, and
yet, its metal glowed blue as he spoke a Paravian blessing over the
wound where the scout's arrow had pierced the buck's heart. A fine
mist of energy spun away at his words, then disbursed into the black
soil of the earth. Peace remained, and a sense of core balance restored
as Traithe turned his deft blade to the work of skinning and butcher-
ing.
    To the clan scout's reddened embarrassment, the Sorcerer had the
green hide worked free within minutes. His fleeting, mild wink
acknowledged the marvel that such haste had not torn holes through
the pelt, or left even one hacked edge. "No tricks or spells," Traithe
admitted. "My knife is old and knows this work very well." He arose
with a mild wince at the twinge in his bad knee, and rolled the raw
skin hair side in. "Dakar will cut you a spit for the meat. Then pray to
Ath that Earl Jieret and I can deliver a live prince to share venison
with you at sundown."

    Inside the willow frame, masked under patched layers of tied
clothing, Jieret s'Valerient kept vigil with the head of his liege in his
lap. The changes he saw would have torn out his heart, had worry not
done so beforehand. Arithon s'Ffalenn lay full length on the earth.

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JANNY WURTS

 The glow of rocks in the pit mapped his frame in dense, ruby warmth,
 the gleam of old scars written over gaunt flesh, and the angry ones
 fresh from his battle with Caolle. Despite the radiant heat, his cheek
 felt ice-cold. Each pulse through slim wrists seemed a vestige without
 force. As though life stayed by rote, his lungs scarcely carried the
 function of breathing from one moment into the next.
     Jieret clenched his swordsman's fist in black hair, tied between rage
 and regret. "Live, damn you," he exhorted. "Caolle died content in
 the belief you survived him."
     The hard-edged triangle of daylight at the entry dimmed one last
 time as Traithe entered with the deerskin sloshing with creek water
 "Close us in, please."
     Outside, Dakar battened down the heavy wool cloak, then sealed
 the last gap with one of Felirin's belied shirts.
    Limned in the vermilion glow from the stones, Traithe poured the
water into the pit. Steam shrieked and exploded, whirling the air into
a scalding, opaque curtain. Jieret shut his eyes, dizzied, and momen-
tarily confused by what seemed like voices, embedded between the
meshed cry of four elements, wedded amid the primordial darkness
and circling his frame in a chiaroscuro dance of wild energy.
    ú "Don't mind if they speak." Rendered formless in shadow, Traithe
knelt and sprinkled a handful of crushed herbs, which showered
bright sparks and infused fragrant smoke through the darkness.
"They are spirits born of fire, earth, water, and air, and they arise to
help call your prince back to himself."
    Jieret began a deep breath, then stopped short as the scalding
steam burned into his nose and scoured the back of his throat. He
realized by the fact that his forearm was cramping that his fingers had
fastened a death grip in Arithon's hair. "You're saying the earth
knows how important he is?"
    Traithe sat, the hide with its reservoir of drawn water cradled
between his tucked feet. He had removed his boots. By the pulsing,
carnelian glow of the stones, the sole of the right one showed a puck-
ered mass of scarred tissue, drawn like the mark of an old burn.
"Athera knows all of our names," he admitted, thoughtful and
pleased for the rarity of indulging in philosophical discussion. "No
one person's ranked ahead of another. In Prince Arithon's case, the
elements plead aloud for the sake of the service he may yet be asked
to perform."
    "Service!" Irritable as sweat trickled and stung through a brush
burn acquired from his hurried, rough ride, Jieret gave vent to deep
bitterness. "It was unstinting service that exposed my liege to unrea-

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sonable peril in the first place. The needs of this land are what kill
him by slow inches. He would not be undone by a poisoned con-
science had he not been asked to face troubles a sorcerer would be
hard-pressed to handle!"
  "He is mage-trained," Traithe reminded.
    But Earl Jieret was not mollified. Though he faced no enemy, he felt
unreasonably impelled to birth his wedged hurt into the concealing
darkness. "A hundred stout liegemen would not be enough to man-
age the burden he carries!"
    "You're right, of course." Still mild, the Sorcerer splashed a cupped
handful of water into the pit. Again, the steam swirled, dark-
patterned tarnish on shadow. Beyond that blank veil, his words came
disembodied. "Duty won't be what calls Arithon back."
    "What else does he have?" Once started, Jieret found his restraint
had slipped reason. The moist heat made him careless, and the slack
weight of his prince made pity a dull blade that sheared off every civ-
ilized platitude. "Or will you release him to follow his preference for
music?"
    Traithe responded to the first question only, his cragged face and
pale hair wreathed in sweet smoke from the herbs. "He has his friend,
who is living and with him. That matters far more than anything."
    "Your logic is flawed." Shaking and savage, Jieret failed to note
that the lean, hollowed cheekbone pillowed on his thigh showed the
faintest, thin flush of rose. "What can his friends do other than die for
him?"
    "They can live for him," Traithe said, acerbic at last. "Do you think
Caolle would change his fated end if he could?"
    "Ath, no!" Earl Jieret's surprise burst through as a breath of free air.
"He died as he lived, for love of his prince. I've heard the details. He
could have stopped fighting and chosen a less painful passage. As I
knew him since infancy, I'd swear this for truth: however much he
claimed that his duty came first, in fact, he gave out of personal loyal-
ties."
  Traithe's correction came gentle. "And are you so different?"
    The scald of the steam choked Jieret's instinctive denial. He
snorted, coughed, then let grief tear asunder to release as a leveling of
soft laughter. "No," he admitted. "My days would lack savor without
the deep caring to give the bad moments their meaning. This prince
holds my true heart." Eyes shut while Traithe sprinkled the rocks yet
again, and the heat rolled in waves to strip the last pall from restraint,
Jieret lapsed into reminiscence. "I think that's been so since my boy-
hood, on the night when I trailed his Grace into the forest. He'd just

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JANNY WURTS

sworn his royal oath as crown prince, and was savage with misery for
it. Did you know that I eavesdropped on his tienelle scrying? He
never lost patience. Nor would he admit that my prank cost him
agony, though he had to have seen. I was just a fool boy come with
mean intent to belittle him."
    "As well you should have," a rusted voice interjected. Scarcely
audible through the coiling hiss of the steam, and by far less fluid
than the wraith language used by the elements, the limping speech
stumbled on. "Certainly then, I was a prince seeking to escape the
burden of my people's hopes. In hard fact, nothing's changed."
    "Arithon?" Jieret jolted straight, his hungry eyes struggling to
pierce veiling murk. When vision fell short, he resorted to touch. Bat-
tened about in whorled darkness and moisture, the cold ,flesh of his
prince was now heated, and streaming thick sweat. Yet the hand Jieret
fumbled and grasped was still limp.
    Then a flare from the stones as the steam eddied; Jieret saw the
green eyes were opened, and wide, reawakened to a pain-filled
awareness that violated privacy to witness.
    Elation wrenched through him, then brought sharp remorse for
straight guilt. His joy of recognition could not be denied, even in the
face of such suffering. Helpless, Jieret could not even look away. "My
liege, I have no words at all."
    "Words are not necessary." Sweat or tears threaded down the hol-
lows at Arithon's temples. The slicked whorls of black hair were
dripping. "Your love calls too strongly, and mine, it would seem, is
destined always to answer."
    A break like cut glass in the suffocating womb of close shadow.
"Don't apologize. I'm the one who owes restitution. That was an ugly
reward I gave Caolle."
    Jieret yanked breath to protest, caught short just in time by
Traithe's quelling gesture and silent, mouthed words, "No! Let him
rant!"
    "You should know, he died true to himself." Arithon's flesh
spasmed through a violent shiver. His grainy, scraped voice bore no'
semblance of the grace gifted to him through bardic tradition as he
labored through his distressed confession. "His courage and his loy-
alty were of priceless coinage. I could live my whole life without fault
from this moment, and still fall short of repayment. Nothing is left for
you, Jieret. My hands are more empty than a beggar's. I have nothing
to give back but the bankrupt husk of my sorrow."
    "Your hands are not empty," Jieret forced out past the rock-hard
wedge in his throat. "They hold a masterbard's talents, and more, the

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FUGITIVE PRINCE

living promise of crowned sovereignty for a whole people. If you
never sit on the throne at Ithamon, you can still keep that trust
through your progeny."
    Which words pierced twofold, for the fact of a burden unwanted,
and for the ruin Desh-thiere's curse had ripped through an
oathsworn integrity. Arithon shook with the force of those sorrows,
then turned his face, helpless as his agonized shame unmanned him.
    Jieret's hands held steady and strong, unwilling to relinquish a tor-
mented spirit to the throes of a solitary grief. Without prompting, this
time, he found the wisdom to let the torrent unleash. "You're not
alone, ever, despite your belief we would do better outside your com-
pany. The Mistwraith's hold is a wound we all carry. Some of us bleed
for it. Others give their lives. Those who survive receive the priceless
gift of your sacrifice, and the ones closest keep faith and friendship as
~e may."
    But no words could succor the pain that escaped in riven bursts.
Arithon's stripped body curled under the force of an anguish his
dwindled strength could not deny. Jieret's arms gripped him, circling
his wretchedness with unconditional compassion. "Brother, we are
one. My sword does the killing, no less than yours. I can offer forgive-
ness for trials no man could pass without scathe. You and Rathain's
people are one mind and one heart. Never see yourself as separate, no
matter how far the curse madness drives you. If you bear the insanity,
let us be the unity that draws you back and receives you. Won't you
see there's no blame? Caolle's content. He knew, as I do, that ours is
the easier portion to bear!"
    "You could die for those words," Arithon gasped. His splayed
hands pressed into the sides of his face, as if physical pressure could
somehow contain his coil of untenable torment.
    Jieret stroked back coal hair, fingers callused from handling
weapons infused with near reverent gentleness. "We all pass the
Wheel. When I do, I'll know peace, no matter the cause. Believe this,
my sons and my daughters will be there to steady your next steps in
my place."
    "For what price?" snapped Arithon, the wounded edge of his sar-
casm striking in savage rebuttal. "Your shackles are wearing! For
Dharkaron's punishment, how many times must I sing a lament over
Steiven s'Valerient's grave cairn?"
    Earl Jieret fought back, planted granite rejecting the thrust of fine
steel. "For as long as it takes to defeat Desh-thiere and seat a crowned
king at Ithamon."
  "Is that so?" Arithon resorted to premeditated viciousness. "Then

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how many times must Lady Dania's descendants suffer rapine and
slaughter under the swords of sunwheel fanatics?"
    Jieret flinched. That dart pierced and struck as no other could, the
family he had lost to the horrors of Tal Quorin still coiled in memory
and the black nightmares that ravaged the peace from his sleep.  Yet Caolle had trained him.
    He clung, dogged, his mind pitched to grasp for advantage. From
the shocked reverberation of his own pain, he could gain the measure
of Arithon's: a thousandfold worse, to have used such a personal
weapon to strike with intent to wound. And there lay the vulnerabil-
ity and the weakness at once. This was not attack, but defense of a
vile and desperate proportion.
    "You have a vicious tongue when you're bleeding," Jieret man-
aged. His voice shook. He steadied it, determined, and smashed past
the barrier of empathy that could have, would have stopped him short,
if his care had existed only for an ironbound duty to a kingdom.
"Makes it harder than plague to bind up your wounds. Even so,
Steiven loved you."
    "He's bones in cold earth, as you will be," Arithon slashed back.
Had he one bodily resource to break Jieret's hold, he would have
risen and fled elsewhere. Trapped helpless, he could only use words
for his weapons, and no shield to spare his naked awareness from the
lacerating impacts of remembrance. Left unsaid, all the unassuaged
hurt of his severance from mage-sight, a brilliance of talent choked off
in' blood on the banks of Tal Quorin; there existed no weal for its
absence.
    The Earl of the North was not swayed by pity. "Dania loved you
equally well. She would call you impertinent, and say to you now
that because of your sacrifice, her bloodline survives. Her four
daughters still live unspoiled in my memory. If by Ath's grace you
defeat Desh-thiere in my lifetime, then every one of my family will
stand with me in spirit on the hour a Teir's'Ffalenn accepts his coro-
nation."
    "Let me be dead, first.TM Arithon gasped. "What rightful prince ever
murders his feal liegemen?"
     The despair, the deep canker of shame stabbed by guilt, at last was
 laid bare between them. Across misted darkness, Traithe leaned
 sharply forward. "The moment has come. Jieret, speak now!"
     Rathain's caithdein set his jaw. Hardened against heartbreak, he
 bent and dealt his prince a hard, vengeful shake. In stark force, he
 said, "Listen to me! Stop crying martyr! Caolle chose not to die of
 your sword thrust. He got up on his feet and marched back to war

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FUGITIVE PRINCE

wearing bandages! Nor were the ships lost, or the craftsmen and
crews arrested in Riverton. Arithon, he triumphed, despite every
obstacle. By his choice and devotion, he gave back your design with
only a few torn stitches. Cariadwin was even recovered from Corith,
and full half of the men from the outpost."
    "This is a dream," Arithon whispered, the spirit leached from his
words, and the fight in him flattened to a whisper.
    "No." Jieret held him, his unvanquished courage enough to cause
pain, and his grasp unrelenting with the promise of the bittersweet
dichotomy of life. "Everything's real! If you run now, prince, you'll
never see the fruits you spent yourself penniless to reap."
    Steam billowed. Traithe splashed more water on the rocks, which
showed scabrous gray patches from cooling. The stifling darkness
spun time into fluidity, while the herb-scented heat rose in waves and
eroded all barriers between mind and emotion. Jieret waited. Each
breath in his chest flamed new agony. The stillness in the body held
clasped in his arms became harrowing, and despair crushed out hope
like the immovable wall of a glacier. He understood too well: this was
the crux point, the fragility of moment when victory or defeat hung in
the balance, awaiting the flick of fate's finger.
    Ever the swordsman, taught to fight for as long as his hand held
one weapon, Jieret Red-beard launched his last, stabbing thrust.
"Caolle left you a legacy in the form of a Koriani witch's spelled
quartz."
    At Traithe's start of astonishment, the clan chieftain laughed, bro-
ken free like snapped wire from the unmerciful, cranked pressure of
strain. "Yes, it's true."
    Another racked moment; then Arithon's frame began to shake, first
in small jerks, and then in running tremors that caused Jieret a spurt
of stark panic. He shoved to his knees, dragging Arithon half-upright.
His lungs filled to howl for a loss he had no fiber left in him to with-
stand.
  But Traithe touched him still.
    The s'Ffalenn prince was laughing in jagged, hysterical spasms. "A
spell crystal?" Arithon ground on through a shrieked, wheezing
breath. "Morriel must be spitting like a goosed cat. Whose is it?"
    "I'11 tell you," Jieret promised, stunned stupid by relief. Somehow
he found the aplomb to sort language. "But not until you have eaten
and rested. You're so worn right now, the irony would kill you, which
was not what Caolle intended."
    Lapsed back into quiet by weakness that skirted the brink of col-
lapse, Arithon turned his head into Jieret's strong shoulder. "Caolle

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                           JA~N� WURTS                                ~~
was a rabid fox, and you are more devious than that fiend of a father
who sired you. I will do as you ask, just to share in the joke. Now you
have my word, can we please let in some fresh air?"
    But Traithe had already anticipated. Dakar pulled the muffling
cloth free from outside, and light streamed in on an inrush of c001
breeze that started Jieret shivering. While hands reached to assist, he
turned his glad strength to pull Arithon out into daylight. Before they
could bundle his spent limbs in the drover's cloak, his prince drifted
into a faint.
    "Don't worry," Traithe said, his face all wry delight as he peeled
the soaked hair from his neck. "He'll revive fast enough when we
douse him clean in the stream. The scout has stew waiting, and sleep
without dreams will do much to mend lost resilience."
    "Oh, Ath," groaned Jieret. He stood up, wobbly at the knees with
Arithon's wrapped weight in his arms. "That's if we survive the spate
of raw language. The one thing this prince hates like fire is being han-
dled like an invalid."
    "Well, that will just provide more incentive." Traithe's grin was
pure mischief. "If he wants us to stop, he'll just have to rebuild his
strength."

    In fact, Arithon succumbed before they had extracted him from the
rock pool. Dried and swathed in the drover's cloak, he slept without
moving throughout the late afternoon. As evening fell, he roused
long enough to taste the stewed venison shared out in the bowls
Traithe kept at hand for his spellcrafting. Twice, Jieret's reflexes
righted the container that slipped from his liege's slack fingers. No
scalding invective marked either incident. When Arithon slipped off
into sleep once again, Traithe scribed a healing glyph over his fore-
head and snapped for Earl Jieret to stop pacing.
    "Worry serves nothing. What we're seeing is nervous exhaustion."
Like echo, he fielded a sleepy croak from the raven, gone to roost to
the night chorus of frogs in the marsh. "I know, little brother, you,~
too," he agreed in tart sympathy. Then, to Jieret, who hovered uncer-
tain with his hands whitely clenched to the tang of his broadsword,
he added, "Keep watch. If I'm right, your liege will rouse in the dark-
est hours before dawn. He'll want to talk, and share the need for
understanding companionship."
    Settled to keep watch, while the studded patterns of summer con-
stellations wheeled through the gaps in the oak leaves, Jieret oiled his
knife sheaths. He compared stories with the scout, then, helped to tie
new fletching onto worn arrows. While Dakar dirtied his hands

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FUGITIVE PRINCE

scraping the deer pelt, Felirin tested his new art of storytelling, until
midnight saw all but the Sorcerer settled to rest.
    "I haven't apologized, or thanked you properly for your help,"
Jieret said, his hands empty at last and folded against the stained
leather of his baldric. "You've helped to restore a number of great
gifts, among them the heart of my people. Like these scouts of
Maenol's, we could see a harsh future as long as the Alliance keeps
building. The headhunter campaigns from Etarra take their toll, but
we can face anything, hopeful."
    Traithe lifted his hat and raked back loose hair, the scar at his
crown a jagged dark knot that belied his mild stance in the darkness.
"The world will spin differently, because of tonight. All things are
connected, as Arithon knows, since he was raised to think like a sor-
cerer. He still tries to honor his grandfather's teaching. That's why his
failures strike hardest. You did well ,.'~ your handling. Few could have
made him attentive after the sorrows that took place at Riverton."
    "He is as my brother, more than my liege," Jieret admitted, then
blushed for a feeling he had never dared mention.
    Traithe arose, tactful, to leave him in privacy for the hour when his
prince must stir out of dreams and ask for account of Caolle's dying.
The ending was two-edged, that the stay of victory for Tysan's clans-
men had been won with no chance for a last word exchanged in rec-
onciliation or parting.
    Arithon's branding memory would still be of the sword thrust that
had felled the friend who had righted the damage the Koriathain had
set in his design.
    "He will live with the gifts," Earl Jieret promised. "Though I swear
I'd fret less if I had to bash the wind out of him, making the point
stick with my fists."
    The Sorcerer laughed. "You wear Caolle's stamp alongside of your
father's. He will live on, for all that." Traithe gathered his satchel and
snapped crippled fingers for his raven, which glided down from 'its
roost in the treetops. It alighted, feathers folded like knives as it
croaked testy inquiry from the threadbare perch of his shoulder.
    "Fare you well, Earl Jieret. Wish your prince my regards." Then in
short, limping steps, the Sorcerer turned away, to be far from Main-
mere by morning.
    Left alone with his thoughts, Earl Jieret listened, while the night
celebrated its chorus of crickets and sheltered the rustles of foraging
mice. The forest breathed life. Water and wind braided together in
counterpoint. The agile bats swooped like manic shuttles, weaving
their unseen strands on the loom of creation. Oddly content that his

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JANNY WURT$

fresh loss of Caolle could be shared, he almost missed the first stir of
movement as Arithon roused in the drover's cloak.
    The first words came spare with the acerbic, dry wit he remem-
bered. "You've got me tied like an infant in swaddling. Damned
lucky I don't have a killing need to piss."
    Jieret settled back against the bole of an oak, his fringed buckskins
blurring his angular form in the darkness. "If you did, we'd make
wagers on how long you would take to fall sound asleep with your
breeks down."
    Arithon snorted. His hands moved, restored to a semblance of dex-
terity as he freed the tucked cloak and flexed his constricted shoul-
ders. Painfully gaunt, he paused to examine the shirt someone had
given to cover his nakedness. "Make sure you say which scout l
should thank."
      "You don't like charity?" Jieret dared a grin behind his raised wrist.
"What you wore was scarcely fit for a rag to oil the edge of a weapon."
  Arithon said nothing, the tenor of his quiet like a test.
    "The shirt was mine," Jieret admitted. "Though you could have
guessed that by the pitiful fact we had to hack a handspan off the
cuffs."
    "And the shoulders fall down to my elbows, I know. Caolle always
said I was too slight to bear weapons, and I just broke my pact. I
wasn't going to be first to pick trouble."  Jieret swallowed.
    The crickets filled in as Arithon shifted, then with tenacious effort,
pushed his frame upright. Depleted as he was, his spirit was drawn
wire. "Never mind the fool etiquette between prince and caithdein. As
your oathbound brother, I'm sorry. Caolle was the right arm I never
deserved. I'm grieved to have taken him from you."
    "He took himself," Jieret said, truthful, and the difficult words of a
sudden came easily as he described the altercation caused by his bull-
headed past war captain on the subject of his prince's protection.
"Did you know, he tossed the younger men who volunteered into the
river to make his point? The irascible bastard said if they couldn't
best him at wrestling, they weren't fit to keep guard on the slop in
your chamber pot."
    "How like him? Turned pensive, Arithon also found the question
spilled gently, without the barbed lash he had dreaded. "How did he
die? You made me a bargain to buy my return, and by Ath, you'll
need to deliver."
    Under the kindly mantle of summer foliage, Jieret shared the tears and
the triumphs that had won back the launched vessels from Riverton.

