watchers see little in these mountains.’
‘Morriel has set a circle of seniors to scrying.’ Luhaine’s image poised birdlike, as if on the edge of sudden flight. ‘Perhaps she searches once again for the lost Waystone.’ His frown deepened. ‘Worse and more likely, one of her seers caught wind of the future the Fellowship read in the strands.’
Pricked by a ripple of chills, Maenalle tugged her tabard tighter around her shoulders. ‘What have you come here to tell me, sorcerer?’
Luhaine’s deep eyes turned frosty. ‘Dire portents, lady. After the Mistwraith’s conquest will come war. Lysaer s’Ilessid will cast his lot with townsmen, to the detriment of the loyal clans.’
Maenalle’s hands recoiled into fists and fine linen crumpled unheeded as she shoved her weight forward in her chair. ‘Why?’ Her voice came out a tortured whisper. ‘Our own prince will betray us?’
Never had the sorcerer regretted his status as a disembodied spirit more than now; his mild face twisted in anguish akin to Maenalle’s own, that he could not soften the impact of his words with the warmth of a comforting touch. ‘
Thin-lipped, tight-jawed and fighting tears, Maenalle stared ahead without seeing. ‘I thought that was not possible.’
‘Yes, and paradoxically, no.’ Perpetually prepared with a lecture, Luhaine qualified. ‘Desh-thiere’s nature is opaque to us. We have no insight into it as a cause, but only can read its effects since, from origins outside of Athera, it lacks Name to embody its essence. The Riathan Paravians quite wisely would not encompass its energies for interpretation. Traithe did, at need, when he sealed South Gate against the invasion. But the greater portion of his faculties withered in the process. Whatever enormity he discovered concerning the Mistwraith that besets this world, he is left unable to say.’
Silent, saddened, Maenalle pondered this revelation. ‘Then our princes are your only recourse against Desh- thiere?’
Luhaine made as though to pace, stopped himself wasting effort for the sake of appearance and equally sparsely answered. ‘Events have forced us to choose between certain war and restoration of sunlight.’
Blanched now as sun-whitened ivory, Maenalle stirred and sat back. ‘No choice at all,’ she allowed. Dwarfed by the grand chair of state, she laced fine-boned fingers on the table edge, restored to her usual dry irony.
Luhaine bowed to honour her courage. ‘My colleagues felt you should know at once that Lysaer shall not be sanctioned for inheritance. Yet you must not lose heart. There will be royal heirs, in time, that are not twined in Desh-thiere’s moil of ills. Until then, you must be more than the shadow behind the throne tradition dictates. Whatever comes, Tysan’s heritage must continue to be preserved for those generations yet unborn.’
Very straight and fragile, Maenalle inclined her head. ‘Rest assured, and tell your colleagues. The clans of Tysan shall endure.’
‘I never doubted.’ In better times, Luhaine’s image might have smiled. ‘Only handle this confidence with great care. The Koriani witches must not hear of this break in the succession beforetime. From the moment sunlight is restored to the continent, the balance of events becomes precarious. Every action, every word, will carry weight. The interval is most vulnerable to dangerous, even horrifying digressions.’
Whatever the strands had foretold imprinted wary trepidation upon a sorcerer renowned for staid propriety.
Unable to conceive of a blight worse than war and the loss of Tysan’s prince to the cause of townsmen, Maenalle returned an assurance that rang shallow as banality to her ears. Cold to the heart she watched as Luhaine’s image dissolved away into air. For a long while afterward, she stared into the space his presence had occupied. She did not worry at first which words she would find to deliver ill-tidings to the clanlords who would assemble within the hour; instead she agonized over what she would tell her young grandson, Maien.
Since the elegant, blond prince had left the outpost, the boy had spent his every waking minute in earnest emulation of the man’s faultless manners and royal poise.
‘Damn his s’Ilessid Grace to the darkest torments of Sithaer!’ Maenalle cried at last in an anguish that echoed and re-echoed off the tapestried walls. ‘More than the child’s poor heart will be broken!’
The chamber that had served as solar to the ladies of the old earl’s court smelled of dried lavender still, and of the birch logs that burned in the grate. Yet where the room in bygone years had been bright with light and laughter, now the shadows lay deepest in the lover’s nooks. Curtains of dense felt sealed out the drafts and also any daylight let in by ceiling-high arched windows. Draperies veiled the lion-head cornices and the paintings of nymphs and dolphins, flaking now from damp and mildew. Only the rose, gold and grey marble that patterned the floor in geometrics remained visible to remind of a gentler past before the Koriani Prime Enchantress had chosen the site for her day-quarters.
Morriel eschewed the comfort of carpets. Candles she counted a distraction from her meditation. Austere as new-forged steel, she straightened from the unuphol-stered alcove she preferred for contemplation, her head raised in expectation. A tap sounded at the door. The Prime gave a self-satisfied nod, the diamond pins netting her coiffure fire-points in the dimness as she commanded, ‘Allow the First Senior to enter.’
The nearer of two page-boys hastened from the corner and unbarred the door.
Lirenda swept past as though the liveried child were furniture. She curtseyed with a brisk swirl of silk, alert for the twitch of Morriel’s hand that allowed her permission to rise. Exhilaration flushed her cheeks as she shed her cloak with its ribbons of rank sewn in bands at hood and hem. As the remaining boy took her garment, she dared a direct glance at her superior. ‘It has begun.’
‘Show me.’ Spider-still amid the arranged folds of her skirts, Morriel closed lightless black eyes. For a space the chamber held little for sound and movement beyond the crackle of flames in the hearth. The page avoided clumsy noise as he set the latch on the armoire door and crept back to his place.
Lirenda cupped the crystal strung from a chain at her throat, dampened her thoughts and dropped her inner barriers to permit her superior free access. Power flowed like current from mind to mind, focused to frame recall of two images gathered through lane-watch…
