Curse of the Mistwraith. Janny Wurts

drink. Deaf to the moans from his apprentice, Asandir answered Lysaer’s avid question, and assured that the iyat would not be returning to plague them.

      ‘They feed upon natural energies – fire, falling water, temperature change – that one we left behind is presently quite drained. Unless it finds a thunderstorm, it won’t recover enough charge to cause trouble for several weeks to come.’

      The riders continued westward through a damp, grey afternoon. Although they stopped once for a meal of bread and sausage from the supply pack, Dakar was given no reprieve until dusk when the horses were unsaddled and the small hide tents were unfurled from their lashings to make camp. By then exhausted by hours of pleas and imprecations, he settled in a sulk by the campfire and immediately fell asleep. Tired themselves and worn sore by unaccustomed hours in the saddle, Arithon and Lysaer crawled into blankets and listened to the calls of an unfamiliar night bird echo across the marsh.

      Despite the long and wearing day, Lysaer lay wide-eyed and wakeful in the dark. Clued by the stillness that Arithon was not sleeping but seated on his bedding with his back to the tentpole, the prince rolled onto his stomach. ‘You think the sorcerer has something more in mind for us than conquest of the Mistwraith, Desh-thiere.’

      Arithon turned his head, his expression unseen in the gloom. ‘I’m sure of it.’

      Lysaer settled his chin on his fists. The unaccustomed prick of beard stubble made him irritable; tiredly, resignedly, he put aside wishing for his valet and considered the problems of the moment. ‘You sound quite convinced that the fate in question won’t be pleasant.’

      Silence. Arithon shifted position; perhaps he shrugged.

      Reflexively touched by a spasm of mistrust, Lysaer extended a hand and called on his gift. A star of light gleamed from his palm and brightened the confines of the tent.

      Caught by surprise, a stripped expression of longing on his face, Arithon spun away.

      Lysaer pushed upright. ‘Ath, what are you thinking about? You’ve noticed the sickly taint the fog has left on this land. In any honour and decency, could you turn away from these people’s need?’

      ‘No.’ Arithon returned, much too softly. ‘That’s precisely what Asandir is counting on.’

      Struck by a haunted confusion not entirely concealed behind Arithon’s words, Lysaer forgot his anger. There must be friends, even family, that the Shadow Master missed beyond the World Gate. Contritely, the prince asked, ‘If you could go anywhere, be anything, do anything you wanted, what would you choose?’

      ‘Not to go back to Karthan,’ Arithon said obliquely, and discouraged from personal inquiry, Lysaer let the light die.

      ‘You know,’ the prince said to the darkness, ‘Dakar thinks you’re some sort of criminal, twisted by illicit magic and sworn to corruption of the innocent.’

      Arithon laughed softly as a whisper in the night. ‘You might fare better if you believed him.’

      ‘Why? Wasn’t one trial on charges of piracy enough for you?’ That moment Lysaer wished his small fleck of light still burned. ‘You’re not thinking of defying Asandir, are you?’

      Silence and stillness answered. Lysaer swore. Too weary to unravel the contrary conscience that gave rise to Arithon’s moodiness, his half-brother settled back in his blankets and tried not to think of home, or the beloved lady at South Isle who now must seek another suitor. Instead the former prince concentrated on the need in this world and the Mistwraith his new fate bound him to destroy. Eventually he fell asleep.

      The following days passed alike, except that Dakar rode astride instead of roped like a bundled roll of clothgoods. The dun mare steadied somewhat as the leagues passed: her bucks and crabsteps and shies arose more in spirited play than from any reaction to fear. But if Arithon had earned a reprieve from her taxing demands, the reserve that had cloaked him since West End did not thaw to the point of speech. Dakar’s scowling distrust toward his presence did not ease, which left the former prince of Amroth the recipient of unending loquacious questions. Hoarse, both from laughter and too much talk, Lysaer regarded his taciturn half-brother and wondered which of them suffered more: Arithon, in his solitude, or himself, subjected to the demands of Dakar’s incessant curiosity.

      The road crooked inland and the marsh pools dried up, replaced by meadows of withered wildflowers. Black birds with white-tipped feathers flashed into flight at their passing and partridge called in the thickets. When the party crossed a deep river ford and bypassed the fork that led to the port city of Karfael, Dakar took the opportunity to bemoan the lack of beer as they paused to refill their emptied water jars.

      Asandir dried dripping hands and killed the complaint with mention that a merchant caravan fared ahead.

      ‘Which way is it bound?’ Dakar bounded upright to a gurgle and splash of jounced flasks.

      ‘Toward Camris, as we are,’ Asandir said. ‘We shall overtake them.’

      The Mad Prophet cheerfully forgot to curse his dampened clothing. But although he badgered through the afternoon and half of the night, the sorcerer refused to elaborate.

      On the fourth day the roadway swung due east and entered the forest of Westwood. Here the trees rose ancient with years, once majestic as patriarchs, but bearded and bent now under mantling snags of pallid moss. Their crowns were smothered in mist and their boles grown gnarled with vine until five men with joined hands could not have spanned their circumference. Daylight was reduced to a thick, murky twilight alive with the whispered drip of water. Oppressed by a sense of decay on the land, and the unremitting grey of misty weather, no one inclined toward talk. Even Dakar’s chatter subsided to silence.

      ‘This wood was a merry place once, when sunlight still shone,’ Asandir mused, as if his mage’s perception showed him something that touched off maudlin thoughts.

      They passed standing stones with carvings worn until only beaded whorls of lichens held their patterns. Aware that Arithon studied these with intent curiosity, Asandir volunteered an explanation. ‘In times past, creatures who were not human tended these forests. Attuned to the deepest pulses that bind land and soil to Ath’s harmony, they left stones such as these to show what ground and which trees could be taken for man’s use, and which must stay whole to renew the mysteries. Once, the protection of sacred ground was the province of the high king’s justice. Pastures and fields were cut only where the earth could gracefully support them. But now such knowledge is scarce. The name for the guardians who dwelled here meant giants in the old tongue.’ But the huge, gentle beings Asandir described were more clearly a breed of centaurs.

      When Lysaer inquired what had become of them, the sorcerer shook his head sorrowfully. ‘The last of the Ilitharis Paravians passed from the land when Desh-thiere swallowed sunlight. Not even Sethvir at Althain Tower knows where they have gone. Athera is the poorer for their loss. The last hope of redeeming their fate lies in the Mistwraith’s defeat.’

      Dakar glanced aside and caught Lysaer’s attention with a wink. ‘Small wonder the old races left these parts. No taverns, no beer and wet trees make lousy company.’

      Fed up with rain and nights of smoking fires and bedding down on dampened ground, the former prince could almost sympathize. He joined Dakar in questioning the existence of Asandir’s caravan, and was almost caught off-guard when they overtook the fugitive by the wayside.

      The man wore brilliant scarlet, which spoiled his attempt to escape notice by the approaching riders. The hem of his garment was sewn with tassels. One of these caught on a briar and flagged the attention of Asandir, who reined up short in the roadway and called immediate reassurance. ‘We’re fellow travellers, not bandits. Why not share our fire if you’re alone?’

      ‘On that, I had no choice,’ came the chagrined reply. The man spoke rapidly in dialect, his accents less burred than the prevailing variety in West End. Rangy, tall and carrying what looked like a grossly misshapen pack, he stepped out from behind the moss-shagged bole of an oak. ‘A supposedly