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FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    "So whose spell crystal have I inherited as my legacy?" Arithon
,~sked at due length.
    "You couldn't guess?" Earl Jieret reached into the loosened breast
~~f his jerkin and tugged a fine silver chain over his riot of red hair.
"Caolle never did things by the half measure. He's left you his last
power of revenge upon First Senior Lirenda."
    Arithon choked, hands pressed to his lips, while his shoulders
spasmed with dammed-back delight and wild laughter. "Oh,
Dharkaron's sweet Spear! That's too rich." He extended a thin arm
and accepted the gift. Caught starlight in the crystalline facets flashed
like the forerunning bolt of a tempest. His remonstrance held humor
as he closed his marked fist, silver links snagged like a looped strand
~f tinsel between his irreverent fingers. "You know such an object
should be veiled in silk?"
    "So ask a townsman," Jieret said, piqued. "If the bitch finds her
nerves pricked, that's her just deserts for trying to play us like string
puppets."
    But if Arithon shared the release in snide humor, his grave counte-
nance showed no breaking sign. He seemed queerly grieved, head
tilted a listening angle to one side, while the chain magnified the run-
ning fit of trembling that had reft the peace from his hands. "Is my
lyranthe nearby?"
    Jieret straightened, astounded by his urgency. "She's safe with the
saddle packs. Why?"
    Moved by Arithon's sudden, sweet smile of relief, he arose without
question and fetched the priceless, wrapped bundle that had almost
been lost in the disastrous flight out of Riverton. When the fine instru-
ment was restored to the hands of the bard, Arithon laid the quartz
crystal at his feet. He caressed the carved wood, musician to his core,
and rapt with the call of his muse as he struck and fine-tuned each
neglected, silver-wound string.
  Then he launched into a haunting, free melody.
    The cadence and the harmonies were like nothing before, speaking
in lyric of sorrow and joy caught enraptured in a fired, double helix.
Earl Jieret wept. The notes spilled and soared, each one an exquisite
needle of inflection too fine to endure, and each measure an unfet-
tered, tingling ecstasy bridged over desolate emptiness.
    In the gloom of the trees, the scout stirred and gasped. Felirin
awoke, raised his head, and crumpled, his maimed hands clasped to
still the demand of a mourning he could not bear to release lest he
damage the sheer majesty of the spell.
  Of the thralled listeners embraced by the Masterbard's talent that

493

JANNY WURTS

night, only Dakar the Mad Prophet came to suspect the melody was
not wrought for Caolle; nor yet for the tragedy of a free singer's
burned hands; nor even to commemorate the survival of a most
severe trial of s'Ffalenn conscience. The phrasing, stamped into
empathic clarity, was Arithon's tuned response to the cry of a solitary
spirit imprisoned in the lattice of a Koriani spell crystal.

494

Summer 5653

Catalyst

Lirenda dreamed of a man and a melody, and awoke with tear-
flooded eyes.
    For one second, two, the sweeping immediate, razor-edged mem-
ory held her fast across the transition. Still, she could hear the rip-
pling, sweet peal of struck notes. Plangent, silvered strings spoke
their appeal just for her, a cry to flood joy through every unfulfilled
cranny in her heart.
    Weeping as a creature possessed, she suffered through the jarring
reorientation of finding herself bereft, alone, and jostled in the rolling
discomfort of a blue-water ocean passage. As her elbow struck an
uncompromising edge of adzed wood, and the pull of the oars
thumped in vibration to the beat of the coxswain's drum, she recalled
her true place aboard Prince Lysaer's royal galley. That awareness
revived her mazed will. The beguiling cascade of lyranthe notes lost
their hold, snapped away like a net of burst thread.
    She sat up, mired in a salt-musty snarl of damp linens. Protective
as a provoked lioness, she let trained perception dissect the shreds of
impression that even now slipped through her memory. At once, she
picked out the familiar trace resonance of her personal crystal. She
knew then. Her chain-lightning leap into fury kindled a startling
sting: the dream had ridden on the carrier tie between herself and her lost
quartz. By the aching wound opened by that one-shot bolt of compas-
sion, then the pang of regret that was hers, inflicted as the harmony
tangled and dispelled, she could surmise the hand of the meddler.

495

]ANNY WURTS

    Her fleeting recall yielded the vision of shadowed green eyes. She
still felt the deft empathy which had combed through the haunted
depths of her mind, grasping after impressions to reclothe in music.
    She knew; and her rage brimmed over and outran all restraint.
Arithon s'Ffalenn had come to inherit possession of her personal spell
crystal. Her life-tie to the quartz lattice had betrayed her, let him bare
every weakness she possessed.
    Her frustration found no outlet aboard Lysaer's galley. Alone in
her cabin, surrounded by sleeping crown officers and men-at-arms
sworn to the Alliance, she could not share confidence with anyone.
The tedious, rolling beat of pulled oars offset nothing but the thrum
of sea winds, and the hissed wash of cloven wavecrests. The dense
heat of summer languished belowdecks and bathed her in trickles of
sweat.
    The repaired royal fleet rowed the last leg of the crossing from
Corith to the mainland. But denied vital access to the channel of her
crystal, Lirenda remained as blind to event as the common seaman on
deck. She could do nothing but throw off stifling bedclothes and lie in
her close, lampless berth, awaiting the moment when the masthead
lookout sighted first land beneath the louring towers of seasonal
thunder squalls.
    Lirenda slept again just past dawn. Drugged by heat and the cir-
cling mill of her frustration, she suffered no dreams. This time no
music came to haunt her. She emerged from a drowning, black well of
oblivion to the filtered light of late afternoon. Clear over the groan of
working timbers, she heard the running thump of sailors' bare feet
over the decking above her. She clawed clinging tangles of ebony hair
off the damp skin of her collarbones. Fighting groggy senses, she
arose to refresh herself.
    While she dressed in her meticulous layers of silk skirts and gauze-
thin mantle of office, the activity on deck reached the fever-pitch
anticipation provoked by an imminent landfall. She gathered from
the bursts of excited talk and the flying strings of orders from the
ship's officers that the peppery little navigator had not failed with his
charts. He had led the fleet safely in to Orlest on the southwest shore
of Tysan.
    Swathed in her wind-fluttered, violet silk, Lirenda swept up the
companionway. She displaced two off-duty oarsmen to gamer a
view at the rambade. The stroke of the crew on the benches below
seemed enlivened. While the tumult of anticipation quickened about
her, the late weeks at sea seemed an interval removed, time sealed in
a pocket of salt-scented tranquillity. The breeze led the change. It

496

FUGITIVE PRINCE

brought smells of smoke and fish grease from the shoreside cook-
fires, mingled into the sour, muddy reek of tidal marshes. Shoaling
waters between ship and shingle heaved in striated tones of green
enamel. Gulls flew, dipped gold in the late-day sun, which slashed
through clouds strewn like feathers. The headland itself lay slatted in
shadow, citrine as new ale where the marsh grasses spread tasseled
seed heads.
    During the burning, dry months of high summer, when the
storms threw their rains off the coast, the tidal estuaries of south
Tysan were worked for deposits of salt. Amid the fringed reeds at
slack water, women raked crusted cakes into piles, while half-
grown children sewed the glittering harvest into burlap for trans-
port.
    Past the low ground, flocks of goats grazed the stepped, rocky
bluffs, raised like rucked baize above the path where a herdboy raced
to warn the town of the arriving fleet.
    Lirenda knew Orlest as a galleymen's haven. Here, captains put in
to replenish provisions on their coast-hopping runs between the
Riverton inlet and the rich ports past Hanshire.
    As the oarsmen muscled the flagship against the chop of ebb tide,
the town hove into view, tucked in a fold of the shoreline. Impressed
in haze, and bounded in front by the scarred pilings of the traders'
wharf, the crescent-shaped settlement was ruled by the running
swell off Mainmere Bay. The low-lying houses were built upon stilts
against the floods whipped in by offshore storms. Trapped heat rip-
pled the sprawl of limed fishing shacks, their humped roofs
thatched with cut reeds, and netted down with pendulous stone
weights. Beside their unassuming stolidity, Sailhands' Alley stood
out like a gaudy twist of silk, with its signboard array of brothels
and wineshops.
    The town also hosted a seasonal fishing fleet. While Lysaer's gal-
leys steered a bending course through the cork floats of vacant moor-
ings, word of their arrival ran ahead. Doors banged and craftshops
emptied. A burgeoning crowd lined the docks as the flagship drove
in, sunwheel banners streaming.
    As the oarsmen's stroke sheared her patched hull shoreward, from
rail and rambade, one could pick out the pristine white tunics of
oathsworn Alliance guardsmen cutting an agitated swath through the
gawkers like the mismatched gleam of thrown ice.
    "Something's afoot," the watch officer remarked, creased eyes
trained ashore. "Or why would a contingent of royal men-at-arms be
billeted in force at Orlest?"

497

JANNY ~URTS

    The steersman chimed in, "They would come to hold news for hi~
Grace."
  A likely enough guess; Orlest or Tideport were the lo
await an inbound fleet from Min Pierens.
    Lirenda tapped manicured fingers on the rail, raked over by rabid
frustration. Her curtailed powers would not let her access lane auguries
at a glance, and the ignominy burned. The possibility for upset could
not be dismissed: her misjudgment over Caolle's life may well have
allowed Arithon s'Ffalenn to seize bold advantage on the continent.
  She must have unwittingly mused her irritation out loud.
    "But of course, the enemy would not stand idle through the sum-
mer." The reply intruded a pace from her shoulder; Lysaer s'Ilessid
had apparently crept up through her moment of self-absorbed brood-
ing.
    He also had dressed for the landfall. Offset by the delicate sheen of
her silk, his presence lost none of its magnificence. His impeccable,
trimmed hair shone as burnished as filigree, and his pearls were cold
fire in the sunlight. He was not smiling.
    Anyone less than a Koriani observer would have missed his subtle
satisfaction, as he added, "Did you truly believe the Shadow Master
could be driven to unchecked flight without unpleasant repercus-
sions?"
    Lirenda's expression was fine marble veneer, impenetrable and
aloof. A mere hour ago, she could have agreed without any sense of
conflict. Now self-betrayed, subverted through access to her unde-
fended quartz, she found herself battling phantoms. A masterfully
tailored line of melody tugged her emotions on wild tangents, as if
the imprinted perception of Arithon's intent gave the lie to his half
brother's conviction.
    Discomfited by Lysaer's probing interest, Lirenda returned a stare
like chipped amber. "Why jab in pretense?" Her impulse for
vengeance sparked out as small malice. "New discord but serves you.
Bring down the Master of Shadow, by all means. Should I do less than
applaud the picked course of your destiny?"
    Lysaer laughed in that forthright honesty which effortlessly recap-
tured the heart. "Lady, your barbs are magnificent, but misplaced. Let
us weigh the ill tidings before we presume to salvage the fruits of dis-
aster."

    Yet as the royal galley tied up at the wharf, no deft planning, nor
calculated strategy of advance handling could smooth over the
tumult which awaited the Prince of the Light.

498

              FUGITIVE I~RINCE

    Full night lay over the harbor, heavy as syrup with trapped
warmth. Between the summer flicker of heat lightning, the rippled
waters lapped like dark tarnish against the pilings, spindled with
reflections from the torch pans set alight at the quayside. Amid that
cast tangle of jittering light, Lysaer s'Ilessid stepped ashore.
    The bystanders gathered to greet his return roared with one voice
at first sight of him. Man, woman, and child, they surged against the
men-at-arms who pressed to clear space for his egress. The prince
took such mannerless enthusiasm in stride. All white silk and fitted
elegance, he left the gangway, unhurried. As he passed down the
wharf, his path became flanked by a wall of grasping, outthrust
hands. The boldest strained against the cordon of soldiers, striving to
touch his person for shared fortune, or to pluck at his glittering gar-
ments for a ribbon or lace to treasure as a memento.
    Lirenda paced the prince one step behind, daunted by the sheer
volume of noise, and by the relentless needy scramble of the crowd.
The wharf narrowed past the jut of the ship's chandlery, with its
stacked hogsheds of salt pork and beef. Royal guardsmen jostled a
clear path with difficulty. The enchantress found herself unable to
break away, even to lend polite semblance of privacy when the royal
courier stepped to the fore.
    He carried urgent news for Avenor's prince, a personal message
too dire to withhold. "Your Grace, there's been tragedy. Best hear
now, and quickly."
    Caught in unwanted proximity, Lirenda shared the formal lan-
guage of state which informed that his bewitchingly beautiful wife,
Princess Talith, had passed the Wheel three months ago.
    "By her own hand, your Lord Seneschal pronounced." Heads
turned. The cheering near at hand faltered; still the messenger had to

shout to make himself heard through the clamor. "Her Grace fell to
her end. Succumbed to despair for her childless state and jumped
from a high tower window."
    Despite his matchless instinct for statecraft, Lysaer s'Ilessid missed
stride.
    For that given instant, he was no savior, no prince, no shining
example to his people, but only a man, stunned by an unexpected,
dark anguish. Grief exposed his humanity with leveling force. He fal-
tered, stopped short. The flare of the firepans etched him in unmerci-
ful light, each tremor of shock magnified by his jeweled studs and
stitched seed pearls.
    The sight of him humbled by wounding mortality struck Lirenda
with inexplicable force.

499

JANNY WURTS

    She lost her own breath at the devastated speed with which his
sustained strength came unraveled. The draw of his charisma had
claimed her, unwitting, his dedicated campaign against the Master of
Shadow became a mainstay she required to buoy her tripped sense of
balance.
    As a hapless observer, she felt strangely bereft; as if perfect quartz
cracked like glass under polishing, or clouds on a whim had trans-
formed into lead, to crush the green earth with blind force.
    Lysaer seemed oblivious to the presence of an audience. Eyes
closed, his ethereal majesty transformed to unalloyed sorrow, he mur-
mured aloud in his anguish, "My dear, my dear! If not for the machi-
nations of the enemy, I should never have strayed from your side."
    The First Senior moved on blind instinct. She would offer her man-
tle, try any inadequate, stopgap gesture to shield his shattered poise
from the insatiable maw of public curiosity.
    Yet fast as she reacted, another pushed past and reached the
s'Ilessid prince ahead of her.
    This one wore the sweat-stained leathers of a courier who had
transferred from post horse to post horse with small break for rest or
refreshment. The chalky dust of the flats lined tired features, and his
person wore the smell of hot horses and urgency.
    He caught Lysaer's hand and dropped onto one knee. "Great lord,
forgive me. I bring unpleasant tidings."
    The Prince of the Light raised his head, eyes open and direct, if sus-
piciously bright. "Speak," he bade the man. "No tragedy of mine is so
great that I cannot respond for my people."
    Then he waited in all of his shattered splendor for a second round
of ill news.
    Lirenda stood near enough to overhear the fact that forty of Han-
shire's finest men-at-arms had pursued Arithon s'Ffalenn into a
cloudy veil of magecraft.
    "That event happened some time ago. It's not canny, to have
escaped official notice this long. But the first courier sent to Avenor
was waylaid by a freak accident. His report was delayed for two
months." The dazed messenger tipped his face up to the prince, torn
into terrified appeal. "Search parties have swept the flats east to west,
until the worst can't be doubted. The whole company of forty has dis-
appeared, and left not a trace on the landscape."
    Lysaer met the entreaty head-on, the shimmer of the tears he
would not shed apparent to his circle of observers. "My loss, and my
people's loss is not so different." Even in grief, his acute sense of
kindness prevailed. "Had you kin among the missing?"

500

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

  The messenger looked devastated. "A brother."
    He received the hand of the prince on his shoulder. "Then we sor-
row together, as we act side by side." Lysaer summoned a voice like
grained iron. "There are widows in Hanshire this day who are
bereaved by the loss of a mate, as I am. For them, you will go now
and arrange mounts for myself and twenty-five of my personal
guard. Find a guide who knows the countryside. Tell him he may ask
any sum he desires from my treasury if he will show us the place on
the flats where this happened."
    When the original courier in Avenor's city colors elbowed his
way in to protest, the prince quelled his concern with hammered
steadiness. "There are no remains to attend, I trust?" Since his lady's
death had occurred in the spring, he scarcely waited for affirmation
that Talith's body had long since been cremated. "Then the cere-
mony to celebrate my personal regard for her can certainly bide a bit
longer."
    Lysaer made a painful effort to collect himself. Surrounded by
darkness, beyond reach of the sultry glow from the firepans, his white
tunic and jewels made him seem etched in light, a being set apart
from the weathered squalor of the galley wharf. The dichotomy of his
humanity hurt to behold as he raised his torn voice to explain. "I shall
not return to Avenor until I have expended every effort to redeem this
lost Hanshire company from the spellcraft which has spirited them
from us."
    The bystanders overheard. Struck by his purposeful denial of fresh
loss, several women were moved to tears. First one man, then another
began raggedly to chant, "Lysaer of the Light!" until the entire crowd at
the waterfront had taken up the cry.
    All at once, the night reechoed with a synchronous frenzy of admi-
ration. The awe of the multitude expressed palpable excitement, that
the Prince of the Light should give himself to their need before his
own deeply personal sorrow.
    His gold head a glittering beacon against the looming bulk of the
warehouses, Lysaer s'Ilessid beckoned to the standing officer of his
royal retinue. "Ready the best and the steadiest of my guardsmen."
Over the tumult, his edged tone was the drawn sword, that would cut
in fulfillment of its purpose. "We ride at speed for the Middlecross
ferry!"
    Very suddenly, Lirenda became the only stilled point in the mael-
strom, as purposeful activity erupted around her.
    Men-at-arms came forward to depart for the flats, and servants ran
to gather clothing and supplies for the journey. While the fleet captains

501

               JANNY WURTS             ~!1
who had managed the sea campaign at Corith were reorganized for
return to Avenor, the Koriani First Senior believed herself forgotten.
But where an ordinary man might have overlooked her insignificance,
the Prince of the Light turned about.
    He took her hand in his own and eased her small difficulty with
the inspired attention to detail that marked his brilliance as a leader.
"You wish to be elsewhere."
    "I've been too long away from my order." Lirenda took an inadver-
tent step back, shaken by the impact of his caring.
    Her trained senses perceived far too clearly. Lysaer's eyes were
dark from the shock of his princess's death. Nor was his grip steady.
Ridden by an all-too-visible anguish, the marred grace of his features
reRected a ~ranscendenf need which drew on the heart like a magnet.
  Even in weakness, his presence turned lives.
    Yet again, Lirenda killed her surge of instinctive response. Swept
by a sharp, reckless longing to cast off all ties and follow this prince in
defense, she sampled firsthand the pull which caused men to leave
home and swear service for life. Her Koriani discipline was scarcely
enough to stand down the temptation, and recall the stakes of the sac-
rifice.
    Belatedly she noticed that Lysaer was speaking, his offer an invita-
tion to accompany his royal retinue as far as the landing at Middle-
cross.
    "Weren't you bound for the Koriani sisterhouse in Capewell?" The
diamonds at his collar flicked like held stars as he raised her fingers
in a gesture of warmth and inquiry. 'q presume you'd rather cross the
inlet by ferry than ride the long way round through Riverton."
    His selfless solicitude struck a chord of reciprocal concern. "Listen,
you must know," Lirenda burst out in unpremeditated warning.
"Those men-at-arms from Hanshire very likely entangled themselves
in the bounds of a Paravian grimward. If you persist in seeking what
became of them, you ride into unimaginable danger."
    "They were lost on my orders in pursuit of the Spinner of Dark-
ness." Lysaer's affirmation was clear-cut dedication over the rhythmi-
cal adulation of the crowd. "None of them will be abandoned for the
sake of my safety. Your place is to accept my offer of escort as far as
Middleton. There our ways part. Leave the fate and disposition of my
people to me. You must serve your own order and bear my message
on to your Prime."
    Under the lucent weight of Lysaer's gaze, Lirenda knew no logical
reason why she should feel humbled or shamed. Regal chivalry
should not have overwhelmed pride. Bound into his debt by his dedi-

502

FUGITIVE PRINCE

cated sincerity, she could not shake the illusion that she was the lesser
power. Though her poise stayed unbroken, all her wisdom and
accomplishment as First Senior seemed diminished before his true
grace as she accepted the gift of his kindness.

503

Summer 5653

Checks and Balance

The hour that Arithon's sloop Talliarthe makes sail to cross Mainmere
channel to Havish, a clan messenger departs for the sisterhouse in
Capewell, in his hand a packet addressed to Morriel Prime which
bears Rathain's leopard seal: the content, with Arithon's cordial
regards, holds the First Senior's purloined spell crystal and cryptic
promise that the debt has been duly discharged for Caolle's death ....

