Traitor's Knot Part 47

Summer 5671.

Catalyst.

The incandescent shout that swept the grand chord lasted for only an instant. Its s.h.i.+mmering deluge of sound and light keyed a rainbow shower of harmonics, then faded. No mortal mind might encompa.s.s the infinite arc of its imprint. Yet every aware mote of existence responded. All spirit expressed in form and in flesh underwent a moment of black-out, ecstatic reaction.

As the pealing reverberations subsided, initiate talent was first to recover full cognizance. Ath's adepts understood how to access such mystery and spin the exalted stream down into the beauty of manifest dreams. Their circle of peace embraced the influx of dimensional harmony. They channelled the resonance through their sacred groves and captured its pure essence in s.h.i.+mmering form as tree and leaf; as mystery, that welled in the sacred springs; and as the silent movement of animals, knit from the living fabric of dark beyond sight.

From hedge talent to the offspring of old blood clan lineage, whether healer, or seer, or clairvoyant, the spontaneous uprush dazzled the subtle senses. The event shocked the heart to inexpressible joy, then pa.s.sed like a blanketing plunge from blinding suns.h.i.+ne into deep shade.

Highest in rank, the Koriani Seniors also sensed the burning harmonics, as the mighty crest struck a note of keening sorrow off the wardings that guarded their focus stones. While sisterhouse peeresses demanded an inquiry, distraught sisters scrambled to fill basins, or s.n.a.t.c.h veiling silk off their dormant crystals to enact an investigative scrying. Caution ruled as they sank into disciplined trance. This riddle's pursuit called for stringent protections, since the hapless lane-watchers, caught by surprise, had all crumpled into an unconscious faint.

An order whose wisdom extended beyond artifice, the Fellows.h.i.+p Sorcerers lived and worked past the bounds of the limited senses. The charge of the dragons forced their choice at the crux: to uphold the compact and guard the parameters essential to Paravian survival. The purge of the Kralovir achieved by Torbrand's descendant demanded a scouring cleanse for completion.

If the windfall gift came at punis.h.i.+ng cost, the benefit must not be spurned. Sethvir's earth-sense recorded the site of each fallen cultist, tucked in their hidden crypts and in secretive enclaves across the continent. His appeal summoned both of his discorporate colleagues and a.s.signed them the rigorous list. Before dawn, those husks of corrupt flesh must be burned. White mage-fire must destroy their scattered remains, down to the least sliver of bone. The ash must be immolated, leaving no trace for some power-blind fool whose ignorance might lead into dabbling.

Kharadmon answered, and streaked out of the cloistered courtyard in Darkling. Behind him, the actinic blast of raw power he unleashed sheared through the breezeless night. Corpse and candles flared up, consumed at one stroke. The slamming report of heat-shocked air showered dew from the flowerbeds, whose blossoms s.h.i.+vered, unsinged. Though concussion shot cracks through cap-stones and mortar, not so much as a single loose block tumbled from the mountain citadel's outer curtain wall.

Alarmed sentries shouted, regardless. The ram's horn sounded a blast from the gate keep. While the terrified garrison scurried to take arms, the night-watch guarding the central plaza barricaded the guildhall doors. Convinced that their town was beset by dark sorcery, dispatch runners raced through the streets to summon the town's panicked mayor.

In distant Jaelot, before the candles at the avatar's formal banquet stopped s.h.i.+vering, the plump priest touched his breast, overcome by a faint rush of dizziness. His auric field swirled, re-arranged by release as the dormant cult sigil burned off in the blaze of harmonic forces. Rocked through a moment of unsteady balance, the man suffered raced pulse and bursting sweat, then a s.h.i.+vering surge of clairvoyance. Sight unveiled an image of blood in a crypt, anhd five cowled figures struck down by a burst of uncanny conjury; further, he beheld Raiett Raven and three ofEtarra's ranked council-men killed in their chairs where they met in closed conference . . .

