combination of ragged tunics layered one over another like sediment. These were topped by Asandir’s cloak, the silver-banded hem of which dragged the flagstones around Dakar’s stocky ankles.
Lysaer studied the Mad Prophet’s choice of wardrobe with raised eyebrows, while Dakar, vociferously defensive, slouched against the wall that Arithon had lately vacated. ‘I’m getting a cold,’ he said, in excuse for the purloined cloak.
Since the timbre of Dakar’s voice held no sign of a stuffy head, Lysaer sensed a lecture coming on the effectiveness of telir brandy as a medicine for pending coughs. He forestalled the diatribe by offering the flask, and stuck like a terrier to his topic. ‘What did Arithon mean, and what consent did his ancestor give at the writing of Rathain’s charter?’
Caught in mid-swallow, Dakar choked. He recovered himself, began afresh and sucked at the flask until forced to stop and gasp for air. Then he sniffed. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’
‘Obviously not.’ Too bone-tired for finesse, Lysaer hooked the brandy bottle back. He regarded Dakar’s spaniel eyes and said equably, ‘I need not inquire, if that were true.’
Dakar started to blot his dribbled chin with the cloak hem, then recalled the garment’s true owner in time to use his sleeve cuff for the purpose. ‘Damn and damn,’ he said softly.
‘Once for the brandy, which I won’t share unless you speak,’ Lysaer surmised. ‘The other for the trouble you’ll have earned, when Asandir discovers you’ve borrowed his best cloak without leave.’
‘All right.’ Dakar shrugged in resignation. ‘The royal bloodlines are irreplaceable, as Arithon already guessed.’
‘Due to prophecy?’ Lysaer swished the flask suggestively.
‘No.’ Peevish, Dakar gazed fixedly on the brandy. ‘The Fellowship chose three men and two women to found Athera’s royal lines. They were selected, each one, for a dominant trait that would resist corruption and other pressures that power brings to bear on human nature. It is a grave thing to alter or to influence unborn life. Yet that is what the sorcerers did, to ensure fair rule through generations of dynastic succession. They set a geas ward that would fix those chosen virtues in direct line of inheritance. Your ancestor gave them consent, for all the good that does you.’ Here, Dakar’s own bitterness showed, for an apprenticeship that more times than not seemed the result of manipulation.
Always smooth, Lysaer passed over the flask. Information desired from Dakar on the nature of the Fellowship’s workings was invariably touchy to extract. ‘What does that mean for Arithon?’
Brandy vanished down the Mad Prophet’s gullet in prodigious swallows, and this time Asandir’s best cloak did not escape usage as a napkin. ‘Ah well,’ sighed Dakar. ‘It means that our arrogant Master of Shadow can never escape his nature.’
This time Lysaer wrapped his arms around his knees, content to let the spirits work their magic. The breeze whispered softly over the terrace and the terrible, alien constellations burned fiercely through the interval that followed.
In time, Dakar took another pull from the flask. He peered mournfully into the dregs. ‘Torbrand s’Ffalenn was a man of natural empathy, a master statesman, because he could sense what motivated his enemies. He ruled as duke in Daon Ramon, and the compassion of the Riathan Paravians formed the guiding light of his policies. Which means, my friend, that Arithon will forgive the knife that kills him. He cannot do otherwise. To understand and to sympathize with the needs of every living thing is his inborn nature, the forced gift of the s’Ffalenn line as bequeathed by the Fellowship of Seven.’
Lysaer took a moment to sort a cascade of revelations. This penchant for s’Ffalenn forgiveness explained many of the quirks of his half-brother’s personality; behaviour he had considered wayward, until he was given a key to understanding. It explained why Arithon would be vicious in contention up until the moment of defeat; how he could effortlessly shed any grudge for his balked desires, to embrace a crown he absolutely did not want without sign of bitterness or rancour. Lysaer stared at his hands, which were cold beneath their dressings. The blisters throbbed, but he had ceased to dwell on their discomfort. He badly wanted to beg back the flask of telir brandy, for in a heartbeat, his cheerfulness had vanished. Yet courage in the end became his failing. He had to ask. ‘And s’Ilessid? What gift from my ancestor do I carry?’
Morose, Dakar said, ‘You will always seek justice, even where none can be found.’
A moment later, Lysaer felt the flask pressed back into his poulticed hands. Careful not to fumble through his bandages, he swallowed brandy in gulps. For abruptly, his euphoria over Desh-thiere’s defeat had faded. Now he wanted to get drunk, to embrace the oblivion of forgetfulness before his busy mind could exhaust itself in perverse and futile review of past events. He could study a whole lifetime and probably never determine which actions were of his choosing and which others may have been influenced by those virtues bound by magecraft to his bloodline.
‘Arithon was wise to seek his bed,’ the prince concluded. ‘I’m certainly too tired for this.’
Generously leaving the last of the spirits for Dakar, he set the flask clumsily on the flagstones, rose to his feet and took his leave.
Dakar remained, solitary. Night breezes worried his unkempt hair, while he picked in turn at the immaculate wool of Asandir’s cloak. The Mad Prophet could wish until his heart burst that the flask by his elbow was still full; or that he knew a spell to conjure rotgut gin out of air. Any crude alcohol would have served to get him drunk enough to forget the nerve that had made him question the burns on Lysaer of Tysan’s hands. Maybe then he could sleep with the knowledge Asandir had revealed, in the hour before his departure.
Dakar shut his eyes, before the stars his prophecy had seen restored could blur through a welling flow of tears. ‘Daelion Fatemaster take pity! Why, Lysaer my friend, did you have to be the one used to block the Mistwraith’s assault bare-handed?’
But Asandir on that point had been unequivocally clear: in the hour of final conflict, when Desh-thiere had threatened to break free, Lysaer had been Kharadmon’s selection for the sacrifice. Dakar still agonized over Asandir’s heartless assessment, after the irrevocable event: ‘
‘Unmourned, by Ath that’s not enough!’ Alone on the windswept terrace, Dakar reached in sudden fury and
