LITMIR.BIZ

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the hand left white-knuckled on his sword hilt betrayed distrust behind his amiable manner.

      ‘You may also share the road if you can keep up,’ Asandir offered back.

      Dakar assessed the oddly bulky pack for the possible presence of spirits, and was first to announce the stranger’s trade. ‘You’re a minstrel!’ he burst out in surprise. ‘By the Wheel man, why are you starving in the wilderness when you could be singing comfortably in a tavern?’

      The man did not reply. Close enough now to make out details and faces, he was engrossed by Asandir. ‘I know you,’ he murmured, half awed. He pushed back his hood and a shock of wavy hair spilled over his collar. The revealed face showed a mapwork of laughlines and a stubble of half-grown beard. The eyes were hazel and merry despite the swollen purple weals that marred him, forehead and cheek.

      Asandir’s sharpness cut the forest silence like a whiplash. ‘Ath in his mercy, we are come on ill times. Who in this land has dared to abuse a free singer?’

      The minstrel touched his battered skin, embarrassed. ‘I sang the wrong ballad. After being stoned from an inn on the coast I should have learned better. Tales of old kingdoms are not appreciated where mayors rule.’ He sighed in stoic dismissal. ‘This last one cost me my horse and left me stranded into the bargain.’

      Asandir cast a glance toward Arithon: if argument existed in favour of shouldering responsibility for restoring this world to sun and harmony, here walked misfortune that a fellow musician must understand. Before the sorcerer could emphasize his point, the minstrel raised his trained voice in a mix of diffidence and amazement.

      ‘Fiend-quencher, matched by none; white-headed, grey-eyed one. Change-bringer, storm-breaker; Asandir, King-maker.’

      ‘You,’ the minstrel added, and his theatrical gesture encompassed Dakar. ‘You must be the Mad Prophet.’

      Aware of a sudden guardedness behind Arithon’s stillness, Asandir responded carefully. ‘I won’t deny your powers of observation, Felirin the Scarlet. But I would urge that you use more caution before speaking your thoughts aloud. There were innocents burned in Karfael last harvest upon suspicion they had harboured a sorcerer.’

      ‘So I heard.’ The bard shrugged. ‘But I learned my repertory from barbarians and something of their wildness stayed with me.’ He looked up, his swollen face bright with interest. There must be good reason for a Fellowship sorcerer to take to the open roads.’ And his gaze shifted to the half-brothers who travelled in Asandir’s company.

      Dakar opened his mouth, quickly silenced by a look from the sorcerer, who interjected, ‘This is no time to be starting rumours in the taverns. And should I be aware of another way into Camris beyond the road through Tornir Peaks?’

      Felirin understood a warning when he heard one. He shifted his bundle, prepared to fall into step as the sorcerer’s black started forward; but Arithon abruptly dismounted and offered the reins of the dun.

      ‘You have blisters,’ he observed, ‘and I have sores from the saddle that an afternoon on foot might improve.’

      The excuse was a lie. Dakar knew. He watched the Master’s face and saw the buried edge of something determined; but the shadowed green eyes held their secrets.

       Peaks of Tornir

      The caravan that had stranded Felirin the bard stayed elusively ahead through the coming days of travel. Dakar diverted his frustration each evening by badgering incessantly for drinking songs. As a result, the campfires through the eastern quarter of Westwood became rowdy as a dockside tavern, and many a nocturnal predator went hungry due to the din. When Dakar became too hoarse to frame an intelligent request, the bard would delve into his store of ancient ballads that told of times before the Mistwraith. When pressed, he admitted he did not believe in the sun as the woodland barbarians did; but lore and legend fascinated him and he collected old tales as a curiosity. None could deny that the melodies set to such fancy were lyrically complex, a dance on fret and string that a musician could devote a lifetime of skill to perform.

      As the hills steepened and the winds of increased altitude caused the company to huddle closer to the fire for warmth, more than once Felirin caught Arithon studying his hands as he played. After days of cleverly rebuffed questions Arithon’s fixation with the lyranthe was the only opening the bard had managed to discern. Inspired by a fractional movement of the dark-haired man’s fingers as a fallen log fanned up the flames, Felirin silenced his strings in mid-stanza and rubbed his knuckles on his jerkin. ‘Damn the weather,’ he said.

      Dakar predictably complained. ‘You aren’t stopping, Felirin, not so soon. Better we freeze to a misplayed tune than abide our sobriety in silence.’

      The bard feigned a yawn to hide his smile. ‘Arithon plays,’ he said in sly suggestion. ‘Why not ask him for a song?’

      ‘Arithon?’ Dakar puffed up his cheeks. ‘Play music?’ He darted a glance to either side; with Asandir off to check the picket-lines, he dared a whisper in conspiracy. ‘I’ll bet you silver he doesn’t.’

      Felirin watched through peripheral vision and saw Arithon become utterly still. Lysaer sat up and took interest. ‘How much would you stake me?’ asked the bard.

      The Mad Prophet laced his hands across his paunch. ‘Ten royals. Double as much if I’m wrong.’

      Felirin chuckled, and still smiling, extended his instrument toward the cloaked figure to his left. ‘Indulge me. Give us a tune.’

      Arithon returned a dry chuckle. ‘I’ll establish your mastery by contrast,’ he threatened. But Felirin had plotted to a nicety: after days of unmerited provocation, Arithon took his chance to humble Dakar.

      His movements as he lifted the soundboard to his shoulder were recognizably reverent. Arithon poised tentative fingers, sounded a shower of practised harmonics, and found an interval off. He corrected the pitch, neatly and precisely. When he looked up, his eyes were laughing.

      Dakar muttered something stinging concerning close-mouthed brigands who betrayed a comrade to wasted silver. Lysaer politely held back comment, and Felirin silently congratulated his powers of intuitive perception. Then all three of them lost track of surface thoughts as Arithon started to play.

      The first chords rang across the firelit dell with a power of sheer captivation. Arithon tested and quickly found the instrument’s mettle; at once he broke his opening into an intricate theme that threaded, major to minor, in haunting sweeps across keys. By then no one remembered this magic had been instigated by an interchange of grudges and a bet.

      Startled into rapt concentration, Felirin realized he had discovered a treasure. Whoever Arithon was, whatever his origins and his purpose in accompanying a sorcerer, he had been born with the natural gift to render song. There were rough patches in his fingering and fretwork that could be smoothed over with schooling; skilled guidance could ease some awkwardness in his phrasing. His voice lacked experience and tempering. But even through such flaws, the bard could appreciate his raw brilliance. With Lysaer and Dakar, his heart became transported from the discomforts of a drafty campsite and led on a soaring flight of emotion as a tale of two lovers unfolded like a jewel in the firelight.

      Arithon stilled the strings at the end, and the spell shattered.

      ‘Young man,’ the bard demanded. ‘Play again.’

      Arithon shook his head. ‘Collect your winnings from Dakar.’ If he had regrets, they stayed invisible as he slipped the instrument back into the lap of its owner. ‘Your lyranthe is very fine. She plays herself.’

      ‘That’s foolishness!’ Felirin reached out more demandingly than he intended, and caught hold of Arithon’s sleeve. The wrist beneath his touch was trembling. To ease what he took for self-consciousness, the bard added, ‘You’re gifted enough to apprentice.’

      Arithon shook his head and moved to disengage, but Felirin’s

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