Janny Wurts - Curse of the Mistwraith

Asandir dried dripping hands and killed the complaint with mention that a merchant caravan fared ahead.

‘Which way is it bound?’ Dakar bounded upright to a gurgle and splash of jounced flasks.

‘Toward Camris, as we are,’ Asandir said. ‘We shall overtake them.’

The Mad Prophet cheerfully forgot to curse his dampened clothing. But although he badgered through the afternoon and half of the night, the sorcerer refused to elaborate.

On the fourth day the roadway swung due east and entered the forest of Westwood. Here the trees rose ancient with years, once majestic as patriarchs, but bearded and bent now under mantling snags of pallid moss. Their crowns were smothered in mist and their boles grown gnarled with vine until five men with joined hands could not have spanned their circumference. Daylight was reduced to a thick, murky twilight alive with the whispered drip of water. Oppressed by a sense of decay on the land, and the unremitting grey of misty weather, no one inclined toward talk. Even Dakar’s chatter subsided to silence.

‘This wood was a merry place once, when sunlight still shone,’ Asandir mused, as if his mage’s perception showed him something that touched off maudlin thoughts.

They passed standing stones with carvings worn until only beaded whorls of lichens held their patterns. Aware that Arithon studied these with intent curiosity, Asandir volunteered an explanation. ‘In times past, creatures who were not human tended these forests. Attuned to the deepest pulses that bind land and soil to Ath’s harmony, they left stones such as these to show what ground and which trees could be taken for man’s use, and which must stay whole to renew the mysteries. Once, the protection of sacred ground was the province of the high king’s justice. Pastures and fields were cut only where the earth could gracefully support them. But now such knowledge is scarce. The name for the guardians who dwelled here meant giants in the old tongue.’ But the huge, gentle beings Asandir described were more clearly a breed of centaurs.

When Lysaer inquired what had become of them, the sorcerer shook his head sorrowfully. ‘The last of the Ilitharis Paravians passed from the land when Desh-thiere swallowed sunlight. Not even Sethvir at Althain Tower knows where they have gone. Athera is the poorer for their loss. The last hope of redeeming their fate lies in the Mistwraith’s defeat.’

Dakar glanced aside and caught Lysaer’s attention with a wink. ‘Small wonder the old races left these parts. No taverns, no beer and wet trees make lousy company.’

Fed up with rain and nights of smoking fires and bedding down on dampened ground, the former prince could almost sympathize. He joined Dakar in questioning the existence of Asandir’s caravan, and was almost caught off-guard when they overtook the fugitive by the wayside.

The man wore brilliant scarlet, which spoiled his attempt to escape notice by the approaching riders. The hem of his garment was sewn with tassels. One of these caught on a briar and flagged the attention of Asandir, who reined up short in the roadway and called immediate reassurance. ‘We’re fellow travellers, not bandits. Why not share our fire if you’re alone?’

‘On that, I had no choice,’ came the chagrined reply. The man spoke rapidly in dialect, his accents less burred than the prevailing variety in West End. Rangy, tall and carrying what looked like a grossly misshapen pack, he stepped out from behind the moss-shagged bole of an oak. ‘A supposedly honest caravan master already relieved me of my mount, so luck has forsaken me anyway.’ He approached at a pained gait that revealed that his boots were causing blisters, and the hand left white-knuckled on his sword hilt betrayed distrust behind his amiable manner.

‘You may also share the road if you can keep up,’ Asandir offered back.

Dakar assessed the oddly bulky pack for the possible presence of spirits, and was first to announce the stranger’s trade. ‘You’re a minstrel!’ he burst out in surprise. ‘By the Wheel man, why are you starving in the wilderness when you could be singing comfortably in a tavern?’

The man did not reply. Close enough now to make out details and faces, he was engrossed by Asandir. ‘I know you,’ he murmured, half awed. He pushed back his hood and a shock of wavy hair spilled over his collar. The revealed face showed a mapwork of laughlines and a stubble of half-grown beard. The eyes were hazel and merry despite the swollen purple weals that marred him, forehead and cheek.

Asandir’s sharpness cut the forest silence like a whiplash. ‘Ath in his mercy, we are come on ill times. Who in this land has dared to abuse a free singer?’

The minstrel touched his battered skin, embarrassed. ‘I sang the wrong ballad. After being stoned from an inn on the coast I should have learned better. Tales of old kingdoms are not appreciated where mayors rule.’ He sighed in stoic dismissal. ‘This last one cost me my horse and left me stranded into the bargain.’

Asandir cast a glance toward Arithon: if argument existed in favour of shouldering responsibility for restoring this world to sun and harmony, here walked misfortune that a fellow musician must understand. Before the sorcerer could emphasize his point, the minstrel raised his trained voice in a mix of diffidence and amazement.

‘ Fiend-quencher, matched by none; white-headed, grey-eyed one. Change-bringer, storm-breaker; Asandir, King-maker. ’

‘You,’ the minstrel added, and his theatrical gesture encompassed Dakar. ‘You must be the Mad Prophet.’

Aware of a sudden guardedness behind Arithon’s stillness, Asandir responded carefully. ‘I won’t deny your powers of observation, Felirin the Scarlet. But I would urge that you use more caution before speaking your thoughts aloud. There were innocents burned in Karfael last harvest upon suspicion they had harboured a sorcerer.’

‘So I heard.’ The bard shrugged. ‘But I learned my repertory from barbarians and something of their wildness stayed with me.’ He looked up, his swollen face bright with interest. There must be good reason for a Fellowship sorcerer to take to the open roads.’ And his gaze shifted to the half-brothers who travelled in Asandir’s company.

Dakar opened his mouth, quickly silenced by a look from the sorcerer, who interjected, ‘This is no time to be starting rumours in the taverns. And should I be aware of another way into Camris beyond the road through Tornir Peaks?’

Felirin understood a warning when he heard one. He shifted his bundle, prepared to fall into step as the sorcerer’s black started forward; but Arithon abruptly dismounted and offered the reins of the dun.

‘You have blisters,’ he observed, ‘and I have sores from the saddle that an afternoon on foot might improve.’

The excuse was a lie. Dakar knew. He watched the Master’s face and saw the buried edge of something determined; but the shadowed green eyes held their secrets.

The caravan that had stranded Felirin the bard stayed elusively ahead through the coming days of travel. Dakar diverted his frustration each evening by badgering incessantly for drinking songs. As a result, the campfires through the eastern quarter of Westwood became rowdy as a dockside tavern, and many a nocturnal predator went hungry due to the din. When Dakar became too hoarse to frame an intelligent request, the bard would delve into his store of ancient ballads that told of times before the Mistwraith. When pressed, he admitted he did not believe in the sun as the woodland barbarians did; but lore and legend fascinated him and he collected old tales as a curiosity. None could deny that the melodies set to such fancy were lyrically complex, a dance on fret and string that a musician could devote a lifetime of skill to perform.