LITMIR.BIZ

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rings of power crossed on both sides of the veil. Such duality by nature required the skilled work of two Sorcerers: one in a stable state of free spirit, and one who still walked incarnate.

      ‘Asandir’s beyond reach, attending the emergency containment of Eckracken’s haunt.’ Luhaine’s agitation shook the capped snow off the megalith as he delivered the shattering setback, that Sethvir’s active resource became all that bound five other deranged grimwards to stability. ‘To safeguard Desh-thiere’s prison, we are left with a last, very desperate expedient: to stand a spellbinder as placeholder for Kharadmon to act through.’ A stilled silhouette against the storm that roared through the tops of the fir trees, he measured Dakar’s pained suspension. ‘Given your help, the wards over Rockfell might be fully restored. The Fellowship asks for the partnered possession of your body, loaned for our use in free will.’

      ‘Why not choose Verrain?’ Dakar begged, tautly sober. He had witnessed the working when Asandir and Kharadmon had last sealed those dire defenses. Even the memory of what he had glimpsed sickened him to the bone. Those ranging vibrations were laid counter to spirit, counter to harmony, a dissonance coiled and barbed to revile every last linking facet of life. That cutting, mindless edge of bound chaos transcended the bounds of mortality; crossed the safe limits of solid existence to challenge the weave of creation.

      Luhaine’s stillness affirmed the stark fact the Guardian of Mirthlvain could not be spared from his posted vigil at Methisle. Why else would the Fellowship countenance the expedient of leaving Arithon s’Ffalenn unprotected?

      ‘No one’s watching the star wards, either,’ Luhaine said, a bald-faced admission that finally imparted the shattering scope of the crisis. He was no willing messenger, to lay this crux upon Dakar’s unprepared shoulders. Morriel’s plots had brought desperate straits, and a peril beyond speech to encompass. The Fellowship lacked enough hands to avert the appalling cascade of fresh damages. ‘Khadrim fly and kill in Tysan, as well.’

      ‘Oh, you have my cooperation,’ Dakar burst out, bitter. ‘That’s given. I’ll act before letting the Mistwraith escape. Who wouldn’t, knowing the price of its capture?’ The dread in him stemmed from the wider concern that his scant resources might prove inadequate.

      Luhaine gave such uncertainty short shrift. ‘Believe it, those of us who have tuned Rockfell’s wardings all suffer the selfsame doubts.’

      ‘That’s consolation?’ Dakar crowded into the warmth of the geldings, wishing their straightforward animal contact could lessen the chills that speared through him. Between the shrilling, furious gusts, and the shearing hiss of thick snowfall, he sensed the winding tension leading the advent of midnight. Lane forces flared and shimmered along the edge of peripheral vision. The Paravian marker stone cast a pallid corona that razed through the veil, and roused his awareness to mage-sight.

      With solstice tide imminent, the Fellowship Sorcerer’s need to depart pitched his instructions to urgency. ‘Go to Rockfell by land. Take the route through the passes. I will wait there, holding guard, and Kharadmon will join us on your arrival.’

      ‘What about Fionn Areth?’ Unvarnished disgust for the herder’s welfare the bone that stuck in the throat, Dakar added, ‘I gave Arithon my word I’d look after him.’

      Luhaine’s cast image reflected no change, and yet his icy regard encompassed the Araethurian still standing stiff witness to what would seem an incomprehensible conversation. Too rushed to scold through a long-winded lecture, the Sorcerer made disposition. ‘You are perfectly free to do as you please. Fare on with Dakar, and he’ll keep his promise to Rathain’s prince. Provided the problem at Rockfell can be solved, you can travel downriver to Ship’s Port next spring, and reach your safe harbor at Alestron. Or you can set off alone, Fionn Areth. Should you take your own path, mind well: you will be disowned. Your liege’s protection from that hour will become forfeit under my Fellowship’s auspices. My personal seal will ensure the Teir’s’Ffalenn never sees you this side of the Wheel. The sorry plight the Koriathain have set on you becomes yours alone to resolve. I’ll take the onus of breaking the word of your death to Prince Arithon when the time comes.’

