Janny Wurts - The Curse of the Mistwraith

Morriel twitched a finger at Lirenda, her nail a yellowed claw against thin-skinned china fairness. ‘Ethics do not matter?’

The First to the Prime elaborated upon the matriarch’s arid statement. ‘Dakar sober would hardly reveal his master’s purposes. Drunken, he is incapable of separating fact from fancy. Not in collective memory has our order stooped to scouring brothels and taprooms for knowledge of events. To your shame, you’re the first initiate who has tried.’

The Prime rapped her knuckles against the ebony arm of her chair. Lirenda stepped to a side table and fetched a steel-bound coffer secured by a mesh of interlaced wardspells that shed a resonance to wring dread from even the least talented perception. The page-boys behind Morriel’s chair shifted in wide-eyed discomfort as the First Enchantress laid the box on the silk-covered lap of the Prime.

The Koriani matriarch released the wards one at a time. As protective enchantments gave way with snaps like over-wound harp-strings, Elaira fixed desperately on the young pages. Though their sex disbarred them from training, the children had spent their early lives surrounded by arcane mysteries. Whatever they had witnessed concerning that coffer’s contents made them quake to the soles of their feet.

Lirenda accepted the unsealed box from the Prime and raised the lid. Inside, the focus jewel of Skyron glittered cold blue as an ice shard. Although this crystal could not channel anywhere near the same degree of power as the amethyst Great Waystone lost since the rebellion, any enquiry directed through its matrix would be impossible for Elaira to defy.

Only the thinnest tissue of secondary circumstance masked her forbidden interview with Asandir. One straight fact, one opening to invite a direct question concerning her doings in the earlier evening, and her paper-thin weaving of subterfuge at the Ravens would collapse.

‘Begin,’ Morriel commanded, her eyes fixed darkly on her Inquisitor.

‘Look into the crystal, Elaira,’ Lirenda instructed. ‘Surrender your will absolutely.’

The accused must show immediate compliance, or else condemn herself outright by refusing a direct command. Consumed with anxiety, aware that if she were judged guilty, the self-awareness that defined her individuality would forever become forfeit, Elaira bent her mind into the crystal’s twilight depths. She locked her teeth against protest and lowered her inner barriers.

Arcane restraints blazed over her mind like the slamming jaws of a trap. Her senses swam through a moment of vertigo; then the gloomy expanse of the hall was seared away by an indigo force that smothered her will to quiescence. Elaira drifted. Dissociated from her surroundings, she did not hear Lirenda’s voice asking questions, nor did she frame verbal replies. Instead, like some tired, played-over script, past scenes were pried out of her memory and picked through in embarrassing detail.

She saw the face of Arithon s’Ffalenn, framed by a cloak hood wrung in the grip of white knuckles; again and again until she ached, she braved the smoky taproom of the Ravens and waited while Dakar spoke a name. Time froze, looped back, paused again while the moment was analysed, her tiniest reflections jabbed out and examined. Somewhere in a locked off corner of her mind she was screaming in frustration and fear; but the inquest continued inexorably.

The past became present. Again she wrought spells to stem the mob of headhunters, and again she made her stand amid the cluttered shelves of the Ravens’ pantry. Since the enchantress on lane watch had discovered her in the hayloft, her business at Enithen Tuer’s and her interview with Asandir were mercifully left overlooked; but the particulars of her encounter with Arithon were exhaustively tracked and studied, until the brief moment he had touched her hand, and the brush of his fingers removing straw from her hair sawed at her nerves like pain.

Every word he had spoken, every line she had replied was replayed, dissected to underlying nuance and then cross-checked against her later reflections in the course of her return journey south.

By the time her tormentors released her will from the shadowed blue confines of the focus jewel, Elaira was no longer merely tired, but physically hurting from exhaustion. Emotionally ragged, all but reduced to tears, she recovered self-awareness in fragments. Hearing returned first and gave her Lirenda’s voice emphatically expounding a point.

‘…for this I remain unconvinced. She’s possibly hiding something. I strongly advise a deeper probe.’

The Prime’s reedy voice interjected, while Elaira struggled to overcome draining dizziness. Aware of a hard chair beneath her, of ice-cold feet cased in tight-laced, sodden boots, she dragged a breath against the sensation of weight that bound her chest. Even through confusion, she realized she had not betrayed Asandir’s trust because her inquisitors had combed only those events where her overriding concern for Arithon s’Ffalenn had eclipsed any thought of her interview. Left in dread of a possible second inquest, Elaira knew that chance could not possibly spare her twice.

Lacerated in nerve and mind, she was driven at last to rebellion. ‘What earthly purpose can another interrogation prove?’ Her eyesight came and went, rent by patches of darkness. ‘I’m aching with weariness, and so stiff it’s a trial just to sit here. If I’m disgraced, name my punishment and be done, for nothing else prompted my doings in Erdane beyond an ill-advised quest after knowledge.’

‘Tell her to be silent!’ Morriel’s immutable eyes fixed on the space above Elaira’s head. ‘The initiate has no cause for impertinence. Plainly she has inclinations toward a personal entanglement with the Teir’s’Ffalenn, but she is so emotionally disorganized she seems unaware of her lapse. Let me remind that as Koriani she is pledged to avoid involvement with any man, no matter how exalted his bloodline.’

Elaira bowed her head. A sorcerer of the Fellowship had entrusted her to be wise: trapped by his steel-clad expectation, she stifled an impetuous retort and overlaid defiance with submission.

The hush in the chamber grew prolonged.

Lirenda seemed faintly disappointed. After an interval, Morriel said, ‘I withhold judgement. Inform the accused.’

The First Enchantress removed her veils, her manner stiff with thwarted vindication. ‘You are warned, Elaira. Dissociate yourself from the Prince of Rathain. Cleanse your thoughts of his memory and dedicate your heart to obedience. You are charged to be mindful. Your actions henceforward shall be weighed until the Prime sees fit to issue verdict.’

Morriel inclined her head.

Frostily, Lirenda interpreted. ‘You are declared on probation and hereby excused from this audience.’

Elaira pushed upright and curtseyed before the dais. Measured by the carrion-bird scrutiny of the Prime, watched enviously by the duty-bound page-boys, she beat quick retreat from the hall. Relief left her weak in the knees. Lirenda might cling to suspicions, but Morriel seemed satisfied that a card game had prompted her sojourn into Erdane; there would be no more inquiries, no deeper truth-search by crystal, not unless she incited further cause.

Adroit enough to dodge her communal quarters and the questioning curiosity of her peers, Elaira slipped out to the stables to check on her travel-weary mare. Surrounded by horses, the near-to mystical quiet of their presence scented by straw and oiled leather, she groomed the bay’s damp-matted coat with unseeing, mechanical efficiency. In the yard outside, a boy-ward whistled as he split kindling for the kitchens; but the ordinary peace of the moment failed to settle her composure.

By now recovered enough to think, Elaira reviewed the ramifications of Morriel’s suspended verdict. Her unease increased. In cold reflection, the accusation concerning Arithon no longer seemed silly and far-fetched. The restraints of probation felt unpleasant to the point of suffocation, and the shadowed stillness of the stables offered no refuge at all.