Traitor’s Knot: Fourth Book of The Alliance of Light

‘Once, I was the hare-brained scapegrace,’ Dakar entreated. Warned that his charge might open his mouth, he dispatched a kick, underwater. ‘Luhaine, for pity! Grant me the favour. The delay from your summons to Rockfell Peak is what cost us our safe passage on Evenstar.’

‘There are limits.’ Yet the missed rendezvous with the brig scored a point that could not be dismissed. For the harrowing service just given to spare his strapped Fellowship from a crisis, the Sorcerer chose to unbend. ‘I can’t ease the constraints,’ he admitted, begrudging. ‘Technicalities cloud your present awareness. Fionn Areth bears a life debt, acquired at birth. Elaira yielded that tie under oath-bound duress to the power of the Koriani Council. Her retraction might free him, with Asandir’s backing. But at present, your lump-headed moorlander can’t ask that choice, or be traumatized by any-one’s act of grand conjury’

Though the cresting tide surged through the cell in black currents and immersed the chained prisoners chest-deep, Luhaine’s summary cancelled the needful alternative. ‘My colleague cannot spare the resource, just now. Nor have I the leeway to chase after an ingrate stripling as nurse-maid. You’ll have my warding as far as Alestron. From there, take to sea aboard Khetienn forthwith. Wring what refuge you can from blue water.’

To the bumpkin, inflamed by his feckless ideals and his suicidal confusion, Luhaine discharged his last word. ‘Dakar must escort you to safety himself. The wards that will hide you are spun through his aura. By your will, mark my warning particulars carefully! I can’t grant you a guarded shred of autonomy under my Fellowship’s auspices. Woe betide you if you should ever stray from the side of your oathsworn protector.’

‘Luhaine, wait!’ Teeth chattering, Dakar shouted to stem the rushed breeze of the Sorcerer’s departure. ‘What of the fee imposed by the Kittiwake? Hold back! Shipsport has passed sentence, and we haven’t the coin to defray the clerk’s fine or meet the landlord’s exorbitant damages.’

‘You do now,’ corrected the Sorcerer’s shade, his fading voice thinned to asperity. ‘The magistrate’s clerk will find an entry that states the fine’s paid in full in the morning. Farewell!’

The chained prisoners were abandoned to hollow darkness, scored through by the lap of salt water and the resurgent chittering of swimming rats.

‘Is he gone?’ Fionn ventured, his rage drained away to threadbare exhaustion.

Dakar cursed in spectacular, rough language until he ran short of breath. ‘Yes, Luhaine has left us. Bad cess to your yapping grass-lands insolence! Now we get to soak through a miserable night. Don’t try another damned word or believe this! I’ll leave your scared arse as chained bait for the witches and watch Shipsport’s vermin feed on your carcass!’

Late Spring 5670

Binding (#u5ae3dd89-0dbe-502c-89dc-c756a40c63e2)

The town of Erdane’s formal banquet to honour the Divine Prince’s return from his arduous campaign against Shadow had been planned as an effusive celebration, until the moment of Lysaer s’Ilessid’s opening statement. Hushed anticipation welcomed his entry. Resplendent in the sharp glitter of diamonds, his state presence on fire with white-and-gold thread, he delivered the list of shattering losses that outlined a vicious defeat. Beyond words for sorrow, he retired at once. His wake left behind a stunned silence.

The lean companies from Etarra encamped by the south wall were not the advance guard, transporting the critically wounded. In harsh fact, no more troops would be marching home, bearing accolades, honour, and triumph.

Hours later, the impact still rocked the guests who lingered in the mayor’s palace: news that Arithon, Spinner of Darkness, had escaped beyond reach through the entry to Kewar Tunnel. Everywhere else, that formal announcement might ease the impact of tragedy, even offer resounding relief. The renegade Sorcerer, Davien the Betrayer, had fashioned the maze that lay beyond that dread threshold. The foolish who dared to venture inside did not survive the experience.

Yet Erdane possessed more accurate knowledge concerning the powers of Fellowship Sorcerers. Here, where the archives had not been destroyed with the overthrow of the high kings, breaking word of the s’Ffalenn bastard’s evasion was received with sobering recoil.

The terse conversations exchanged in the carriage yard became a trial on Sulfin Evend’s taut nerves. Despite the biting, unseasonable cold, guild ministers decked out in jewels and lace seemed to pluck at his cloak at each step.