    In the central chamber of the dragon skull at the vortex of the
grimward, the Sorcerer Asandir leans on the shoulder of his black
horse; near blind with fatigue, exhausting his last thread of depleted
concentration, he frames the clear memory of the focus circle set into
the dungeon of Althain Tower....

    in the mires of Mogg's Fen, Luhaine carries tidings to the caithdein
of Tysan, that Arithon is safe across the channel to Torwent, and three
brigs crewed by clansmen guard Mainmere Narrows to bear the
refugee families into sanctuary under High King Eldir's justice; and
amid tears and sorrow for those too late to spare, Maenol makes
painful disposition that henceforward, every surviving clan bloodline
will maintain a secure branch on the protection of foreign soil ....

504

Summer 5653

XIV. Passages

The handpicked company which rode out with the Prince of the
Light pressed straight on through the night. They traveled light
and without fanfare for speed, with only one bannerman to
announce the royal presence. The muggy, moist heat of the flatlands
clung like syrup over the land. Darkness rang loud with the clicks of
singing insects. The men behind the torch-bearing outriders mopped
tearing eyes from streamed trailers of oily smoke. They held their for-
mation in columns two abreast and trusted their horses to negotiate
the hard-packed alkaline footing.
    They thundered down to the sea inlet as fast as the posthouses
could supply their urgent demand for remounts.
    On that hour, the sheltered cove by the ferry wharf lay wrapped
in woolly fog, the herring gulls wheeling and crying unseen
against the filtered, rose blush of dawn. While horseboys still tou-
sled from sleep in the loft led off their blown mounts, the serving
girls from the ferryhouse brought them a meal of bacon, hot bread,
and steamed fish. Men grown slack from their long weeks at sea
cursed their new saddle blisters and stretched the kinks from their
legs.
    "Damnfool waste of effort, all this rush," a fresh recruit groused to a
pair of weathered veterans who lounged by the tied boats at the water-
front. Experience had long since taught them not to waste themselves

               JANNY WURTS

fretting. They listened, noncommittal, working their way throuh ha~l
cheese and buttered biscuit.
    While the incoming tide slapped at the bollards, their less experi-
enced colleague nattered on. "Those riders from Hanshire have been
lost for months. Whatever dark sorcery led them astray, they're prob-
ably dead. If not, what's the difference? Another day, or a week are
unlikely to matter." Engrossed in self-pity, he failed to notice his com-
panions had stiflened and stopped eating in disquiet. "if you ask me,
we tire men and horses in a cross-country race to no purpose."
    Seemingly out of nowhere, hard fingers locked onto the whiner's
shoulder and jerked him face about toward the innyard.
    "No man oathsworn to fight the shadow at my side shirks his
given duty to his fellows," cracked Lysaer s'Ilessid. The pale white of
his tunic melding into the mist, he had moved up unseen.
    The grief of his past night's loss still marked him. Yet even through
exhaustion and the incandescent fire of just anger, he noticed the fer-
ryman's youngest toddler, wandered in his wake from the guest-
house. He knelt in the dust. "Go, child. The morning's too fine to
spoil with shouting when you can pick shells from the beach."
    As the girl wandered off, he straightened, confronted the miscre-
ant, and resumed his lashing reprimand. "I will have it known
beyond question that anyone needing help against the works of evil
sorcery shall receive what they ask. Assistance will reach them with
all the speed that crown resource can muster. My will on this matter
shall brook no challense. For today's lack of diligence, consider your-
self released from your oath of service to the Light."  The recruit began a shocked protest.
    Lysaer s'Ilessid cut him off. "Don't trouble to speak. I won't hear
excuses." His blue eyes as inexorable as arctic ice, he insisted, "There
can be no faint hearts in my ranks. As we shoulder the coming war
against darkness, every man must stand ready to give his life without
question."
    "Mercy, bright lord." The young man fell to his knees, unmanned
and broken to pleading. "Don't cast me out of your service!"
    Lysaer snapped his fingers. The royal guard's captain stepped in
on smart cue and ripped the sunwheel badge from the sleeve of the
disgraced recruit's tunic.
    "Leave us," commanded the Prince of the Light. "Stay clear of our
crossing. The rest of this company has a task to accomplish in defense
of this land and its people." He turned his back, let his icy regard
sweep the rest of the company. "Believe this! Any man who looks
back will be dismissed as well. Before threat of sorcery, we must har-

506

              FUGITIVE PRINCE

bor no weakness. Veer from our commitment for any man's faults,
and the victory can never be ours."

    Set against an ebb tide, the ferry passage to Middlecross required a
half day to complete. The landing was accomplished amidst heat and
haze in the close, summer fetor of a port town. While a dithering har-
bormaster recovered from receiving the royal party unwarned,
Lirenda went her separate way and arranged passage by galley to
Capewell.
    The Prince of the Light saw her off with smooth courtesy, then
made his presence felt among the town council through the due pro-
cess of royal requisition. His small company prevailed against gather-
ing crowds and deafening cries of adulation. On demand, his captain
procured the fittest, fresh horses. Under the limp folds of the sun-
wheel banner, the two dozen mounted and rode out, watched by
awed merchants and idle children, and by sailhands staggering
drunk from the taverns who wandered upon the commotion. The
prince's guard left behind a furor of fresh hope, and rumor that
would spread east and north by the trade couriers.
    Under sparse clouds like melted enamel, they left the trade road
and crossed into the flats with a local guide to lead them. Across the
windswept leagues of tilled farmland, past barking dogs and the
stares of herders and goodwives, they pressed lathered horses. Four
men were left when remounts ran short, and the day bled away
toward sunset. Angled light stabbed flecks in the mica which crusted
the striated rock. In ragged order, the company clattered across bar-
ren crests and dried gullies. They churned, slapping midges, through
the mud of the sinkholes where the fog was first to gather, then
camped by the glow of a three-quarter moon veiled under bridal-lace
mist.
    Astride once more in the half-light of dawn, the sea fogs like smoke
about them, they passed the last inhabited farmstead; then its outly-
ing sheep stanks of tumbledown stone, crusted in moss and gray
lichen. Except for chinking bits and the creak of saddle leather, the
riders might have been ghosts. They poured through the cross-
stitched fronds of the willow thickets and exchanged no chatter at all.
    Prince Lysaer led, his gleaming gold hair and scintillant jewels
unearthly against the bald slabs of striated granite which scabbed that
desolate setting.
    The men at his back had outworn their will to raise spirits through
railing banter. While the fogs rolled and shredded, and hazed sun
speared down and raised trickling sweat under padded gambeson

507

                           JANNY WURTS                                     :!~/~i!
and helm, they dared set no words to their dread. No mind amon
them could grapple the horrors they might be required to face.
    Somewhere ahead, forty competent soldiers had been swallowed
alive by fell magic. The ones who rode now in sworn duty to try res-
cue owned no better protection than steel swords and their obdurate
faith in the Light.
    For Lysaer s'Ilessid himself, the bleak landscape left unpleasant,
slack hours to think. His aching grief for Talith's loss became a tor-
ment of wretched persistence. As though the mainstay to his intellect
had splintered like glass, pain left its branding reminder. Circling
memories reopened old scars. The cycle of betrayal and abandon
begun by his s'Ahelas mother now magnified and replayed, until he
wished he was numb to all passion.
    The friend who might have shared his hour of mourning lay dead,
slain along with the war host massacred by the dark on the field at
Dier Kenton Vale.
    Nor could the Prince of the Light claim the luxury of solitude, even
with the onset of night. The warren of scrub willow where the field
troop made camp afforded no privacy for grief. Lysaer spoke and ate
where necessity demanded. Duty bound to the needs of his men, he
lay wakeful and watched the summer constellations melt slowly into
the mist. The hour saw him more alone than he had ever been since
the hour of his birth. Isolated by his royal rank, and by the cause that
he shouldered to amend the defenseless plight of humanity, he still
could not hide from himself.
    Around him, no sound but the dry scrape of crickets; the plink of
seeping water from a rock spring could not lull him to the forgetful
oblivion of sleep. Nor could he silence his rampaging hurt.
    Once, his marriage to a single woman had threatened to seduce
him from his oathsworn obligation to bring down the Master of
Shadow. Now Talith was gone. Temptation removed, he had not
gained relief. Death had not brought him one iota of freedom from
the drawing agony of her allure, which had dreadfully threatened to
snap his integrity and undermine all his high principles. He felt
newly lost. No grand cause could bridge the terrible vacancy love had
left torn through his heart.
    The only fire that remained to be fanned was his hatred for Arithon
s'Ffalenn.
    The Shadow Master's cleverness had manipulated Princess Talith
to betrayal. In the months of her abduction, his accursed, scheming
wiles had orchestrated her estrangement. Lysaer s'Ilessid endured the
chill fact that he owned nothing dear in the world on which to build a

so8

FUGITIVE PRINCE

bright future. Empty himselL royal justice demanded he not shirk his
responsibility for the needs of his people. His life had meaning only if
he delivered their destiny from the manipulative powers of the mage-
born.
  Yet even the comfort of resolve left him hollow.
    Lysaer locked his teeth against flooding, bitter rage as the scourge
of his faithless mother's s'Ahelas farsight mocked him to gritty self-
honesty. At least for tonight, he could not mask the lie: he shouldered
the challenge of the grimward for raw need, that the rooted aversion
he held for all sorcery might drown out the pain of his loss.
    Dawn saw him the first man arisen from his blankets. He still led
the company through the baked heat of high morning. Starburst
reflections jumped off the mica from the flood of sun overhead.
Where bare rock was covered, the horses plowed chest high through
topaz tassels of goldenrod and saw grass. Their hooves thudded over
sod matted with gorse and bracken in the gullies which still hoarded
moisture.
    The land seemed empty, a circle of silence sealed under limitless
sky. Then, with no warning, the horses took alarm. They snorted,
necks rigid, their tails and ears raised, as if some uncanny presence
raised distrust. No effort would settle them. Spur and rein, and feats
of skilled horsemanship failed to restore their willing temperament.
    "We'll dismount." Lysaer vaulted off his skittering mount, then
waved for the hook-nosed local shepherd who served as guide to
approach for immediate consultation. "Are we near the place where
the men disappeared?"
    "Your Grace, no." The man rammed the cork in the neck of his skin
flask, mopped his dripping mustache, and glanced uneasily over
both shoulders. "That site lies another day's ride to the east."
    Down the ranks, a man slapped a fly. The report caused the guide
to start out of his skin. "We should leave here. Animals are wiser to
danger than we."
    "I didn't come this far to run at the first breath of trouble." Lysaer
raised his head, squinting against the glare of full noon. The strained
quiet extended, while around him, the breeze stilled and died. Men
shuddered with odd chills and gooseflesh. An insidious need stole
over the mind to turn tail and beat swift retreat.
    Chin up, eyes forward, his dust-caked surcoat straight on trim
shoulders, Lysaer s'Ilessid masked the icy, first onset of fear. Only his
stance of unmalleable determination kept the men steadfast at his
heels.
  A horse stamped. On a choking intake of breath, the local guide

509

JANNY WURTS

whirled and ran, thrashing a headlong course through the brush in
blind panic to take himself elsewhere.
    "Steady, keep sharp!" barked the captain. "Docked pay for any
man who breaks from his place in the ranks!"
    Suddenly the air gained an unsettled density, unsubtle and heavy
as quartz. Sunlight fell magnified in unexplainable brilliance, as
though the sky itself had tumed refractive. The stabbed reflections off
mail shirts and metallic gear caught in queer, actinic sparkles that
befuddled clear vision. Then all natural sense of direction dissolved.
    "By the light, we're being witched!" the bannerman gasped,
shaken.
    Lysaer touched the man's shoulder with quelling strength. "Be
still." In reckless defiance, he raised his fist high and issued his own
challenge in pure light.
    The bolt seared aloft like the quenching shriek of hot steel. Its daz-
zling radiance slammed into resistance and summoned a veil of blank
fog. Gray wisps eddied and curled, first as disorganized rags of
vapor, then as a frothing, impenetrable veil which expanded to mask
the known landscape.
    To the men-at-arms rooted in trembling obedience, the surge of
Lysaer's gift seemed to collide with an uncanny barrier of mage-force.
    "Light save us!" the royal equerry cried through the murmur of
another man's prayers.
    The words rang flat and echoless with distance. Seared blind by the
stifled, white radiance of his effort, Lysaer s'Ilessid fed the hard edge
of his terror through the inborn channels of his talent. The more fight
he raised, the more tightly he felt the unmalleable vortex of force
twine like wire about his person. He sensed the connection. On the
shaken verge of panic, he burned his gift like bale fire, determined to
rout the magecraft which bore down as if he had been chained as its
target.
  Visceral fear ripped through him.
    Then the veil which masked mortal sight from the infinite tore
across and shattered into light. The beacon this time was not of his
making; his birth mastery could not grapple or bind it.
    He beheld no land, no rock, no live body. Around him and through
rang the dance of pure energy that fired the chord of Ath's mystery. A
fist of dauntless power embraced him. He could not move, could not
think, only be, melded as one with the forces which pealed to unbear-
able crescendo and Named him out of the void.
  A cry like a shard of. clear crystal lanced his mind.
  "Lysaer, Prince of the Light, deliver me safe from the darkness!"

510

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    For one sustained second, ephemeral as moonlight on snow, or the
whisper of thermals through a hawk's wing, the whole substance of
displaced reality seemed to pivot and spin on its balance.
    Then a peal of thunder cracked the luminescent air. Vibrations
slapped his person with ranging force, tearing earth and sky back into
solidified existence.
    The land had not changed. Clear sun shone down, untrammeled
by strange mists. Shocked speechless and scarcely able to stand
upright, Lysaer s'Ilessid saw that his company of guards had been
thrown to a man from their feet.
    For a disjointed moment, they remained in stunned fear, flinching
and paralyzed from reaction. Then a breeze stroked the weed tassels.
A wren sang. The day resurged in all its diverse normality, while
shocked men rubbed flash-blinded eyes. They groped after dropped
weapons. A stupefied handful of seconds crept by before any of them
noticed the miracle.
    A dust-coated, haunted captain at arms was sprawled weeping at
Lysaer's feet.
    The prince blinked. He could not place the man's wiry, dark hair,
nor the bloody gash raked down his forearm. The filthy, tom blazon
on his surcoat was no sunwheel, but a sable stag on a scarlet shield.
      His own captain was first to exclaim from the sidelines. "Hanshire?
Sulfin Evend?" The name raised a babble of incredulous shouting.
  "Look! Ath, it's him!"
  "One of those who was taken by dark sorcery!"
    "Behold! Did you see? My Lord Prince of the Light has recovered the
lost company's commander from the well of oblivion!"
    Lysaer took firm grip on his rattled nerves. Plunged into shocked
chill, still half-unmoored and consumed by his struggle to dismiss the
chord of grand mystery which had touched him, he fell back on
reflexive inspiration. He caught the prostrate man's pitifully thin
shoulder and raised him in a brother's embrace.
  Then he studied the face, a square-jawed stranger's.
    His racing heart rejected the implication, though to his bones, he
knew. The powers which had redeemed the lost captain were none of
his own. His memory of their uncanny strangeness pried at logic,
undid belief, to the massive upset of clear principle.
    Denial remained. If sorcery was wrought from the heart of life's
source, if music and grand harmony and clean balance framed its
powers, then Lysaer rocked on the edge of the abyss. All that he
strove to accomplish in the world became unveiled as a misguided
illusion.

511

such diabolicalIy craœted illu~-~i"o~ to dis~'~ .....                                       ~'~-~'~Z~'~:-~'"~'~:'-::':;~_~.~.~
~ ....... x ....~ ~-~ ~ ~o~ ~-~ ~ ~o~ ,ø~o~~
          ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~xx ~ ~x~ ~                                                                                                               ~
  than to cloak perfect evil ~ a sea,ess, ~c~~~-                        .  ~
      Around him, ~s dedicated comply were clamor~g for a~enfi~ j~
  He heard words, felt the heat of their wors~pful astonis~ent. Su~ '
  Everid was speaking of his sojourn through terror, of see~ his small
  troop of men tom and savaged by monsters drawn ~om the E~st
  Age. ~ u~J~ J~dscapes cloaked ~ ice which had chan~ed :~nt0
                                      r~k be~een o~, ...........
  mo~ta~s, or chasms of b~il~g .........             ~      n's ~te~ and the
  next. "O/all who followed ~ pursuit of the Shadow Master, 1 ~'as ~he
  last left alive."
     "Fellow, you're bleed~b" the royal capta~ ~te~ected. "Let's see
 that a~." At his reprimand, the equer~ was sent to fetch bat~..tages
 from a saddlebag.
     "~ere was a Sorcerer," Sulf~ Evend gasped, while a man k~elt
 and cut away ~e clo~ed sh~ds of ~s sleeve to bare his unt~ded
 wound. "He wore dark robes. ~ile the rocks of Si~aer itself b(~iled
 and burned and r~ molten about me, he came and forced me t(, ~alk
 down ~e t~oat of a dragon's skull. I fought ~m. He told me t(~ cease
 s~ggl~g, that resistance was wasted. ~en he fl~g me i~t() the
 dark."
     "Ugly, but just scrapes," the royal capta~ ~ormed, his examina-
 tion complete. "You're lucky the mess hasn't festered." He accepted
 ~h~ ~e[ke~ of ~oultice ~aste the remiss equerry had mixed from stored
 remedies and a waters~.
     ~ile his gashes were dressed, the vic~m ~sistently ~,~ued ~i~
 story, trembl~g from shock and amazement at his del v~rance. ~'I
 ~ew I would be imprisoned in that place for all time. I~ ~' h()ur0i
 despair I called on ~e Name of the Price of the Lig~t. 'arid ~'as
 heard!" He ~med s~g, worship~l eyes upon the b~,~)~d-haired
 salon of s'gessid who stood a half step removed &om h~ ~0~0r
 guard. "Praise your Grace~ ~e blessed powers of Light have t~.
 umphed over dar~ess, ~d I stud before you alive."
     ~e ~stant the bandage was secure on his arm, he pusheci t}~r0u~ ~
 the men ~d ~elt once aga~ at the feet of Lysaer s'Ilessic~ ~I have ~
 seen the ~th. You are sent by div~e mission to deliver us fi ~)~ dark. ~
 hess."                                                                              ~

               JANNY WURTS                  '~l
    "No." Lysaer shut his eyes, his two hands locked and shaking. ~
Conflicted by self-honesty and devastated pride, he ached through a
moment of absolute crisis, before he recalled his own truth: the adepts
of Ath's brotherhood once sought to sway him the same way. They had used
such diabolically crafted illusion to distort his perception, and blind
honor, and convince him that Arithon s'Ffalenn was born innocent.
    Indeed, what better way to seduce a mortal will from right action
than to cloak perfect evil in a seamless, evocative beauty?
    Around him, his dedicated company were clamoring for attention.
He heard words, felt the heat of their worshipful astonishment. Sulfin
Evend was speaking of his sojourn through terror, of seeing his small
troop of men torn and savaged by monsters drawn from the First
Age. He described landscapes cloaked in ice which had changed into
mountains, or chasms of boiling rock between one man's step and the
next. "Of all who followed in pursuit of the Shadow Master, I was the
last left alive."
    "Fellow, you're bleeding," the royal captain interjected. "Let's see
that arm." At his reprimand, the equerry was sent to fetch bandages
from a saddlebag.
    "There was a Sorcerer," Sulfin Evend gasped, while a man knelt
and cut away the clotted shreds of his sleeve to bare his untended
wound. "He wore dark robes. While the rocks of Sithaer itself boiled
and burned and ran molten about me, he came and forced me to walk
down the throat of a dragon's skull. I fought him. He told me to cease
struggling, that resistance was wasted. Then he flung me into the
dark."
    "Ugly, but just scrapes," the royal captain informed, his examina-
tion complete. "You're lucky the mess hasn't festered." He accepted
the dollop of poultice paste the remiss equerry had mixed from stored
remedies and a waterskin.
    While his gashes were dressed, the victim insistently pursued his
story, trembling from shock and amazement at his deliverance. "I
knew I would be imprisoned in that place for all time. In my hour of
despair I called on the Name of the Prince of the Light, and was
heard!" He turned shining, worshipful eyes upon the blond-haired
scion of s'Ilessid who stood a half step removed from his honor
guard. "Praise your Grace! The blessed powers of Light have tri-
umphed over darkness, and I stand before you alive."
    The instant the bandage was secure on his arm, he pushed through
the men and knelt once again at the feet of Lysaer s'Ilessid. "I have
seen the truth. You are sent by divine mission to deliver us from dark-
ness."

    Surrounded by the worshipful circle of his men, the prince under-
stood he must keep the pretense of manhood and react. If not, he
risked being forced to explain how narrowly he had escaped an insid-
ious and subtle attack of enemy subterfuge.
    He laid his crossed hands upon Sulfin Evend's bent head. Unable
to imagine how a man could stay sane through a harrowing ordeal
wrought of sorcery, he chose utmost tact and said gently, "You need
not still serve."
    The Hanshire captain's fervent response became the balm which
cemented cracked faith, and distanced the grief of Talith's passing.
    "My lord prince, I would walk through Sithaer yet again to join in
your battle against darkness!" Sulfin Evend tipped up his trans-
formed, avid face. "Your Grace of the Light, let me ride at the fore-
front of your troops, that the spirit you have saved from the pit of evil
should inspire others to stand strong."
    Touched to relief, that a man of such fiber wished to carry his sun-
wheel banner against the legions of Shadow before him, Lysaer
s'Ilessid raised the wiry Hanshire captain to stand erect at his side.
    "You shall command the host of my field army." His royal admira-
tion was no less than sincere as his choice squared battered shoulders
under the singed tatters of his Hanshire surcoat. "The cause of
humanity stands strengthened this day by the priceless gift of your
courage. Your mettle is proven, Sulfin Evend. Your name shall
resound unforgotten throughout history. No braver heart in all of
Athera could spearhead the honor of the Light!"

