Janny Wurts - Curse of the Mistwraith

‘Turn and hear your sentence, bastard,’ the guard said unpleasantly.

Now frantic, Lysaer had no choice but to stand down. No advisor cared to question whether the sending was a wile of the Master’s, or a genuine ultimatum from Rauven; most showed deep disappointment that a vendetta which had raged through seven generations could be abandoned in a few short seconds.

The king leaned forward to speak. ‘Arithon s’Ffalenn, for the crime of piracy, in reprisal for seven ships and the lives of the men who crewed them, you will suffer exile through the Gate on the isle of Worldsend.’ The king clapped his hands, lips drawn taut with rage. ‘Return the bastard to confinement until escort and a ship can be arranged. Let me not set eyes on him again.’

Halberdiers closed in, eclipsing Arithon’s dark head. Weapons held at the ready, they hurried the prisoner away through the tense, resentful stillness of a crowd whose hungers remained unsatisfied. Lysaer stood torn with uneasiness. Reprieve of any sort had seemed inconceivable, just a scant moment before. Afraid, suddenly, that events had turned precisely to the whim of the Master, the prince braced his composure and touched his father’s sleeve.

‘Was that wise?’ His blue eyes searched the face of the king, as he begged to be heard without prejudice. Whatever passed the Worldsend Gate’s luminescent portal never returned; not even the sorcerers could answer the enigma, and Rauven’s power was great. ‘What if Arithon’s exile becomes my own as well?’

The king turned venomous eyes toward his eldest, fair-haired son, who right now bore unbearable resemblance to the traitorous sorceress who had borne him. ‘But I thought this sending was a ploy, engineered by the cunning of s’Ffalenn?’

The prince stepped back in dismay. His warning had been heard; yet the moment was past, the sentence read. Little gain would result if he qualified what had already been ignored. In silence, the prince bowed and took his leave.

The king’s bitter words echoed after him. ‘You worry for nothing, my prince. Rauven’s terms will be held to the letter. The s’Ffalenn bastard will go free without harm.’

Ocean world Dascen Elur Left unwatched for five score years

Shall shape from High Kings of Men Untried arts in unborn hands.

These shall bring the Mistwraith’s bane, Free Athera’s sun again.

Dakar’s prophecy of West Gate

Third Age 5061

On a high, windswept terrace at Rauven a robed man stirred from trance and opened troubled eyes.

‘The King of Amroth has chosen to banish Arithon through the Worldsend Gate,’ the listener announced to the high mage. Neither knew his words were overheard by a second mind incomprehensibly distant…

In a world of fog-bound skies another sorcerer in maroon robes paused between dusty tiers of books. Misty, distracted eyes turned sharp and immediate as a falcon’s. Sethvir of the Fellowship had kept records at Althain Tower since the Mistwraith had overturned all order and banished sunlight five centuries earlier. Events sifted past his isolation like snowflakes beyond glass; as the fancy struck him, he penned them into manuscript and catalogued them for the archives. Although the listener’s phrase was one of thousands which intruded upon his thoughts hourly, the sorcerer focused his attention instantly to prove its origin.

Power great enough to shatter mountains answered Sethvir’s will. Faultlessly directed, it bridged the unimaginable gulf between worlds and retrieved the vision of the starlit embrasure where a mage sat with a sword of unearthly beauty clenched between his hands. The blade bore patterns of silver inlay, and a spindle of green light blazed in a gem set at the hilt. The mage regarded the weapon with a raw expression of grief, while the clairvoyant tried vainly to comfort him.

Sethvir recognized that blade. Memories of past events aligned like compass needles, pairing fact with circumstance whose significance shattered a calm that was legendary. Sethvir of the Fellowship whooped like a boy. In the time before the Mistwraith’s curse, that same weapon had been carried by an Atherian prince through the Worldsend Gates to the west. Three other royal heirs had fled with him, seeking sanctuary from a rebellion which threatened their lives. Then the Mistwraith’s conquest banished all sunlight; the Gates were directionally sealed on the promise of a madman’s prophecy, and the princes’ exile became permanent. Yet if the royal heirs had been abandoned to their fate, they had not been forgotten. At last, Sethvir beheld the first sign that the princes’ betrayal had not been in vain.

The sorcerer released the image. Blue-green eyes softened with a reverie that masked keen thought. The mage who held the sword had also seemed no stranger; Sethvir himself had trained the man’s ancestor in the foundational arts of power. Only one possible interpretation fitted such coincidence: the sorcerer witnessed the birthpangs of the great West Gate Prophecy, the one which forecast the defeat of the Mistwraith and the return of Athera’s banished sunlight.

Sethvir’s exuberance drove him to run from the library. Disturbed air raised dust from the shelves as he banged through the door and raced up the stairwell beyond; but his thought moved faster still, spanning a distance of leagues to deliver the news to his colleagues in the Fellowship of Seven.

In another place, amid the weedy tangle of a fog-shrouded field, water dripped sullenly down the stems of last summer’s bracken.

‘I bring news of Dascen Elur,’ said an intrusive, familiar voice.

Dakar the Mad Prophet started in surprise where he sat, drunk and soaked to the skin. A sigh escaped his bearded lips. Luck was a witch, to have abandoned him with the ale jug barely emptied. Dakar rolled sour, cinnamon eyes toward the sorcerer who approached. He tried to forestall the inevitable. ‘The prince who returns will be s’Ilessid, or I drink only water for the next five years,’ he announced with slurred finality.

The sorcerer, who was Asandir of the Fellowship of Seven, stopped still in his grey tunic and blue cloak. Wind ruffled silver hair over features that split with amusement. ‘You speak of the West Gate Prophecy?’ His tone was deceptively polite.

Dakar felt his stomach heave, and cursed silently. Either he was too sober to handle fear of the reprimand he knew must come, or he was too drunk to master the urge to be sick. Asandir was seldom lenient with his apprentices. Nevertheless, Dakar managed a sloppy grin. ‘“ Ocean world Dascen Elur, Left unwatched for five score years… ”’ he recited, obligingly quoting himself.

Crisply, Asandir stole the following lines. ‘“ Shall shape from High Kings of Men, Untried arts in unborn hands. ”’ Hands capable of restoring order to a world that had known barbarous dissolution, decadence and blighted, misty weather for half an age. Asandir smiled, tolerant still. ‘But the foreordained hands are unborn no longer, my prophet. The time of deliverance is at hand.’

The reference took a muddled moment to sink in. When Dakar caught on, he crowed and flopped backwards into a milkweed thicket. Pods exploded, winnowing a flurry of seeds. These were not fluffy white with clean health, but musted with the mildews of sunless damp endlessly fostered. ‘Where?’ demanded Dakar, and followed immediately with, ‘Who? s’Ahelas, s’Ellestrion, s’Ffalenn, or better, because I’ve a whopping wager, s’Ilessid?’

But Asandir’s lapse into levity ended. ‘Up with you. We leave for West Gate at once.’

Dakar inhaled milkweed seeds and sneezed. ‘ Who ? I’ve a right to know. It’s my prophecy,’ and he grunted as Asandir’s boot prodded his ribs.