‘My Lord Commander of the Light?’ The latest petitioner ploughed in, undeterred by the field weapons and mail worn beneath the Alliance first officer’s dress-surcoat. ‘What are your plans? Will the Divine Prince regroup his defence in the east?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sulfin Evend demurred. His hawk’s features turned from the blasting wind, he unhooked the merchant’s ringed fingers. ‘Too soon to tell.’

‘The entrance to Kewar should stay under guard.’ The insistent courtier still barred the way, unscathed by the war veteran’s impatience. ‘Did the Prince of the Light leave no company in Rathain to stand watch over the portal?’

‘Had any-one stayed, they’d be dead to a man!’ Sulfin Evend barked back, since his tied hands on that score rankled sorely. Although tonight’s bitter weather still gripped all of Tysan, to the east, spring thaws mired the roadways. Ox-trains would labour, slowed to a crawl, with Daon Ramon rendered impassable. Melt-waters now roared through the boulder-choked vales, too engorged for a safe crossing. Supply would bog down in those forsaken notches, riddled with uncanny Second Age ghosts, and enclaves of hostile clan archers. ‘I won’t post my troops as bait to be murdered. Our toll of losses has been harsh enough without risking more lives to stupidity!’

As the guildsman bridled, Sulfin Evend cut back, ‘That ground is reserved as Athera’s free wilds, and deep inside barbarian territory’

‘Your bound duty is not to eradicate vermin?’ a fresh voice declaimed from the side-lines. ‘Our gold fills the coffers that arm your men! To what use, if you pack them up and turn tail each time the chased fox goes to earth?’

‘Good night, gentlemen!’ The Alliance commander shoved through the last wave of inquirers, pushed past his last shred of patience. Too many fine officers had died on the field. Left in sole charge of demoralized troops, he found his resources stretched far too thin. Erdane was a stew of insatiable politics, both council and trade guilds riddled with clandestine in-fighting, and coloured by the entrenched hostility held over from past resentment of old blood royalty. The Lord Commander preferred not to billet the men here, worn as they were from the last weeks of a harried retreat. Yet his bursar lacked ready funds for provision, and troop morale was still fragile. Tempers ran too ragged to risk quartering the company at large in the country-side.

Beside the Master of Shadow’s escape, Lysaer’s regency faced pending crisis: each passing day raised the spectre of famine, as the unnatural, freezing storms rolled down from the north and forestalled the annual planting.

Yet since the Blessed Prince had wed the Lord Mayor’s daughter, a strategic refusal of this town’s hospitality became a social impossibility.

Sulfin Evend outpaced the overdressed pack at his heels, stamped slush from his spurs, then mounted the stair from the carriage-way. Admitted through the mayor’s front door, he endured the butler’s imperious inspection. He stood, steaming, for the liveried boy who removed his sunwheel cloak, and sat for another, who buffed his soaked field boots until he was deemed fit to tread on the mansion’s priceless carpets.

Their service was gifted no more than a copper. The shame was no secret: the Alliance treasury was flat strapped. If the town’s ranking ministers were all jumpy as jackals, expecting appeals for new funding, the mayor’s sleek staff accepted their token with the semblance of deferent charm.

‘Your Lordship,’ they murmured. ‘Enjoy a good evening and a sound rest.’

Sulfin Evend stood up, a whipcord lean man with dark hair and pale eyes, and the well-set, alert bearing that bespoke a razor intelligence. Hanshire born, and the son of a mayor, he showed flawless courtesy, inwardly knowing he dared not trust Erdane’s cordial reception too far. Secret brotherhoods still gathered inside these gates. Practitioners of magecraft and unclean rites lurked in the crumbling tenements by the west wall. Tonight’s wealthy sycophants spurred his concern, as their flurried whispers and rushed, private dispatches widened the breach for covert enemies to exploit.

The Alliance commander climbed the stair to the guest wing, decided on his response. He would stand his armed guard in the Divine Prince’s bedchamber, and be damned if the mayor’s pretentious staff took umbrage at his distrust.

His intent was forestalled by the royal equerry, who had obstinately barred Lysaer’s quarters.

‘You’ll admit me, at once,’ Sulfin Evend demanded. ‘I’ll have the man whipped, who says otherwise.’

‘The Divine Prince himself.’ The equerry’s nervous distress emerged muffled, from behind the gilt-panelled entry. ‘His Blessed Grace is indisposed. By his order, he stays undisturbed.’

