LITMIR.BIZ

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springs all joy and all life.”

      Lysaer fielded that sentiment with contempt. “Are they any less dead for their choice or their truth? Arithon, also, can beguile to turn innocents. If I don’t oppose him, who will?”

      “Beware, false prince,” Sethvir interjected, neither wistful nor diffused, but earnest in a concern that terrified for its mildness. “The fears you smooth over in the trappings of moral platitudes will counterbalance nothing. Neither can they build. You will find the just fervor you raise can save no one. In the end, your own followers will dictate your actions. Their will shall rule yours with a needy finality that you will be powerless to gainsay. We can offer no help for you then.”

      “I was beyond help the moment I fell under Desh-thiere’s curse,” said Lysaer, succinct. His diamond studs flashed like ripped bits of light as he snatched his small opening for riposte. “That was supposed to be your problem. By what right do you criticize my methods before you have broached your own failure?”

      A pause seized the chamber. Sethvir and Asandir stayed wrapped in glass silence; the spirits of Kharadmon and Luhaine looked pressed into the air like stamped felt. The adept made a sound, in sorrow or dismay, and clasped bronzed hands to her lips, while the candles burned on in smokeless, unreal indifference.

      A baleful, black cutout given life in a scene without motion, the raven splayed its left wing feathers. Its head swiveled sidewards. One bead eye stayed fixed, a spark of buffed bronze, as it balanced to its master’s shift forward.

      “There is no pretense here, Lysaer.” Traithe’s rebuke was rust swathed in velvet. “Desh-thiere’s ill works pose the true danger, a peril shared by us all. Subject to a curse to kill Arithon you may be, but that does not rule out choice and action. Mind and will can be yours to command outside of your half brother’s presence. Blind hatred can be fought.” The raven preened on his shoulder, undisturbed, as he entreated, “You are gifted to seek justice. Don’t make that a weapon for righteousness. The misery you seed in your quest to kill Arithon might live on long past your death. Claim your cause as divine, and you found a tradition that will not be lightly shaken.”

      “You are swift to condemn my role as deceit.” Lysaer’s fine hair shone a pale, fallow gold beneath the flood of the sconces. When he raised his proud head, all the strain showed, his beautiful face stiff in his forced effort not to weep. “As one human ruler, I may be in error. But in all fair conscience, can I stand aside and let Arithon of Rathain turn his sorceries on an unsuspecting society? What binds him to constraint? You who claim wisdom know better than any. A mortal who commands unchecked power becomes ripe for corruption. Jaelot and Alestron have already suffered. Why beg for a large-scale disaster?”

      The prince turned his head. Despite a transparent desire for privacy, he pursued his point, dogged, to its finish. “If I sacrifice one value for another, if I choose to create a balance of power, who are you to cry me down? The debt incurred becomes my personal score on the slate of Daelion Fatemaster. I am the Shadow Master’s opposite. My place is to check him. Ath have mercy on us both, for the fate brought upon us by the bride-gift of a sorcerer whose ancestor was trained by your Fellowship!”

      Lysaer faced forward in blazing, brash courage and hurled his own charge in defense. “If your hand is revealed at the root of our conflict, tell me why have you not acted?”

      Asandir arose, dark brows drawn down over eyes turned a forbidding, storm gray. “How dare you mistake us for the street beggars of Avenor, to try and wring sympathy by crying lame causes, then playing the puppet martyred for the grand destiny.” He leaned on the table, the veins on his hands like vines gnarled into aged oak. “Or do you hope you might finally convince yourself?” His glare flickered over the prince like crossed lightning. “We have not acted because Desh-thiere’s curse is inseparably tangled with your life aura. As Traithe said, our Fellowship does not kill.”

      “You claim you would let two lives tear civilized society asunder?” Lysaer laughed, his widened eyes locked on the Sorcerers. “Then indeed, I have no hope.” Honest rage tore through his gritty resentment, for a second upsetting the ironclad duty dunned into him with royal birthright. “Ath, did you think I desired my exile to this world? Or that I asked to become your sacrificial weapon against the Mistwraith?”

      “The Fellowship has never been a force in Athera to take guiding charge of human destiny!” A creature of movement and action, Asandir thrust up from the table. He stalked to the fire, braced an arm on the mantel, while the flames at his feet snapped and flickered. Their light played a moving mapwork of lines over his hard, shuttered features.

      Luhaine retrieved the lapsed dialogue. “Our purpose is rather to stand guard for the land, and to this end, you’re being asked some harsh questions. Face yourself!” The entreaty was raised, a knife blade that offered no quarter. “You embark on a dangerous precedent, even beg the ruin of your race! How dare you mask over the miracle that is the prime source! For arrogance, you put yourself on that pedestal in attempt to whitewash a curse-bound directive to end your half brother’s life. True justice plays no part. You veil truth for vendetta, for vengeance and base envy, because Arithon will not be seduced by the evil you seek to attach to his name.”

      Lysaer swayed. His glittering shoulders wavered, almost bent.

      The adept swept to her feet, relentless. “Unstop your ears and listen, scion of s’Ilessid. Persist on your present path, and you shall gain your desires.” As Lysaer’s blue eyes widened, she pressed him, “Oh yes. Your half brother shall walk in the shadow you create. But not before you stand blackened enough to raise despair of a force sufficient to break him. Every mortal enclave on this continent shall fall as victim to your cause. Your memory shall be sealed in the archives by violence, for nothing in creation can stand or flourish in the absence of love. Let us see, in the hour that Arithon’s blood stains your hands, whether conviction for your fellowman or overweening pride is your master.”

      That bleak forecast raised consternation among the Sorcerers. Unmindful of their stir, Lysaer sank to his knees. Tears wet his cheeks. The light snagged and shivered in his diamond studs as he bent his bright head in defeat. “Have mercy,” he pleaded. “I admit to my wrong. Lend me your guidance to heal.”

      Asandir returned to the table and sat, his harsh gaze fixed on his hands. Silence fell, filled by :he tormented sobs of the prince, who perhaps had been brought to realize the enormity of his acts. No Sorcerer leaped to mete out the last test of surety.

      Kharadmon shouldered that burden at the end, his razored, brief style expressing the inflexible Law and just consequence of the Major Balance. “Abjure your call to arms. Publicly renounce your false tie to divine calling. Then you shall have at your side all the help our Fellowship can command.”

      Lysaer pressed his forehead against the patterned carpet. Hair like combed sunlight fronded the hands he held clenched at his crown. He would not look up. Shamed to abasement, he asked of the Sorcerers, “What do I say to ease the grief of the widows and the mothers whose loved ones were slaughtered in Vastmark?”

      “Tell them the truth,” Sethvir answered, implacable. “Your mistake should not be permitted to compound, nor be passed to their sons, to die for wrong cause and false sacrifice.”

      At that, Lysaer regained the will to stand straight. Through shock-darkened eyes, he perused the stilled faces of five Sorcerers, then the shadowy countenance masked by the hood of Ath’s adept. In tear-stained magnificence, he looked like one of Ath’s avatars, fallen, a sword forged in blood to stand firm against wrongful action. “Ath preserve, you ask me to break my personal, given trust. As I am cursed, so too is my half brother. I can’t leave my people defenseless before him. Bind Arithon first. Then take my capitulation on any terms that you ask.”

      “Ath show you mercy,” Sethvir replied. “I am sorry. We now must do more than warn.”

      A thin, feral smile seized Lysaer’s lips. “I thought so!” He loosed a jarring peal of laughter. “Here is the truth. Power begets force, did I not say so? What will you do now, if not call me down by straight violence?”

      “You

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