    Weeks after Lysaer's new Commander of Armies received his
investiture at Avenor, the focus circle beneath Althain Tower captured
light and then blazed into an actinic coruscation of raised power as a
spelled tracer crossed the veil. A template of slipped time interlocked
and aligned. Hurled through that storm's eye by the much delayed
impetus of his homecoming, Asandir set foot on firm stone and stag-
gered.
    The Warden stood waiting by the center of the pattern; Sethvir
caught his colleague's weak-kneed, failing weight before he mea-
sured his length.
"Blessed Ath," Asandir whispered. "I'd hoped you might meet me."
Around him, the restive flare of raised lane force sparkled and
churned like a river flood sucked into whirlpool. Its brilliant intensity
all at once shattered thought. His eyes would not focus. The laced
mesh his own powers had called into being hazed into a blur, and his
knees buckled under him after all. Despite the help of the Warden's

513

JANNY WURTS

staunch shoulder, Asandir understood in dismay he was not going to
stave off collapse.
    The dwindled reserves he tapped for clear speech became unimag-
inably precious. "The Major Balance is served." He paused to control
a spasming shudder. "The Hanshire captain has been sent through
alive."
    "I know. He crossed back six weeks ago." Matter-of-fact before the
shocking, hot touch of Asandir's clothing, Sethvir shifted his grip.
"Don't speak." He clapped out a spark of conflagration with his
palm, felt the stout weave of cloth and worn leather tatter away into
ash. "I'm here. You don't have to fight to stay standing anymore."
    With utmost gentle care, he eased his colleague's rangy frame onto
the cool, grounding stone of the floor. One quelling word scribed a
rune on the air. In response, the excited flare of stressed power dis-
persed. The focus patterns dimmed and subsided back into their
dancing blue glimmer of quiescence.
    "The second lane's left in chaos," Asandir murmured, eyes
squeezed tight shut. The coiled tension in his body did not let go, as
if his contact with dense matter, or even the currentless mild air
caused him a sourceless pain. "The upset will have to be remedied
quickly."
    Between the spin of his' unruly senses, he could not ignore the
snagging ache of vibration thrown into disharmony. The unbalanced
backlash shocked through the earth's lanes like a damping spill of
poison. The black stone which channeled that energy beneath Althain
belied in shared dissonance as the wayward, reverse polarity of the
grimward strained distortions through the weakened geometry of the
wardspells demarking its boundary in Korias. The world's natural
weather would suffer in resonance if the magnetic turbulence was not
curbed and sealed separate.
    "Never mind." Sethvir's murmured assurance pattered echoes off
the veined agate floor and glanced in multiplied whispers from the
ceiling vaults. "Other hands will correct the imbalance this time.
You're in no shape to do so yourself."
    Asandir felt his senses slip, unraveling on a hurtling plunge
toward chaos. He smelled metal and rust. Still dazed by deliverance
from the reek of dead bone and charred rock, the dusky fragrance of
sagebrush and meadow grass which clung to Sethvir's robes half
unmoored him. The grateful, euphoric dizziness of knowing he was
safe threatened his balance worst of all.
    "I'm unfit to stand up," he allowed at last. His words fell away into
distance like shot arrows. "You know the problem can't wait."

514

~ to

!ag-
trol

              FUGITIVE PRINCE

    He forced his eyes open. Around him, the tower's white-marble
walls fractured into light. His awareness remained vised in an uncon-
trolled flood of mage-sight, until thought and vision lost their form
like run wax. The enveloping, lapping tingle of lane force strayed
from the earth's tuned chord of identity and degenerated into spats of
insensate static. "A magnetic disturbance on that scale is almost cer-
tain to--"
  "You cannot concern yourselL" Sethvir interrupted. "Not now."
    "I must. Who else can you send?" Unable to separate which suffer-
ing was his, and which the ripped pulse of the world's discord,
Asandir belabored the frayed rags of discipline to recoup a sure hold
on his faculties.
    "Be still!" The Warden's remonstrance clove his will like jarred
iron. "Let me."
    Through the jangled membrane of his skin, Asandir felt Sethvir's
sensitive fingers. Touch came and went with the lightness of moth
wings, testing, then mapping the vortices of fusion where his biologi-
cal body engaged with the more subtle frequencies of spirit. His col-
league's ministrations shored up flagging stamina, soothing with
sympathetic infusions of fine energy; even so, Asandir felt the rever-
beration of each release drill through the marrow of his bones.
    "Don't call Kharadmon." His strained eyes stayed open. The
shocked, widened pupils were rimmed at the edge, the ephemeral,
veiled silver of thin ice paned over turbulent water. "Especially now.
The star ward must never be left unguarded for an instant."
    "No," Sethvir agreed. He spun a thought like loomed silk. A circle
of mystic seals gleamed above his cupped palms. He blew them to a
cloud of indigo and silver, then let their essence purl like poured
water over Asandir's crown, where they sank into the weave of his
tangled, dusty hair. "Luhaine will come."
    In a parallel response to that promised reassurance, Asandir
sensed a needle of thought align with the pattern underneath him.
Traced by that delicate key of vibration, the focus blazed active. Like
the dislodged grain of sand which presaged a rockslide, lane forces
resounded on Sethvir's command and sent forth his summons for
assistance.
    "Fires and light!" Asandir winced. "The Prime Matriarch herself
must sit up and take notice of that."
    Sethvir's concern cracked into a puckish glimmer of devilment.
"She's meant to." He spread ink-stained hands and quelled his col-
league's move to arise with a shockingly small stir of effort.
"Luhaine's been riding herd on Morriel's councils since her plot to

515

JANNY WURTS

snatch Arithon came to light. A call sent through earth will bridge her
wards fastest. Let go. Rest now. I daresay the world will continue to
turn without your hand on its axis."
    Asandir groaned through a dull burn of agony. He never intended
to give way. But the coiling smokes of oblivion he grappled stole
through his weakened defenses. Darkness slipped in on ghost feet
and trampled the glimmering last spark of his protest.

    The Warden of Althain rocked back on his heels. Lapped in the
warm summer fragrance of herbs, and maroon robes like old, fusty
parchment, he drew a long, calming breath. The patience he bor-
rowed from stone itself could no longer stem his sharpened state of
anxiety.
    "For mercy and the world, we cannot keep on like this." Eyes shut
through the moment he required to steady himself, he thanked every
power in creation for Arithon s'Ffalenn's resolve to renew his off-
shore search for the Paravians. Each hour that the Shadow Master
spent provisioning his brigantine at Irmish seeded the potential for
another disaster. The Mistwraith's curse had embedded too deeply
since the great war in Vastmark. Lysaer's grand cause now com-
manded too widespread an influence, and simple evasions would no
longer serve. This time no less than a Fellowship Sorcerer had nearly
been lost in the breach.
    Again, Sethvir ran distressed fingertips over his colleague's limp
flesh.
    Cinder burns had branded livid trails of blisters across Asandir's
craggy features. Couched in cavernous bone, the pinched, closed eyes
seemed to battle the drawn veil of sleep.
    "You pushed your limit far too dangerously close," Sethvir admon-
ished the Sorcerer who lay slack at his knees. Shaken by pity, he
cupped his hands over cheekbone and jaw. His feather touch traced
the lean, corded neck, then trailed over a chest that wore too little
flesh over its vaulting of ribs. He paused, repeated his survey, then
frowned and moved on, over the abdomen, and down the full length
of long legs.
  Then he arose and set to work.
    Asandir never moved. The chamber beneath Althain seemed a cap-
sule of stillness as Sethvir removed his soft shoes. Through the expedi-
ent decision to recharmel lane force as a restorative, the afflicted Sorcerer
scarcely seemed to keep breathing.
    Head tipped askance, Sethvir weighed his task through the
extended spectrum of mage-sight. Refined perception unveiled the

516

FUGITIVE PRINCE

 streaming cloud of the aura, and the energy knitted in layered octaves
 of transmission over the skin. Each bandwidth received his remorse-
 less survey.
     The damage he mapped made him ache with shared sorrow. A
 mage of Asandir's strength and stature should celebrate his existence
 wrapped in a mantle of pure light. His raiment of spirit was the limit-
 less power of creation, maintained into flawless balance. The axis of
 his being should shine as a beacon, his shimmering vitality stitched
 like tamed lightning through the tapestry of sinew beneath. For a Fel-
 lowship Sorcerer, self-renewal became reflex. The infinite whole sus-
 tained his existence, channeled and tuned to harmonic alignment that
 flowed with each breath and surged to the rhythm of each heartbeat.
    Instead, Sethvir beheld a fabric rubbed threadbare as old muslin.
Where the weave should have blazed with energetic life, he saw dull
voids, their edges dimmed to a fuzzy, splotched gray, etched like dark
tamish on lead. Where the energy vortices tangled, he reached through
his mage-sense, raising the resonance and stroking out blockage. He
coaxed each stressed channel, and whispered phrases of compassionate
encouragement to the inner will, which would comprehend frequency
and sound. No effort was spared. Past the blinds of unconsciousness,
Asandir's senses still functioned. The mind would record, and the body
respond, and rally the life force for healing.
    Sethvir tuned with his breath, then used specific harmonic tones,
released with ritual intent. His ordered precision called sparkling
light to bridge and then settle the gapped paths of each stress-tom
meridian. Nor were his hands still, all the while. He tapped through
resistance, threaded current in bright bands through a body he knew
like a brother's.
    Sealed in timeless concentration, his work seemed a moment dis-
placed from the far-distant past. Throughout their Second Age trials
against drake spawn, he had accomplished the same service many
times, as Asandir had done likewise for him.
    Yet when three hours of meticulous labor failed to seal over the
deficit which opened stray gaps in the flux, Sethvir straightened. He
sighed and faced the damaging fact that Asandir needed more than
rest and quiet. His prolonged manipulation of the entropic forces
inside the grimward had shifted the polarities in his body. Those sub-
tle interfaces grown too damaged to clear must be combed back into
alignment by magnetics.
    Sethvir arose. With remarkable strength for his wiry stature, he
grasped Asandir's slackened wrists and arrayed his muscled frame
into line with the north and south axis of the pattern. The large,

517

]ANNY WURTS

craftsman's hands he placed palm upward on the intercepting a~'cs
where the circles for sun, moon, and the twelve mariner's stars strad-
dled the east and west meridian. He removed the scorched leather of
Asandir's boots, stripped off the soiled hose underneath. Bare heels
were arranged on the southernmost angles of the grand hexa~0n
which connected the sixfold arcs of the earth circle.
    "Forgive," he apologized. "The bath that you long for will
have to wait." Through a monologue of trivia, the Warden of Altha~n
combed the smoke-stained, tangled hair with his fingers.
smoothed the stressed wrinkles from singed leather and cloth,
loosened the ties of laces and corded silk belt.
    "Lie easy. You won't be abandoned," he whispered, hands fla
Asandir's forehead.
  Then he rose and poured all his worry into haste.
    Upstairs in his stillroom, Sethvir scoured his cupboards, fm~,~.~
flying. He bundled dried leaves of sage and sweetgrass and ce
Each herb was separately tied in specific laced patterns.of d~~,~
string. Returned to the focus, he set his offerings in the sockets of
carved gryphons which crouched in stilled vigil at the comt,.~,~
points. He shaved birch and oak bark from two faggots filched f:t,
his woodpile and leaved them into a spill. Then he blew golden
into the crumbled lumps of copal resin snatched from his jar in
library. When all was laid ready, he faced north. His single,
word of command called a spark from the earth's vibrant consci~,'.
ness.
    For a long-drawn moment, plant fragrances mingled with t ~ ~,
stone of the chamber. Then a seed of white flame arose from t',,
and winnowed smoke like living blue silk. Sethvir held the t, ~.,
bark aloft. He spoke an appeal, received a permission, then ~
east and called a wild spark from the mantle of air, and b~i ~
sconce by Name to ignite.
    The stone gryphons crouched, crowned in the south's cleansing
fire.
    As if tuned to resonance by ordinary flame, the pattern whispered
and bloomed to a coruscation of golden light.
    Barefoot, Sethvir walked the pattern's outer circle. He blew out the
wood spill and scribed phrases of runes in a knitted, running line of
streamed smoke. Where the written hoop closed, he positioned him-
self on the key figure, invoked mastery, and stepped his mind's vibra-
tion into attunemerit with the majestic chord of the third lane.
    Again he invoked a release; then he asked a second permission.
The pattern sang back, embracing his being through contact with his

518

FUGITIVE PRINCE

bare soles and charging the smoke runes to a glowing royal purple.
Ringed in bands of unconditional, free conjury, Althain's Warden
spread his arms wide. His blessing and invocation called power from
sun, moon, and stars, and raised each grand circle of the focus to cap-
ture its counterpart reflection.
    One moment, he paused to give thanks. Then he appealed, and
received third and final permission, which granted his use of raised
power to heal.
    In careful stages, he mediated the balance, tamed and down-
stepped the whorled vortex of magnetic energy which belted the cen-
tral axis of the pattern. In spare, precise steps he aligned the subtle
currents to match the damaged imprint of Asandir's aura. His work
was meticulous. A misstep would trigger failure, or a backlash to fuse
havoc down to the heart-core of the earth. The contact points of entry
must be utterly precise, each line mathematically correct. No angle
must jar. The ranging harmonics of each thread of power must sing
exactly on key, the energy colors of each step in conjury matched to
the individual.
    Time passed. The patterning built, then glimmered with resonant
harmony. Mage-sight revealed the comatose Sorcerer cocooned in a
geometric lattice of pure light.
    Sethvir squinted through the balefire glare of his handiwork. Made
wise through his earth sense, he knew the planet's energies could
heal all that lived under sky, given time to allow their quiet influence.
    But to a grievously shorthanded Fellowship, idleness was not an
affordable option. As Sethvir completed the last step to fine-tune the
outer band of energies, a waft of chill air flapped his robe against the
spiked bone of his ankles.
    He paused, caught his streaming beard in two tufts, and accorded
the invasive breeze a glance like the tart nip of hoarfrost. "You took
your sweet time arriving."
    "Well, your summons was thoughtlessly inopportune." Luhaine
huffed into a spin across the chamber. "The Koriani Prime Matriarch's
trouble enough without you upsetting her complacency."
    "She's just about paralyzed," Sethvir corrected, while escaped
strands of hair slashed his ears, and streamed smoke from the sconces
made his eyes water. "She's been battened in silk quilts and healers
since the hour she wakened without the strength to stand up."
    Luhaine disagreed. "Her temper's a volcano waiting to blow."
Tight, spinning eddies kicked trails through the fug as the spirit
whirled again and plowed on in lugubrious pique. "You knew her
First Senior's in detention at Capewell? Yes? Then I scarcely need

519

 mention the mischief that's certain to brew the moment she's called in
 to give her formal accounting. You'll have to agree the next round 6f
 intrigue will go all the worse for no watchdog on Morriel then."
     Sethvir braced his feet against Luhaine's errant tempest, still
 clutching beard, while his eyes shone the vacant, flat blue of polished
 turquoise. "Whatever the Koriathain are plotting must wait upon
 Asandir's need."
     Luhaine ceased his petulant prowl in the cavernous vicinity of the
 stairwell. "Very well. A Few minutes won't hurt."
     Sethvir cocked his head, all his faculties disconcertingly aligned on
 the present. "When you left," he said, concise, "Morriel was teaching
 a green initiate the selective process for expunging the dross of an
 unwanted vibration without detuning a quartz-crystal matrix."
    Luhaine was not mollified. "Which tidbit happens to bear directly
on why Asandir needs assistance at all." In a blasting, crisp sibilance
of arctic air, he exploded. "You'd think, having blinded the advantage
of his mage-sight, the Teir's'Ffalenn could refrain from twisting the
snake's tail this once!"
    Sethvir's brows rose. He opened clenched hands. The cascade of
freed beard spilled down his chest like wool dropped fresh from its
carding. "You speak of Prince Arithon's gracious return of Lirenda's
personal spell crystal?"
    "I refer to the specific disharmonies in her quartz that he retuned
with compassionate melody, yes." Luhaine shrank to a pinpoint of
cold and lit on the snout of a gargoyle. "Morriel knows we left Dakar
to guard him, but a spellbinder's wards are not an infallible protec-
tion."
    To stave off the chill, Sethvir retrieved his bushkins, and frowned
at a spot worn long past salvage with a patch. "We are grown too few
to manage our burdens, and since we can't borrow our spellbinder
back, you're going to be gone more than minutes." He eased his tired
footwear over baby pink toes, chin tipped toward the prone form
arrayed in the pattern. "Asandir can't be left to heal unattended.
Traithe's south in Havish, finishing the wards on the coast for King
Eldir. Who's left but me to ride out and rebalance the damaged seal
over that grimward?"
    A spirit obsessed with tight focus, Luhaine paused at last and
seized the gist. "Ath spare us from ruin! How long was Asandir in
there?"
    Sethvir declined comment. The intricate conjury drawn and sealed
through live lane force offered a grim enough testament: Asandir's
sacrifice had detained him to the bitter limit of survival. His perilous

52O

             FUGITIVE PRINCE

victory had stabilized the unruly fabric of the haunt's dream long
enough to spare one more foolhardy human from the throes of a fatal
predicament. Now came the cruel cost: the grimward's tangential
polarities had drained his regenerative faculties beyond the point
where he could recover on his own.
    "I couldn't have done that," Luhaine said outright. "Never mind
the ~act I don't possess a body." Blunted now to respect like scraped
bedrock, he admitted, "Prince Arithon's life is essential to see the
Black Rose Prophecy completed. But to take on such risk for the sake
of a misguided captain at arms was an act of softhearted insanity."
    For the penalty extended beyond individual infirmity; the Fellow-
ship's resources were already taxed beyond salvage. Luhaine could
not shoulder the task which faced Sethvir. Stripped of mortal flesh,
the fine energies of his spirit would become misaligned and erased
upon contact with the raging, dire forces ringed inside the spelled
bounds of a grimward.
    Too fussy a perfectionist to stay passive in a crisis, the discorporate
Sorcerer abandoned his perch on the gargoyle. He drifted over the
pattern of the focus, and gave Sethvir's work his critical inspection.
Where he perceived nuance beyond reach of an entity encumbered by
flesh, he came and went as a stiletto point of light, fretting a chain of
minute adjustments to the energies already laid down. Luhaine con-
cluded on a note of grudging admiration. "What has been gained for
that one life, but a dangerous, misguided incentive? You know Sulfin
Evend has sworn to become all Lysaer ever asked of a warrior priest."
    "Balance," Sethvir snapped. His unwonted shortness revealed his
own depth of misery as he padded toward the lower stairwell. Under
the vaulted archway, he turned, his beard ends and hair wisped into
frost cobwebs against the blank shadow beyond. "When Asandir
wakens, he's to rest. Make sure he does if you have to barricade the
doors to contain him."
    "Borrow his horse, then," Luhaine suggested. "You won't keep
him, otherwise." The eddy of his presence settled and rearranged,
surrounding his colleague's battered form in a mantle of radiance that
blazed sympathy in contradiction to his dour, ending comment.
"Stubborn as old granite, and pernicious when crossed. Well you
are!" Luhaine insisted, as though Asandir had spoken in defense.
    $ethvir hid his smile behind his crooked fist and ducked out, while
Luhaine lectured the unconscious colleague he tended. "You've
shown the bad grace and poor manners to walk through my being
before, when I tried making sensible comments on your health."

