Arithon blinked. Disoriented, he stirred, then recalled Asandir’s ensorcelled flask. If transfer from the power focus at Isaer had been accomplished while he slept, this place would be located in Althain Tower. He lay on a cot under blankets. His boots had been removed; also his tunic, belt and breeches. He still wore his shirt, damp yet from rain. A heartbeat shy of a curse, Arithon spied his missing clothes, slung over a chair alongside a bridle in need of mending and a snarled up twist of waxed thread. An awl jabbed irreverently upright through a sumptuous velvet seat cushion. His sword, drawn from its sodden sheath and oiled, rested against a table heaped with books, some flopped face downward. Others were dog-eared at the corners, or jammed with torn bits of vellum or frayed string pressed into service as page markers. The dribbled remains of a tallow dip lay couched in an exquisite silver candlestand, and chipped mugs, used tea spoons and mismatched inkwells filled any cranny not encroached on by clutter.
Nested amid oak-panelled walls and age-faded tapestries, the air of friendly disorder offered the weary traveller a powerful incentive to relax and rest. But charged to disquiet by the tingling, subliminal ache that partnered the proximity of thundering currents of power, Arithon felt nettled as a cat in a drawstring bag. Although Lysaer lay curled in contentment in a cot alongside, his half-brother tossed off his blankets, arose and pulled on his rain-damp clothing. Since his boots were nowhere to be found, he crossed the thick carpet barefoot and opened the chamber’s single door, a studded oaken panel strapped and barred with heavy iron. The sconce-lit stairwell beyond removed any doubt that Althain Tower had been built primarily as a fortress. Chilled by fierce drafts through the arrowslits, Arithon stepped out and closed the latch softly behind him. A moment of considered study revealed the power’s source to be above him. He set foot upon worn stone and climbed to the highest level, where he encountered a narrow portal as starkly unornamented as the first. The latch and bar were forged iron, frosty to his touch as he set hand to the grip and cracked the panel.
Inside lay the round, book-lined room from his dream. The central table was supported by ebon carvings of Khadrim, and seated there, faced away from him, were Dakar, Asandir and a black-clad stranger. Opposite sat another, robed in maroon with sleeves banded in dark interlace and rubbed thin at the cuffs. He was neither tall nor portly, but his presence had a rootedness like the endurance of storm-whipped oak and his face and eyes matched that of the sorcerer who had spoken his title and aroused him.
‘Arithon of Rathain?’ said Sethvir, Warden of Althain, in gentle inquiry. ‘Enter, and be welcome.’
Dakar swivelled around in astonishment. ‘You should be asleep and beyond reach of dreaming,’ he accused as the Shadow Master stepped through the doorway.
‘How could I?’ Aware of all eyes upon him, not least the attention of the black-clad stranger, Arithon pulled out an empty chair and sat. He rested his hands on the table edge, careful not to look directly into the brazier. More like a spark than natural flame, its blue-white blaze carved the chamber into starred, knife-edged shadows, but radiated no heat, for its source was drawn direct from the third lane. To Dakar, Arithon retorted, ‘Could you lie abed with such a grand spate of earthforce in flux just over your head?’
To Sethvir, he added, ‘I came to offer help, if you’ll accept it.’
Befuddled in appearance as any care-worn old man, the Warden of Althain said, ‘We cannot deny we’re shorthanded. But you should be aware, there is peril.’ Though mild, the look that followed searched in a manner unnervingly subtle.
Read to his innermost depths, Arithon was touched by a contact so ephemeral it raised no prickle of dread; and yet, the image conveyed to him was harrowing. The swamp-dwelling serpent he had first seen in dream recurred now in migrating thousands, possessed of an intelligence that hungered, and envenomed with a poison more dire than anything brewed up by nature. Secure within Althain Tower, Arithon
‘Now then,’ Sethvir finished aloud. ‘You would take no shame, if you wish to retire below and sleep. A wardspell might be set to isolate your awareness, if you desire.’
Arithon measured the Warden, whose kindliness masked a razor-keen perception. After a slow breath he said, ‘
As he made no move to rise, Sethvir laced together fingers blue-veined as fine marble. ‘Very well, young master. Our Fellowship would be last to deny that against the meth-snakes of Mirthlvain every resource is needful. You may stay, but these terms will apply.’ His regard pinned Arithon without quarter. ‘You will lend support to the spellbinder, Dakar, unconditionally, and from trance state. You will hold no awareness of the proceedings as they occur, and retain no memory afterwards.’
Severe strictures; Arithon understood that if the conjury went awry, his life would be wrung from his body as a man might twist moisture from a rag. He would have no warning, no control, no shred of self-will. Across the table, the sorcerer in black watched him with feeling akin to sympathy; Asandir stayed firmly nonjudgemental. If heirship of Rathain seemed no hindrance to a perilous decision, expectations remained nonetheless. Whipped to resistance by that certainty, the Master moved on to Dakar, and there read fatuous contempt, for why should any trained master lend a brother’s trust to an apprentice who binged on beer to evade discipline?
Moved to black and bitter humour, the Master looked back at Sethvir. ‘I accept.’ The words were charged with challenge: if limits existed to the free will Asandir had inferred he still possessed, he would risk his very life to expose them.
The Warden of Althain rested misty, poet’s eyes upon the Master. ‘As you choose. You may set your mind in readiness at once, for meth-snakes won’t wait for second thoughts.’
Arithon bowed his head, aware through closed eyes of Dakar’s unadulterated dismay. The faintest smile curved the s’Ffalenn mouth, then faded as he engaged his self-discipline and submerged his consciousness into trance.
A great deal less gracefully, and with a martyred sigh the Master of Shadow was quite beyond hearing, Dakar gathered his own, more scattered resources.
Through the isolated interval of concentration, while the Mad Prophet assimilated the link offered by Arithon, Sethvir turned in piercing dismay toward Asandir.
‘Difficulty with the succession was an understatement, my friend.’ The Warden of Althain waved an exasperated hand at Rathain’s now unconscious prince. ‘You inferred a past history of blood feud, but this!’
At Traithe’s blank look of inquiry, Sethvir hooked his knuckles through the tangled end of his beard. ‘Our Teir’s’Ffalenn has the sensitivity imbued in his fore-father’s line, but none of the protections. His maternal inheritance of farsightedness lets him take no step without guilt, for he sees the consequences of his every act,
