thiere’s conquest, Morriel did not gasp aloud. As if the vision were empty of wonder, she pressed on workmanlike,
‘Corith,’ Lirenda identified, breaking trance in the solar of the old earl’s palace. ‘In the isles of Min Pierens to the west.’
Morriel checked the interruption with a raised finger. ‘I see as much.’ On an edge of sharpness, she said, ‘Our fifth lane watcher has reported an increased concentration of the mist overhanging the site of Ithamon?’
‘Exactly.’ The First Enchantress pressed eagerly to conclusion. ‘The Fellowship’s royal proteges must have set Desh-thiere’s hold under siege from there. Why else should its grip loosen elsewhere?’
Morriel disregarded the insolence. Three weeks had passed since the princes with Asandir had taken up residence in ruined Ithamon: here came first proof of their doings there. With the last attempted scryings on their activities an unmitigated failure, that the Mistwraith should now show signs of weakening offered exciting developments. But to rejoice over supposition would be blindness akin to folly. ‘I suggest our duty lies in knowing how the princes who are responsible come by their powers.’ Morriel’s brow furrowed in speculation. ‘After all, they accomplish a feat their Fellowship benefactors cannot duplicate.’
Lirenda’s eyes brightened. ‘You suggest we try another scrying into Asandir’s affairs at Ithamon?’
A cracked laugh issued from the alcove. ‘The idea suits you, does it?’ For an interval Morriel stared into distance. ‘It pleases me to try.’ A snap of dry fingers called a page to attend her. ‘Fetch the chest that contains the focus jewel of Skyron. Be quick.’
Unremarked by a glance from either enchantress, the boy bowed and let himself out. As his nervous footsteps dwindled down the corridor, Morriel stroked her chin with a fingernail. ‘I would tap the fifth lane and trace the eddies created by the events at Ithamon, yes. But subtlety is needed. Our efforts must blend with the pulse of the land itself, until chance affords us opening and Asandir leaves the princes’ presence.’
‘But they work from one of the Compass Point Towers,’ Lirenda objected. ‘What source of ours can breach Paravian safeguards?’
The old Prime’s look sparked daggers. ‘A defeatist attitude ill becomes your office.’
Lirenda inclined her head. ‘I stand corrected before my better.’
Morriel made a moue of disgust. ‘Don’t be a hypocrite.’ In a shift of weight that eddied the scents of herbs and moth poison upon the air, she folded crabbed hands in her lap. ‘For all your diligence, your ambitions overstep your knowledge.’
The chamber abruptly seemed chilly as a tomb. Disadvantaged by her posture of obeisance, Lirenda stifled irritation. The Prime was apt to be querulous when the weather ached her bones; and only the foolish bridled at truth in her presence. Lirenda held herself in submission until her senior at length relented.
‘Were you not keen to replace me, you would be of worthless character. But if it is envy of the Fellowship’s power that drives your desire to humble Asandir, beware. You will earn yourself the misstep such weakness deserves. You may rise.’ Rings flashed as Morriel motioned for her First Enchantress to be seated on the footstool by the hearth.
The chamber offered no other chair; the pages, as they waited, knelt on bare floor. But Lirenda suffered the inconvenience; wedded to supremacy the Prime might be, but her mind was quick and devious.
Across a quiet dense with the scent of lavender, the aged crone tartly qualified, ‘We shall defeat the Paravian wards by simplicity, First Enchantress. Our weapon shall be compassion.’
Lirenda tautened to eagerness. ‘Arithon chose the tower Kieling,’ she mused unthinkingly aloud.
‘Precisely.’ Rather than take umbrage at the lapse, Morriel continued, ‘The Teir’s’Ffalenn unknowingly ceded us opening, since initiate Elaira’s escapade at Erdane. The enquiry we made concerning her misconduct in the Ravens’ hayloft has left us a faultless imprint of innocent, unconditional love.’
There lay the clue Lirenda had overlooked, and in honesty would never have thought to examine. She cursed her shortsightedness, as logic unfolded the method’s diabolical symmetry. Asandir could not stand watch every hour that his princes fought the Mistwraith. Overawed as Fellowship mages were wont to be over any and all things Paravian, he would expect Kieling’s wards to shield out unwanted scryers in those intervals while he minded his other affairs. The richest innuendo of all was that his princes should have been untouchably secure; and so they would be, except for anomaly.
‘Kieling’s defences will detect no threat if our probe is masked behind our record of Elaira’s care for Arithon. We will win through,’ Morriel concluded, her lips pursed, her eyes hooded and her hands still as claws in her lap. ‘So long as we observe only, and make no move to interfere.’
All along, Morriel had anticipated the advantage that Elaira’s misplaced feelings might provide. The admiration Lirenda gave her Prime was enraptured and pitiless as a predator stalking to kill; for the stakes of this hunt were as deadly. Envy could not colour fact: that the Fellowship of Seven had held ascendancy over affairs on the continent for far and away too long.
‘Yes,’ Morriel said in uncanny response to pure thought. ‘It suits me to try their authority. This time. When you’ve finished acting dumbstruck, we may start.’
A flush touched Lirenda’s cheeks, for the page-boy had returned from his errand. He stood before her, fairfaced and formal as an icon, the iron-bound box that held the focus crystal of Skyron offered in trembling hands.
‘Lead the probe,’ came Morriel’s nettled instruction. ‘This is your test, if you think yourself fit to succeed me.’
Excitement overrode Lirenda’s distaste for the role she had been commanded to execute. She accepted the coffer, keyed the release of the wards and lifted the crystal that lay like an ice shard inside. Tawny eyes fixed on the jewel, she stilled her inner consciousness until the room and its shadows fell away, swallowed by the stone’s pellucid depths.
Her awareness settled. Poised in tranquillity that allowed the creation all possibility and none, her selfhood encompassed paradox. Lirenda became the spark to seed holocaust, and the ice to quench all heat. She was light that could sear away sight, or darkness of a depth to crack rock: hers was the oblivion of the Veil between the void, perfect peace or ultimate stagnation. She was nothing, all things, every pitch and vibration that formed the warp and weft of Ath’s Creation.
The Skyron focus framed her into a discipline that banished personal opinion. And yet, controlled as she was, demanding of excellence as her ambition required, she had to fight not to shudder as the Prime joined the link and