      ‘That will tear out his heart!’ Dakar objected.

      But Luhaine had no mercy to spare for anything past bare necessity. ‘Athera can withstand his Grace of Rathain’s broken heart. She will never again bear the risk of his compromised safety. Remember that, herder. Prince Arithon’s life is a singular thread that can bind this world back to balance. Why else should Morriel design for his capture, or Desh-thiere wreak ill for his downfall?’

      ‘He’s a criminal,’ Fionn Areth insisted, but softly, as though the ultimatum thrown to his discretion had sown a seed of uncertainty.

      ‘He’s a prince under curse by a Mistwraith to kill, or be killed in turn, by his half brother.’ Luhaine set the stress on each syllable for emphasis. ‘All of his acts, then and now, must be counted a desperate act of survival.’

      ‘Half brother?’ Fionn Areth glowered at the Sorcerer, confused. ‘I never heard tell of any half brother.’

      ‘Lysaer s’Ilessid shared the same mother,’ Dakar explained, brutally short. He could not ignore the spiraling build of the lane forces prickling his nape. ‘You know nothing at all, goatherd. Only the lies the Alliance presents to make puppets out of the ignorant.’ To Luhaine, he added, ‘Go. Now! You must. The young man will choose. I’ll meet you at Rockfell as soon as I may by crossing the peaks of the Skyshiels.’

      ‘Fare swiftly and well.’ Luhaine’s image dispersed, leaving darkness and snow, and the bite of a wind sharpened with winter misery.

      The horses milled, restless. Their animal instinct sensed the tightening coil of the earth’s rising magnetics. Dakar firmed his grasp on their lead reins, grateful a Sorcerer’s wisdom had guided them to the sole nexus of balance within a radius of twelve leagues. The Paravian marker had been carved and set by the centaur guardians to channel the flux of the mysteries. Jaelot’s townbred crofters had long since forgotten its meaningful connection. After five centuries of their unschooled husbandry, the network that once spanned the land like a star grid no longer remained intact. Patriarch trees had died or been cut, replaced by plowed fields and fenced pastures. Fixed stone was, thankfully, less volatile. Even marred in their settings, such ancient markers retained their dedicated purpose.

      To Fionn Areth, who might ask probing questions, or even renew pointless argument, the Mad Prophet gave stiff advice. ‘I don’t care if you ever believe another damned thing that I say. Just pay heed to this: lane surge is in progress. Any element in disharmony caught in its path is going to get flung straight to chaos. If you don’t like that thought, put both hands on that marker stone. Then at risk of your sanity, stay put! When everything settles, you’ll wait for my word. I’ll say when it’s safe to let go.’

      For a miracle, Fionn Areth seemed mollified. He assumed his place at the stone without protest, and even lent help with the horses. At his urging, the two geldings lowered their high-flung heads. Calmed by his singsong Araethurian dialect, they eased off the lead reins that threatened to separate both of the Mad Prophet’s shoulders.

      Dakar had no chance to express his thanks. Across half the world, the sun’s disk reached the zenith. Midnight arrived at Jaelot’s old focus, and the last solstice lane tide peaked in a rush down the conduit of the sixth lane.

      The channels through latitude wakened and sang, tuned into resonance by a masterbard’s skills, engaged twenty-four hours earlier. The Paravian marker stone roused to the primal cry of the mysteries. Beneath the sweating palms of two humans, the torrent rekindled to fire the land’s bounty licked through its interlaced carvings. As had happened for untold thousands of years, the quartz-ingrained granite resounded. The Mad Prophet was prepared as mortal flesh could be, alive as a boy when the Paravian rituals were still given active practice.

      Yet the Araethurian goatherd at his shoulder had encountered no such experience. No word could prepare Fionn Areth as the surge struck the stone to a ringing crescendo. The note it sustained was downstepped in translation through

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