LITMIR.BIZ

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his being might slip even his most vigilant grasp. He might err out of weakness, or misjudge the impact of his active or passive presence. Such forceful power as he carried might in fact precipitate the last crisis that brought town politics to sunder the compact. The dread consequence of that course was not revocable: the Fellowship of Seven would be charged to eradicate mankind from Athera, ruled as they were by the terrible binding set over them by the dragons.

      Aware of Davien’s regard, which acknowledged his shocked grasp of the vicious train of repercussions, Arithon shivered, bone deep. ‘No one should dare try to fathom your motives,’ he addressed the Sorcerer point-blank.

      ‘Inside the Law of the Major Balance, our Fellowship cannot determine your future,’ Davien corrected with acid clarity. ‘Before that fixed truth, my motives are moot. For the ending, on our part, is certain. We are bound to our fate. Paravian survival will be enforced, since our Fellowship has not found the means to break the binding the great drakes laid over us.’

      Understanding unfolded, a wounding epiphany. ‘Would you try?’

      The Sorcerer did not respond to that question.

      Caught in the breach, the man who was Masterbard surveyed the being before him. Davien stared back, his black eyes intense. He was not smiling. The shifting patterns of his inner thoughts could not be read in the depths of his silence. His driving restlessness could only be sensed, pattern upon pattern, behind entangled pain that was not caprice; and a genius vision whose brilliance was such that it would not brook any fixed boundary.

      Arithon was first to lower his gaze. After meeting a centaur guardian, just once, he could begin to sense the grave weight of the Fellowship’s intangible burden. How could man or sorcerer wish to live in a world so darkened, it might forfeit the esoteric gift of the Paravian presence? Which binding tied the heart with more fierceness: the blood charge of the dragons, to stand guard at all cost; or the bright exultation of the harmony that walked, living, in the form of Athera’s blessed races?

      One dared not, in this case, press for answer.

      Yet as Arithon curbed that line of reeling thought, Davien crossed his arms, prosaic. ‘Ciladis would willingly speak on that point, if you should ever chance to encounter him. Whatever he might say, the primary issue was never in doubt. Paravian survival is paramount.’

      Arithon valiantly picked up his bread crust. ‘It’s the pernicious question of mankind’s right to upset the balance that enables this world’s greater mysteries. That is what fractured the Fellowship’s unity’

      Unblinking, unmoving, Davien stated outright, ‘That is also what threatens the compact.’

      Arithon regarded the Sorcerer, hard-braced. ‘I am mortal, and human, and initiate to power, and cursed by Desh-thiere’s geas to seek violence. Therefore, I also embody the potential of the wanton destruction you speak of, but on the grand scale. My doom in the maze could have simplified things.’

      ‘You survived, in complexity’ Davien grinned outright. ‘Cursed or not, you are also the living exception.’ His confounding nature seemed to find delight in the quandary of razor-edged paradox. ‘Proved fit to rule, and honest enough to acknowledge your conscience. Have you a gambler’s addiction for risk? You have set yourself to cast the one loaded dice throw. How will you choose, Teir’s’Ffalenn?’

      ‘Not to kill.’ The words, lit to burning, hung on the air with an oath’s indelible clarity.

      Davien leaned forward, detachment quite gone, and his face pared to riveted intensity. ‘The most dangerous path, and the most difficult, my friend. Strive for that, and the Mistwraith’s curse will be left no other avenue except to destroy you.’

      The warning struck Arithon with splintering force. A barrier snapped. Inside him, the tissue-thin veil of reason gave way. Torn across by the scale of future event, strung through an obstacle course posed by his own sequence of cause and effect, he experienced a cascade of scalding awareness that unmoored the centre pin of his being.

      Sight hurled him too far: the course that abjured violence with such visceral need must inevitably carry a terrible, wide-ranging impact. Arithon reeled, eyes newly unsealed. Each decision he weighed engendered a seed, which leaped, branching, into sets of probable outcomes like an unfolding tienelle vision. His senses opened in all directions, tumbling him into an uncontrolled state of bewildering simultaneity. Cast beyond the frail shell of his flesh, he became as a light-beam split by a prism, shattered headlong down the posited avenues of overlaid future projection.

      He perceived with a clarity that scattered him, until he lost himself into the infinite.

      ‘You could use a crystal to anchor your focus,’ Davien stated, bridging the chasm with words. The Sorcerer in his wisdom did not use touch. Compassionate restraint stayed him, and respect for crushed dignity, as his guest folded against the table-top, sickened with vertigo, and fighting nausea as his body rejected the upset frame of its balance. ‘I don’t recommend this, since you would not live self-contained, but create your stability in codependency’

      Jaw locked, running sweat, Arithon gasped back, ‘There are, of course, precedents?’

      Davien’s mercuric chuckle implied more than wry sympathy. ‘Oh, my wild falcon, there are not, in this case. The path you now walk is uncharted. You must find the way to temper your gifts.’

      Recognition followed, provocative, that a facet of Davien’s piquant interest desired to witness the on-going experiment.

      At the earliest, right moment, the Sorcerer did rise. He rounded the table and closed a firm hand upon Arithon’s shoulder, steadying him back erect. The contact soothed down his unsettled aura, for the roiling sickness subsided.

      Davien added, in dry and astonished rebuke, ‘You are a s’Ahelas scion gifted with far-sight, and wakened. How novel, that you should be shocked or surprised. You are suffering visions in multiple overlay?’

      ‘Prismatic conscience,’ Arithon agreed, still enraged. Too plainly, he could not temper the back-lash set off by his loss of stability. Nor could he quell the riled suspicion that, like the skilled surgeon, the Sorcerer had lanced the latent pressure of his unconstrained talent deliberately. Cornered too deftly, he had to acknowledge the scope of his savage predicament. ‘The full range, from horror to exalted redemption.’

      ‘I thought so.’ Davien’s smile turned wicked. ‘Oh, I thought so! My wild falcon, you have found flight. Now you must master the currents. Know this: each of the futures you see holds a driving thread of intent that is personal, and quite real. Those probabilities that are dim, you must defuse by withdrawing your stake in their outcome. Those that are bright, you must align and nurture. Choice will prevail as you focus. You will redefine the depth of your mastery. But to do so, you must constantly sharpen your self-honesty to discern. Each moment demands that you build on your strengths. You can no longer afford the false haven of hiding behind your shrinking weakness.’

      No course remained but to integrate the altered perceptions until their wild force could be reconciled.

      Arithon leaned upon Davien’s strength, eyes shut, his strained face white to the bone. ‘Just don’t expect me to finish the meal,’ he said, taxed to desperate humour. ‘If I try, at this stage, no doubt I would slight your exemplary turn of kindness.’

       Late Spring 5670

Resolve

      Still dazed by exhaustion, Sulfin Evend snapped out of a cat-nap at noon, disoriented by the sight of a ceiling adorned with vines in gilt paint. He stirred, encountered the bed, just adjacent, and Lysaer’s opened eyes fixed upon him. The Lord Commander punched the overstuffed chair that embraced him and straightened his aching posture.

      Dawn’s pall of overcast had scudded away to unveil a sparkling

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