Late Summer 5653

Judgment

Swathed in quilts sewn with sigils of vitality chain-stitched in silver
thread, and propped upright against goose-down pillows like piled
snowdrifts, Morriel ruled the Koriani Order from an enormous,
carved bed at Capewell. Reduced to a skeleton swathed in blanched
skin,. she held the reins of her power close to her breast, her eyes still
like fathomless beads of chipped jet. Her speech was sparing, each
word precise as engraving.
    She was attended night and day, served in her fragile state of infir-
mity by no less than the sisterhouse peeress, her matched pair of
pages, and a young girl initiate of exceptional talent, brought across
Tysan in whirlwind haste from her first initiation at Cainford.
    On the same afternoon Sethvir mounted his colleague's black stal-
lion and rode out of Althain Tower, Morriel had a circle of seventh-
rank Seniors immersed in deep trance at her bedside. Behind heavy,
drawn drapes, the medicinal air wore expectancy like a brewing
storm. Twelve candles burned upon silver stands arrayed in a perfect
arc. Each enchantress was linked to a distant seer, tied by gifted sight
to the free lane force that ranged in bands across Athera.
    No draft flickered the beeswax candles. No shimmer teased the
embroidery. The women held still as figures in wax. Their tranced tal-
ents activated an array of quartz-crystal balls, pocketed in a half-circle
formation amid the rose-pattern quilts tucked over the Prime's crip-
pled knees.
  The Koriani Matriarch probed into the orbs like the listening spider

522

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FUGITIVE I~RINCE

slung in the strands of her web. One of these showed the dark horse and
the rider, standing knee high in gold meadow grass. A maggot white
smile turned the crone's bloodless lips as that particular scrying unfolded.
    She did not miss the fleeting moment when the crystal appeared to
cloud over. Satisfaction twitched a ghost imprint of amusement
across her emaciated face. "Watch closely," she instructed the molli-
fied young girl who attended the scrying at her elbow.
    The initiate leaned nearer. Her braided blond hair trailed across the
heaped bedclothes, and lush, rosebud lips loosed a sigh of awestruck
wonder.
    Inside the crystal, almost too faint to catch, a starred pulse of light
flicked and vanished. A waving expanse of empty gorse remained,
while a barred hawk arose and soared on spread wings. It circled the
flinty spire of the tower, then banked and sheared in a graceful glide
above the road which carved through the greener hills to the south.
    "Hah!" The Koriani Prime gave a cackle of reedy delight. "I'd
hoped so!" A withered stiff finger signed a rune of thanksgiving in the
coppery light of the candles. "Events progress in fair form. Althain's
Warden has no choice but to engage the Great Circle at Isaer."
    With his tower's main focus pattern fully engaged to stabilize
Asandir's life signs, the lane force at that site could not be retuned for
transport. Nor could an unstable grimward be accessed as a homing
point for the Sorcerer in transit.
    Reedy with satisfaction, Morriel finished her thought. "We can
safely presume Sethvir will cross by magecraft from Isaer to the Sec-
ond Age ruin at Mainmere. He'll be forced to ride the Taerlin road." A
round distance of a hundred and fifty leagues gave due time to plan
without Fellowship interference.
    The child initiate raised a round, freckled face, still written across
with amazement. "Can the Fellowship Sorcerers really shapeshift?"
    "Dear, no." Morriel fixed her with lightless, fierce eyes hooded
under domed lids and milk lashes. "Sethvir is a master illusionist."
She tapped the scrying crystal which imaged the flying hawk with
the yellowed tip of a fingernail. "The travelers he encounters on his
way will not see him. Even those with clairvoyance will believe they
were brushed by no more than the shadow of a bird."
    She trailed off, words lapsed into the labored hiss of forced breath.
For long moments, the sealed, airless quiet of the room absorbed her
stifled frustration. The Great Waystone offered the power to cut
through Sethvir's ploys of illusion. Yet Morriel dared not attempt
mastery of its matrix in her current depleted condition.
  The mere effort of speech left her prostrate. Eyes shut, her hands

523

JANNY WURTS

curled on the coverlet like the wind-frozen claws of a spa~
needed long minutes to ease her heartbeat enough to dismiss tl
circle and the twelve remote scryers. The quartz spheres:
arrayed on the quilt. Each was now attuned to track the deflec!
events imprinted on the earth's lane force. The sealed crysta
continue to reflect their sequence of distant events until natural
disunified the linking sigils.
    With Sethvir's departure, no development held preceden,
of the snag in affairs arrived home to roost at the Capew~
house.
    Cut off from her access to the Great Waystone, Morriel h
held her most critical business until the Fellowship w
Luhaine, had been recalled to Althain Tower. Each passin~
became precious. Morriel hoarded her dwindled stamina ~
last of the Seniors filed out in a whispery rustle of silk.  The door latch clicked shut.
    "Veil yourself," Morriel ordered the sisterhouse peere~
musky stillness and the cat-footed shadows cast by the slov~
candles, the shattering impact of her next command ca
unprecedented lack of formality. "The hour has come to p
ment. You shall stand as the order's Ceremonial Inquisitor, ~
my voice through the coming closed trial."
     The stout peeress started, then inclined her head. "Your w
 arch." Her round, suet face turned prim with austerity as sh
 to the armoire to don the black robes of high office. Despitt
 posture and clipped movement, she held no qualms
 assigned role; justice would be served for tho_~ ~-x~ of cfis
 which had disrtkvto~ .~%-~ ~renfty of her sisterhouse.
    rl~e wide-eyed young initiate remained seated in stunned
the bedside. The ritual about to commence was older than Ko~
dence on Athera. Afraid her presence may have been summari
ten, she shrank, while one of the blond pages unpacked the
silver-bordered layers of the inqu'rsitor's veils. When Morriel'..
gers closed over her elbow, she jerked with a soft, breathy cry.
"Bide, girl." The Prime's peremptory whisper seemed the
glass beads through old dust. "You will stay on as a witness t
    To the statue-still page boy at her right hand, she de]
whipcrack instruction. "Fetch me the box with the Skyron fo~
go and inform the sisterhouse warden that the hour has con
accused to stand before me and answer for her misconduct."

524

FUGITIVE PRINCE

    Upon receipt of her summons, First Senior Lirenda arose from her
willow embroidery frame. She tidied her gold thread with unshaken
hands. The needle she left pressed into drum-tight silk, like a fallen
ray of light speared through darkness.
    She could only hope the desperate strain did not show as she gave
the page boy her acquiescence. Apparently without hurry, she
removed her purple mantle from the clothes chest. Its folds sleeked
her shoulders like poured Cheivalt wine, and spilled with extrava-
gant grace over the shining cuffs of her matched bracelets, and her
eight-banded robe of high office.
    She had been Koriani First Senior for fifty-six years. Prepared in
every detail for this audience, clear relief all but shook her, that the
unbearable days of strained waiting had finally come to an end. She
had not lost her heart or her spirit. Ignominy had not overtaken her
courage and let her lapse into endless, pleading petitions for her
Prime's intercession.
    Yet the confidence born of her grip on main strength bled away as
she arrived at Morriel's chamber.
    The page boy swung open the strapped oaken door. "Madam," he
bade her. "Enter."
    Darkness as stilled as a panther's tread awaited over the threshold.
The air within breathed of close-kept secrets and a dusty perfume of
dried lavender. For as long as living memory, the Koriani Prime had pre-
ferred the night for her significant meetings. When council could not be
avoided in daylight, she ordered her chambers kept dark. The curtains
were sewn of black damask and velvet. The dagged valance was looped
on silver rings, each cast in the sigil for eternity, the triple-coiled snake
trapped forever in the act of swallowing its own tail. The sulfurous, can-
dlelit well by the bedstead seemed sealed in an ironclad silence.
    Lirenda loosened her fingers before they impressed sweaty marks
on her immaculate silk. She, who had feared nearly nothing in life,
almost lost the will to step forward.
    Discipline saved her. Unbending in pride, she clamped down on
raw dread and assumed the paper-thin semblance of dignity.
    She advanced and acknowledged Morriel's presence, a meeting of
eyes like crossed sword blades. Then she sank in traditional obei-
sance. "Your will, matriarch."
    The Prime returned no verbal greeting. A presence swathed in vio-
let veils, she seemed a wire puppet embodied in cloth, with a
bleached death's-head skull, and the folds of loose garments pinned
in place with set diamonds. Seconds dragged by. The Prime spoke no
word of acknowledgment. Apprehension sliced a dagger of ice

525

J~N� WUR~$

through the pit of Lirenda's stomach. While the pause stretched into
an engulfing stillness, the page barred the door at her back.
    Three others were present by Morriel's behest, one an untried girl
with flaxen-fair braids, and another a grown woman wearing a blank-
faced, idiot's stare. Lirenda took a moment to discern the forehead
tattoo which signified an initiate who had failed in her vow of obedi-
ence. A deeper chill shocked her as she recognized the emptied crea-
ture's face. There stood the young initiate who had failed in her
sworn charge to hold the circle of Morriel's grand conjury. The tradi-
tional penalty allowed no appeal. She would serve out her days as a
mindless slave, her identity stripped through the power of the vows
sworn through the Prime's master crystal.
    Morriel would have her cruel reason for demanding the witless
one's presence. Lirenda had not thought; had never imagined that she
might be tested for the selfsame transgression.
    This was no audience for private reprimand, but a closed-trial cham-
ber. Subject to the Koriani Matriarch's sole judgment, Lirenda under-
stood her defense might become her last chance for cognizant thought.
    A darker veiled shadow embedded in the gloom to the right of
Morriel's bedside called for the accused to stand before her Prime to
be examined.
    Lirenda arose. The unaccustomed, bitter taste of humility closed
her throat as she gave the time-honored reply. "I stand before my bet-
ters to serve."
    She had taken her privilege and authority for granted. Now the
sharp drop in status among her own kind left her frightened and rud-
derless as the Prime laid unsteady, bird-claw hands on the ironbound
coffer held by her second page boy. Her whisper invoked the release
of the seals. Each protection gave way with a whine like parted wire,
and points of burst light stabbed the dimness.
    As Morriel raised the strapped lid, the young girl who cowered by
the bedside rubbed forearms raised into gooseflesh. Lirenda knew
well her chills were no phantom. The Skyron stone's presence was
inimical as a predator, its etheric web steeped in old malice. Over the
centuries while the Great Waystone had been held in Sethvir's cus-
tody at Althain Tower, the smaller aquamarine had carried the bur-
den of the order's heaviest rituals. Years and hard use had left its
channels surly with overload. That imbalance could never be recti-
fied; not without losing the stored records of a thousand vows of ser-
vice chained like steel-bolted ice through its heart.
    As the knifing hostility of the unveiled jewel settled over the cham-
ber, Lirenda's dread became overwhelming. Her palms broke into

526

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

 clammy sweat. The witless woman's stare drilled into her face, while
 from the chair that formerly had been hers, a green novice witnessed
 her fallen status with enormous cornflower eyes. Since by rigid tradi-
 tion, the order's Prime Matriarch never addressed an oathbreaker, the
 Ceremonial Inquisitor intoned the opening accusation.
    "Enchantress Lirenda, you stand before your Prime to answer for
willful acts and disobedience against your vow of Koriani service."
The matronly peeress smoothed the silver-bordered edge of her veil
in prim self-importance and listed the formal charges. "You are
accused of crossing a sealed ward without cause, and disrupting an
act of grand conjury."
    Lirenda bristled. After weeks of smothered pride in Prince Lysaer's
company, and the ignominy of losing the crystal that accessed her
trained talents, the moment's grinding weight of humility threatened
her last grip on control.
    Then Morriel signaled her readiness with a flick of a twig-thin fin-
ger. "Begin."
    The Skyron stone lay unveiled in its coffer, its surface cold and glit-
tering blue as the faceted heart of a glacier.
    "Enchantress Lirenda, by your vow of obedience, you are asked to
stare into the crystal's matrix," the Ceremonial Inquisitor com-
manded. "Lower your defenses. Surrender your mind for this
inquest, that your innocence or guilt be established beyond any
shadow of doubt."
    Lirenda snapped at that moment. "Merciful Ath! This charge of
oathbreaking is a mockery." Her protest slammed through the quiet
like a shattering fist forced through lead. "As First Senior of the
Koriathain, the authority was rightfully mine to use as I saw fit. I was
summoned to Capewell because my Prime Matriarch had suffered a
state of collapse. Certainly, ! broke no vow of initiation through my deci-
sion to enter the observatory! If a personal shortcoming flawed my sub-
sequent choices, that lapse is the one I must atone for. I demand a
hearing in private. I will answer to my Prime for her broken conjury.
Whether I forfeit free will for impertinence, I refuse to submit to exami-
nation for a transgression I did not commit!"
    Behind silver-edged muslin, the Ceremonial Inquisitor huffed a
breath for scathing rebuttal.
    Yet the jerk of the Prime's skeletal forefinger froze her silent. Jet-
dark eyes sheared across sullen gloom. Lirenda felt their angry
weight bore into her, through her, reading and weighing; testing her
down to the naked pith of the fear beneath her defenses.
  She scarcely dared tremble. Her overpowering terror must surely

527

JANN� WURTS

rip through, unstring her last pride and see her weep. She could not
call back the ultimatum just issued. Unmasked by the threat of the
Skyron crystal, shamed before three indifferent witnesses, she could
only endure, while sweat rolled down the channel of her back and
soaked ragged stains in her silk.
    No one spoke. Against the patched play of shadows, the few tall
candles cast tips of sulfurous light. Splashed like disjointed fragments
of dream, the quartz spheres on the counterpane flashed impressions
of ordinary events recapped from distant sites on the continent: afiy-
ing hawk, a dark-haired shepherd child, a leaping trout in a stream. In Tysan,
a master shipwright inspected a load of new wood. In Havish, the royal mid-
wife confirmed a queen's pregnancy. In Shand, a fat spellbinder paced down
the Innish wharf to meet a dory off an inbound brig.
    Wrenched by longing for the warmth of carefree sunlight, Lirenda
felt as if she might suffocate. She battled the urge to fall to her knees
in abject, begging appeal.
    Then Morriel Prime stirred to a hiss of silk coverlets and pronounced,
"This closed trial is over." Diamonds spat glints like snap-frozen rainfall
as she turned her head and excused the Ceremonial Inquisitor. "You are
dismissed. As you leave, take the witless one with you."
    The sisterhouse peeress slipped her veils with a disapproving bus-
tle of industry. "Matriarch," she ventured, "should the junior initiate
not be bidden to leave also?"
    The Prime's sharpness fell like storm-cracked wood. "I may not
walk, but I've not lost my faculties! No. The girl stays. The matter at
hand concerns her most closely."
    Emphatic enough warning, Lirenda understood. Morriel would
not keep an untried initiate at hand, except as a successor in training.
Lirenda needed to sit, but that comfort was denied her. Minutes
passed, while her knees shook, and the peeress vented her vengeful,
small cruelty by spending a maliciously long interval to smooth her
mussed clothing and remove the half-wit from the chamber.
    The final clank as the page boy reset the bar saved Lirenda from
involuntary collapse. Now, when shaken nerves left her weakened,
the Prime Matriarch pressed ahead with a scalpel's dispassion.
    "You have claimed your right to autonomous responsibility. That is
well." Eyes dark as death stayed pinned straight ahead. The bleached-
paper finger of one hand stirred to point. "Had you not spoken,
madam, your worth to me would have become less than nothing. At
the ninth hour, you've dared the initiative to claim your mistake. For
that, you have won small reprieve. I wait to be shown whether you
can satisfy the balance and master the means to redeem yourself."

528

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FUGITIVE PRINCE

    Lirenda swallowed. Through firsthand, hardened experience she
sensed that no forward step would be easy. Morriel Prime would not
volunteer her any grace of kindly assistance. Whatever petition the
stakes would allow, the deposed First Senior understood she must
assemble her case for herself. All the steel in her character was
scarcely sufficient to let her ignore the puppyish, staring young girl.
Battling a wildfire surge of resentment, she treated with the Prime as
if the ongoing audience had been offered in perfect privacy.
    "I let personal feelings interfere with clear judgment." Admission
was painful. The darkness, the candles, the inimical bite of the Skyron
crystal's aura abraded her cornered resolve to survive and reclaim her
lost grace. "Give me trial by recompense. ! would atone for the imper-
fections in my character, and see your trust in my competence
restored."
    Morriel's hooded stare pinned with a vulture's intensity. "Trust in
your competence is the least of the issue. Your lapse will bring dam-
aging consequences. In cold fact, the ramifications could prove more
dire than you possibly imagine."  Lirenda ventured nothing.
    "Oh yes," Morriel went on. Her stilled, folded fingers stirred to insec-
tile life and fussed at a fold in the coverlet. "What you name a mistake
may well cost the Koriani Order its unbroken thread of continuance."
    "I can't see how," Lirenda burst out, unable to mask disbelief.
"Arithon s'Ffalerm by himself could scarcely threaten the might of the
entire sisterhood."
    "You think not?" Morriel glared back, inimical. "He is the world's
cipher to checkrein the Fellowship. We need him for that. Without
him, we risk my succession itself. I have scried proof. Left at liberty,
the course of the Shadow Master's destiny holds full potential to
destroy us."
    "I couldn't know!" Lirenda cried, crumbled in devastation. "My
misjudgment back at Riverton stemmed from Caolle's life, and he
was no more than the prince's sworn liegeman."
    "Damage resulted." A hooded cobra nestled in bed linens, the
Matriarch spat words in contempt. "You will have heard that my
lower limbs are paralyzed. I cannot set another web of grand conjury
from the confines of a sedan chair! At this time, active use of the Great
Waystone presents too strenuous an ordeal. I must have complete rest
to recover my strength just to pass on the secret of its mastery!"
    No need for a tedious review of the obvious; Lirenda knew well
enough. Without the Great Waystone, the full transfer of prime power
could never be passed on intact.

529

               J^~� Wu~$

    Morriel resumed on the rags of a stertorous rage. "Since my ~i~0~        ~oi,
m~s \~\ ~x ~ ~e ~ ~x ~\X~, ~ ~x~ ~ x~ ~ ~        ~
 X~s~ ~x ~cMXess ac~x~t'
   Lirenda stepped back, numbed as though the last air in existence
 had been forcibly reft from her lungs.
   "Yes/' Morriel snapped off a nod. "I see that you grasp my implica-
 tions in full." She took perverse malice ~ her fallen First Senior's dis-
 comfiture. "If you are ever to wield my authority, then you must
 accomplish this feat before I die. Until then, you are not my named
 successor. You may claim neither honors nor title within the Koria~
 Order. Neither will your status improve until the hour that you place
 the Prince of Rathain in my hands as a living captive."
     "Capture Arithon s'Fhle~I" Lirenda shrank before the sweep~g
 audaci~ of the demand. "Merciful Ath! ~at would set me alone
 against the might of the Fellowship Sorcerers~" She had lost her
 quartz jewel. Without its focus to amplify the inborn resonance of her
 talent, the simplest ward of protection lay outside of her reach. ~e
 plea wrenched from her and fell smothered .against the hangings
 which masked out the daylight. "You have handed me a virtual death
 sentence, or worse, an impossible penance to break the mind and
 heart."
     "You wish to walk in my shoes and sit the high seat of prime
 power?" Morriel laughed in bloodless castigation. "~en you will
 strive and not fail. Or all I have accomplished in your years of privi-
 leged s~dy has been a waste of my effort."
     Lirenda struggled to dam hopeless tears. "My jewel was lost to the
 Shadow Master's henchmen," she whispered in crashing humility.
   "Prince Arithon returned it by courie[ long since~" Morriel beck-
 oned to the girl, who startled up from riveted fascination as if her
 round cheek had been slapped. "Show her/'
     ~e self-conscious initiate fumbled open the drawstrings of the silk
 remedy pouch in her lap. Her childish fingers removed the shining,
 white crystal on its original braided chain.
   Lirenda's heart turned over. Before thought, she raised a yearning
 hand to touch the crystal's shining facets and reestablish rapport with
 its presence. Yet even as her being cried out for the link of her lost
 quartz's resonance, the impact of change stepped be~een. Fickle
 memory recaptured a living line of melody that stormed her mind,
 snapped her last hold on emotion, and broke her down in regret.
   Under the Prime Matriarch's critical review, Lirenda burned into a
 blush. Tears she could no longer contain brimmed over and traced
 sal~ ribbons down her cheeks. "~e stone was tampered with." Her

530

FU~I?IVE I~RINCE

voice emerged like an overcranked string, stressed past its usual
smooth alto.
    "Obviously so." Morriel's colorless lips twitched in distaste.
"When the girl here masters the art of selective resonance, your crys-
tal may be returned to you cleansed of its meddlesome influence.
Until then, other enchantresses must supply the power you lack. My
writ will command them."
    A finger flicked in permission let the young initiate veil Lirenda's
confiscated quartz. Morriel bided with eternity's patience while the
girl's stubby fingers tripped over ties and strings. When the remedy
bag was meticulously secured, she bade, "Be my hands, child."
    Under the Prime's cryptic instruction, the initiate delved among
the quilts. One quartz sphere was selected from the array left tuned
by the scryers on lane watch. As the girl timidly cupped its chill
weight, Lirenda glimpsed the mirrored image of the nondescript
shepherd child. Only now, the boy's barefoot play had been joined by
a Koriani enchantress whose loose hair gleamed auburn in the
bleaching kiss of strong sunlight.
    "Start there," Morriel said, then motioned for the girl to surrender
the seeing crystal to Lirenda. "Consult the one of ours who knows
your quarry's habits best."
    Another quartz sphere was added to the first. This showed a
southcoast wharf, where a fair-haired young woman stood in sail-
hand's garb, engaged in an energetic conversation with a slovenly fat
man recognizable as the Mad Prophet. Lirenda had no more time to
note details before the crystal changed hands to the leveling tone of
Morriel Prime's summary.
    "The Shadow Master himself is laired up at Innish in the attic of a
merchant's mansion. He has not been well. The pair you observe
through the lane's eye are his keepers as of this hour. Study them to
keep track of his movements."
    Then the penultimate word, cast in dismissal and sentence. "In
three days' time, Sethvir will enter the Paravian Circle at Isaer," the
Prime decreed, her wasted posture insistent. "While the Warden
engages his power for spell transit to Mainmere, his earth-sense will
be temporarily suspended by the chord of raised lane force. You will
come to me then, and deliver the details of your plot to take Arithon.
Mercy upon you if a sound plan of action has not been drawn up by
that hour"

531

Late Summer 5653

End Game

Shivering and clammy in the aftershock of dread, Lirenda sought
refuge in a window seat ablaze with afternoon sunlight. The courtyard
view outside, with its tubs of laden dwarf pear trees, seemed dis-
placed from her fractured reality. A high-flying cloud cover combed to
fine floss warned of a weather change to come. Yet even the oppres-
sive summer heat through the glass could not offset the chills of Mor-
riel Prime's final sentence. Nor had the curious, pitying stares from the
peers she no longer outranked been easy to pass off with indifference.
    Her world felt as if the foundations had crumbled, with herself like
blown ash, cast adrift.
    Lirenda shut her eyes. Her porcelain skin still burned ruddy with
shame. Each step she had taken had been remarked, even by the
impertinent laundry girls who dragged their wicker hampers of
soiled linens from the sisterhouse nursery.
    The gossip was unkind. The event of a first senior's downfall was
certain to titillate for an uncomfortable interval to come.
    Lirenda refused to retreat in self-pity. Chin raised, nerves stinging,
she combed out, rebraided, and coiled the jet-satin length of her hair.
Grooming helped steady her. If the small, shabby chamber with its
lye-scoured floor reflected her sharp drop in station, at least she was
given her privacy. While her hands slowly ceased their helpless shak-
ing, she arose, slipped on a fresh robe, and laid a ritual fire in the
grate. She regretted her need to muffle the daylight behind curtains,
but she needed full darkness to work.

