Stormed Fortress (98 page)

Elaira endured, despite screaming nerves. Forthright evidence must exonerate her character. As Sulfin Evend made rounds, she had to admire: his choices were just as he winnowed the superficially hurt from the dangerously infirm. For the wagon, he singled out two women with burns. Then a child with a crippling fracture. Next, a soldier whose leg threatened sepsis, and another whose chest cut progressed to filled lungs. Arithon ought to be passed as he seemed: an old man with a near-fatal gut wound. If Parrien was recognized, the dilated eye of a genuine head injury should remand him to non-partisan Koriani protection. Glendien
'
s talent was real enough. The claim of a sisterhood novitiate ought to shield her forest-bred origins from the persecution; and Talvish wore a Sunwheel surcoat, over gashes won fair, by the sword.

All would be well, if no one cracked under pressure, or gave way to needless stupidity.

Nonetheless, Elaira closed a damp hand on her crystal. She aligned her inner awareness,
prepared,
as Sulfin Evend dismissed a young girl with a crossbolt puncture. Neat on his feet, despite the heaving deck, his progress reached Arithon
'
s hammock. There, he took pause, his rapt focus resharpened.
Something
snagged his rapacious attention. The icy chill followed, as Elaira recalled Arithon mentioning that this man
'
s uncle, Raiett, had detected Davien
'
s wrought disguise during an interrogation by Kralovir necromancers. Disastrously late, she grasped Dakar
'
s frantic warning: a
caithdein
'
s
direct line would see everything!

Sulfin Evend possessed the gifted heritage of a teir
'
s
'
Gannley, awakened through Fellowship auspices. Intuition arisen from hand-picked descent
surely might recognize the attuned binding borne by a sanctioned crown prince.
Even if only subliminal awareness picked up the unconscious connection.

While Elaira looked on with stifled anxiety, Sulfin Evend peeled back the blankets. He lifted the cloth of the unmarked black cloak and perused the stained evidence of a wounding, quite real, and invasive enough to inflict the fresh onset of fever.

'
You earned someone
'
s vicious enmity, old man,
'
he murmured, nettled by the hunch this was not just any civilian casualty. Frowning, Sulfin Evend extended his survey over the invalid
'
s body. Those exquisite, fine hands; the lithe bones and cat
'
s build; surely they woke recognition?

'
You!
'
he gasped, his bitterness plain as a shout to the ear of the mage-trained.

And Elaira
'
s breath froze: for her shared empathy stirred to the shattering sense that the disturbance roused Arithon back towards cognizance.

Talvish would not see, his vantage obscured by the blanket.

But the fogged eyes within Arithon
'
s falsely aged visage were open and searching for light. No doubt blind except for initiate mage-sight, he groaned and started to stir. Agony caught him short; a hissed gasp, as every razor-cut nerve exploded to ruthless sensation. Rathain
'
s prince languished, laid out in the hammock, and quite unable to move. Confused, convalescent, he came fully awake: alert to the furious oppressor poised over him, stunned yet by the shock of encounter.

Endangered, possibly fighting delirium, he mustered the rags of his resource. Elaira could follow by heart-tied rapport, as auric imprint let him identify his antagonist.

'
Full circle,
'
Arithon managed at a frayed whisper. The eldest of the Biedar foresaw this. How will you deal? I still am not your enemy, for all that I had to break my past promise to stand clear of the fight at Alestron.
'

His shadow had answered to spare Feylind
'
s life. For that, he would ask no man
'
s pardon. As Talvish well knew, by the wary movement that stirred in the gloom past the remedy trunk. The wounded liegeman gathered himself to enact a foredoomed intervention. Dakar might act also, protection being forfeit, and Sulfin Evend lashed into impenetrable rage by Arithon
'
s presumed betrayal.

The paired guardsmen stationed on duty behind failed to notice the building danger: they had no cause to fear a wounded old man, not inside a bristling cordon at battle-strength in full arms.

'
I will not act
'
said Prince Arithon in stark calm.
'
If I
'
d wanted you dead, you would have gone down, blindfolded and bound in the caverns.
'

If the statement pleaded a line of appeal, Sulfin Evend stayed torn. His watch-dog guardsmen sensed no alarm yet. But Koriani-trained instincts were screaming.

Elaira firmed her heated grip on the crystal tucked beneath her draped cuff. Eyes open, thought stilled, she divided awareness to access the stone
'
s focal matrix. The sigils required for ascendant domination were ugly, when framed for compulsion. Elaira gathered the resource, regardless. She would not watch Arithon killed out of hand, although nausea raked her in warning: the advanced awareness schooled by Ath
'
s adepts ran utterly counter to all imposed spells of forced mastery.

Through dizzying strain, her beloved
'
s wracked speech laboured on to reach Sulfin Evend.
'
You are not at risk, here! Rely on my word, if you won
'
t hear a friend. The enchantress will not entrain any craft to serve my self-preservation!
'

Ath above! He asked her straight out to stand off. His compassion yet held out for reason. Or maybe he thought to fall back upon Dakar,
whose auric fields were shut down to muddy the etheric blaze of his talent.
No saving angle existed for back-up, with Sulfin Evend near losing his grip, whip-sawed by conflicted emotion.

Through frantic dread, Elaira sensed Arithon
'
s touch in her mind, gentle as rain in the desert.
'
Listen. Beloved, we are not alone.
'

Listen to
what?
The pound of her heart was as thunder. Even as her wracked balance floundered, the aligned crystal held at the ready flared in the palm of her hand. Its matrix opened. A sudden surge of unleashed reassurance flooded her being and steadied her.