That news raised a chilling grue of unease, fast followed by burning suspicion. Lysaer s’Ilessid had often looked peaked through the weeks since the campaign ended. Aboard ship across Instrell Bay, his Blessed Grace had scarcely emerged from his cabin. The retirement seemed natural. Each widow and grieving mother would receive a sealed writ of condolence from the hand of the Light. Over the subsequent, storm-ridden march, Sulfin Evend had not thought to question the hours spent addressing correspondence in the shelter of a covered wagon. Yet if Lysaer was ill, and masking the fact, the cascade of damages ran beyond the concept of frightening. A man hailed by the masses as a divine avatar dared not display any sign of a mortal weakness in public.

‘You will admit me!’ His mailed fist braced against the locked door, Sulfin Evend surveyed the latch, an ornamental fitting of bronze the first hard blow would wrench from its setting. ‘Open up, or I’ll come, regardless.’

No man in the field troop defied that tone.

Wisely, the equerry chose not to risk scandal. ‘You, no one else.’ He shot the bar with dispatch. ‘The mayor’s staff was led to understand that his Exalted Grace was overjoyed with the welcoming brandy’

Sulfin Evend slipped past the cracked panel, at once enfolded in blanketing warmth, expensively scented by citrus-polished wood and bees-wax. As the nervous servant secured the entry behind him, his tactical survey encompassed the loom of stuffed furnishings and the gleaming, shut doors of the armoires. The room’s gilt appointments lay wrapped in gloom, the resplendent state finery worn for the feast long since folded away in the clothes-chests. By custom, one candle burned on the night-stand: the Prince of the Light did not sleep in the presence of shadow or darkness. Amid that setting of diligent neatness, the lit figure sprawled upon crumpled sheets stood out like a shout of disharmony.

Every nerve hackled, the Lord Commander advanced. The frightened page who minded the flame abandoned his stool and jumped clear. No stammered excuse could dismiss the harsh truth: Lysaer’s condition had passed beyond indisposed. Nor had drink rendered him prostrate. Lifelessly white as a stranded fish, a torso once muscled to glorify marble lay reduced to skeletal emaciation.

Horrified, Sulfin Evend exclaimed, ‘How long has your master been padding his clothes?’

‘My lord,’ the boy stammered. ‘His Divine Grace swore us to silence.’

‘Blazing Sithaer, I don’t care what you were told!’ Sulfin Evend strode forward. He tugged off his gauntlets, snatched up the pricket, then bent to assess the shocking extent of Lysaer’s condition. The porcelain-fair profile on the pillow never stirred at his touch. The icy, damp flesh was not fevered. Alarmed, the Alliance commander raked back the disordered gold hair. No reflex responded as he pried back the flaccid, left eyelid. The unshielded flame lit a glassine, comatose stare, and a pupil wide black with dilation.

‘Answer me now! How long has his Divine Grace languished like this?’

The equerry quailed before that steel tone. ‘My lord, we don’t know when this wasting began. Grief would blunt the appetite, one might suppose, so soon after the loss of a son.’

That honest uncertainty seemed reasonable, since the train of personal attendants initially brought from Avenor had all died in the course of Daon Ramon’s campaign. Sulfin Evend shoved back the rucked coverlet and continued his anxious survey. The prior disaster did not bear thought, against this one, sprawled senseless before him.

‘Do you actually fear someone poisoned him?’ the equerry ventured from the side-lines.

Sulfin Evend said nothing—just thrust the candle back toward the page. ‘Hold this.’ While the whipped flame cast grotesque shadows about him, he grasped Lysaer’s arm. Unnerved by the grave chill to the limp wrist, the Alliance commander held out in grim patience while the light steadied, and unveiled the dread cause of the malady.

Up and down milk pale skin, in recent, scabbed cuts and old scars, Lysaer wore the tell-tale marks of a man being leached by the dire magics of a blood ritual. Sulfin Evend leashed his stark fear. The nightmarish course of this sapping addiction scarcely could have occurred under Lysaer’s informed self-command.

Nor would such a complex and dangerous binding be invoked by rote or the lore of a fumbling novice.

‘Those scabs aren’t infected,’ a new voice declaimed. The prince’s long-faced valet had emerged from the closet where he kept his pallet. Barefoot, still plucking his livery to rights, he padded up to the bed.