If Luhaine was able to damp down the reverberations of after-shock, and arrest the spurious vision's unfolding, he could not prevent the man's horrified shout. Nor could he avert the impact unleashed by the Prince of Rathain's surprise tactic. The Named affirmation of Arithon's being strung through the weft of the world's weave had struck off the inevitable spark from poised flint: the Mistwraith's geas of violence ignited and flared into ungovernable flame.

Lysaer's impa.s.sioned cry exhorting a vigorous retaliation against Shadow pealed across the shocked gap in the guests' conversation. 'I bring no good news, and tonight's bizarre portent affirms this! The Spinner of Darkness has survived Kewar's mazes! My priest corroborates my affirmation: the creature now works in league with other fell powers to fracture our sworn ties of alliance. Heed my word well! If you fear for your lives, your dread is too small. If you think that your gates and the garrison on your walls can defend, beware! Your striving is as the needle raised against the poised axe. I speak this truth, not to dishearten, nor to raise terror or despair, but to guard your back-gate! An ally I held in my highest esteem has been suborned into vile betrayal! For your well-being, for your children's safety, stand with me as I raise my standard to march in redress on the enemy who has turned coat against you . . .'

Galled by the rising tumult, Luhaine held his ground long enough to ascertain the fat priest's aura had burned clean. Naught else could be tried, short of cold-blooded murder. The back-lash damage was already done. The smashed cabal at Etarra, and Darkling's vanished priest, would now inflame the muster already in progress. No salvage might defang the wrathful campaign or disarm the force now h.e.l.l-bound to descend on the citadel at Alestron.

In accord with Sethvir, and in keeping with the tenets of free will posed by the Major Balance, Luhaine whirled out of Jaelot. Time demanded. He must join forces with his discorporate colleague to uphold the honour of Arithon's accomplishment and eradicate the emptied cadavers left at large by the demise of the Kralovir.

Luhaine arrived on site at Etarra a split-second behind Kharadmon. There, the Light's armed encampment already seethed. Frantic men and shouting officers raced to douse the outbreak of fires set to cleanse the cult's corrupted offshoots. Grooms scrambled to calm panicked horses and uproot the picket lines, while scared foot-troops hauled slos.h.i.+ng buckets out of the cistern. Three officer's tents were already ablaze. Their crackling ferocity still sang of the arcane permission that had kindled the wild element. Another blaze smouldered in the palace precinct. Since his colleague's expedient entry had already shorn through the warded stonewall, Luhaine followed suit and nipped through the tumbled gap still showering fragments and dust over the gate keep's breached southern battlement.

'You've never liked stays on your freedom, I realize, but that mannerless a.s.sault will scarcely win you the next generation's endearments,' Luhaine accosted. Cold as arctic wind, he threaded through the hysterical servants who rushed towards Raiett Raven's torched audience chamber. The tainted remains of the four men inside were already reduced beyond reach of a meddler's recovery. Though Kharadmon always moved with the speed of a jackal where risk of cult practice ran rampant, tonight's unrestrained touch broke all precedent.

'You'd stall for Davien?' his shade fired back, already arrowed on direct course for the crypt hidden under the cellar. 'Is there a live chick in the hen-house besides? One dead, or twenty, the fox still gets chased.'

For tonight's upset ran the gamut: all of Etarra's Alliance authority was either struck dead, or already reduced to discredited shame at the outset. No roughshod act of additional sabotage could hammer the hornet's nest any harder.

'And anyway,' Kharadmon cracked, before Luhaine huffed in to bore him with a trying lecture, 'if a rank upset here could slow down the Alliance a.s.sault on Alestron, I'd wave as many red flags as it took. Turn the bull's charge, we could let savage weather defang any maniac's march through the Skys.h.i.+els.'

Luhaine acceded that grudging point. He kept pace with his colleague's scorching rush, whistling through a locked succession of doors and swooping through the gyre of dust raised in breezed pa.s.sage down the wine-cellar's turnpike stairwell.

