Morriel dangled her jewel above the ruffled water, then completed a pass that engaged spellcraft. Elaira leaned over a surface bound into mirror-smoothness, while the vision induced by the Prime’s clairvoyance overlaid the madder-stained depths…
Morning sun tinted the square brick turrets of Etarra’s watch-keeps and struck shafts through the dust billowed up by the garrison that tramped outbound from the northwestern gate. Its columns were narrowed by the flanks of the Mathorn pass, and rank after rank of raised pikes and lances gridded the pale, hazed sky. Windowed in water, men marched like toy figurines given life, the gold and red banners of the city guard cracking in the breeze like snipped cloth.
‘Fatemaster’s mercy,’ Elaira murmured, her sausage cooling in fingers that felt sapped of nerves. ‘There’s to be war, then?’
For reply, Morriel shifted vantage to display Etarra’s host in its entirety.
Ten thousand strong, spearheaded by caparisoned rows of mounted lancers and trailed by the light cavalry under the standard of the headhunter’s league, the army advanced down switched-back roads like a serpent roused hungry from its lair. Crowds packed the city ramparts to cheer, foremost among them a tawny-haired woman in a glitter of gold-netted silk. Heralds raised trumpets emblazoned with tassels and silent fanfare sounded for the smiling, bejewelled figure of Lysaer s’Ilessid, mounted on his chestnut horse, and flanked by Lord Diegan and Etarra’s field general, the grim-faced, leonine Gnudsog.
Shocked beyond thought for protocol, Elaira accosted her supreme superior. ‘
A gust hissed through the gapped warehouse, sour with the reek of dried seaweed. Lirenda braced in expectation of immediate displeasure from the Prime, but Morriel simply sighed and tugged with thin hands to rearrange the burden of her shawls. The image in the dye-vat dispersed. Drily, the crone said, ‘I believe this next image should tell you.’
She effected a second pass.
The water’s glassine surface now showed the mild haze of a mid-spring afternoon. Shadows pocked the stubble of a stripped hillside. Brown and unobtrusive against mats of hacked bark and wilted greenery, a band of barbarian scouts left the timber they had cut and packed in six foot lengths onto sledges. They gathered presently in a clearing, where the only man among them not dirtied from labour waited on his knees before the blade of his own drawn sword. A start in her nerves from recognition, Elaira beheld Arithon s’Ffalenn. Beside him, stiff-backed and vexed, stood the rangy frame of the most powerful barbarian in the north: Steiven s’Valerient,
‘But this makes no sense.’ Elaira abandoned her half-eaten meal in its folds of steam-soggy paper. Just one breath away from a thunderous headache, she raised hands to rub at her temples. ‘The clans in Strakewood are no match for the might of Etarra.’
‘They believe otherwise.’ Morriel removed her jewel. The spell that fuelled her clairvoyance snapped, and woodlands vanished, leaving waters that flashed and puckered over a blood-dark silt of old dyes. ‘Three valleys along Tal Quorin’s banks have been riddled with deadfalls to that end. War is in the offing. The princes so fondly received by the Fellowship are themselves at the root and cause.’
‘No.’ Elaira raised her chin in sick protest. ‘The Seven wouldn’t—’ She stopped, fought down dread for a slip that could betray her past trust with Asandir. ‘The sorcerers must surely intervene if their princes are caught at the heart of this.’
‘Ah,’ said Morriel, her flash of discovery well hidden, though across the warehouse, Lirenda looked vindicated. ‘But the sorcerers have all fled Etarra. Like rats off a foundering ship, they abandoned their post of responsibility on the instant Desh-thiere’s curse claimed the half-brothers.’
Morriel paused. Acute, colourless eyes flicked aside to encompass Elaira’s strained face. ‘Your friend Asandir made a mis-step.’
The implication of collaborative association with a Fellowship sorcerer went unnoticed before the disclaimer that stormed Elaira’s thoughts: that the power she had encountered in the loft of Enithen Tuer’s was no likely candidate for mistakes. If the Fellowship of Seven had withdrawn, they must surely have done so deliberately.
Morriel’s eyes held her gaze like a snake’s. Exposed to the Prime’s sharp dispassion, that would see past nuance and draw out frightful truths, Elaira fought down raw nerves and dread. Too late, with both hands locked in fear to the cold stone edge of the dye vat, she waited to be denounced for far worse offence than a silly romantic entanglement.
‘Oh, yes, the truth behind your illicit visit to the Four Ravens Tavern last autumn is known to us.’ The Prime tucked her focus stone in her lap with a clicking of hooked yellow fingernails. ‘However, we deem your visit to Asandir too petty for pursuit in light of the present crisis. Since the actions of s’Ffalenn and s’Ilessid have brought Rathain’s factions to arms, a character scan must be made of both princes. Our sisterhood must know how five centuries of exile have altered the Fellowship’s royal lines.’
The blow so long suspected fell at last as Morriel gathered her skirts and stood erect. ‘You have been summoned here, Elaira, as the only initiate we have who has been in close enough contact with the royal heirs to undertake the attempt.’
Stunned as if her guts had come unhinged, Elaira thrust off from the dye-vat. The Koriani order owned her, flesh and mind, but this demand threatened to annihilate her. Perfect, unbiased recall, down to the smallest detail of the princes’ features, dress, and bearing, was required of her; or Morriel’s scrying would be useless, her delicate chains of deductions riddled with deadends and errors. Though every Koriani initiate had been exactingly trained for clear recall, reproducing images for character scan was a task given only to the most time-proven, gifted Seniors. The perils involved were no secret. The ritual unleashed emotion, could and had linked participants to depths of insight that a bond of sympathy with the subject under study became near impossible to deny. As if poised on the rim of a pit that beckoned her spirit to damnation, Elaira fought black despair. If this was the Prime Circle’s test to determine whether she had excised her attraction for Arithon s’Ffalenn, it was too much, far too cruelly soon.
Wind wailed through the boarded windows; over the white noise of breakers, a gull flew calling through the dark. Elaira shuddered, unnerved by Morriel’s regard still pinned on her.
To protest a direct order from the Prime was to beg instantaneous destruction. Hollow with dread, and hounded by Lirenda’s antagonistic wish to see her crumble, Elaira bowed to Morriel Prime. ‘Your will.’
The matriarch of the sisterhood said no more as she raised her crystal spinning on its chains and rehooked the clasp at her neck. She snapped bird-boned fingers for Quen, who hastened forward and offered Elaira a small stone pipe and a sealed tin that held tobacco steeped in water mildly infused with a tienelle extract. Less potent than the uncut, dried leaves, the mixture used by junior initiates was still toxic enough to cause multiple unpleasant side- effects.
Elaira exchanged the items for her mangled chunk of sausage, and this time found no thanks for the half- wit.
Morriel said, not unkindly, ‘Make yourself ready as you can. Do not rush. When you have achieved a trance heightened by the drug, we shall begin.’
