The Curse of the Mistwraith

softly surrendered to nightfall. The first star appeared, a scintillating pinprick between the pines; he looked on its solitary beauty without mage-sight to unlock its mystery.

Later was soon enough to decide where to go. This moment content to hang his thoughts on the sweet descending triplets of a woodthrush, he closed his eyes and lost himself in the abiding whisper of pine tassels stroked by the breeze.

He had no one to answer to. Nothing burdened him but a scorched conscience and a sword he would have given sight to have exchanged for the lyranthe left in Etarra.

Absorbed and relaxed, Arithon suspected nothing until a stick snapped loudly behind his shoulder.

He shot spinning to his feet and came face to face with a figure picked out in sparkles of gold chain and jewels.

Halliron Masterbard stood still decked out in his topaz studs, sure sign he had ended his stay with the clans. The fine buttons that fastened his cloak and hung his beautifully cut cape sleeves swung and glittered even in failing light.

Serene, his veined hands folded on the strap that slung his lyranthe, the Masterbard said, ‘It’s a poor time for solitude, your Grace.’

Arithon bridled. ‘It’s a worse hour for companionship with close to eight thousand lives done and wasted.’ Since the bard had presumed he was brooding, he would foster that impression to be rid of him. ‘I didn’t ask for sympathy. I thought I made my wishes clear to Caolle?’

Halliron clicked his tongue behind spaced front teeth. ‘No need to raise your temper.’ Unwilling to accept such short shrift, he seated himself on the log the Master of Shadow had just vacated. Against his dark doublet, his pale hair spread over his shoulders like watered silk. ‘I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask whether you’d join me on the road. Fallowmere holds little to attract me. I’ve lingered overlong in the north.’

Nettled now deeper than artifice, Arithon recoiled backward. ‘Ah no.’ He sounded as if somebody had hit him, or as if he shied off from hidden fear. ‘I’ll be no man’s company after this. You of all men should best understand my motive.’

‘You’re not the first prince to take your oath through times of strife.’ Gold chains shivered in reflection as the bard shrugged. ‘Daelion knows you won’t be the last. And you won’t, though you try, put me off through a show of self-pity.’

Arithon stiffened. ‘I think you’ve said enough.’ The words were a warning, which Halliron ignored by remaining in unbroken tranquillity on the log. In the forest, the wood thrush had silenced. More stars burned through the branches, and the frogs sang their rasping bass chorus. The balance had fled; twilight had ebbed unnoticed, and the gloom now swallowed even the brittle spark of the topaz studs.

The veneer of peace so thinly established shattered suddenly beyond recovery. Into a silence that reproached, Arithon said in breaking anguish, ‘Ath help me, I had to stay. Without conjury or shadow, do you think any clansman would have survived to hear your lament for Deshir’s dead?’

‘Well, that’s now behind you,’ Halliron said placidly. ‘Guilt is no use to anybody. The only thing a man gains from his past is the power to ensure his future. You can see the same circumstances are not permitted to happen again.’

‘I was doing just that, I thought.’ Arithon’s anger intensified to a level that admitted only pain. The moment still haunted and cut him, that Lysaer’s death and an end to Desh-thiere’s geas had been balanced by Jieret’s life. His voice skinned and raw, the Master added, ‘Will you leave? I’m quite likely to survive without counsel.’

‘Well that may be. Except that I was the one come begging.’ The Masterbard folded his supple hands and maddeningly, solemnly regarded the ground between his boots. ‘If you’d unstop your ears and still your infernal s’Ffalenn conscience, you’d see that I’m an old man. I need a strong shoulder on the wheel when my pony cart mires in these bogs, and somebody ought to partner my rambling on the nights when cold rains drown my fire.’ A mischievous tilt to his lips, he looked up. ‘Never mind that your talents need schooling. If those fingers of yours are ever to shape more than promise, I’m offering the lowly station of minstrel’s apprentice, your royal Grace. Will you accept?’

Arithon stared at him, his rigid bearing abandoned and repudiation stupid on his face. He sat down on the deadfall, banged his elbow on a branch and tangled his calf in the sword-scabbard he had forgotten he still wore. Faintly breathless, he cursed.

Mildly amused, and also queerly tense and vulnerable, Halliron chuckled. ‘The choice is that awful? You can’t pretend to be surprised.’

‘No.’ A choke or a strangled phrase of laughter twisted in Arithon’s throat. ‘Does the minstrel Felirin have prescience?’

‘What?’ The Masterbard lost his composure. His heart in his eyes, and his knuckles clamped together in white knots, he radiated panicked trepidation.

Arithon looked back at him and grinned. ‘Well, it’s simple. Felirin forced me to a promise once should you ever come to offer me apprenticeship.’

‘And?’ Halliron sounded smothered. He had raised both hands to his throat as if he needed help to keep breathing. ‘And?’

‘I shall have to accept,’ Arithon said. ‘I’ve been party to all else but oath-breaking, these days. My score with the Fatemaster’s bad enough.’

‘You devil!’ Halliron shot to his feet with a force that jostled a thrum of bass protest from his soundboard. ‘You let me think you’d turn me down!’

‘Well, you let me think you’d come to lecture.’ Arithon laughed now with a bursting joy that dissolved the last of his antagonism. ‘Fiends take me, I wanted to kill you for that.’

‘Well you lost your chance. You carry the greatest blade in Athera and never once thought enough to use it.’ Halliron started walking decisively. ‘My pony and cart are hidden in a brushbrake somewhere up the Tal Quorin. Once we find them, I’m fixing a strong pot of tea.’

Then he stopped with a suddenness that caused Arithon to narrowly miss crashing into him.

‘No,’ said Halliron, his expressive voice queerly jangled. ‘No. I’m needing no tea. The truth is that’s not what