No dissembling cover was possible, now. The Kralovir's inroads left too many dead. Each d.a.m.ning account of Etarra's plight would be sent on to Lysaer s'Ilessid. As governor elect, he was lawful authority. His cursed hand would be free to reap chaos. The order forged from the outbreak of mayhem would align hearsay and evidence to further Desh-thiere's design.

'It's the sad case of the pest who harries the pessimist,' Kharadmon stated, morose. 'The prank works too well, and the back-fire flattens the starry-eyed spectators caught in between.'

For the crypt, blasted open, proved empty of life. The stone slab was bare, the burst ropes singed away. Both the Kralovir corpses and the wrenching remains of nine children slaughtered in sacrifice had been scoured from the face of Athera by mage-fire. Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn was gone without trace, since Davien the Betrayer had already acted.

Far under the roots of the Mathorns, beneath the labyrinthine caverns of Kewar, a spark of light sprang into existence inside a parabolic dome of smoothed stone. The mote fell, drifting in air-borne descent through the sealed chamber beneath. The vault existed without entry or exit. Its s.p.a.ce was a sealed well of silence. But not empty: the glimmer of illumination rinsed the spare face, the silver-and-cinnamon spill of loose hair, then the gold-st.i.tched patterns on the elegant clothes of the Sorcerer whose exhaustive labour had fas.h.i.+oned the uncanny creation.

Davien stood with hands braced on the rim of the reflecting pool that centered the floor underneath. Across his lean fingers and trefoil seal ring, the virgin, black waters welled from the earth's deeps and sheeted over the intricately carved pattern inscribed in the living granite. Opalescent light sprang like flame from the electromagnetic release as the flowing current crossed the mapwork array of linked ciphers.

'Where will you go, Teir's'Ffalenn?' he inquired.

The falling spark s.h.i.+mmered, a stinging imperative.

The Sorcerer sighed. 'Could the outcome be different? You knew, once your signature presence responded. The release through the land must unleash Desh-thiere's curse. The muster you feared is already in motion. For better or worse, there's a future. Your half-brother won't risk a repeat of the last campaign's tactical blunders. He will smash a fixed target and wring victory from ashes. Alestron and East Halla will salve the pride torn by his former defeat in Daon Ramon.'

'No horrors will walk,' the light mote cracked, bitter. 'What choice could have been? You set the stage, knowing: I would author a course that offers clean death, before suffering the spread of a Kralovir abomination.'

Davien bowed his head. His sleeve rustled as he raised a wet hand. The captive star drifted and settled into his s.h.i.+ning, soaked palm. As though contact bit, the Sorcerer's mouth tightened. 'Your triumph is written. Whether or not you could have saved bloodshed, those fallen now shall receive their clear pa.s.sage. Daelion's Wheel claims all earthly life. Ath's law brooks no exceptions, Teir's'Ffalenn, no matter how savaged your heart.'

'Tell the s'Brydion widows, if any survive! You say I have choice?' The held spark bristled challenge. 'Then dispatch me to Alland. I have obligations to allies who swore me a commitment that has been wrecked beyond salvage.'

The Sorcerer raised his peaked eyebrows. 'Healing first, my wild falcon. Fly south, as you wish. Chase your errand in Selkwood, though I warn, you won't find what you seek there.'

Davien tipped his cupped hand. The adamant spark of a crown prince's being winnowed free and descended. Falling, it met the black well of the rock-pool and winked out of ephemeral existence.

A rainbow s.h.i.+mmer burst forth, streaming a flare of incandescence more brilliant than midwinter's boreal light. The spring's surface gave birth to an image, exact as a mirrored reflection: of Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn, sprawled naked in starlight on wind-swept black sand, inside the grand focus ring at Sanpas.h.i.+r.

Summer 5671.

After-shocks.