'
Listen,
'
sent Arithon, and urgency gave her the access to knowledge she needed:
that the crystal she held had been mined on Athera, its innate consciousness encompassed by Sethvir
'
s earth-linked awareness. The Sorcerer was entrained, back at Althain Tower. As Warden, he had sounded the crown prince
'
s wound through the meticulous care in her healing. Now, Sethvir
'
s tuned sight tracked the peril that threatened aboard Adruin
'
s detained galley.
As Elaira
'
s overset faculties quieted, the Sorcerer
'
s sending touched through to her:
'
If there may come a time to rely on your order, this is not the moment. Holdfast.
'

Elaira glanced sidewards: saw the Mad Prophet
'
s fist locked on Glendien
'
s arm to curb her rash interference. The restraint eased the shrill edge of her panic.
What nuance did Fellowship prescience see?
Her frantic reassessment showed nothing else. Only the certain plunge towards disaster, juggernaut swift, still unfolding.

Across the deck, Sulfin Evend
'
s two guards had drawn swords, now distressed as their commander pressed his savage inquiry.
'
Lysaer lies in jeopardy as long as you live! The mere fact you breathe is a threat to him.
'

'
Truth,
'
allowed Arithon, drained ghostly pale. "Though I very much doubt my death at your hand will do anything to help save him.
'

Which feverish utterance, born of despair, a Biedar forecast had vigorously denied. Sulfin Evend still bore the searing remembrance. The clear force of its imprint also reached Elaira, a Sighted transference likely steered by Sethvir, as the tribal elder
'
s past warning bridged time like a struck flare of lightning:
'
Alone on Athera, he is the key to secure your liege
'
s deliverance from jeopardy.
'

'
Koriathaini have plotted to undermine Lysaer!
'
Sulfin Evend responded in smoking rebuttal. In the cold dark, under the wind-tossed lantern, his justified fears gained dimension.
'
Here and now, I have caught their sneak hands in, again! While I saw a corpse, the stark semblance of yours, delivered to my command tent, the true sorcerer languishes here in disguise. The deadliest foe, masquerading as wounded, being ushered under the false cover of charity into the heart of my war camp!
'

'
You saw -!
'
gasped Arithon, while distanced, his friends watched his breath stop. Then restart, on forced need to confirm the unbearable:
that Fionn Areth was dead.
The sorrow, just breaking, a devastating blow his nerves could never assimilate. Not in such harsh pain, pounded to stranded wits, amidst a charged confrontation.

One critical instant, Elaira saw Arithon lose hold on the fact that he faced Lysaer
'
s liegeman, whose loyalty posed lethal peril. While for Sulfin Evend, the split-second silence extended too long for tenuous doubt to stay credible.

'
For there will come the dark hour. His life thread crosses the palm of your hand. The choice is yours,
Seith
vi
r,
whether or not to stay blinded,
'
the desert elder had forewarned of this fateful meeting.

'
How long, before you planned to drive your nemesis over the edge?
'
pealed the Light
'
s supreme officer.

'
My kin and my brother! I have raised no attack on him.
'
Arithon closed the clouded eyes that veiled any humane expression of grief. He had small breath left. Only the presence to rephrase the gentle closure once used before, at Sanpashir. "You fight as my nightmare, Lysaer
'
s true
caithdein.
But never in life as my enemy
'

Sulfin Evend
'
s controlled temper broke. He had no thought for the onlooking ship
'
s crew; none for the by-standing wounded. No vision to spare for another wrapped form, slung in the adjacent hammock: a fighting man with his head swathed in poultices, who had listened apace with burning hatred dammed behind his shut eyes. Nary a glance acknowledged the blond soldier with the strapped right arm, crouched by the remedy trunk.

Poised over the s
'
Ffalenn bastard who was Spinner of Darkness, the Light
'
s Lord Commander unsheathed his sword, perhaps to strike, perhaps only to threaten. Perhaps, as a spirit bound under a
caithdein
'
s
oath to a Sorcerer, to test the given word of a crown prince, and ascertain whether arcane means or shadow might be turned in foul play against him. No one ever knew: for Parrien s
'
Brydion rolled out of his hammock, reclaimed by the berserker
'
s geas wrought by the Koriani Prime Matriarch.

Elaira detected the hard glimmer of spells spindled about his strapped form. She had no second to react, and no breath to cry warning, before Parrien
'
s hurled bulk crashed full length, and took Sulfin Evend behind the knees. While the war-captain toppled, and the two Sunwheel guardsmen lunged with bare steel to retaliate, Talvish uncoiled, threw back masking blankets, and drew the black blade of Alithiel left-handed.

Defence of the helpless unbridled the star spells.

Bright sound and dazzling light blazed aloft, dissolving the Matriarch
'
s ties of dark practice. The winter night rang to a chord of pure harmony that shattered the fabric of reason. Ecstatic reaction undid the armed men. Every standing guard in the cordon was hurled off his feet. The vibration coursed through weapons and mail, stinging held steel from their grasping hands. As the Sunwheel ranks crumpled, Talvish stood tall, wrung to tears of relief, while the sword
'
s released power ranged outward. Soldiers and seamen and officers alike were wracked helpless, first crying, then laughing, rocked speechless by waves of wild harmony. The onslaught built, scaling octaves, until solid bone felt recast to struck glass, and flesh shuddered, lifted beyond strife by ineffable tingles of rapture.