Janny Wurts - Curse of the Mistwraith

‘Come with me and see, my sotted seer. I just heard from Sethvir. The Worldsend Gate out of Dascen Elur was breached only this morning. If your s’Ilessid is on his way, he currently suffers the ninety and nine discomforts of the Red Desert. Assuming he survives, that leaves us five days to reach West Gate.’

Dakar moaned. ‘No liquor, no ladies, and a long nasty ride with a headache.’ He scrambled awkwardly to his feet, a short, plump man with a clever face and seed-down snagged like feathers in his stiff red beard.

Asandir appraised him with a stare that raised sweat on cheek and temple. ‘No s’Ilessid, and you’re pledged to five years’ sobriety.’

‘Next time remind me to swallow my tongue with my ale,’ murmured Dakar. But the phrase held no rancour. Behind heavy lids, his cinnamon eyes gleamed with excitement. At last the wait would end. Through West Gate would come a descendant of Athera’s royal houses, and with him wild, unknown talents. ‘“ These shall bring the Mistwraith’s bane, Free Athera’s sun again. ”’ Grapes would sweeten again under a cleared sky and the vintner’s vats would no longer turn spoiled and sour…Dakar chuckled and hastened toward the dripping eaves of the tavern stables.

Agelessly sure, Asandir fell into step beside him. The austere fall of his cloak and bordered tunic offered sharp contrast to the stained russet which swathed Dakar’s rotund bulk.

‘Prudence, my prophet,’ the sorcerer rebuked. ‘The results of prophecies often resolve through strangely twisted circumstance.’ But if Asandir was yet aware that the promised talents were split between princes who were enemies with blood debts of seven generations, he said nothing.

At Amroth Castle, a king celebrates the exile of his most bitterly hated enemy, but fails to notice the absence of his own heir until too late…

In a dusty hollow between dunes of rust-coloured sand, twisted trees shade the ivy-choked basin of a fountain from the heat of a scarlet sun…

A world away from fountain and wasteland, an enchantress observes an image of a sorcerer and a prophet who ride in haste through fog, and droplets fly from the bracken crushed beneath galloping hooves…

Who drinks this water

Shall cease to age five hundred years

Yet suffer lengthened youth with tears

Through grief, death’s daughter.

inscription, Five Century Fountain

Davien, Third Age 3140

The crown prince of Amroth awoke to a nightmare of buffeting surf. Muddled, disoriented and unaccountably dizzy, he discovered that he lay face-down on the floorboards of an open boat. The fact distressed him: he retained no memory of boarding such a craft. Through an interval of preoccupied thought, he failed to uncover a reason for an ocean voyage of any kind.

Lysaer licked his lips, tasted the bitter tang of salt. He felt wretched. His muscles ached and shivered and his memories seemed wrapped in fog. The bilge which sloshed beneath his shoulder stank of fish; constellations tilted crazily overhead as the boat careened shoreward on the fist of a wave.

The prince shut his teeth against nausea. Frustrated by the realization that something had gone amiss, he tried to push himself upright. A look over the thwart might at least identify his location. But movement of any kind proved surprisingly difficult; after two attempts, he managed to catch hold of the gunwale. The boat lurched under him. A stranger’s muscled arm bashed his fingers from the wood, and he tumbled backward into darkness…

The prince roused again as the boat grounded. Gravel grated against planking and voices called in the night. The craft slewed, caught by the drag of a breaker. Lysaer banged his head on the sharp edge of a rib. Shouts punched through the roar of the waves. Wet hands caught the boat, dragged her through the shallows and over firm sand to the tidemark. The bearded features of a fisherman eclipsed the stars. Then, callously impatient, two hands reached down and clamped the royal wrists in a grip that bruised. Limp as a netted fish, Lysaer felt himself hauled upright.

‘D’ye think the Rauven mage would care if we kept the jewels on ‘im?’ said a coarse male voice.

The prince made a sound in protest. His head whirled unpleasantly and his stomach cramped, obscuring an unseen accomplice’s reply. The grip on him shifted, then tightened, crushing the breath from his lungs. Lysaer blacked out once more as his captors dragged him from the boat.

His next lucid impression was an inverted view of cliffs silhouetted against the sea. Breakers and sky gleamed leaden with dawn. Slung like a sack across a back clad in oilskins, Lysaer shut his eyes. He tried desperately to think. Facts slipped his grasp like spilled beads, and his train of thought drifted; yet one fragment of memory emerged and yielded a reason for his confusion. Whatever drug his abductors had used to subdue him had not entirely worn off. Although the effects were not crippling, the prince felt inept as a newborn.

His captor slipped. A bony shoulder jarred Lysaer’s stomach. Consciousness wavered like water-drowned light. Shale rattled down a weedy slope as the man recovered his footing. Then his accomplice gripped the prince, and the sky spun right side up with a sickening wrench. Hefted like baled cargo, Lysaer felt himself bundled into a cloak of rancid, oiled wool. He twisted, managed to keep his face uncovered. But clear sight afforded no advantage. High overhead rose the chipped arch of an ancient stone portal; between the span swirled a silvery film, opaque as hot oil spilled on glass. The proximity of unnatural forces raised gooseflesh on Lysaer’s skin. Shocked to fear and dread, the prince recognized the Worldsend Gate.

He struggled violently. Too late he grasped the need to escape. His enemies raised him with merciless force, cast him headlong into mother-of-pearl whose touch was ice and agony. Lysaer screamed. Then the shock of the Gate’s forces ripped his mind to fragments. He plunged into fathomless dark.

The crown prince of Amroth roused to the sting of unbearable heat. Bitter dust dried the tissues of his nostrils at each breath and strange fingers searched his person, quick and furtive as rats’ feet. Lysaer stirred. The invading hands paused, then retreated as the prince opened his eyes.

Light stabbed his pupils. He blinked, squinted and through a spike of cruel reflection, made out the blade of his own dagger. Above, the eyes of Arithon s’Ffalenn appraised him from a face outlined in glare.

‘We’re better matched this time, brother.’ The bastard’s voice was rough, as though with disuse. Face, hands and the shoulder underneath his torn shirt showed flesh frayed with scabs and congested still with the purpled marks of abuse.

Sharply aroused from his lethargy, Lysaer scrambled upright. ‘What are you waiting for? Or did you hope to see me beg before you cut my throat?’

The blade remained still in Arithon’s hand. ‘Would you have me draw a brother’s blood? That’s unlucky.’

The words themselves were a mockery. A wasteland of dunes extended to an empty horizon. Devoid of landmark or dwelling, red, flinty sands buckled under shimmering curtains of heat. No living scrub or cactus relieved the unrelenting fall of white sunlight. The Gate’s legacy looked bleak enough to kill. Stabbed by grief that his royal father’s passion for vengeance had eclipsed any care for his firstborn, Lysaer clung wretchedly to dignity. Shaken to think that Amroth, his betrothed, every friend, and all of the royal honour that bound his pride and ambition might be forever reft from him, he drew breath in icy denial. ‘Brother? I don’t spring from pirate stock.’