Dakar the Mad Prophet started in surprise where he sat, drunk and soaked to the skin. A sigh escaped his bearded lips. Luck was a witch, to have abandoned him with the ale jug barely emptied. Dakar rolled sour, cinnamon eyes toward the sorcerer who approached. He tried to forestall the inevitable. ‘The prince who returns will be s’Ilessid, or I drink only water for the next five years,’ he announced with slurred finality.
The sorcerer, who was Asandir of the Fellowship of Seven, stopped still in his grey tunic and blue cloak. Wind ruffled silver hair over features that split with amusement. ‘You speak of the West Gate Prophecy?’ His tone was deceptively polite.
Dakar felt his stomach heave, and cursed silently. Either he was too sober to handle fear of the reprimand he knew must come, or he was too drunk to master the urge to be sick. Asandir was seldom lenient with his apprentices. Nevertheless, Dakar managed a sloppy grin. ‘“
Crisply, Asandir stole the following lines. ‘“
The reference took a muddled moment to sink in. When Dakar caught on, he crowed and flopped backwards into a milkweed thicket. Pods exploded, winnowing a flurry of seeds. These were not fluffy white with clean health, but musted with the mildews of sunless damp endlessly fostered. ‘Where?’ demanded Dakar, and followed immediately with, ‘Who? s’Ahelas, s’Ellestrion, s’Ffalenn, or better, because I’ve a whopping wager, s’Ilessid?’
But Asandir’s lapse into levity ended. ‘Up with you. We leave for West Gate at once.’
Dakar inhaled milkweed seeds and sneezed. ‘
‘Come with me and see, my sotted seer. I just heard from Sethvir. The Worldsend Gate out of Dascen Elur was breached only this morning. If your s’Ilessid
Dakar moaned. ‘No liquor, no ladies, and a long nasty ride with a headache.’ He scrambled awkwardly to his feet, a short, plump man with a clever face and seed-down snagged like feathers in his stiff red beard.
Asandir appraised him with a stare that raised sweat on cheek and temple. ‘No s’Ilessid, and you’re pledged to five years’ sobriety.’
‘Next time remind me to swallow my tongue with my ale,’ murmured Dakar. But the phrase held no rancour. Behind heavy lids, his cinnamon eyes gleamed with excitement. At last the wait would end. Through West Gate would come a descendant of Athera’s royal houses, and with him wild, unknown talents. ‘“
Agelessly sure, Asandir fell into step beside him. The austere fall of his cloak and bordered tunic offered sharp contrast to the stained russet which swathed Dakar’s rotund bulk.
‘Prudence, my prophet,’ the sorcerer rebuked. ‘The results of prophecies often resolve through strangely twisted circumstance.’ But if Asandir was yet aware that the promised talents were split between princes who were enemies with blood debts of seven generations, he said nothing.
At Amroth Castle, a king celebrates the exile of his most bitterly hated enemy, but fails to notice the absence of his own heir until too late…
In a dusty hollow between dunes of rust- coloured sand, twisted trees shade the ivy-choked basin of a fountain from the heat of a scarlet sun…
A world away from fountain and wasteland, an enchantress observes an image of a sorcerer and a prophet who ride in haste through fog, and droplets fly from the bracken crushed beneath galloping hooves…
III. EXILE
inscription, Five Century Fountain
Davien, Third Age 3140
The crown prince of Amroth awoke to a nightmare of buffeting surf. Muddled, disoriented and unaccountably dizzy, he discovered that he lay face-down on the floorboards of an open boat. The fact distressed him: he retained no memory of boarding such a craft. Through an interval of preoccupied thought, he failed to uncover a reason for an ocean voyage of any kind.
Lysaer licked his lips, tasted the bitter tang of salt. He felt wretched. His muscles ached and shivered and his memories seemed wrapped in fog. The bilge which sloshed beneath his shoulder stank of fish; constellations tilted crazily overhead as the boat careened shoreward on the fist of a wave.
The prince shut his teeth against nausea. Frustrated by the realization that something had gone amiss, he tried to push himself upright. A look over the thwart might at least identify his location. But movement of any kind proved surprisingly difficult; after two attempts, he managed to catch hold of the gunwale. The boat lurched under him. A stranger’s muscled arm bashed his fingers from the wood, and he tumbled backward into darkness…
The prince roused again as the boat grounded. Gravel grated against planking and voices called in the night. The craft slewed, caught by the drag of a breaker. Lysaer banged his head on the sharp edge of a rib. Shouts punched through the roar of the waves. Wet hands caught the boat, dragged her through the shallows and over firm sand to the tidemark. The bearded features of a fisherman eclipsed the stars. Then, callously impatient, two hands reached down and clamped the royal wrists in a grip that bruised. Limp as a netted fish, Lysaer felt himself hauled upright.
‘D’ye think the Rauven mage would care if we kept the jewels on ‘im?’ said a coarse male voice.
The prince made a sound in protest. His head whirled unpleasantly and his stomach cramped, obscuring an unseen accomplice’s reply. The grip on him shifted, then tightened, crushing the breath from his lungs. Lysaer blacked out once more as his captors dragged him from the boat.
His next