Sunrise at Jaelot sees the flying departure of six trade galleys, oars driving up spray to speed the Light's redoubled muster of the Alliance towns to raise arms for war against Shadow at Alestron; and while the discovery of unexplained deaths and portentous fires sparks unease across the rest of the continent, Lysaer s'Ilessid boards s.h.i.+p for Varens, to raise his standard upon the East Halla peninsula . . .

Dakar the Mad Prophet awakens from Davien's enspelled sleep to find Etarra driven to rage over the uncanny fires that have murdered three captains at arms, High Chancellor Raiett Raven, and his highest-ranking town ministers; since no more clan children survive to be saved, and the aged bard has suspiciously vanished, he contacts Sethvir, then hires a post-horse to scorch the road to bear warning back to the clans in Melhalla . . .

Shown the captured lane imprint of a crown prince's sweeping defeat of the Kralovir, Selidie Prime closets herself for a prescient augury, then rejects the Forthmark peeress's pleading request, that initiate Elaira should be recalled: 'No change in her orders. She may resume her lapsed practice of healing only after she meets the terms of her current a.s.signment . . .'

Glossary.

A'BREND'AIA.

the polite word for making love 'the lyrical dance.'

p.r.o.nounced: a-bren-day-ee-yah root meaning: a'brend'aia - the dynamic balance of yin and yang ADRUIN.

coastal city located in East Halla, Melhalla. Enemy of Alestron, usually over the issue of blockades at the harbor mouth leading to the Cildein Ocean.

p.r.o.nounced: add-ruin root meaning: al - over; duinn - hand AIYENNE.

river located in Daon Ramon, Rathain, rising from an underground spring in the Mathorn Mountains, and coming above ground south of the Mathorn Road.

p.r.o.nounced: eye-an root meaning: ai'an - hidden one ALESTRON.

city located in Midhalla, Melhalla. Ruled by Duke Bransian, Teir's'Brydion, and his three brothers. This city did not fall to merchant townsmen in the Third Age uprising that threw down the high kings, but is still ruled by its clanblood heirs.

p.r.o.nounced: ah-less-tron root meaning: alesstair - stubborn; an - one ALITHIEL.

one of twelve Blades of Isaer, forged by centaur Ffereton s'Darian from metal taken from a meteorite. Pa.s.sed through Paravian possession, acquired the secondary name Dael-Farenn, or Kingmaker, since its owners tended to succeed the end of a royal line. Eventually was awarded to Kamridian s'Ffalenn for his valor in defense of the princess Taliennse, early Third Age. Currently in the possession of Arithon.

p.r.o.nounced: ah-lith-ee-el root meaning: alith - star; iel - light,'ray ALLAND.

princ.i.p.ality located in south-eastern Shand. Ruled by the Lord Erlien s'Taleyn, High Earl, and appointed caithdein of Shand.

p.r.o.nounced: all-and root meaning: a'lind - pine glen ALTHAIN TOWER.

spire built at the edge of the Bittern Desert, beginning of the Second Age, to house records of Paravian histories. Third Age, became repository for the archives of all five royal houses of men after rebellion, overseen by the Fellows.h.i.+p Sorcerer, Sethvir, named Warden of Althain since Third Age Year 5100.

p.r.o.nounced: all-thay-in root meaning: alt - last; thein - tower, sanctuary original Paravian p.r.o.nunciation: alt-thein ANGLEFEN.

marsh located in Des.h.i.+r, Rathain. Also a port town that links the sea-routes to Etarra.

p.r.o.nounced: angle fen root meaning not from the Paravian ANIENT.

