Not entirely mollified as the chanting swelled to rattle the farthest windows of the square, Etarra’s Lord Commander gave back a grim grin. ‘What Lysaer wants for his service is the head of the prince of Rathain.’
‘Good.’ Gnudsog smiled. On his grizzled features, the expression made no improvement; the scars and chipped teeth from past scraps made him baleful enough to inspire prayers of deliverance from a headhunter. ‘For that, on my sword, he’ll have my help.’
The subject of Etarra’s adulation alone remained oblivious; Lysaer’s engagement with Arithon’s sorceries required total concentration. Even under barrage by pure light, the shadows proved stubborn to shift. Like inkstains set in pale felt, they resisted with a fierceness that at times made them seem to push back. Again, Lysaer stepped up his countermeasure. Time passed. As the light poured steadily from him, he tracked only the retreat of the dark. Blind to all else, deaf to Diegan’s encouragement, he missed the exultant moment when Etarra lay lit from wall to wall by the fiery glow of his gift. Lamps and torches brightened even the dimmest back-alleys where Gnudsog sent patrols to quell any unreformed rioters.
By afternoon, the merchants unlocked their mansions. Drawn by wild rumours and by the burning, continuous flow of light, people from all quarters of the city reemerged to pack the main square. The chanting subsided and later died into an awe-struck silence.
Locked in his private crusade against the dark, Lysaer did not stir when the city governors reawakened to discover their council hall doors were fastened closed by nothing beyond everyday bolts and latches.
At some point, unseen, the sorcerer Traithe had departed.
Humbled as they heard of the s’Ilessid prince who had shouldered their cause against monarchy, Etarra’s high officials gathered on the dais. Amid splintered laths and ripped silk, they stood in vigil at Lysaer’s side.
Lost to their presence, bathed in a blinding dazzle, Lysaer wrestled the frustration that Arithon’s greater training had defeated him. Determination held him steadfast. Etarra’s plight would be spoken for until his last strength became spent. The shadows by now were beaten back outside the walls. Beyond hearing that the bloodshed had ended: driven past the point of caring by the curse-born obsession to obliterate the works of his half-brother, Lysaer hammered out light in singleminded ferocity.
Diegan was closest when the wide-spread arms began to shudder. The light-rinsed hands finally spasmed to fists in the extremity of advanced exhaustion, and a tremor racked Lysaer’s body. He swayed on his feet, and there at his side was Etarra’s Lord Commander to lend him support as he crumpled.
Lysaer’s eyes flicked open then, agonized in abject defeat.
Moved to compassion, Lord Diegan said, ‘Lysaer, it’s all right. The riots are ended. You’ve done well enough to stop the bloodshed, and the shadows are cleared past the gates.’
‘All is not right!’ His next line a whisper of unrequited fury, Lysaer collapsed in Diegan’s arms. ‘Nothing is ended. Neither dark nor the prince of darkness shall rule in Rathain while I live.’
Spoken from the dais where a crowned king should have sworn oath to uphold the royal charter, the acoustics arranged by the Fellowship picked up the softest words. The passion in Lysaer’s promise carried clearly to the edges of the square.
Silence reigned for perhaps a dozen heartbeats. Then air itself seemed to shatter as the gathered mass of Etarra’s thousands released its pent breath and cheered in full-throated approval. The roar of the accolade shook the earth. Yet the prince who had won their reprieve from pure terror heard no sound at all, having fainted in Diegan’s embrace.
The shadows set over Etarra by Arithon s’Ffalenn cleared shortly after midnight of their own accord. By then, the populace had become enamoured of the hero in their midst; rumour attributed deliverance to the blond-haired prince from the west. The last band of looters languished in irons. Too taciturn to show satisfaction for a long day’s work well done, Gnudsog sat enthroned in the windowseat alcove of Lord Governor Morfett’s best guest suite.
He looked out of place as a botched carving amid violet and gold tassels and amber cushions. Stripped of his field gear, clad still in the sweaty fleece gambeson he preferred to wear under chainmail, he slugged wine from a huge brass tankard. His peat-bog eyes watched, brooding, as the city’s governing elect crowded the rest of the room’s furnishings and argued in overheated elegance over disposition of his troops.
Their wilted ribbons and sadly creased sarcenets lent the chamber the feel of a second rate bordello. Couched in their midst, resplendent as any in his velvets and the frost-point fire of his sapphires, Lysaer s’Ilessid lay unconscious or dead asleep in the aftermath of exhaustion. The healer who had examined him said to let him rest, then left without daring a prognosis.
Apt to be ambivalent over fine points, Gnudsog drank. He cracked his knuckles in impatience. The cant of the councilmen irked him. Repeated searches had established beyond doubt that every Fellowship sorcerer appeared spontaneously to have vanished; squads had turned the warehouse district inside out, to no avail. The meat knacker’s conscripts had scarpered. Little further justice could be done until one shadow-bending criminal could be traced in his flight and eventually arraigned for execution. To which end, Gnudsog ran the house steward’s pages breathless, sending dispatches to his lieutenants and to his far-flung network of scouts.
When the long-sought news came back to him, along with incontrovertible proof that Arithon’s trail had been picked up, no one heard him through the din of raised voices.
Gnudsog lost his temper.
He cracked his tankard down with such force that wine geysered over the brim. Silence fell. The governing elect of Etarra turned heads, balding, curled, and hatted with felts pearled and feathered, to glare down superior noses at the author of untimely poor manners.
Sublimely untroubled by protocol, Gnudsog wiped his stubbled chin on the back of one hirsute wrist. ‘As I said, he is found. Your shadow-meddling little sorcerer has fled down the north road. By now, he has five hours’ lead, on straight course for the clans of Deshir.’
The pronouncement launched the room into uproar. The minister of the dyers and spinners guild fired off into maundering monologue, while the mayor of the south quarter flailed his chair arm with his bonnet in a vain attempt to recall order. His thumps were overwhelmed by an excited jabber of speculation, shrilly over-cut by the governor of trade’s expostulation. ‘Ath preserve us! We are lost! Against sorcery and shadows, our best troops will be cut to bleeding dogmeat. What use are good swords, unless the Prince of Light can be convinced or coerced to give us aid?’
The heads swivelled back, belatedly covetous of the jewelled asset ensconced in their midst. Only now, the blue eyes were opened. Lysaer had wakened to their bickering.
Gnudsog chuckled at the speed with which Etarra’s high officials rearranged themselves in solicitude. The most
