Janny Wurts - The Curse of the Mistwraith

The Shadow Master said, ‘Spare the title, lady. I might never acknowledge any claim to the city you speak of.’

Maenalle stood braced against a vicious blast of wind. ‘Would you risk the perception that inspires your talent by hardening your heart against need?’

And Arithon suddenly laughed, his anger absolved by admiration for her unflinching toughness. He bent in his saddle, raised Maenalle’s hand and kissed her sincerely in farewell. ‘Were you caithdein of Rathain I might find myself sorely oppressed. Dare I suppose that Etarra’s governors would also find their ways compromised?’

Strikingly free of vindictiveness, Maenalle said, ‘If you want my earnest opinion, there can be no remedy for Etarra, except to raze it clean to the ground.’

Piquant as her remark was, the chance was lost to pursue it as Dakar emerged from his cabin, stumbling in the grip of two scouts. They had needed to shepherd him into his clothes, for his voice arose in complaint that his breeches were laced inside out, and both his boots on wrong feet. His keepers only smiled at his protests and hoisted him toward his waiting horse. Maenalle disengaged her hand from Arithon’s grasp and took hurried leave of her sovereign. If Lysaer’s response was cool with propriety, the reason became lost in the rush. The instant the Mad Prophet’s bulk was stowed astride, Asandir wheeled his stallion and urged his party to the road.

‘Ath’s mercy,’ Dakar cried in vociferous injury. ‘What disaster brings this uncivilized change of plans? I thought I could nurse last night’s hangover under dry blankets for a change.’

Asandir answered between the snow-muffled thunder of hooves. The words ‘Mirthlvain’ and ‘meth-snakes’ carried forth with incisive clarity and Dakar’s recalcitrance withered.

Lysaer observed this. Despite an ambivalence resharpened by last night’s ballads, he spurred abreast of the dun mare. If the unaccustomed rub of Maenalle’s lyranthe left the creature wayward and edgy, the Master was seasoned to her tricks. Aware his half-brother would respond though his hands were full, the prince called over her rebellious snorts. ‘The page who wakened me said our sorcerer had received emergency summons from Althain. What horror in this land do you suppose might be worse than Khadrim?’

The Master grinned back in speculation. ‘We do seem in a hurry to find out.’ He did not add that Maenalle’s scouts had shown him maps: Althain Tower lay ninety leagues distant, a six-day journey over roads sparsely stationed with posts for adequate remounts. Yet Asandir spurred toward the foothills at a pace not intended to spare horseflesh.

After scrambling descent of a rock-strewn slope, the riders clattered onto a level stretch flanked by wind-stunted cedars. The footing softened to frost-crusted mud, safe for a prudent trot. Asandir shook his black to a canter, and conversation dwindled before the need to duck clods spattered up by its hooves.

The peaks lost altitude as the sorcerer’s party progressed. Under muted daylight, the heavy snows of the passes thinned to slush sluiced by ribbons of run-off. Lowland damp blunted the cold to a miserable ache and the horses streamed lathered sweat. The dun abandoned her antics, her wind and energy consumed entirely by running, and still Asandir pressed on, the stride of his rangy black unflagging through league after passing league.

‘By the Wheel,’ Lysaer called in distress. ‘Is he going to run our horses till they founder?’

Dakar roused from his misery, surprised. ‘Asandir? Never.’ Morosely, he added ‘one could wish the sorcerer spared some pity for the aching head of his apprentice.’

‘Magecraft,’ Arithon explained as Lysaer questioned such unnatural display of endurance. ‘Touch your horse and you’ll feel the energy.’

Lysaer stroked his chestnut’s steaming neck, and snatched back from the tingling warmth that surged in a wave from his fingertips. Nettled to be alone in his ignorance, he glanced across whipping strands of mane. ‘Could you make such a spell?’

Arithon regarded his brother with eyes unnervingly thoughtful. ‘Not for so long, and not without harm. A balance must be maintained. If the horses don’t suffer, the sorcerer must stand as their proxy.’

Curiosity overshadowed Lysaer’s distrust. ‘Then Asandir depletes himself to replenish the strength of our mounts?’

‘In effect, yes.’ As if reluctant to elaborate, Arithon faced forward into the wind as they thundered on into the lowlands.

Morning wore on toward noon.

The countryside steadily flattened and the road improved to a span of stone paving scored white by the passage of cartwheels. Asandir pressed the horses to gallop through gentle hills and vine-tangled orchards, stopping only once at a wayside tavern to buy raisins, sausage, bread and spirits for refreshment. While his companions ate and swallowed dry whisky, horseboys towelled lather from the horses and checked their hooves for loose shoes. Within minutes the company were back in their saddles, still cold, still sore, but none more haggard than the sorcerer, who seemed a figure pinched out of clay as they clattered back onto the thoroughfare.

‘How much longer can he keep this up?’ Lysaer asked as his horse picked up a brisk trot. The pause at the tavern had not refreshed him. His muscles had stiffened, wet breeches had chafed his knees raw and he owned no mage-trained detachment to set such discomforts out of mind.

Dakar glanced wistfully over the gates of a farmstead; smoke from the chimney carried an aroma of roast ham. Lighted cottage windows glimmered through bare trees and birch copses, their cheery shelter as useless as mirage to travellers harried by rain and mounts hard-driven over slate grey and glistening with puddles. When Lysaer repeated his query the Mad Prophet shrugged like a sodden crow. ‘Who can fathom the limits of a Fellowship sorcerer? I’ve studied for centuries and I daren’t.’

Lysaer was too spent to question whether magecraft or lying obstinacy gave rise to the Mad Prophet’s claim to unnatural longevity.

Cantering again, they crossed a blacksmith’s yard. Blocked by a packed herd of sheep across the roadway, Asandir wheeled his black into the weed-choked ditch by the wayside. His party followed, raked by branches, while the ewes beaded up in alarm against the far bank and the abused shepherd’s shouted invective faded behind.

The rain fell harder and farmsteads thinned away into wilderness before the sorcerer at last drew rein. Engrossed in miserable discomfort, Lysaer jounced against the chestnut’s crest as it clattered to a halt underneath him.

‘We leave the road here,’ Asandir called while Dakar and Arithon pulled up. ‘Dismount and stay close. Every minute counts.’

Saddle-galled and sore, Lysaer managed not to stagger as his numbed feet struck ground. He swiped back wet hair and surveyed a site that seemed unremittingly desolate. ‘Here?’

Asandir turned the black’s bridle and shouldered without reply into holly and briars that hooked and snagged threads from his cloak. A stone’s throw back from the verge the brush subsided. Trees eaten hollow by age choked the light and faint depressions and upthrust stone kerbs revealed the ruin of an older road. Asandir pointed out a canted megalith traced over with weather-worn carving. ‘That stone marks the third lane, one of twelve channels of earthforce we will tap for swift travel to Althain. The soil itself sings with power, here.’ As if the land’s living pulse could also be drawn to sustain him, the sorcerer quickened pace.

Forced to keep up, Lysaer and the others stumbled over lichen-capped stones and splashed through bogs, their road-weary mounts trailing droop-tailed and tired over hummocks browsed short by deer. The failing day dimmed the mist in louring veils, broken ahead by a wall that once had been dressed white marble. The eroded pillars of an arch yet stood where the way had originally passed through. Beyond, patched with bracken and a criss-crossed stitchery of game trails, the land sloped into a bowl-shaped hollow too symmetrical to be natural, and ringed by oaks scabbed over with ancient blotches of lichen.