532

              FUGITIVE PRINCE

    Her birch fire caught and flowered. She fed the new flame with
aromatic herbs whose virtues heightened clairvoyance. A lick of gold
light touched her offering. The fragrance of moonflower arose, min-
gled with the stinging pungency of tobacco ground and soaked in an
infusion of tienelle blossom. Blue smoke scrolled through the closed
chamber and flowed in vagrant script toward the rafters. The one
chair, the bare clothes chest, and the straw-ticked cot in the comer
came and went amid a sienna pavane of dense shadow.
    The fumes thickened, a raw bum on the tender membranes of nose
and throat. Lirenda welcomed their acridity, let the familiar expansive
lift whirl her to sensitized awareness. Her natural affinity for flame
resurged through her, a taproot of current awaiting the expression of
her will. Like an addict starved for the intoxicating rush of spelled
power, she chose the quartz sphere tuned into the sixth lane, which
tracked events at the merchant household at Innish where Arithon
s'Ffalenn took his refuge.
    The reflection within still depicted the flamboyant blond woman,
changed from sea slops into a blouse with silk ribbons. She sat now at
the scrubbed planks of a kitchen table, tanned arms crossed amid the
crumpled-up folds of a shirt tossed down for mending. Lirenda
showed no surprise at the scene. The Shadow Master himself was
notoriously hard to track. Mage-trained since childhood, he well
knew to keep his mind stilled. Since lane force deflected to emotional
vibrations, in his case the Koriani scryers were most often left to map
the affairs of his more volatile associates.
    The girl under cold scrutiny in the quartz appeared to be immersed
in scathing argument with a pallid woman who shook a wooden
spoon. Flour flew like wafted pollen when the girl tried to placate by
setting a hand on the woman's wrist. The effort raised a startled, wide
glance, then redoubled the tirade.
    Lirenda cupped the crystal sphere in cool hands. The shell rims of
her lids veiled amber eyes against the play of caught flame. The stone
warmed, lined in light. While the resonance of its energies ran in par-
allel with her thought, the enchantress invoked three seals of mastery.
A lifetime of discipline let her fuse her awareness. Linked to the
quartz through her inborn affinity for fire, she embraced the tuned
synergy and accessed the stone.
    Her body seemed to lighten, and the room fell away. Lirenda
breathed in the pungent smoke of the herbs until the closed barrier of
her mind gave rise to white clarity. Her conscious awareness let go in
a rush and merged with the scene in the quartz...

533

    Leagues distant in Shand, Feylind crashed down her rope-callused
fist. The plank jumped. Cheap crockery bowls bought used from the
market flounced in response, and fine flour puffed from the meal just
sifted for bread dough. "Lysaer? Sail ships? That's a laugh to stun a
live jack fish!"
    She wrinkled her tanned, peeling nose. Azure eyes flashed in pure
scorn at her mother, who stood with thin hands clenched to the spoon
as if plain wood could ward off a tempest.
    Feylind gave her timid rebuttal no space. "Tysan's prince might
say his new fleet's the best thing afloat, but Arithon's crews call it the
royal shambles. It is, too! Look at the mess they made of their first
engagement. The Shadow Master's men were boarded in chains, and
they needed no more than the onset of night to upset Lysaer's sailing
orders."
    Jinesse rubbed her nose with the back of her wrist in transparent
need to mask a wince. That news had reached Innish. The unflatter-
ing details spoke of three vessels taken on their maiden voyage by the
same pack of convicts they had been dispatched to escort into slavery.
    Feylind pounced again, unrelenting. "So, you did hear." She
flipped back her straw braid and shot to her feet, restless already with
four landlocked walls and the cozy domesticity of bread making. On
their hooks by the hob, the polished copper kettles tracked her reflec-
tion in a wave of rippling energy. "Bet no one's bragging of the prize
the Alliance lost at Corith, either. Ten royal galleys were assigned to
safeguard her. Every last one got their keels chewed. Took those
crews half the summer to make simple repairs and limp home. You
say I'd do better under officers like those? Sithaer's coupling furies,
mother! Their sort can't tell a hawser from what hangs cringing limp
in their breeks!"
    "Young lady!" Jinesse shouted, her china-frail features flushed into
a delicate pink. "This is no ship's deck. Remember your manners as
you were brought up in this house!"
    The girl twitched her shoulder in an insolent shrug, the blouse she
had donned in token femininity worn untucked above button-front
breeches and sailhand's boots with brass buckles. "I speak the
damned truth. You want me to sign on an Alliance ship? That's a
flank surprise, since the Master of Shadow himself has been given
shelter in your attic."
  A cavernous silence filled the kitchen.
    For drawn, disastrous seconds, the coal glow from the oven
smudged sulfur light over the cracked and oil-stained flagstones.
Outside the high window, disjointed with life, the clatter of hooves

534

              FUGITIVE PRINCE

heralded the noon change of watch, and the cry of a vendor spiraled
from the tent stalls of the shanty market.
    Then tension broke with the bang of a squall line as Feylind swore
her annoyance. "Fiends and Dharkaron's black bollocks!" Her expos-
tulation tangled with Jinesse's mortified explosion, pitched through
the arched door behind her.
    "Fiark! Come here this instant!" Incensed to dauntless, maternal
rage, she snatched her skirts up in fluttery fingers. Her banty-hen
march to the hallway collided with a solid young man in neat town
clothes.
    Fiark eased her balance, straightened the pleats of his clerk's
broadcloth doublet, then turned slate-colored eyes in smoking
reproof upon his more volatile twin sister. "She wasn't meant to
know."
    "Ath's two-eyed vengeance!" Feylind swore. One breath ahead of
her mother's renewed diatribe, she added, "I'm sorry, Fiark."
    "Arithon! Here?" Jinesse closed in again to confront her son, a
bristling head shorter than he. "This is your doing?"
    Her shrill incredulity clashed outright with Fiark's nettled
betrayal. "Feylind, you pest! How did you find out? The secret was
never let loose in the stews at the dockside."
    From snatched refuge behind the bread bowl, hands gripped on
glazed crockery as if she might press-gang the first solid object in
defense, Feylind flashed a grin of pure devilment. "I met Dakar at the
landing."
    Then the doorway darkened again. A voice with more gravel than
Fiark's rolled over Jinesse's imprecations. "The spellbinder would
have been honest to claim the invitation was mine."
    Jinesse spun about, her nettled agitation displaced against the gen-
teel shabbiness of the kitchen. "Tharrick]" Her thin fist smacked his
chest. Slight as a straw wisp before the towering bulk of her husband,
who wore the studded leather brigandine and cuffed bracers of a gen-
tleman's guard captain, she nonetheless managed to prevail. "You
did what?"
    Fresh from a street fight in front of his employer's warehouse,
Tharrick seemed caught aback that his morning round of scrapping
had extended beneath his own roof. "I gave Arithon s'Ffalenn my
leave to stay in the textile loft." He squared his shoulders, brows
raised. "As I should have, considering the debt that I owe him."
    Jinesse stiffened, her back ramrod straight beneath her limp muslin
as she flew at him like a gnat. "You owe that man nothing, least of all
charity."

                    535

JANNY WURTS

    Tharrick caught his wife's flying fists and restrained her before she
tore her thin skin on his wrist studs. "Easy." His mercenary's stature
made even the kitchen's high southland ceilings seem cramped. "Not
for love or fury will I share your dislike of Rathain's prince."
    Jinesse glared at him, breathing too fast, her limbs in his grasp as
pliant and slim as cut withies. The whorled scars which disfigured his
arms above the top edge of his bracers spoke with more eloquence
than language: she could never forget the hot-tempered men in Prince
Arithon's service who had put her husband to torture with hot irons
during his absence.
    "I sorely provoked them, but that scarcely matters," Tharrick
soothed in the face of her smoking silence. He dared conflagration
and kissed her knuckles one by one. As if she had softened, he let her
go, then eased the leg which had stiffened and sat himself at the
plank table. "Come on, girl," he invited Feylind. "We might as well
suffer the wife's disapproval together."
    When his stepdaughter relented and settled beside him, he flung a
brawny arm across her young shoulders, as much to hold her down
as he gave the subject his definitive dismissal. "You can't run him out,
anyway, Jinesse. His Grace of Rathain has already left."
    "What?" Feylind struggled to rise, spitting outrage like a doused
cat. "He can't have! Dakar would have told him I was just back in
port!" Still wildly grappling against Tharrick's restraint, she appealed
to her twin. "Arithon would scarcely go without taking me along."
    Sober in his tailored doublet, Fiark returned his level regard, cou-
pled with implacable silence.
    "Well, then, how dare he?" Feylind's features gained a violent,
fresh flush. She strained hard against Tharrick's imprisoning arm.
Slight as she was, ship life had muscled her. The man grunted. Jostled
as though he battled a tiger, he braced his fist against the trestle,
which rocked to their locked clash of wills.
    Jinesse's protest went unnoticed as Feylind continued to howl.
"His Grace can't leave me stranded on a merchant brig for another
pig-rutting year!" While her mother resignedly dove past to rescue
the bread dough, Fiark backed from the fray to spare his neat clothing
a cross-fire dusting of flour.
    "Damn him thrice over, and fiends plague his rigging for his slippery,
finagling tongue!" Feylind snarled past the leather and studs of her
stepfather's chest. "The Shadow Master knows how I hate those brigs
with their wallowing round bottoms." A rebellious kick caught the tres-
tle, which swayed with alarming violence. She snapped, "Sithaer's
howling hd/mts, Tharrick! Will you damned well let me get up?"

536

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

The stepfather shot her twin a questioning glance, his forearm
locked and unrelenting.
    "Let her go," Fiark said from the scullery doorway. "Force has
never stopped her before, and she keeps a mean grudge when she's
furious."
    On Tharrick's release, Feylind uncoiled from the bench and bolted
before anyone but her twin sensed the tears behind her fierce anger.
Her flying footsteps dwindled through the doorway and tapped over
the scuffed floor tiles which adorned the run-down grace of the sea-
quarter houses of Innish.
    Lacking the spitfire heat of her presence, the workaday kitchen
seemed suddenly airless and dead. Jinesse rubbed the stuck wisps of
hair from her temples. Pale against the age-darkened paneling, she
breathed in the mingled scent of beeswax and stale cooking, then sat
in defeat beside Tharrick. "That girl could so easily come to a bad
end, and for what? Arithon s'Ffalenn needs none of her help. She's
headstrong and wild, and no one's good sense has the impact to mold
her opinions."
    Since Tharrick had no sound consolation to offer, he gathered his
wife's tired shoulders to his side and caressed a smear of flour from
her cheek.
    "Let her be." Fiark moved the chipped bread bowl to the drain-
board, puffed away the few stray flecks on his sleeves, then lent his
good-natured advice. "Doesn't anyone notice? Feylind takes care of
herself. She listens to Arithon. We'll just have to trust his sound plan-
ning will keep her out of harm's way."
    Tharrick raised craggy brows, his eyes on his stepson grown pierc-
ing. "Better speak if you know something you haven't told us."
    Fiark's subtle, secretive nod burst his restraint and exposed a con-
spirator's grin. "Arithon's own planning. You'll see."
    Moments later, an earsplitting scream slapped echoes back down
the corridor. Jinesse startled. From mercenary's instinct, Tharrick
reached for the broadsword he forgot he always left at the armory.
    When the cry changed pitch into shattering joy, Fiark took pity on
his mother's confusion. "The Master of Shadow left her a letter."
    Above the approaching patter of Feylind's swift feet, and another
pealing crow which set tremors through the crockery on the shelves,
Fiark answered Tharrick's puzzled inquiry. "Rathain's prince has
bound us over clear title to the merchant brig, Evenstar. She's mine to
ship cargoes, and Feylind's to captain. So I much doubt my sister will
curse round-bottomed tubs after this. In fact, I'll lay silver her share of
the vessel never gets sold to meet her woman's need for a dowry."

537

JANNY W URTS

    Now Jinesse straightened with surprising distress. "How long does
he plan to be gone?"
  Tharrick stared, amazed. "Then you're not glad he's left?"
    "He was a friend," Jinesse stated in perfect aplomb. She shot up
and paced to the small copper sink and splashed water over her face.
"I just don't approve of his Grace's activities where the safety of my
daughter's concerned. Now answer my question. When does he
come back?"
    Tharrick's honest features showed a disconcerted unease. "Never."
His attentive regard held upon his wife's back as he qualified with
soft sympathy. "Arithon made his will plain in absolute terms. He
would hear no plans to renew ties on this continent for the rest of his
natural life."

    Far removed to the northwest, amid the firelit heat of her cramped
room in Capewell, Enchantress Lirenda swore as she cleared her
mind from the vivid scene in the quartz sphere. "Damn him! Fiends
curse him for a conniving, clever bastard!"
    No s'Ffalenn prince since Torbrand had ever welcomed anyone's
prying; Arithon's unearthly, clever machinations made her problem
by lengths more difficult.
    Lirenda closed her eyes, the fine tendrils of hair at her temples
licked to her flushed, sweating face. She put off her disgruntled
longing for the comforts of a cool, scented bath. The knot held her
tied. While her future swung in the balance, her quarry was no
longer conveniently ill, languishing in cosseted vulnerability at
Innish.
    Again, Arithon had escaped to the open sea, where the lane scryers
held no chance in creation of finding a trace of his movements.
    Neither could she devise any way to predict the erratic, close
secrecy of those landfalls he chose to arrange. If Morriel Prime
expected a plan by the time Sethvir reached Isaer Circle, three days
remained to deliver. The last avenue of inspiration was the quartz
sphere which reflected the baked downs at Araethura, where the
ostracized initiate Elaira sat in the hot dirt, drawing stick figures of
animals beside a tattered shepherd urchin.
    Stabbed by pinprick resentment for the carefree innocence of their
play, Lirenda took up the scene reflected in the crystal's stone heart.
The dry days that foreran the ending of summer touched the downs
to a sea of gold grass. Woman and child shared the antique glaze of
buttery, late-day sunlight. The herder's boy seemed an ordinary
enough creature, his bare feet rimmed with powdery dust, and his

538

FUGITIVE I~RINCE

sturdy wrists thrust out of ragged cuffs where growth had overtaken
his wardrobe.
    Elaira shared a like-minded untidiness. Her knuckles were briar
scraped from foraging herbs, and her blouse of a faded, mulberry-
dyed cotton clashed with the jarring, hard fire of her wind-tangled
auburn hair.
    Lirenda surveyed the exchange, secure within her groomed ele-
gance. Her kohl-lined lids slitted with contempt that verged upon
boredom until the child chanced to look up.
    Through fronding black hair, his eyes were the identical, piercing
green of any royal-born scion of s'Ffalenn. His expression of innocent
entreaty gouged up the unbidden association: woke the echo of a
grown prince's compassion with the opening force of a thunderbolt.
  Lirenda froze with stopped breath.
    In the quartz, trapped unguarded in the same moment, Elaira's
tanned face recorded her unwitting and identical response: a flash-point
surge of tender emotion, brought to light on the wings of a memory.
    For the span of one fated second, the displaced First Senior felt as if
the whole universe had rocked and resettied in her hand.
    Then logic reasserted. The penciled arch of Lirenda's brow
smoothed. Clear thought reengaged and stamped back the unbridled
contamination of wild fancy. A high-order senior and a street-
orphaned field herbalist held nothing at all in common. Resentment
remained, that Elaira's headstrong fascination with Prince Arithon's
character had been the original catalyst to bring Morriel's disfavor on
them both.
    Lirenda tapped an impatient nail against the crystal. Inspiration
bent her thoughts to exquisite, fine malice. How better to amend a
shared fall from grace than to see Elaira swept into the center of the
plot to take down Arithon s'Ffalenn?
    In the quiet, sealed room, wrapped in the musk of her heat-sodden
silk, Lirenda sat straight. The quartz sphere itself seemed to kindle
with fire as inspiration unfolded into a hard plan of action. Through
Elaira, sure means could be formulated to match Morriel's demand.
Satisfaction curved Lirenda's coral lips, then widened to a smile as
sensuous and sure as the stalking crouch of a panther.
    If Arithon s'Ffalenn could not be bought with gold, or tracked with
spells, or snared into captivity through dark lures of compulsive
magic, he still had one weakness for which he would hold no rear-
guard defenses. The s'Ffalenn royal gift of compassion could not be
gainsaid. He must come to the net of his own accord if the stakes were
aligned, and the bait for her trap was an innocent.

539

Late Summer 5653

Intervals

In the overfurnished sitting room of a cottage at Innish, Felirin the
Scarlet winces and casts his lyranthe aside, resigned that his fire-
scarred hands can no longer play for his living; nor is he aware of any
observer until Halliron's spinster daughter addresses him from the
doorway: "Never mind. This house cries out for the retired bard it
never came to shelter. I would be pleased if you would consent to
make your permanent home here with me .... "

    At Avenor, faced across the pearl-inlaid lacquer of a table in a fash-
ionable tavern, Mearn s'Brydion pours fine brandy for a drunken
palace scribe, and presses the inveigling question he has waited like a
snake to present: "Never mind principle. For the Light, I'd pay gold
to congratulate the stout man who sent his letter to Etarra, betraying
the Shadow Master's interests at the Riverton shipyard .... "

    When the Paravian focus circle inside the Second Age ruin at Main-
mere flares active to receive the spell-turned energies of Sethvir's cross-
ing, Morriel Prime rules on the proposal Lirenda presents at Capewell:
"Your plan to take Arithon has one severe drawback, and that, the
fifteen-year span to achieve his final defeat. Yet the premise is sound,
The quarry will succumb. You have my permission. Proceed .... "

540

GLOSSARY

AL'DUIN---deceased father of Halliron Masterbard.
  pronounced: al-dwin
  root meaning: a/--over; duinne--hand
  ALESTRON--city located in Midhalla, Melhalla. Ruled by the Duke
  Bransian, Teir's'Brydion, and his three brothers. This city did not fall to
  merchant townsmen in the Third Age uprising that threw down the high
kings, but is still ruled by its clanblood heirs.
  pronounced: ah-less-tron
  root meaning: alesstair--- tubborn; an--one
  ALITHIEL--one of twelve Blades of Isaer, forged by centaur Ffereton
  s'Darian in the First Age from metal taken from a meteorite. Passed
  through Paravian possession, acquired the secondary name Dael-Farenn,
  or Kingmaker, since its owners tended to succeed the end of a royal line.
  Eventually was awarded to Kamridian s'Ffalenn for his valor in defense of
  the princess Taliennse, early Second Age. Currently in the possession of
  Arithon.
pronounced: ah-lith-ee-el
root meaning: alith--star ; iel--light / ray
ALLAND--principality located in southeastern Shand. Ruled by the
High Earl Teir's'Taleyn, caithdein of Shand by appointment. Current heir
to the title is Erlien.
pronounced: all-and
root meaning: a'lind--pine glen
ALTHAIN TOWER---spire built at the edge of the Bittern Desert, begin-
ning of the Second Age, to house records of Paravian histories. Third Age,
became repository for the archives of all five royal houses of men after
rebellion, overseen by Sethvir, Warden of Althain and Fellowship Sor-
cerer.
  pronounced: al--like "all," thain--to rhyme with "main"
  root meaning: air--last; thein--tower, sanctuary
         original Paravian pronunciation: alt-thein (thein as in "the end")
AMROTH--kingdom on West Gate spl'mter world, Dascen Elur, ruled by
s'Ilessid descendants of the prince exiled through the Worldsend Gate at
the time of the rebellion, Third Age iust after the Mistwraith's conquest.
  pronounced: am-roth--to rhyme with "sloth"
      root meaning: am--state of being; roth~brother "brotherhood"
AN'ALT--Paravian name for the rune symbolizing infinity.
  pronounced: an-allt
  root meaning: an--one/first; alt--end / last
  ARAETHURA--grass plains in southwest Rathain; principality of the
  same name in that location. Largely inhabited by Riathan Paravians in
  the Second Age. Third Age, used as pastureland by widely scattered
  nomadic shepherds.
  pronounced: ar-eye-thoo-rah

  root meaning: araeth--grass; era--place, land
ARITHON---son of Avar, Prince of Rathain, 1,504th Teir's'Ffalenn after

