The Curse of the Mistwraith

Unperturbed, where in a more guarded moment he might justly have taken alarm, Arithon continued. ‘I challenged my right to self-destruction and was shown an open door.’ He paused, looked down and his hands opened. ‘You’ll forgive my cantankerous behaviour, I hope. I’m capable of better, as you’ll see.’

Asandir masked a flinch, for the words the Master had chosen had echoed those of another s’Ffalenn ancestor, caught in an equally untenable position. And in the moment when memory and pity stole speech, Asandir shared in fine-textured empathy the unshielded confidence of a friendship.

The offering itself was a rarity for a man unaccustomed to companionship: a lonely boy, raised in the company of elderly mages who had all loved him at a distance. He had grown without a mother’s affection, but hereditary compassion had turned him from resentment. He readily forgave what he did not understand, and defined his joy through his competence. Praise for his achievements kept him from discovering the depths of his isolation, the cost of that misapprehension still yet to be paid.

The true friend, the caring lover, could absolve all hurt from the growth that inevitably must be forced upon the grown man. The lesson might be learned through care and happiness, that the self-worth Arithon instinctively sought in music was a separate thing from accomplishment – had Desh-thiere and a crown not hung between.

Asandir hid bitterness. His own role disallowed mercy. Inwardly connected the Master might be, and strong as well, but along with his confidence came infinite power to wound. Asandir came close to recoil as another image touched his consciousness: a young girl’s face, with shy, smiling lips, eyes like aventurine, and ash- brown hair caught up in braids. Arithon had wanted to kiss her but women confused him; while walking in the hills to gather herbs they had spoken of music and poetry and then of things more personal. And trembling in his arms she had admitted that his powers, the given gift of Shadow he had laboured so long to master, frightened her. He had let her go, not knowing what to say.

The girl’s name had been Tennia, Asandir recalled from the clutter of past recollections he had probed after breaking the Curse of Mearth; the events themselves were not new, nor the regrets they had left marked in memory. The sorcerer’s gall and surprise stemmed instead from distinction that now, his insight into Arithon’s consciousness was openly given in trust.

Asandir watched the winds comb the dry, frost-brittle grasses with bleak eyes. This time, in keenest irony, inherited s’Ffalenn compassion had set the reins into his grasp; s’Ahelas farsight offered the whip. His mage’s perception recognized Arithon’s inner fibre, and its naked vulnerability stirred him to grief sharp as outrage: for he could, he would, and he must, manipulate this prince into voluntary betrayal of everything he held dear.

‘This place,’ Arithon said, interrupting Asandir’s inward turmoil, ‘it has a quality, a feeling, as if the rocks, the soil, even the wind, are something more than inanimate.’

‘Caith-al-Caen is aligned with an earth-lane,’ the sorcerer replied in what seemed measured calm; but a shiver flawed his composure. Mercy upon you, he thought to the prince at his side; for Arithon had unwittingly invited the opening the Fellowship in its desperate need required. Over the whisper of wind and through the multiple levels of his mage’s awareness, Asandir chose his words. ‘Here, in the past, the old races danced at the turn of each season to deflect the earth’s forces into latitudinal channels to enrich the surrounding land. So were all of Athera’s twelve lanes once interconnected in a lattice to nourish all life. The resonance that shaped the ward lingers still.’

Self-control prevailed: a voice could be compelled to sound conversational, though anguished self-revulsion stormed beneath; for the first strand of the snare would be spun, here and now, of the purest thing left to this world: the beauty and wild grace impressed upon Caith-al-Caen by the dance of the Riathan Paravians. ‘I can show you, if you like.’

It did not help to know that the ultimate course of the world depended upon this deception, as Arithon straightened in surprise. His eyes lit with pleasure, and a longing that was entirely spontaneous tipped up the corners of his mouth. ‘I would be honoured.’

Somehow Asandir unlocked numbed fingers. He reached down, picked up a lichened bit of stone and said, ‘Give me your hands.’ He offered his own, palm upward, the pebble cradled like the mythical seed of temptation in the left one.

Arithon laid his lyranthe aside. A gust fanned his hair and the coarse linen of his sleeves as he reached to engage his grip. Warm hands were given into the sorcerer’s cool ones. As if air itself were abrasive to his skin, Asandir accepted the touch.

He guided Arithon’s fingers to cup the fragment of stone, then moulded his own over the top. ‘You were taught to clear and centre your mind. Do that. But this time, include our bit of stone as if it were part of your flesh and leave me an open channel.’

Unaware of impending destiny, Arithon closed his eyes. Without looking, Asandir could sense the change as he underwent the necessary preparation and the clamour of inward consciousness settled to listening stillness. As a shepherd might lead his best lamb to slaughter, the sorcerer threaded his awareness into the fragment of stone, hooked the residual glimmer of Paravian magic and set it free, to pour through Arithon’s unshielded spirit and weave its undying line of melody.

The effect at first was subtle, little more than a sensation of warming from the stone, followed by a tingle of nerves akin to a rush of exuberance. Arithon underwent a moment of quivering, inward realignment, as if a chord had been struck in harmonic resonance with his being. Asandir felt the ripple of reaction course through the flesh under his grip: he removed his hands and watched, aggrieved and silent.

Arithon opened his eyes to the vision of unicorns dancing.

The statues of Riathan enshrined at Althain Tower might reflect an artist’s proportion and line. But perfection carved in cold marble could never capture motion, nor the lightness and flight of cloven hooves, nor the lift of tails and manes more fine than spun silk; not the spiralled twist of horns that shimmered with an energy visible to mages, nor the soaring, heart-searing sweetness of song that underlay the sigh of the wind. Caith-al-Caen rang with a purity of tone just beyond grasp of the mind.

Arithon dropped the bit of stone, helplessly overwhelmed. He sank to his knees before the cranny where he had sheltered. Assaulted by a rapture beyond hope, the half-glimpsed promise of limitless light, he laughed aloud and then trembled. His eyes filled with tears and over-flowed. ‘Blessed Ath,’ he managed finally, his words wrung to harshness by awe. ‘I never guessed. Yet the beauty in the sword should have warned me.’

Asandir regarded the lyrical pavane of the spirit forms, mute. Their image held power to captivate, surely; but the palliative brought only hunger, akin to the cravings of delirium. These illusions were just poor, starved shadows, an imprint like after-image left by creatures whose existence transcended mortality. The reality made pearls seem as sand. For one who had beheld the wisdom in a unicorn’s depthless eyes, for any who had once experienced the current of undefiled exultation that abided in their presence, the ghosts scribed here by trace resonance exposed only wretched emptiness. Asandir wept also, but for loss beyond words to encompass and for a future set into