Paravian invocation for unity.

p.r.o.nounced: an-ee-ent root meaning: an - one; ient - suffix for 'most'

ARAETHURA.

gra.s.s plains in south-west Rathain; princ.i.p.ality of the same name in that location. Largely inhabited by Riathan Paravians in the Second Age. Third Age, used as pasture land by widely scattered nomadic shepherds. Fionn Areth's birthplace.

p.r.o.nounced: ar-eye-thoo-rah root meaning: araeth - gra.s.s; era - place, land ARITHON.

son of Avar, Prince of Rathain, 1,504th Teir's'Ffalenn after founder of the line, Torbrand in Third Age Year One. Also Master of Shadow, the Bane of Desh-thiere, and Halliron m.a.s.t.e.r.b.a.t.*rd's successor.

p.r.o.nounced: ar-i-thon root meaning: arithon - fate-forger; one who is visionary ARWENT.

river in Araethura, Rathain, that flows from Daenfal Lake through Halwythwood to empty in Instrell Bay.

p.r.o.nounced: are-went root meaning: arwient - swiftest ASANDIR.

Fellows.h.i.+p Sorcerer. Secondary name, Kingmaker, since his hand crowned every High King of Men to rule in the Age of Men (Third Age). After the Mistwraith's conquest, he acted as field agent for the Fellows.h.i.+p's doings across the continent. Also called Fiend-quencher, for his reputation for quelling iyats; Storm-breaker and Change-bringer for his past actions when Men first arrived upon Athera.

p.r.o.nounced: ah-san-deer root meaning: asan - heart; Air - stone 'heartrock'

ATAINIA.

north-eastern princ.i.p.ality of Tysan.

p.r.o.nounced: ah-tay-nee-ah root meaning: itain - the third; ia - suffix for 'third domain' original Paravian, itainia ATCHAZ.

town located in Alland, Shand. Famed for its silk.

p.r.o.nounced: at-chaz root meaning: atchias - silk ATH CREATOR.

prime vibration, force behind all life.

p.r.o.nounced: ath root meaning: ath - prime, first (as opposed to an, one) ATHERA.

name for the world which holds the Five High Kingdoms; four Worldsend Gates; formerly inhabited by dragons, and current home of the Paravian races.

p.r.o.nounced: ath-air-ah root meaning: ath - prime force; era - place 'Ath's world'

ATHIR.

Second Age ruin of a Paravian stronghold, located in Ithilt, Rathain. Site of a seventh lane power focus; also where Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn swore his blood oath to survive to the Fellows.h.i.+p Sorcerer, Asandir.

p.r.o.nounced: ath-ear root meaning: ath - prime; i'er - the line,'edge ATHLIEN PARAVIANS.

sunchildren. Small race of semimortals, pixie-like, but possessed of great wisdom,'keepers of the grand mystery.

p.r.o.nounced: ath-lee-en root meaning: ath - prime force; lien - to love 'Ath-beloved'

ATHLIERIA.

equivalent of heaven,'actually a dimension removed from physical time,'s.p.a.ce, or the exalted that lies past the veil.

p.r.o.nounced: ath-lee-air^ee-ah root meaning: ath - prime force; li'eria - exalted place, with suffix for 'beyond the veil.'

AVENOR.

Second Age ruin of a Paravian stronghold. Traditional seat of the s'Ilessid High Kings. Restored to habitation in Third Age 5644. Became the ruling seat of the Alliance of Light in Third Age 5648. Located in Korias, Tysan.

p.r.o.nounced: ah-ven-or root meaning: avie - stag; norh - grove BAIYEN GAP.

the trail built by the centaur guardians through the pa.s.s that crosses the Skys.h.i.+el Mountains, connecting the Eltair coast to Daon Ramon Barrens. Twice-the site of a drake battle, once between rivals in the Age of Dragons, and again, in the First Age, against a pack of greater drake sp.a.w.n. One of the old rights of way, not open to mankind's use.

p.r.o.nounced: bye-yen root meaning: bayien - slag BARACH.

second son of Jieret s'Valerient, and older brother of Jeynsa. Successor to the t.i.tle, Earl of the North.

p.r.o.nounced: bar-ack root meaning: baraich - linch-pin BARISH.

town located just north of the border of Tysan, on the coast of Mainmere Bay.

p.r.o.nounced: bar-ish root meaning: bar - half; ris - way BIEDAR.