543

               JANNY ~URTS
founder of the line, Torbrand in Third Age Year One. Also Master of
Shadow, the Bane of Desh-thiere, and Halliron Masterbard's successor.
  pronounced: ar-i-thon--almost rhymes with "marathon"
  root meaning: arithon--fate-forger; one who is visionary
  ARWENT--river in Araethura, Rathain, that flows from Daenfal Lake,
through Halwythwood to empty into Instrell Bay
  pronounced: are-went
  root meaning: arwient--swiftest
  ASANDIR--Fellowship Sorcerer. Secondary name, Kingmaker, since his
  hand crowned every High King of Men to rule in the Age of Men (Third
  Age). After the Mistwraith's conquest, he acted as field agent for the Fel-
  lowship's doings across the continent. Also called Fiend-quencher, for
  his reputation for quelling iyats; Storm-breaker, and Change-bringer for
past actions in late Second Age, when Men first arrived upon Athera.
  pronounced: ah-san-deer
      root meaning: asan--heart; dir--stone "heartrock"
ATAINIA--northeastern principality of Tysan.
  pronounced: ah-tay-nee-ah
  root meaning: itain--the third;/a--suffix for "third domain" original
     Paravian, itainia
ATCHAZ---city located in Alland, Shand. Famed for its silk.
  pronounced: at-chas
  root meaning: atchias---silk
ATH CREATOR--prime vibration, force behind all life.
  pronounced: ath--to rhyme with "math"
  root meaning: ath--prime, first (as opposed to an, one)
  ATHERA--name for the world which holds the Five High Kingdoms;
four Worldsend Gates; original home of the Paravian races.
  pronounced: ath-air-ah
  root meaning: ath--prime force; era--place "Ath's world"
  ATHIR--Second Age ruin of a Paravian stronghold, located in Ithilt,
Rathain. Site of a seventh lane power focus.
  pronounced: ath-ear
  root meaning: ath--prime; i'er--the line/edge
  ATHLIEN PARAVIANS---sunchildren. Small race of semimortals, pix-
ielike, but possessed of great wisdom/keepers of the grand mystery.
  pronounced: ath-lee-en
  root meaning: ath--prime force; lien--to love "Ath-beloved"
  AVENOR--Second Age ruin of a Paravian stronghold. Traditional seat of
  the s'Ilessid high kings. Restored to habitation in Third Age 5644. Became
  the ruling seat of the Alliance of Light in Third Age 5648. Located in
  Korias, Tysan.
  pronounced: ah-ven-or
  root meaning: avie--stag; norh--grove

544

              FUGITIVE PRINCE
BITTERN DESERTmwaste located in Atainia, Tysan, north of Althain
Tower. Site of a First Age battle between the great drakes and the Seard-
luin, permanently destroyed by dragonfire.
  pronounced: like bitter
  root meaning: to sear or char
  BLACK ROSE PROPHECY--made by Dakar the Mad Prophet in Third
  Age 5637 at Althain Tower. Forecasts Davien the Betrayer's repentance,
  and the reunification of the Fellowship of Seven as tied to Arithon
  s'Ffalenn's voluntary resumption of Rathain's crown rule.
BRANSIAN s'BRYDION--Teir's'Brydion, ruling Duke of Alestroh.
  pronounced: bran-see-an
  root meaning: brand--temper; s'i'an--suffix denoting "of the one"/the
     one with temper
BWIN EVOC s'LORNMEIN--founder of the line that became High
Kings of Havish since Third Age Year One. The attribute he passed on by
means of the Fellowship's geas was temperance.
  pronounced: bwin--to rhyme with "twin," ee-vahk--as in "evocative,"
    lorn as in English equivalent, me'm---to rhyme with "main"
  root meaning: bwin--firm; evoc---choice

CAINCYR ISLAND--islet located in the archipelago at Min Pierens, in
the We~tland Sea.
  pronounced: cain-seer
  root meaning: caincyr---ailfish
CAINFORD---city located in Taerlin, Tysan.
  pronounced: cay-in-ford
  root meaning: caen--vale; ford--not from the Paravian "ford at the vale"
  CAITH-AL-CAENmvale where Riathan Paravians (unicorns) celebrated
  equinox and solstice to renew the athael, or life-destiny of the world. Also
  the place where the Ilitharis Paravians first Named the winter stars---or
  encompassed their vibrational essence into language. Corrupted by the
  end of the Third Age to Castlecain.
  pronounced: cay-ith-al-cay-en, musical lilt, emphasis on second and
  last syllables; rising note on first two, falling note on last two
  root meaning: caith----shadow; a/---over; caen--vale "vale of shadow"
        link with prime power An old Paravian colloquialism for unicorn.
CAITHDEINmParavian name for a high king's first counselor; also, the
one who would stand as regent, or steward, in the absence of the
crowned ruler.
  pronounced: kay-ith-day-in
  root meaning: caith--shadow; d'ein--behind the chair "shadow behind
     the throne"
CAITHWOOD---forest located in Taerlin, southeast principality of Tysan.
  pronounced: kay-ith-wood
  root meaning: caith--shadow "shadowed wood"

545

               JANNY WURTS
CALUM KINCAID---the individual who invented the great weapon
which destroyed the worlds of humanity, and caused the refugee faction,
including the Koriathain, to seek sanctuary on Athera.
  pronounced: calum kin-cade
  root meaning not from the Pararian
  CAMRIS---north-central principality of Tysan. Original ruling seat was
  the city of Erdane.
pronounced: Kam-ris, the i as in "chris"
root meaning: caim---cross; ris--way "crossroad"
CAOLLE--past war captain of the clans of Deshir, Rathain. First raised
by, and then served under, Lord Steiven, Earl of the North and caithdein
of Rathain. Planned the campaign at Vastmark and Dier Kenton Vale for
the Master of Shadow. Currently in Jieret Red-beard's service, and feal
liegeman to Arithon of Rathain.
pronounced: kay-all-e, with the "e" nearly subliminal
root meaning: caille--stubborn
CAPEWELL---city located on the south shore of Korias, Tysan. Home of a
major Koriani sisterhouse.
CARIADWIN--ship stolen from the royal shipyard at Riverton, by Cat-
trick's conspiracy with Prince Arithon.
  pronounced: care-ee-add-win
  root meaning: ciaria--swallow; dwin--tail
  CARITHWYR--principality consisting primarily of a grassland in Hav-
  ish, once the province of the Riathan Paravians. A unicorn birthing
  ground. Currently used by man for grain and cattle; area name has
become equated with fine hides.
  pronounced: car-ith-ear
  root meaning: ci'arithiren--forgers of the ultimate link with prime
        power. An old Paravian colloquialism for unicorn.
CATTRICK--master joiner hired to run the royal shipyard at Riverton;
once in Arithon's employ at Merior by the Sea.
  pronounced: cat-rick
  root meaning: ciattiaric--a knot tied of withies that has the magical
     property of confusing enemies
CEREBELD-~Avenor's Lord Examiner, whose given task is to hunt out
and try those who practice dark spellcraft.
  pronounced: cara-belld
  root meaning: ciarabeld--ashes
  CHEIVALT---coastal city south of Ostermere in Carithwyr, Havish.
Known for its elegance and refined lifestyle.
  pronounced: shay-vault
  root meaning: chiavalden--a rare yellow flower which grows by the
     seaside
CILADIS THE LOST--Fellowship Sorcerer who left the continent in
Third Age 3462 in search of the Paravian races after their disappearance
following the rebellion.

546

             FUGITIVE PRINCE
 ~ronounced: kill-ah-dis
 root meaning: cael--leaf; adeis--whisper, compound; cael'adeis collo-
     quialism for "gentleness that abides"
     LDORN---city famed for carpets and weaving, located in Deshit,
     .thain. Originally a Paravian holdfast, situated on a node of the third

pronounced: kill-dom
root meaning: cieal--thread; dornmnet "tapestry"
ORITH--island west of Havish coast, in Westland Sea. Site of a drake
~ir, and a ruined First Age foundation. iHere, the council of Paravians
~et during siege, and dragons dreamed the summoning of the Fellow-
hip Sorcerers. First site to see sunlight upon Desh-thiere's defeat.
 pronounced: kor-ith
 root meaning: cori--ships, vessels;/thawfive for the five harbors which
    the old city overlooked

DAELION FATEMASTER--"entity" formed by set of mortal beliefs,
which determine the fate of the spirit after death. If Ath is the prime
vibration, or life force, Daelion is what governs the manifestation of free
will.
pronounced: day-el-ee-on
root meaning: dael--king or lord; i'on---of fate
DAELION's WHEEL---cycle of life and the crossing point which is the
transition into death.
pronounced: day-el-ee-on
root meaning: daelmking or lord; i'on--of fate
DAKAR THE MAD PROPHET--apprentice to Fellowship Sorcerer,
Asandir, during the Third Age following the Conquest of the Mist-
wraith. Given to spurious prophecies, it was Dakar who forecast the fall
of the Kings of Havish in time for the Fellowship to save the heir. He
made the Prophecy of West Gate, which forecast the Mistwraith's bane,
and also the Black Rose Prophecy, which called for reunification of the
Fellowship. At this time, assigned to defense of Arithon, Prince of
Rathain.
pronounced: dah-kar
root meaning: dakiar---lumsy
DANIA--wife of Rathain's former regent, Steiven s'Valerient. Died by
the hand of Pesquil's headhunters in the Battle of Strakewood. Jieret Red-
beard's mother.
pronounced: dan-ee-ah
root meaning: deinia---parrow
DAON RAMON BARRENS-- entral principality of Rathain. Site where
Riathan Paravians (unicorns) bred and raised their young. Barrens was
not appended to the name until the years following the Mistwraith's con-
quest, when the River Severnir was diverted at the source by a task force
under Etarran jurisdiction.

547

               ]ANNY WURTS
pronounced: day-on-rah-mon
root meaning: daon--gold; ramon--hills/downs
DASCEN ELUR--splinter world off West Gate; primarily ocean with iso-
lated archipelagoes. Includes kingdoms of Rauven, Amroth, and
Karthan. Where three exiled high kings' heirs took refuge in the years fob
lowing the great uprising. Birthplace of Lysaer and Arithon.
  pronounced: das-en el-ur
  root meaning: dascen---ocean; e'lier--small land
  DAVIEN THE BETRAYER--Fellowship Sorcerer responsible for provok-
  ing the great uprising that resulted in the fall of the high kings after
  Desh-thiere's conquest. Rendered discorporate by the Fellowship's judg-
  ment in Third Age 5129. Exiled since, by personal choice. Davien's works
  included the Five Centuries Fountain near Mearth on the splinter world
  of the Red Desert through West Gate; the shaft at Rockfell Pit, used by the
  Sorcerers to imprison harmful entities; the Stair on Rockfell Peak; and
also, Kewar Tunnel in the Mathore Mountains.
  pronounced: dah-vee-en
  root meaning: dahvi--fool, mistake; an---one "mistaken one"
  DAWR--grandmother of Duke Bransian of Alestron, and his brother,
  Mearn s'Brydion.
pronounced: dour
root meaning: dwyiar--vinegar wine
DESH-THIERE--Mistwraith that invaded Athera from the splinter
worlds through South Gate in Third Age 4993. Access cut off by Fellow-
ship Sorcerer, Traithe. Battled and contained in West Shand for twenty-
five years, until the rebellion splintered the peace, and the high kings
were forced to withdraw from the defense lines to attend their disrupted
kingdoms. Confined through the combined powers of Lysaer s'Ilessid's
gift of light and Arithon s'Ffalenn's gift of shadow. Currently imprisoned
in a warded flask in Rockfell Pit.
  pronounced: desh-thee-air-e (last "e" mostly subliminal)
      root meaning: desh--mist; thiere--ghost or wraith
DESHIR--northwestern principality of Rathain.
  pronounced: desh-eer
  root meaning: deshir--misty
  DHARKARON AVENGER--called Ath's Avenging Angel in legend.
  Drives a chariot drawn by five horses to convey the guilty to Sithaer.
  Dharkaron as defined by the adepts of Ath's Brotherhood is that dark
  thread mortal men weave with Ath, the prime vibration, that creates self-
punishment, or the root of guilt.
  pronounced dark-air-on
  root meaning: dhar---evil; khiaron---one who stands in judgment
  DIEGAN--once Lord Commander of Etarra's garrison; given over by his
  mayor to serve as Lysaer s'Ilessid's Lord Commander at Avenor. Titular
  commander of the war host sent against the Deshans to defeat the Master
  of Shadow at Tal Quorin; high commander of the war host mustered at

548

              FUGITIVE PRINCE
Werpoint. Also brother of Lady Talith. Died of a clan arrow in the Battle
of Dier Kenton Vale in Vastmark, Third Age 5647.
  pronounced: dee-gan
  root meaning: diegan--trinket a dandy might wear/ornament
  DIER KENTON VALE--valley located in the principality of Vastmark,
  Shand, where the war host thirty-five thousand strong, under com-
  mand of Lysaer s'Ilessid, fought and lost to the Master of Shadow in
  Third Age 5647. The main body of the forces of light were decimated in
  one day by a shale slide. The remainder were harried by a small force of
  Vastmark shepherds under Caolle, who served as Arithon's war cap-
  tain.
  pronounced: deer ken-ton
  root meaning: dien'kendion--a jewel with a severe flaw that may result
     in shearing or cracking

EILISH--Lord Minister of the Royal Treasury, Avenor.
  pronounced: eyeqish
  root meaning: eyalish--fussy
  ELAIRA--initiate enchantress of the Koriathain. Originally a street child,
taken on in Morvain for Koriani rearing.
  pronounced: ee-layer-ah
  root meaning: e--prefix, diminutive for small; laerewgrace
  ELDIR s'LORNMEIN--King of Havish and last surviving scion of
  s'Lornmein royal line. Raised as a wool-dyer until the Fellowship Sorcer-
  ers crowned him at Ostermere in Third Age 5643 following the defeat of
  the Mistwraith.
pronounced: el-deer
root meaning: eldir--to ponder, to consider, to weigh
ELSSINE---city located on the coast of Alland, Shand, famed for stone
quarries used for ships' ballast.
  pronounced: el-seen
  root meaning: elssien--small pit
  ELTAIR BAY--large bay off Cildein Ocean and east coast of Rathain;
where River Severnir was diverted following the Mistwraith's conquest.
  pronounced: el-tay-er
root meaning: al'tieri---of steel/a shortening of original Paravian
    name dascen al'tieri, which meant "ocean of steel," which
    referred to the color of the waves
    ERDANE---old Paravian city, later taken over by Men. Seat of old princes
    of Camris until Desh-thiere's conquest and rebellion.
pronounced: er-day-na with the last syllable almost subliminal
root meaning: er'deinia--long walls
ERLIEN s'TALEYN--High Earl of Alland; caithdein of Shand, chieftain of
the forest clansmen of Selkwood.
  pronounced: er-lee~an stall~ay-en

549

               JANNY WURTS
  root meaning: aierlyan--bear; tal--branch; an-~one/first "of first one
     branch"
ETARRA--trade city built across the Mathorn Pass by townsfolk after the
revolt that cast down Ithamon and the High Kings of Rathain. Nest of
corruption and intrigue, and policy maker for the North.
  pronounced: ee-tar-ah
  root meaning: e--prefix for small; taria--knots
  EVENSTAR--first brig stolen from Riverton's royal shipyard by Cat-
  trick's conspiracy with Prince Arithon.

FALGAIRE--coastal city on Instrell Bay, located in Araethura, Rathain,
famed for its crystal and glassworks.
  pronounced: fall-gair--to rhyme with "air"
  root meaning:fal'mier--to sparkle or glitter
FALWOOD--forest located in West Shand.
  pronounced: fall-wood
  root meaning: fal--tree
  FATE's WHEEL--see Daelion's Wheel.
FEITHAN--wife of Jieret s'Valerient, Earl of the North, and caithdein of
Rathain.
pronounced: faith-an
root meaning: feiathen--ivy
FELIRIN--minstrel known as the Scarlet Bard; a past acquaintance of
Prince Arithon.
pronounced: fell-eer-in
root meaning: fel--red; lyron--singer
FELLOWSHIP OF SEVEN--Sorcerers sworn to uphold the Law of the
Major Balance, and to foster enlightened thought in Athera. Originators
and keepers of the compact made with the Paravian races that allowed
Men to settle on Athera.
FENLANDERS---the marsh dwellers who inhabit Mogg's Fen, descended
from renegade townsmen, outlaws, or townborn supporters of the clans
who were displaced during the rebellion.
FEYLIND--daughter of Jinesse; twin sister of Fiark; born in Merior by
the Sea, and currently serving apprenticeship as a navigator under
Arithon s'Ffalenn.
pronounced: fay-lind
root meaning:faelind'an-~outspoken one/noisy one
FFEREDON-LI--ancient Paravian word for a healer, literally translated
"bringer of grace"; still in use in the dialect of Araethura.
  pronounced: fair-eh-dun lee
  root meaning:ffaraton--maker; li exalted grace
  FIARK--son of Jinesse; twin brother of Feylind; born in Merior by the
Sea, currently employed as a factor by an Innish merchant.
  pronounced: fee-ark
  root meaning:fyerk--to throw or toss

550

              FUGITIVE I~RINCE
FIONN ARETH CAID'AN--shepherd child born in Third Age 5647; fated
by prophecy to leave home and play a role in the Wars of Light and Shadow.
  pronounced: fee-on-are~eth cayed-ahn
  root meaning: fionne arith caid an--one who brings choice
  FIRST AGE--marked by the arrival of the Paravian Races as Ath's gift to
  heal the marring of creation by the great drakes.

GACE STEWARD--Royal Steward of Avenor.
  pronounced: gace---to rhyme with "race"
  root meaning: gyce--weasel
  GARTH's POND---small brackish pond in Merior by the Sea, on the
  Scimlade peninsula off Alland, Shand.
pronounced: garth--to rhyme with "hearth"
root meaning not from the Paravian
GREAT WAYSTONE--amethyst crystal, spherical in shape, once the
grand power focus of the Koriani Order; lost during the great uprising,
and finally recovered from Fellowship custody by First Senior Lirenda in
Third Age 5647.
GREAT WEST ROAD--trade route which crosses Tysan from Karfael on
the west coast, to Castle Point on Instrell Bay.
GRIMWARD~a circle of dire spells of Paravian mak'mg that seal and iso-
late forces that have the potential for unimaginable destruction. With the
disappearance of the old races, the defenses are maintained by embodied
Sorcerers of the Fellowship of Seven. There are seventeen separate sites
listed at Althain Tower.

HALDUIN s'ILESSID--founder of the line that became High Kings of
Tysan since Third Age Year One. The attribute he passed on, by means of
the Fellowship's geas, was justice.
  pronounced: hal-dwin
  root meaning: ha/---white; duinne--hand
  HALLIRON MASTERBARD---native of Innish, Shand. Masterbard of
  Athera during the Third Age; inherited the accolade from his teacher
  Murchiel in the year 5597. Son of Al'Duin. Husband of Deartha.
  Arithon's master and mentor. Died from an injury inflicted by the Mayor
  of Jaelot in the year 5644.
  pronounced: hal-eer-on
  root meaning: hal--white; lyron--singer
HALWYTHWOOD--forest located in Araethura, Rathain.
  pronounced: hall-with-wood
  root meaning: hal--white; wythe--vista
  HANSHIRE--port city on Westland Sea, coast of Korias, Tysan; reigning
  official Lord Mayor Garde; opposed to royal rule at the time of Avenor's
  restoration.
  pronounced: hah-sheer
  root meaning: hansh--sand; era--place

               JANNY WURTS
HARRADENE--Lord Commander of Etarra's army at the time of the
muster at Werpoint, still in power after Vastmark campaign.
  pronounced: har-a-deen
  root meaning: harradien--large mule
  HAVENS---an inlet on the northeastern shore of Vastmark, Shand.
  HAVISH--one of the Five High Kingdoms of Athera, as defined by the
  charters of the Fellowship of Seven. Ruled by Eldir s'Lornmein. Sigil:
  gold hawk on red field.
pronounced: hav-ish
root meaning: havieshe--hawk
HIGHSCARP---city on the coast of the Bay of Elfair, located in Daon
Ramon, Rathain.

