Janny Wurts - Warhost of Vastmark

Distress drove Kharadmon to unwonted sympathy. ‘Sethvir is most wise and clever enough in his ways to fool even Daelion Fatemaster. An ugly truth will not deter him. He would disperse his very spirit to oblivion before ever he let such a risk walk abroad to harm Athera.’

Luhaine for once had no words. Coiled into tight worry, he maintained a tortured stillness, as if to acknowledge his colleague’s restless movement might cause him to abandon his dignity and fidget.

Hours passed without sign. Breezes off the desert funnelled through the casement, sharp with the bite of autumn frost. The unlatched shutters swung to the gusts and thumped odd tattoos on the window jambs. On a floor gritted with the shattered remains of what had been a blameless river pebble, moonlight sliced oblate patterns.

In time the new dawn masked the stars in leaden grey. The stilled form sprawled upon the chill flagstone regained a flush of rose about the nostrils. One wiry, veined hand curled closed.

‘Tea,’ Sethvir sighed in a wistful, weak whisper. ‘Kharadmon, do you think you might dredge up a spark to kindle the fire? If my memory isn’t damaged, I believe the cauldron’s filled and ready.’

The Warden of Althain was himself; two colleagues withdrew from close inspection of his aura pattern, while a fired ray of sun lit the clouds and etched a blush of leaf gold against the lichened stone of the east casement.

In response to Luhaine’s furious and silent burst of censure, Sethvir propped himself on one elbow and scrubbed at wisps of beard that had hung themselves up in his eyebrows. ‘What else could we do?’ He said in cold conclusion, ‘I couldn’t let these free wraiths come to be mewed up in Rockfell alongside Desh-thiere’s captive consciousness.’ If mishap occurred and the two halves of this monster should ever chance to recombine, there could be no end to the world’s suffering. ‘It’s all right,’ he added, then looked up and blinked, a smear of dust on his nose. Unshed tears glistened in his eyes. ‘At least through the course of a partial possession I’ve recovered true Name for these nine. It’s a pitiful start. But we now have the means to unravel the wickedness that binds them. Shall we not make an end and restore their lost path to Ath’s peace?’

By noon, restored by hot tea and a catnap, Sethvir sat huddled in furled robes in the windy niche of a window seat. Daylight mapped the whorled distortion in the grain of the tabletop where Luhaine had reconfigured the stone to create the warded flask.

The container itself stood empty beside a porcelain mug with spiderwork cracks through the glaze.

After harrowing labour, the nine enchained spirits had been given their redemption and release. The books had been tidied, the ink flasks set right, but Sethvir had not bothered with sweeping. His library floor still lay scattered with river sand, the cobwebs in the corners caught with small twists of parchment last pressed into use as his pagemarks.

Luhaine’s groomed image inhabited the apron by the hearth, unstirred by the draughts from the chimney. Kharadmon appeared as a wan, slender form perched on the stuffing of a chair. His posture was all dapper angles and elegant, attenuated bones. His spade point beard and piebald hair and narrow nose appeared as foxy as ever, but his green cloak with its ruddy orange lining tended to drift through intervals of transparency. Despite a clear outline, the force of him seemed washed and faded.

In pared, quiet phrases, the discorporate Sorcerer related what befell on his quest to the splinter worlds cut away from their link to Athera. ‘On the other side, Desh-thiere’s essence is stronger than our most dismal estimate,’ he said. ‘I’m left humbled by the power Traithe faced, to his ruin, on the day he sealed off the South Gate. I say now with certainty that he spared all life on Athera.’

Kharadmon went on to tell of Marak, where the Fellowship had once exiled those people whose curiosity prompted them to pursue the knowledge proscribed by the compact between mankind and the Paravians. In a lightless search, through a suffocating mist that shrouded that far place into darkness and an ice-ridden, desolate wasteland, no living thing had breathed or moved.

‘I narrowed my search in the gutted shells of the libraries,’ Kharadmon resumed. ‘I found records there, fearful maps of what was done.’ His image chafed its thin fingers as if to bring warmth to lost flesh. ‘As we guessed, Desh-thiere was created by frightened minds as a weapon of mass destruction. A faction on Marak built on the laws of physical science, then meddled in theories that came to unbalance the axis of prime life force. The intent was to interweave spirit with machine. These men desired to create the ultimate synergy between the human mind and a physical construct, and transcend the limits of the flesh. Well, their works went wrong. The ionized fields of mists that contained the captive spirits over time drifted their awareness out of self-alignment. The experiment turned on its creators. I can only conclude that those sorry entities tied outside of Daelion’s Wheel became warped and vicious and insane.’

The result laid two entire worlds to white waste; then the hundreds of thousands of dead from that carnage, subverted and entrapped in brutal turn.

‘I have failed in my mission,’ Kharadmon summed up in drawn sorrow. ‘No roll list of Names could I find for the original set of wraiths that comprised Desh-thiere’s first sentience. And now, those prime spirits have been joined by every other casualty they have caused. They react as a body, their mad purpose to devour life. The strength of them is deadly and far too vast for our Fellowship to grapple without help.’

Sethvir tapped the knuckle of his thumb against his teeth. ‘We’ll need the aid of the Paravians,’ he ventured. ‘Their resonance with prime power could perhaps turn those lost entities to recall their forgotten humanity.’

‘A masterbard’s talents might do the same, had we the means to isolate each individual victim from the pull of collective consciousness,’ Luhaine said.

The Warden of Althain was silent. His turquoise eyes locked on Kharadmon in recognition of the annihilating truth left unmentioned. ‘The mist sublimates away under vacuum,’ he surmised.

‘Exactly.’ Kharadmon shot upright and stalked a soundless circuit of the chamber. ‘Free wraiths result, as you saw. If the ones still fogbound on Marak can unriddle the guidance traces left by that beacon spell of summoning, we could find ourselves beset beyond all recourse.’

Silence ate the seconds as the three mages pondered. The quandary of the Mistwraith had expanded to fearful dimensions. Its threat would not end with the creatures mewed up under wards in Rockfell Pit. Indeed, Athera would never be safe from predation until the trapped, damned spirits from both worlds beyond South Gate could be drawn under bindings, then redeemed.

The royal half-brothers already set in jeopardy by the curse might yet be needed to right the balance.

Recent events at Minderl Bay had effectively shown that Lysaer held no vestige of control over Desh-thiere’s aberrant geas.

Which left Arithon once again at the critical crux of responsibility.

Sethvir sighed, his crown tipped back against the tower’s chisel-cut window. In tones hammered blank by a burden just extended through trials enough to stop the heart, he said, ‘Asandir will reach the focus at Caith-al-Caen by the advent of tonight’s sundown. He can transfer to Athir’s ruin on the east shore and flag down the sloop Talliarthe. He will treat with the Shadow Master there and charge him, for the world’s sake, to stay alive. At any cost, by whatever means, the Prince of Rathain must survive until this threat beyond South Gate can be resolved.’