‘That doesn’t explain his recklessness,’ Traithe said. ‘Nor such guarded resentment.’
‘No.’ Asandir answered his colleague levelly. ‘A prior conflict between ruling power and trained awareness of the mysteries has already broken Arithon’s peace of mind. An attempt on my part to ease his despair misfired and nearly earned his enmity.’
Sethvir steepled his hands, thoughtful. ‘Set him free, then. Let him pursue his gift of music, marry, and let us seek Rathain’s prince among his heirs. After the passage of five centuries, what is another generation, or even two?’
‘I beg to differ,’ Traithe broke in, his quiet, grainy voice tinged to regret. ‘If Etarra’s merchant factions are not curbed with the advent of clear sunlight, their intrigue could grow too entrenched to break.’
Silence fell, harsh under the glare of the brazier. Each of three Fellowship sorcerers pondered upon the trade city that commanded the heart of Rathain’s trade-routes. There the old hatreds ran deepest, and there misguided justice had brewed a morass of bloody politics and decadence. For Etarra, there could be no tolerance. The prince who assumed Rathain’s crown would be charged with dismantling that nest of corruption, and no chance offered better opportunity than the time of Desh-thiere’s defeat, when governors and guilds would be plunged into disarray by the return of the open sky.
‘The long-range effects bear careful study,’ Sethvir concluded. ‘We shall cast strands, when this matter of meth-snakes is resolved.’ Then, since the task of quelling serpents was dire in itself, he took brisk stock of their resources.
Two other Fellowship sorcerers rushed to the site of trouble had earlier raised a barrier ward to seal off the swamp. Their combined efforts were barely sufficient to stay the serpents’ migration, which left Mirthlvain’s guardian, the spellbinder Verrain, alone in the old watch-keep at Meth Isle. Although the fortification had been augmented with a fifth lane power focus to combat worse horrors in the past, an unaided apprentice could never man such defences without becoming charred to a cinder.
‘I see no alternative but to shape and direct the power from here.’ Sethvir sighed in naked regret. ‘What else can we try but to bend the third lane current across the continent in a reduced vibration that Verrain can safely transfer to bolster the barrier ward?’
To hear such a note of uncertainty from the Warden of Althain was enough in itself to inspire fear. By now in firm rapport with the resources lent by Arithon, Dakar shot a glance around the table. Traithe was openly sweating and Asandir sat with one fist braced in trepidation. In a stillness more eloquent than words, each sorcerer faced the appalling truth: never in five thousand years of history had they been so critically understaffed. The circle they would close for the task of saving Shand would only be as effective as its weakest link. Miserably conscious of his shortcomings, Dakar knotted clammy hands and cursed Arithon s’Ffalenn for scheming arrogance. Never mind that the Master’s magecraft held none of the shifty cunning his conscious mind affected; however he might disparage Dakar for slipshod ways, the trust he gave in trance was clear-edged and forthright as his music.
The paradox that a spirit so exactingly controlled should vengefully surrender all that he was into jeopardy jabbed like insult.
For as Sethvir described the coming trial, Dakar would become the check-rein on that awesome flow of power to be channelled through Verrain thousands of leagues away. If the spellbinder at Meth Isle should misstep, and Dakar keep less than perfect vigilance, the influx sent from Althain would merge unchecked with the fifth lane. The overload would sear the heartlands of three kingdoms to waste, while the meth-snakes that compelled such unconscionable risk would themselves evade annihilation.
Riddled through by anxiety, Dakar started at a touch upon his shoulder. Sethvir stood beside him, his manner tempered with sympathy. ‘We ask a great deal more than is reasonable of you.’
Dakar shook his head, struck mute. He had watched a man suffer death by cierlan-ankeshed venom; the memory still harrowed him in nightmares. Any stresses he might share through his link with Verrain must surely be less than the horrible invasion that threatened Shand.
‘I’ll cope,’ Dakar mumbled.
The Warden of Althain was never so easily deceived. ‘You will guard Verrain’s well-being and your own. Arithon’s strength will back you, but his safety will be mine to secure. He need never know. But as the last living s’Ffalenn, his line is too precious to risk.’
Sethvir gave Dakar a last pat in reassurance, then bent over Arithon’s limp form and with a gesture wove a protective ward that stung the eyesight to witness.
Although relieved of a burden, the Mad Prophet felt galled to no end that the Master should pass scatheless through a direct challenge of the Fellowship’s wishes. ‘It’s not as if he gave a whistle for the land, or the people, or even a spit over principles,’ Dakar grumbled as he stuffed shaky fingers in his cuffs to wedge them still.
Already attuned to larger matters, Sethvir returned a vague murmur. ‘You misunderstand the man gravely.’
But since the Mad Prophet had been engrossed beyond hearing through the Fellowship’s recent discussion, Dakar believed only that Arithon’s genius for duplicity had caused Sethvir himself to be misled. The Warden of Althain settled in his seat with a rustle of robes, and his trusting regard touched his colleagues.
No spoken signal passed between the three, yet when the Fellowship sorcerers at Althain commenced rapport, the air in their presence quickened at the call of some unseen current. Shadows swelled as the spark in the brazier condensed to a pinpoint, dim at first, then waxing as their touch bound the pulse of Athera’s third lane ever more relentlessly into focus. The light flared to piercing brilliance. Forced to avert his eyes, the Mad Prophet was awed to find the sorcerers unmoved by the dazzle. Rooted as stone, they twined the earthforces tighter still, until the chamber resonated with a palpable, mounting charge. A stinging bite of ozone eclipsed the smell of books. The tower’s granite walls lost aspect, became edgeless and transient before that vast tide of power which itself seemed to cancel time.
The atmosphere became stillness before storm, and out of pent silence, Sethvir spoke a word.
Light arced from the brazier toward Traithe.
He received it unflinching, cast it around space and time in a manner that defeated reason. A snap sheared the air into wind as the ray honed out of earthforce bridged the wide distance to Meth Isle.
Dakar bit his lip. The salt taste of sweat seemed unreal on his tongue, as if the proximity of lane-force estranged him from bodily sensation. Then the connection completed. His thoughts were slammed to incoherence as, across the breadth of the continent, the spellbinder who was Guardian of Mirthlvain recaptured the current sent from Althain. The focus pattern on the stone floor at Meth Isle keep flashed scarlet as power lapped against power,