IANFAR s'GANNLEY---cousin and heir designate of Lord Maenol
s'Gannle~ caithdein of Tysan.
pronounced: ee-an-far s gan-lee
root meaning: ianfiar--birch tree
ILITHARIS PARAVIANS--centaurs, one of three semimortal old races;
disappeared at the time of the Mistwraith's conquest. They were the
guardians of the earth's mysteries.
  pronounced: i-li-thar-is
  root meaning: i'lith'eans--the keeper/preserver of mystery
  ILSWATER--both a lake bordering the principalities of Korias and Taer-
  lin; and the river which carries the water trade route from Caithwood to
  Riverton.
pronounced: ills-water
root meaning: iel--light
INNISH---city located on the southcoast of Shand at the delta of the River
Ippash. Birthplace of Halliron Masterbard. Formerly known as "the
Jewel of Shand," this was the site of the high king's winter court, prior to
the time of the uprising.
  pronounced: in-ish
  root meaning: inniesh--a jewel with a pastel tint
  INSTRELL BAY--body of water off the Gulf of Stormwell, that separates
principality of Atainia, Tysan, from Deshir, Rathain.
  pronounced: in-strell
  root meaning: arin'streal--strong wind
  ISAER---city located at the crossroads of the Great West Road in Atainia,
  Tysan. Also a power focus, built dur'mg the First Age, in Atainia, Tysan,
to source the defense-works at the Paravian keep of the same name.
  pronounced: i-say-er
  root meaning: i'saer--the circle
  ITHAMON~Second Age Paravian stronghold, and a Third Age ruin;
  built on a fifth lane power-node in Daon Ramon Barrens, Rathain, and
  inhabited until the year of the uprising. Site of the Compass Point Tow-
  ers, or Sun Towers. Became the seat of the High Kings of Rathain during

552

              FUGITIVE PRINCE
the Third Age and in year 5638 was the site where Princes Lysaer s'Ilessid
and Arithon s'Ffalenn battled the Mistwraith to confinement.
  pronounced: ith-a-mon
  root meaning: itha--five; mon--needle, spire
IYAN---deaf-mute servant of Morriel Prime.
  pronounced: ee-an
  root meaning: i'on--fate
  IYAT---energy sprite native to Athera, not visible to the eye, manifests in
  a poltergeist fashion by taking temporary possession of objects. Feeds
upon natural energy sources: fire, breaking waves, lightning.
  pronounced: ee-at
  root meaning: iyat--to break

JAELOT---city located on the coast of Eltair Bay at the southern border of
the Kingdom of Rathain. Once a Second Age power site, with a focus cir-
cle. Now a merchant city with a reputation for extreme snobbery and bad
taste. Also the site where Arithon s'Ffalenn played his eulogy for Hall-
iron Masterbard, which raised the powers of the Paravian focus circle
beneath the mayor's palace. The forces of the myst~ries and resonant har-
monics caused damage to city buildings, watchkeeps, and walls, which
has since been repaired.
  pronounced: jay-lot
  root meaning: jielot--affectation
  JEYNSA~daughter of Jieret s'Valerient and Feithan, born Third Age
  5653.
pronounced: jay-in-sa
root meaning: garnet
JIERET s'VALERIENT--Earl of the North, clan chief of Deshir; caithdein
of Rathain, sworn liegeman of Prince Arithon s'Ffalenn. Also son and
heir of Lord Steiven. Blood pacted to Arithon by sorcerer's oath prior to
battle of Strakewood Forest. Came to be known by headhunters as Jieret
Red-beard.
pronounced: jeer-et
root meaning: jieret--thorn
JINESSE--widow of a fisherman, mother of the twins Fiark and Feylind;
formerly an inhabitant of Merior by the Sea. Remarried and now resides
in Innish.
  pronounced: gin-ess
  root meaning: jienesse--to be washed out or pale; a wisp
JYCE--scout in Lord Maenol s'Gannley's band noted for his hearing.
  pronounced: like ice with a J
  root meaning: jiess--hare

KAMRIDIAN s'FFALENN--Crowned High King of Rathain, a tragic fig-
ure who died of his conscience under th.e fated influence of the Kewar
Caverns, built by Davien the Betrayer into the Mathorn Mountains.

553

               Ji~NNY ~i7 U R TS
pronounced: cam-rid-ee-an
root meaning: kaim'riadien--thread cut shorter
KARFAEL--trader town on the coast of the Westland Sea, in Tysan. Built
by townsmen as a trade port after the fall of the High Kings of T�san.
Prior to Desh-thiere's conquest, the site was kept clear of buildings to
allow the second lane forces to flow untrammeled across the focus site at
Avenor.
  pronounced: kar-fay-el
  root meaning: kar'i~fael--literal translation "twist the dark"/colloqui-
     alism for "intrigue"
KARMAK--plain located in the northem portion of the principality of
Camris, Tysan. Site of numerous First Age battles where Paravian forces
opposed Khadrim packs that bred in volcanic sites in the northern Tomir
Peaks.
pronounced: kar-mack
root meaning: karmak--wolf
KATHTAIRR--landmass in the southern ocean, across the world from
Paravia.
  pronounced: kath-tear
  root meaning: kait-th'era empty place
KEI--birthname for Jeynsa s'Valerient.
  pronounced: kay
  root meaning: ka'i--the girl
KELLIS---clan elder and Duchess of Mainmere.
  pronounced: kell-iss
  root meaning: kiel'liess--balm of grief
  KHADRIM--drake-spawned creatures, flying, fire-breathing reptiles
  that were the scourge of the Second Age. By the Third Age, they had been
  driven back and confined in the Sorcerers' Preserve in the volcanic peaks
  in north Tysan.
pronounced: kaa-drim
root meaning: khadrim--dragon
KHARADMON~Sorcerer of the Fellowship of Seven; discorporate since
rise of Khadrim and Seardluin leveled Paravian city at Ithamon in Sec-
ond Age 3651. It was by Kharadmon's intervention that the survivors of
the attack were sent to safety by means of transfer from the fifth lane
power focus. Currently constructing the star ward to guard against inva-
sion of wraiths from Marek.
  pronounced: kah-rad-mun
  root meaning: kar'riad en mon--phrase translates to mean "twisted
        thread on the needle" or colloquialism for "a knot in the works"
KHETIENN--name for a brigantine owned by Arithon; also a small spot-
ted wildcat native to Daon Ramon Barrens that became the s'Ffalenn
royal sigil.
  pronounced: key-et-c› ›n
  root meaning: kietienn---mall leopard

554

              FUGITIVE PRINCE
KORIANI--possessive form of the word "Koriathain"; see entry.
  pronounced: kor-ee-ah-nee
KORIAS---southwestern principality of Tysan.
  pronounced: kor-ee-as
  root meaning: cor--ship, vessel; i'esh--nest, haven
  KORIATHAIN---order of enchantresses ruled by a circle of Seniors,
  under the power of one Prime Enchantress. They draw their talent from
  the orphaned children they raise, or from daughters dedicated to service
  by their parents. Initiation rite involves a vow of consent that ties the
  spirit to a power crystal keyed to the Prime's control.
pronounced: kor-ee-ah-thain--to rhyme with "main"
root meaning: koriath--order; ain--belonging to
KOSHLIN--influential trade minister from Erdane, renowned for his
hatred of the clans, and for his support of the headhunters' leagues.
  pronounced: kosh-lynn
  root meaning: kioshlin---opaque

LANSHIRE--northwestern principality of Havish. Name taken from
wastes at Scarpdale, site of First Age battles with Seardluin that seared
the soil to a slag waste.
pronounced: lahn-sheer-e (last "e" is nearly subliminal)
root meaning: lan'hansh'era--place of hot sands
LAW OF THE MAJOR BALANCE--founding order of the powers of the
Fellowship of Seven, as written by the Paravians. The primary tenet is
that no force of nature should be used without consent, or against the
will of another living being.
LIRENDA--First Senior Enchantress to the Prime, Koriani order; Mor-
riel's intended successor.
  pronounced: leer-end-ah
  root meaning: lyron--singer; di-ia--a dissonance (the hyphen denotes
  a glottal stop)
LORN--town on the northcoast of Atainia, Tysan.
  pronounced: lorn
  root meaning: loern--an Atherian fish
  LUHAINE--Sorcerer of the Fellowship of Seven---discorporate since the
  fall of Telmandir. Luhaine's body was pulled down by the mob while he
was in ward trance, covering the escape of the royal heir to Havish.
  pronounced: loo-hay-ne
  root meaning: luirhainon---defender
  LYRANTHE--instrument played by the bards of Athera. Strung with
  fourteen strings, tuned to seven tones (doubled). Two courses are "drone
  strings" set to octaves. Five are melody strings, the lower three courses
  being octaves, the upper two, in unison.
  pronounced: leer-anth-e (last "e" being nearly subliminal)
  root meaning: lyr--song, anthe--box
LYSAER s'ILESSID~prince of Tysan, 1497th in succession after Halduin,

555

               ]ANNY WURTS
founder of the line in Third Age Year One. Gifted at birth with control of
Light, and Bane of Desh-Thiere.
  pronounced: lie-say-er
  root meaning: lia--blond, yellow or light, saer--circle

MAENALLE s'GANNLEY--former steward and caithdein of Tysan; put
on trial for outlawry and theft on the trade roads; executed by Lysaer
s'Ilessid at Isaer, Third Age 5645.
  pronounced: may-nahl-e (last "e" is nearly subliminal)
root meaning: maeni--to fall, disrupt; alli--to save or preserve collo-
    quial translation: "to patch together"
    MAENOL--heir, after Maenalle s'Gannley, steward and caithdein of
    tysan.
pronounced: may-nail
root meaning: rnaeni'alliw"to patch together"
MAINMERE--town at the head of the Valenford River, located in the
principality of Taerlin, Tysan. Built by townsmen on a site originally kept
clear to free the second lane focus in the ruins farther south.
  pronounced: main-meer-e ("e" is subliminal)
  root meaning: maeniwto fall, interrupt; miere--reflection, colloquial
     translation: "disrupt continuity"
MATHORN MOUNTAINS--range that bisects the Kingdom of Rathain
east to west.
pronounced: math-orn
root meaning: mathien--massive
MATHORN ROAD--way passing to the south of the Mathore Moun-
tains, leading to the trade city of Etarra from the west.
  pronounced: math-ore
  root meaning: mathien--massive
  MEARN s'BRYDION--youngest brother of Duke Bransian of Alestron.
Ducal emissary to Lysaer s'Ilessid's Alliance of Light.
  pronounced: may-am
  root meaning: mierne--to flit
  MELHALLA--High Kingdom of Athera once ruled by the line of
s'Ellestrion. The last prince died in the crossing of the Red Desert.
  pronounced: mel-hall-ah
  root meaning: rnaelhallia--grand meadows/plain~also word for an
     open space of an~, sort.
MELOR RIVER~located in the principality of Korias, Tysan. Its mouth
forms the harbor for the port town of West End.
  pronounced: mel-or
  root meaning: rnaeliur--fish
  MERIOR BY THE SEA---small seaside fishing village on the Scimlade
peninsula in Alland, Shand. Once the temporary site of Arithon's shipyard.
  pronounced: mare-ee-or
  root meaning: rnerioren--cottages

556

                           FUGITIVE PRINCE
MIDDLECROSS---town on the shores of Riverton Narrows, in Korias,
Tysan.
MIN PIERENS---archipelago to the west of the Kingdom of West Shand,
in the Westland Sea.
  pronounced: min--to rhyme with "pin," pierre-ins
  root meaning: rnin--purple; pierens--shoreline
MINCRESS--port town on Stormwell Gulf, in Camris, Tysan.
  pronounced: min-cress
  root meaning: min--purple; crias---'mlet
  MINDERL BAY--body of water behind Crescent Isle off the east coast of
  Rathain.
  pronounced: mind-earl
  root meaning: rninderlmanvil
MIRALT HEAD--port city in northern Camris, Tysan.
  pronounced: meer-alt
  root meaning: tn'ier--shore; alt--last
MOGG's FEN--marsh located in Korias, Tysan.
  pronounced: mog's fen
  root meaning: miog---cattail
MORNOS--city on the westshore of Lithmere, Havish.
  pronounced: more-nose
  root meaning: moarnosh--a coffer, specifically where a greedy person
     would hoard valuables.
MORRIEL--Prime Enchantress of the Koriathain since the Third Age 4212.
  pronounced: more-real
  root meaning: moar--greed; riel---silver
  MORVAIN---city located in the principality of Araethura, Rathain, on the
coast of Instrell Bay. Elaira's birthplace.
  pronounced: more-vain
  root meaning: morvain---swindlers' market

NARMS--city on the coast of Instrell Bay, built as a craft center by Men
in the early Third Age. Best known for dyeworks.
  pronounced: narms--to rhyme with "charms"
  root meaning: harms--color
  NORTHERLY--remote fishing and fur trappers' village on the northern
  point of Tysan.
NORTHSTRAIT--narrows between the mainland spur of northern
Tysan, and the Trow Islands.

ORLAN--pass through the Thaldein Mountains, also location of the
Camris clans' west outpost, in Camris, Tysan. Known for barbarian raids.
  pronounced: or-lan
  root meaning: irlan--ledge
  ORLEST--galleymen's port on the coast of Korias, Tysan; also known for
  its salt harvest.

557                           ~

               JANNY WUI~TS
  pronounced: or-lest
  root meaning: iorlest---salt
ORVANDIR--principality located in northeastern Shand.
  pronounced: or-van-deer
  root meaning: orvein--crumbled; dir--stone
  OSTERMERE--harbor and trade city, once smugglers' haven, located in
Carithwyr, Havish; current seat of Eldir, King of Havish.
  pronounced: os-mr-mere
  root meaning: ostier--brick; miere--refiection

PARAVIAN--name for the three old races that inhabited Athera before
Men. Including the centaurs, the sunchildren, and the unicorns, these
races never die unless mishap befalls them; they are the world's channel,
or direct connection to Ath Creator.
  pronounced: par-ai-vee-ans
  root meaning: para--great; i'on--fate or "great mystery"
  PERDITH---city located on the eastshore in East Halla, Melhalla; known
  for its armorers.
pronounced: per-dith
root meaning: pirdith--anvil
PESQUIL--Mayor of the Northern League of Headhunters, at the time of
the battle of Strakewood Forest. His strategies caused the Deshir clans
the most punishing losses. Died of a clan vengeance arrow during the
crossing of Valleygap in Third Age 5646.
  pronounced: pes-quil like "pest-quill"
  root meaning not from the Paravian

QUARN--town on the trade road that crosses Caithwood in Taerlin,
tysan.
pronounced: kwarn
root meaning: quatin--ravine, canyon
QUEN--deceased half-wit who once served as door guard and servant
to the Prime Enchantress of the Koriathain, Morriel.
  pronounced: cue-en
  root meaning: quenient--witless
  QUINOLD--Lord Chancellor of Avenor, and a member of Lysaer
  s'Ilessid's inner cabal.
  pronounced: kwin-old
  root meaning: quen--one who is narrow-minded

RADMOORE DOWNS~meadowlands in Midhalla, Melhalla.
  pronounced: rad-more
  root meaning: r/ad--thread; mour--carpet, rug
  RATHAIN--High Kingdom of Athera ruled by descendants of Torbrand
  s'Ffalenn since Third Age Year One. Sigil: black-and-silver leopard on
  green field.

558

              FUGITIVE PRINCE
pronounced: rath-ayn
root meaning: roth--brother; thein--tower, sanctuary
RAUVEN TOWER--home of the s'Ahelas mages who brought up
Arithon s'Ffalenn and trained him to the ways of power. Located on the
splinter world, Dascen Elur, through West Gate.
  pronounced: raw-ven
  root meaning: rauven--invocation
  RIATHAN PARAVIANS~unicoms, the purest and most direct connec-
  tion to Ath Creator; the prime vibration channels directly through the
  horn.
  pronounced: ree-ah-than
  root meaning: ria--to touch; ath--prime life force; ri'athon---one who
     touches divinity
RIVERTON--trade town at the mouth of the Ilswater river, in Korias,
Tysan; site of Lysaer's royal shipyard.
ROCKBAY HARBOR--body of water above Southstrait that divides
Shand from West Shand.
ROCKFELL PIT~deep shaft cut into Rockfell Peak, used to imprison
harmful entities throughout all three ages. Located in the principality of
West Halla, Melhalla; became the warded prison for Desh-thiere.
  pronounced: rock-fell
  root meaning not from the Paravian
  ROCKFELL VALE--valley below Rockfell Peak, located in principality of
  West Halla, Melhalla.
  pronounced: rockfell vale
  root meaning not from the Paravian

s'AHELAS--family name for the royal line appointed by the Fellowship
Sorcerers in Third Age Year One to rule the High Kingdom of Shand.
Gifted geas: farsight.
  pronounced: s'ah-hell-as
  root meaning: ahelas--mage-gifted
SANPASHIR~desert waste on the southcoast of Shand.
  pronounced: sahn-pash-eer
  root meaning: san--black or dark; pash'era--place of grit or gravel
  SANSHEVAS----town located on the southcoast of Alland, Kingdom of
  Shand.
pronounced: san-shev-as
root meaning: san--black; sheivas--flint
s'BRYDION--ruling line of the Dukes of Alestron. The only old blood
clansmen to maintain rule of their city through the uprising that defeated
the rule of the high kings.
pronounced: s'bride-ee-on
root meaning: baridien--tenacity
SEARDLUIN~clrake-spawned, vicious, intelligent, catlike predators
that roved in packs whose hierarchy was arranged for ruthless and

               JANNY ~URT$
 efficient slaughter of other living things. By the middle of the Second
 Age, they had been battled to extinction.
   pronounced: seerd-lwin
   root meaning: seard--bearded; luin--feline
   SECOND AGE--Marked by the arrival of the Fellowship of Seven at
   Crater Lake, their called purpose to fight the drake spawn.
SELKWOOD-~forest located in Alland, Shand.
  pronounced: sellk-wood
  root meaning: selk--pattem
  SETHVIR--Sorcerer of the Fellowship of Seven, served as Warden of
  Althain since the disappearance of the Paravians in the Third Age after
the Mistwraith's conquest.
  pronounced: seth-veer
  root meaning: seth--fact; vaer--keep
  SEVERNIR--river that once ran across the central part of Daon Ramon
  Barrens, Rathain. Diverted at the source after the Mistwraith's conquest,
  to run east into Eltair Bay.
pronounced: se-ver-neer
root meaning: sevaer--to travel; nir--south
s'FFALENN--family name for the royal line appointed by the Fellow-
ship Sorcerers in Third Age Year One to rule the High Kingdom of
Rathain. Gifted geas: compassion/empathy.
  pronounced: s-fal-en
  root meaning: ffael~clark, an---one
  s'GANNLEY--family name for the line of Earls of the West, who stood as
caithdeinen and stewards for the High Kings of Tysan.
  pronounced: s-gan-lee
  root meaning: gaen--to guide;//--exalted, or in harmony
  SHADOWBANE--gold talisman coin struck at Avenor, bearing Lysaer's
  head, and a bane against darkness. Thrown out as largesse each day at
  noon in the square by the royal palace.
SHAND~High Kingdom on the southeast comer of the Paravian conti-
nent, originally ruled by the line of s'Ahelas. Device is falcon on a cres-
cent moon, backed by purple-and-gold chevrons.
  pronounced: shand--as in "hand"
  root meaning: shayn or shiand--two/pair
SHANDIAN--refers to nationality, being of the Kingdom of Shand.
  pronounced: shand-ee-an
  root meaning: shand--two
SHAYN--Paravian rune for two.
  pronounced: shane
  root meaning: shayn--two
  SHIEN--joint captain of Avenor's field troops, who maintained the
home garrison while Lord Diegan marched to Vastmark.
  pronounced: she-en
  root meaning: shien---cord

560

              FUGITIVE PRINCE
s'ILESSID--family name for the royal line appointed by the Fellowship
Sorcerers in Third Age Year One to rule the High Kingdom of Tysan.
Gifted geas: justice.
pronounced: s-ill-ess-id
root meaning: liessiad--balance
SITHAER--mythological equivalent of hell, halls of Dharkaron
Avenger's judgment; according to Ath's adepts, that state of being where
the prime vibration is not recognized.
  pronounced: sith-air
  root meaning: sid--lost; thiere--wraith / spirit
SKANNT--headhunter captain, served under Pesquil.
  pronounced: scant
  root meaning: sciant--a lean, hard-run hound of mixed breeding
  SKYRON FOCUS--large aquamarine focus stone, used by the Koriani
  Senior Circle for their major magic after the loss of the Great Waystone
  during the rebellion.
  pronounced: sky-run
  root meaning: skyron-~colloquialism for shackle; s'kyr'i'on--literally
     "sorrowful fate"
s'LORNMEIN--family name for the royal line appointed by the Fellow-
ship Sorcerers in Third Age Year One to rule the High Kingdom of Hav-
ish. Gifted geas: temperance.
  pronounced: s-lorn-main
  root meaning: liernmein--to center, or restrain, or bring into balance
  SORCERERS' PRESERVE--warded territory located by Teal's Gap in
  Tornir Peaks in Tysan where the Khadrim are kept confined by Fellow-
  ship magic.
SOUTHSHIRE--southcoast port town located in Alland, Kingdom of
Shand; known for its shipbuilding and orange groves.
STEIVEN--Earl of the North, caithdein and regent to the High Kingdom
of Rathain at the time of Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn's return. Chieftain of the
Deshans until his death in the battle of Strakewood Forest. Jieret Red-
beard's father.
pronounced: stay-vin
root meaning: steiven--stag
STORMWELL--Gulf of Stormwell, body of water off the northcoast of
tysan.
STRAKEWOOD--forest in the principality of Deshir, Rathain; site of the
battle of Strakewood Forest.
pronounced: strayk-wood, similar to "stray wood"
root meaning: streik--to quicken, to seed
SULFIN EVEND--Hanshire guard captain who leads a company of Men
in pursuit of Arithon s'Ffalenn.
  pronounced: sool-finn ev-end
  root meaning: suilfinn eiavend---colloquialism, "diamond mind"---one
     who is persistent