Curse of the Mistwraith. Janny Wurts

I know that! But insanity will surely be a mercy beside the judgement and sentence our prisoner will receive as s’Ffalenn. Let this pass beneath the Wheel be an easy one for him, for in truth, he is the last.’

      The first officer looked up in surprise. ‘The pirate-king died also?’

      Lysaer nodded. ‘That should please my father well enough. If the healer fears royal retribution, tell him and every man of Briane’s crew that I’ll sail along with them to intercede.’

       Tracer

      Daybreak glimmered through the arches of Rauven Tower and outlined the concerned face of the high mage in silver and deepest shadows. He had stopped pacing the floor. His tired eyes studied the listener who sat at his feet, but the tranced man’s form showed no stir of returning consciousness. The farseer’s features remained remote; fragile hands stayed folded and limp in the lap of his bordered robe as they had since sundown the day before.

      The high mage wrestled extreme impatience. No sign hinted whether the images gathered by the listener’s delicate talent were terrible or benign.

      ‘What has happened to my grandson?’ The words escaped before the high mage realized he had spoken aloud; but worry allowed no chink for regret. The gaunt old sorcerer waited in stillness with the breath stopped in his throat.

      The listener opened distant eyes. By the outburst and the expression on his master’s face, he became one of the few to discover how deeply the high mage loved his daughter’s s’Ffalenn bastard. He phrased his answer with extreme tact.

      ‘I see a place in constant motion, but lightless. It smells of canvas, mould and damp.’ But the listener mentioned nothing of the pain, hunger and thirst also encountered in that place. Why grieve a lonely man’s heart when for hours Arithon’s condition had not altered, except for a brief visit by a prince who wore the gold on blue of Amroth?

      The listener closed his eyes once more. What words could tell an ageing man that his beloved grandson had tried to provoke his own death? Did phrases exist that could soften the despair behind such an act; that a king’s blind hatred for a wife’s transgressions might fall upon the hapless flesh of her son?

      The listener misliked delivering ill news without a promise of hope. He slipped back into trance, braced to endure Arithon’s misery until he gleaned some small fact to lighten the grandfather’s distress. Far off, beyond the shudder of ship’s planking and the foaming splash of seawater, the high mage’s restless steps resumed.

      Sunrise shone livid red through the tower windows. Gaunt as a crow in his dark robe, the high mage stopped with his heart chilled by foreboding.

      The listener stiffened. Brown eyes sprang open in a face blanched like fine linen. ‘Dharkaron have mercy.’

      ‘The news is bad,’ said the high mage. ‘Tell me quickly.’

      The listener drew a shaking breath and looked up. His hands knotted helplessly. ‘Arithon is imprisoned aboard a warship of Amroth. He tried with all his will to avoid surrender to the king’s justice alive. His effort failed. His captors have drugged him senseless. They intend to keep him passive until their ship can deliver him to Port Royal.’

      The features of the high mage hardened like a carving blasted by wind. Behind blank, stunned eyes, his mind locked on the memory of a black-haired boy at the moment he mastered his first lesson of illusionary magic.

      ‘But it works like music!’ Alight with the wonder of discovery, a grandson’s trusting joy had absolved in an instant all the anguish of a daughter’s youthful death.

      The high mage clung to the rough stone of the sill. ‘Arithon is the most gifted apprentice I have ever trained.’ The listener’s hand settled lightly on the elder man’s shoulder in comfort. The touch was shrugged off in irritation. ‘Do you know what that boy renounced when he left to accept his father’s inheritance?’

      The high mage directed his words through the window, as if the breakers which crashed on the rocks beneath could hear and respond to his pain. Harshly, he continued. ‘If Arithon suffers harm, Amroth’s king will wish Fate’s Wheel could turn backward, and past actions be revoked. I will repay every cruelty, in kind, on the mind and body of his firstborn.’

      ‘Who is also your grandson!’ cried the listener, frantic to avert the anger behind the high mage’s threat. But the entreaty fell upon ears deaf to all but the sigh of the breeze off the sea.

       Fragments

      Summoned by the officer on sea watch, Amroth’s senior admiral counts sails as his returning war-fleet breasts the horizon beyond Port Royal; and when the tally reaches nine, he curses s’Ffalenn for eight more delayed, destroyed or captured…

      Aboard the warship Briane a healer sucks greedily at a rum flask in a vain attempt to dull the screams as drug-induced nightmares torment the man held captive in the sail-hold…

      Under misty skies, in another place, a world awaits with a prophecy five centuries old, and not even its most wise yet know that a prince and a prisoner hold all hope for deliverance between them…

       II. SENTENCE

      Twenty days out of South Isle, the last unaccounted warship breasted the horizon off Port Royal; Briane backed sail and dropped anchor in the harbour of Amroth’s capital. Word of her s’Ffalenn captive overturned propriety in the decorous court of the king. Shouting wildly, the nobles presiding in the council hall abandoned themselves to celebration. Briane’s first officer emerged from his audience with a dukedom; the king’s own collar of state circled his neck, and the fingers of both hands, including thumbs, were encrusted with rings bestowed by exuberant royal advisors. When word reached the streets, angry crowds gathered: the s’Ffalenn name was anathema in Amroth. Guardsmen in ceremonial regalia set about closing the stalls on Harbour Street, and the royal honour guard marched out under the crown prince’s direct command to transfer the Master of Shadow from Briane’s hold to the security of south keep’s dungeons.

      ‘The bastard sorcerer is mine to break,’ said the king.

      The announcement brought a frown to the face of the realm’s high chancellor. His liege’s obsession for vengeance had caused events to transpire with unnatural speed. Although the facts of the prisoner’s condition were listed in the crown prince’s report, at present that document lay scattered on the carpet under the feet of a congratulatory crowd of favourites. The prince himself had been summarily dismissed to muster guardsmen; that others who were equally informed did not dare broach the subject was predictable. The king’s ire had too often broken the heads of the innocent over matters concerning the s’Ffalenn.

      Within the city of Port Royal, one man alone remained oblivious to the commotion. Arithon s’Ffalenn never knew the men-at-arms who carried him through cordoned streets to the south keep of Amroth castle. Still drugged senseless, he heard none of the obscenities shouted by the boisterous mob which choked the alleys beneath the wall. The more zealous chanted still, while a smith replaced the wire which bound his hands with riveted cuffs and steel chain, without locks that might be manipulated by magecraft. When the guardsman dragged him roughly from the forge, the rabble’s screams of spite passed unnoticed; the cell which finally imprisoned the Master of Shadow was carved deep beneath the headland which sheltered Port Royal from the sea. No sound reached there but the rustle of rats. Shut in darkness behind a barred grille, the last s’Ffalenn lay on stone salted like frost with the residue of countless floods. Hours passed. The drug which had held Arithon passive for over two fortnights gradually weakened, and the first spark of consciousness returned.

      He ached. His mouth burned with thirst and his eyelids seemed cast in lead. Aware, finally, of the chill which nagged